A voice in the crowd—
Familiar, yet out of reach,
Gone before it stays.
The Grocery Store at 11:42 PM
The automatic doors slid open with a soft hiss, releasing a faint gust of cold, artificial air. Inside, the grocery store was half-empty, its aisles stretching out like quiet roads in a city that never quite sleeps. A few night-shift workers moved with slow precision, restocking shelves, their motions mechanical.
He wandered past the self-checkout machines, past the discount bread rack, past the rows of fluorescent-lit produce, his hands buried deep in the pockets of his jacket. He wasn’t here for anything specific. Just walking, moving, existing in the quiet spaces where the world softened.
And then, he saw her.
Not directly—just in flashes, glimpses caught between shelves, reflections in freezer doors. She was standing in front of the yogurt section, her fingers tracing the edges of a carton, as if she were debating some invisible argument in her head.
For a reason he couldn’t explain, he wanted to see her face.
Not in a way that suggested recognition, or romance, or anything specific at all. Just curiosity. A need to fill in the empty space where her features should be.
The store’s radio hummed out an old song, something half-remembered from another life. A stock boy wheeled past with a cart full of soup cans. A fluorescent light flickered once, then steadied.
She moved toward the checkout.
And he hesitated.
The Things We Will Never Know
Most people think regret is about the things we lose.
But loss is easy to understand—a subtraction, an absence, a space that once held something real.
What’s harder to name is the weight of what was never there to begin with.
- A conversation never started.
- A hand never reached for.
- A face never turned toward you.
How many times had he felt that feeling—the ghost of a moment that never quite existed? How many times had he walked away, leaving questions unanswered, possibilities unexplored, letting faces remain blurred in the periphery of his life?
And how many times had he wondered, later, what might have happened if he had done something different?
Some moments are not meant to be resolved. Some questions are not meant to be answered.
A book with missing pages is still worth reading.
A cracked bowl still holds water.
A moment half-lived is still a moment.
Maybe the people who pass through our lives like shadows are meant to stay that way. Not everyone is meant to become part of our story.
And that, too, is a kind of beauty.
Lessons from a Face Never Seen
- You do not have to see something for it to leave an imprint.
- Not all regrets come from loss—some come from never trying.
- Even fleeting moments have meaning.
- Unfinished things are still complete in their own way.
- Some faces are meant to stay unknown, just close enough to make you wonder.
He stepped toward the checkout.
For just a second, he thought she might turn, that he would finally see her face, that the space in his mind where her features should be would finally take form.
But she didn’t.
She paid in silence, took her bag, and walked out into the night.
And just like that, she was gone.
The store remained—the bright aisles, the hum of refrigerators, the quiet shuffle of tired workers stacking shelves. The world moved forward, indifferent to the things left unfinished.
He stood there for a moment longer, then turned back toward the aisles.
Maybe he had never needed to see her face at all.
life 
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