A writer is someone who can make a riddle out of an answer.

Host: The midnight café was nearly empty, the air dense with the smell of ink, espresso, and unanswered thoughts. Outside, the rain fell in thin, deliberate lines, tracing poetry down the window. A single lamp cast a pool of amber light over the table where Jack sat — pen poised above a half-written page, eyes cold and restless.

Jeeny sat across from him, her notebook closed, both hands wrapped around a chipped porcelain cup. The faint crackle of an old jazz record drifted through the room, soft as the sigh of paper turning in a forgotten library.

The clock ticked slowly, not measuring time, but thought. The café’s walls were lined with books — spines faded, titles half-erased — as though every volume had lived long enough to regret its own meaning.

Jeeny: (quietly) “Karl Kraus once said, ‘A writer is someone who can make a riddle out of an answer.’”

Jack: (half-smiling) “He must’ve been proud of confusing people.”

Jeeny: “Or honest about it. Maybe answers are too fragile to stand without mystery.”

Jack: “Or maybe riddles are just arrogance in disguise — people dressing confusion up as genius.”

Jeeny: (leans forward) “Or humility. A writer who makes riddles isn’t hiding truth — they’re protecting it.”

Jack: (sighs, tapping his pen) “You think truth needs protection?”

Jeeny: “Always. If you hand it to people too easily, they stop earning it.”

Jack: (grins) “So writers are tricksters.”

Jeeny: “Magicians. We distract the eye so the soul can see.”

Host: The rain thickened outside, the rhythm steady as thought itself. Jack’s fingers trembled slightly above the paper, the pen hovering like a confession afraid to land. He looked tired — not from work, but from meaning too much, too often.

The café owner wiped a counter in the background, humming softly — a witness to a hundred quiet philosophies unfolding nightly over bitter coffee and bright minds.

Jack: “You know what’s strange? People come to writers for clarity. And we give them fog instead.”

Jeeny: “Because fog makes light visible.”

Jack: (laughs softly) “You’ve been waiting your whole life to say that, haven’t you?”

Jeeny: (smiles) “Maybe. But it’s true. The clearer the truth, the faster people forget it. But if you make them wrestle for it — they remember.”

Jack: “So, you’re saying the point isn’t to answer the question?”

Jeeny: “No. It’s to remind them that the question never ends.”

Jack: (leans back) “You sound like Rilke.”

Jeeny: “Then you should listen.”

Host: The candle on their table flickered, throwing their shadows across the wall — hers calm, centered; his jagged and restless. Between them, the silence thickened, not empty but rich — like soil holding the seed of something unspoken.

Jack ran his hand through his hair, the gesture tired but precise, like a man shaping his own discontent.

Jack: “You ever wonder if writing’s just self-defense? Like, we write riddles because we’re too afraid to say what we mean.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But what’s wrong with that?”

Jack: “It’s dishonest.”

Jeeny: “No. It’s human. You think painters use color because words are enough? Or composers write symphonies because silence tells the whole story?”

Jack: “So you think riddles are honesty wrapped in metaphor.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Truth needs to be earned — even by the person who writes it.”

Jack: “Then maybe the writer’s not answering the world. Maybe they’re just trying to understand their own question.”

Jeeny: (smiles softly) “Now you’re getting close.”

Host: The window rattled lightly as thunder murmured in the distance. The record skipped for a heartbeat, then found its rhythm again — like a breath interrupted by memory.

Jeeny tilted her head, studying Jack’s face, her voice low but certain.

Jeeny: “You know, Kraus wasn’t mocking writers. He was warning them.”

Jack: “Warning them of what?”

Jeeny: “Of clarity. Of the temptation to believe you’ve finally understood something.”

Jack: “And you think understanding is dangerous?”

Jeeny: “No. Finality is.”

Jack: (frowns) “You mean... answers kill curiosity.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Answers end the journey. But riddles — they keep the fire alive.”

Jack: “So you’d rather wander forever?”

Jeeny: “Better to wander awake than arrive asleep.”

Host: The light flickered, briefly dimming the café into a shadowed half-world where words felt heavier, more sacred. Jack’s pen finally touched paper — slowly, hesitantly — drawing not sentences, but symbols. Circles. Lines. Fragments.

It wasn’t writing. It was searching.

Jack: (murmurs) “You ever feel like we make things harder just to feel worthy of them?”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But the world already gives you easy. Meaning isn’t one of them.”

Jack: “You know, sometimes I envy people who don’t think in metaphors. People who can just say ‘I’m sad’ and mean it.”

Jeeny: “And you think that makes them truer?”

Jack: “Simpler, at least.”

Jeeny: “Maybe simplicity is another riddle — one written in plain sight.”

Jack: (half-laughs) “You just made sadness complicated.”

Jeeny: “No. I made it visible.”

Host: The camera drifted closer, the light pooling across the table — catching the faint shimmer of ink, the curl of Jeeny’s hair, the soft exhaustion beneath Jack’s defiance.

Outside, a passing car sent water rippling across the street, its headlights briefly illuminating the words Open Late on the café door.

Jeeny: “You know what makes writers different?”

Jack: “We overthink?”

Jeeny: “We see too much. Feel too much. So we twist answers until they bleed enough to mean something again.”

Jack: “That’s poetic and tragic.”

Jeeny: “So is truth.”

Jack: “And readers?”

Jeeny: “They’re our mirror. They find themselves in our riddles — not because we gave them answers, but because we gave them the courage to ask.”

Jack: (quietly) “Then maybe that’s why we keep writing — not to be understood, but to keep others wondering.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Wonder’s the only form of knowledge that doesn’t die.”

Host: The rain softened, becoming mist. The candle’s flame steadied, its small light unwavering — like purpose reborn in the ruins of reason.

Jack closed his notebook and leaned back, exhaling. Jeeny smiled faintly, her eyes reflecting the flame.

Jack: (softly) “You think Kraus knew the cost of his own wisdom?”

Jeeny: “He did. That’s why he turned every answer into a riddle — not to confuse, but to save truth from decay.”

Jack: “Then writing’s a kind of preservation.”

Jeeny: “Yes. Of uncertainty. Of humility. Of wonder.”

Jack: “And of guilt.”

Jeeny: “Only when you mistake meaning for mastery.”

Jack: (nods slowly) “So the writer’s job isn’t to solve life.”

Jeeny: “No. It’s to remind people it’s still unsolved.”

Host: The camera would linger on their faces — two writers, two souls circling the same question under the fragile light of understanding.

The record ended with a soft crackle. The rain stopped. Only silence remained — not empty, but full of possibility.

And as the scene faded, Karl Kraus’s words lingered like smoke in the candlelight —

that a writer’s true genius lies not in clarity,
but in complexity;

that the artist’s task is not to answer,
but to unravel meaning until it becomes human again.

For to make a riddle out of an answer
is to return wonder to truth,
and humility to knowledge.

Because in the end,
every sentence is a question disguised,
and every writer —
is just another soul
trying to listen to silence
until it speaks.