The smell of the city at 5am after rain

Just walked past the old fish market docks and caught that exact moment when the wet concrete breathes—salt, diesel, something faintly like seaweed rotting in a bucket. The kind of smell that only comes when the city hasn’t woken up yet, and the tide’s just begun to turn. I stood there for three minutes, half-remembering why I ever left the coast. Not because I’m nostalgic. Because it still feels like home even when I don’t want it to.