The apartment was quiet when I got home, but light spilled from beneath Mama's door. The supervisor position paperwork lay spread across our kitchen table—another timeline altered, another future rewritten. I sat at my keyboard, headphones on, letting my fingers find melodies that wouldn't exist for another decade.
The beat came first, something that in my original timeline would have been Beyoncé's breakthrough solo track. But here, in 2004, it was just midnight inspiration flowing through teenage fingers that remembered future rhythms:
*Verse 1:
Time is like a record spinning
Backward through the years I've known
Every ending's a beginning
Every path leads back to home
I've seen futures turn to memory
Watched tomorrows fade to grey
Now I'm writing different stories
Finding love another way*
My fingers paused over the keys. In the original timeline, I'd written this after our first meeting—Beyoncé and me—at that industry party in 2022. Now, the melody felt like a prophecy, a love letter to a future I was carefully reconstructing.
A soft knock interrupted my thoughts. Mama stood in the doorway, still in her scrubs, holding the supervisor offer letter.
"You gonna tell me how you knew?" she asked quietly. "About the position? About the recommendation that came in from someone at Presbyterian?" She sat on my bed, the paper crinkling in her hands. "Marcus, you're different lately. Like you've grown years in just a few months."
For a moment, I considered telling her everything—about waking up twenty years younger, about the future I was trying to reshape, about the love and success and pain that lay ahead. Instead, I turned back to the keyboard.
"Remember how you used to sing to me?" I asked, fingers finding the melody of an old gospel tune she'd favored. "When Dad left, and it was just us?"
Her breath caught. "Amazing Grace."
I nodded, letting the familiar chords fill the quiet room. Then I transitioned smoothly into the bridge of my new composition:
*Bridge:
Every prayer you whispered nightly
Every tear you tried to hide
Taught me love burns ever brightly
Through the changing of the tide
Now I'm building new tomorrows
From the lessons that you gave
Taking all our shared sorrows
Making beauty from the fade*
"That's... beautiful," she whispered. "When did you learn to compose like that?"
"I've always known," I said softly. "Just took me a while to understand it." Two decades, to be exact.
She was quiet for a long moment, listening as I developed the theme. Finally, she spoke: "The Marcus I knew three months ago couldn't have written that contract today. Couldn't have known about industry changes that even Rico's never heard of."
I let the music fade, turning to face her. In the dim light, I could see the ghost of future worry lines that this time, I might prevent. "People change, Mama. Sometimes... sometimes they change because they have to. Because others are counting on them."
"And Rico's label meeting? The supervisor position? Jay's contract? These aren't coincidences, are they?"
I reached for my notebook, where the chorus had been waiting to be written:
*Chorus:
Time is just a rhythm changing
Notes we play along the way
Every moment rearranging
Symphonies of yesterday
But in these midnight compositions
Where the future meets the past
I'm arranging new traditions
Making every measure last*
"No," I admitted. "Not coincidences. Just... knowledge, put to good use."
She stood, smoothing her scrubs with hands that had worked too hard for too long in another timeline. "Whatever's happening with you... whatever this change is..." She touched my shoulder. "You're still my Marcus."
"Always," I promised, thinking of how proud she'd been at my first Grammy nomination—would be, could be, might be. "Everything I'm doing, everything I'm changing... it's all for us. For our family. For the future."
After she left, I stayed at the keyboard, letting the melodies of two timelines interweave. Outside, the Bronx night pulsed with possibility. Somewhere out there, Jay was probably listening to his demo, Deon was filling notebooks with verses, and Rico was trying to understand what had happened in Warren's office.
And somewhere, years ahead, Beyoncé was performing at Madison Square Garden, not yet knowing that every note I wrote was finding its way to her, across time and chance and change.
I picked up my pen and added one final verse:
*Outro:
Let the music be our compass
Through these shifting sands of time
Every change becomes a promise
Every song, a new design
For the love that waits tomorrow
In a future yet unknown
Is worth all these midnight sorrows
Worth the weight of seeds I've sown*
The night deepened around me, full of futures waiting to be written. One song at a time, one change at a time, one dream at a time.
Until yesterday finally caught up with tomorrow.