I get in trouble when I say things like, 'I'm attracted to

Host: The night hung heavy over the abandoned train station, its steel bones glowing faintly under the pale amber of a single flickering lamp. A thin mist curled along the tracks, and the wind carried the echo of a distant horn, mournful and lonely. Jack sat on a rusted bench, a half-empty flask by his side, his grey eyes staring into the darkness like someone watching the past burn itself into ashes. Jeeny stood a few steps away, her black hair glinting in the dim light, her hands folded tight against the cold.

For a long moment, neither spoke. The world was a theatre of silence and smoke.

Jeeny: “You’ve been quiet all evening, Jack. What’s bothering you?”

Jack: “Just thinking. About that quote I read earlier — Caleb Carr said he was ‘attracted to violence.’ Said he studied military history to vent his anger, then narrowed it to individual violence. I get it. Maybe too well.”

Host: The lamp buzzed softly above them, casting broken shadows that trembled across the ground. Jeeny tilted her head, her eyes reflecting both pity and curiosity.

Jeeny: “You ‘get it’? You think it’s right to be drawn to violence, to study it like some art?”

Jack: “Right? No. But honest — yes. Some of us don’t get to choose what draws us in. The world gives you rage, Jeeny. Violence is just the language you learn to speak when no one’s listening.”

Jeeny: “That’s a dangerous excuse. People said the same thing before every war. ‘We didn’t choose violence, the world forced our hand.’ That’s how millions die, Jack.”

Host: The wind surged, rattling a metal sign, its letters flaking into dust. Jack took a slow sip from the flask, his voice low, almost a growl.

Jack: “Maybe. But denying it doesn’t make it go away. You think I like this? You think I enjoy knowing there’s a part of me that wants to fight, to destroy, to see what happens when the mask comes off? I’m not glorifying it — I’m trying to understand it. Like Carr said — to trace where it came from.”

Jeeny: “And you think staring into the abyss will make it smaller?”

Jack: “No. But pretending it’s not there just makes it hungrier.”

Host: Jeeny walked closer, her boots echoing on the concrete. The air between them was taut, a thin thread of unspoken grief.

Jeeny: “There’s a difference between understanding violence and feeding it, Jack. You say you’re studying it — but maybe it’s studying you. History’s full of men who thought they were observers and ended up participants.”

Jack: “You’re talking about people like Nietzsche, right? The man who stared too long into the abyss?”

Jeeny: “Nietzsche, yes. Or anyone who believed they could hold darkness without it touching them. The Germans studied war so well they industrialized it. The Soviets justified it in the name of equality. Every monster starts with someone trying to ‘understand’.”

Host: The lamp flickered harder, a moth’s shadow twitching in its halo. Jack’s hands tightened on the flask, his knuckles white.

Jack: “You think curiosity is the same as corruption? Then why do you study pain in your psychology work? Isn’t that the same — looking at brokenness, dissecting it?”

Jeeny: “No, it’s not the same. I look to heal. You look to comprehend. There’s a difference between mending and measuring wounds.”

Jack: “But don’t you see? Healing without understanding is just guesswork. You can’t fix a machine if you don’t know how it breaks.”

Host: The sound of a passing train swelled in the distance, its lights cutting briefly through the mist, illuminating their faces — his hard with defiance, hers soft with hurt.

Jeeny: “I know how things break, Jack. They break when anger stops being pain and starts being purpose. When you let your rage define your identity.”

Jack: “And what if rage is all that kept you alive? What if you grew up in a world that only understood violence — a father who hit, a school that humiliated, a country that glorified soldiers? You think a man like that can just ‘choose’ to be gentle?”

Jeeny: “Yes. Because that’s what makes us human — the ability to choose something better than what made us.”

Host: Jeeny’s voice trembled slightly, but her eyes held steady. Jack looked at her, and for a moment, his mask cracked.

Jack: “Do you know why I joined the army, Jeeny? It wasn’t patriotism. It was to give my violence a uniform. To make it respectable. But when I came back, I realized — the uniform doesn’t contain it. It just sanctifies it.”

Jeeny: “That’s the tragedy, isn’t it? That society rewards the very rage it fears. Soldiers, fighters, even boxers — we cheer their discipline, but ignore the wounds that made them fight.”

Jack: “Exactly. Carr understood that. Violence isn’t born from chaos; it’s born from hurt. From humiliation. From silence.”

Jeeny: “Then break the silence differently. Write, speak, cry — don’t hit. Don’t make violence a language you romanticize.”

Host: A soft rain began to fall, thin needles of silver under the streetlight. The drops gathered on Jeeny’s hair, glistening like fragile truths she was trying to hold onto.

Jack: “You think I romanticize it? You think I want to glorify the beast? No — I want to cage it. But to do that, you have to study its nature. Ignoring it won’t make it die.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But staring too long at the monster makes you forget your own face. That’s what worries me, Jack.”

Host: Jack turned his head, his eyes narrowing as if searching for a reflection in the darkened window across the tracks.

Jack: “Sometimes I don’t even remember what I looked like before the war. Before all of this. Maybe that’s the point. Maybe some people are just built to carry violence, to understand it so others don’t have to.”

Jeeny: “No one is built for violence, Jack. We just learn it too early.”

Host: Her words lingered like smoke after a gunshot, soft but irreversible. Jack looked down, the rain tracing thin lines on his face that blurred into tears or memory — it was hard to tell.

Jack: “Do you think it’s possible — to unlearn it?”

Jeeny: “I think it’s possible to forgive yourself for having learned it. That’s where understanding should lead — not to fascination, but to forgiveness.”

Host: The rain grew steadier, wrapping the station in a veil of sound. Jack’s shoulders eased, as though some weight had shifted.

Jack: “Maybe that’s what Carr was after. Not glorification — but comprehension. He wasn’t excusing his anger. He was tracing it back to its roots.”

Jeeny: “Then the real question isn’t where violence comes from, Jack. It’s where it ends. And that’s a question only you can answer.”

Host: The train lights returned once more, a glow slicing through the dark, shimmering against the wet rails. Jack stood slowly, his breath visible in the cold air.

Jack: “Maybe it ends when someone finally looks at it without fear — and without desire.”

Jeeny: “And maybe it ends when someone looks at the one who carries it — and still sees something worth saving.”

Host: The train thundered past them, scattering mist and light in its wake. For a moment, they both stood silent, framed against the motion, like two souls caught between past and redemption.

When the train was gone, the night fell still again — the lamp no longer flickered, only glowed, steady and soft.

Jack: “You know… maybe we’re both right.”

Jeeny: “Maybe understanding is the first step — and forgiveness the second.”

Host: They walked away from the station, their footsteps dissolving into the rain, leaving behind the echo of something almost like peace. The mist thinned, the sky began to lighten, and the dawn broke faintly over the tracks, like a promise trying to remember how to be born.