this regret machine

  I pop ice from its plastic body and they slide across the countertop, taking refuge beneath the dishes again. I pour more coffee than I should be drinking into a glass one of us stole on a night out. I check the photo again, I try to read the words. The people make me smile. I wipe the sweat from my brow and lick it from the back of my palm. I like these people. I always assumed they’d never exist, or be some part of my imagination. They laugh, each in their own way, the same way I laugh, and I see myself in each of them. My phone lives at 10%. There’s rum down the side of the backseat. The music changes. There’s an ancient shipwreck buried beneath the soil. The sun comes by. We pass the same trees at the end of Devon. If we drive through the night we miss them, instead making the same jokes about double suicide or falling asleep behind the wheel. We argue for the fun of it. We raise our voices. I haven’t sung with anybody since I was in a school for boys. I still dream about the...