A lot of people think they should be happy all the time. But the

Host: The rain had turned the streets into mirrors, each puddle trembling under the slow footsteps of night. A café at the corner still breathed — its windows fogged, its light golden, spilling softly into the dark like a promise that refused to die. Inside, the air was warm, scented with coffee, wet wool, and faint notes of piano music coming from an old radio near the counter.

Jack sat in his usual corner, his hands wrapped around a cup of black coffee, steam curling upward, ghostlike. Jeeny arrived quietly, her hair damp, her eyes heavy with the kind of fatigue that comes not from work, but from feeling too much.

Host: They had not spoken in weeks. The last time, it had ended in silence — the kind that doesn’t end arguments, only buries them deeper. Tonight, the city outside seemed to hum with their unspoken words.

Jeeny: “Janet Fitch said something I’ve been thinking about all day.”

Jack: “That’s a surprise. You usually think about other people, not authors.”

Jeeny: (half-smiling) “She said: ‘A lot of people think they should be happy all the time. But the writer understands you need both. You need the whole piano — the richness of the whole human experience. Depression, suffering, and anger are all part of being human.’”

Host: Jack looked at her through the rising steam, his grey eyes sharpening, as if testing the weight of her words before letting them in.

Jack: “The ‘whole piano,’ huh? Sounds poetic. But life isn’t a symphony, Jeeny. It’s noise. People want happiness because pain is useless. You don’t learn from suffering — you just survive it.”

Jeeny: “That’s not true. Suffering teaches. It strips away illusions. You can’t write, love, or even truly live without touching darkness.”

Host: The radio piano stumbled on a minor chord, as if to agree. The rain outside thickened, tracing tiny rivers down the glass.

Jack: “You sound like one of those people who romanticize pain. Who think misery makes you profound.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. I think it makes you real. You can’t play only the white keys and call it music.”

Jack: “Music’s supposed to lift you, not drown you.”

Jeeny: “Tell that to Beethoven when he went deaf. Or Van Gogh, painting beauty through madness. They suffered, and yet their pain became creation. Isn’t that what you admire? The truth hidden in ruin?”

Host: Jack’s fingers drummed on the table — a slow, mechanical rhythm. He hated when she used examples that left no clean exits.

Jack: “And what about the ones who didn’t turn it into art? The ones who just fell apart? You think their pain was some noble symphony too?”

Jeeny: “No. But I think their pain was still human. And that matters.”

Host: A long silence. The kind where every breath feels like a confession. The café was almost empty now. A man in a corner stirred sugar into tea with the patience of someone who’d stopped expecting sweetness from life.

Jeeny: “You’ve spent years pretending you don’t feel. Like numbness is strength. But that’s just cowardice, Jack.”

Jack: (coldly) “You think you know what I’ve felt?”

Jeeny: “I think you’re terrified of it. Because once you feel it — really feel it — you’ll lose control.”

Host: The air tightened. The piano on the radio had stopped, leaving only the quiet sound of rain and breathing. Jack’s jaw moved slightly, like he was chewing on words too sharp to swallow.

Jack: “Control is the only thing that keeps me alive. You think I want to feel? I’ve seen what happens when people let pain run their lives. My father did. He drank himself into silence because he couldn’t accept that sadness was just another shade of living. And I swore I’d never be like him.”

Jeeny: “So you cut the sad keys out of your piano.”

Jack: “Exactly. Better one clean note than a broken chord.”

Jeeny: “But you can’t build a life out of a single note, Jack. You can’t live on control alone. You need the dissonance — it’s what gives meaning to the harmony.”

Host: Jeeny leaned forward, her eyes dark, reflecting the flicker of candlelight. Outside, thunder rolled — soft, distant, like the slow turning of the world.

Jeeny: “Pain isn’t the opposite of happiness. It’s the shape of it. You only know joy when you’ve walked through sorrow.”

Jack: “That’s sentimental nonsense.”

Jeeny: “No, it’s human truth. Why do you think people cry at weddings, at music, at art? Because joy and sadness are married. One calls out the other.”

Host: Jack looked away, toward the window, where a young couple crossed the street under one umbrella, laughing as rain soaked their shoes. His eyes softened — but only for a moment.

Jack: “And what do we do when the sadness never leaves? When it becomes the only sound left?”

Jeeny: “Then you keep playing. Even the darkest notes still belong to the song.”

Host: Her voice cracked a little on that last word. She turned her face, blinking away tears she didn’t want him to see. The candle between them sputtered, its flame trembling in the draft.

Jack: “You talk like a writer now — wrapping pain in pretty metaphors.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s what writers do. They give pain a language. Because silence kills faster than grief.”

Jack: (quietly) “I envy that. I only know how to fix things I can see.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe start by seeing yourself.”

Host: The words struck him like cold water. His fingers froze around the coffee cup. For the first time that night, he looked truly uncertain — like a man staring at an instrument he’d forgotten how to play.

Jack: “You really think… it’s okay not to be happy?”

Jeeny: “Not just okay — necessary. If happiness were constant, it would be meaningless. You need the lows to understand the highs. That’s the whole piano.”

Host: Jack leaned back, his eyes distant. He thought of the years he’d spent pretending everything was fine — the meetings, the noise, the drinks that blurred the edges. He realized, for the first time, that in numbing the pain, he’d also dulled the joy.

Jack: “So the trick isn’t to silence the black keys.”

Jeeny: “No. It’s to learn how to play them.”

Host: Outside, the rain softened, the storm easing into a gentle drizzle. The city lights shimmered again — reflections now steadier, like the world had exhaled.

Jack: “You know… maybe that’s why music moves people. Because it’s built on tension and release. Pain and peace. If it were all major chords, it’d be unbearable.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Even sadness has its rhythm. The writer — the real human being — doesn’t run from it. They listen.”

Host: The radio began playing again — a slow, haunting jazz piece, all low notes and breath. Jack watched the steam rise from his cup and fade into nothing.

Jack: “Maybe I’ve been trying to live in C major all my life.”

Jeeny: (smiling faintly) “Try a minor key sometime. It might suit you.”

Host: He laughed — quietly, genuinely, the kind of laugh that comes after tears you didn’t shed.

Jack: “You always did find poetry in pain.”

Jeeny: “Because that’s where life hides. Between the cracks.”

Host: The barista wiped down the counter, the café nearly empty now. Outside, the streetlamps glowed through the mist, turning the puddles into pieces of light. Jack and Jeeny sat in the flicker of that fragile peace — two souls who’d stopped pretending that happiness was the only color worth living in.

Jack: “So we live the whole scale — joy, sorrow, anger, love — all of it?”

Jeeny: “All of it. Otherwise, you’re not really living. You’re just pressing one key and calling it music.”

Host: The final notes from the radio piano lingered in the air — a quiet, trembling chord that seemed to hang between them, neither sad nor happy, but utterly, beautifully true.

Outside, the rain stopped. And for the first time in a long time, Jack didn’t wish for the sun. He just listened — to the quiet symphony of being alive.