Aquinas had a long day. When I went to bed on Thursday, he was still awake, talking about grading papers. When I woke up on Friday and went to meet a friend for lunch, he wasn’t in the house; I assumed he’d gone to some 24-hour cafe to grade and hadn’t come back yet, but would return home soon and shower and sleep. But when I came back from work on Friday evening, it seemed he had never returned or showered or slept. And because he didn’t have a phone, I couldn’t call him.

Uh oh.

I sent a Skype message, but no response. I waited a while, wondering whether I should start asking colleagues of his whether they’d seen him, and how to even begin to start to go about trying to do that. I tried not to worry. This is Singapore, not Chicago or New York; chances are he wasn’t lying in a gutter in an alley sans not only phone but also wallet.

Then he came home and everything was okay again. Except that he was really tired.