My fellow residents file out of the lifts on the ground floor muttering “lok yu, lok yu.” It’s raining. It’s raining.
I step out and see that the tiny shop across the street sells eggs and tofu. I knew it was there all along but never braved the uncertainty of stacked food that you must tell someone to fetch for you. If I brave it, this will save me a trip to the overly-packaged supermarket down the hill and over the slippery pavement. Not in these flip-flops.
Fuck it, I say aloud like the crazy person I am as I cross the street because that’s what living alone will do to you eventually. And true to form, I laugh too because I would never have thought that my footwear would give me cause to speak to this stern-looking shopkeeper. A salt of the earth Auntie.
28HKD for fifteen eggs and 5HKD for one large cube of tofu. She doesn’t say this, I am just reading the cardboard signs. My degree in Chinese pays for itself in small but valuable installments. I ask for both and she fetches them without saying anything. A cube of tofu cut from a large tray is a satisfying thing to behold. Michelangelo sculpting marble. Fleeting, the cube collapses into a lump as she bags it and holds it in my general direction. My first lump of tofu ever and it is thankless, the woman’s expression as miserable as today’s weather. But, then again, tofu has no flavor so the woman’s reaction is fitting in its own way.
The lump is warm and I can feel it there in my canvas bag against my side as I make my way back to my impostor-apartment. The eggs I bought smell fresh off the farm and so I rinse them one by one when I get back.