Hatred is inveterate anger.

Host: The evening was slow, the air thick with heat, as if the city itself were holding its breath. The streetlights burned dull and amber over the cracked pavement, where the last of the day’s dust clung to the air like memory.
In a quiet rooftop bar, far from the traffic’s roar, two figures sat facing each other at a small table, their glasses half-empty, their words sharper than the alcohol between them.

Jack leaned forward, the glow of his cigarette tracing the hard lines of his face — all angles, all edges. Jeeny sat across, her hands folded neatly, her eyes steady, luminous with something deeper than calm — sorrow wrapped in resolve.

Host: The sky above was purple-gray, fading toward night. The first stars blinked out like small acts of defiance. Between them, silence — the kind that hummed, full of things unsaid.

Jeeny: “Marcus Tullius Cicero once said, ‘Hatred is inveterate anger.’”
She looked out at the horizon, where the city lights flickered like scattered embers. “He was right, wasn’t he? Hatred is just anger that’s forgotten how to die.”

Jack: “No,” he said, his voice low, gravelly. “Hatred’s what happens when anger finally learns how to survive.”

Jeeny: “That’s a dark way to see it.”

Jack: “Because it’s true. Anger burns hot and fast. Hatred—” he paused, tapping the ash into the tray, “—hatred endures. It’s organized. It remembers.”

Host: The wind moved softly through the plants lining the balcony, stirring the candle flame between them. Jeeny’s face glowed gold for a heartbeat, then fell back into shadow.

Jeeny: “You make it sound noble. Like hate deserves respect.”

Jack: “Not respect. Fear.”

Jeeny: “Fear of what?”

Jack: “Of what it can do. Of how clean it feels when it takes over. Anger’s chaos, Jeeny. Hatred? Hatred’s order. It’s discipline built on wounds.”

Host: Jeeny’s eyes didn’t leave him — not in accusation, but in recognition. She’d seen that tone before. She’d seen that look.

Jeeny: “You’ve felt it, haven’t you?”

Jack: “Everyone has.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. You’ve lived it.”

Host: The music from below drifted up faintly — a saxophone, aching through the air, slow and broken.

Jack: “Maybe,” he said finally. “When you lose enough, when people cross you enough times, anger stops being fire. It becomes stone. You stop wanting to shout. You just remember. And you wait.”

Jeeny: “That’s not strength. That’s infection.”

Jack: “Maybe so. But it keeps you standing.”

Jeeny: “No. It keeps you from moving. Hatred builds walls, Jack — walls so thick you forget what’s outside them.”

Host: Her voice quivered, but her eyes burned. He turned away, exhaling smoke into the night.

Jack: “You think I don’t know that? You think I don’t feel the cost? You carry it long enough, it starts whispering to you. It says, ‘This is justice.’ And you start believing it.”

Jeeny: “That’s what makes it inveterate — it roots itself in the lie that hate is noble. But it’s just tired anger dressed in armor.”

Jack: “Tell that to people who’ve lost everything. Tell it to the ones who’ve been betrayed, humiliated, stripped bare. Anger burns out fast when there’s mercy. But some things — some things don’t deserve mercy.”

Jeeny: “You think hatred honors the dead? You think it heals betrayal? It only repeats it. You keep feeding the same wound, calling it loyalty.”

Host: The wind picked up, rattling the empty bottles behind the bar. The candlelight flickered, throwing their shadows long and fractured across the wall.

Jack: “Easy for you to say, Jeeny. You forgive like it’s breathing.”

Jeeny: “No,” she whispered. “I forgive because I can’t stand to suffocate.”

Jack: “You sound like a saint.”

Jeeny: “I’m not. I just know what hate does. It poisons the water you drink. You think you’re holding it to punish someone else — but you’re the one swallowing it every day.”

Host: Her hands trembled slightly, resting against the table. Jack stared at them, the veins visible beneath the thin skin, fragile yet steady.

Jack: “You talk like you’ve been there too.”

Jeeny: “I have.”

Jack: “Who?”

Jeeny: “My sister. When she died, I hated the man who hit her car. Every night, I replayed it. Every night, I saw his face. I called it grief — but it was hatred. And it ate everything it touched. It took years before I realized I was keeping her spirit trapped in my anger.”

Host: The city sounds below faded, as if the world itself was listening.

Jack: “And when you let it go?”

Jeeny: “I saw her in peace, for the first time.”

Jack: “I wish I could believe in that kind of peace.”

Jeeny: “You can. You just don’t trust peace the way you trust pain.”

Host: He looked down at his drink, watching the amber liquid ripple faintly as the wind brushed across it.

Jack: “Pain’s reliable. Peace feels temporary.”

Jeeny: “So does life. That doesn’t make it meaningless.”

Jack: “You think hate always starts with love?”

Jeeny: “Always. It’s just love that’s forgotten its reason.”

Host: The clouds above shifted, revealing a sliver of moon. The light fell across Jack’s face, catching the quiet exhaustion beneath his anger.

Jack: “Then what am I supposed to do with it? The hate that’s already there?”

Jeeny: “Name it for what it is — old anger. Then bury it where it belongs.”

Jack: “And if it won’t die?”

Jeeny: “Then stop feeding it. Stop turning it into your identity.”

Host: Jack laughed bitterly, running a hand through his hair.

Jack: “You think it’s that simple?”

Jeeny: “No. But it’s necessary. Cicero knew — when anger lives too long, it becomes its own master. It starts steering your life without asking your permission.”

Jack: “And what if hate is the only thing that’s kept me moving?”

Jeeny: “Then it’s time to learn how to move without it.”

Host: The wind grew softer, almost warm now, brushing the edges of their words away. Jack looked at her — really looked — the fight leaving his eyes.

Jack: “You know something, Jeeny? You make hatred sound like grief that forgot how to cry.”

Jeeny: “That’s exactly what it is.”

Host: The candle flickered one last time, then went out, leaving them in moonlight and shadow.

Jack: “Maybe one day I’ll stop being angry.”

Jeeny: “You will. When you stop mistaking your pain for purpose.”

Host: They sat in silence, their glasses untouched, the night humming around them. The city below continued its quiet rhythm — cars, footsteps, laughter, life — all flowing forward, leaving behind whatever could not heal.

Host: Jack leaned back finally, staring at the stars. “Hatred is inveterate anger,” he whispered, almost to himself. “So maybe peace isn’t the opposite of hate — maybe it’s just anger that’s learned to rest.”

Jeeny smiled, faint but true. “And rest,” she said, “is the bravest thing a wounded heart can do.”

Host: The camera would pull away now — two silhouettes under a trembling sky, their conversation fading into the wind, their souls standing at the fragile border between fury and forgiveness.

Host: And as the night deepened, the last ember of anger dimmed — not extinguished, but transformed — into something quieter, older, and finally, free.