The Coffee Shop Opens at Six
The coffee shop under Blk 90 opens at six. I arrive at six-fourteen when the kaya is still soft and Uncle has not yet switched to the louder radio station.
Kopi si kosong, no sugar, cup hot enough to cloud my glasses if I lean in too quickly. I choose the corner seat where trays can slide past my elbow without a negotiation.
Condensation on the awning drips in a rhythm separate from the ceiling fan. The fan wobbles on its third rotation and I count commas against that wobble until the line sounds too clever and I delete half of it.
A boy repeats multiplication tables under his breath. An auntie folds the newspaper along creases older than the headlines. I draft on the back of a parking receipt because the notebook stayed upstairs on purpose.
Toast arrives with butter in uneven squares that mimic the HDB window grid. I eat slowly so Commonwealth Avenue cannot hurry me into its crush before seven.
Uncle rinses cups in a basin whose water cloudiness tells the hour better than any clock on the wall. He never comments on how early I am — familiarity expressed as indifference.
By six-fifty the queue doubles with office workers pretending the day started earlier than it did. I leave before the rush rewrites the room temperature.
Walking back I hear the first bus compress air at the stop — a sound Queenstown uses as morning punctuation.
Corridor air mixes detergent with fried shallots when I step off — a Dawson signature I notice only when writing it down.
At the desk I transcribe the receipt lines and remove two adjectives that sounded like a brochure. What remains is steam, wobble, and warm porcelain.
Reading this in a drier month still needs wrist humidity and cup clink supplied by imagination — the soundtrack does not change.
Tomorrow the corner seat may be taken. Today it was mine by timing, not by sign.
I refuse to sermonise about breakfast virtue. Bodies choose their own hours; mine asks for toast before the car park roof catches sun.
I leave when the porcelain is dry and the awning quiet — corridor, lift, lamp in that order.
On the way up I read the lift maintenance notice without absorbing it — a dawn ritual for residents who like pretending paperwork is weather.
Margin note would read: steam, wobble, receipt — three proofs the morning began without drama.
I tuck the receipt into the notebook spine and declare the hour complete.
Commonwealth interchange will roar later. For now the coffee shop owns the timeline.
A mynah lands on the railing, looks at me with contractual indifference, and leaves.
At home I rinse the cup and watch water spiral down the sink like a miniature estate seen from above.
Pen Swift keeps these fragments because mornings deserve a witness who is not rushing toward a meeting room.
The page closes without instruction. The toast was adequate. That is sufficient praise.
This is a personal blog. Everything here reflects my own experiences, opinions, memories and impressions. Notes are personal reflections, not professional, medical, legal, financial or news-reporting advice. Where a note touches a serious event nearby, I only describe what I heard or saw from my end of the street — never as reporting. If I have got something wrong, please tell me and I will fix it.