I used to go to musicals every birthday - that was my birthday

Host: The train hummed softly as it crossed into London, slicing through a gray morning dusted with drizzle. The windows fogged with breath and memory, the kind that turns everything outside — buildings, bridges, faces — into watercolor.

Jack sat by the window, his jacket folded neatly beside him, his reflection hovering faintly over the city’s blurred skyline. Jeeny sat across from him, her hands curled around a paper cup of coffee that had long gone cold. Between them, a quiet nostalgia hung like a familiar melody that neither wanted to interrupt.

Pinned to the corkboard above their seat was a poster for Mamma Mia!, the edges curling with age and fingerprints — a remnant of someone’s laughter, someone’s youth.

Jeeny glanced at it and smiled.
Jeeny: “Lily James once said she used to go to musicals every birthday. ‘That was my birthday present,’ she said. ‘Me and my two brothers and mum and dad. I think I saw Mamma Mia! about five times.’”

Jack: (smiling faintly) “Five times? That’s devotion — or repetition therapy.”

Jeeny: (laughing) “No — that’s joy. The kind of joy you don’t analyze. You just keep chasing it because it feels like home.”

Host: The train clattered over a bridge, the sound like a rhythmic heartbeat beneath their silence. The river below shimmered under pale light — half gray, half gold.

Jack: “You think we ever get that back? The kind of happiness that simple?”

Jeeny: “You mean the kind that doesn’t need an excuse?”

Jack: “Yeah. The kind that just is.”

Jeeny: “Maybe we never lose it. Maybe we just forget where to look.”

Jack: “And you think musicals are the map?”

Jeeny: (smiling) “Maybe. At least they make us believe in singing through the mess.”

Host: The train slowed, brakes hissing, and outside the London Eye emerged through the mist — still, massive, absurdly patient. Jeeny leaned closer to the window, her reflection overlapping the skyline.

Jeeny: “My mum used to take us to see The Phantom of the Opera every year. Same show, same seats. We already knew the lines, but it didn’t matter. It was… ritual. A way of saying, ‘We’re still here. Together.’”

Jack: “Funny how the same story never gets old when you live it with the right people.”

Jeeny: “That’s family for you. Repetition becomes memory. Memory becomes comfort.”

Jack: “And then time turns it into myth.”

Jeeny: (quietly) “Yes. A myth called childhood.”

Host: The train lurched to a stop. Commuters shuffled past — coats brushing, bags bumping, murmured apologies. Life in motion, indifferent to the ghosts sitting in carriage number four.

Jack looked down at his hands, the faint tremor of someone remembering too many quiet birthdays.

Jack: “My dad used to take me to football games instead. Same idea, different soundtrack. We’d shout until our throats burned. I think that was the only time we ever spoke the same language.”

Jeeny: “You miss him?”

Jack: “Every day. But I think what I really miss is who I was when he was still alive.”

Jeeny: “That’s what memories do. They don’t just bring people back — they bring us back. Even if just for a second.”

Host: The door alarm beeped. The train pulled forward again, plunging into a tunnel where everything — sound, light, thought — compressed into a heartbeat.

Jeeny: (softly) “You know what I love about musicals? They take ordinary moments and turn them into songs. Birthdays, heartbreaks, breakfasts, rain. They make you believe every part of life deserves music.”

Jack: “Even the sad parts?”

Jeeny: “Especially the sad parts.”

Jack: “That’s not how real life works.”

Jeeny: “No. But that’s how we survive it.”

Host: When the train emerged from the tunnel, the city had changed — not in shape, but in color. The streets were awake now, the shops opening, raincoats flashing like confetti. London was alive again, the way it always was before people remembered to be tired.

Jack glanced at Jeeny, who was smiling faintly, humming something under her breath — faint but familiar.

Jack: “What song is that?”

Jeeny: “Mamma Mia. My mum used to sing it while cooking. We’d dance around the kitchen. I didn’t realize then that it wasn’t about love — it was about remembrance.”

Jack: “How so?”

Jeeny: “Because when you sing something again and again, it stops being about words. It becomes an anchor. A way of saying, ‘I’m still that person who used to laugh here.’”

Host: Jack leaned back, the motion of the train rocking them gently, like an old lullaby.

Jack: “Do you ever think that’s why people go back to the same shows, the same songs? To prove that time hasn’t stolen everything?”

Jeeny: “Yes. It’s how we keep the good parts alive. You can’t go back to being the child in the audience — but you can keep the wonder she felt.”

Jack: “Even if you’ve seen it five times?”

Jeeny: (smiling) “Especially then.”

Host: The conductor’s voice came over the speaker — “Next stop, Charing Cross.” The announcement broke through the calm like the final line of a song.

Jeeny gathered her bag, glancing once more at the poster for Mamma Mia! pinned to the wall. The colors were faded, but the joy was still there — preserved like laughter in amber.

Jeeny: “You know what’s funny? We think nostalgia is about the past. But it’s not. It’s about gratitude.”

Jack: “Gratitude for what?”

Jeeny: “For having lived something worth missing.”

Host: Jack looked out the window as the city blurred past — the theaters, the lights, the streets brimming with the ghosts of curtain calls and applause.

He turned back to Jeeny, his voice soft but clear.

Jack: “So what’s your favorite musical?”

Jeeny: “The one that reminds me who I was before I learned to stop singing.”

Jack: “And what about now?”

Jeeny: “Now I hum.”

Host: The train doors slid open with a hiss. The platform was alive with sound — footsteps, laughter, the faint strains of a street violinist playing something familiar, maybe Dancing Queen.

Jeeny stepped off first, her hair catching the light. Jack followed, his gaze lifting to the marquee of a nearby theater, its lights spelling out a promise — Tonight: Mamma Mia!

He smiled.

Jack: “Five times, huh?”

Jeeny: (grinning) “It’s never too many when it still feels like the first.”

Host: The rain had stopped. The air was fresh, alive. London shimmered under the wet glow of morning, the streets humming their own quiet musical.

And as they walked toward the theater — two souls carrying a thousand birthdays and a handful of songs — the world itself seemed to sing back, softly, sweetly, eternally:

“Here we go again…”