I have diverticulitis. Most of my family have stomach issues

Host: The Appalachian dusk came down slow, like the last breath of a long story. The mountains rose dark and soft around the valley, their silhouettes veiled in mist and memory. Down in the hollow, the creek ran sluggish, its surface stained with the quiet shimmer of coal dust — a reflection of a history too heavy to wash clean.

Jack sat on the front steps of a weathered porch, his elbows resting on his knees, a tin cup of water in his hands. He swirled it absently, watching the faint grit settle to the bottom. Jeeny sat beside him, her face lit by the orange glow of a kerosene lamp. Her boots were muddy, her hair pulled back, her eyes carrying that mixture of tenderness and fury that only those who have seen too much suffering without enough change can carry.

Host: The night was still, except for the chirping of crickets and the distant hum of a generator that coughed like an old man who’d smoked through too many winters.

Jeeny: “Paula Jean Swearengin once said, ‘I have diverticulitis. Most of my family have stomach issues because of the water we drank when we were little. Lots of people have gastrointestinal issues in Appalachian coal communities.’”

Jack: (nodding slowly) “Yeah. The body remembers what the land refuses to forget.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Generations of people drinking from the same poisoned stream, thinking it was home.”

Jack: “That’s the cruelty of it — they were told the mines were their lifeline. Turns out they were swallowing the price of it every day.”

Jeeny: “Literally. The water — the soil — even the air here’s heavy with the cost of somebody else’s comfort.”

Host: The lamp flickered, casting long shadows across the boards, and for a moment, their faces looked older, carved by the same sorrow that marked the mountains.

Jack: “I grew up in a town like this. Same story. Same taste of iron in the water. My father used to joke that we were made of coal dust and prayer.”

Jeeny: “Not a joke, though. More like a eulogy in disguise.”

Jack: “Yeah. He died at fifty-two. Lungs gone to dust.”

Jeeny: (softly) “And people still call it ‘the price of progress.’”

Jack: “Progress for who? The miners didn’t get rich. They got sick.”

Host: The wind carried the faint scent of earth and machinery, a smell that belonged to no season, only to survival. Somewhere far off, a dog barked — three times, then silence again.

Jeeny: “You know, Swearengin’s not just talking about illness. She’s talking about inheritance. What gets passed down here isn’t just land — it’s damage.”

Jack: “And silence.”

Jeeny: “Yeah. Because people here were taught to be grateful for the work that killed them.”

Jack: “That’s the cruelest form of control — convincing people that suffering is duty.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. When you’re told for a hundred years that your pain keeps the lights on for everyone else, you start to think pain’s just part of living.”

Host: The creek below them gurgled, a dark lullaby to generations lost and forgotten.

Jack: “You know, they talk about environmental justice like it’s some abstract thing. But out here, it’s just what’s left of your childhood body.”

Jeeny: “And your grandmother’s lungs. And your brother’s liver.”

Jack: “Yeah. The map of your family’s medical history becomes a map of the mine shafts.”

Host: He took a sip from the cup, grimaced, then set it down beside him. The water caught the lamplight, turning it gold for a moment — beauty masking poison.

Jack: “You know, I met Paula once, at a town hall in Beckley. She said, ‘They call us forgotten. But they never forgot our resources. Just our names.’”

Jeeny: (quietly) “God, that’s true.”

Jack: “And she wasn’t just talking about coal. She was talking about dignity.”

Jeeny: “That’s what poisons people the most — not the toxins, but the neglect.”

Jack: “Yeah. You can clean up the water, but how do you clean up a century of being told you don’t matter?”

Jeeny: “You can’t. But you can start by listening.”

Host: The crickets grew louder, their rhythm syncing with the slow pulse of the night. In the distance, lightning flashed across the ridge — white against black, like a wound reopening.

Jeeny: “You know what I love about Paula’s words? She doesn’t talk like a politician. She talks like someone who’s still paying the price. Someone who knows that statistics are just headstones without names.”

Jack: “She turned her pain into protest.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Because speaking truth in a place that’s been silenced is the loudest thing you can do.”

Jack: “And it’s dangerous.”

Jeeny: “So is breathing here.”

Host: They both fell silent. The weight of that truth settled like dust — invisible but everywhere.

Jack: “You know, when people talk about patriotism, I think about towns like this. People who built a nation out of labor and lungs, and were left with neither.”

Jeeny: “The quiet patriots — the ones who believed the promise but never got the reward.”

Jack: “Yeah. The ones whose hands fed the machine but were too dirty to touch the table.”

Jeeny: “And whose children are still sick from the water their parents were told was safe.”

Host: The lamp flickered again, then steadied. The night was fully here now, black and endless. The only light came from their small flame, and the stars beyond the mountain peaks.

Jeeny: “You know, I think what she’s really saying is — freedom doesn’t mean much if you can’t drink your water.”

Jack: “Or breathe your air.”

Jeeny: “Or trust your government not to profit from your pain.”

Jack: “Maybe the revolution starts here — in the places no one films.”

Jeeny: “It already has. It starts every time someone like her tells the truth about what their body’s endured.”

Host: The wind shifted, carrying with it the smell of rain. They both looked toward the horizon — dark clouds gathering over the peaks. The promise of another storm, another cleansing that would never come.

Jack: “You think anything ever changes?”

Jeeny: “Maybe not quickly. But every time someone speaks, it gets harder for the powerful to pretend they didn’t hear.”

Jack: “And harder to drink without tasting guilt.”

Jeeny: “Exactly.”

Host: The rain began — gentle, then stronger — drumming against the tin roof, echoing through the hollow. They stayed there, unmoving, letting it fall. The water glistened on the steps, in the grass, in the creek — the same water that carried poison and promise in equal measure.

Host: And as the night deepened, Paula Jean Swearengin’s words seemed to hum through the rain — not as a complaint, but as a testimony carved from endurance:

Host: that injustice doesn’t just wound the earth — it enters the bloodstream,
that poverty is not the absence of effort but the consequence of exploitation,
and that the first step toward healing isn’t in policy or promise — but in the courage to tell the truth, even when your body still bears the scars.

Host: For out here, in the quiet corners of forgotten America,
the land remembers. The water remembers. And so do the people.