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His name is Matt, he will shoot at the Beijing Olympics

29 March 2008, around 9pm... Young, tall, thin and dressed all-in-black, Matt steps through the pub's front door towards the three long wooden tables on the edge of the damp Gertrude Street footpath. He chooses the middle table and faces into the three pub patrons shivering and sitting in the aisle formed by tables two and three.

"Thanks - my ex-girlfriend gave it to me," Matt says to one of the two smokers sitting directly across from him in response to the compliment paid to his skulls-and-cross-bones Zippo.

The street is still darker than normal from the just-completed Earth Hour. Matt smiles and waits. "We were just talking about the possibility of moving to Sydney," the smoker says after lighting a cigarette with the black and orange Zippo. Matt frowns with a good humoured scoff before telling all to "don't do that".

The smoker agrees that "Melbourne is great", but tells hunched Matt that "Sydney is where all the good jobs are, for what we do".

"So, what do you do Matt?" the smoker asks.

Matt pauses, smiles a lopsided smile and looks down at his two hands wrapped in black-and-white fingerless gloves which with a flick of a button turn into mittens.

"This is embarrassing," he says as a looks up, his eyes barely visible below a low-wearing black beanie. He smiles lopsidedly at three fairly curious faces. "I'm an athlete. I'm going to the Beijing Olympics."

Matt started shooting when he was 13 years-old after watching professional shooters on TV. He's looking forward to going to China, but doesn't think he has a chance of winning a medal. "I was lucky that I started shooting when I was young, so I have had a lot of practice," he says with self-conscious modesty.

"I also play guitar in a couple of hard-core bands," Matt says with a lot more bravado. He is at the pub tonight to see a musician-friend play in blues band in the recently renovated pub's corner.

Butting out his second or even third cigarette, Matt stands, says his farewell and walks with a long and young gait back towards the pub's front door. From behind, his fingertips and ears expose the only skin. The Olympic Games shooter is in hard-core camouflage against the newly autumn dark night.

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