Rise of a Prodigy

The mirror showed me a stranger's face—my face, but impossibly young, smooth as polished bronze in the harsh fluorescent light of my childhood bathroom. Seventeen years old again. The same fade haircut I'd worn back then, the same navy-blue Yankees cap perched at what I'd once thought was a rakish angle. My hands trembled as I gripped the cracked porcelain sink, the familiar chip on its right corner both comforting and terrifying in its verification of this impossible morning.

Outside, the eternal rhythm of the 2/5 train rattled the window glass in its frame, carrying its dawn passengers toward Manhattan. The sound anchored me in time: 2004, South Bronx, when the neighborhood still wore its scars like medals of honor. When my mother still worked double shifts at Lincoln Hospital. When the music industry stood on the precipice of its greatest revolution, though none of us knew it yet.

My producer's ear caught the subtle harmony in the urban symphony—the train's bass line, a car alarm's staccato counterpoint, the steady percussion of early morning traffic. Everything seemed sharper, clearer than my first time through these moments. The muscle memory of thirty-five years of music production lived in hands that hadn't yet touched a professional mixing board.

"Marcus!" My mother's voice carried through the thin walls, identical to the echo in my memories. "You better not be sleeping in there. I'm not writing another late note for Mr. Peterson's class."

The sound nearly buckled my knees. How many times had I wished to hear that voice again, untouched by the illness that would—that could—no, that *would not* take her this time? I cleared my throat, surprised by how young my voice sounded when I called back, "I'm up, Ma. Just getting ready."

In the mirror, my reflection stared back with eyes too old for its face. I had dreamed of second chances, but now, faced with the reality of one, the weight of foreknowledge pressed heavy on my shoulders. Every choice, every move would ripple through two decades of potential futures. Somewhere out there, a teenage Beyoncé was already a star, unaware that our paths would cross. But first, I had a morning algebra class to attend, a test I'd failed the first time around.

Sometimes the smallest changes write the loudest melodies.