The shop sat quietly on a narrow street off Nassau, wedged between a vintage bike repair and a café that stubbornly only sold porridge. The hand-painted sign above the door read:
BOOKS & OTHER MIRACLES
It hung a little crooked, which Darren secretly liked.
The bell above the door jingled as he stepped in.
Inside, the place smelled like old paper, wood polish, and some herbaceous candle Norah insisted kept "bad vibes and damp" away. A single lamp threw amber light across the till. The radiator in the corner ticked quietly. Outside, Dublin was cold and loud and full of people talking about him.
In here it was just books.
His lungs remembered how to breathe.
The weight peeled off him, slowly. Like dropping a wet hoodie after a storm.
He loved working here he loved being a: Part-time shelf goblin.Honorary Tolkien gremlin.Manga-rescuer. and an Ink-sniffer.
"Afternoon, trouble," came the usual greeting.
Norah didn't look up. She was perched behind the till in her usual spot, half-moon glasses on, battered Agatha Christie open in her lap. A small plate of biscuits and a cup of tea sat on the counter the tea had gone cold hours ago.
"Afternoon, trouble," she said, turning a page.
"Heya." He tossed his bag under the counter and pulled out the creaky stool. "Anything wild today?"
"Sold a vegan cookbook and a haiku anthology." A pause. "Someone tried to return a book they'd clearly read cover to cover and spilled tea on."
"Did you take it back?"
"I did not." She turned another page. "Biscuits are for you. Don't let them go stale."
He took the ginger nut. It was still slightly warm.
The next few hours passed in cycles of calm chaos:
The next few hours passed the way they always did here. Restocking. Alphabetising. Fighting the leaning tower of discount romance novels that had been threatening to avalanche since Tuesday. The shop creaked and settled around him. Outside, Dublin went about its business.
In here, time moved differently.
He answered three customer questions.
"Do ye have those Moleskine notebooks everyone's going on about?"
"Is this the book that's like Game of Thrones but less stabby?"
"D'ya sell beginner guides for mushroom picking but without accidentally killing yourself?"
He brewed peppermint tea at 4. Burned his tongue. Forgot immediately and tried to sip it again.
Around 5:30, an older couple brought four different manga series to the counter, asking which one they should buy for their niece. Darren picked One piece because, quote, "If she's cool, she'll love it. If not, it might make her cool."
They laughed, bought all four. That serotonin lasted an hour, easy.
Then, around 6:00…
"I heard that Sentinel lad's viral again," said a customer browsing nonfiction, flipping through a paperback on urban survival. "Took a selfie with some girl after saving her. RTÉ won't stop talkin' about it."
Darren froze mid-shelving, hands locked around a stack of Irish folklore volumes.
Brain: red alert.
Body: pretend casual.
"Wild stuff, huh," he mumbled.
The guy barely glanced his way.
Darren spent way too long pretending to adjust the Myths and Legends shelf.
After a deep breath he whispered quietly to the shelves.
"Ye saw nothin."
By 8:45 the shop was empty. Just him, Norah, and the old wall clock.
"Alright," Norah said, packing her bag. "Don't forget the till report. And don't lock yourself in again."
"That was one time."
"Twice."
"Allegedly."
She paused at the door. Looked back at him over her glasses.
"Eat something proper tonight," she said. "Not from a bag."
The door closed.
The shop went quiet. The good kind.
Darren stood in it for a moment. Then finished the till count, pulled his hoodie up, and flipped the CLOSED sign.
9:12 PM.
He took one last look at the amber warmth of the back room.
Then stepped out into the cold.
Outside, the street was empty. Just flickering streetlamps, wet shimmer on cobbles.
Still, his eyes scanned alleyways, rooftops, shadows.
Nothing.
Just wind.
He whispered softly as his hoodie went up, stepping out into the night:
"It's fine. You're fine. They don't know."
He slipped away from "Books & Other Miracles," heading deeper into Dublin's heart.
Warm lamplight faded behind him, the scent of old pages and polish still clinging to his hoodie as he walked the familiar route down toward Charlie's.
Hidden behind a boarded-up Chinese takeaway, the gym didn't look like much: rusted sign, unreliable buzzer. Inside, though, red neon, cracked mats, and peace.
Darren shouldered open the door. The smell of sweat and rubber mats hit him the second he stepped inside.
"Evenin', sunshine," rasped a voice from somewhere in the back.
