The Bronx greeted the morning after like it greeted every morning—with subway rattles and street vendor calls—but the city seemed different now, as if last night's convergence at the Roosevelt had altered the frequency of reality itself. I sat in my childhood bedroom, surrounded by the primitive production equipment that, in this timeline, I'd already pushed beyond its apparent limitations.
My phone—a flip Motorola that felt both ancient and nostalgic—buzzed with messages from Rico. I let it ring, my attention fixed instead on the legal pad before me, where I was scratching out the architecture of the next five years. The paper was divided into columns: "Original Timeline" and "New Possibilities." Between them, I drew arrows like measures in a complex arrangement.
*Memories are morning rain
Washing futures down the drain
Every path we didn't choose
Becomes the path we cannot lose*
The lyrics spilled onto the margins of my notes, belonging to a song I'd written—or would write—or might never write now. In my original timeline, the morning after meeting Beyoncé had stretched into years of missed connections and almosts. Now, time felt like a mixing board where every fader controlled a different destiny.
"Marcus!" My mother's voice carried up the stairs, still colored with the pride and confusion from when I'd returned home last night in a suit that cost more than our monthly rent. "Rico's here!"
I quickly folded the legal pad and tucked it into my back pocket. The timeline notes weren't for anyone else's eyes—especially not Rico's. He'd already started giving me those sideways looks, the ones that suggested I was either a prodigy or something else entirely.
"Coming, Ma!" I called back, catching my reflection in the mirror. The face that looked back was so young, yet the eyes held decades. I straightened my posture, adjusting my expression to match my physical age—a skill I'd been perfecting since waking up in 2004.
Rico stood in our modest living room, still wearing last night's suit minus the tie, his energy crackling like an overdriven amplifier. My mother hovered nearby, pretending to organize mail while obviously eavesdropping. In my original timeline, it had taken her years to trust Rico. This time around, I'd laid better groundwork.
"Matthew Knowles called," Rico announced without preamble, his voice pitched low enough to maintain the illusion of privacy from my mother's careful attention. "They want to set up a session. Not just any session—a full collaboration. Do you understand what this means?"
I understood better than he could imagine. In my original timeline, that first session hadn't come until 2012, and by then, the industry had shifted tectonically. Now, in 2005, with my future knowledge and earlier positioning, the possibilities stretched out like an infinite soundscape.
"When?" I asked, maintaining the careful balance between eager and professional that my seventeen-year-old self would be expected to show.
"Next week. Their studio." Rico's grin was incandescent. "But here's the thing—they want to hear more. That flash drive you've been holding onto? The one you said wasn't ready? It needs to be ready."
My hand instinctively touched my pocket, where that very drive held productions I'd crafted using techniques that wouldn't exist for years. Each track was carefully designed to sound revolutionary but not impossible for 2005—a tightrope walk between innovation and anachronism.
From the kitchen, my mother's humming floated through the air—one of my future compositions, though she didn't know it. I'd been playing it around the house, letting it seep into the present like color bleeding into water. The melody carried memories of performances that hadn't happened yet, of Grammy moments that now might unfold entirely differently.
"Today," I said finally, watching the morning sun paint shadows of tomorrow across our living room wall. "We'll finish it today."
Rico nodded, already reaching for his phone—that chunky flip device that reminded me how far technology still had to go. In seven years, he'd be orchestrating deals through an iPhone, but for now, this was our tool, our time, our technology.
The weight of the legal pad in my back pocket seemed to increase, each timeline possibility pressing against the present like notes seeking their perfect arrangement. Outside, the Bronx continued its morning symphony, unaware that its rhythms were about to change forever.
Again.