Monday morning carried a strange kind of quiet, the kind that hummed beneath everything like a heartbeat you couldn’t unhear.
Emma arrived early, her hair still damp from the shower, her thoughts looping through the last experiment—*data reflects perception.* The sentence had settled somewhere deep in her, like a pebble at the bottom of a beaker.
She set her bag on the lab table. The room was empty except for the sound of the clock ticking and the faint scent of alcohol wipes. It felt like a place waiting to remember.
When Liam entered, the air shifted. He paused by the door, scanning the space as if it were a formula to solve. His movements were as measured as always, but his eyes carried something she hadn’t seen before—hesitation, maybe, or thought caught midair.
“You’re early,” he said.
“You’re late,” she countered automatically.
“I wasn’t aware it was a competition.”
“Everything’s a competition,” she said. “Especially silence.”
He gave her a look that wasn’t quite annoyance. “You name every phenomenon like it’s poetry.”
“Maybe poetry’s just science that doesn’t apologize.”
He didn’t argue, which, coming from him, was basically a confession.
Ms. Green walked in, her clipboard balanced precariously under her arm. “Today, we’ll begin testing resonance,” she said. “How external frequency—sound, rhythm, vibration—affects sensory interpretation.”
“Vibration,” Emma repeated under her breath. “Sounds scandalous.”
Liam gave her a side glance. “It’s physics, not gossip.”
“Physics can be sexy.”
“That’s subjective.”
“Everything is.”
Ms. Green continued explaining the parameters. Each pair of students would use tuning forks and sound frequencies while sampling identical sugar solutions. Their task: measure how the vibration altered perceived taste.
The room filled with a chorus of metallic rings as forks struck the air. Each tone shimmered like invisible glass. When it was their turn, Liam held the fork steady, the hum faint but pure. The vibration ran through the table, through her fingertips, through everything.
“Describe the taste,” he said.
She closed her eyes. “It’s brighter.”
“Brighter isn’t a quantifiable adjective.”
“Then it’s like sunlight through glass.”
“That’s metaphor.”
“That’s data.”
He exhaled, barely audible. “You redefine data every time you speak.”
“Maybe data should learn to keep up.”
He struck the tuning fork again, and this time she felt it deeper—an ache under her ribs, a pulse in her wrist. It wasn’t just sound; it was presence, physical and close.
Her throat went dry. “Do you feel that?”
“Yes,” he said after a moment. “But it’s not part of the experiment.”
“It could be.”
For a heartbeat, they just looked at each other, the space between them humming with the same low note as the fork.
Ms. Green’s voice broke the spell. “Remember, observation first, interpretation later.”
Emma swallowed, trying to find her place again in the experiment. “Observation: resonance makes people forget what they were measuring.”
“Interpretation: distraction reduces precision.”
“Or maybe it just changes what matters.”
He didn’t write that one down.
By the time the bell rang, the vibrations still hung in the air like threads. Ms. Green dismissed the class, and the students filed out, chattering about frequencies and charts. Emma lingered, pretending to tidy up the notes.
Liam gathered his things. “You’re staying?”
“Just thinking.”
“About?”
“How sound becomes memory.”
He paused, fingers tightening slightly on his bag strap. “You talk like there’s always a hidden variable.”
“There usually is.”
Their eyes met for one last beat before he left. The hum of the tuning forks still echoed faintly from the counters.
She exhaled. The air tasted like sugar and static.
By late afternoon, the sky outside the lab had turned the color of graphite. The clouds hung low, dense enough to press sound back toward the ground.
Emma stayed after class under the pretext of cleaning up. The truth was she didn’t want to leave yet. The hum of the tuning forks still lingered in her chest, an echo she couldn’t shake.
She placed one fork gently on the counter and struck it again. The pure tone filled the space—thin, clear, infinite. It made the air tremble.
“Still experimenting?” The voice came from behind her.
She turned. Liam was at the doorway, half in shadow. “Just checking if resonance works on thoughts,” she said.
“Dangerous variable,” he replied. He stepped closer, the sound fading as the vibration stilled. “You realize you’re supposed to record results, not chase them.”
“Maybe the results are chasing me.”
He gave her that look again—half logic, half disbelief—but didn’t leave. The rain began tapping the windows, soft and rhythmic.
“Here,” she said, handing him the fork. “Try it.”
He hesitated, then struck the fork and held it out. The tone was lower this time, deeper, warmer. It vibrated through the counter and into her fingertips when she reached to steady it.
“Describe it,” he said.
She swallowed. “It feels like something you can’t keep.”
He looked at her, expression unreadable. “Sound dissipates. That’s its nature.”
“Maybe. But sometimes it lingers in the wrong places.”
The tone faded, leaving only the rain. For a moment, neither spoke.
Finally, he said, “You’re turning every experiment into philosophy.”
“And you’re pretending not to understand it.”
“I understand. I just don’t trust it.”
“That’s because it scares you.”
He blinked. “Scares me?”
“Yeah. You only trust what you can measure. Feelings don’t fit on a chart.”
He was silent for a long time, then said quietly, “That’s not entirely true.”
Her pulse jumped. “No?”
He glanced down at the tuning fork, then back at her. “Some frequencies exist outside human range. We can’t measure them directly, but we know they’re there because of what they move.”
She smiled slowly. “So you’re saying feelings have frequency?”
“I’m saying not everything needs proof to exist.”
The words hung between them longer than the sound had.
She whispered, “That might be the most romantic thing you’ve ever said.”
“That wasn’t—” he started, then stopped. “—intentional.”
“Intentionality is overrated.”
He shook his head, but she caught the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth.
They cleaned the counters together in silence. The world outside darkened until the windows turned to mirrors. When they finished, he lingered by the door again.
“Emma,” he said, voice lower than usual. “Do you ever think we’re creating more than data?”
She looked at him, a smile ghosting on her lips. “Constantly.”
He nodded once, then left. The sound of his footsteps faded down the hall.
That night, the air in her apartment still carried that hum, low and invisible. She set her phone on the counter, started a new stream.
“Hi,” she said softly. “Tonight’s flavor is resonance. It’s the moment when two things vibrate at the same frequency and stop feeling separate.”
Her eyes flickered toward the camera. “Maybe that’s what connection really is. A sound you don’t hear but can still feel.”
On the other side of town, Liam sat in the dark, the same tuning fork on his desk. He tapped it once, and the faint ring filled the room.
The tone didn’t fade as quickly this time.
It stayed—quiet, patient, certain—as if it had found its match.
Comments (0)
See all