Beauty is as relative as light and dark. Thus, there exists no

Host: The bar sat deep in the old quarter of the city, tucked between bookstores and antique shops, its walls lined with black-and-white portraits and shelves of half-empty bottles. The lighting was low — a golden haze that made every face look a little softer, every regret a little older. Outside, the streetlights shivered in the fog, and the sound of a slow saxophone drifted in from somewhere far away.

Host: Jack leaned against the worn mahogany counter, a glass of whiskey in his hand, his reflection flickering in the mirror behind the bar. Jeeny sat across from him, her hair falling like silk over her shoulders, her eyes luminous even in the dim light. Between them, the air was charged — not with flirtation, but with the quiet electricity of two people orbiting truth.

Jeeny: (softly) “Paul Klee once said, ‘Beauty is as relative as light and dark. Thus, there exists no beautiful woman, none at all, because you are never certain that a still far more beautiful woman will not appear and completely shame the supposed beauty of the first.’”

Jack: (smirking faintly) “A cruel truth — or maybe just a logical one. Trust an artist to strip romance down to a theorem.”

Jeeny: “You call it cruel. I call it honest. Beauty isn’t a throne — it’s a shadow that shifts with the light.”

Jack: “Sounds poetic. But people don’t love shadows, Jeeny. They love the light. And they chase it, even when it blinds them.”

Host: The bartender passed silently behind them, the clink of glass marking time. Outside, the rain began again — slow, deliberate, like thought.

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s the problem. We’ve made beauty something to chase, something to possess. Klee was right — there’s no ultimate beauty, because beauty doesn’t stay still. It moves, it evolves, it escapes.”

Jack: “Or maybe it dies. Every generation buries its own gods — even the beautiful ones. The face that ruled a decade ends up forgotten in a digital graveyard. It’s not mystery, Jeeny — it’s mathematics. Scarcity, novelty, desire.”

Jeeny: “You sound like an economist describing the Mona Lisa.”

Jack: “Maybe da Vinci was an economist too. He understood value — the balance of attention and scarcity. That’s why people stand in line for hours to see a smile painted half a millennium ago.”

Jeeny: “But they don’t stand in line for value, Jack. They stand in line for wonder. The Mona Lisa isn’t beautiful because she’s flawless — she’s beautiful because she haunts you.”

Host: Jeeny’s voice trembled, not from fragility, but from conviction. Jack turned toward her, his eyes sharp and gray, his tone lower now — the kind of low that hides tiredness behind argument.

Jack: “You always turn abstraction into faith. But let’s be honest — beauty has rules. Symmetry. Proportion. The Greeks carved it in marble; the Renaissance measured it in geometry. The moment we pretend it’s subjective, we lose the ability to create it.”

Jeeny: “And the moment we pretend it’s objective, we lose the ability to feel it. Symmetry doesn’t make your chest ache, Jack. Light does. Shadow does. The moment something is fragile enough to break — that’s when it’s beautiful.”

Jack: (dryly) “So imperfection is the new perfection. How very modern of you.”

Jeeny: “It’s not modern. It’s ancient. The Japanese call it wabi-sabi — beauty in impermanence, in wear, in decay. The chipped cup, the weathered door, the face that’s lived. That’s the kind of beauty that doesn’t compete — it just is.”

Host: The rain outside intensified, slanting against the windows like fine threads of silver. A couple at the far end of the bar laughed softly, their shadows trembling in the amber light.

Jack: “And yet, Klee’s right. The moment you call someone or something beautiful, you invite the question — compared to what? Every beauty is temporary, every admiration conditional. It’s the most fragile currency we trade.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe the fault isn’t in beauty — it’s in comparison. We’ve made beauty a ladder when it was meant to be a mirror.”

Jack: (raising an eyebrow) “A mirror?”

Jeeny: “Yes. When you call something beautiful, you’re not describing it — you’re describing yourself. What you value. What you long for. Beauty is a confession, not a fact.”

Host: The words hung between them, delicate as the smoke curling from Jack’s cigarette. He let out a slow exhale, the ash falling onto the counter like the remnants of an old thought.

Jack: “So beauty’s a reflection of our hunger. Then what happens when the hunger changes?”

Jeeny: “Then beauty changes too. That’s what makes it alive.”

Jack: “Alive — or unstable.”

Jeeny: “Life is unstable, Jack. That’s what makes it beautiful.”

Host: Jack turned his glass slowly, watching the whiskey catch the light like amber fire. His reflection in the liquid was distorted — younger, softer, almost unrecognizable.

Jack: “You know, I met a model once who said something similar. She said she hated being called beautiful because it felt like an expiration date waiting to happen. I thought she was being dramatic. Now I’m not so sure.”

Jeeny: “She wasn’t being dramatic. She was being aware. Klee understood that — the terror behind admiration. To be called beautiful is to live under the threat of being replaced.”

Jack: “That’s a hell of a burden for something meant to be a compliment.”

Jeeny: “Maybe compliments should be given for things that grow, not things that fade.”

Host: The bar light flickered, a soft pulse that seemed to breathe with their conversation. The rain slowed, turning into mist against the glass.

Jack: “So what do we do then? Stop calling things beautiful?”

Jeeny: “No. We redefine it. We stop pretending beauty is a crown to be worn. It’s a conversation — between the eye and the soul, between what’s fleeting and what stays.”

Jack: “And what stays?”

Jeeny: “The moment. The feeling. The recognition of something that moves you, even if it’s gone a second later.”

Host: Jack looked at her then — really looked — and something in his gaze softened, as though the argument had disarmed him rather than convinced him.

Jack: “You talk like someone who’s seen beauty break and still forgives it.”

Jeeny: “Because I have. Because we all have. Every sunrise, every face we loved and lost, every piece of art that made us cry — it all teaches us the same thing: beauty isn’t a possession. It’s a passing.”

Jack: (quietly) “And maybe that’s what makes it unbearable.”

Jeeny: “And therefore sacred.”

Host: The rain had stopped. The city outside shimmered under the thin veil of mist, the streetlights reflected like stars fallen into puddles. The bartender turned down the last light, leaving a soft golden glow around their table.

Host: Jack leaned back, his eyes on Jeeny, a faint smile ghosting across his face.

Jack: “So Klee was wrong then?”

Jeeny: “No. He was right — but incomplete. There may be no ‘most beautiful woman,’ no ultimate form, but that doesn’t make beauty meaningless. It makes it infinite.”

Host: Jeeny’s voice was a whisper now, almost indistinguishable from the air. Jack nodded slowly, as though surrendering not to her argument, but to its truth.

Host: As they rose to leave, the mirror behind the bar caught their reflections — imperfect, unposed, yet glowing faintly in the amber light.

Host: And in that fleeting shimmer, the night seemed to say what Klee could not — that beauty was never a contest, but a language; never a possession, but a pulse.

Host: Outside, the fog curled around them like smoke, and the city, in all its broken symmetry, looked quietly — impossibly — beautiful.