I count fourteen steps, then I count again and arrive at fifteen, then I accept that the number is a habit rather than a fact. The wet market near Balestier sits above the street like a secret you already knew about if you grew up shopping with your mother on Saturday mornings. The stairs are concrete with a metal edge that has gone smooth from shoes. They are never quite dry. Even when the sun is out, there is a patch near the middle that keeps its own small weather.
The first draft of this scrap was too sentimental. I wrote about childhood and rice sacks and someone else's nostalgia leaked onto my page. I deleted all of it. The second draft was too cold — a list of stalls without breath. Deleted again. What survived on the third attempt is closer to the truth of how I actually climb: not remembering the past, not reporting the present, just noticing what the steps do to pace and breath and the plastic bag in my left hand.
On step four the smell changes — fish, then fruit, then the sharp clean of someone hosing a floor somewhere above. On step nine my knee reminds me it exists, politely. On step twelve a boy runs down against traffic and an auntie scolds without heat. I adjust my grip on the bag. Inside are tomatoes I do not need yet and kangkong I do need tonight and a packet of noodles because the fridge is honest about emptiness only when you open it.
At the top the market is loud in the organised way markets are loud: stall calls, scales clacking, plastic rustling, laughter that is mostly transaction. I buy what I came for and one thing I did not — ginger because the uncle said it was fresh and I am weak for authority when it sounds like care. I avoid the crowded aisle where shoulders touch. I am not good in tight crowds; I prefer the edge where light comes from the roof panels and dust floats like slow confetti.
Downstairs is faster. Gravity assists. The steps feel more slippery going down and I use the rail even though I tell myself I am still young enough not to. At the bottom I look back once. Fourteen or fifteen. The difference does not matter except to people who want numbers to behave. Markets rarely behave; they just continue.
Walking back toward Whampoa I think about rewriting as a form of honesty. The first version lied by ornament. The second lied by omission. The third still lies a little — every paragraph does — but at least it lies in my voice. At home I unpack vegetables near the window. Condensation gathers on the glass edge. The fan is off because afternoon has not yet asked for it. I copy the final scrap into the notebook and mark the corner with a small square in ultramarine ink because that is my ridiculous system for notes that took more than one attempt.
If you climb these stairs, watch the middle patch. It will look dry and not be. Carry fewer bags than you think you can manage. Count if it helps rhythm; do not count if it becomes superstition. The market will be loud and ordinary and exactly what you needed without calling itself that.