Dissonance

“I’m sick and tired of all this deep crap.”

Brianna wasn’t usually one for outbursts like this, but she had had enough. She turned her phone off and looked out the train window in disgust.

“Seriously,” she muttered. “I have enough problems of my own without having to suffer through someone else’s. It’s not even that good, anyway.”

Jungle-like vegetation gave way to a thriving metropolis outside the window, all of it flashing by.

Virginia was a weird state that way. Office buildings and train tracks popped up and wound through dense forests so thick and wild that a person could get lost two steps in. It felt so… dissonant. Like two musical notes grinding against each other.

Brianna watched it all fly past -- felt it striking discordant notes in her soul and setting her teeth on edge. Or maybe that was just the junk she had been reading.

Maybe “junk” wasn’t the right word. It was good enough quality, she guessed. Excellent use of imagery and all that. It just had the emotional maturity of a middle schooler who was addicted to anime. All doom, gloom and depression portrayed as if they were the first person to ever feel that way.

“Authors are such drama queens,” she grumbled.

Vaguely, she was aware of a young man sitting just behind her. She heard him turn a page in the book he was reading.

She hoped, for his sake, that it was something good. Something happy. Something where the dog doesn’t die in the end and there are actual good guys.

So that knocked all the “classics” off the list.

She got lost in the cacophony of houses and jungles outside the window and didn’t notice the young man get up and move. Suddenly, he was sitting across from her. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. What was he doing?

He shuffled for a moment, opened his mouth, and closed it again. He frowned at the floor, apparently deep in thought.

Brianna wasn’t about to make the first move. That would be awkward. She firmly fixed her eyes back on the window, just catching a glimpse of the outside before the train dove underground, quieting the clashing scenery with a smooth, calm black.

Finally, he spoke up. “What did you mean, ‘authors are drama queens?’”

Brianna’s eyebrows shot up. Then she shrugged.

“I have to read this book for one of my college classes. It’s supposed to be full of all this symbolism and deep meaning and stuff, but it just feels like someone complaining about how hard their life is.” She shrugged again. “Apparently it’s one of those ‘timeless classics’ that mature people are supposed to read, but I just think it’s dumb that Harry Potter isn’t on that list.”

The boy smiled, glancing down at the book in his lap. It was flipped onto its front cover, with his index finger holding his spot. Brianna couldn’t see what book it was.

“I hear you there,” he chuckled ruefully.

There were a few moments of awkward silence. Brianna glanced at the book in the young man’s lap, curious in spite of herself.

“So what are you reading?” she finally asked.

The young man smiled sheepishly. “It’s kinda below my age level…” He trailed off, looking embarrassed.

Brianna snorted, “If you had any idea how many times I’ve reread the Percy Jackson series…”

He grinned and held up the book cover for her to see. Brianna’s face broke into a grin.

“Seriously?” she asked. “That’s one of my favorite books!”

The young man gave a little relieved smile. “It’s one of my favorites too. It’s just so… I don’t know, light hearted.”

Brianna nodded. “I know, right? It’s kind of sad that more people haven’t heard of it. The poor suckers have to suffer through the classics instead.” She sighed, looking back out the window.

“It’s kind of a shame,” she whispered to herself.

“Sorry, what was that?”

She smiled, looking back at the young man.

“Oh, nothing. I just think it’s kind of a shame. All these authors have so much influence on the world around them. If they weren’t so worried about writing ‘deep and meaningful’ stuff, maybe the world would be a happier place.”

He shrugged. “I don’t know about that. I think we need both. The deep and meaningful stuff has its place, but I think it’s over-emphasized. A happy ending has its place too.”

They sat in silence as the train pulled to a stop, people moving on and off. Brianna stared out the window, lost in thought.

He had a point. There was a reason people seemed to like the depressingly deep stuff out there. It just seemed such a shame that that’s all she had ever been told to read in school. Ever since middle school, the “age appropriate” books had been about little british boys killing each other on an island or the holocaust. They were important warnings, but it grated on her. Like a dissonant chord in an orchestra -- two clashing notes that never moved to the relief of harmony.

Dissonance had its place, but part of its beauty was that there was always harmony at the end to relieve the tension. Without that harmony, it just grated on the eardrums.

The train began to slow down again, and the young man across from Brianna cleared his throat.

“Uh, this is my stop.”

Brianna started, jerked out of her thoughts by the sound of his voice.

“Oh.”

He shuffled his feet a little, then cleared his throat again. “Um, I -- I don’t think I ever caught your name.”

Brianna smiled at him. “Oh, sorry. I guess I was a little lost in thought. My name’s Brianna.”

He smiled shyly. “Nice to meet you. I’m Alex.”

The train jerked to a stop. Brianna didn’t see Alex go through the crowds of people shuffling off and on, but when the doors closed, he was gone.

She smiled to herself. He was a nice guy.

She blinked, watching the station pull away. She never got his phone number. Huh, she chuckled quietly, shaking her head. Oh, well. She would probably never see him again.

Brianna pulled her phone back out as the train darted back into the jarring mashup of forests and high rises.

She had some reading to do.