Being very famous is not the fun it sounds. It merely means

Host: The night had swallowed the city whole — only fragments of light remained, caught in the sheen of wet asphalt and the rhythm of headlights drifting through the fog. Down an empty street, the neon sign of an old hotel flickered in a slow, electric heartbeat: VACANCY.

Inside, the lobby was dim, quiet, and yellowed by time. A piano stood silent in the corner, the last note of someone’s song still ghosting in the air.

Jack sat slouched in one of the armchairs, a cigarette between his fingers, a man whose face seemed to know both triumph and fatigue in equal measure. Jeeny stood near the window, looking out at the rain, her reflection soft and spectral in the glass.

The world beyond was empty, but the silence between them felt crowded — with memory, with fame, with ghosts.

She turned, her voice steady but almost wistful, as she spoke the quote that hung between them like a truth they’d both learned too late.

“Being very famous is not the fun it sounds. It merely means you're being chased by a lot of people and you lose your privacy.” — Colin Wilson.

Jack: “He nailed it. That’s fame — the art of being haunted by strangers.”

Jeeny: “Haunted, or hunted?”

Jack: “Same thing, really. The ghosts just carry cameras now.”

Host: The lamp by the counter flickered weakly, its light stuttering across the cracked tile floor. The only other sound was the rain, steady and patient, tapping on the glass like a question that didn’t need answering.

Jeeny walked toward him slowly, her boots quiet on the old floor.

Jeeny: “You used to want it though, didn’t you? All of it — the lights, the faces, the applause.”

Jack: “Yeah. Until I realized applause doesn’t sound the same when it doesn’t stop. It starts to feel like rain hitting the roof — constant, relentless, meaningless.”

Jeeny: “And yet, you kept walking into the storm.”

Jack: “Because silence was worse. Back then, anyway.”

Host: Jeeny sat across from him, folding her hands. Her eyes — deep, brown, and steady — looked at him not with pity, but with recognition.

Jeeny: “You know what fame really does? It makes your reflection louder than your voice. Everyone hears the echo, but no one listens to the person making it.”

Jack: “Exactly. You become a symbol before you finish being human. A statue still learning to breathe.”

Jeeny: “And then people wonder why the statues crack.”

Jack: smirking faintly “They think it’s marble. They never notice it’s bone.”

Host: The light from the street outside bled through the window blinds — stripes of blue and gold sliding across their faces. Jeeny watched the play of light, her expression softening.

Jeeny: “You miss it sometimes, though. Don’t you?”

Jack: after a pause “Sometimes. The stage, the noise, the illusion of being needed. It’s addictive — being wanted, even if it’s by strangers. You start to confuse attention with love.”

Jeeny: “And when the attention fades?”

Jack: “You realize you’ve been starving the whole time.”

Host: The rain slowed, and for a moment the silence thickened, heavy but fragile. Jeeny reached for one of the old photographs on the coffee table — a picture of Jack years ago: younger, sharper, eyes burning with ambition.

Jeeny: “You look happy here.”

Jack: “That’s the thing about cameras. They capture smiles, not moments.”

Jeeny: “Maybe the problem isn’t fame. Maybe it’s the way the world consumes it. We build people up so we can feel the satisfaction of tearing them down.”

Jack: “We? You’re part of the world, too.”

Jeeny: “I know. That’s why I stopped watching. I realized every time we ‘follow’ someone, we’re really chasing them — like Colin Wilson said. Fame turns curiosity into pursuit.”

Jack: “And privacy into myth.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. We don’t believe famous people are real anymore. We treat them like stories we can edit.”

Host: The clock on the wall ticked softly. Midnight had passed. The air in the lobby was heavy — not with sadness, but with a kind of mutual understanding that comes only after years of chasing illusions.

Jack leaned forward, elbows on his knees.

Jack: “You know, the first time someone recognized me in the street, I felt like I’d finally existed. Like I’d been invisible until that moment. But after a while, it became the opposite. The more they saw me, the less I existed.”

Jeeny: “Because they weren’t seeing you. They were seeing their version of you.”

Jack: “Yeah. The projection. The brand. The clean lines and sound bites. No one cares who you are — just what you represent.”

Jeeny: “And what did you represent?”

Jack: quietly “Escape. Which is funny, because I’ve spent the last ten years trying to escape that.”

Host: The rain finally stopped. The window reflected the faint light of dawn creeping into the world. The sky was bruised purple and pale gold. Jeeny watched it, her reflection shimmering over the horizon like a ghost merging with daylight.

Jeeny: “You ever think about going back? Writing again? Performing?”

Jack: “Sometimes. But not for them. If I ever go back, it’ll be for me — the ten-year-old who just liked building stories out of silence. Not for the crowd that mistook my voice for their echo.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe you’re already free.”

Jack: “Free feels a lot like lonely.”

Jeeny: “It always does at first. That’s how you know it’s real.”

Host: The hotel lobby glowed faintly now, the color of old film — warm and melancholy. Jeeny stood, walking to the window. She placed her hand against the cold glass, watching the world wake up one light at a time.

Jeeny: “Colin Wilson was right. Fame steals your quiet. But maybe what it gives back — if you survive it — is perspective. You see the machinery for what it is. And you can finally choose not to be its part.”

Jack: “You think anyone really escapes it?”

Jeeny: “Not completely. But you can stop feeding it.”

Jack: “And what do you feed instead?”

Jeeny: “Stillness. Truth. The kind of peace that doesn’t trend.”

Host: The camera would have pulled back then — the two of them small against the grand old lobby, surrounded by shadows of a world obsessed with recognition.

The first rays of morning slipped through the blinds, painting their faces in gold. Jack crushed out his cigarette and stood, his expression softer, almost young again.

Jack: “You know, maybe privacy isn’t about hiding. Maybe it’s about returning — to the self before the noise.”

Jeeny: “Yes. The self that doesn’t need to be seen to exist.”

Host: They walked toward the door together. The rain had stopped, but the pavement still shimmered with light — reflections of a city that would soon wake, hungry again for stories, for fame, for distraction.

Jack opened the door, the cool morning air washing over them.

Jeeny turned to him, her voice quiet, steady.

Jeeny: “Fame chases you until you learn to stop running.”

Jack: “And then?”

Jeeny: smiling softly “Then you disappear — not into nothingness, but into peace.”

Host: They stepped out into the dawn, two silhouettes dissolving into the waking light — leaving behind the echo of applause, the glare of cameras, the empty hum of recognition.

And as the city stirred back to life, their absence spoke louder than any fame ever could.