I will always value beauty.

Host: The sunlight spills through the glass walls of a small art studio, painting the floor in broken shards of gold. The city outside hums faintly — traffic murmurs, footsteps, sirens, all softened by distance. Inside, silence reigns, broken only by the faint scrape of a paintbrush across canvas.

Jack sits by the window, his sleeves rolled to his elbows, a cigarette burning between his fingers. Ashes fall like quiet snow into an empty cup. Jeeny stands near an easel, her hands stained with color — blue, ochre, crimson — as though she’s been touching the sky and forgot to let go.

Jeeny: “Do you ever just… stop and stare at something until it hurts?”

Jack: “Hurts?”

Jeeny: “Yeah. Because it’s too beautiful to hold in your eyes for long.”

Host: Jack exhales a slow stream of smoke, watching it curl and disappear, like a thought that’s changed its mind.

Jack: “Bretman Rock said it once — ‘I will always value beauty.’ But beauty’s a tricky thing, Jeeny. It’s like fire. It warms you, then burns you if you stay too close.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s the point. Maybe beauty isn’t meant to be safe.”

Host: Outside, a pigeon lands on the sill, cooing softly, feathers shimmering in sunlight. The air feels almost sacred — the kind of silence that only exists in places where creation happens.

Jack: “You paint these people — faces, bodies, moments — like they’re saints. Don’t you ever wonder if beauty’s just a luxury? Something for people who can afford to care?”

Jeeny: “No. I think beauty is what keeps people alive when they can’t afford anything else.”

Jack: “That’s poetic, but naive. Beauty won’t pay your bills. It won’t save your life.”

Jeeny: “Maybe not. But it might remind you why your life’s worth saving.”

Jack: “You talk like someone who’s never had to choose between art and dinner.”

Jeeny: “And you talk like someone who stopped believing in color.”

Host: The air between them crackles, not with anger, but with the weight of two truths trying to occupy the same space. A drop of paint slips from Jeeny’s brush and lands on the floor — a small sapphire wound against the concrete.

Jack: “Look around. People spend fortunes chasing what they call ‘beauty.’ Cosmetic surgeries, designer clothes, perfect angles for pictures they’ll delete tomorrow. That’s not beauty — that’s camouflage.”

Jeeny: “You confuse imitation with reverence. Just because people sell their faces doesn’t mean beauty itself is fake. The problem isn’t that people love beauty — it’s that they think they can own it.”

Jack: “And what, you think you’re different? You paint beauty like it’s your religion.”

Jeeny: “It is my religion. But I don’t worship the surface. I worship what leaks through it — the story, the ache, the flaw.”

Host: She steps closer, eyes bright and unwavering. Jack meets her gaze — grey against brown, steel against warmth — and for a moment, the room feels like a battlefield where neither wants to win.

Jack: “So you’d die for beauty?”

Jeeny: “If it meant living truthfully, yes.”

Jack: “That’s reckless.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. That’s human.”

Jack: “You sound like Keats.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe he was right. ‘A thing of beauty is a joy forever.’ Not because it lasts, but because even for a second, it shows us something eternal.”

Jack: “And yet, everything beautiful fades. The flowers wilt. The faces wrinkle. The colors dull. What joy’s left then?”

Jeeny: “The joy that it existed. That we saw it before it went.”

Host: The light shifts, sliding across the studio floor, touching the edge of Jeeny’s canvas — a portrait still unfinished, a woman’s face caught halfway between smile and sorrow.

Jack: “You see that painting? You’ll finish it, and one day someone will hang it in a gallery, take a photo, post it online. And in a month, it’ll vanish into the endless scroll. Beauty’s disposable now, Jeeny.”

Jeeny: “Only because people treat it like content, not communion.”

Jack: “That’s a nice word, but the world doesn’t care about communion. It cares about clicks.”

Jeeny: “Then the world’s starving. And I’d rather feed it beauty than apathy.”

Host: A pause. The city’s hum fades. Even the light seems to still, as if listening.

Jeeny: “You remember the photo of the Earth from Apollo 8? The ‘Earthrise’ one?”

Jack: “Yeah.”

Jeeny: “That photo changed everything. It wasn’t a scientific discovery. It was beauty — seeing ourselves from a distance. People started caring about the planet after that. Started fighting for it. Beauty moved them before logic did.”

Jack: “So you think beauty can save the world?”

Jeeny: “Not save it. But remind it why it’s worth saving.”

Host: Jack crushes his cigarette in the ashtray, the sound sharp in the quiet. His expression softens — not surrender, but something close. The light from the window catches in his eyes, making them almost silver.

Jack: “You know, I used to paint too.”

Jeeny: “What happened?”

Jack: “Life happened. Rent happened. People stopped calling it art and started calling it impractical.”

Jeeny: “So you stopped creating because the world stopped applauding?”

Jack: “Because the applause wasn’t worth the hunger.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe you were painting for the wrong audience.”

Host: Jeeny walks to the window and opens it. The air rushes in, cool and wild, carrying the scent of rain and city dust. She closes her eyes for a moment, letting the wind touch her face like an old friend.

Jeeny: “You can’t measure beauty by utility, Jack. It’s not supposed to be useful. It’s supposed to move you.”

Jack: “And what if I’m too tired to be moved?”

Jeeny: “Then beauty will wait. It always does.”

Jack: “You think it forgives us for forgetting it?”

Jeeny: “Every sunrise proves it does.”

Host: The sunlight shifts again, bright now, bold. The colors in the room seem to breathe. The unfinished portrait on the easel glows faintly, as if alive — a heartbeat captured in pigment.

Jack stands slowly, stepping closer to the painting. His hand hovers inches from it, trembling slightly, as if afraid to touch something sacred.

Jack: “She’s… not perfect.”

Jeeny: “Good.”

Jack: “Why good?”

Jeeny: “Because perfection is boring. Beauty lives in the cracks.”

Jack: “You always sound so sure.”

Jeeny: “Because I’ve seen people come back to life just by seeing something beautiful again — a child, a song, a sky. It’s not vanity, Jack. It’s medicine.”

Host: The wind stirs the canvas, and the light catches the tears forming in Jeeny’s eyes. Jack looks at her, really looks — not at her face, but at the life glowing beneath it. For the first time in years, he feels something shift inside — a memory, maybe, of color.

Jack: softly “Maybe I stopped painting because I was afraid I’d forgotten how to see.”

Jeeny: “You never forget. You just stop believing you’re allowed to.”

Host: The two stand there in silence. The light grows brighter, filling the room until even the dust seems holy.

Jack: “Bretman said he’d always value beauty. I used to think that was shallow.”

Jeeny: “And now?”

Jack: “Now I think it’s brave.”

Host: She smiles — small, sincere, like the world itself just exhaled. The camera lingers as Jack picks up the old brush on the table, dips it into the paint, and places a trembling stroke on the canvas.

The color spreads, alive again. The sunlight shimmers, the wind quiets, and somewhere, faintly, a church bell rings.

The frame holds still on the unfinished painting — imperfect, luminous, human.

Host: And in that quiet blaze of light, beauty wins again.