Chapter 144: Echoes of Tomorrow's Rain
The afternoon brought rain—the kind that turns Manhattan into a mirror, reflecting neon and dreams in equal measure. I sat in my private studio, the one I'd built in this timeline with knowledge from the last, watching droplets race down windows that hadn't existed in my original past. Each one carried a different version of the city in its fall.
The demo I was working on pulsed through premium monitors, another luxury my younger self wouldn't have known:
*Raindrops on the window pane
Each one holding yesterday's pain
But baby, when the storm clouds break
We'll dance in the sun for tomorrow's sake
Time is just a rhythm we play
Notes falling like tears in the rain
But I've got this melody in my soul
Playing scenes from a future untold*
The track wasn't for Beyoncé—not yet. In my original timeline, she'd recorded something similar in 2019, but the world wasn't ready for it then. Now, with the foundation I was laying, maybe...
A knock interrupted my thoughts. Rico entered, shaking water from his jacket like a man emerging from one timeline into another. He carried a stack of contracts under his arm—physical papers, an anachronism I'd forgotten about from these years.
"You seen this?" He tossed a magazine on my desk. Billboard. The cover story was about the "new sound" revolutionizing R&B—my sound, though they didn't know it was borrowed from a future I was carefully unwriting.
"Caught a glimpse," I said, turning back to the mixing board. The rain created a natural reverb outside, and I was capturing it, letting it blend with the digital effects in a way that wouldn't become standard practice for another decade.
"They're calling you a visionary." Rico settled into the leather couch behind me, the one that cost more than my first car. "Say you're doing things with sound that shouldn't be possible with current technology."
I adjusted a filter, watching the waveforms dance across my screen. "Maybe they need better technology."
"Or maybe," Rico said, his voice carrying that dangerous edge of curiosity, "you've got something they don't. Something beyond technology."
The rain intensified, drums from heaven accompanying my track. I thought about my mother's words from breakfast, about letting the music play itself out. But some songs needed a conductor, didn't they? Someone who knew where the crescendos should fall?
*In this city of glass and steel
Where every reflection tells a tale
I'm seeing doubles of you and me
Past and future, locked in harmony
But which version should I believe?
Which reality should I achieve?
When every choice splits the timeline two
Baby, I just want the one with you*
"You ever wonder," Rico asked, echoing my earlier conversation with Mom in a way that sent chills down my spine, "if success comes too easy? If maybe we're cheating somehow?"
I turned to face him, studying the man who'd been my mentor in two timelines. In both, he wore success like a well-tailored suit, but this version of Rico carried himself with a certainty the other never found.
"Nothing about this is easy," I said finally. "Every beat, every note—it all has to be earned. Even if you know it's coming."
"Know it's coming," he repeated, testing the words. "Like you do?"
Outside, a taxi honked, its sound distorted by rain and distance into something almost musical. I captured that too, sampling reality itself into my carefully constructed future-past.
"Remember what you told me when we first met?" I asked, deflecting. "About how real innovation isn't about creating something new, but about recognizing what's already there, waiting to be discovered?"
Rico nodded slowly. "I remember. But I'm starting to think you knew that before I said it."
The track reached its bridge, where I'd hidden a progression that wouldn't be "invented" for another five years. But here it was, emerging naturally, as if it had always been waiting in the spaces between what was and what could be.
"Sometimes," I said, choosing my words as carefully as I chose my beats, "the future is just the past wearing better clothes. Our job is to dress it right."
Rico laughed, but it wasn't his usual laugh. It carried the weight of questions he wasn't quite ready to ask. "You know what? Keep your secrets. As long as you keep making music that sounds like it fell through a crack in time, I don't need to know how you do it."
He stood, gathering his contracts. "Studio A, tomorrow at ten. Beyoncé's team confirmed. Try not to predict too much of her future, alright?"
After he left, I sat in the growing darkness, letting the rain and the music wash over me. On my computer screen, waveforms danced like prophecies, each peak and valley a moment I'd lived twice. The track played on:
*Time is just a door
I've walked through before
But every step I take with you
Makes yesterday feel brand new
So let the rain keep falling down
Let it wash away what we've found
'Cause baby, in this grand design
I'm rewriting every line
Just to make you mine*
I reached for my phone to text Beyoncé—then stopped myself. Some futures needed to unfold at their own pace, even when you knew exactly how the song would end. Outside, the rain continued its collaboration with the city, creating music that belonged to no timeline but now.
new book out
Title: Second Chance: Rise from the Dead
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