The Song With No Composer
Every evening, Mira sat on the underpass steps and played the same eleven notes. She never named the tune. It just showed up in her fingers one cold winter and stayed. Coins dropped into her open case while she played. But tonight a padded envelope was already waiting on the step. The address was written in her own slanted handwriting, even though she had never mailed a thing in her life.
Mira didn't open it. She shoved the envelope in her coat and watched the crowd. Someone had to be playing a trick on her. Then she spotted a woman across the underpass, standing very still, staring right at her. The woman lifted one hand in a small wave.
Mira crossed the underpass toward the waving woman. Up close, the woman's face stopped her cold. It was her own face, older, with gray streaking her hair. 'I don't have long,' the older Mira said. 'I came back to warn you. Don't open the envelope tonight.'
Mira nodded and handed the envelope straight to her older self. 'Then you take it.' The older woman smiled with relief and tucked it away. 'Good girl. Now go home and sleep.' She walked off into the crowd and slowly faded. Mira went home, and the eleven notes never troubled her again.