I have seen what the days of tribulation can do to people. I have

Host: The night air was cold — the kind of cold that bites gently, reminding you that the world still knows how to punish gently.
The train station stood nearly deserted, its metal benches slick with mist, the dim yellow lights flickering in intervals, like weary eyes trying to stay awake.

In the distance, the hum of a freight train trembled through the tracks, a sound ancient and hollow, carrying memories of journeys no one wanted to remember.

Jack sat alone on one of the benches, a small tin cup of coffee cooling beside him, his hands folded, eyes distant. Across from him, Jeeny stood near the wall, staring at a photograph display — black-and-white images of postwar Europe.
Faces without names. Eyes without rest.

At the bottom of the display, printed in small, somber type, were the words:
“I have seen what the days of tribulation can do to people. I have seen hunger stalk the streets of Europe. I have witnessed the appalling, emaciated shadows of human figures. I have seen women and children scavenge army garbage dumps for scraps of food. Those scenes and nameless faces cannot be erased from my memory.” — Ezra Taft Benson

Jeeny: (softly, tracing her finger along one of the photographs) “You can almost feel it, can’t you? Even after all these years — that kind of hunger.”

Jack: (looking up) “You mean the kind that eats more than the body.”

Jeeny: “Yes. The kind that makes you question whether God still recognizes your face.”

Jack: “Or whether He ever did.”

Jeeny: (turning toward him) “Don’t say that.”

Jack: “Why not? Look at them. Look at the children digging through filth for scraps. Tell me faith doesn’t starve too.”

Host: The lights buzzed, one of them blinking uncertainly above the photo wall. Jeeny’s reflection wavered faintly in the glass — a modern woman standing inside an old grief.

Jeeny: “You think Benson wrote that to despair?”

Jack: “No. He wrote it to remember.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. He carried their pain so it wouldn’t vanish. That’s not hopelessness. That’s defiance.”

Jack: (leaning forward, elbows on knees) “Maybe. But remembering doesn’t feed the hungry. Memory’s just a museum — sacred, yes, but sterile.”

Jeeny: “You think remembrance is sterile?”

Jack: “When it doesn’t change anything, yes. We light candles, we make speeches, we cry — and then we go back to dinner. Hunger doesn’t die from nostalgia.”

Jeeny: (quietly) “But indifference keeps it alive.”

Host: The train rumbled past, its windows black, its roar swallowing silence for a moment — and then, like history itself, fading again into distance.

Jeeny: “You know, when I was a kid, my grandmother told me how she survived the war. She said hunger doesn’t just take your strength — it steals your dignity, piece by piece.”

Jack: “Until you stop feeling human.”

Jeeny: “No. Until you redefine what it means to be human. You learn to find meaning in surviving one more day.”

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

Jeeny: “And what do you think hope is made of, Jack?”

Host: The clock above the platform ticked, loud and slow, like the heartbeat of a world still trying to forgive itself.

Jack looked up, his face half-lit, half in shadow — as if he were caught between belief and disbelief, faith and fatigue.

Jack: “You know what bothers me most about that quote? The way he says ‘those faces cannot be erased.’ But they were. By time, by politics, by comfort. We erased them with progress.”

Jeeny: “Maybe not erased. Just replaced. Every century gives birth to new shadows.”

Jack: “That’s the problem. Humanity doesn’t learn — it recycles.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But some people remember enough to break the pattern.”

Jack: “Do they?”

Jeeny: “Benson remembered. He didn’t just write it down — he carried it. That’s what empathy does. It doesn’t cure hunger, but it keeps it from being forgotten.”

Jack: “And forgetting is worse than hunger?”

Jeeny: (looking at the photos again) “Yes. Because forgetting feeds the next famine.”

Host: The rain began outside, soft at first, then heavier, drumming on the glass panes — a rhythm that seemed to echo every unshed tear in the room.

Jack: “You know, it’s strange. The human body can survive weeks without food, but memory — memory can kill you in a heartbeat.”

Jeeny: “Or save you.”

Jack: (looking at her) “You really think memory saves?”

Jeeny: “If it makes one person act differently, yes.”

Jack: “And what if it just hurts?”

Jeeny: “Then it’s honest. Pain without purpose is tragedy. But pain remembered — that’s warning.”

Host: Jeeny’s voice softened, but it carried through the hollow space — not loud, but certain, the way truth sounds when it’s lived rather than learned.

Jack: “You ever wonder what kind of people they became? The ones who survived? The ones who saw what Benson saw?”

Jeeny: “Haunted. But grateful.”

Jack: “Grateful for what?”

Jeeny: “For knowing that survival doesn’t mean victory. It just means responsibility.”

Jack: “Responsibility to what?”

Jeeny: “To remember — and to act.”

Host: The light shifted, the mist on the glass turning silver as a train’s headlight passed, painting the photos briefly in motion — the faces flickering alive for a heartbeat, before fading again.

It was as though time had allowed them one brief breath before retreating to its silence.

Jeeny: “You see, Jack — those faces in the photographs? They’re not asking for pity. They’re asking for witness.”

Jack: “And what does witness change?”

Jeeny: “It changes us. The moment we stop looking away.”

Jack: (nodding slowly) “And if we do look? Really look?”

Jeeny: “Then maybe we finally understand that hunger isn’t just physical. It’s the ache for justice, for compassion, for humanity not to keep failing itself.”

Jack: (quietly) “That’s a heavy gospel.”

Jeeny: “So was survival.”

Host: The rain eased, the station now almost silent, save for the occasional drop falling from the roof, echoing like footsteps of ghosts departing.

Jack: (after a long pause) “You know… maybe Benson didn’t write it for us to feel guilty. Maybe he wrote it so we’d remember how to stay human.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Compassion isn’t born from comfort — it’s born from seeing.”

Jack: “And he saw too much.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s why he wrote it — to unload the unbearable onto the page.”

Jack: “And now it’s ours to carry.”

Jeeny: (nodding) “Yes. That’s the price of memory — it passes from one soul to another until someone finally does something with it.”

Host: The camera drifted backward, leaving the two figures small and silent, framed by the glow of old photographs and the steady tick of time.

Outside, the rain stopped completely, leaving only stillness — that fragile silence that follows truth.

And on the wall, Benson’s words remained, unflinching, a testament carved not in stone but in conscience:

“I have seen hunger stalk the streets of Europe… Those scenes and nameless faces cannot be erased from my memory.”

Host: Because some memories are not meant to fade.
They are meant to guard what’s left of our humanity,
to remind us — quietly, urgently —
that to remember is the beginning of mercy,
and to forget
is the first act of cruelty.