Die Coast Bye Cecilia is the combination of the fictional stories Cecilia and Coast, and the creative non-fiction I wrote during that same era. Coast was what I worked on the most, and it’s still the main story, to which Cecilia and my non-fiction was adapted. I’m noting this here as a more top of the iceberg fact about the book; the story of how it all came together is also represented by facts that go all the way down to the murky depths. The note is relevant to this photo because it’s from the morning after I quit the first job I got in Toronto, at a Bakery, an event documented in the first passage of Chapter 7, reprinted below as an excerpt. What’s not mentioned in that passage is that I stayed up until sunrise and took this picture, which has a special gradient that I don’t think is similarly created by sunset.

Excerpt from Chapter 7, Die Coast Bye Cecilia

I sent a resignation email to the bakery at 9pm. That was that and I wouldn’t be showing up to my 1am shift, but I wouldn’t be going to bed either (sleeping schedules don’t return that quickly). So I loaded up on coffee and set out to walk Toronto’s streets, not
knowing, at first, that on this particular night I would have lots of company.

It was on a residential street in Little Italy that I first noticed something strange. Walking by the usual garbage cans placed on the sidewalk for morning’s pick-up, my eye caught something soft, orange and fury – a stuffed Siberian tiger. I stopped, walked back and inspected the find. After a moment of consideration, I picked
up the tiger, hugged it close to my body, and started walking home.

Along the way I noticed other objects on the side of the street – couches, love seats, mattresses, microwaves, television sets, book shelves and boxes full of old junk. In front of one house was a coffee table made of thick, red wood – a perfect replacement for the ironing board me, Sam and Rory had been using as a TV table.

So after dropping off the tiger I returned for the table. It was heavy; it took more than an hour to travel the fifteen blocks back. While I rested between blocks, I noticed flashlights scanning the sides of streets everywhere. Tonight was a scavenger’s paradise, and Toronto obviously had many scavengers to enjoy it.