Basically, it's hard for me to assess myself, a hardship not only

Host:
The night hung heavy over the riverfront, its darkness broken only by the pale, flickering streetlights that shivered against the wind. The air smelled of iron and salt, and the bridge above them moaned with the passing of trains. Jack stood by the railing, a cigarette burning between his fingers, its ember glowing like a tiny, defiant star. Jeeny approached slowly, her hair fluttering in the wind, her eyes reflecting the city’s lights as if they carried the weight of a thousand memories.

The river moved beneath them — restless, cold, alive — like time itself, sliding forward, indifferent to what it touched or took.

Jeeny: “You’ve been silent for a long time, Jack. What are you thinking about?”

Jack: “About what Brodsky once said — that a man can’t really assess himself or his work, because time does the assessing for him. That’s what interests me — what time can do to a man.”

Host: The wind tightened around them, pulling at Jack’s coat, rattling the chains along the bridge. His voice came out rough, measured, but there was an edge — the kind that cuts deeper when it tries not to.

Jeeny: “You mean how it changes him?”

Jack: “How it strips him. Time doesn’t just change people, Jeeny. It erases them. Piece by piece. Like waves eating away at a shore. What’s left — maybe — is what’s real. Or maybe nothing at all.”

Jeeny: “You make it sound like time is a predator, not a teacher.”

Jack: “Isn’t that what it is? Look around — buildings crumble, names fade, memories rot. Even the statues we build to outlast us turn to dust. That’s time’s true nature — corrosion disguised as continuity.”

Host: Jeeny leaned against the railing, her hands folded, her voice quiet, but steadfast.

Jeeny: “But that’s not all it does. Time can heal, too. It can soften the edges, transform pain into understanding. If it destroys, it also reveals — what’s essential, what’s eternal in us.”

Jack: “That’s the kind of romanticism that keeps people blind. Pain doesn’t turn into understanding, Jeeny. It just sleeps. Ask anyone who’s lost someone they loved — ten years later, it still hurts, just quieter. Time doesn’t heal, it just hides the wounds better.”

Jeeny: “Maybe it’s not about the wounds, Jack. Maybe it’s about the growth that happens around them. Kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold — the cracks don’t disappear, they become the most beautiful part. Isn’t that what time can do to a man?”

Host: For a moment, the city’s noise faded — the horns, the hum, the distant shouts — all folded into silence. The river’s surface reflected the streetlight, shimmering like a film of mercury.

Jack: “That’s a nice metaphor. But gold doesn’t fix a life, Jeeny. Time doesn’t fill our cracks with meaning — it just fills them with dust. Think about Brodsky himself — an exile, a man who wrote about time because it took everything else from him. Time didn’t redeem him. It tested him, maybe, but it also punished him.”

Jeeny: “Yet he wrote. And because he wrote, he survived beyond his own time. That’s what I mean — time might break the body, but it can’t touch the spirit that creates. Every word, every gesture of love, every act of art — those are the defiances that outlive us.”

Jack: “Do you really believe that? That words can outlive the world that forgets them? Look at all the poets, thinkers, artists — buried, forgotten, replaced by newer voices. Even Shakespeare will one day mean nothing to a language that no longer exists.”

Jeeny: “And yet you quoted Brodsky tonight. That’s time’s irony, Jack. It buries and resurrects — it destroys, but it also chooses what to keep. The seed doesn’t know if it will ever grow, but it still falls into the earth.”

Host: Jack turned, his eyes narrow, breathing deeply, as if trying to suppress something restless in him. A train rumbled by above — its sound like thunder through iron. Sparks fell, brief, bright, and dying.

Jack: “You talk about faith as if it’s a strategy against time. But faith doesn’t change the fact that we end. It just makes it bearable.”

Jeeny: “And what’s wrong with that? Maybe that’s all we need — not escape, just bearability. The grace to live with what we can’t control. Time isn’t an enemy, Jack. It’s a mirror. It shows us what we really are when everything else is gone.”

Host: A pause fell between them — a stillness filled only by the sound of the river. The moonlight drifted through clouds, painting her face in silver. Jack looked at her — not as an opponent, but as someone who had seen a truth he had forgotten to believe in.

Jack: “You know… when I was younger, I thought time was something I could use — control, even. Work, achievements, discipline — I thought they could freeze it. But it’s the other way around. Time uses you. You wake up one day, and realize it’s already written your story.”

Jeeny: “And yet you’re still writing, aren’t you? Every choice, every word, even this conversation — they’re edits in the margin of what time tries to erase. Maybe we can’t control it, but we can speak to it. And sometimes, it listens.”

Jack: “You really think time listens?”

Jeeny: “Yes. Not the clock, not the calendar — but the moments that remember us. A child’s laugh, a hand you held, a word that changed someone. That’s how time answers. Quietly.”

Host: The wind softened, curling around their voices. The city dimmed, settling into its own breathing.

Jack: “Maybe you’re right. Maybe time isn’t what hurts — it’s the awareness of it. The knowing that it moves, and we don’t.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. We move, too. Just not where we think. Time doesn’t push us forward — it deepens us.”

Host: The river glimmered, a mirror of silver and shadow, as if it understood their words. Jack flicked the last ash from his cigarette, watching it fall, spiral, and vanish.

Jack: “So maybe Brodsky was right. We can’t assess ourselves. Maybe time does that — silently, relentlessly. But maybe, if we’re lucky, it leaves a few marks that matter.”

Jeeny: “And those marks are what make us human.”

Host: She smiled, a faint, sad, but luminous smile, as if accepting both the cruelty and the grace of it all. The train passed again, slower this time, its wheels singing like a dirge.

Host: The camera would pull back now — the bridge, the river, two silhouettes facing the dark, their shadows stretching into infinity. Time, unseen but palpable, moved through the scene like a breath — testing, softening, forgiving.

And for a moment, in that fragile interval, they both believed that time — for once — had stopped to listen.