Charlie ambled into view, his Kerry accent still heavy after all his years in Dublin. Dublin had got his address, that was all. He'd only ever come up because Máiréad wanted a life there, and Charlie had gone where she went. He was in his sixties now, thick through the body, still broad in the shoulders, wearing an old tracksuit that looked permanent. His glasses sat crooked on his nose.
Darren grinned, already stretching on the mat. "Ever consider readin' somethin' with actual articles, old man?"
Charlie shrugged. "This has articles. Just happens the articles got tits next to 'em."
Darren snorted. "Classy as ever."
"You're not here for class. You're here because I let ya kick things as hard as ya want."
"Fair," Darren said, dropping into a lunge. Knees popped like bubble wrap. "Also, the smell of mold and armpits is nostalgic."
Charlie ignored him, flopped onto a stool, flipping his magazine open. "Alright, gobshite. Warm up. I'll shout at ya when your form goes to shite."
Darren pulled out his wraps and started winding, the familiar rhythm of it settling something in his chest that the whole day had been trying to unsettle.
"Monster?" he asked.
Charlie reached sideways without looking and hit play on the battered iPod speaker. Same rattle in the left channel it'd had for two years. Neither of them had fixed it.
"Warm up, don't die," he muttered and returned to Playboy.
Charlie had learned Muay Thai the way he'd learned most things. From someone who came through the gym and knew something he didn't, and he wasn't too proud to learn it, and once he'd learned it he had opinions about that too. Mostly that people overthought it. You had hands and elbows and knees and shins and you used them and that was the whole conversation.
Darren circled the bag beneath dim, flickering gym lights. Skillet thumped through the ancient speakers.
Jab. Cross. Hook. Reset.
"Chin," Charlie said.
Darren tucked it.
"Elbow's drifting."
He corrected it.
That was it. That was the whole conversation for twenty minutes. A correction when it was needed, silence when it wasn't. The bag and the speaker and the rattle in the left channel and the neon doing its slow stutter above the ring.
But mind always circled back:
Did I lock the shop?
Is the kettle still on?
No, shut up.
He punched harder, threw a roundhouse, pivoted, clean cross. Still overreached occasionally, still a bit too heavy on the back foot, but sharper than last year. Cleaner than last month.
Charlie sipped tea. "Chin down, lad. That's the second time now. You're not birdwatching."
Darren grinned. "You are."
Charlie didn't dignify that with an answer.
"Back in Black" came on; Darren surged forward. Elbow. Knee. Spin-kick. Sweating through his shirt, every muscle lit up.
Outside didn't exist. No lectures, no viral tags. Just beat in his ears, rhythm in bones, satisfying thud.
Hook-hook-cross, clinch, knee-knee-knee, teep, reset.
Breathless. Calm.
Then thoughts circled again:
Did I eat lunch?
Did I reply to Liam?
"Shut up," he said out loud, then launched into a flurry so fast the chain on the bag practically screamed.
Nobody asked how you were doing in here. You came in, you worked, and whatever was wrong either came out through your hands or it didn't.
Charlie had learned that from forty years of watching men come through his gym with things they couldn't say out loud. He'd never once asked any of them to say it. He just let them hit things until they looked a bit more like themselves.
Darren's arms shook eventually with the good kind of tired. He caught the bag and held it.
Charlie let his Playboy fall shut.
"Sharper," he said. "Left hook's still dropping before contact."
"I know."
"So stop doing it."
"Helpful, cheers."
Charlie drank his cold tea without complaint. A man who had given up expecting tea to be hot on the first attempt sometime around 1994.
"You eating?" he said.
"Yeah."
"Sleeping?"
"Kind of."
Charlie was still flipping through his Playboy. "Don't let the sweat puddle. Mops are in the back."
"Cheers," Darren rasped, eyes closed.
Darren unwound his wraps slowly. The gym settled around him. The neon stuttered. Somewhere across the city Máiréad was probably already texting.
He checked his watch.
"You'll be late," Darren said.
Charlie checking the watch and muttering, "Christ, she'll have me buried."
Darren grinned, "You finally heading off then?"
"I am, yeah. I enjoy living."
Charlie paused before he as he got up. "Not bad, though. You're sharper."
Darren grinned despite himself. "I'll take it."
Charlie raised the Playboy. "Inflation's progress too… You're still a pain in the arse. So don't get be gettin notions."