**The Enigmatic Corner of Return**
Down a forgotten alleyway in the old part of London, where the buildings wore their years like wrinkles on an ageing face, a peculiar sign appeared one day. It seemed to emerge from thin air, like a ghost from the past woven into the grey fabric of everyday life. *”THE ENIGMATIC CORNER OF RETURN. Lost things restored. Terms vary.”* The letters, faded as if scorched by centuries of sunlight, carried an echo of another world. Against the grimy, dust-streaked glass, they whispered like fragments of a half-remembered dream—one that still tugged at the heart.
James had walked this street a hundred times. Once, there’d been a cosy antique shop here, then a cheap café, before it all sank into neglect. The paint peeled, the windows fogged with grime, and old signs drowned beneath layers of dust. He’d long stopped noticing this corner of the city, the way one ignores a dull ache that’s grown familiar. But today, the sign pricked at his sight like a needle pressing into a scar he’d tried to forget.
He paused. In the smudged reflection of the glass, he saw himself—tired eyes, hair streaked with grey, a worn-out jacket. His face was a map of loss, the creases like roads leading to memories he wished he could erase. A man who’d lost too much to believe in mysterious signs. Love, trust, his daughter—all gone, vanished like smoke. Even the memories were fading, losing their warmth, their scent, flattening like old photographs left in the sun.
He pushed the door. It opened with a soft creak, as though it had been waiting for him. Inside, it smelled of old books and ripe pears—a scent from childhood, tucked deep in his mind. Behind the counter stood a woman—tall, her hair neatly pinned, with eyes that saw deeper than skin. She wasn’t looking at James, but at something inside him, as if she could see the shadows of those he’d lost.
“What can be returned?” he asked, his voice trembling, like someone long forgotten had spoken.
“Anything lost,” she replied evenly. “But the price is always your own.”
He almost laughed, almost dismissed it as foolishness—but then something clenched in his chest.
“I want back that day,” he said quietly. “The last conversation with my daughter.”
Her expression didn’t flicker, as if such requests were made here every day.
“Tell me about it.”
James sank into the chair, the weight of his mistakes heavy on his shoulders.
“We argued. Over nothing, really. She wanted to study abroad, and I—I said she was abandoning us, betraying the family. I shouted, called her selfish, accused her of not thinking of her mother, of me. She just stared, then said, ‘You never even tried to understand me.’ I slammed the door. She left. A week later… she was gone. An accident. Since then, I’ve been breathing, but not living. All I think is—if I’d listened, if I’d held her, told her I was proud… Maybe she’d still be here. Maybe everything would be different.”
The woman nodded, as if she’d heard it all before.
“The price: you’ll forget every other moment with her. All of them. Her laughter, her first steps, breakfast chatter, trips to the seaside. Only that day will remain—rewritten as you wish. But the rest will vanish, as if it never was. No trace of her smile, the sound of her voice. Just that one conversation.”
James froze. His hands shook, gripping the edge of the counter.
“That’s like… cutting away part of my soul. Not the flesh—the time. My life.”
“Exactly,” she said. “But you’ll have what you asked for. Word for word. Just as it might have been.”
He was silent for a long while. His lips moved faintly, as if sifting through old scenes—her childhood giggles, the scent of her perfume, bickering at dinner. Then he stood, unsteady, like a man rising after a fall.
“Thank you. I need to think.”
She didn’t stop him. Only said, gazing at nothing:
“We’re open till midnight. Then—we close. Forever. No matter how much you beg.”
All day, James wandered London like a ghost. Every sound, every smell felt like a shard of the past. A song from a café reminded him of evenings with his wife. The scent of fresh bread—his mother’s baking. Even a busker’s voice echoed something lost. He caught fragments of strangers’ conversations, and in each word, he heard something he’d once known but let slip away.
He returned to the shop half an hour before midnight. The door was still open, as if waiting.
“I’ve changed my mind,” he said from the threshold. “I want a different return.”
The woman raised a brow, surprise flickering in her gaze.
“Which?”
“Myself. The man I was before the pain, before the emptiness, before every step felt like a struggle. I want to remember what it’s like to live without fearing each new day.”
She was silent for too long. Then she stepped closer, her movements slow, as if weighing not just his words but his fate.
“That is the highest price,” she said, locking eyes with him. “You’ll lose every reason it ever mattered. All that makes you *you* will fade. You’ll be light—but hollow. No pain, but no meaning either. Like a leaf in the wind.”
“But the pain would be gone?” His voice quavered.
“Yes. And all you loved—gone, too. Everything holding you here dissolves. You’d become… no one.”
James sat. Folded his hands over his knees. Closed his eyes. Inside, a storm raged—memories, guilt, love, dread.
Then he opened his eyes and whispered:
“No. I’ll keep the pain. It’s all I have left of her. It tears me apart, but it’s alive. I don’t want emptiness.”
The woman smiled—warm, for the first time, like a farewell.
“Then you don’t need a return. You’ve already found what you were looking for.”
James stepped outside. The sign was gone. In its place—a blank wall, as if the shop had never existed. No scent of pears, no creak of the door. Just him, the city at night, and the cold wind brushing his face.
But something had shifted inside. He hadn’t gotten what he came for. But he’d found what he needed.
And for the first time in years, he didn’t regret his choice.
