He was tired that early Friday morning, when he landed in Sydney airport. He had gone through a rough working week with back-to-back business meetings in Paris and its surroundings. Nobody wanted to buy anything, despite his best efforts. That dreadful "Au revoir, Monsieur!" was still persisting in his ears, while he passed through customs. He had enough of this running around, trying to sell people these bloody IT systems that nobody was interested in, or so they said. Until they reached a decision he had to pull all the tricks he could think off. Especially in France. He found the French difficult to work with, and with their funny accent.

He was feeling relieved every time he was coming back home, where he could relax for a couple of days, go to gym, meet some old buddies downtown for a drink and then get ready to start all over again.

Thomas was a talented sale rep who worked in Sydney for a successful software company, based in London. He was tall, shaved bald, had dark blue eyes and a square masculine face, plus a fit body. Women loved him but they didn't love his gypsy lifestyle. Now at 37 years of age, all that travelling, that had given an initial advantage, had long lost its glamour and he was bone-weary of it. Every time he was going out with his mates back home in Sydney, he could read their envy in their eyes. They all thought he had the best life anyone could possible ask for, flying to London, Paris, Madrid, Vienna, and the rest, almost every month. But to Thomas he was literally living in a suitcase for the last ten years of his life and he had enough. "Personal life, what personal life?" he wondered bitterly. Who would want to date a person who lives in a perpetual jet-lagged state?

"Get a life!" Thomas said to himself, sitting in the service bus, staring at the window, on his way back to the long-term parking lot in Sydney Airport. He tried to remember where he had parked his car a week ago, when luckily he found his ticket just in time to get off the vehicle, at the correct parking station.

"Gosh, it needs a wash," he mumbled, approaching his black Toyota Pajero. He liked his car; he had bought it three years ago from a car dealer not far from where he lived, and it had served him well. He enjoyed taking care of his car when he was home.

So he threw his suitcase in the rear, opened the driver's side door, climbed behind the wheel and turned on the engine. He navigated the various streets around the airport, to emerge near the short-term parking area. As he neared the Hilton Hotel exit ramp, a light grey Mercedes convertible stormed out of nowhere, from a cross street adjacent to him, and cut him off. "What the hell?" he cried while instinctively jamming the breaks, only to avoid collision by an inch.

The Mercedes stopped in front of him, blocking his way out. He cut his engine off and took a deep breath, while opening his window. The stench of burning rubber was thick in the air, as he attempted to identify the Mercedes' driver. Through the dark tinted windows, he couldn't see a thing.

"What the hell are you doing? You almost crashed into my car!" he said peering into the small gap in the window of the passenger side of the Mercedes.

"Fuck you, arsehole!" a harsh alto voice blasted out of the grey car.

Thomas reeled. "Excuse me? YOU cut me off, lady! You didn't even look," he added, still trying to see who he was talking to.

"Yeah! Well look at this, Dickhead." The window fully opened: a trendy, middle-aged blonde flipped him "The Bird". Thomas had never witnessed such unladylike behaviour. He heard the woman snarl as she cranked the gears: "Back the fuck off, shitbag!" She accelerated away and before he knew it, he was left choking on a combination of car exhaust and tyre smoke.