Story 1
Two Kopi O, One Empty Chair
At six forty every morning, Uncle Lim placed his umbrella against the same marble table and ordered two kopi O.
It did not matter whether the sky was clear. The umbrella came with him. So did the folded newspaper under his arm, the small tin of medicated oil in his shirt pocket, and the instruction he gave before anyone asked.
“Two kopi O. One less sweet.”
The first cup was placed in front of him. The second went across the table, beside the empty plastic chair.
For fifteen years, the person taking that order had been Mei Fong, who knew that one cup should be hot enough to fog Uncle Lim’s spectacles and the other should be left alone until its surface stopped trembling. When Mei Fong injured her wrist and went to stay with her daughter, the morning shift passed to her nephew, Jason.
Jason was twenty-two, wore a black cap backwards and had recently completed a diploma in business administration. He believed Wah Seng could improve through systems.
On his first morning he created coloured order slips. Red meant drinks, blue meant noodles and green meant toast. He numbered the tables. He placed a QR code near the cash register, although most regulars treated it as decoration.
At six forty, Uncle Lim arrived.
“Two kopi O. One less sweet.”
Jason wrote the order on a red slip. He looked at the empty chair.
