The Price of a Second Hand: A Story About Time, Memory, and Debt (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798243753807)

Everything has a price. Time is no exception. At the end of a hidden alley, there is a shop that sells no goods. Inside, years can be bought. Memories can be erased. And nothing is ever free. Arthur is an old man running out of time. When he is offered a chance to reclaim his youth, he accepts-without fully understanding the cost. Five years of strength and vitality, paid for with the memories that shaped his life. What begins as a miracle quickly becomes a nightmare. As the stolen years refuse to stay silent, Arthur discovers the terrifying truth behind the transaction. Youth is not created-it is taken. Time is harvested from others, along with their pain, their grief, and their forgotten lives. And once the debt is owed, it does not remain personal. Reality begins to fracture. Faces shift. Homes dissolve. The city itself reveals a hidden architecture built on erased memories and unpaid seconds. At the center of it all stands the Merchant-keeper of the Ledger, collector of lives, and curator of a world surviving on borrowed time. The Price of a Second Hand is a psychological horror and philosophical thriller about identity, memory, and the cost of escaping our own mortality. A dark, unsettling journey into what happens when a man trades his past to buy a future-and becomes the witness to his own disappearance. You can sell your time.
But you can never escape the debt.Everything has a price.
Time is no exception.

At the end of a hidden alley, there is a shop that sells no goods.
Inside, years can be bought. Memories can be erased.
And nothing is ever free.

Arthur is an old man running out of time.
When he is offered a chance to reclaim his youth, he accepts-without fully understanding the cost.
Five years of strength and vitality, paid for with the memories that shaped his life.

What begins as a miracle quickly becomes a nightmare.

As the stolen years refuse to stay silent, Arthur discovers the terrifying truth behind the transaction.
Youth is not created-it is taken.
Time is harvested from others, along with their pain, their grief, and their forgotten lives.
And once the debt is owed, it does not remain personal.

Reality begins to fracture.
Faces shift.
Homes dissolve.
The city itself reveals a hidden architecture built on erased memories and unpaid seconds.

At the center of it all stands the Merchant-
keeper of the Ledger,
collector of lives,
and curator of a world surviving on borrowed time.

The Price of a Second Hand is a psychological horror and philosophical thriller about identity, memory,
and the cost of escaping our own mortality.

A dark, unsettling journey into what happens when a man trades his past to buy a future-
and becomes the witness to his own disappearance.

You can sell your time.
But you can never escape the debt.

Author: Mourad Barghouthe
ISBN-13: 9798243753807
Publisher: Independently Published
Language: English
Published: 01/13/2026
Pages: 80
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.26lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.17d