If I'm honest I have to tell you I still read fairy-tales and I

Host:
The library was nearly empty, the air heavy with the scent of old paper, dust, and midnight silence. The lamplight poured over the wooden tables, casting pools of gold that trembled with the faintest flutter of pages. Outside, snow was falling — slow, deliberate, like ashes from a quiet heaven.

In one corner, between the shelves labeled “Folklore & Myth”, Jack and Jeeny sat opposite each other, surrounded by books stacked like tiny towers of forgotten dreams. Jack’s coat lay crumpled beside him, his hands wrapped around a cup of cooling tea. Jeeny had a book open in front of her — a faded, cloth-bound volume whose spine read simply: Fairy Tales from Long Ago.

She looked up, her eyes soft, her smile half-embarrassed.

Jeeny: “If I’m honest, I have to tell you — I still read fairy-tales. And I like them best of all.” — Audrey Hepburn.

Jack: half-grinning, his voice low and teasing “Of course you do. You’ve always liked happy endings.”

Jeeny: “Not just happy endings. I like the parts where people are kind. Where they keep their promises. Where magic still means something.”

Jack: leans back, eyes narrowing thoughtfully “Magic’s just coincidence we don’t understand yet. Fairy-tales are how people survived ignorance.”

Jeeny: “Or how they remembered hope.”

Jack: “Hope’s just another story people tell themselves to make sense of the dark.”

Jeeny: closing her book gently “And maybe stories are the only way the dark ever listens.”

Host:
A soft draft passed through the aisles, stirring loose pages like whispers. Somewhere in the distance, a clock struck midnight — a sound both tender and melancholic. The snow outside had grown heavier, blurring the world into a single sheet of white.

Jeeny: “You know, Jack… every fairy-tale begins with something broken. A curse. A loss. A test. It’s not about escape. It’s about repair.”

Jack: “And yet they always end the same — the prince finds the girl, the kingdom is saved, everyone lives happily ever after. Life doesn’t work like that.”

Jeeny: “But that’s why we read them. Because life doesn’t. Fairy-tales don’t lie; they heal. They remind us that goodness can win — even if just on the page.”

Jack: smirks “So it’s therapy now?”

Jeeny: “If it saves a part of your heart from cynicism, then yes — therapy.”

Host:
The lamp’s flame flickered, casting their shadows long across the bookshelves. Jack’s face, lined with quiet skepticism, caught the light unevenly — one side gold, one side shadow. Jeeny’s expression, luminous and still, seemed to hold something older than innocence — faith, perhaps, in things unseen.

Jack: “You really believe the world still needs fairy-tales?”

Jeeny: “Now more than ever. We’re drowning in information and starving for wonder. Everyone’s so busy being clever they’ve forgotten how to believe.”

Jack: “Belief is dangerous. It blinds people.”

Jeeny: “No, it opens their eyes to what logic can’t see. Fairy-tales are not lies — they’re metaphors that survived growing up.”

Jack: leaning forward slightly “Then what’s your favorite one?”

Jeeny: pausing, smiling faintly “Beauty and the Beast.”

Jack: “Of course. The girl redeems the monster. Classic.”

Jeeny: “No. The monster redeems himself when he learns to love without being loved back. That’s the part everyone misses.”

Host:
The library clock ticked softly, each second like a heartbeat in the hush. The snowlight through the window painted the floor silver, and the world outside had grown completely still.

Jack: “You know what my problem with fairy-tales is? They teach people to wait for miracles instead of making them.”

Jeeny: shaking her head gently “No. They teach people that miracles only happen to those who act — who dare, who wander, who disobey. Cinderella had to go to the ball. Snow White had to bite the apple. Red Riding Hood had to face the wolf. The moral’s not obedience. It’s courage.”

Jack: “And suffering.”

Jeeny: “Sometimes they’re the same thing.”

Jack: sighs, looking at his hands “Maybe I just outgrew them.”

Jeeny: “Or maybe they’re still waiting for you.”

Host:
The silence between them was thick, like a page refusing to turn. The faint creak of wood echoed from somewhere deep in the library — the building itself shifting in its sleep.

Jack: “You know, I used to love them too. When I was little. My mother would read me The Little Match Girl. I didn’t understand it, not really. I just knew it hurt. That kind of sadness... it stays with you.”

Jeeny: gently “Because it’s real. Fairy-tales aren’t meant to protect you from sadness. They teach you how to carry it.”

Jack: quietly “And you still read them. Even now.”

Jeeny: “Especially now. When the world feels too rational, I turn to the irrational — to the stories that don’t ask to be believed, only felt.”

Jack: half-smiling “So, a grown woman still chasing magic.”

Jeeny: softly “No. A grown woman remembering that it once chased me.”

Host:
A single snowflake drifted through a crack in the window, melting on the wooden table between them. It was so small, so silent — and yet it seemed to echo the fragile perfection of Jeeny’s words.

Jack: “You know, there’s a strange comfort in what you’re saying. Maybe we all carry some kind of fairy-tale inside us — just rewritten by disappointment.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. The tragedy isn’t that we stop believing in dragons, Jack. It’s that we stop believing we can defeat them.”

Jack: “And you think reading old stories can change that?”

Jeeny: “No. But it can remind us how to begin again.”

Host:
The lamplight had dimmed now, its flame small but stubborn. The library felt like a cathedral of forgotten faith, where every book was a prayer whispered into eternity. Jack closed his eyes for a moment, breathing in the smell of ink and dust and something softer — like time itself forgiving him.

Jack: quietly “Maybe that’s why Hepburn liked them best. Fairy-tales are the only stories that forgive us for wanting more than we’re supposed to.”

Jeeny: smiling faintly “And for still believing that goodness matters.”

Jack: “Even when the world doesn’t.”

Jeeny: “Especially then.”

Host:
The clock struck one. They rose, slowly, the sound of the chairs scraping soft against the old wood. The snow outside had stopped, and the streetlamps beyond the window glowed like watchful moons.

As they walked down the aisle between shelves, Jeeny reached out, trailing her fingers along the spines of old fairy-tale books — Andersen, Grimm, Perrault — as if each were a friend she’d never quite said goodbye to.

At the door, Jack turned to her.

Jack: “You really believe we need stories like that?”

Jeeny: “I think we are stories like that. Broken, brave, unfinished — but still reaching for magic.”

Jack: smiles softly “Then maybe the world hasn’t lost all its wonder after all.”

Jeeny: “Not as long as someone’s still reading.”

Host:
Outside, the snowlight glowed against the sleeping city. The camera would pull back — two figures walking beneath a single streetlamp, their shadows mingling as they disappeared down the white, silent street.

And in that stillness, the world seemed briefly rewritten — as if fairy-tales hadn’t just survived childhood, but had quietly followed us into adulthood, waiting patiently for the moment we needed them again.

Because in the end — as Audrey Hepburn knew, and Jeeny reminded —
it isn’t childish to believe in magic.
It’s human.