A girl with friends at the back of the bus: “If I fall asleep tomorrow, can you please not draw on me?”

A woman in a face mask stands waiting to cross at Spit Junction. She turns and looks over her shoulder with that slow, dawning certainty that a zombie horde is coming.

I get that.

A flock of orange shirts has landed near the Warringah Freeway, and clings to the scaffolding. Beyond them, the harbour is blue.

A girl walks between tables in the sun, clenching a strip of biltong in her teeth. She rips it apart.

A couple in their 30s sits in a space they’ve made their own, on the cross-seats at the front of the bus. She wears a straw hat over her blonde hair, and when she takes off her sunglasses her eyes are clear crystals with a hint of green. He wears a cap. They look at her phone together. She smiles at him, as if nothing could ever come between them.

A salt-water crocodile leaps from the footpath as the bus pulls in. Oh. It’s a shopping trolley camouflaged for the tropics. An old woman wrestles it aboard.

The profile of platform shoes appears to be on the rise.

Man at a cafe: “Oh yes. Some of them are all: ‘I’m the organist! Don’t you touch it!'”

A cloud of perfume boards at Dee Why, with black workout pants and a black t-shirt saying “Harry”. The shoes are absolute gym boots from the 60s.

At Collaroy a motor scooter burbles almost to a stop in the bus lane, then accelerates as the lights change. Its rider leans forward on the handlebars.

A teenager slouches aboard with no pretence of paying. The driver glares, and the boy slumps into a seat. He has acne.

A curly-haired cocker spaniel and a bulldog trade angry words in the middle of the market. Embarrassed humans lead them in opposite directions, but the cocker spaniel turns back suddenly and lunges in a flurry of barks and snarls. Two steps later it tries again.

That bulldog has really got under its fur.

A woman with short grey hair limps past on a walking stick. She wears baggy jeans and a big, loose shirt of red and black squares. Stopping, she wheels round slowly, steadies, then continues on her new course into the book stall. She removes her glasses.

Manly Markets. A stroller goes past with dolls and toys piled inside. Somewhere underneath, a baby squeals.

Distraught girl from the animal rescue stall at Manly Markets: “At Shelly Brach there’s a shark eating a dolphin! The whole beach is closed!”

A man pushes just the low, storage section of a pram through the markets. A bulldog sits inside it, breathing heavily.

Small boy at the markets: “I got two Pokémon packs and a Pokémon book.”

Small girl at the markets: “Oh look! Her tail’s so excited!”

A Dachshund casts worried eyes around the market as his human, clutching him between arm and hip, struggles from stall to stall.

An old woman bends at the front of a covered pram and reaches far inside, feeling her way like a mechanic tracing the source of that mysterious squeak.

We had thunder last night and the sound is no different this morning, as the demolishers grind their way further into the building.

A woman carries a baguette in a paper bag, and a big tub of Greek yoghurt.

A pug and an Afghan pass each other at the markets. The Afghan is interested, but the pug moves on with haughty indifference.

A tiny dog strains at the lead, nose forward, tail flying back and forth; so much to see, so much to sniff but alas, its human has stopped.