In the quest to find an apt metaphor for these dark days, the ongoing destruction of Southern California offers a horrifying smorgasbord. There is an oil baron’s museum surrounded by fire. There is a McDonald’s about to go up in flames. There is a baby deer scampering across a smoky street. There is the weirdly calm living room scene being engulfed by flames, while the family dog panics.

The metaphor haunting my mind is a juxtaposition of personal memories. In 2022, I traveled west for what felt to me like a safari in a foreign land, a brief but whirlwind tour of the weird, exotic, funky, and altogether wonderful phantasmagoria of Los Angeles, California. I was there for the release of Don’t Look Up, hoping the film that I contributed to would meaningfully boost the global effort to prompt climate action. And now, I see many of the places I visited during that trip threatened by the blaze, currently burning, or already destroyed in fiery scenes that seem straight out of an apocalypse tale.