The Last Bowl
For as long as Nurul could remember, Saturday mornings meant mee rebus at Uncle Rahim's stall. Her father would order two bowls, one with extra lime, and the two of them would sit at the same corner table beside the drinks stall, saying very little, while the hawker centre buzzed around them.
So when she saw the handwritten sign taped to the stall's metal shutter, she read it three times before the words made sense. After forty-two years, the stall would close at the end of the month. Uncle Rahim was retiring.
'He's seventy-five, Nurul,' her father said gently, when she complained all the way home. 'His knees can't take it any more. Standing over a hot stove from five in the morning is not a job for an old man.'
Nurul knew her father was right, but that did not make it any easier. That night, she lay awake, thinking about all the mornings she had taken for granted. Then she had an idea.
For the next two weeks, she spent every spare moment at her desk. She spoke to her neighbours, her cousins and even the auntie at the drinks stall, and she asked each of them the same question: what did Uncle Rahim's stall mean to you? She copied their answers neatly onto coloured cards and pasted them, together with photographs, into a thick scrapbook.
On the stall's last morning, the queue stretched past the bicycle racks. When Nurul and her father finally reached the front, she slid the scrapbook across the counter. Uncle Rahim wiped his hands on his apron and opened it slowly. He turned the pages one by one, his lips moving silently as he read. Halfway through, he stopped and took off his spectacles.
'I thought I was only selling noodles,' he said at last, his voice thick.
He insisted that their mee rebus was free that day. Nurul protested, but he simply waved his ladle at her, the way he had always waved at the children who hovered near his stall.
They ate at their usual table. The gravy was as rich and sweet as ever, yet Nurul found it hard to swallow. Across the table, her father pretended to be very interested in his lime.