The uncle at Block 42 hasn’t cooked his own dinner in six years.
His kitchen still works.
The gas stove clicks on fine.
There’s a wok hanging from the hook above the counter, seasoned black from decades of use. His wife’s apron still hangs on the back of the kitchen door. Folded neat.
He hasn’t moved it. He can’t.
Her name was Bee Lian.
She made chwee kueh every Sunday morning, and the whole corridor smelled like it by 7am.
She had a rule in that flat. Didn’t matter what happened that day, didn’t matter who said what or how tired anyone was. You walk through the door, she’d look up from the stove and say the same two words.
𝘑𝘪𝘢𝘬 𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘴𝘵.
Eat first.
Everything else can wait.
She died in 2020.
Pancreatic cancer.
Fast.
Three months from diagnosis to the end. Uncle Lim sat in that flat for two weeks after the funeral. Didn’t answer the door. Didn’t pick up the phone. His daughter called every day. Nothing.
𝗢𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗶𝗳𝘁𝗲𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗵 𝗱𝗮𝘆, 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗯𝗼𝗱𝘆 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝗰𝗸𝗲𝗱.
He almost didn’t open it.
But the knocking didn’t stop.
Patient.
Not urgent. Just steady, like whoever was out there had already decided to wait as long as it took.
It was Priya.
The woman from three doors down.
She was holding a tiffin carrier, the old-fashioned stainless steel kind with three tiers.
She didn’t say sorry for your loss, didn’t ask how he was coping. Didn’t mention Bee Lian at all.
She said, “𝘜𝘯𝘤𝘭𝘦, 𝘦𝘢𝘵 𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘴𝘵.”
He looked at her. Then at the tiffin. Then back at her.
She’d made him rice.
Dal.
A simple chicken curry.
Nothing fancy. The kind of dinner you make when you just need someone to eat something.
He took it.
The next evening, she knocked again. Same time. 6:30. Tiffin carrier in hand.
He opened the door faster this time.
She didn’t ask if he wanted it. Didn’t check if it was okay. She just handed it over, and he just took it. That was the deal. No discussion. No negotiation. Just food at the door, every evening, like clockwork.
That was 2020.
It’s 2026 now.
𝗦𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝗰𝗸𝘀 𝗮𝘁 𝟲:𝟯𝟬.
The tiffin carrier has changed a few times over the years.
The first one got a dent in the lid.
The second one, her son accidentally left in the school canteen.
The current one is blue.
Uncle Lim can hear it coming down the corridor before the knock even lands… the steel tiers clinking against each other in that particular rhythm he now listens for every evening the way he once listened for Bee Lian’s slippers on the kitchen floor.
Some nights it’s biryani.
Some nights it’s sambar with rice and a piece of fried fish.
On Deepavali, she brings him murukku in a separate container, and he eats every piece. Once, she made him mee goreng because her daughter said, “𝘜𝘯𝘤𝘭𝘦 𝘓𝘪𝘮 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘴 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘢 𝘮𝘦𝘦 𝘨𝘰𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘨 𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘭𝘦.” He ate two servings and told the girl she was right.
He never asked her why she does it.
She never explained.
But once, his daughter walked past Priya’s open door on the way to the lift.
Priya was at the kitchen sink, scrubbing the inside of the tiffin carrier with lime and salt.
She didn’t look up. The daughter stepped into the lift and stood there for a long time before she remembered to press the button.
Her husband, Rajan, drives a taxi.
Works late shifts most nights.
When he’s home early, he’s the one who carries the tiffin down the corridor. Sometimes their son does it. The boy is twelve now. He was six when the knocking started.
He doesn’t remember a time when feeding Uncle Lim wasn’t just something their family does. Like brushing teeth. Like locking the gate.
Once, Uncle Lim’s grandson visited from Punggol.
Seven years old.
The boy looked at the tiffin carrier on the dining table, the three tiers opened up, steam rising from the dal.
“𝘞𝘢𝘩, 𝘈𝘩 𝘎𝘰𝘯𝘨, 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘳𝘰𝘰𝘮 𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘢𝘩?”
Uncle Lim laughed.
First real laugh his daughter had heard from him in months.
“𝘠𝘢𝘩,” he said. “𝘈𝘩 𝘎𝘰𝘯𝘨’𝘴 𝘳𝘰𝘰𝘮 𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘪𝘤𝘦. 𝘝𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘢𝘵𝘢𝘴 𝘰𝘯𝘦.”
The boy believed him. Went home and told his mother that Ah Gong lives in a hotel.
He doesn’t live in a hotel.
He lives in a three-room flat in Bedok with a wok he hasn’t lit in six years and an apron he can’t bring himself to fold away.
And three doors down, there’s a woman who decided, without anyone asking, that this man would not eat alone.
𝗡𝗼𝘁 𝘁𝗼𝗻𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁. 𝗡𝗼𝘁 𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗿𝗼𝘄. 𝗡𝗼𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝗻𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝘀𝗵𝗲’𝘀 𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝗰𝗸.
There’s a photo on Uncle Lim’s TV console.
Bee Lian, young, maybe thirty, holding a bowl of something in their old kitchen. You can’t tell what’s in the bowl. But she’s smiling at whoever’s behind the camera. Probably him.
Next to that photo, there’s a small plastic container.
Murukku.
Priya dropped it off yesterday, even though Deepavali is months away. She said her daughter made too much for a school project.
𝗧𝗵𝗮𝘁’𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗲. 𝗛𝗲𝗿 𝗱𝗮𝘂𝗴𝗵𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀𝗻’𝘁 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗮 𝘀𝗰𝗵𝗼𝗼𝗹 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁.
Uncle Lim knows it’s not true.
He eats the murukku anyway.
Sits in his chair by the window, looks at Bee Lian’s photo, chews slowly, and waits for 6:30.
He stopped wondering why she does it somewhere around the second year. By then it would’ve been like asking the corridor why it connects their doors. It just does.
Sometimes, just before 6:30, he steps out and stands at the railing for a moment.
If you lean out far enough from here, you can see the whole corridor. Behind some doors, garlic hitting a hot wok. Others, the dry crack of cumin seeds in warm oil.
At least one flat, the sharp green sweetness of pandan leaves steaming in a pot. The smells meet somewhere around the middle of the corridor, and by the time they reach the lift lobby, you can’t pull them apart anymore. You just breathe.
Uncle Lim doesn’t call it anything.
Doesn’t think about it in words.
But he’d notice the day it went quiet.
And he’s old enough to know that quiet doesn’t announce itself. It just arrives, one closed door at a time, until the corridor smells like concrete and nothing else.
If you ask Uncle Lim why he never switches on his own stove, he’ll shrug. Point vaguely down the corridor.
Say something like, “𝘍𝘰𝘳 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵? 𝘔𝘺 𝘳𝘰𝘰𝘮 𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘰𝘯𝘦.”
But if you’re there at 6:29, one minute before the knock, you’ll see him do something he’d never admit to.
He straightens up in his chair. Turns down the TV volume. Faces the door.
And he waits. The way you wait for someone who has never, not once in six years, forgotten.
𝘌𝘢𝘵 𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘴𝘵.
Everything else can wait.
3am stories. Pass it on.
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