All things are only transitory.

Host: The sky above the old cemetery hill glowed with a deep, dying gold, the kind of light that feels both ancient and temporary — as if the sun itself knew it was saying goodbye. The wind stirred the autumn leaves, scattering them across cracked stone paths and names half-erased by time. The air smelled of earth, of rain just passed, and of the quiet humility that comes when endings no longer surprise.

Beneath a weathered oak, Jack sat on a low stone wall, his hands wrapped around a cup of lukewarm coffee, the steam barely rising. His eyes, pale grey and distant, followed the slow drift of leaves in the air.

Jeeny stood nearby, her coat collar turned up against the chill, her hair moving softly in the breeze. She held a small book, old and worn, its edges curling like something that had survived too much.

The inscription on the cover caught the last light: Goethe – Poems and Reflections.

Jeeny: (reading softly) “Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote, ‘All things are only transitory.’”

Host: Her voice carried gently through the cold air — not as philosophy, but as something already lived.

Jack: (half-smiling) “That’s the kind of line you find carved on a tombstone.”

Jeeny: “Maybe because it’s the truest kind of line — short, quiet, impossible to argue with.”

Jack: “I could argue. Everything’s transitory, sure, but that doesn’t make it meaningful. It just makes it temporary.”

Jeeny: “And isn’t that the point? Meaning lives because things end. If nothing changed, nothing would matter.”

Jack: “You sound like my grandmother when she used to talk about sunsets. Said they were beautiful because they die every day. I never bought it. Beauty shouldn’t have to vanish to exist.”

Jeeny: (smiling faintly) “But it does. That’s what makes it human.”

Host: The light shifted again — softer now, the shadows stretching long and delicate over the grass. A bell tolled faintly from the church down the hill, its sound drifting like memory through the air.

Jack: “You think Goethe believed that? Or was he just comforting himself — trying to make peace with mortality?”

Jeeny: “Maybe both. Poets make peace with death by talking to it. You lawyers,” she teased lightly, “you cross-examine it.”

Jack: (chuckles) “I’d lose that case every time.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Because death doesn’t debate. It waits.”

Host: The wind rose, carrying the faint scent of wet leaves. The two stood in silence for a moment, listening to the quietness that only old places know — the kind made not by absence, but by remembrance.

Jack: “You ever think about it? How everything we build — cities, names, stories — all of it turns to dust eventually?”

Jeeny: “All the time. And that’s why I try to love things while they’re here. The trick isn’t to hold on; it’s to witness.”

Jack: “Witness what, exactly?”

Jeeny: “The vanishing.”

Host: He looked at her, the faintest trace of amusement fading into something heavier — respect, perhaps, or grief.

Jack: “You sound peaceful about it. I envy that.”

Jeeny: “I’m not peaceful. I just stopped pretending permanence was possible.”

Jack: “So what — you just accept everything ends? Love, work, people?”

Jeeny: “Not accept. Embrace. There’s a difference.”

Host: The leaves stirred again, swirling like fragments of gold. She stepped closer to him, her eyes soft but bright, like someone who had cried once, long ago, and learned something sacred from it.

Jeeny: “Look around, Jack. Everything here was once alive. Every tree, every name on those stones, even the wind moving through them. Transience doesn’t erase life — it proves it.”

Jack: (quietly) “You think endings can prove anything?”

Jeeny: “They prove we were here.”

Host: He stared down at his hands, the coffee now cold, the cup trembling slightly in the breeze.

Jack: “You know, I used to think permanence was strength. Build things that last, leave something behind. But the older I get, the more I realize — maybe lasting isn’t the point.”

Jeeny: “No. Living is.”

Jack: “You make it sound simple.”

Jeeny: “It is. It’s just not easy.”

Host: The sun began to slip behind the hills, the sky turning that impossible color between amber and ash. Shadows of branches stretched long across the gravestones, touching the engraved words like tender fingers.

Jack: “Funny. When I was younger, I thought growing up meant finding things that would never change. Now I’m old enough to know — the only thing that doesn’t change is that everything does.”

Jeeny: “That’s not cynicism, Jack. That’s awakening.”

Jack: “Feels like loss.”

Jeeny: “It’s both. Loss is just another name for transformation.”

Host: She knelt to pick up a fallen leaf, its edges brittle, its color fading to pale brown. She held it up to the light.

Jeeny: “See this? It’s dying — but look closer. The veins, the symmetry. It’s still beautiful in its ending. That’s life’s last trick — it makes even decay poetic.”

Jack: (smiling faintly) “You always find poetry in pain.”

Jeeny: “Pain is the only thing that guarantees we’re real.”

Host: The wind softened, the last rays of light slipping through the clouds. The world around them seemed suspended — not alive, not dead, but beautifully in between.

Jack: “You know, I think Goethe was right. All things are transitory. But maybe the real tragedy isn’t that they fade — it’s that we notice.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. The real miracle is that we do.”

Host: The sky dimmed to twilight now — blue dissolving into gray. The first stars trembled faintly above, as if testing their right to shine again.

Jack looked up, then back at Jeeny.

Jack: “When I die, I don’t want a monument. Just a bench. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere people can sit and think about how nothing lasts.”

Jeeny: (smiling) “That’s not nothing, Jack. That’s everything.”

Host: They stood side by side now, silent as the world folded itself gently into night. The lamp posts along the path flickered on one by one, casting halos of light that barely reached the ground — reminders that even small brightnesses have their place in darkness.

The book in Jeeny’s hand fluttered open again, its pages whispering with the wind. She closed it softly, her fingers resting on the cover.

Jeeny: “Goethe wrote that line centuries ago, but I think he meant it as comfort — not despair. Maybe he saw what we forget: that transience is mercy. If everything lasted forever, there’d be no room for becoming.”

Jack: “And no reason to love.”

Host: The stars grew sharper now, cold and steady above the ruins of day. The leaves had stopped moving. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.

Jeeny reached for his hand — quiet, sure.

Jeeny: “Everything fades, Jack. But in fading, everything leaves light behind.”

Host: And there they stood, surrounded by centuries of names, under a sky that had watched countless lives come and go — their joined hands a brief, fragile defiance against eternity.

As the last light disappeared, the world didn’t mourn. It simply changed.

For all things — love, grief, beauty, life — are only transitory.

But in their passing, they reveal the one truth that never fades:
that to exist, even for a moment, is to have mattered forever.