I have a habit of trying to beat the traffic lights. I stand on the edge of my toes, waiting to see if there is a slim space for me to fit into the row of cars to cross to the other side of the road, then when there is even just a split second's difference in the flow of vehicles, I make a run for it. This morning, as I was skimming over the asphalt surface, I saw the mashed body of a pigeon, unrecognisable save for one ridiculously whole clawed foot raised up from the otherwise flattened corpse. While my stomach was still churning over this sight, I walked into a solemn man with a t-shirt on that said "9 months: Ready or Not" over his bulging overhang. In that instant, I was ready to laugh, but then I remembered the pink claws of the dead bird and my insides turned again.

 

My building, like so many buildings in Manhattan, requires all its tenants to carry around silly plastic cards with mug shots of themselves (as if anyone could be identified through those fuzzy, strangely magnified faces) to slide through the entrance barriers. I fumbled around in my red leather bag for the pass, but unlike every other morning where I simply manage to grip onto its black clasp, I could not find it. Removing the contents of the bag - a red nectarine, still cold from the fridge at home, my orange purse, the brown hair clasp I try not to break, my small mobile phone and clunky Blackberry - produced no results. Did I leave it at home or at the office, I wondered, as I asked the guard to let me through, saying I had left it upstairs.

 

In the lift, a man pressed for the thirtieth floor but got off at the twenty-fourth, which is the first stop. The other girl in the lift looked at me with raised eyebrows. I shrugged.

"He probably didn't mean to get off on the twenty-fourth," I said.

"He'll probably have to wait for the next elevator," the girl says.

 

I have turned my office upside down but I haven't found my building pass.