Border Rules

Chapter 27 – Border Rules

Causeways teach patience. The morning bus exhaled at Kranji, doors folding themselves into good behavior. Aleem and Aoi joined the line that had decided to be a rope rather than a puddle: single file, passports ready, phones sleeping. In his tote–water, plasters, two pens, a slim folder with their rules for travel, a zip bag of small notes, and a short list that read like a pantry turned into a poem: dashi, soy (small), chilli jam, instant noodles (humble), tea bags for emergencies, biscuits for aunties, toothpaste that makes fewer promises.

A: At the gantry. Lowercase face engaged, her text said.

Aleem: Two people ahead of the auntie with the purple trolley. She is the line boss; obey, he replied.

Aoi’s cap stayed on until the room asked for faces. She pulled it off at the sign–No hats / no phones / no photography–and stored it like a person who respects furniture. “Good morning,” she said, which is the right language for border posts.

“Good morning,” he echoed. “Rules?”

She recited, half‑smiling. “No photos. Phones down. Single file. We don’t joke with officers. We read signs like scripture. We keep our luggage honest–no fresh meats, no eggs, no drama.”

“Correct,” he said. “We proceed by invitation.”

The ICA hall had taught itself to be a machine with manners. People fed the lanes; lanes fed the counters. Officers looked at faces and decided to trust or to ask more questions. Trust wasn’t a compliment; it was workflow.

Aoi’s turn. She stepped up, passport in both hands, the way you hold something that belongs to a government and also to your life. The officer looked up, looked down, looked up again. “Purpose?”

“Grocery run,” she said, English tidy. “Day trip. Back by evening.”

A stamp, a nod, and then the choreography of escalators, bus, bridge, river, second hall. Johor’s counters welcomed them with a different font but similar priorities. The line moved because everyone agreed not to become a problem.

“Near‑miss,” Aoi murmured when a student ahead of them lifted his phone to message a friend. He corrected himself before the sign could do it for him, pocketed the phone, and blushed privately.

“Handled,” Aleem said. He didn’t need to step in. Some lessons teach themselves when a room is arranged with the correct nouns.

City Square held its cool like a fridge made of escalators. The AEON supermarket lived where all good supermarkets live–under a chorus of fluorescent lights that have seen toddlers and grandmothers and men who forgot lists. Their trolley wheel chose straightness, a rare mercy.

“Pantry rules?” Aoi asked, switching from border grammar to domestic.

“Dry goods we trust. Spices we will use. No vanity items that taste like marketing. One experiment allowed,” he said. “Also: receipts kept; bags organized by gravity.”

“Approved,” she said. “We build a home pantry together without moving furniture yet.”

They began like sensible people do–with tea. He found a box labeled in a font that promised comfort and not miracles; she weighed two kinds of green and chose the one that wouldn’t try to be a biography. Into the trolley: soy sauce in a bottle sized for wrists; mirin too small to cause drama; bonito packets polite enough for weekday miso. Malaysian instant noodles auditioned for their affection; a chili jam performed without showboating.

At the aisle with biscuits, Aoi hesitated, reading names like surnames. “For your mother?”

“For my mother,” he said. “She respects pineapple tarts even when they cross borders.”

Aoi lifted a tin, then set it down. “Too sweet for breakfast,” she judged. She chose another–the kind that knows how to be a guest. “This one visits, then leaves.”

“Good biscuit,” he said.

They paused at the snacks aisle where optimism goes to shop. Aoi lifted a packet of curry puffs frozen in neat rows. She looked at him; he looked at the sign in his head that said No fresh meat across and shook his head kindly. “We avoid trouble,” he said. “Dry first, frozen later when we cook there.”

“Understood,” she said, returning the packet with a bow, which was both absurd and correct.

They debated toothpaste and decided to stay faithful to boring. They stood before a wall of rice like monks picking vows. “Two‑kilo bag,” he said. “We are not moving house.”

“And we can carry it without auditioning our backs,” she added.

“Correct.”

The basket grew heavier with sense: dried shiitake, seaweed sheets, sambal in a jar that didn’t pretend to be artisanal, kaya because jam needs cousins. A small bottle of sesame oil that had no reason to be proud. A tin of Milo, because Singapore insists.

“Experiment?” she asked, fulfilling the clause.

He considered. “Bubur chacha in a packet is a sin,” he said. “But–” He picked up a sachet of herbal tea made by an auntie‑faced brand. “This might heal our fake problems.”

“Approved,” she said. “We will report results to the auntie economy.”

At checkout, a hiccup pretended to be a mountain. His card, which had obeyed in countries with pushier banks, blinked its decline. The cashier’s face arranged itself into sympathy without melodrama.

