I was drawn there this time around by astonishment that it was still open and intense curiosity about what it had become, about the temperature of a paradigmatic hot spot once the sun had stopped shining on it.
"I do declare the sun has not stopped shining these past three weeks.
You sit there and you try to tell them that the sun is shining outside, and that the earth had stopped shaking.
"Now that they can't get to their money, they are letting their cleaning ladies go, have stopped getting their shoes shined and are not buying candy or cigarettes from street vendors anymore".
Oddly, when I found him in Parliament Square, the rain had stopped and the sun was shining.
The drizzling rain had stopped and then air was wet and shining.
The DC-3 was parked inside, painted in its original colors and buffed to a blinding shine, outfitted as if the calendar had stopped in 1940.
Some customers have stopped coming altogether; even the fanatics, the customers who used to get their shoes shined five days a week, have dropped down to three.
"Stop shining that light in my face," Tree Man said.
If the sun stops shining, all bets are off.
