CITY OF BORROWED TOMORROWS

Tomorrow was the city's most popular loan product. You could borrow a clear morning against a rainy year, a successful examination against a decade of uncertainty, or an extra hour with someone you loved against an afternoon not yet lived.

The billboards promised: YOU DESERVE A BETTER TOMORROW TODAY.

I maintained the transit clocks that delivered borrowed hours through the city. My daughter Leda was thirteen and had begun drawing hourglasses in the margins of her schoolbooks.

One morning the trains arrived early. Not by minutes, but by memories: commuters stepped onto platforms remembering journeys they had not yet taken.

At the depot I found a notice addressed to Leda. It said her future had been used as collateral for a loan I had never signed.