Have you not noticed that love is silence? It may be while

Host: The evening descended like a slow breath, spilling across the lake in ripples of fading gold and violet. The sky was immense and quiet, its last light pressed gently against the horizon. A faint breeze stirred the reeds, carrying the scent of water and distant pine. Jack sat on the edge of a weathered dock, his hands resting loosely over his knees. Beside him, Jeeny dangled her bare feet over the surface, her reflection trembling in the darkening water.

Host: The world seemed to have paused. Only the slow lapping of the lake spoke — steady, rhythmic, like the soft pulse of something ancient and patient.

Jeeny: (whispering) “‘Have you not noticed that love is silence?’ Krishnamurti wrote that. It’s strange, isn’t it? We talk so much about love — write songs, poems, promises — and yet he says the truest love doesn’t speak at all.”

Jack: (eyes on the water) “Maybe because words ruin it. The moment you name love, you start shaping it, owning it, turning it into something it’s not.”

Jeeny: “You sound like you agree with him.”

Jack: (shrugs) “Maybe. Silence is the only thing that doesn’t lie.”

Host: The light shifted, breaking softly across Jack’s face, revealing a trace of weariness — the kind that comes not from age, but from living too hard for too long. Jeeny watched him, her eyes tender but searching.

Jeeny: “But silence can also be emptiness. It can mean distance. Loneliness. How can that be love?”

Jack: “Because real love doesn’t need noise. It’s not the words, it’s the space between them. You ever sit next to someone and feel completely understood — without saying a thing? That’s what he meant. It’s not emptiness. It’s fullness so complete it has no need to spill.”

Host: A heron rose from the water, its long wings cutting the air in slow, powerful strokes. The two of them watched in silence until it disappeared into the gathering dusk.

Jeeny: “But people aren’t herons, Jack. We’re messy. We need to speak, to explain, to be heard. Isn’t love also that — the reaching, the trying?”

Jack: “Trying ruins it. The moment you try to hold love, you crush it. It’s like water — beautiful only as long as you let it flow.”

Jeeny: “That’s too easy for you to say. You use silence as armor. You hide behind it.”

Host: Jack turned his head slightly, his jaw tightening. The last light flickered in his grey eyes, like fire beneath ice.

Jack: “You think I hide? Maybe I just learned that words aren’t enough. You say ‘I love you,’ and it feels like a promise — but it’s not. It’s just a sound that dies in the air.”

Jeeny: “No. It’s a sound that lives in memory. Silence fades faster.”

Host: A long pause stretched between them. The water shifted, swallowing the colors of the sky until it became one vast mirror of shadow. The first stars began to tremble awake.

Jack: “You ever notice how silence grows between two people? First, it’s comfortable. Then it becomes awkward. Then dangerous. That’s when love starts dying — when silence turns into distance.”

Jeeny: “Because that’s not the silence Krishnamurti meant.” (her voice deepened, soft but strong) “He meant the kind that isn’t between two people, but inside them. When the mind stops talking — stops wanting, fearing, judging — and just is. That silence isn’t absence. It’s presence.”

Host: The lake stilled, as if listening. Even the wind seemed to pause, suspended between her words.

Jack: “Presence. Sounds like another word for illusion. You make silence sound holy.”

Jeeny: “It is. Think of when you look at a child sleeping, or the way the sun dips below the hill — and for a second, everything stops inside you. That’s not illusion, Jack. That’s truth before language. That’s love without wanting.”

Jack: “Without wanting? Then what’s the point? Love without desire is just peace — and peace is overrated.”

Jeeny: (gazes at him, calm) “Maybe that’s your problem. You think love is supposed to set you on fire. But sometimes it’s the quiet that saves you.”

Host: Jack let out a faint laugh — not cruel, but tired. The kind that comes from recognizing something you’re afraid might be true. He tossed a small stone into the lake. The ripples widened, overlapping, dissolving.

Jack: “You talk like peace is easy. Like silence is some kind of enlightenment. But most people can’t stand it. You sit in silence with someone long enough, and all your ghosts come crawling out.”

Jeeny: “Yes,” she said softly, “and maybe that’s exactly why love needs silence. Because only in silence do you face the ghosts — without distraction, without story. Only there can you see what’s real.”

Host: The night deepened, velvet and infinite. The fireflies began to bloom around them, blinking like small, living stars.

Jack: “So you’re saying love has no past or future — only this moment.”

Jeeny: “That’s what Krishnamurti meant. The moment you start measuring love — by time, by memory, by expectation — it’s no longer love. It’s an idea.”

Jack: “But we are our memories. You can’t love someone without them.”

Jeeny: “No — you love through them, but not because of them. Love isn’t accumulation. It’s renewal, every moment. The past dies. The future doesn’t exist. Only now — this breath, this stillness.”

Host: Jack’s fingers brushed against hers on the dock. Neither moved away. The contact was small, wordless — but it carried the quiet gravity of truth.

Jack: (barely audible) “And when that silence ends?”

Jeeny: “Then maybe love does too. Because when you start to fill it — with fear, with promises, with ‘forever’ — you stop hearing its real sound.”

Host: The wind returned, soft and cool. Somewhere far across the lake, a bell rang — faint, hollow, echoing like the pulse of time.

Jack: “So love isn’t about holding on?”

Jeeny: “No. It’s about being held by the moment — and then letting it pass.”

Host: Jack’s eyes fell, his expression shifting. For a moment, the sarcasm and skepticism drained from his face, leaving only a quiet ache.

Jack: “You know… there was someone once. We used to sit like this. No words. Just the sound of breathing. I thought that silence meant we understood each other. But one day she left — no explanation, no goodbye. Just silence. Since then, I don’t trust it.”

Jeeny: “Maybe she didn’t leave you in silence, Jack. Maybe she left into silence. Maybe that was her truth. Maybe it’s not something to be feared — just something to listen to differently.”

Host: He didn’t answer. The fireflies drifted closer, flickering against their faces. The water shimmered faintly, carrying the moon like a secret.

Jeeny: “Love has no past or future,” she murmured, quoting again. “It’s not a story. It’s a state of being — like the stillness before dawn, or the pause between two notes in a song.”

Jack: (quietly) “And when the song ends?”

Jeeny: “Then silence becomes music again.”

Host: The stars multiplied above them, infinite and calm. The dock creaked softly beneath their weight, a small reminder of the fragile earth that still held them.

Host: For a while, neither spoke. Their hands remained close, not touching, but bound by something weightless — the space between two beings who had stopped trying to name what connected them.

Host: The world itself seemed to exhale — the lake, the air, the distant forest — as if acknowledging the truth that had settled in the air like dew:
that love is not noise or promise or time,
but the unspoken stillness that exists
when all else falls away.

Host: In that shared quiet, Jack finally looked up — and for the first time, his eyes mirrored the same serenity that filled the evening.

Host: And the silence — that extraordinary, living silence — held them both.