An amazing dust storm devoured Sydney last week, turning the harbour city into an orange, post-apocalyptic, nuclear wasteland.  Except that it was full of people, and business as usual.

When I woke, at first there was a deep, blood-red colour, from horizon to horizon.  Very ominous and cool.  My heart quickened, wondering what such a dawn might herald.  I'd been through dust storms in my home town, although I had never awoken to one so pervading and red.

I couldn't help but wonder what our campfire-gazing, storytelling ancestors would have thought.  Would it be perceived as a herald of doom?  Would they be joyous at the day's natural return, or bitterly disappointed that their reading of the situation may have been less than accurate?

Maybe, as afterthoughts, they would have conjured stories of heroic folk-legends who turned back the tide of the 'day of blood', saving creation from the teetering brink of doom, as celestial heroes had done in the night skies.

What magical tools would these day-saving folk-heroes have needed for their adventure?  What villainous force of magic conjured the 'red mist'?  How would the saviour have persevered against such a powerful enchantment?  What morals would be espoused to young listeners?

Gets the imagination flowing, doesn't it?  Far more entertaining than a meteorological explanation of merely dust and wind.

Technology may have won out over myth, but if I find the red dawn sorcerer responsible for this apocalypse, he's washing my car!