The shop that sold regrets

 


Urban Fable | The Shop That Sold Regrets

By Faraz Parvez
Professor Dr. (Retired) Arshad Afzal
Former Faculty Member, Umm Al Qura University, Makkah, KSA
(Pseudonym of Professor Dr. Arshad Afzal)

🛍️ “Regret is not just a feeling. It is a currency. And in some cities… it can be traded.”

In a narrow back alley of Lahore, past a crumbling cinema and two turnings beyond the shrine of a forgotten saint, there stood a shop with no signboard.

Locals whispered about it, but few admitted to visiting.

It opened only after midnight.

Its windows were always fogged.

And those who entered never spoke of it again.

Aisles of Memories

Inside, the shopkeeper wore a shawl that looked older than memory itself.
He never asked for names—only regrets.

“Place them here,” he’d say, pointing to a chipped wooden tray.

A woman placed her regret of not saying goodbye to her dying father.

A man placed the moment he cheated in his marriage.

A boy offered the bullying he never stood against.

The shopkeeper would smile, tap a strange machine, and hand them a token.

The Trade

What were the tokens good for?

A second chance.

One hour.
One day.
A conversation.
A rewrite.

Each token allowed the buyer to return to the exact moment of regret—and do it differently.

But there was a rule:

You could never come back to the present with what you changed.

The Catch

People disappeared.

Literally.

Not just from their homes—but from photos, memories, and documents.

One girl who erased her regret of leaving her mother alone that stormy night never returned.

Another who wished he’d never quit college was last seen smiling on an old alumni brochure.

They didn’t die.
They were replaced by new versions of themselves.

And sometimes, these versions were… worse.

The Visitor Who Refused

One night, a poet walked in.

He brought regrets like rusted blades:
Neglected friendships.
Unwritten books.
Lost love letters never sent.

But when he was offered a token, he shook his head.

“I don’t want to undo them,” he said. “I want to write about them.”

The shopkeeper, for the first time, bowed.

“Few have the courage to carry their regrets and still walk tall.”

What This Fable Teaches Us

Everyone carries a sack of regrets.

But not all of them should be traded.

Some regrets—when remembered—become lessons.

Some become poems.
Some become promises never to repeat history.

In a world obsessed with erasing mistakes, perhaps the noblest thing is to own them—and grow anyway.

✨ Continue Exploring the Shadows of the Soul

📚 farazparvez1.blogspot.com
Your destination for stories that live between the visible and the whispered.


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