Alone in the City, a Lunchbox at 7 PM

7 PM, a takeout box opens in a small rented room. The phone sits still on the table — the work chat, the old-classmates chat, the hometown chat, all of them there, and not a single message. Only the air-con humming on the wall.

He sits there, spooning up the cooling boxed rice. No one calls, no one asks. He finishes the meal, snaps the lid back on, and that's it. One dinner passing like every other dinner this year.

He scrolls his phone — the feed is all photos of people out eating in groups, laughing together. He opens the food-delivery app, stares at it for a while, then closes it. Not because he isn't hungry, but because he can't bear to order in and eat alone one more time.

Back home, by 6 PM his mom would already be calling his name from the kitchen. Here, the only voice is the air conditioner. Then it hits him: since moving to the city, no one has casually texted "have you eaten yet" — not because he has no friends, but because everyone is busy with a life of their own.

No one asks if I've eaten. Not friendless — just everyone's busy.

Some evenings you eat alone in the middle of a crowded city. How long has it been since someone asked you, "have you eaten yet?"