Five Steps to the Stall
Saturday at the wet market is a grammar of rustle and rinse.
I go early enough that the floor is still being swept and late enough that the stalls are fully awake. Woodlands market has its own choreography: vendors calling prices without shouting, bags twisted quickly, the wet slap of fish on ice. I am here for greens and for the pleasure of choosing with my hands instead of a screen.
The aisle I like is narrow. You side-step carefully. An uncle in a rubber apron gestures me forward when he sees I am hesitating between two bunches of chye sim. He does not speak much; he points at the fresher one and moves on. Trust at the market is often wordless like that.
I walk five steps to the tofu stall, then five more to the eggs, counting without meaning to. The market teaches distance in body lengths. My bag grows heavy in the correct way. Somewhere a radio plays an old song softly. A child holds a coin and practices asking for something alone.
The ceiling fans turn slowly. Light filters through plastic awnings and turns everything slightly green. I think about my mother's Saturday lists — written on the back of envelopes, crossed out item by item. I keep mine in my phone now, but I still read it the same way: top to bottom, no skipping.
At the fruit stall I choose oranges by weight in the palm, the way she taught me. The auntie puts an extra one in because the scale tipped fair. These small generosities are part of why I come in person. A delivery slot cannot offer the slight negotiation of human judgment.
When I leave the market the sun has found the car park. I walk towards the bus stop with damp bags and satisfied shoulders. The vegetables will become soup and stir-fry. The eggs will sit in the door shelf until midweek.
At home I rinse everything in the kitchen sink, water cool on my wrists. The market aisle stays in my memory as a sequence of five steps repeated — stall to stall, choice to choice — until the bag is full enough for a week that will mostly be ordinary.
I write the note because Saturday marketing is one of the rhythms that keeps me tethered to Woodlands in a bodily way, not only as an address on an envelope.