I wasn’t looking for love, and I wasn’t looking left either. Her van smacked right into me as I was crossing the street on my bicycle on the way home one drizzly Tuesday evening. Thankfully, as I would later discover, she’s Melbourne’s slowest driver and the owner of one of the city’s oldest vans.

I looked up at her from the flat of my back on the bitumen as she leant over me, with the old VB billboard lit up behind her like a halo.

“Oh my fucking god, I am so sorry,” she drawled. The cigarette she’d been smoking when she hit me was still lit, and I could smell the tobacco on her breath with every word.

“Can you stand up? Chuck your bike in the van and I’ll get you home. I think I dinged up your wheel sorry mate.”

I lay on my back, the wind completely knocked out of me, trying desperately to inhale. I knew she was the on.