Depression, suffering and anger are all part of being human.

Title: The Necessary Darkness

Host: The evening hung heavy over the small apartment, as though the sky itself had chosen to sit with them in their quiet grief. The lamplight was dim, honey-colored, soft against the cracked walls. On the coffee table, two mugs of tea had gone cold. The window, half open, let in the slow hum of the city below — cars moving like distant thoughts, sirens wailing like tired prayers.

Jack sat on the couch, his elbows on his knees, fingers clasped tight — the weight of his stillness louder than any sound. His eyes, gray and restless, stared at the floor as though the answers to all his questions might rise from the shadows.

Across from him, Jeeny sat cross-legged on the floor, her dark hair loose around her face. There was no pity in her expression, only patience — the kind that comes from understanding suffering not as a guest, but as an old friend who never leaves for long.

The air between them was thick with the quiet ache of recognition.

Jeeny: “Janet Fitch once said — ‘Depression, suffering and anger are all part of being human.’”

Jack: (bitterly) “That’s a comforting way of saying misery’s mandatory.”

Host: His voice was rough, as though every word had to claw its way out.

Jeeny: “It’s not comfort she’s offering. It’s permission.”

Jack: “Permission?”

Jeeny: “To feel. To stop pretending that joy’s the only proof of life.”

Host: She spoke softly, but her words landed with the precision of truth. Outside, the rain began — light, tentative, as if the sky itself were testing its own sadness.

Jack: “You know, I used to believe happiness was the goal. That every dark feeling was a sign of failure — something to fight, fix, hide.”

Jeeny: “That’s what they teach us. Smile for the camera. Don’t bleed where anyone can see.”

Jack: “Yeah. But after a while, you start to rot under all that smiling.”

Jeeny: “Because repression isn’t peace. It’s paralysis.”

Jack: (quietly) “And when you stop pretending?”

Jeeny: “You start healing. Not the kind that looks pretty — the kind that’s honest.”

Host: The lamp flickered slightly. For a brief moment, the light trembled over Jack’s face — the lines there not of age, but of endurance.

Jeeny: “People think pain is the opposite of life. But pain is life — it’s the proof that you still care enough to hurt.”

Jack: “So I’m supposed to be grateful for it?”

Jeeny: “Not grateful. Aware. Depression isn’t the enemy — it’s the messenger. It tells you something’s broken.”

Jack: “And anger?”

Jeeny: “That’s the body’s way of screaming when the soul’s gone unheard.”

Host: Her words flowed slow and steady — each one carrying weight, not softness. The rain outside thickened, a rhythm of small impacts that sounded like the world weeping with them.

Jack: “You make it sound poetic, Jeeny. But when you’re inside it — when the dark gets too loud — there’s nothing poetic about it.”

Jeeny: “No, there isn’t. Depression isn’t poetry. It’s gravity. It pulls you into yourself until you forget there’s a surface.”

Jack: “So what then? You just wait to float back up?”

Jeeny: “No. You learn to breathe underwater.”

Host: Jack looked up at her — the faintest flicker of something behind his eyes. Not hope yet, but the recognition of it, like a light seen far off through fog.

Jack: “You ever been there?”

Jeeny: “Yes.”

Jack: “How’d you get out?”

Jeeny: “I stopped trying to escape. I started listening.”

Jack: “Listening to what?”

Jeeny: “To what the pain was trying to say. Every sorrow has a voice — but we drown it in distraction. When I stopped running, I heard it say, ‘You’re not broken. You’re becoming.’”

Host: The rain slowed, softening into a gentle hiss. The air in the room felt alive now — not lighter, but deeper, like the quiet inside a heartbeat.

Jack: “You think everyone has to suffer to become human?”

Jeeny: “Not suffer. But face suffering. There’s a difference. Pain isn’t the price of humanity — it’s the proof of it.”

Jack: “That sounds like something philosophers say when they’ve run out of comfort.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But I think Fitch meant something simpler — that we don’t grow because of joy; we grow through pain. Joy teaches appreciation. Suffering teaches empathy.”

Jack: “And anger?”

Jeeny: “Anger teaches boundaries. The moment you feel it, you know where your limits are.”

Jack: (softly) “So maybe it’s all just... necessary?”

Jeeny: “Yes. Even the parts that make no sense while you’re in them.”

Host: A car passed outside, its headlights briefly cutting through the window — white light streaking across the room before fading into night again. Like a thought: sudden, bright, gone.

Jack: “You know, people talk about ‘getting over’ depression. Like it’s a cold.”

Jeeny: “You don’t get over it. You grow around it. Like a tree around a wound — the mark stays, but the life keeps going.”

Jack: “That’s beautiful.”

Jeeny: “It’s brutal. But it’s honest.”

Jack: “So the pain never goes away.”

Jeeny: “No. It just stops owning you.”

Host: She said it without hesitation. Her tone was steady, but her eyes were wet — not from tears, but from remembrance.

Jack: “You think we ever learn to love it? The darkness?”

Jeeny: “Not love. Respect. Darkness has its own lessons — humility, surrender, patience. You can’t learn those in sunlight.”

Jack: “And what about the people who can’t find their way back out?”

Jeeny: “Then we go in after them. That’s what connection is. Not saving — accompanying.”

Host: The lamp light deepened, throwing long, soft shadows across the floor. The quiet between them was tender now — the kind that feels like the world pausing to breathe.

Jack: “You know, I always thought being human meant staying happy, balanced, productive. But maybe being human just means surviving yourself.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. It’s not about conquering pain. It’s about making peace with it — understanding that depression, suffering, anger... they don’t ruin you. They reveal you.”

Jack: “Reveal what?”

Jeeny: “Your capacity to endure. To feel. To keep choosing life, even when it doesn’t choose you back.”

Host: The rain had stopped completely now. The windowpane glistened, streaked with the memory of what had fallen. Somewhere far off, a siren faded, leaving the city wrapped in fragile quiet.

Jack: “You think Fitch knew that when she wrote it?”

Jeeny: “She knew that we spend our lives trying to outrun what makes us whole. And that pain isn’t the villain — it’s the teacher we pretend not to need.”

Jack: “So suffering is the classroom.”

Jeeny: “And calm is the graduation.”

Jack: (smiling faintly) “Then I must still be in school.”

Jeeny: (softly) “Aren’t we all?”

Host: She reached across the table, laid a hand gently over his. For a moment, the world seemed perfectly still — not healed, but human.

Host: And as the night deepened — as silence reclaimed its quiet dominion — Janet Fitch’s truth seemed to settle over the room like a benediction:

That depression, suffering, and anger are not flaws in the design —
they are the textures of being alive.

That the heart is not damaged by darkness,
but shaped by it —
carved into empathy, patience, and depth.

That to be human is not to escape pain,
but to let it remind you
that you still feel —
and that feeling,
in all its brutal grace,
is the closest thing we have to being whole.

The lamp dimmed to a whisper of gold.
The tea was cold.
And for the first time that night,
Jack exhaled —
not in defeat,
but in understanding.