I slept for four years. I didn't study much of anything. I

Host: The room was small, lit by the weary yellow glow of a desk lamp fighting the darkness. Outside, the city whispered through open blinds—the low hum of cars, the occasional shout, the faint wail of a distant train. Inside, books lay scattered like forgotten promises, papers half-crumpled, coffee long gone cold.

Host: Jack sat slouched at the desk, his hands buried in his hair, his eyes fixed on the typewriter in front of him—the same typewriter he’d owned since college. Across from him, Jeeny leaned against the window, her silhouette cut against the pale neon outside, her expression caught somewhere between affection and worry.

Host: The air smelled of dust, ink, and stagnation—the scent of time left too long unused.

Jeeny: “Don DeLillo once said, ‘I slept for four years. I didn’t study much of anything. I majored in something called communication arts.’”

Host: Her voice was soft, but her words landed like a quiet accusation, a mirror turned toward Jack’s weary reflection.

Jeeny: “Do you ever feel like that, Jack? Like you just... slept through the part of life that mattered?”

Jack: (sighing) “I feel like I’m still asleep. Only now, the dreams are louder.”

Host: The lamp flickered, buzzing like a fly against the edge of light. Jack reached for his cigarette, lit it with a tremor of habit, and exhaled the kind of smoke that looked like resignation.

Jack: “College was a joke, Jeeny. Everyone pretending to learn, professors pretending to teach. Communication arts? It was a way to avoid choosing. I didn’t want to build bridges or break atoms—I just wanted to figure out how people talk to each other… or why they don’t.”

Jeeny: “That sounds like something.”

Jack: “It sounds like nothing. Like sleep.”

Host: He leaned back, the chair creaking beneath his weight, his eyes finding the ceiling, as if the answers might be written there in the cracks of old paint.

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s what DeLillo meant. That sometimes the sleeping years are just... gestation. The silence before the sentence.”

Jack: (half-smiling) “You make even failure sound poetic.”

Jeeny: “Maybe failure is poetic. You just have to know how to read it.”

Host: A faint rain began to fall, tapping the window in soft, uneven syllables. The city’s neon reflected off the wet glass, splintering into fragments of color—green, red, blue—like thoughts he once had but never finished.

Jack: “You know, back then, everything was about communication. Post-war America, media, television—everyone studying how to talk, how to persuade, how to sell. And yet… no one said anything real. We were a generation majoring in noise.”

Jeeny: “But maybe that’s what made DeLillo who he was. Maybe his ‘sleep’ wasn’t laziness—it was observation. He was soaking in the static until he could see the pattern.”

Jack: “So you’re saying my apathy’s just misunderstood brilliance?”

Jeeny: “No. I’m saying your silence might still become a sentence, if you’d stop calling it a coma.”

Host: She turned from the window, her eyes glimmering under the lamplight, reflecting the thin film of rain outside.

Jeeny: “You can’t hate the years you slept through, Jack. They built you. Even in stillness, something grows.”

Jack: “Then why does it all feel like waste? All those books I never read, all those nights I thought I was thinking but was just… drifting.”

Jeeny: “Because we’re taught that progress is movement. But sometimes, the deepest parts of us are built in stillness. Even trees grow in winter, Jack—they just do it underground.”

Host: The rain grew heavier, a kind of music now, steady and unresolved. The lamp cast long shadows across the walls, each one like a forgotten version of him—young, restless, unfulfilled.

Jack: “You know what’s funny? Everyone thinks communication arts is about how to speak. But I think it’s really about how to be heard. And most people never are.”

Jeeny: “Maybe because most people don’t say what they really mean.”

Jack: “And when they do, no one listens.”

Jeeny: “That’s why you write, isn’t it? To make someone listen—even if it’s just yourself.”

Host: The typewriter sat between them like a relic—its keys worn, metal cold, but still full of unspoken possibility.

Jack: “You ever feel like the words are there, just on the other side of the glass, and if you could just reach far enough—”

Jeeny: “You’d break it?”

Jack: “Yeah.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe that’s what art is, Jack. The sound of breaking glass.”

Host: A soft smile crossed her face, the kind that carried both pity and admiration. Jack looked at her, really looked, and for a moment, the room felt alive again.

Jack: “You think DeLillo was mocking himself with that line?”

Jeeny: “No. I think he was confessing. It’s easier to admit your sleep than your search. But deep down, he knew—those four years weren’t wasted. They were his silence before the storm.”

Jack: “So my years of doing nothing might still mean something.”

Jeeny: “If you wake up now, yes.”

Host: The clock ticked once, sharply—audible, deliberate. Jack’s hand moved toward the typewriter. His fingers hovered, uncertain, trembling. Then—one key pressed. A letter. Then another. The rhythm of his typing began to fill the room, slow but steady, like a heartbeat remembering how to live.

Host: Jeeny watched in silence, the lamplight flickering over his hands, each keystroke etching something back into his soul.

Jack: (without looking up) “You know, I think I finally understand what communication is.”

Jeeny: “What?”

Jack: “It’s not about talking. It’s about trying to reach someone in the dark—even if that someone is yourself.”

Host: Her eyes softened, her smile quiet, tender.

Jeeny: “Then you’re awake now, Jack.”

Host: The rain slowed to a whisper. The city outside kept humming, unaware of the small resurrection inside the room.

Host: The lamp’s glow deepened, the shadows grew gentle, and the sound of typing continued—hesitant, human, hopeful.

Host: In that moment, the sleeper was finally awake. And the years that once felt like nothing became the very soil from which something began to grow.