In a forgotten alleyway of an old European town, nestled between a cobbler’s shop and a crumbling stone chapel, stood a tiny door no taller than a child.

It bore no sign, only a tarnished brass knob and a symbol etched into the wood: a spiral clock with hands that pointed backward.

No one remembered when it had appeared.

One wet October evening, a retired railway conductor named Elias wandered into the alley during a thunderstorm. He was searching for shelter, but when he laid eyes on the strange little door, something tugged at his memory. Without hesitation, he crouched down and opened it.

Inside was not a room, but a world — endless rows of bookshelves spiraling upward like a cathedral of knowledge. The ticking of a thousand clocks echoed softly in the air.

Time moved differently here. Sometimes forward, sometimes back. Sometimes not at all.

A hunched old man with silver eyes greeted Elias.

“Welcome,” he said. “You’ve come to return a memory.”

“I think you’re mistaken,” Elias replied. “I’m just waiting out the rain.”

The man smiled. “You were here once, long ago. When you were a child. But you borrowed something — a memory that wasn’t yours to keep. That’s how you remembered where to find us.”

Elias felt a chill creep down his spine.

The old man led him to a particular book — bound in soft leather, marked with a golden “E”. Inside were pages filled with scenes Elias had long forgotten: a summer with his brother before the war, the laughter of his mother in the kitchen, a girl with a red ribbon who gave him a kiss beneath a walnut tree.

And then, at the very end, a memory he had never lived.

He stared at the final page — a quiet lakeside, a child in his arms, and a woman calling to him from behind a house behind — and he understood. But . . .

“I never had a family,” he whispered.

“Not in this life,” the old man said gently. “Once, you dreamed it.”

Tears welled in Elias’s eyes.

“Would you like to keep it?” the old man asked. “You may, if you leave behind another. An even trade.”

Elias closed the book, heart heavy and full at once.

And somewhere, far outside the library, the rain stopped.

But Elias never returned.

_____________________

© Secret Agent Man
info@secretagentman.net