The rebar spotter freezes, one foot in the air and the other wobbling on a chunk of concrete, as Elsie’s jaws plough through the step he was about to take.

Elsie trawls the broken bricks and rubble, turning them again and again as the pile grows. Inches from her jaws, teetering on shifting ground, a young man pounces on spikes of rebar and tosses them down into the car park.

Two gangly young blokes walk through the food hall, with all their hair focused at the middle and the front. They grin at someone ahead and join two others near the wall. One is just like them, but the other is not; his width is almost as great as his height, and his height is far less than that of his friends. He wears a white t-shirt and black pants, and tapers from the waist in both directions, up and down.

Bro-hugs all round, and they stand together as equals.

A small boy strides along the top of a wall that surrounds the play area. His mother shadows him but doesn’t interfere.

It shows.

A woman leans to murmur in the man’s ear next to her. His lack of interest is solid.

He stood there for twenty minutes without moving, front paws in the rock pool, back paws on the rock behind him, peering into the water and waiting for something to move. 🐶

An elderly man pushes a shopping trolley with a small girl teetering inside on the brink of disaster. Her feet are on the seat and her hands grip the frame in front, as she seeks a way to get her legs into the holes.

Dee Why Lagoon is a Wildlife Nature Reserve: its fence crumbles along Pittwater Road, and Morning Glory chokes the trees.

At Long Reef, the dog park has no dogs. Grass fades in the morning heat.

The mother has an Akubra hat, a nose ring and sunburnt shoulders. Her hair is dark, with a small fan of semi-permanent red at the back. Her nose is long and pointy. She wears big glasses, with frames that glow like rubies in the sun.

At Dee Why a woman boards the bus with a stroller. Inside the stroller, a child of eighteen months holds an iPad Pro with practised ease, and gravely contemplates the screen.

A tiny girls sits on the food hall floor, dismantling disposable nappies while her mother gulps down a meal.

Two people board the bus together at Manly Wharf. The girls sits and the boy stands, hovering near. He’s tall and skinny, with black jeans, a t-shirt saying Calexico Tucson Arizona, bleached blonde hair, and sunglasses too big for his face. In one ear he wears a silver dagger on a chain, but he hangs his head in a way that seems apologetic, and pockets his free hand. His shoulders droop. He doesn’t smile.

The girl is out of place and owning it: Bollywood Noir in the sunshine.

A girl with green hair and a nose ring sits with one knee up, texting. As the bus approaches Manly Wharf, she lifts the phone to her ear.

Sunday, Manly, 7.35am. Three teenage girls are crossing from the Corso to the Wharf. One speaks animatedly the whole way, leaving a lone audible remark as she passes: “My dog is, like, fat and bossy.”

A second baked beans tin has appeared in the carpark, and both are becoming submerged in the puddle surrounding the portable toilet. Also new, the shell of a hard-boiled egg lies sprawled on its back.

A woman walks up the hill beyond the demolition, pushing a trolley and nibbling an ice cream. On site, an engineer trots into view but turns, wipes his mouth and skips back out of sight. Nothing moves after that. Everything lies baking in the heat.