As a body everyone is single, as a soul never.

Host: The river moved slowly under the bridge — black glass in the evening light, swallowing the reflection of the city in long, trembling streaks. A faint wind carried the smell of rain and iron, and the low murmur of traffic faded into something that felt almost like silence.

Host: On the bridge’s worn stone railing, Jack leaned forward, his elbows resting on the cold surface, staring into the water. Beside him, Jeeny stood with her hands in the pockets of her coat, her face half-lit by the last glimmer of twilight.

Jeeny: (softly) “Hermann Hesse once said, ‘As a body everyone is single, as a soul never.’”
(She looks out at the water.) “It’s strange, isn’t it — how one sentence can make you feel both comforted and haunted at the same time?”

Jack: (half-smiling) “Hesse was good at that. He always spoke like someone standing between two worlds — the visible and the invisible.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. That line… it’s like he’s saying: you’re never really alone, but you’ll never fully belong either.”

Jack: “That’s the paradox of being human. You walk the earth in one skin, but your soul keeps colliding with others, brushing past, intertwining for moments — then separating again.”

Host: The wind shifted, and the air grew cooler. The river below rippled, breaking the mirror image of the city lights into a thousand fragments — as if reflecting all the half-lived lives drifting in it.

Jeeny: “Sometimes I think about how many people we carry inside us — people we’ve loved, hated, missed, met once on a train. They all leave fingerprints. So maybe the soul isn’t one thing. Maybe it’s a mosaic.”

Jack: “Yeah. Every connection rearranges the pattern a little. The body keeps boundaries — skin, bone, name — but the soul? It leaks.”

Jeeny: (smiling faintly) “Leaking sounds messy.”

Jack: “It is. But maybe that’s how we recognize each other — by what spills over.”

Host: The streetlamps flickered on, one by one, painting the wet pavement in pools of amber. The night arrived slowly, as if reluctant to interrupt the conversation.

Jeeny: “You think that’s what he meant — that our separateness is just an illusion?”

Jack: “Maybe. Or maybe he meant that connection isn’t something we create; it’s something we remember. Every soul we meet feels familiar because, in some way, we’ve met before — not in time, but in essence.”

Jeeny: “That sounds like reincarnation.”

Jack: “Not necessarily. More like resonance. You know how some people feel instantly known? Like you’ve met in another lifetime, or maybe just another version of yourself?”

Jeeny: “Yeah.” (She pauses.) “Sometimes it feels less like meeting and more like remembering.”

Jack: “Exactly. The soul doesn’t recognize faces — it recognizes frequencies.”

Host: A train rumbled somewhere in the distance, its sound deep and fleeting — a reminder that even movement was temporary, that everything eventually passes through.

Jeeny: “You know, it’s comforting — the idea that we’re all connected beneath the surface. But it’s also… sad. Because it means no one really belongs to anyone. We just touch, then drift apart again.”

Jack: “That’s the condition of love, isn’t it? Two souls brushing close enough to remember they’re part of the same song — then separating again to carry the echo elsewhere.”

Jeeny: (softly) “You make it sound almost sacred.”

Jack: “It is. Connection always is. Even heartbreak is just proof that two souls once recognized each other.”

Host: The river caught the moonlight now, glimmering like liquid silver. The water looked alive — restless, shifting, ancient.

Jeeny: “You think that’s why loneliness hurts so much? Because the soul knows it’s not supposed to be separate?”

Jack: “Yes. The body endures isolation; the soul doesn’t understand it. It keeps reaching, searching for something to mirror itself in.”

Jeeny: “So when we ache, it’s not for company. It’s for recognition.”

Jack: “Exactly. We’re not craving people; we’re craving reflection.”

Jeeny: “That’s beautiful — and painful.”

Jack: “Everything real is both.”

Host: The sound of the water deepened, mingling with the hum of the city — that eternal duet between nature and human restlessness.

Jeeny: “You know what I love about Hesse? He never separated the mystical from the human. He saw spirit in sweat, soul in sorrow.”

Jack: “Yeah. He believed the soul wasn’t somewhere else — it was right here, hidden beneath skin and habit.”

Jeeny: “So maybe when he said ‘as a body everyone is single,’ he wasn’t talking about isolation. He was talking about incarnation — that each of us is one note from a larger melody.”

Jack: “And together we make the song.”

Jeeny: “Exactly.”

Host: They fell silent for a moment. The bridge creaked faintly beneath their feet. The city behind them glowed — not harshly, but like a constellation trying to remember its original form.

Jeeny: “You ever wonder if our souls choose where to collide? Or if it’s just chance?”

Jack: “I don’t believe in chance. Not in the soul’s language. Every encounter feels like choreography — messy, but meaningful.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe loneliness isn’t punishment. It’s the pause between verses.”

Jack: “Yes. The space where the next harmony will find you.”

Host: The moon rose higher, a pale witness to everything below — the bridge, the river, the two figures sharing warmth in the chill of understanding.

Jeeny: “So when we die, you think the body ends, but the song continues?”

Jack: “I think the music just changes key. You stop being the note and start being the whole composition.”

Jeeny: “And maybe that’s what he meant. ‘As a soul, never single’ — because we were never separate notes to begin with. Just one instrument remembering how to play.”

Jack: (quietly) “You make it sound like peace.”

Jeeny: “Maybe it is. Maybe we’ve just been too noisy to hear it.”

Host: The river shimmered, carrying the moon’s reflection downstream — the illusion of light moving, though the source stayed still.

And in that quiet, Hermann Hesse’s words seemed to rise with the mist —

that solitude is the body’s condition,
but communion is the soul’s truth;
that while skin divides us,
spirit unites us —
a web of unseen threads
connecting every breath,
every grief,
every heartbeat.

Host: Jeeny stepped closer to the railing, her reflection merging with the water’s shifting surface.

Jeeny: “You know what I think, Jack?”

Jack: “What?”

Jeeny: “That loneliness might just be the soul remembering how to listen.”

Jack: (smiling softly) “And love — the moment it hears someone else singing back.”

Host: The wind passed over the bridge — cold, alive, endless — carrying with it the quiet music of the earth and everything living upon it.

And beneath that sound,
two souls — separate bodies, shared silence —
stood together long enough to feel it:

that they had never really been alone,
only waiting
to remember the song they already knew.