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What happens when the sun disappears for a while? For two days, sometimes three days at a time. A friend in Australia says it’s been raining there for four days straight. I said, “Well, how ironic is that when you live in a place called Sunshine Coast?”

Broken Social Scene’s “World Sick” has a build up to it similar to “Stars and Sons”. Somewhere, Kevin plays keyboard on one side of the stage, while Sam, Charles and Brendan stare at their instruments like seeing a new coastline. Meanwhile, Justin at drums thinks of the next day and breakfast – maybe.

Two friends share a birthday today. One lives in Prague and the other in Savona Drive. Their birthdays inspired me to write something. And thank goodness the sun shines bright today to allow us to forget at least for the time being that spring is still days away.

So what does it mean to be “world sick”? Is world a metaphor for someone you love? If so, does one get “world sick” being away from their lover? Could it be like in Phoenix’s “Countdown” that we’re simply sick for the big sun?

In Montevideo, people sit in the sand to watch the sunset and each has his or her own selfish reason to think of endings as the sun drifts down away from cooled sands.

At a marketplace, the butchers hang their provisions on hooks. Children play hide and seek and lose themselves amidst the conveyor lines that smell like a frozen lake.

At the corner of the road, on the right side the local florist sits on his stand – a medium-sized table covered by a pale pink and white checkered sheet. He buys a cigarette from a young boy who sells them. Give me a box of matches. The boy reaches for the large box of long matches in his back pocket. Thank you. Goodbye. Underneath his table, spilled flowers lay all along his feet; his resistance to fortune.

The bakery down the road is also a post office. A box colored like cornflowers sits at the top of shelf. It’s the last of the Milky Mints and over the counter, a sad-eyed cat lies on the floor beside a thick can of sardines now used to house cherry tomatoes. I want to send a letter. Give me some postage stamps. Thank you. Goodbye.