Chapter 22: Remixing Memory
The walk home felt different with the weight of vinyl in my backpack. Each step seemed to pull music from the concrete – not just the ever-present rhythm of the Bronx night, but echoes of what I'd heard in the studio, fragments of my father's future-cast frequencies mixing with the present's persistent beat.
"He used to walk these same blocks," Mom said, breaking our comfortable silence. "Late nights after sessions, early mornings before work. Always humming something nobody else could hear yet." She paused beneath a streetlight that threw our shadows long against the projects' walls. "Sometimes I hear you doing the same thing."
The observation sent a shiver through me. How many of my supposedly innovative melodies were actually inherited memories, genetic echoes of my father's unrealized vision?
"Tell me about when you met him," I said, the words slipping out before I could consider their impact on the timeline. In my first life, I'd never dared to ask, too afraid of reopening old wounds. But now, with his music still resonating in my ears, I needed to understand.
She smiled, an expression both wistful and warm. "I was working the door at Red Eye. Checking IDs, handling the guest list for demo nights. He came in carrying two crates of vinyl and a notebook full of dreams." Her laugh carried notes of both joy and sorrow. "Told me he was going to change music forever. And you know what? I believed him."
We turned down our street, passing the corner store where, in my original timeline, I'd sold my first beat for fifty dollars and a turkey sandwich. The owner's son was outside, practicing flows that would eventually earn him a record deal in 2008. Some things, it seemed, were constant across all possible futures.
"He played me some of his early experiments that first night," Mom continued. "Things that scared other people – time signatures that shouldn't work, samples processed until they became something entirely new. But I heard what he was trying to do. Heard the future in it."
"Like how you heard it in my tracks," I said softly.
She stopped walking, turned to face me fully. "That's what terrified me at first. When you started producing, started pushing boundaries... I thought history was repeating itself. Thought I was going to lose you the same way."
The words hung in the night air, heavy with implications. In my first timeline, she had lost me, in a way – to ambition, to the industry, to my own drive to force innovation before its time. I'd been so focused on making my mark that I'd missed the warning signs of her declining health, the toll that supporting my dreams had taken on her own life.
"But you're different," she said, studying my face in the sodium-lamp glow. "You've got his vision, his gift for hearing tomorrow. But you've got something he didn't have. Something I can't quite put my finger on..."
"Patience," I offered, thinking of the careful way I was now introducing future sounds, the strategic timeline I was building.
"More than that." We resumed walking, our footsteps finding the rhythm of distant train tracks. "It's like... like you've already seen where all this leads. Like you know exactly how far to push and when to pull back."
The irony of her accidental accuracy made me smile. "Maybe I just learned from his example. From what you taught me about his story."
But she shook her head. "No, this is something else. Sometimes when you're working, when you think no one's watching... you move like someone who's done all this before. Like you're remembering instead of creating."
My heart stuttered. In my chest, the truth swelled like a crescendo wanting to break. How would she react if I told her everything? About the future I'd lived, the mistakes I'd made, the second chance I'd been given?
"Mom," I started, but she held up a hand.
"Don't," she said gently. "Some mysteries are better left unsolved. Some knowledge is better carried than shared." She touched the backpack where the vinyl rested. "Your father tried to tell everyone about the future he heard. Maybe what matters isn't explaining the vision, but finding the right way to make it real."
We reached our building's entrance, where the security light cast everything in harsh fluorescence. Above us, windows glowed with other lives being lived in linear time, unknowing of the temporal complexities walking past.
"Whatever's different about you," she said, keying open the door, "whatever changed after that fever... just promise me one thing."
"Anything," I said, meaning it across all possible timelines.
"Don't let the future make you forget how to live in the present."
The words echoed up the stairwell as we climbed, mixing with the ghost frequencies of my father's vinyl, with the ever-present rhythm of the city outside. In my backpack, past and future pressed together in perfect groove, while I walked the delicate line between what was, what would be, and what might never need to happen at all.
new book out
Title: Second Chance: Rise from the Dead
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