Sunday, February 8, 2009

There's a fire.

My favorite quote from the recent bushfire disaster is this one:

"At one stage on Saturday night I saw a sheep alight running through a paddock ... it was just horrific."

I think that sort of surrealism really puts into perspective just how far outside our usual sphere of existence this whole disaster really is. Its like something out of a Spielberg movie. Cue flaming sheep running across foreground cut to surprised fire fighter zoom into the reflection inn his eye of dancing flames. No soundtrack, only the agonised bleating of the sheep and the crack and pop of the fire around him.

Its crazy up there. People opening car doors to have bodies tumble out at them, whole areas sealed off, entire towns that exist in name only now. If I truly were a callous bastard I'd be making jokes about how there is probably some sort of alien invasion happening up there and they are just saying its a fire where as really, its probably like "Mars attacks". I'm sure I've seen the flaming sheep thing somewhere, oh yeah, it was in "Black sheep". Anyway, from all reports the ground is littered with charred bodies and the Firemen, after 3 days of no sleep and being surrounded by such awful devastation, are losing their shit.

Can you imagine what it would smell like up there? If you glance at some of the photos you could be forgiven for mistaking them for picturesque, snow covered mountains, when really, everything is buried under a layer of ash. Sifting through the remains they hope to identify people by their jewellery and teeth, if they can find any.

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