Shelf notes · revised 20 May 2026

Carried home

Objects that crossed my threshold and stayed — not because they are valuable, but because they remember errands I would otherwise forget.

I am not a collector. My flat is small and the corridor already holds enough shoes. These six things earned their space by accident: a torn handle, a chip in ceramic, a receipt I meant to discard. Writing about them is my way of filing the week without pretending it had a plot.

The chipped kopi cup

I borrowed this cup from the stall near the river so often that the uncle stopped asking whether I was eating in or taking away. The chip appeared one morning in January — a crescent near the rim I only noticed when the light caught it through the window. I asked if he wanted payment for it. He laughed and said cups chip; people do not.

I wash it by hand at home though it is not mine to keep permanently. Each time I return it, the stall smells of toast and kaya, and the office crowd has already filled the far tables. The chip has become a landmark for my thumb.

A ceramic kopi cup on a laminate table beside a folded newspaper

The market bag with the torn handle

Saturday at the wet market: papaya, kangkong, two oranges because the auntie said they were sweet this week. The string handle cut into my palm halfway to the lift. An older woman wordlessly retied it tighter — a knot I could not replicate if I tried. I carried the bag up to the eighth floor one-handed, oranges rolling against my wrist.

The bag hangs on a hook behind the door with other bags that survived similar mornings. I should replace it. I have not yet, which is its own kind of habit.

A covered market aisle with stalls and morning shoppers

The desk lamp from the charity shop

Bent shade, brass stem with a dent, bulb that hums when I switch it on. I found it on a shelf between a rice cooker and a stack of picture frames, carried it to the counter, and walked home with the receipt in my pocket and the lamp in both arms. The lift was crowded with children returning from tuition. Nobody asked what I bought. The lamp throws the same warm circle every evening — enough to read by, not enough to pretend the room is larger than it is.

A desk lamp illuminating handwritten pages and an envelope

The expired bus card in the drawer

I forgot to top it up before the card expired. Instead of throwing it away, I kept it in the stationery drawer between paper clips and an spare MRT card from three years ago. The photograph on the back shows me squinting in fluorescent light, hair shorter, expression sceptical of the camera. The card no longer opens gates, but it still opens a memory of routes I took before I changed offices — the 133, the walk from the bus stop, the shortcut I stopped using after the sirens.

Dusk light through a bus window with blurred street signs

The notebook with the soft cover

Stationery shop near the MRT, chosen because the cover bent instead of cracking in my bag. Half the pages are grocery lists. The other half are sentences I wrote standing up — fragments that later became riverside notes or stairwell entries. The spine is cracked from humidity. I keep it on the shelf above the kettle because that is where my hand falls when I mean to write and only have five minutes.

Rain streaks on a window with blurred street lights beyond

The rain jacket that never dries properly

Folded over the balcony chair because the bathroom vent is too weak and I dislike the smell of indoor drying. It is thin, cheap, and perfectly adequate for the drizzle that passes for rain here on most afternoons. I bought it after a week of arriving at work with damp shoulders. It lives by the door with the market bags, a reminder that leaving the flat prepared is a kindness to your future self — even when you forget it on sunny days and get caught anyway.

A canal bridge after rain with brown water and overcast sky

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