By the time I was seven, I did a sonnet at Shakespeare's Globe

Host: The afternoon light was golden, soft, the kind that turns dust into magic. Through the arched windows of the old theatre, rays of sunlight cut across the empty seats, illuminating motes that danced like tiny actors between worlds.

Host: The stage was silent, but the air was thick with memory — the kind of silence that knows it has witnessed laughter, tears, monologues, and ghosts of voices still echoing through wooden beams.

Host: Jack stood at the edge of the stage, hands in pockets, his eyes tracing the curved balcony of Shakespeare’s Globe. Jeeny sat on one of the front benches, a notebook open, her hand resting over a half-written poem. They had come not for a performance, but for a kind of pilgrimage.

Jeeny: Softly, smiling. “Did you know Alfred Enoch once said, ‘By the time I was seven, I did a sonnet at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre for Shakespeare’s birthday… somehow, that led to me doing a sonnet!’”

Jack: Half-smiling, skeptical. “Ah, fate and nepotism holding hands. His dad was in the first Globe season, right? Connections open doors faster than talent ever will.”

Jeeny: “You’re cynical, Jack. Maybe it wasn’t about connections — maybe it was about legacy. About the thread of art passing from one hand to another, from father to son. Isn’t that what keeps the theatre alive?”

Jack: “Legacy? Or inheritance? There’s a difference. Legacy inspires; inheritance entitles. You can’t build a soul through access.”

Host: The light shifted, moving slowly across the boards of the stage, like time itself rehearsing.

Jeeny: “But don’t you see the beauty in it? A child standing on this very stage — the same boards where actors have spoken words that have lived for four centuries — carrying forward something ancient. That’s not entitlement, Jack. That’s continuity.”

Jack: “Continuity is just repetition with nostalgia. You want to believe art is timeless, but it’s just the same lines spoken by different mouths. The world changes; we cling to old words like they’ll save us.”

Jeeny: “Maybe they do save us — not by solving, but by reminding. Shakespeare didn’t write to preserve the past; he wrote to expose the human soul. Every time someone stands here and speaks his words, they prove that the human condition hasn’t changed that much. That we’re still flawed, still yearning, still foolishly in love with everything we can’t keep.”

Host: The wind outside moved through the open rafters, filling the space with a low hum, like an old whisper remembering itself.

Jack: “So you think reciting old sonnets on old stages connects us to something universal?”

Jeeny: “Yes. Completely. Every word spoken here is a thread to the infinite. Enoch’s story isn’t about privilege — it’s about belonging to a language older than himself. He didn’t just recite a sonnet; he became part of a continuum of meaning.”

Jack: “Or maybe he just memorized 14 lines for a crowd and his dad smiled from the audience.”

Jeeny: “And what’s wrong with that? A father’s pride? A child’s first encounter with art? Even if it began with chance — isn’t that how most things that matter begin?”

Host: Her eyes were shining, reflecting the stage light — the kind of light that holds both memory and possibility.

Jack: “You talk like every accident has destiny behind it. But most of life is just accidents, Jeeny. Coincidence pretending to be poetry.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But what’s poetry if not coincidence transformed into meaning? You think it’s random — I think it’s rhythm.”

Jack: Smirking. “That’s dangerously close to metaphysics.”

Jeeny: “No, it’s dangerously close to faith — faith that something unplanned can still be beautiful.”

Host: The silence between them deepened, gentle yet charged. A beam of light caught the dust, turning it into a halo that drifted around Jack’s face, as though the past itself had leaned in to listen.

Jack: “You think it matters — a seven-year-old reciting Shakespeare? It’s charming, sure. But what does it mean in the larger sense?”

Jeeny: “It means that art finds us before we understand it. That sometimes, the stage claims you long before you know you belong to it. Enoch stood here at seven — maybe that’s when his voice first realized it could shape the air. Isn’t that how destiny begins? Not in knowing, but in doing.”

Jack: “You’re romanticizing accident.”

Jeeny: “And you’re sterilizing it.”

Host: The echo of a footstep — perhaps a technician, perhaps a ghost — reverberated through the wooden dome. The air was thick with the aftertaste of old lines: ‘We are such stuff as dreams are made on…’

Jeeny: “Don’t you ever feel it, Jack? The weight of history here? The idea that someone, centuries ago, stood on this stage and said words that are still being spoken today? That’s immortality. Not machines or money — memory.”

Jack: “Memory fades. Scripts burn. Even Shakespeare will be dust someday.”

Jeeny: “Then we’ll become the dust that carries him forward. That’s the point — not to preserve, but to pass it on. The way Enoch’s father passed the stage to him.”

Host: Her voice filled the empty theatre, the sound rising and falling like a soliloquy in rehearsal, half truth, half prayer.

Jack: “You make legacy sound holy.”

Jeeny: “It is. Holy doesn’t mean divine — it means full. Full of meaning, of breath, of humanity. When a child recites a sonnet on this stage, he’s not repeating — he’s remembering something older than language itself.”

Jack: “And yet, most of the audience was probably on their phones.”

Jeeny: Laughs softly. “Maybe. But the miracle still happened — even if no one noticed.”

Host: The afternoon sun had begun to descend, stretching long shadows across the seats. The stage now glowed softly, as if the daylight were taking a final bow.

Jack: “So you think art survives through small miracles like that?”

Jeeny: “Yes. Through children who stumble over old lines and grow into their meanings. Through fathers who remember what it felt like to dream. Through places like this — wood, air, light — where words become alive again.”

Jack: Quietly. “Maybe that’s why I never could leave the stage. It’s the only place where lies sound true, and truth sounds like music.”

Jeeny: “See? You understand more than you admit.”

Host: A gentle smile played on her lips, one that carried both fondness and ache.

Jack: “So, what do we do with that understanding?”

Jeeny: “We keep speaking. We keep showing up. We do our sonnet — not because it’s ours, but because someone once gave us the chance to speak it.”

Host: The light faded, slowly, until the theatre was wrapped in soft dusk. Somewhere beyond the walls, the city hummed, indifferent, while inside, two souls sat quietly within a space built for echoes.

Host: On the stage, a single beam of golden light fell, illuminating dust, boards, and memory — everything that was once said, and everything that would be said again.

Host: And for a moment, the old theatre seemed to breathe, as if Shakespeare himself had leaned close and whispered:
"All the world’s a stage... but some remember why they step upon it."

Host: Jack and Jeeny sat in silence, heads bowed, souls quiet, and somewhere in the fading light — it almost felt like a sonnet had just been spoken, again.