Removing his bright yellow eye mask from his face, Eric turned his exhausted eyes towards the small oval window and peered out into obscurity. He couldn't see a thing. He knew the plane was hovering above the clouds, about five miles above sea level, the captain had announced it over the intercom about ten minutes ago, but all he could see was complete darkness, the sky as jet black as Eric's skinny jeans.

'What's the fucking time?'� Eric almost yelled at his manager who was sat only a few feet away to his right.

'For crying out loud Eric, do you always have to swear?'� Paul was in no mood to put up with his Eric's rock star antics at this time of night. The 14 hour flight from LA to Sydney had only taken to the skies an hour ago and already Eric was causing a commotion amongst the first class passengers.

'Listen Paul, I may love you like a mother but you ain't her mate. If I want to fucking swear, I fucking will, now what's the fucking time?'� Eric lay back in his leather seat, stretching his legs out so he was almost horizontal. He hated flying, he always had.

Even as a kid, when the family went away on those cheap British holidays to some tacky Spanish hell-hole. The plane would be full to the rafters with like minded Brits, all reading The Sun and shouting and swearing as they boarded the plane.

He hated the thought of being in some metal object a million miles up in the air crammed in with all these stupid people. They would arrive in Spain for a week and then proceed to find the nearest English or Irish themed pub, living on a diet of English breakfasts for the next seven days until they were so grotesquely sun burnt, they had to fly home. It made Eric shiver just thinking about it.

He desperately needed some valium to take his mind off those thoughts, not just the thoughts of British tourists but his life in general.

His marriage, which was causing great interest in the British tabloids was in free-fall and had been since the day he and his poor wife Mandy had met three years ago. Like most marriages that are based on lust and money it was doomed to fail and while Mandy did actually love her husband, she was not prepared to put up with the baggage of drugs and vast amounts of alcohol.

She had threatened divorce on him many a time but he had always managed to stay off the drugs and booze long enough to get things back on track. His latest escapade, a 48 hour drinking binge which led to his arrest in an LA hotel room having been found unconscious and with eight grams of cocaine in his possession, appeared to have finally pushed his troubled wife over the edge.

The uneasy couple also had a one year old son to think about, although it was Mandy who had to do all the thinking as Eric was never in any fit long enough to care for his son. The young boy obviously had no idea what was going on with his parents but Eric often felt he had more of an idea than he did.

Sales of the bands fourth album were also at rock bottom and when the news came through to the rest of the group their lead singer was going to be spending a second stint in a Los Angeles rehab clinic, no one was overly surprised.

Valium was definitely the answer to getting some sleep on this god damn flight but having been out of rehab for little under 12 hours, he thought it somewhat unwise asking his manager to assist him in getting some much needed shut eye.

Taking a small sip of water from the pristine glass that sat in an ice bucket by his side, he fiddled with the eye mask that he had managed to tangle within his long blonde hair. For a few seconds he lethargically tried to unravel it as though he were unraveling the mysteries of life itself but as with his own, he soon gave up and his quizzical eyes waited for his manager's answer.

Pulling up his shirt sleeve and turning his wrist towards his tired eyes, Paul wearily looked down at the $10,000 diamond encrusted watch that lay like a thousand jewels on his lower arm. It had been a present from one of his former clients, a good friend that now resided only in his memory after he'd jumped from his penthouse balcony while out of his head on a heady concoction of cocaine and Jack Daniels.

'It's just gone midnight, 12.07 if you really want to know. Five minutes later than it was when you asked five minutes ago. Happy?'�

'Fucking delirious.'�

'Eric, drop the language. You are on a plane with a number of very high class passengers who do not want to hear you swearing all the way to Sydney.'�

'This plane's got fucking parachutes ain't it? Tell 'em all to get the fuck off, or, if you like, get me some valium and I'll be as a quiet as a mouse.'� Eric was reveling in his debauchery.

'Valium?'� Paul could not believe what he was hearing from his drug-addled star. 'I hate to remind you my friend but early this afternoon I personally picked you up from a drug rehab clinic, or had you forgotten?'�

'How the fuck could I forget that place? Full of all those jumped up wankers pretending to be getting better when the only reason they go there in the first place is because their names have been splashed across the front page of some shitty tabloid newspaper.'�

'Well Eric, your name has been on the front page of every newspaper in England for the past two weeks so valium is out of the bleedin' question.'�

This was pointless. Eric knew he was never going to get any drugs, not off his manager at least. Placing the eye mask back over his eyes Eric knew he was going to have to befriend a stewardess. Preferably a female.

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