City of smoke

To look out the back window of my Melbourne home today is to look out onto a city that is losing a battle against one of the worst bushfires it has ever seen.

The sky is grey despite being clear and blue only a week ago, the air smells of ash and smoke that billows across the entire state in a depressing blanket of hopelessness.
I know that while I watch the smoke, somewhere it is rising from the fires that are stealing hundreds of homes, to the point where entire suburbs no longer exist, murdering the people and animals that lay trapped by its many fronts.

At the moment the death toll is at 84, the loss of homes sitting briefly on 750, but the numbers rise so frequently it's impossible to say what it will be by the time you read this.
Of what I know from family and friends, one woman we know is missing and her home is destroyed, a girl has lost her great uncle and cousins, a boy has lost both of his parents and his home, and four more friends have lost their homes and pets. Others still don't know where their families are.


I'm so sorry to everybody who's been affected in even the smallest way by this. It's something we all know is coming every summer, but we couldn't know it would be this bad.

I wish the best for everybody.