Aleem reached for cash, calm. Aoi’s palm found his–two taps: here; one hold: stay. He lowered his hand in slow motion and produced his small notes zip. He counted like a bus conductor. The cashier waited with the patience taught by trolleys. The line behind them did not perform impatience.

“Sorry,” Aleem said because manners are a currency. “Card took leave.”

“Today many cards do that,” the cashier said, a sentence that made their morning belong to other people too. The cash closed the gap. The receipt slid into his folder like paper finally finding its family.

Outside the supermarket, they sat on a bench that had retired from being decorative. Aoi rested her hand on the rice sack, then on the box of tea, then on the Milo tin as if confirming their presence like a headcount.

“We have a pantry,” she said.

“We have a map,” he corrected. “Home is a series of shelves we teach to hold kindness.”

“Shelves,” she repeated, pleased.

Border, part two, is where patience earns its keep. The bus at JB CIQ filled with people who had learned to nap standing. The queue accordioned. A child sang to his shoelaces. A man in a shirt that meant business looked at his watch and smiled at it instead of scolding it.

At the Singapore hall, lanes operated like obedient rivers. A sign reminded them: Declare dutiable goods. No fresh meat, eggs, controlled items.

“Receipts,” Aoi said, half whisper, half glad to have props. He handed her the folder like a relay baton.

The near‑miss arrived with the harmless chaos of two currencies. A couple ahead tried to pay a little tax in the wrong money, realized, and laughed at themselves into correctness. Aoi’s palm grazed Aleem’s wrist–three taps: air. He nodded. “We take the slower lane,” he said, reading the room. “We keep our shoulders patient.”

The officer waved them forward. “Any declaration?” she asked.

“Dry goods only,” Aleem said. “Tea, sauce, Milo, rice. No fresh items.” He placed the receipt folder open to the page that made numbers look like they behaved.

The officer glanced, scanned, nodded. “Welcome back.”

“Thank you,” they said together, and meant it.

Back on the bus, the rice sat between their shoes like a useful child. Aoi leaned her shoulder into his for the length of a count. The bench of the bus approved.

“Signals saved us from inventing panic,” she said.

“Cash saved us from being content creators at a checkout,” he said. “Both are policies.”

At home, the kitchen made space like a host. He opened a cupboard that had been performing decency on a budget and shifted things gently–the way you make room for a friend’s toothbrush without announcing it.

Aoi set the tea on the second shelf, where kettles can see it. She placed the soy and mirin in the back corner where light is less honest. She slid the biscuits into the tin his mother trusts for visitors and wrote a small note on a sticky: For Ma. She looked at the Milo and smiled because certain tins are louder than nostalgia.

“May I… label?” she asked, holding a roll of modest tape and a pen.

“Please,” he said. “We will use lowercase.”

She wrote dashi / please rest on one; soy / patient on another; tea / any time on a third; biscuits / for aunties & bravery on the box for his mother. She set the labels like prayers you can actually eat.

His mother entered with the exact timing of a woman who has never once knocked on her own kitchen door. She surveyed the shelf, read the notes, and made a sound he had never heard a cupboard earn–a small hum of approval.

“You two went to JB and came back with grammar,” she said.

“Pantry grammar,” Aoi agreed. “We obey shelves.”

His mother accepted the biscuit tin with the respect due to a treaty. “Stamp,” she said. “Approved. Tea?”

“Tea,” they said.

They drank as citizens. His mother asked about queues and buses and whether the rice had behaved. Aoi reported on the trolley wheel that chose straightness and the card that staged a minor rebellion; his mother pronounced both correct–one a blessing, one a lesson. “Cash never wrong,” she said. “Phones late; money on time.”

Aoi lifted the herbal tea packet. “Experiment,” she confessed.

His mother squinted at the brand. “Auntie face,” she diagnosed. “Trust but verify. We brew after dinner when stomachs have opinions.”

“Approved,” Aoi said, adopting the household dialect.

In the evening, he added a new square to the locker door’s museum. Cut from the calendar corner that had left room for two more months, he wrote: Build shelves, not dramas. He slid it under Feed people first and above Choose together. The stack sighed as if a kitchen had found a new jar.

His phone chimed once.

A: Home. Today we taught borders and shelves to be kind. Thank you for carrying rice and rules.

Aleem: Home. Card recovered its dignity. The pantry says hello. Next: cook with new grammar. We proceed by invitation.

A: I will bring vegetables that cooperate.

He placed the phone face down. The fan rehearsed rain. The shelf held its new nouns without protest. He lay on his side toward the wall that had memorized his breath and counted because structure prefers to be used.

Two in, hold, three out. Not magic. Structure.

Respect. Distance. Gratitude.

Outside, buses argued politely with bridges, a cashier balanced notes of two nations, and on a cupboard shelf in a flat that believes in rules, a small jar of chili jam waited for a sentence to belong to.