Jenna laughed. He didn’t.
She landed on a soundstage drenched in amber light. A piano sat center stage, no player. In the air, notes hung like tangible ribbons—the opening chords of “If I Ain’t Got You” suspended mid-vibration. But as she walked toward the piano, the song warped. The tempo dragged. The lyrics, when they came, were from a version she’d never heard: Alicia’s voice, but younger, raw, singing about a future she couldn’t see.
Jenna, a broke musicology grad student, figured it was either a bootleg collection or a trap. But her thesis on “Spatial Acoustics in Early 2000s R&B” was due in two weeks, and she’d exhausted every database. She messaged the seller, got an address in a forgotten part of Queens, and at 8 p.m. on a Tuesday, she stood in front of a boarded-up dance studio.
Her reflection from the real world reappeared on the glossy black surface of the grand piano, waving frantically. Come back , it mouthed. The door is closing .
And sometimes, when she passes a mirror too quickly, she swears she sees Otis smiling back, holding up five fingers.
The mirror became liquid. She fell through.
Alone in the dark, she aimed her phone’s flashlight at the mirror’s surface. At first, nothing. Then she noticed the scratches—not random, but spiraling inward like grooves on a vinyl record. She leaned closer. Her breath fogged the glass.
HAWA-Vertical 150/3+5