Maya dragged a color from the palette and brushed the canvas. The city sighed. Down on Seventh Avenue a street musician, who had been playing one looping jazz chord for hours without variation, suddenly shifted into a new progression—notes she hadn't chosen, but that harmonized with the hue she placed. The bus schedule at the corner adjusted by a minute; a barista's order ticker printed someone else's name and the café door opened to reveal a stranger with a rainhat she had been dreaming about.