Outside the medical school is a street lined with food carts. Many are recent, while some have been there for a very long time, since the beginning, before most customers have been working at the famous institution. One of the oldest one is a Singaporean cart selling non-standard Chinese food. The lady who runs it does it alone and she also keeps it going latest. When you buy food from her she is always smiling and tries to have a conversation with you about your day. Her cart doesn't have the longest line, but somehow she keeps the business afloat. Perhaps because she is really the only one working there.
Around 11AM, she drives her pickup truck towing the cart. What appears to be her husband would help her roll the cart up the curb. These days this side of the street has a construction site, so someone has built an asphalt ramp up the sidewalk so construction carts can be wheeled up. They take advantage of this and roll their money-making cart up. It's heavy and it requires two people's effort to do that. But that's all the man does. He would drive off after waving at her.
She loses no time to start setting food up. And after that she starts to cook a few things in preparation. You have to serve the food fast; everyone here is in a hurry. And you have to make it cheap without compromising on the taste too much. Her food doesn't have the familiar flavor, which might explain why the line isn't as long as the stir-fried Chinese cart next to her or the Mexican cart next to that. She carefully arranges all the utensils and napkins, and when everything is ready and steaming hot, she puts up the placard of pictures of the available food with the prices. The pictures seem quite faded but her spirit never did in all these years.
But now she was closing up. It was a very cold day and that meant a lot of people didn't want to stand out there waiting for the food. Many opted for the unpleasant cafeteria food inside the canteen or the hospital cafeteria. Still, there was business. And she stayed till 3PM before giving up and closed things up. She was alone, wearing thick, yellow workman's gloves that is half covered in grease. She had put away the food, cleaned all the tops, wiped off the oil after it was cooled off. She wasn't wearing enough layers but the work of closing up required quite a bit of manual effort and she was a bit sweating, actually. Her face has aged since she started working here. They don't have a restaurant like many of the carts here; it's just her own cooked food made only for this purpose, this cart. In a few minutes her husband, or that man, at least, would show up to pick her up and tow the cart back to her home. Now she is unhinging the doors and closing a flap, making sure everything is tight and nothing would come off on the way back.
Today was an OK day, she told herself. She spent this time, like always, thinking about the people she had spoken to. Most were established customers who had gotten used to her food and found the exoticism appealing. She knew all the names of these people, even if she couldn't pronounce them correctly. Especially the really foreign ones. Like this Indian man whose name she always mispronounced but he always got a kick out of it and made them both laugh. Today he told her the great news that he was getting married soon. She was very happy for him, and in addition to saying more witty things and made him feel even better, she gave him two extra Singaporean dumplings. Now she thought about his face, how he smiled, how excited he was, and that brought a smile to her that revealed even more readily the wrinkles of years that have passed.
She clamped down the last lever and locked the padlock that is attached to the lever. And she waited. But she thought more about her conversation with the Indian man. He was a doctor, a resident, to be more precise. He was busy as hell but managed to snatch a girl and even make the time to attend his own wedding. The girl was also a resident in a different ward. Would they be happy together? The lady didn't think so because they didn't seem to have any time for each other. Young people are all so ambitious and focus exclusively at their goals. She worked hard, but between getting home now and preparing the food for the next day, she had nothing to do but sit by her pots and pots of flowers and watch the day go by, sometimes dozing off.
It was getting colder, and the wind started to pick up, making whooshy sounds through this narrow street lined with medical buildings. She was starting to feel the chill down her bones. She looked down at the pair of handyman's gloves covering up her wrinkly hands. She had a lot of stories, way before her stint here at her own food cart in front of such prestigious institution. And yet, sh wondered if this was what she wanted to do, and what she really wanted to do was something lively.
And she waited until the familiar truck creaking with its very bad brakes showed up. The man sluggishly crawls out of his seat and helped her move the cart back down to street level and behind the pickup. She said it was cold after greeting him. They seemed like friends but they didn't really say so much to each other before both getting into the truck. She had a lot to say, but she had learned that not everyone wanted to listen, and this old food has no idea what she meant. and so off they went to her boring life. But tomorrow would be another day. And her aged face, arms, and the distances in her eyes, all made her ask herself what the day had meant to her.
