For me, the two weeks between Christmas and Twelfth Night have

Host: The fireplace crackled in a dim, dusty, old library, where snow whispered against the windowpanes. Books lay open on the rug, their pages glowing faintly in the orange light. The clock on the mantel ticked with a slow, measured patience — as if time itself were resting between seasons. It was the week between Christmas and Twelfth Night, that strange, weightless corridor of days when the world seems to pause, and life exhales softly.

Jack sat in a wool sweater, a half-empty glass of whiskey beside him. Jeeny sat cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by books, a blanket over her shoulders. Outside, the snow fell heavier, muffling the city’s breath.

Jeeny: “It’s a beautiful time, isn’t it, Jack? Everything slows down. You can almost hear your own thoughts again.”

Jack: “Beautiful? I’d call it… stagnant. A lull between obligations. People pretend it’s peace, but it’s just idleness dressed in holiday lights.”

Host: He leaned back, his eyes half in shadow, the firelight drawing sharp lines across his face.

Jeeny: “You always see emptiness where there’s quiet, don’t you? Michael Dirda called it ‘desultory reading.’ That kind of wandering, unplanned reading that lets the mind drift — not to achieve, not to prove, just to breathe.”

Jack: “’Desultory reading’ — sounds like a nice excuse for procrastination. People use that time to escape, Jeeny, not to think. They read because they can’t stand their own silence.”

Host: A log cracked in the fire, sending a brief spray of sparks into the air. Jeeny’s eyes lifted toward the window, where the snowflakes fell like ash from a sleeping sky.

Jeeny: “But isn’t that the point? To escape the rush, the noise, the endless grind of our days? Those two weeks — they’re like the world’s heartbeat slowing for a moment, giving us a chance to find ourselves again.”

Jack: “Or to lose ourselves even more. You talk about reflection, but I see avoidance. The way people hide behind novels, or series, or cups of coffee, telling themselves it’s soulful rest. But it’s just a pause before the next cycle of work.”

Host: The firelight flickered across Jeeny’s face, catching the faint glimmer in her eyes. Her hands tightened around her mug of tea.

Jeeny: “You sound like you’re afraid of stillness, Jack. Maybe that’s why you distrust it. But even machines need to cool before they burn out. The mind too.”

Jack: “Stillness isn’t the problem. Illusion is. People romanticize idleness because they’re too afraid to admit they’re bored. They talk about reflection, but they’re just scrolling, reading headlines, or flipping through pages without meaning. It’s not rest, Jeeny. It’s distraction.”

Host: A gust of wind brushed the window, and the room shivered faintly. The fire hissed, and for a moment, both were silent.

Jeeny: “You’re wrong. Sometimes distraction is healing. Think of the soldiers after the war, how they’d read letters, or poems, or even comic strips — anything to forget the noise they’d seen. Was that illusion? Or was it the mind finding its way back to gentleness?”

Jack: “That’s not the same. That’s trauma, not holiday melancholy. People now aren’t recovering from war, Jeeny — they’re recovering from their own choices. Their own overcommitment to pleasure, to work, to meaningless comfort. The reading you speak of — it’s not noble anymore. It’s just another form of consumption.”

Jeeny: “But can’t consumption sometimes feed the soul, too? You make it sound like every act of reading must justify itself. Some books don’t teach — they touch. That’s enough.”

Host: Jack’s jaw tightened; his eyes drifted toward the fire, watching it collapse into slow embers.

Jack: “Maybe for you. But I grew up watching my father sit through those winters, Jeeny. He’d call it rest, too. But he wasn’t resting — he was drifting. Every December, the same: whiskey, old newspapers, half-finished books. By the time the snow melted, he’d be angry again — at the world, at himself, at the waste of it all.”

Jeeny: “Maybe he wasn’t wasting it, Jack. Maybe he was mourning — quietly. There’s a kind of sadness that only winter understands. It makes us reflect, even if it hurts. That’s not waste — that’s honesty.”

Host: The silence hung like a veil between them. The fire dimmed, leaving the room bathed in a soft, amber hush.

Jack: “You always turn pain into poetry, Jeeny. But not every silence hides depth. Sometimes it’s just emptiness. This whole ‘holiday lull’ people worship — it’s an illusion of peace, not peace itself.”

Jeeny: “And yet, that illusion keeps people gentle for a while. Isn’t that worth something? Even if it’s temporary?”

Jack: “Temporary peace isn’t peace. It’s just escape from truth.”

Jeeny: “Or maybe it’s the only truth we can handle, Jack. Life isn’t all about momentum. Sometimes the pause is what keeps the machine from breaking.”

Host: The snow thickened outside, turning the window into a canvas of white breath. Jack’s reflection shimmered faintly on the glass, as though a ghost of him were listening.

Jeeny: “You know, even great thinkers needed their lulls. Montaigne wrote his essays in retreat, during quiet winters. Virginia Woolf called those hours of reading and wandering her ‘moments of being.’ Even Einstein used solitude to think. You talk like idleness is the enemy, but maybe it’s the womb of every idea.”

Jack: “And maybe for every Einstein, there are a thousand who just waste their hours pretending they’ll find wisdom in their boredom. The difference is discipline, Jeeny. The quiet is only useful if it’s earned.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe you’re too afraid to rest because you think you haven’t earned it.”

Host: Her words landed softly, but they cut like frost. Jack didn’t speak. He just watched the flame curve and fold, as if it too were searching for an answer.

Jack: “Maybe I am. Maybe the world taught me that rest without purpose is decay.”

Jeeny: “And yet here you are, sitting, watching the fire, listening to the wind. You call it waste, but you’re living it right now.”

Host: The clock struck ten, its sound soft but certain. Outside, the night grew thicker, wrapping the house in silence.

Jack: “Maybe that’s the trick, huh? We’re all performing stillness now — like it’s another task on the list. Even when we’re resting, we’re trying to do it right.”

Jeeny: “And maybe the beauty of these days is that there is no right way. Just the moment, the fire, the snow, the quiet. We’re all allowed to be a little desultory — to wander, to read, to feel without aim. Isn’t that what makes us human, Jack?”

Host: The fire sighed, a final breath before sleep. Jack turned toward Jeeny, his grey eyes softening under the flicker of the flame.

Jack: “Maybe it is. Maybe the space between meaning and waste is smaller than I thought. Maybe that’s where rest really lives.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Between purpose and peace — that’s where the heart finds its voice again.”

Host: A thin smile crossed Jack’s face — not of defeat, but of recognition. The snow had stopped. Only the faint glow of the fire remained, casting slow shadows that seemed to breathe with them.

Jeeny reached for one of the books on the floor, opening it at random. The pages rustled softly, like leaves in wind.

Jeeny: “Shall we read something meaningless, then?”

Jack: “Meaningless sounds perfect.”

Host: The camera of the moment pulled back — two figures in the half-light, a book between them, the world outside asleep. The days between Christmas and Twelfth Night had found their quiet, their purpose, their truth — not in achievement, but in being.

The fire whispered one last spark, and the scene dissolved into warm, gentle darkness.