Ang Mo Kio · Kopitiam
Kopi and Kaya Before the List Takes Over
The lift door opened onto a corridor that smelled of someone else's pandan cake. I had a tote bag folded inside my handbag and a shopping list scribbled on the back of a tuition-centre receipt: eggs, soap, green beans. Nothing that could not wait twenty minutes. I took the stairs down because the lift was slow and my knees prefer short flights when they can get them.
The coffee shop at the foot of my block was already half full. Uncle wiping tables in his usual pattern — left to right, then the corner near the fan. I took the second stool from the wall, not because it is lucky, but because the first stool wobbles and I learned that the hard way last month. The cat had not arrived yet. Good. Less negotiation over kaya scraps.
I ordered kopi siu dai and kaya toast. The toast arrived with the butter still slightly firm — the way I like it, where you have to press down once with the back of the spoon. Around me: an uncle reading the Tamil papers folded into quarters, two schoolchildren sharing one phone and one packet of biscuits, a delivery rider who had taken off his helmet and placed it on the table like a second customer. The ceiling fan clicked on its third rotation. I counted it without meaning to. Old habit.
The list in my pocket could have ruled the morning. Tuition centre opens at nine. My mother wanted green beans before noon. The bank queue at AMK Hub is shorter before ten, or so she claims. Instead I sat with the kopi cooling just enough to drink without burning my tongue, and let the morning stay unclaimed for one more minute, then one more.
An auntie at the next table argued softly with the toast uncle about whether the eggs were fresh. He won by cracking one into a bowl without being asked. She laughed. I liked that exchange — practical, quick, no performance. A plastic bag from the provision shop next door rustled against a chair leg when someone walked past. The sound was ordinary and somehow enough.
I paid, returned the tray, and stood at the corridor with the list finally in my hand. Eggs first, because they break if you squash the bag later. Soap second. Green beans last, near the wet market end of the route. The morning had acquired its sequence — not from an app, just from habit and a stool that does not wobble.
By the time I reached the market the kopi warmth had left my palms. The cat was probably on the middle stool by now. Someone else's problem. I crossed off eggs on the receipt and added chilli padi in the margin because my mother will ask and I will forget if I do not write it now.
Most of this will be gone by Thursday. That is fine. The point was the toast, the fan click, and the twenty minutes when the list stayed in my pocket instead of my head — a small pocket of plain good morning before the errands took over, one item at a time.