Steve Parry, right, he was doing it tough, a homeless bloke knocking about the edges of Melbourne. The city, it just sparkled with its fancy lights, not giving a rat's arse about him under that massive Aussie sky. Homeless, that was him and his trusty bulldog, Vuddy. They'd been navigating the big grey maze of concrete and those dodgy, echoing alleyways for weeks, the poor buggers.

Steve, he was carrying a bit of timber, and his hair, a messy brown mop, was all over the shop. Didn't look like much, old Steve, but he had this stubborn spark in his eyes, like a proper little Aussie battler, refusing to let the city's cold shoulder and all the hurrying feet grind him down.

He used to be a pen-pusher, right? Spreadsheets and the hum of those fluoro lights in the sterile halls of MANZA bank. That was his life, until his job went belly-up, outsourced to who-knows-where. That was the kick in the guts that started his life going down the drain. His missus, Brasmi, she didn't muck about. Her divorce papers landed like a king-hit, that crisp white paper feeling like bad news in his hands. Steve, totally gobsmacked, lost the next round in the sterile, echoing courtroom, where the sun streamed in through massive windows, lighting up dust specks dancing in the tense air. The judge's gavel cracked down hard, and just like that, his home – once full of warm colours and good laughs – his savings, everything he'd worked for, went to Brasmi as alimony.

So there he was, cast adrift with hardly any dosh – the coins clinking with a depressing finality in his pocket – and staring down a job market as dry as a dead dingo's donger. Steve joined the ranks of the invisible. He'd always felt a bit sorry for the city's homeless, chucking 'em some spare shrapnel – silver and copper glinting as they dropped into grubby, outstretched hands – and getting nods of weary thanks in return, their voices often just raspy whispers. Now, he was one of 'em. Stone the crows.

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