On the day in question he could not shake the feeling that he was being shown the future. It was something less than what one might have hoped for. The flames had died in the East Bay hills but what felt to be the entire Bay Area remained covered in ash. Cars were made to appear uniform in color. It lay thick in the corners of things like drifts of dirty snow. A trio of young Asian women he took as college students passed along the sidewalk wearing surgical masks. This is how it will look, he thought, moving past the women. It will look like this, and then it will look worse.

— Kem Nunn, Chance, 2014