If your parents didn't have any children, there's a good chance

Host: The sun hung low over the city, a smudged orange bruise behind thin clouds. It was a Saturday — the kind that smelled faintly of diesel, roasted nuts, and tired laughter. On the corner of a half-empty park, a small café leaned beneath a flickering neon sign, the letters spelling “Cuppa Joy” with one “p” missing.

Inside, the air hummed with conversation, spoons tapping ceramic, and the quiet sigh of an espresso machine that had seen too many winters.

At a table near the window, Jack sat — broad shoulders folded into a chair that looked too small for him. His gray eyes tracked the people outside, families walking by, children running after pigeons.

Across from him, Jeeny stirred her coffee with deliberate grace, her long black hair catching the golden spill of sunlight like a slow-moving flame. There was a notebook open between them, and in it — scrawled in blue ink — the quote:
“If your parents didn’t have any children, there’s a good chance that you won’t have any.”
— Clarence Day

Jeeny was still smiling when she looked up.

Jeeny: “It’s absurd, isn’t it? And yet… kind of profound in its own twisted way.”

Jack: “Profound? It’s a joke, Jeeny. A neat little circle of logic meant to make people chuckle at brunch.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But sometimes humor hides more truth than philosophy. Think about it — it’s not really about biology. It’s about existence itself. About how easily life depends on luck, on timing, on the simple accident of being.”

Jack: “So now a dad joke is suddenly an existential manifesto?”

Jeeny: “You mock it, but it’s true. If your parents hadn’t lived, hadn’t met, hadn’t made one particular choice on one particular night — poof — you wouldn’t exist. Everything we are begins with coincidence.”

Jack: “Coincidence or chemistry, take your pick. There’s nothing mystical about reproduction. Evolution’s been doing it long before we attached poetry to it.”

Jeeny: “But doesn’t that make it even more miraculous? That out of billions of possible outcomes, it’s you sitting here, drinking coffee, complaining about philosophy?”

Jack: “It doesn’t make it miraculous — it makes it statistical. Someone had to be born. It just happened to be me.”

Host: The café door opened briefly, letting in a gust of cold wind and the smell of wet concrete. Jack’s voice was steady, analytical, like an accountant balancing the books of existence. Jeeny’s was softer, almost reverent, like she was speaking to the miracle beneath the ordinary.

Jeeny: “You really think like that? That we’re just accidents? No purpose, no reason?”

Jack: “Purpose is something we invent to make peace with the randomness. That’s all faith ever was — an apology to chaos.”

Jeeny: “Then why do we care so much? Why love, why mourn, why create art or raise children if it’s all random?”

Jack: “Because our brains evolved to find patterns, even when there aren’t any. You think you love because of destiny, but really it’s dopamine, timing, and biological necessity.”

Jeeny: “You talk about people like they’re machines. But what about everything that can’t be measured — kindness, grief, wonder?”

Jack: “Those are by-products, Jeeny. Beautiful, maybe, but accidental. Just chemical echoes of survival.”

Jeeny: “Then why does laughter heal? Why does one memory break your heart for decades while another disappears overnight?”

Jack: “Because memory isn’t moral. It’s electrical. You can dress it up with poetry, but the wires don’t care.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe that’s where you’re wrong. Maybe the poetry is the point.”

Host: The light outside dimmed as a cloud passed, and the café took on a softer, more contemplative hue. The steam from their cups rose between them like ghosts of unspoken thoughts.

Jeeny leaned forward, her eyes steady, her voice low but alive.

Jeeny: “Do you know why I love that quote? Because it laughs at our obsession with legacy. It reminds us how fragile our continuation is. Everyone wants to be remembered, but most of us forget how miraculous it is that we exist at all.”

Jack: “So it’s an argument for gratitude?”

Jeeny: “No. For humility. For realizing that none of us were promised this life, and yet we act as if we earned it. That’s the paradox — we’re so busy trying to prove our importance that we forget how improbable we already are.”

Jack: “That’s a nice sentiment, but sentiment doesn’t feed the world. People survive on work, not wonder.”

Jeeny: “You think survival is the end of it? Then why did Van Gogh paint when he was starving? Why did people keep playing music in bomb shelters during the Blitz? Because survival without meaning is just existence. Faith, art, humor — those are the signs that we’ve learned to live beyond survival.”

Jack: “You’re romanticizing suffering.”

Jeeny: “No. I’m saying the absurdity of life isn’t a curse — it’s the only reason to celebrate it.”

Host: Jack’s hands tightened around his cup. He wasn’t angry, not yet — just uncomfortable, as though Jeeny had peeled back a layer of armor he didn’t realize he wore.

Jack: “So you’re saying Clarence Day was a philosopher hiding in a comedian’s skin?”

Jeeny: “Maybe. Maybe he knew that sometimes the truest things sound ridiculous. The absurd is honest — it doesn’t pretend to be perfect. It reminds us that life makes no sense, and yet we go on anyway.”

Jack: “But if everything’s absurd, how do you decide what matters?”

Jeeny: “By choosing it. That’s the trick. You make it matter. Just like your parents did when they chose to bring you here — even if they didn’t know what they were doing.”

Jack: “Or maybe they didn’t choose at all. Maybe it was a mistake.”

Jeeny: “Then thank God for mistakes.”

Host: The words hung there — bold, luminous, unafraid. The rain had started again, tapping the window with quiet insistence, like a heartbeat too honest to ignore.

Jack looked out at the street. A little boy in a yellow raincoat was jumping in puddles, his mother laughing behind him, her umbrella tilted like a halo.

Jack’s voice softened.

Jack: “You know… my father used to say I was the best accident that ever happened to him. I thought it was just a joke. But maybe he meant it.”

Jeeny: “Maybe he did. Maybe all of us are accidents worth loving.”

Jack: “That’s dangerously close to faith.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. Or maybe it’s just good humor dressed in truth.”

Host: A small smile ghosted across Jack’s face — the kind that doesn’t come easy, but once it does, stays a while. The lamp above them flickered, painting his features in alternating light and shadow.

Jeeny reached for her cup again, and their hands brushed — just slightly — in that fragile space between touch and hesitation.

Jack: “You know, Jeeny, I think Clarence Day would’ve liked you. You both make nonsense sound almost sacred.”

Jeeny: “And you, Jack, would’ve argued with him till closing time.”

Jack: “Probably.”

Jeeny: “But that’s the beauty of it. Humor keeps us honest. It’s the only way we can look at the void and still laugh.”

Jack: “So what are we laughing at, exactly?”

Jeeny: “At ourselves — for being here at all.”

Host: The rain eased to a drizzle. The neon sign outside flickered again, casting a faint pink glow across the windowpane. Jack and Jeeny sat in silence, the quote between them still open on the page, as if daring the universe to explain itself.

The camera lingered: on the two cups cooling side by side, on the faint curl of steam still rising like a memory that refuses to fade.

Host: Beyond the glass, the little boy splashed one last puddle, his laughter breaking through the city noise like a note of reckless hope.

Jack watched him go, then turned back to Jeeny with a look that was almost tender.

Jack: “Maybe Day was right. Maybe life’s just a joke that got lucky enough to keep going.”

Jeeny: “Then let’s be the punchline that laughs back.”

Host: The rain stopped. The sky began to clear. And for a moment — brief, absurd, miraculous — the whole world seemed to smile.