The market was already loud when I arrived — fans whirring, knives on boards, plastic bags rustling like dry leaves. I come on Saturdays for chye sim and whatever fruit looks like it travelled less far. The auntie at stall seven has seen me often enough to skip the performance of choosing.
“Same ah?” she said, not waiting for an answer. She picked bundles with stems still wet, shook off the excess water, weighed them without drama. When the scale flickered, she adjusted with one sprig — not cheating, calibrating. I watched her hands because they know more than mine ever will about freshness.
While she packed, she asked about my week in the way aunties do — not intrusive, just anchored. I said work was busy. She said busy is better than bored, then added a red chilli I did not ask for. “Soup nicer,” she said. It was not a transaction anymore; it was instruction passed across a styrofoam box.
I tried to pay exact change; she waved at the coin tray and told me to bring the fifty cents next time. There will be a next time. That is the point. Markets survive on return customers and remembered preferences. My notebook survives on the same logic — show up, tell the truth small, come back.
On the walk home the bag left a cool damp patch on my leg. I thought about writing her name and decided against it — this entry is about kindness without turning someone into content. She knows who she is. If she reads this, she will recognise her stall and her chilli policy.
I cooked the chye sim that night with ginger and the extra chilli. The soup was indeed nicer. I logged the meal in the diary margin with a single word: remember. Not a slogan — a filing instruction for future me when days feel anonymous.
Markets teach memory differently from apps. An app remembers your last order because code tells it to. An auntie remembers because she saw you three Saturdays in a row and decided you are worth the extra chilli. I cannot optimise that relationship into a subscription box. I can only show up, pay fairly, and write honestly when kindness happens.
Next Saturday I will bring the fifty cents. She will pretend it matters more than it does. The market will be loud again, and stall seven will feel like a checkpoint — not because shopping is heroic, but because being known in a dense city still counts for something warm.
I washed the vegetables twice out of habit, not necessity. Some routines are superstition dressed as hygiene. The chilli stayed on the board — bright, accusing, delicious.
When I passed stall seven again on Wednesday, she was serving someone else but caught my eye and raised the chilli without a word. Contract renewed silently.