From the very depth of my being, I challenge the right of any man

Host: The factory was quiet now, long after the machines had stopped. The air still carried that faint metallic tang — oil, iron, sweat — the scent of industry and endurance. The echo of work still seemed to vibrate in the walls, even though the people who gave the building meaning were gone. Outside, the rain drummed against the corrugated roof, steady and solemn, like the world’s own heartbeat keeping time for ghosts.

Jack stood by the wide window, hands in his pockets, staring out at the yard, where rows of abandoned machinery glistened under the streetlights. The shadows stretched long and uneven — broken silhouettes of labor’s past.

Jeeny sat on a steel crate behind him, coat pulled tight around her, a thermos of coffee cradled between her palms. Her gaze followed his, thoughtful, unflinching. Between them, resting on the workbench, lay a printed quote on aged paper — something she had found pinned to a locker door years ago, now folded, saved, and carried like a quiet manifesto:

“From the very depth of my being, I challenge the right of any man or any group of men, in business or in government, to tell a fellow human being that he or she is expendable.” — Jimmy Reid.

Jeeny: (quietly) “You remember when this place used to hum like a living thing?”

Jack: (nodding) “Yeah. Every noise had a rhythm back then. Every man had a purpose. Now all that’s left is the echo.”

Jeeny: “The echo’s proof they mattered, though.”

Jack: “For a while, maybe. Until the papers called them ‘redundant.’ Until some boardroom somewhere decided people cost too much.”

Jeeny: (sighing) “Reid would’ve called that what it is — moral bankruptcy disguised as efficiency.”

Jack: “He’d have been right. They didn’t just shut down production, Jeeny. They shut down pride.”

Host: The rain intensified, hammering the roof like a protest too late to change anything. Jack turned, leaning against the window frame, his reflection fractured by the streaks of water.

Jeeny: “You know what I’ve always loved about that quote?” (She gestures to the paper.) “He doesn’t just reject the idea — he challenges it. From the very depth of his being. It’s not political. It’s personal.”

Jack: “Because it is personal. You can’t talk about people as numbers and pretend you’re talking about policy. You’re talking about lives.”

Jeeny: “But that’s how power hides its cruelty. It uses distance.”

Jack: (bitterly) “And spreadsheets.”

Host: The wind slipped through a crack in the window, carrying a low moan from the factory’s hollow core — a sound that might have been machinery settling, or the memory of protest lingering in the air.

Jeeny: “You remember the day they closed it down? You stood out there in the rain, same as tonight. You didn’t say a word.”

Jack: (quietly) “What was there to say? We’d already been declared expendable.”

Jeeny: “But that’s the point, Jack. No one’s expendable. That’s what Reid meant. You can’t measure worth by utility. You can’t decide someone’s purpose ends just because their job does.”

Jack: “Tell that to the suits in London. Or the algorithms that decide who stays and who goes. They don’t see people — they see cost centers.”

Jeeny: (with quiet defiance) “Then it’s our job to remind them that every number they erase still has a heartbeat.”

Host: Her voice cut through the silence — not loud, but steady. The kind of conviction that didn’t shout because it didn’t have to.

Jack: “You ever wonder if Reid believed he could change anything? Or if he just couldn’t bear to stay quiet?”

Jeeny: “Both. He understood that even when change feels impossible, silence is complicity.”

Jack: (nodding) “Yeah. The moment you stop challenging cruelty, you start enabling it.”

Jeeny: (softly) “Exactly. Dignity doesn’t come from winning. It comes from refusing to surrender what’s human.”

Host: The light from the window fell across her face — sharp, golden, alive. Her eyes glimmered, not with tears, but with that fierce kind of empathy that’s born from rage and love at the same time.

Jack: “You know, when Reid said that, he wasn’t speaking from comfort. He was speaking from the picket line, from hunger, from injustice. That’s what made it powerful.”

Jeeny: “It’s what makes it timeless. Because that fight never ends — it just changes shape. The boardroom replaces the factory floor, the algorithm replaces the overseer, and the people… they still bleed the same.”

Jack: (grimly) “Except now they’re told to smile while they’re being replaced.”

Jeeny: “That’s the cruelty of our age — suffering rebranded as progress.”

Host: The rain softened, now only whispering against the glass. The two of them sat in the dim glow of the emergency lights, their words hanging in the air like embers.

Jeeny: (after a long pause) “You know, sometimes I think we don’t fight back because we’ve forgotten how to imagine better. Hope’s a muscle — it atrophies if you don’t use it.”

Jack: (nodding slowly) “Maybe that’s what this quote is — a workout for the soul. A reminder that outrage isn’t weakness. It’s the beginning of repair.”

Jeeny: “Anger with conscience. That’s what Reid was preaching.”

Jack: (smiling faintly) “An angry dignity.”

Jeeny: (returning the smile) “Exactly.”

Host: The wind calmed, and for a brief moment, the factory felt alive again — not in sound, but in spirit. The hum wasn’t gone; it was sleeping. Waiting.

Jack stood, looking around the room — the rusted machines, the faded safety signs, the long-dead switches. Then he picked up the quote from the workbench and folded it neatly into his jacket pocket.

Jack: “You think anyone would listen if we shouted this now?”

Jeeny: “Maybe not. But the right people don’t always shout for attention. They shout for the record — so the world can’t say it didn’t know.”

Host: He nodded slowly, understanding.

Outside, the rain stopped, leaving the world glistening — not clean, but clarified. The two of them walked toward the exit, their footsteps echoing against the hollow of steel and memory.

The camera would have pulled back, the factory shrinking into the distance — silent, proud, and defiant.

And Jimmy Reid’s words would echo like a prayer through the dark:

That no human life
is a line item to be erased.

That to call someone expendable
is the first act of moral failure.

And that dignity,
even under oppression,
is the last and most sacred form of resistance —
the declaration that says:

“I am not your number.
I am not your loss.
I am human,
and I will not be written off.”