I believe more in the scissors than I do in the pencil.

Host: The night was damp with fog, and the city’s lights glowed like ghosts behind rain-specked windows. Inside a small bar, the air carried the smell of whiskey, old wood, and the faint sting of ink. Cigarette smoke curled like thoughts too long unspoken.
Jack sat at the corner table, hands around a half-empty glass, eyes fixed on the notebook before him. Jeeny entered quietly, her umbrella dripping, her hair glistening with mist. She saw the notebook, the scissors, and the pencil laid before him like ritual tools.

Jeeny: “Still cutting your words to pieces, Jack?”

Jack: “Trimming the fat, Jeeny. Truman Capote said it best — ‘I believe more in the scissors than I do in the pencil.’ The truth isn’t in what we add, it’s in what we cut away.”

Host: Jeeny smiled faintly, pulling off her coat, the sound of rain still echoing outside. Her eyes softened as they caught the tension in Jack’s shoulders.

Jeeny: “Maybe. But cutting too much can kill what’s alive in the words. You can’t carve a heart out of a body and expect it to breathe, Jack.”

Jack: “I’m not cutting hearts, Jeeny. I’m cutting noise. Every sentence starts as a lie — too full of ego, too full of self-defense. The scissors are honesty.”

Jeeny: “Or fear. Fear of being vulnerable. Fear of saying something that might actually hurt.”

Host: The bartender wiped the counter, the sound of a distant jazz trumpet filled the room. The city’s hum seeped through the walls — a rhythm of machines and memory.

Jack: “You talk like truth comes from spilling your heart. But look around — this world doesn’t reward that. The poets who bled too much ended up broke, or dead. Hemingway, Plath — even Capote himself — they all bled onto the page, and the world just watched them die.”

Jeeny: “Yet they’re the ones we still read, Jack. The ones who bled are the ones who lived the deepest. The scissors might clean your lines, but the pencil writes your soul.”

Jack: “The pencil lies. It’s romantic, but sloppy. It writes what we want to believe, not what is. The scissors — they force the truth out. They make you choose.”

Host: Jeeny leaned forward, her hands clasped, her voice soft but steady, like rain easing into earth.

Jeeny: “And what about love, Jack? Do you cut that too? Do you trim your feelings until they’re just… efficient?”

Jack: “If love were a manuscript, yes. Because raw love is messy, and mess destroys clarity. You have to edit yourself — or you’ll drown in it.”

Jeeny: “Maybe drowning is part of living.”

Host: The silence between them thickened. The clock ticked with a muted rhythm, each second slicing the air like a scissor blade.

Jack: “Tell that to the people who lost themselves chasing feelings. Ever heard of the Brontë sisters? Geniuses, yes, but their passion destroyed them. The pencil gave them fire, but the scissors — the discipline — that’s what made their words survive.”

Jeeny: “But their fire is what we remember, not the editing. Their flaws make them human. Without the pencil, there’s nothing to cut. Without the chaos, there’s no art.”

Jack: “That’s where you’re wrong. The art is in the removal, in what’s not said. The scissors are the silence between the notes, the pause between breaths. You think Mozart filled every bar with sound? No — he left space. That’s what made it music, not noise.”

Jeeny: “But that space only means something because of the notes around it. The scissors and the pencil aren’t enemies, Jack. They’re lovers who need each other.”

Host: Her words hung in the smoky air, and for a moment, Jack’s eyes flickered — something soft, almost painful, behind the grey steel. He reached for his glass, but his hand trembled just slightly.

Jack: “You know… when I was a kid, I used to draw. My mother said I had a gift. But she’d always correct me — tell me to erase, to fix. So I did. And one day, I realized I’d erased the whole drawing. Nothing left but white. Maybe that’s what I’m still doing.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s why you love the scissors — because they make you feel safe. If you cut enough, no one can see what’s underneath.”

Host: The rain began again, soft at first, then fierce, beating against the windows like a thousand tiny truths demanding to be heard.

Jack: “You think I’m afraid?”

Jeeny: “I think you’re afraid of being seen.”

Jack: “And you — you think beauty comes from leaving everything raw? From never questioning, never refining?”

Jeeny: “No. I think beauty comes from feeling something so real you don’t care if it’s perfect. Like Van Gogh — his brushstrokes were chaos, but they burned with truth. He didn’t cut; he poured.”

Jack: “And he died alone, broke, and mad.”

Jeeny: “But his art still lives. Maybe that’s the trade — to burn so others can see the light.”

Host: The thunder rolled outside, a slow growl across the sky, shaking the glasses on the shelves. Jack’s jaw tightened, but his voice dropped, almost tender now.

Jack: “You think I don’t want that, Jeeny? To burn? I do. Every day I feel it. But if I let it consume me, I’ll end up like him — a ghost chasing color that never stays.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe the trick isn’t to cut or burn — it’s to balance. To write, then cut, then write again. To let both the pencil and the scissors have their turn.”

Host: The bar had grown quiet. Even the bartender had stopped moving, listening in that reverent silence that comes when truth drifts through ordinary air.

Jack: “Balance… yeah. Maybe Capote meant that too. Maybe he wasn’t worshipping the scissors, just reminding us that the pencil lies unless the scissors tell it the truth.”

Jeeny: “And maybe the scissors are blind without the pencil’s dream to guide them.”

Host: They both laughed, softly, like old friends who had just forgiven the world a little. The rain slowed, and the neon sign outside flickered — one last flash of light against the darkness.

Jack closed the notebook, rested the scissors beside it, and finally smiled.

Jack: “Maybe tomorrow I’ll write with the pencil again.”

Jeeny: “And maybe I’ll bring you a sharpener, just in case.”

Host: The camera would have pulled back then — the two figures in the warm barlight, the city breathing quietly beyond the glass, and the scissors glinting like a truth finally understood. The rain stopped, leaving only the sound of pages turning somewhere — as if the world itself had begun rewriting its own story.