15 July 2026 · kopitiam under next block

The Uncle and the Wet Ring

I came down early because the corridor was already humming with someone else's radio, and I wanted the kopitiam before the block woke properly. The coffee shop under the next block has been there longer than I have lived on Bukit Merah View, though I only started going in regularly after I stopped rushing for the MRT at half past seven. That morning I ordered kopi-o kosong the way I always do, and the uncle behind the counter nodded without looking up, which is its own kind of greeting after enough visits.

The marble table near the fan had a wet ring from the previous cup, and I watched the uncle wipe it in the same slow circle he always uses, as if the ring would return if he did not attend to it properly. He wiped it twice, checked the cloth, wiped once more, and only then set my cup down. I had seen him do this on other mornings and never thought much about it until that day, when the rain started on the zinc edge outside and the sound made the whole shop feel smaller.

The shop before the regulars arrived

The fan above the tables only turned one way. It pushed the air towards the shutter side, where the rain was beginning to stripe the pavement, and anyone sitting on the other bench had to accept a warmer corner. I sat where I always sat, in the path of the breeze, because the uncle had once told me that side was cooler and I believed him without asking why. The zinc awning outside clicked softly when the drops landed, and the smell of kopi and toast mixed with the damp air coming in through the half-open shutter.

An auntie at the next table folded the corners of her newspaper with the precision of someone who had done it for decades. She did not speak to me, but she nodded when the uncle brought her teh halia, and he answered with a small grunt that sounded like agreement. The shop had its own rhythm: the kettle, the clink of cups, the fan turning, the rain finding every seam in the awning. I wrote nothing in my notebook that morning. I just watched the uncle move between tables with his cloth.

The ring always came back by the next cup

When I finished, I carried my cup to the return tray and the uncle took it without comment. The wet ring on my table was already forming again from the condensation, and I saw him glance at it as I left. He would wipe it before the next person sat down. I walked back through the void deck with my umbrella still folded, because the rain had not yet reached the intensity that would send everyone scrambling. The estate smelled like wet concrete and breakfast.

Later, at home, I boiled the kettle for a second cup and thought about how some habits are small enough to miss until you watch them repeated. The uncle and his wet ring. The fan that only turned one way. The kopi-o kosong that tasted the same whether the morning was bright or grey. None of it was remarkable, and that was partly why I wanted to write it down before it drifted off — not as a lesson, just as a record of an ordinary morning when the rain started on the zinc edge and a man wiped a circle on marble as if the day depended on it.

I have gone back since, and he still wipes the ring the same way. I still sit on the cooler side. The kopitiam under the next block does not change much, and I am glad of that. Some mornings I read on my phone; some mornings I stare at the shutter and listen to the estate wake up. The uncle rarely speaks beyond what the order requires, and I have stopped expecting more. There is enough in the gesture — the nod, the cloth, the cup placed exactly where the ring used to be.