It was a cool day, calm, considering the storms which had blown through the city in the past three days. A cool breeze blew in from the coast, no more than twelve miles away, stirring the few leaves along the well kept walkways of the park. The man's eyes watched all of this as his feet carried him out of the elevator. He walked out of the confines of the large office building, a very successful architectural firm where he was an up and coming architect, very sought after to design buildings and personal residences. He had managed to not let the sudden burst of fame and the interviews for various architectural magazines go to his head. He still lived in the loft near the beach and Chinatown, the loft where he and his wife had lived since their marriage, He still loved his wife of twelve years and his five year old daughter. He didn't know it, but later on that night, after he got home from the office, his wife would surprise him by announcing that another addition was coming to their family. She was pregnant, carried a son. He didn't lunch with the snob types, didn't brown nose with the bosses, he acted much the way he did the first day he entered the spacious entrance of the firm. But he wasn't happy. He earned nearly one hundred and fifty thousand a year, not including his wife's law practice. He had three very successful stocks which earned him another fifteen thousand a year, he drove a dark green sports Lexus, one of the very few very expensive toys he had. But he wasn't happy. He got two months paid vacation a year, never got sick, had a daughter who never got anything lower than an A minus on her marks. He was married to a beautiful, extremely intelligent, woman; was financially secure... He thought he was happy.

But he wasn't.

He walked across the courtyard of the firm, passing the water fountains and bustling, almost frantic, people he worked with, not really noticing them. Merely filing away, somewhere in his mind the fact that everyone seemed to be hustling about, that the traffic seemed to be incredibly heavy, that every radio and TV station seemed to be saying the same thing. But he walked on, his briefcase and jacket left in his corner office, three stories above him, a sack lunch swinging in his hand. He looked left and right very quickly, upon reaching the sidewalk, seeing a brief space in the traffic, and darted across to the park he frequented at lunch. His mind brought up the fact that his wife, nor his daughter (and now his coming son), would appreciate his minute dance with death, but this was one of his daily rituals, one he wasn't too fearful of. His quick flight across the street, however, earned him the thanks of many annoyed drivers and their horns in their extraordinary hustle that day.

He stopped running as he stepped up on the curb, noticing the police car cruising by, dropped his head and smoothed his tie, waiting to be stopped by the car, waiting because this would have been normal. But the car just drove by, the officer in the passenger seat looking directly at him, more accurately, through him, and drove on by, speeding just as fast as the other cars congesting the streets. His feet carried him on down the path, which seemed rather empty of people, as his mind wandered back to the conversation with his wife before he left the office.