The dim lights of Rico's basement studio cast long shadows across the mixing board, each fader catching the amber glow like piano keys in twilight. I sat there, fingers hovering over the controls, letting the weight of two timelines press against my temples. The track we'd been working on—"Yesterday's Tomorrow"—played through the monitors, and young Jay's voice filled the room with a raw honesty I hadn't heard in twenty years.
"One more time from the bridge," I called through the talkback. Jay nodded, adjusting his headphones. The kid had something special, something I'd missed the first time around. In my original timeline, he'd disappeared into the ether of almost-made-its, another Bronx tale left untold. But now, with the polish of future production techniques applied to his natural talent, the song was transforming into something extraordinary.
The beat dropped, and Jay's voice soared:
*When yesterday becomes tomorrow
And time folds like origami dreams
Every mistake that brought me sorrow
Ain't what it seems, ain't what it seems
Running circles through the decades
Trying to find my way back home
Every memory starts to fade as
I walk these streets alone*
I adjusted the reverb, letting it cascade like falling rain behind his vocals. Rico leaned forward in his chair, eyes closed, head nodding to the rhythm. He didn't know—couldn't know—that I'd spent fifteen years perfecting this technique, but he recognized magic when he heard it.
"Something's different about you lately, M," Rico mused, opening his eyes. "Past couple months, it's like you got an old soul or something. Like you've been doing this forever."
I kept my eyes on the console, making minute adjustments to the EQ. "Just learning as I go," I replied, the lie familiar on my tongue. Through the glass, I watched Jay prepare for the final chorus:
*Time ain't nothing but a circle
Drawing lines in shifting sand
Every dream that seemed eternal
Slips right through my hand
But if I could rewrite the pages
Of this life I'm living through
I'd spend all my second chances
Finding my way back to you*
The outro faded into silence, and for a moment, none of us spoke. In the quiet, I could feel the weight of both timelines—the one where this song never saw the light of day, and this new one we were crafting, note by note, beat by beat.
Rico broke the silence. "That's it. That's the one that's gonna put us on the map." He clapped Jay on the shoulder through the studio window. "You killed it, kid."
I started bouncing the track, the familiar whir of the hard drive a reminder of how far technology had come—would come. "We'll need to shop this to the right people," I said carefully, thinking of connections I wouldn't make for another decade in the original timeline. "I might have some ideas."
As Jay emerged from the booth, his face glowing with the pride of youth, I felt the familiar twist in my gut. Every change I made sent ripples through time, each decision a stone cast into the waters of history. But looking at his smile—the same smile that had haunted my memories of opportunities missed—I knew some changes were worth the risk.
The track finished bouncing, and I handed Jay the CD. In ten years, such a gesture would be obsolete, but for now, it was still magic—dreams encoded in polycarbonate and aluminum, ready to change the world, one listener at a time.
"This is just the beginning," I told him, knowing exactly how true those words were. Outside, the Bronx night pulsed with possibility, and somewhere in the future, Beyoncé was performing on a stage I hadn't built yet, singing songs I hadn't written yet, living a destiny I was carefully reconstructing, one track at a time.
Rico started packing up, his movements deliberate in the low light. "Whatever you're doing differently, M, keep doing it. This ain't just music anymore—this is legacy."
I nodded, letting my fingers trail across the mixing board one last time. Legacy. If he only knew how many years—how many lifetimes—it had taken to get it right.