They sat side by side in silence as their taxi cab sped to the first of the two destinations. Hers, then his. Funny how it seemed all the traffic lights were consorting against him when it was now that he most wanted his time alone with her to stretch for as long as possible.

Harsh, clinical fluourescent light spilled into the vehicle. He squinted and leaned his head back, his eyes tearing from the intensity. Yet the dance of those lights, horizontal streaks of bright white, red, green and yellow, mesmerized him so much he continued to watch in a squint. He wondered if she was looking at the same thing. He turned to look at her and found her looking back at him.

Now, the cab was traversing past another neighborhood. The only lights that remained were the yellow lights lining the quiet road.

He stirred in his seat. He felt his heart swell. Every minute that he agonized over the singular thought in his head was a minute closer to her destination, a minute lost. Then the moment will pass and will be forever lost. Right then, as if the forces of nature had somehow decided to conspire with him, a light turned red. It has to be now.

As the engine idled, he turned to her, placed his hand lightly on her far cheek and gently turned her head to him. They exchanged the briefest of looks. He leaned forward; her gaze remained on his eyes as the distance between them quickly narrowed.

Her lips were soft and warm. Seconds passed. Then her lips, still pressed against his, broke into a wide smile that was quickly followed by a light laugh. Quietly shocked, he pulled back and searched her face.

“What?,” he implored softly.

“That was not unexpected.”

“So you were expecting me to.”

She shook her head.

That confused him. “But you said…”

He searched her face again. She looked away. But she was still smiling. He turned away and fixed his gaze at the passing landscape. Even so, he could feel that her eyes were now upon him. It was his turn to smile as he chuckled in his heart at this cat-and-mouse game they have been playing ever since they first met. They were two persons engaged in a dance of subtleties, stepping gingerly back and forth as they toed an imaginary line they knew not to cross, even as they were bursting with desires.

“I don’t want the night to end yet,” he found himself saying.

It’s been a while since I’d written in these pages.

You could say I’ve lost heart.

The last entry of any significance was dated November 25, 2009, a day of which its significance will not be fully comprehended for some time to come, even if it had been solemnly felt.

Well, I’m here now. But I’m not really here—I haven’t been for years—but I will soon be.

Some people blog out of boredom, others for fun, for attention or for profit. Most don’t care about how they write. I do.

Which is why, in having said nothing, I’ve said everything.

What if everything begins tonight? What if everything ends tonight?

A woman I once knew said that to me a year ago. Back then, as we found ourselves smack in the middle of a complex web of hopes and fears both unspoken and divulged, we hinged our future on one phone call. It was drastic, yes, yet nothing ended that night. It would seem the forces of attraction were too great for a tidy resolution, and too strong for our two separate universes to not collide in a spectacular fashion.

Today, I found myself revisiting those words, words I wanted to say but found myself unable to. Again, it would have been drastic. Fatalistic, even. The thought that we could somehow neatly contain the countless variables present in the affairs of these two hearts with this decree was, in hindsight, hopelessly oversimplified. But at least it would have been defined, I thought.

Well, I thought wrong.

Everything is transient, I said to you.

How right I was.

_{30.07.06
2:27am}

It would have been on my 32nd birthday.

One click of a button. No fanfare. No last post explaining why I would do such a thing. No password-protecting the blog, and none of that email-me-and-I’ll-give-you-the-password nonsense, as though my blog is so cheap a thing to barter. It seemed fitting: a gift of change to myself on the day I was born.

But I’m still here. The blog is still here. Which only begs the question: why?

If everything was as simple as you thought, I’d be you.

But I’m not. And I’m glad I’m not.

The only reason is because, in the end, everything will fade away.