I don't see this planet being... they're talking about how

Host: The skyline burned orange at the edges — not from sunset, but from the long, slow suffocation of a world breathing its own smoke. The air was heavy, the kind of heat that sticks to skin and memory. Down by the river, once silver and alive, the water had thickened to the color of rust. It still moved — sluggishly, stubbornly — like something too proud to admit it was dying.

On the cracked concrete embankment, Jack sat with his boots dangling over the edge, a cigarette glowing between his fingers, the ember reflected in the dark water below. Jeeny stood behind him, arms crossed, her face half-lit by the faded neon of a drowned city in the distance.

The night smelled of ozone, oil, and regret.

Pasted to the rusted guardrail near them, half-torn and rain-streaked, a fragment of a newspaper still clung stubbornly to metal. The print, faded but defiant, read:

“I don’t see this planet being... they’re talking about how they’re turning around the environmental problems here, but I think it’s already too late.”
— Ace Frehley

Host: The quote rippled in the wind like a warning too tired to shout. The night had the weight of prophecy.

Jack: “He said it bluntly, didn’t he? ‘It’s already too late.’ No metaphors, no slogans — just the truth nobody wants to touch.”

Jeeny: “Maybe it’s not truth, Jack. Maybe it’s exhaustion.”

Jack: “Exhaustion is the truth. The planet’s coughing, the leaders are lying, and the rest of us are posting pictures of sunsets through smog filters.”

Jeeny: “You talk like you’ve already buried it.”

Jack: “Maybe we have. We just haven’t written the eulogy yet.”

Host: The river wind hissed through the hollow pipes of the bridge above, a metallic sigh that seemed to echo every word.

Jeeny: “You think it’s too late for redemption?”

Jack: “No. Just too late for denial.”

Jeeny: “There’s a difference.”

Jack: “Sure. One admits the crime. The other keeps selling the weapon.”

Jeeny: “You’ve gotten darker lately.”

Jack: “No, Jeeny. The world’s just gotten easier to see in the dark.”

Host: Her eyes flickered with something between defiance and sorrow. The city lights trembled across the river — beautiful, distant, toxic.

Jeeny: “You always talk like humanity’s a lost cause. But if that’s true, why are we still here? Why do you still write, still argue, still care enough to be angry?”

Jack: “Because giving up doesn’t mean shutting up. It just means you stop pretending it’s fixable.”

Jeeny: “You sound like you’ve mistaken realism for wisdom.”

Jack: “And you sound like you’ve mistaken optimism for courage.”

Jeeny: “Maybe they’re both the same thing — standing in front of collapse and refusing to look away.”

Jack: “That’s not optimism. That’s endurance.”

Host: A train horn sounded far off, the sound hollow and almost mournful — like a requiem for something vast and ungrieved.

Jeeny: “You think Frehley’s right? That it’s too late?”

Jack: “I think it’s later than anyone wants to believe. Every environmental report reads like an obituary, and still we hold conferences, make pledges, design logos. It’s theater.”

Jeeny: “Theater is how humanity copes. We act out the hope we can’t find.”

Jack: “And then we applaud ourselves for pretending.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s part of the process — denial before acceptance, performance before repentance.”

Jack: “Repentance doesn’t refill the oceans.”

Jeeny: “But it might keep us from poisoning what’s left.”

Host: The moonlight broke through the haze for a brief moment, striking the water like a mirror cracked with silver veins.

For a second, both of them fell silent.

Jack: “You ever think the Earth stopped forgiving us a long time ago?”

Jeeny: “Forgiveness isn’t hers to give. It’s ours to earn.”

Jack: “We’ve done nothing to earn it.”

Jeeny: “Maybe learning to mourn is the first step.”

Jack: “Mourning’s not progress.”

Jeeny: “No, but it’s honesty. You can’t heal what you won’t grieve.”

Jack: “And what if grieving’s all that’s left?”

Jeeny: “Then at least it’s something real. Something human.”

Host: A plastic bottle floated by, catching the moonlight before vanishing into the dark — a tiny monument to everything they’d built and broken.

Jeeny: “You think Frehley’s wrong because he gave up. I think he’s right because he stopped lying.”

Jack: “He’s a musician. They can say it’s too late and still write songs about hope. That’s the privilege of artists — they can despair beautifully.”

Jeeny: “And you can’t?”

Jack: “No. I deal in words that hurt. There’s no melody to cover them.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s the melody now — honesty without harmony.”

Host: The streetlight above them flickered — its light stuttering across the water like a pulse struggling to hold rhythm.

Jack: “You know, the worst part isn’t that the planet’s dying. It’s that it’s dying politely. Slowly enough for us to normalize it.”

Jeeny: “That’s why I don’t think it’s too late. Because the planet’s still warning us. She hasn’t gone silent yet.”

Jack: “Warnings lose power when they repeat.”

Jeeny: “So does love. But we still listen.”

Jack: “And what good has listening done?”

Jeeny: “Maybe none. But it’s what keeps us human.”

Host: The rain began — light at first, then steady. It hissed against the pavement, washing the dust into tiny rivers that flowed toward the real one below.

The sound of rain has a strange way of erasing distance — between people, between guilt and forgiveness, between what’s dying and what still breathes.

Jeeny: “You ever think that maybe saving the planet isn’t about the planet at all?”

Jack: “Then what is it about?”

Jeeny: “Saving the part of ourselves that remembers how to care.”

Jack: “That’s poetic.”

Jeeny: “No. It’s survival. The Earth will outlast us. The question is whether we’ll outlast our indifference.”

Jack: “And what if we don’t?”

Jeeny: “Then maybe we die honest.”

Host: A streak of lightning illuminated the river — for a heartbeat, everything looked clean, pure, untouched. Then the darkness returned, heavier than before.

Jack: “You really think there’s still a point?”

Jeeny: “Always. Because trying, even in futility, keeps something sacred alive. Maybe that’s all that’s left — not hope, not progress — just devotion.”

Jack: “Devotion to what?”

Jeeny: “To the idea that beauty still deserves a witness.”

Host: The rain thickened, a curtain of sound. The two figures sat there — motionless, small, defiant — on the crumbling edge of a world trying to remember what mercy feels like.

The quote behind them trembled in the wind, edges fraying, the ink running until the words bled into one another:

“…turning around the environmental problems here… but I think it’s already too late.”

Host: And in that blur, truth became what it always was — not final, but fleeting.

The camera would pull back now — past the dying river, past the trembling light, into the quiet vastness of the storm — as if the Earth itself were whispering:

“Maybe it is too late.
But maybe that’s when honesty begins —
when the songs stop lying,
and the silence starts to listen.”