I am free to write again.

My disappearance in the past few days was not, in any way, related to what I am about to say. Even so, some of you may have put two and two together and have figured out rightly. And some of you may already have certain preconceived notions, none of which I am obliged to dispel or agree with.

Jo and I are taking a time out.

Which, as we both agree, is not necessarily a bad thing.

To my delight, Borders carried the book I had been looking for. I was surprised when, this time, after having found the title in their database, the staffer at the information counter actually went off to fetch the book. I had fully expected to have been handed the slip of paper on which he scribbled the details of the book and be left to search for the title myself.

As I made my way to the cashier, Jo asked to take a look. Then she proceeded ahead of me to the cashier and paid for it.

Thank you, Jo.

'I miss being in Hong Kong,' I said.

A beat.

'And Phuket. And Taipei.'

'Or anywhere else,' you concluded quite simply.

Where there is only you and I? Yes.

There is nothing else that I want now other than to wake up with you and have a long breakfast, just as we had on that beautiful Tuesday morning in October.

Happy 10th, my love.

'I don't believe in love… that I can again fall in love and be loved again. Sometimes when I see a couple, my heart smiles a little – to know that love still exists – but aches a little when I realise that I can't have love. So, one thing that caught me in your blog was your intensity for her. Your unrelentlessness for her. I was moved by your words… and I secretly wish I was her, even without knowing who you were (except) just the idea of you. I think every girl would want to be Jo… '

Words from a reader that I recalled in the wake of the fight we had last night. Words which made me wonder:

Do you not see what is in my heart?

‘You’ve stopped writing,’ she said as she absently scooped her soup.

‘Stopped writing?’

‘The darker things that you used to write about,’ she clarified. ‘The edgier stuff.’

‘Because I am happy. Because many people know who you are, I should not speak of issues that would in any way disparage you. Because there are many things I cannot say simply for the fact that you read me.’

Then I looked into her eyes and simply said: ‘Don’t ask for what you cannot handle.’

That conversation made me recall an entry I had written a month ago in the wake of an argument we had, an entry I never posted.

This blog has fallen silent of late. By ‘silent’, I mean to say it is not that I have not been writing but, rather, I have lost a certain voice I once possessed to speak of all that is in my heart, especially of those regarding past loves. The liberty of expression I once enjoyed is gone.

And I have begun writing offline once more, just like how I used to. It is perhaps ironic that I have reverted to writing offline for the sake of privacy when, a mere year ago, I took everything that was private and made it public. For every sentence that yearns to be said, there exists a countenance in rationality to withhold it.

Full circle.

Recently, a fellow blogger confided in me the existence of an undisclosed blog of hers that she fills with things she cannot say in the mainstream one she keeps.

‘Too many friends who know me reads that one,’ she explained.

‘Why keep another blog?’ I asked. ‘Why not just take it offline?’

Before she could answer, I continued: ‘I know. It’s because we are all closet exhibitionists. We want to be read. We want to engage and be engaged. We want to be… known.’

She began to hem and haw.

I suppose the reason is that inexplicable sense of gratification at seeing one’s writing published. That reading the passages one has written on a medium that is hosted half a world away brings about a renewed perspective. It is like rediscovering a message in a bottle you cast out into the seas only to have it wash up at your feet years later, years after the subject matter has been forgotten. And the same sense of discovering that message can be said for readers.

As for me, maybe it is for the better that I keep my thoughts stashed away in the attic. Sure, I can go about hopping from one blog to another like some do, like some elusive digirati fugitive, but I refuse to on the grounds that A tiny blip in the continuum is sanctitiously mine and mine alone. I would rather stop writing in it than to desecrate it with censorship – self-imposed or indirectly exerted on me – and have it become something I feel no attachment to any more.

Too many questions.

Too many explainations.

None of which I should be obliged to answer.

I stepped out of the office and into a blazing sunset. In a sky a pastel blue, puffy clouds were alit by a setting sun of such a fiery red that they looked as though they were on fire. The sight gave both my colleague and I pause, and for a moment all we could do were to stand at the driveway with our necks craned, staring in awe.

'It's beautiful,' I whispered. The colleague, with mouth agape, could only nod, unable to tear her gaze away.

At first I thought you must have had something to do with it, just as how you had the day you flew. Then I recalled a private joke we once shared – about a certain Jacob who would paint the skies to cheer you up whenever you were feeling down – and that made me smile. Yes, it could only be him because I had been feeling down all day.

The colleague and I parted at the traffic lights. I walked on, a lone pedestrian against the current of rush hour traffic, my pace unhurried, for you would not arrive for another three hours. I looked up once again and saw that the painted sky was no more; the fiery orange now a coat of rust, and the blue an ominous shade of gray. I had not gone on far before a light drizzle began to fall. Little did I knew that it portended a clash you and I would have later in the night, one that I could not have seen coming in any way.