In my old laptop case I find a copy of New York Magazine,

a Fall Preview Special,

proclaiming on its chic cranberry cover

The Best of the New Season in

Film

Music

Television

Theater

Art

Books

Dance

Nightlife,

and promising in cardinal red

in the upper right corner

50 new stores and restaurants

and in the lower right

357 more reasons

Fall will be worth waiting for,

teen-age phenom actress Julia Stiles

fills the rest of the cover

in magenta backless bulwarked by seven buttons

leading from spine to buttocks

while just above the stylish New York logo

in tiny unforgettable omen:

September 10, 2001.

I left it in there when I unpacked my laptop

two weeks after it all happened.

I call it the Doomsday Edition

because I am still afraid to look inside

and find out how many of the promises

could not be kept

and why that Fall

was ever worth waiting for.