3 June 2025 · wet market
Fourteen Steps Up the Market
I counted the steps on a Sunday morning because someone ahead of me was counting too, and once I started I could not stop. Fourteen steps from the foot of the wet market staircase to the top landing, wet stone underfoot, the smell rising before the stalls came into view — fish and greens and the particular detergent they use on the floors before the vendors arrive. The aunties with trolleys were already manoeuvring at the base, angling wheels with the practised patience of people who have done this every week for longer than I have lived in the neighbourhood.
The woman in front of me counted aloud for her mother, who climbed slowly with one hand on the rail and the other on her daughter's elbow. One, two, three — steady, unhurried, as if the numbers themselves were a kind of handrail. I hung back so they would not feel watched, though I was watching in the way you watch anything that makes the morning feel human. At seven they were on step nine. At the top landing the light landed flat and pale, the way it does at about nine when the sun has cleared the block but not yet turned harsh.
Fourteen steps, though I only verified once
I had come for kai lan and eggs, nothing more ambitious than that. My tote bag was folded inside my larger bag because the market rewards people who can pivot in narrow aisles without knocking over a bucket of ice. The trolleys at the bottom were stacked with empty crates and rolled-up canvas, waiting for the return trip down. An uncle reversed his down the first four steps with a skill I envied — brake, tilt, brake again — while an auntie beside him carried two bags in each hand and still found time to scold him gently for going too fast.
The smell of wet stone followed me up. It is not a clean smell and not an unpleasant one; it is the smell of a place that has been hosed down and will be hosed down again before noon. My shoes slipped slightly on step six where the water had pooled, and I gripped the rail without thinking. The daughter ahead said fourteen when they reached the landing, and her mother laughed and said fifteen, and they argued softly about whether the first flat step counted. I sided with fourteen in my head and kept walking.
The trolleys know the route better than I do
Inside, the market was already loud in the contained way markets are — vendors calling, knives on boards, fans pushing air down the aisles. I bought what I came for and took the stairs down on the other side because the queue for the lift was six people deep and nobody looked impatient. On the way down I counted again and got thirteen, then fourteen, depending on whether I included the landing. I decided the exact number mattered less than the fact that someone had counted aloud for another person, step by step, on a morning that could have been lonely and was not.
At home I rinsed the kai lan and put the eggs in the bowl I keep for them in the fridge. I wrote the number fourteen on the back of a receipt and stuck it in my notebook next to a description of the light on the top landing. It is a small detail, easily forgotten by afternoon, and that is why I wanted it on the shelf with the other notes. The wet market will still be there next Sunday. The steps will still be wet. The aunties will still bring trolleys that know the corners better than any map. I will probably count again, quietly this time, without anyone to hear me.
From my end of the road the market is close enough to walk to with a bag and far enough to feel like a small outing. I like the staircase because it slows everyone down to the same pace for a minute — no skipping, no rushing the lift doors — just stone and rail and the smell rising ahead. The woman and her mother were gone by the time I came down, absorbed into the aisles like everyone else. I remember them when I climb those steps now, and I count under my breath, not for superstition, just for the rhythm. Fourteen, more or less. The light at the top. The trolleys waiting below. A Sunday morning that needed no more drama than that.