Looking across the town toward the sea in the distance, but finding only the fetid haze of smoke, you could be forgiven for thinking it was the apocalypse, especially with the red sun and the plaintive sound of black cockatoos, their screech cutting the haze and then disappearing as it closed in their wake.

All that bushland, at risk. In '83 it burned right to the back of town before the wind changed. Just the luck of the unknown gods, whoever people were praying to. Out the back of a country town there's happy clappers happy to put their fate in the lap of their God whilst others wonder what the flying fuck they're doing in the red part of the map, and there are Sikhs handing out food for the people who need it. When the bush is burning the gods are the firies, Aussie lingo for the fire servicepeople who spend all day in the heat for no pay and scratch their heads at bureaucratic decisions that seem like fuckery when they're the ones who wrestle with the flamed hells in valleys and hills where marsupials burn their feet and hair and birds fly upward with plumage burning.

Some people just don't look any further than the beauty of the sunset - what a place to live, they declare on Facebook groups - how magnificent! There's others who remember, even as children, looking westward after dark and seeing the sky painted red. They feel in their bones that anxiety of death coming, of destruction. They'll wonder why the traffic is still snaking into town, why people insist on holidays when it's time to go home and leave residents to their worries that they'll be leaving in the middle of the night with the clothes on their backs and whatever they've managed to pack in the car because maybe some did listen to the warnings and had a fire plan.

Some worry at the weather apps, refresh Windy, count the minutes and hours til the wind changes. Others jog and cycle without a care in the world, immune to the smoke biting their lungs. Others jump online and blame the Greens, rant at the PM as if he isn't in a long line of governments who were playing whack a mole with world events and national issues and putting the environment on the back burner until it was the back burner and front burner and side burner and Melbourne is full of smoke and people are online ranting at the Greens, the PM, anyone they can blame but themselves.

People ask stupid questions all the time. Thank the gods of science who type rational answers, pointing people toward lightening tracker apps and weather apps and the emergency apps that are far better to heed than the idiot imps and misinformation trolls in local groups. There's a lot of people concerned about their TV reception (non existent in hot weather) and don't seem to know that they can use the internet to stream all channels and the radio 774 for emergency information.

Most of it's about perspective, though. You can look into the apocalypse or paradise depending on which way you turn your head. This morning we swam under clear skies, and this afternoon, with the south westerlies, out to sea is clear too.

The house is full of smoke but with the windows open it'll clear. We've dodged a bullet for the second day.

Us humans are remarkable creatures. We build and build and create our castles and never imagine they'll burn to the ground, or that the waters will sweep them away. There's something sweet about this - or I choose to see it as endearing. Jamie's been out there all day building my garden beds whilst the wind swirls the leaves around, gum leaves that could catch fire at any moment, sweep up under the eaves and catch the house alight.

But we hope and dream and build and trust that the unknown gods will hold the apocalypse horses for another day.