The Mysterious Return Corner
In one of the forgotten alleyways of an old English town, where the houses wore their years like wrinkles on an elder’s face, a peculiar sign appeared one day. It materialised as if from thin air—a ghostly whisper woven into the grey fabric of everyday life. “THE MYSTERIOUS RETURN CORNER. Lost things reclaimed. Terms—negotiable.” The letters, faded as if scorched by centuries of sun, seemed an echo from another world. Against the grimy, dust-coated glass, they looked like a half-remembered dream, one that still tugged at the heart.
Oliver had walked this street a hundred times. Once, there’d been a cosy antique shop here, then a greasy spoon serving cheap tea, before it all sank into neglect. The paint peeled, the windows clouded over, and old signs drowned in dust. Oliver had long stopped noticing this part of town, the way one stops noticing a dull, familiar ache. But that day, the sign pricked his gaze like a needle prodding an old wound he’d tried to forget.
He paused. In the murky glass, he caught his reflection: tired eyes, hair streaked with grey, a battered jacket. His face was a map of loss—the wrinkles like roads leading to memories he’d rather erase. Eyes that no longer believed in miracles. A man who’d lost too much to trust mysterious signs. Love, trust, his daughter—all gone, dissolved like smoke. Even the memories were fading, losing their warmth and scent, flattening like old photographs left in the sun.
He pushed the door. It swung open with a soft creak, as if it had been expecting him. Inside, it smelled of old books and ripe apples—a scent tucked deep in the attic of his mind. Behind the counter stood a woman—tall, with hair neatly pinned up, and a gaze that cut deeper than skin. She wasn’t looking at Oliver but at something inside him, as if she could see the shadows of those he’d lost.
“What can I get back?” he asked, his voice trembling like it belonged to someone else, long forgotten.
“Anything lost,” she replied calmly. “But the price is always your own.”
He almost laughed, almost brushed it off as a strange joke, but instead, he felt something tighten in his chest.
“I want that day back,” he said quietly. “The last conversation with my daughter.”
Her face didn’t flicker, as if such requests were as common as rain.
“Tell me about it.”
Oliver sank into a chair, the movement heavy, as if he carried the weight of every mistake 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 that she was selfish, that she didn’t care about her mum, about me. She just stood there, 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 alive, but not living. I keep thinking—if I’d just listened, hugged her, told her I was proud… Maybe she’d have stayed. Maybe things would’ve been different.”
The woman nodded, as if she’d heard this story before.
“The price: you’ll forget every other moment with her. All of them. Her laugh, her first steps, morning chats over tea, trips to the seaside. Only that day will remain—rewritten as you wish. But everything else will vanish, as if it never existed. No trace of her smile, no echo of her voice. Just that one conversation.”
Oliver froze. His hands shook, gripping the counter’s edge.
“That’s like… cutting out a piece of my soul. Not flesh—time. My whole life.”
“Exactly,” she said. “But you’ll get what you asked for. Word for word. Just as it might’ve been.”
He was silent. For a long time. His lips moved faintly, as if sifting through old scenes: her childhood giggles, the scent of her perfume, debates over Sunday roast. Then he stood, awkwardly, 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. For good. And we won’t open again, no matter how much you beg.”
All day, Oliver wandered the town like a spectre. Every sound, every smell seemed a fragment of the past. A tune from a pub reminded him of evenings with his wife. The scent of fresh bread—his mother’s baking. Even a busker’s voice carried echoes of what he’d lost. He caught snatches of strangers’ conversations, and in every word, he sensed 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 on the threshold. “I want a different return.”
The woman raised an eyebrow, surprise flickering in her eyes.
“Which one?”
“I want myself back. The man I was before the hurt, the emptiness, before every step felt like a battle. I want to remember what it’s like to live without dreading each new day.”
She was silent too long. Then she stepped closer, her movements slow, as if measuring not just words but his fate.
“That’s the highest price,” she said, locking eyes with him. “You’ll lose every reason it ever mattered. All that makes you *you* will disappear. You’ll be light but hollow. No pain—but no meaning either. Like a leaf blown off a tree.”
“But the pain… it’ll go?” His voice wavered.
“Yes. And so will everything you ever loved. All that ties you here will dissolve. You’ll become… nobody.”
Oliver sat. He rested his hands on his knees. Shut his eyes. Inside, a storm raged—memories, guilt, love, fear.
Then he opened his eyes and softly said:
“I refuse. I want to keep that 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—warmly, for the first time, like a farewell.
“Then you don’t need a return. You’ve already found what you were looking for.”
Oliver stepped outside. The sign was gone. Where the door had been—just a blank wall, as if the shop had never existed. No scent of apples, no creak of hinges. Just him, the night, and the cold breeze on 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.
