In retrospect, I wonder if I’m getting my dates confused, if I had the idea to write my so-called commentary as a digital cloud after September 11. Clouds were all I could think about then: clouds blowing south across the water into Brooklyn, clouds of dust and documents; clouds that had been three thousand people. If the history of my time was going to be written at all, I might have thought, at that point, it would have to be written on a cloud.