Regret is that taste when you buy a pasta salad at the supermarket only to remember that you forgot you hated mayonnaise. Regret is that shock to your body after you look down at your phone while you’re driving and don’t realise the car in front of you is stopping until it’s too late. Regret is the pounding in your head after a night of heavy drinking to lessen the regret from the night before. Regret is that weight in your chest when things are left unsaid. Regret is that kick to your gut as someone you care about slams the proverbial door in your face.

What regret isn’t, is knowing I did everything I could and it just wasn’t good enough; that’s just a key left under the mat.

The smell of vinegar has been permeating my nostrils for hours now.

Strong and vulgar, it offends the rest of my senses. Sending me into periodic grinding halts in the midst of whatever I am doing. It started when I went to take photographs of the laid up freights down the road.

How ironic.

It has since followed me up the street, back to my apartment building, from there onto the bus to the restaurant where I picked up some mediocre thai food to hold me over until tomorrow, and back again to my apartment. Fending off all other smells; They stray cat weaving figure eights between my legs while I waited for the bus, the drunk man sitting next to me, the dirt and exhausted kicked up as cars flew by up the road.

Now the odor hovers, pulses around my head and you’re the only thing I can think of.