You are twenty seven years old, and you've been living in the same crummy apartment for the last three years.
Your alarm goes off in your ear like a siren...not that you don't get enough of those, not living here in the City. You can count the hours like clockwork, the reality of the live you live. The life that everyone lives. You never can get away from it, the noises, the sounds of city life.
You roll over to get rid of one, at least, the only one you can control. You slam the alarm clock so hard you rattle your glass of water beside the lamp...just a sweet, generic lamp. The kind that cost fifteen dollars at Wal-Mart. Made of glazed ceramic.
Getting out of bed, you don't bother looking into the mirror, though you do turn on your cheap lamp. You dress quickly...in a suit and shirt remarkably like the suit and shirt you wore yesterday. A quick trip to the bathroom does your hair and other toiletries.
You're happy with what you see...a rather nice looking woman, not pretty, but with an air about you that's almost beautiful. Straight brown hair, always done in a pony-tail. Just enough makeup to look presentable. Your suit flatters your figure, which you've often compared to that of the gorgeous models, but you’re not overweight. You remember, after a long moment of examination, that waist measurements and breast sizes haven't every really mattered to you.
Again.
You stop to put on your jewelry, a simple locket with an even simpler chain--one almost to thin for the heavy gold bauble. You fasten it with a click and walk out the door, smoothing your skirt and checking your heals and panty-hose before you leave. You hurry down your apartment's stairs and are down the street already, a full hour before you have to be at work.
And you're almost there when you hear tires squeal. You turn in time to see two things: a taxi crash into a telephone pole and your locket, along with the remnants of your chain, fly off into the dirty water in a ditch. It's running fast into a drain so you run too. You catch the air-filled locket before it's swept away but that thin chain...it's already gone.
Glancing around, you search for a replacement and you see...