She always comes at 7:15 on Fridays.
When she showed up at 6:47 on a Tuesday, he didn’t ask why.
He could see it from twenty feet away.
The walk was different.
Not slower, not faster. Just tighter, like her body was holding something her hands weren’t carrying.
He reached for the threadfin before she got to the counter.
Raju has been at Stall 23 for twenty-eight years.
Took over from his father, who took it from his uncle, who started it in 1976 when the wet market was still zinc sheets and wooden pallets.
The zinc is gone now.
The stall is the same.
Three generations of hands on the same chopping board, and Raju’s are the steadiest of all of them because steadiness is what twenty-eight years of fish will teach you if you let it.
He doesn’t keep a notebook.
He carries it all in his hands.
The Malay family from Block 37 comes every Wednesday.
The wife picks red snapper, the husband grabs cuttlefish for the kids.
Before Raju cuts their order, he rinses the board, wipes it down with a fresh cloth, and reaches for the knife he keeps separately on the right side of the counter.
Nobody asked him to do this.
18 years ago, the wife came for the first time, watched him prepare a cut without cleaning the board first, and hesitated.
She bought the fish anyway.
But she hesitated, and Raju noticed.
The next Wednesday, the board was clean before she reached the counter. She’s never gone to another stall since.
The Chinese auntie who comes at 6:50 every morning, seventies, thin arms, walks with a slight lean to the left.
She buys whatever’s cheapest because her pension is what it is and she makes it stretch.
2 years ago, she stopped buying prawns.
Raju didn’t ask why.
A week later, her husband shuffled past the stall in slippers, ankles swollen, leaning hard on a walking stick.
Gout.
Raju understood.
He started setting aside a small piece of batang for her each morning, priced lower than what the board says, because the board is for strangers and she isn’t one.
And then there’s the Friday woman.
He doesn’t know her name.
In 28 years, never asked.
Chinese, early seventies, short grey hair, the same jade bangle on her left wrist every week. She arrives at 7:15 on Fridays and orders the same thing.
Threadfin. One piece. Not too big.
That’s her grandson’s dinner.
Raju knows this not because she told him, but because years ago, a boy of about eight came with her once.
He stood on tiptoes at the counter and said, *”Ah Ma, can I see the fish?”
And the woman smiled and said, “This one’s for you. Friday fish.”
The boy is bigger now.
Doesn’t come to the market anymore.
But every Friday, she still buys the threadfin, still says the same five words, and Raju still picks the one with the clearest eyes and the firmest belly, because that’s the one he’d pick if it were going to his own grandson’s table.
He knows her by her fish.
Knows her by her time.
Knows her by the jade bangle and the small red wallet she counts her notes from and the way she always says *”Correct ah?”* before walking away.
He doesn’t know her name.
Doesn’t need to.
That’s how it works at Stall 23.
You don’t know people by what they tell you.
You know them by what they buy, when they come, and what changes.
The day the prawns stop, you know it’s gout.
The day the red snapper starts, somebody’s kid is finally old enough for real fish.
And the threadfin, every Friday, same time, same piece… the grandson is still coming for dinner.
Until Tuesday…
She came at 6:47. Raju hadn’t even finished laying out the fish.
The ice was still settling in the trays, the morning delivery half-arranged. He looked up and saw her standing at the edge of the counter.
Wrong day. Wrong time.
Her face was different.
Not crying.
Something past crying, or just before it.
That tight look people carry when they’re holding everything behind their teeth and their jaw is the only thing keeping it there.
She didn’t say good morning. Didn’t reach for the wallet. She just stood there and said one word.
“Threadfin.”
Raju reached for it.
Picked the one with the clearest eyes, the way he always does. Wrapped it in newspaper, three folds, tail tucked, the way his hands have done ten thousand times.
His hands did what they knew while the rest of him did something he couldn’t name.
He pushed the wrapped fish across the counter to her. She reached for the red wallet.
“Auntie,”* he said. *”Take.”
She looked at him.
Longer than any customer has ever looked at him across that counter.
Her hand was still on the wallet. His hand was still on the fish.
Then she took it.
Nodded once.
Walked away.
He watched her until she turned the corner past the vegetable uncle’s stall. Then he wiped down his board, finished setting the trays, and started his day.
She came back on Friday. 7:15. Same walk. Same bangle. Same wallet.
“Threadfin. One piece. Not too big.”
He picked the one with the clearest eyes. She counted her notes out of the red wallet, slow and careful the way she always does.
“Correct ah?”
“Correct.”
Neither of them mentioned Tuesday.
Something had changed, though.
Not in the order or the routine or the price. Something in the space between the fish and the money, where two people who’ve never exchanged names have been exchanging something else entirely for twenty-eight years.
Raju’s stall opens at 6:47 every morning, when the ice delivery drops and the fish go on the trays.
By 7am, the market is alive.
You can hear it before you see it. Hokkien from the pork uncle down the aisle, Malay from the kueh makcik near the entrance, Tamil from the flower seller at the back, the wet slap of fish hitting the board, the clink of coins on metal trays, the hiss of plastic bags pulled from the roll.
If you stand at Stall 23 long enough, you’ll see it.
Every family in the estate passes through here, and the man behind the counter knows every single one of them. Not by name. Not by race. By fish.
He knows what they eat and when they stop eating it. And sometimes, on a Tuesday morning before the ice has even settled, he knows something has gone wrong before a single word is spoken.
“Auntie. Take.”
That’s all he said. And that’s all he needed to say.
==================
Raju doesn’t read the news.
Doesn’t know what videos are circling online about Singapore, who’s saying what about who belongs where.
His phone stays in his back pocket. His hands stay on the board.
But if you told him that people out there are saying Singaporeans don’t belong together, he wouldn’t argue.
He’d just look at his counter. A
t the clean board and the knife on the right side.
At the price he writes for strangers and the lower one he keeps for the people who aren’t.
28 years of proof doesn’t need to raise its voice.
But proof needs maintenance. The board doesn’t stay clean by itself. The price doesn’t stay low by accident.
Someone has to choose, every morning, to wipe down the surface and pick the fish with the clearest eyes and say “𝘈𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘦, 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦” when the moment calls for it.
The day someone stops choosing is the day the market starts going quiet.
𝗞𝗲𝗲𝗽 𝗰𝗵𝗼𝗼𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴.
Share this if you know a Stall 23. Tag the uncle who knows your order before you open your mouth.
3am stories. Pass it on.
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