It started instead of a proper welcome, with a song. One evening, as the rain pounded the tin roof as if it had an axe to grind, Mann sat slumped on his floor. Even though his guitar was a battered old thing, he still strummed until his fingers drew a song from it. It was gruff and ethereal, like a breath he didn't know he was exhaling. With a gritty lustful voice, he sang into damp air and shrugged, then put it on the web: * "For whoever's got ears."
Somewhere else in this vast, messy nation, where the monsoon was reducing lanes to mush, she came across it. Earphones in, she froze—his song slid into her like a secret, sharp and warm all at once. It felt as if he was sitting next to her, pouring out something true. She typed, hands trembling: *"This is rain and ache and a hug I didn't know I needed."*
Mann watched his phone light up with her words, and his chest twitched up and down. "Then it must be yours," he typed, grinning like an idiot. She giggled in her bedroom, the sound ricocheting off the walls, and fired back, "Sing me another, stranger, and show me."
The rain continued to hammer, but it wasn't so lonely anymore. Something flared to life—a thread taut across the miles, vibrating with potential.