EPISODE 5: THE STAIRS 🪜
856 Words
5:38 am. Day 5.*
Li Chen didn’t park across the street today. He parked right in the site lot, got out of the car, and locked it. No coffee. No excuse. Just him, his hoodie, and 22 steps staring back at him.
He told himself he was going up “to check the overnight temperature drop on the concrete.” It was a flimsy excuse; the concrete was perfectly fine. His heart, however, wasn’t.
*Step 1.*
His boot hit the first concrete stair. The sound echoed. Too loud. He froze and looked around. The guard was still by the front gate, looking down at his phone. No one was watching.
Li Chen exhaled.
*Step 2. Step 3.*
His hands were cold even though the morning wasn’t. Sweat coated his palms. He had designed this exact stairwell — calculated the rise, the run, the load. 22 steps. 7.5 inches each. Perfectly to code. None of the math helped him now.
*Step 4. Step 5.*
From upstairs, he heard it. A soft shuffling. The sound of a prayer mat being adjusted. She was already there. Early.
Li Chen stopped on step 6 and gripped the railing. The bare metal was freezing under his fingers. Real.
*Step 7.*
He froze entirely because then he heard her voice. Not the Adhan. Not a formal recitation. Just a whisper. Teaching.
“Again,” she said softly. “Slower this time. Like this...”
A child’s voice copied her. Messy. Young. Trying incredibly hard.
Li Chen’s chest tightened. He had watched from the car for four days, listened from across the street, and googled every word. But he had never heard her teaching up close. It did something to him. Step 7 suddenly felt like step 700.
His foot hovered over step 8 and simply wouldn’t drop. What if she opened the door right now? What would he even say? *“I’m the architect. I like your posture during sujud”*? He’d look ridiculous. He’d be escorted right off the site.
*5:47 am. Exactly.*
*Allahu Akbar... Allahu Akbar...*
The Adhan started from the masjid two blocks down. At the exact same time, upstairs, the musalla door opened.
Li Chen ducked back down three steps like an i***t, his heart leaping into his throat. He heard footsteps on the landing above. Then, silence.
She wasn’t coming down the stairs. She was just standing there on the other side of the door, ten steps above him. He could hear her breathing. Or maybe that was just the sound of his own.
Li Chen counted his breaths. One... two... three...
He knew he should leave, go back to his car, and pretend this never happened. Instead, he whispered, so quietly that even he could barely hear it:
“Assalamu Alaikum.”
He didn’t actually expect an answer.
*“Wa Alaikum Assalam.”*
Her voice. Clear. Calm. Right above him.
Li Chen’s eyes shut tight on their own. She had heard him. She had answered.
He didn’t move. He didn’t breathe. He felt like if he moved even a muscle, the moment would shatter.
More footsteps followed. The children. Three pairs of small shoes shuffling.
“Is someone there?” one of the little girls asked.
A brief pause stretched out. Then the woman's voice came again, softer now: “Just a worker. Early.”
*Just a worker.*
Li Chen felt something crack deep in his chest. It wasn’t painful. It felt like ice finally breaking apart on a frozen river.
The door closed. The footsteps faded away from the stairs and back into the musalla. The Adhan kept playing, and the light upstairs remained on.
Li Chen stayed entirely still on step 7 for two solid minutes. Then he turned around and walked back down. All seven steps. Slow. His legs felt strangely weak.
*6:15 am. His car.*
He sat there, his hands resting on the steering wheel, making no move to drive. She knew someone was on the stairs. She had told the children it was “just a worker.” She hadn’t sounded scared, and she hadn’t sounded angry. She sounded steady. Like she had been expecting him.
Li Chen pressed his forehead against the steering wheel. Once. Twice.
“SubhanAllah,” he whispered to the dark dashboard.
*8:30 am. Site office.*
Lao Wang playfully threw a pen at him. “You’re late. And you look like you just saw a ghost.”
Li Chen caught the pen but didn’t throw it back. “I was at the stairs,” he said. It was the first time he had told the absolute truth all week.
Lao Wang frowned. “Which stairs?”
“The ones leading to the third floor.”
Lao Wang stared at him for five seconds, then shrugged it off. “Well, the concrete won’t pour itself, Boss.”
Li Chen opened his blueprint, but his eyes kept drifting to the very top of the page — to the empty white space right above the east wing design.
To step 8. He hadn’t taken it yet. But he knew he would. Soon.
[END OF EP 5]
- Writer
