Before the palefaces came among us, we enjoyed the happiness of

Host: The night sky hung wide and solemn over a valley of whispering grass. A slow fire burned at the center of an ancient clearing, its flames licking the air like memory itself. The wind carried the faint scent of cedar and ash, mingled with the distant cry of an owl. The world seemed older here — untouched, patient, listening.

Jeeny sat cross-legged near the fire, her dark hair catching the light like silk, her eyes reflecting the restless dance of flame. Across from her, Jack stood with his hands in his pockets, a tall, shadowed figure against the glowing embers, his face drawn tight with the habit of disbelief.

The words of Tecumseh echoed softly in the air — not spoken, but felt, as though the forest itself remembered:
“Before the palefaces came among us, we enjoyed the happiness of unbounded freedom and were acquainted with neither riches, wants, nor oppression.”

Jeeny: “There’s something haunting about it, isn’t there? The idea that once, people could live without greed, without walls, without wanting more.”

Jack: “Haunting, yes. But also naive. ‘Unbounded freedom’? That’s a fairy tale, Jeeny. Every tribe, every civilization, had rules, hierarchies, conflict. Freedom’s a myth dressed in nostalgia.”

Host: The fire crackled, spitting sparks into the cold night air, each one dying mid-flight — like tiny, vanishing dreams. Jeeny watched the sparks fade, her expression somewhere between grief and defiance.

Jeeny: “Not a myth. A memory. Tecumseh wasn’t imagining perfection — he was mourning balance. They lived with the land, not on top of it. They didn’t need gold to prove worth, or power to define meaning.”

Jack: “And they still fought each other. Still hunted. Still survived by taking life. You can paint the past in soft colors, but it was still brutal.”

Jeeny: “Brutality without greed isn’t the same as cruelty born of hunger for more. Theirs was survival — ours is domination. There’s a difference.”

Host: The wind shifted, blowing ash into the air. Jack turned his head, his eyes glinting silver in the firelight. His jaw tightened — a man wrestling with thoughts too large to hold.

Jack: “You’re romanticizing the past, Jeeny. Every generation does it. The noble savage myth, the lost Eden — all just ways of saying we wish the world wasn’t as complicated as it is.”

Jeeny: “It’s not a myth to those who lost it. Tecumseh wasn’t dreaming; he was remembering what was stolen. You call it nostalgia. I call it testimony.”

Host: The silence that followed was deep, broken only by the distant murmur of a river beyond the trees. The flames wavered, as if listening to the echo of old voices — the ghosts of people who once sang to the stars, who once believed the earth was alive.

Jack: “Alright, say you’re right. Say they lived free. But freedom like that — it couldn’t last. The world moves forward, Jeeny. People expand, invent, conquer. That’s how civilizations survive.”

Jeeny: “At what cost, Jack? Survival isn’t progress if it means killing the soul of the world. Look around you — cities choking the sky, oceans turning black, people working themselves into silence. You call that civilization?”

Host: Her voice trembled, not with weakness, but with a furious kind of love. The firelight threw long shadows on her face, sharp and luminous.

Jack: “It’s the cost of evolution. We didn’t invent greed — nature did. Every living thing wants more: more territory, more food, more life. We’re just the only species honest about it.”

Jeeny: “No. We’re the only species that calls greed destiny.”

Host: The flames flared, as if her words had found their own fire. Jack stepped closer, his boots crunching against the earth, the heat brushing against his face.

Jack: “You talk about freedom like it’s some sacred relic, but what did it give them in the end? The tribes had their lands, their traditions — and they lost them. Freedom didn’t protect them from the future.”

Jeeny: “Because freedom isn’t armor, Jack. It’s a song. And songs can be silenced — but never erased.”

Host: The woods stirred, the trees sighing as if in agreement. Somewhere, a lone wolf howled — not mournful, but defiant.

Jeeny: “Tecumseh understood something we’ve forgotten — that true freedom isn’t the absence of rules, it’s the presence of harmony. His people didn’t own the earth; they belonged to it. That’s the difference.”

Jack: Bitterly. “Harmony doesn’t stop a bullet.”

Jeeny: “No, but it gives meaning to the life before it. You think survival is enough, but survival without connection is just existence. Tecumseh’s grief wasn’t just about land — it was about losing the soul of what it meant to be human.”

Host: Jack looked into the fire, the flames painting his face in restless color. His eyes softened — not in agreement, but in fatigue.

Jack: “You speak like you’ve seen it. Like you remember it.”

Jeeny: “Maybe we all do. Somewhere deep down, in the quiet parts of ourselves. Don’t you ever feel it — that ache when you stand under a vast sky, untouched, no noise, no metal, no clock? That’s memory, Jack. The memory of when we were whole.”

Host: The flames shifted, curling into strange shapes, the air thick with heat and something almost spiritual. For a brief moment, the clearing seemed alive — the grass shimmering like the surface of water, the trees whispering a forgotten tongue.

Jack: Quietly. “And yet, here we are. You and I, wearing their ghosts like clothes. Talking about freedom while standing on their graves.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s why we have to remember them — not to feel guilt, but to feel humility. To remember that the world doesn’t belong to us; we belong to it. That was Tecumseh’s freedom — not ownership, but belonging.”

Host: A long pause stretched between them, filled only by the soft pop of wood and the sigh of wind.

Jack: “You think it’s possible to go back?”

Jeeny: “No. But it’s possible to listen. To live differently. To build without conquering. To remember that every step we take still echoes on the same earth they walked.”

Host: The fire burned lower now, its light fading to amber. The stars emerged — countless, ancient, unblinking — and the valley glowed faintly under their gaze.

Jack: Softly. “Maybe freedom isn’t lost then. Maybe it’s just buried under the noise.”

Jeeny: “And maybe every generation has to dig it up again.”

Host: She smiled — tired, luminous, fierce. Jack finally sat beside her, the firelight pooling between them like a fragile heartbeat.

They said nothing for a long time. The forest spoke instead — in rustles, in sighs, in the soft hum of life that had endured every conquest.

Host: Above them, the stars seemed to breathe. And for a fleeting, impossible moment, the world felt wide and unowned again — like the first dawn before division, before greed, before history itself began carving fences across the open heart of the earth.

And in that silence, freedom returned — not as a dream, but as a memory.