The first time Daniel heard someone's regret, he thought he was losing his mind.
This is what happened on a busy Monday morning on a bus.
She was a very tired woman sitting next to him, looking out the window.
A voice suddenly spoke in Daniel's mind, I wish I had called my dad before he passed.
Daniel turned sharply.
The woman hadn't spoken.
but he had heard it loud and clear as if she had whispered in his ear.
The rest of the day was a period of fear for him.
Then it was again the next week, a businessman waiting in line at the bank, "I shouldn't have cheated on my girlfriend".
A student wearing a backpack crossing the street, "I wish I had not dropped out when I was going through tough times".
An older man purchasing bread.
Too many years I was angry.
Finally, Daniel found out the truth.
Somehow he had the power to hear people's deepest regrets.
Not their thoughts.
Not their secrets.
The one thing that they wished they could change was the only thing.
He didn't like it at all at first.
He took with him fragments of strangers' pain, everywhere he went.
The market.
The church.
The bus stop.
The office.
The sound of regret trailed him he could see that People had much heavier loads than they displayed to the world.
He was sad that the woman selling fruits was sorry she didnt pursue her dream of becoming a nurse when she was younger.
The carefree security guard mourned over leaving his younger brother when he was in a dispute with his family years ago, and he lost his brother.
Everyone loved this wealthy businessman, who had made the wrong choice for his money.
Daniel got a new perspective on people.
When he could hear the unseen wounds that they had, it became impossible to judge anyone rapidly.
One night, his gift turned into a curse.
His younger sister Amara was excited when she arrived home.
Let's say that I met someone," she said.
Daniel smiled.
"Already?"
She laughed.
His name is "Kelvin.
Two weeks later, she was home with Kelvin.
As soon as Daniel shook his hand the familiar voice came out.
To not let her know what happened before Lagos.
Daniel froze.
Not a regret.
A secret.
It was the first one he heard.
All these days he tried to tell himself that it was nothing.
However, when he met Kelvin he heard the voice again and again.
“Don't let her learn it.”
In the meantime Amara was falling in love.
She spoke of him all the time.
Their future.
Their plans.
Their dreams.
And Daniel became trapped between two terrible choices.
Don't say a word, or risk hurting his sister.
Or get in her way, possibly ruining her happiness, without justification.
Months passed.
The preparations for the wedding started.
One night Daniel went into Kelvin's room alone.
What did you see happen in Lagos?
Kelvin's face turned colorless.
Both men remained silent for some time.
So Kelvin sat down.
And he told him all that.
Kelvin had previously been in a hit and run car accident.
A lad had fallen dead, he had run away from the scene in a state of panic and fear. The case has never been solved and from then on, he was haunted by the guilt.
Daniel listened silently.
At the end of the story, he was ill.
Not because Kelvin was evil.
However, it was as though he were human.
Flawed.
Broken.
Haunted.
Just as all the other people whose regrets he had heard had.
The following question had proved more difficult.
"Does Amara know?"
Kelvin nodded his head.
"No."
Now, for the first time, Daniel knew what his odd gift had been teaching him.
All people had shadows.
Every person.
It wasn't that people were wrong.
What they did after was what differed.
On the next day, Daniel threatened to give Kelvin the boot.
"Tell her yourself."
And to his surprise, Kelvin did.
Everything.
The accident.
The lies.
The years of guilt.
Daniel knew that it was only a matter of time before things ended.
But Amara cried and cried for hours instead.
Then she asked a question that neither of the men could have predicted.
“Have you been sorry for everything you did each day?”
Kelvin nodded.
"Every day."
They stayed together, despite several difficult conversations and a lot of pain, months later.
Not because it was something he did that was OK.
However, when he finally ceased to run away from it.
Years passed.
Daniel never lost his strange ability.
Everywhere he went he heard regrets butt after a while, it was no longer a burden for him.
He knew something was important,
His super power wasn't hearing regret.
It was the understanding that every single person he met was battling a battle that not anybody else was.
And that knowledge made him kinder than any super power ever could.
The next morning, while boarding a bus, he heard another stranger's regret.
But this time it was not a disquieting sound, it was a smile.
Each "regret" was a human being trying even if imperfectly to be better than he was before.
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