I'm not one of those famous people flying round the world emoting

Host: The airport lounge was nearly empty — just the hum of fluorescent lights, the soft murmur of announcements, and the distant sound of rain on glass. Beyond the wide windows, the runway glistened under floodlights, silver streaks across the tarmac like veins in a sleeping giant.

Jack sat in one of the plastic chairs, his jacket folded beside him, a half-drunk coffee cooling in his hand. He looked tired, not from travel, but from the weight of too much world and not enough distance. Across from him, Jeeny was scrolling through her phone — headlines, disasters, celebrity appeals, endless noise.

A large television on the wall muttered about another earthquake somewhere, the kind that shakes both buildings and consciences. The images were raw — faces, rubble, reporters. The volume was low, but the message was always loud.

Jeeny: “Kristin Scott Thomas once said, ‘I’m not one of those famous people flying round the world emoting over every catastrophe. I’m too feeble.’”
She sighed, turning off her phone. “You ever feel that? The fatigue of caring?”

Jack: without looking up “All the time. Compassion’s become a currency now. Everyone’s spending it to prove they still have some.”

Host: His voice was low, almost an exhale. The coffee steamed faintly, then stopped. The rain hit harder against the window, like it wanted to join the conversation.

Jeeny: “You make it sound cynical.”

Jack: “It’s not cynicism. It’s exhaustion. You can’t cry for the whole world without drowning in it.”

Jeeny: “But isn’t empathy what makes us human?”

Jack: “Sure. But we turned it into performance.”

Host: The airport lights flickered briefly, a quiet reminder of how artificial everything was — warmth, light, even concern.

Jeeny: “I think she meant something deeper,” Jeeny said. “It’s not that she doesn’t care — it’s that she knows her limits. There’s a kind of honesty in admitting you can’t carry every tragedy.”

Jack: “Honesty,” he murmured. “Now there’s an extinct virtue.”

Jeeny: “Maybe not extinct — just quieter than the noise.”

Host: She looked out the window. A plane lifted off in the distance, rising into the gray. Its engines roared briefly, then disappeared into cloud.

Jeeny: “I used to think the world needed more empathy,” she said softly. “Now I think it needs more boundaries. You can’t pour from an empty soul.”

Jack: “That’s the paradox, isn’t it?” he said, turning toward her. “The people who care the most end up caring themselves hollow.”

Jeeny: “And the ones who don’t care at all — they run the world.”

Jack: “Exactly.”

Host: Their eyes met briefly — a flicker of shared weariness, but also understanding. The kind of understanding that comes from having felt too much and learned to feel smaller, not out of indifference, but survival.

Jeeny: “You think she’s wrong to call herself feeble?”

Jack: “No,” he said. “I think she’s brave for saying it. There’s power in admitting you’re not built for endless compassion. It’s like saying, ‘I bleed too easily to live wide open.’”

Jeeny: “That’s poetry, Jack.”

Jack: “It’s self-preservation.”

Host: The PA system crackled — a voice announcing a delay, another flight postponed. The sound faded back into the steady rhythm of rain and time.

Jeeny: “You know,” she said after a pause, “when she says she’s ‘too feeble,’ I don’t think she means weak. I think she means human. Vulnerability as defense.”

Jack: “Yeah,” he said. “She’s rejecting spectacle. Refusing to perform grief for applause.”

Jeeny: “We need more of that.”

Jack: “We need more people who understand that feeling deeply doesn’t mean broadcasting it.”

Host: Jeeny smiled faintly, tracing the edge of her coffee cup with her thumb. “You ever feel guilty for not reacting enough?”

Jack: “All the time,” he said. “But guilt’s a cheap form of empathy. It looks like compassion, but it doesn’t cost you anything real.”

Jeeny: “So what does real compassion look like?”

Jack: “Quiet,” he said simply. “Local. Specific. Not the kind that trends — the kind that knocks on your neighbor’s door.”

Host: The rain softened, a whisper now instead of a downpour. A cleaner walked past them, humming under her breath, pushing a squeaky cart that carried the scent of disinfectant and early mornings.

Jeeny: “You think that’s what she was trying to say?”

Jack: “Yeah. She wasn’t mocking empathy. She was rejecting the theater of it. The way fame turns feeling into currency.”

Jeeny: “Maybe she was tired of pretending that caring should look glamorous.”

Jack: “Maybe she just wanted permission to rest.”

Host: He leaned back, closing his eyes for a moment. The overhead lights hummed softly — the soundtrack of exhaustion that comes not from effort, but awareness.

Jeeny: “You know what’s strange?” she said. “We live in a world that celebrates activism but ignores presence. Everyone wants to change the world, but no one wants to sit still and listen to it.”

Jack: “Because listening doesn’t go viral.”

Jeeny: “Neither does stillness.”

Host: She chuckled quietly, though it sounded more like sighing with a smile. “Maybe being ‘feeble,’ as she puts it, is just being honest about scale — about knowing how small we are.”

Jack: “And maybe that’s where sanity lives.”

Jeeny: “Or grace.”

Host: The loudspeaker crackled again. Their flight — delayed indefinitely. Jack laughed softly, shaking his head.

Jack: “Maybe the universe agrees with her. Even movement has to pause sometimes.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s the point — knowing when to stop, when to admit that being human means not being infinite.”

Jack: “You think that’s weakness?”

Jeeny: “No,” she said. “I think it’s wisdom.”

Host: The two of them sat there quietly, watching another plane lift into the bruised sky — a streak of light swallowed by distance. The rain returned, soft again, rhythmic as breath.

Jeeny turned toward him, her expression gentler now. “You know,” she said, “maybe she wasn’t saying she’s feeble. Maybe she was saying — I feel too deeply to fake it.”

Jack: “Yeah,” he said. “And that’s the kind of strength nobody photographs.”

Host: The camera would pull back now — two small figures framed by the vast emptiness of the terminal, surrounded by the hum of lights and the slow music of weather. Outside, the world continued breaking and mending, breaking and mending, endlessly.

And as the scene faded to quiet, Kristin Scott Thomas’s words would linger — not bitter, not cold, but weary, wise, and profoundly human:

“I’m not one of those famous people flying round the world emoting over every catastrophe. I’m too feeble.”

Because sometimes compassion doesn’t look like movement —
it looks like stillness.

It’s not the gesture that saves us,
but the honesty of admitting we can’t save it all.

And maybe that, too,
is a kind of grace.