Art and literature should help us to get out of our mental

Host: The city was wrapped in a gray fog, the kind that made buildings look like ghosts and people like passing shadows. The old bookshop at the corner of Rue des Arbres still glowed faintly through the mist, its windows fogged from the warmth inside.

Inside, the air smelled of paper, coffee, and dust—a blend of ages, the scent of both memory and imagination. The lamps cast a soft gold across rows of books, their spines worn, their titles half faded, like souls whispering from other centuries.

Jack leaned against a wooden shelf, a thin novel in his hand, flipping through its pages with an air of quiet irony. Jeeny sat on the old sofa near the window, a cup of tea by her side, her eyes wandering between the words of the book and the rain trickling down the glass.

Host: There was a strange silence between them—not the cold kind, but the kind that hums with thought, like a violin string waiting to be touched.

Jeeny: “Elif Shafak said something today that stayed with me.” Her voice was soft, carrying that weight of thought that made the air thicken. “She said, ‘Art and literature should help us get out of our mental cocoons.’”

Jack: He smirked, without looking up. “Ah, yes. Another poetic way of saying we should think differently. People have been saying that since Plato.”

Jeeny: “Not like that, Jack. She means it’s not just about thinking—it’s about feeling differently. Seeing the world beyond ourselves.”

Jack: “And how exactly does reading a few pages of fiction help anyone see beyond themselves? Most readers just look for confirmation of what they already believe.”

Host: Jeeny’s eyes lifted slowly from the book, her gaze meeting his with quiet fire.

Jeeny: “You underestimate what art can do. A poem can make someone in Tokyo feel the same pain as a woman in Gaza. A painting can shake a man who’s never known grief. That’s not comfort—that’s transformation.”

Jack: “Transformation?” He laughed, short and bitter. “Tell that to the people scrolling through art feeds while eating breakfast. We’ve turned art into decoration, literature into noise. Everyone wants meaning, but no one wants to be changed.”

Host: The rain drummed harder against the window now, as though the sky itself was listening, agreeing, mourning.

Jeeny: “But art has changed people, Jack. Think of Uncle Tom’s Cabin—it helped ignite a war that ended slavery. Think of Picasso’s Guernica, painted after the bombing of a town—it became a symbol of the world’s conscience. And literature like 1984—it still warns us every day of what happens when truth dies.”

Jack: “And yet,” he said, flicking the book’s edge, “the world still burns. Tyrants still rise. Maybe art doesn’t change reality—it just records it beautifully.”

Jeeny: “You always reduce beauty to futility.”

Jack: “And you always confuse emotion with evidence.”

Host: Her eyes flashed, and the room seemed to grow smaller, as though their tension was bending the walls inward.

Jeeny: “Do you know what a cocoon is, Jack? It’s not just a shelter—it’s a prison disguised as protection. That’s what we do with our minds. We build shells around our thoughts until they suffocate us. Art doesn’t just decorate the shell—it cracks it open.”

Jack: “And then what? We crawl out naked into chaos?”

Jeeny: “Exactly.” Her voice sharpened. “That’s how growth happens.”

Host: Jack closed the book, his fingers resting on the cover, his face half-hidden in shadow. The rain reflected across the window, casting ripples of light over his eyes.

Jack: “You talk like the mind is a butterfly waiting to be born. But what if the cocoon is the only thing keeping us sane? What if art tears people open too far, makes them see what they can’t bear to?”

Jeeny: “Then maybe they needed to see it.”

Host: Her words fell like a quiet thunder, shaking something deep within the silence.

Jack: “You think everyone’s strong enough to face truth? Some people read Kafka and lose themselves in despair. Some look at Van Gogh and see only madness. Maybe cocoons aren’t prisons—they’re sanctuaries.”

Jeeny: “And yet, Jack, Van Gogh’s madness painted the sky alive. Kafka’s despair gave us words for our own alienation. They didn’t just reflect pain—they translated it into something universal. That’s what breaks the shell: not despair, but recognition.”

Host: A clock ticked faintly on the wall, marking time between each breath.

Jack: “You make it sound noble. But tell me, Jeeny, what good is art in the face of war? What can a poem do when bombs fall?”

Jeeny: “It can remind someone why not to become the bomber.”

Host: That sentence hung, stayed, pierced. Even the rain seemed to pause, as if to make space for it.

Jeeny: “You think art is useless because it doesn’t change the world overnight. But art doesn’t shout—it whispers. And sometimes, those whispers save people from drowning in the noise.”

Jack: “You talk about whispers like they’re enough to stop an army.”

Jeeny: “Sometimes they are. Look at the poets in the gulags. The novelists who wrote in exile. The musicians who played through dictatorships. They didn’t win wars, Jack—they kept humanity alive.”

Host: The candle on the table flickered, a small flame trembling against the draft. Jack’s eyes were fixed on it, his expression unreadable.

Jack: “Maybe you’re right,” he said after a long pause. “Maybe art keeps us alive. But not all of us get out of the cocoon. Some of us stay inside and call it home.”

Jeeny: “Then we write for you, Jack. For the ones who stay. Because one day, something will reach you—and you’ll emerge, even if only for a second.”

Host: Her voice had softened again, tender and tired, like a violin at the end of a long symphony.

Jack: “And what if I don’t?”

Jeeny: “Then you’ll have still felt the vibration of the bow.”

Host: He laughed, quietly this time—a laugh without mockery, only melancholy. The rain was easing, the fog outside thinning into threads of silver.

Jack: “You know, maybe that’s what art is, Jeeny. Not the breaking of the cocoon—but the knowing that there’s something outside it.”

Jeeny: “Yes.” Her eyes shone faintly in the candlelight. “And literature is the door we leave open.”

Host: The clock struck eleven. The bookshop fell into silence, except for the faint rustle of pages as a draft moved through the aisles, touching the words, as if breathing them alive again.

Outside, the fog began to lift, revealing the city’s lights—small, flickering fires in the night, like thoughts escaping from cocoons.

Host: Jack stood, his coat over his arm, looking once more at Jeeny before he left.

Jack: “You always make me read things I didn’t plan to.”

Jeeny: “Good. That means it’s working.”

Host: As he walked out into the cold, the rain had stopped completely. The world was still damp, but awake—its colors returning. Behind him, Jeeny sat, her book open, her fingers tracing a line of poetry as if it were a pulse.

And as the camera of the moment pulled back, the bookshop became a single, glowing cocoon of light in the dark city—not trapping thought, but birthing it.

Host: Somewhere, a page turned. And a mind—quietly, beautifully—opened.