A bicycle glides among pedestrians on the footpath in Brookvale. On the front of the bike is a basket, and in the basket is a little grey puppy, resting its paws on the basket’s edge.

Four young women stand talking on the other side of Carrington Street, and when a grey Toyota pulls alongside they all climb in. The car drives away with a face at the window.

Two women sit in front of me on the bus. One has a surprisingly deep, clear voice but rarely uses it. The other, barely audible, says more.

A young Asian couple sits on the B1 bench At Wynyard, and as they converse very quietly the girl discards a thong, swinging her naked right foot with desperate energy.

Two pigeons are cleaning Carrington Street at Wynyard, one peck at a time. It’s Council work, and they really should be wearing high-vis.

On Saturday afternoon a man sits in the bus shelter at Wynyard, waiting for the B1. He wears a blue suit and brown, polished shoes, and has one leg crossed over the other. Beside him stands a suitcase on wheels with its handle extended. The man types on his phone. He brings a hand to his face. Out of nowhere, his suitcase makes a break for it. His hand snaps out like a bolt of lightning and pulls the suitcase back in line. He types on his phone.

Two girls are at a cafe with family. One sits with her legs crossed, eating demurely. The other stands behind her, equal in height for now, and frantically finger-combs her sister’s hair, top to bottom, hand over hand in rapid fire. Just once, the older girl turns in sharp rebuke, and there’s a pause. Then she resumes her meal, and her sister resumes her work.

Four ravens are in the car park this morning. Two at first, then a third flaps down and another shortly after. They strut about. One approaches the ends of the timber beams still bound by a webbing strap and actually bends down, tilting its head to peer into the shadows underneath.

Today I’ve remembered not to whip the blinds apart, but my phone taps the window and a bird flies up onto the wall. In seconds, less than seconds, all four ravens are gone.

Loud voices board the train at Redfern. They sound like an argument, but I think it’s just Cantonese.

A girl with glasses and a hijab climbs awkwardly over the ticket barrier at Ashfield Station. She turns and grins at another girl wearing shorts and t-shirt, whose hair is dark and shoulder-length and free. The second girl hangs back but finally, looking irritated, taps her Opal card on the reader and passes through.

An Asian woman in a striped apron stands smoking outside a Nepalese restaurant in Ashfield. She scowls and flicks her ash towards the footpath.

A tall young bloke with a ring through his septum climbs the stairs to Ashfield Station. Curly hair. Navy shorts and t-shirt. Gentle soul.

Shouts and raucous laughter burst from the door of an optometrist’s shop in Ashfield. A middle-aged couple spills onto the footpath, grinning.

On Liverpool Road, Ashfield, a woman shepherds a small boy out of a car. His t-shirt says Vroom! Vroom!

A swarthy man of middle age describes a roller coaster’s ups and downs with a rising, swooping hand. The traffic growls past on Liverpool Road. He says: “What’s got him hesitating is the ground itself. You know? It’s so … undulating.”

A man whose eyes are sad to the point of grief is walking past the shops in Ashfield. He wears a backpack. His shoulders droop. His hands float in front of him, holding paper bags of take-away. Something white is slathered on his face, gathering in sweaty clumps around his jaw, his ears, his hair; it clings to the side of his tan-coloured cap, making a wet spot.

Liverpool Road, Ashfield. A man dressed like a mobster pauses in the heat. Black suit. Black sunglasses. Steel grey hair. He is juggling the cord of his ear buds and a book by Chuck Plahniuk.

A mother bends over a baby’s stroller while her daughter stands complaining.

Mother: What’s that?

Daughter: I said I really need a wee!

Ashfield, Sydney. A magpie limps across a driveway and pauses in the shade.

Two girls are eating on the B1 home. Their jaws work constantly. One holds the point of a skewer near her face, wondering perhaps what an eye would taste like.

A motor scooter clings to the bends in Neutral Bay, its meal delivery bag squashed back and pointing at the sky like a rocket-launcher.

A woman dangles her arm from the window of a ute stopped in traffic at the Burnt Bridge Creek Bypass. It’s late afternoon, the sun is hot, and her arm is a strip of leather.

Concrete tank turrets are appearing on our footpaths. No guns. Just a pole extending from each, vertically, to a tiny solar panel.