Insurance - an ingenious modern game of chance in which the

Host: The rain was relentless that evening — a steady curtain of silver threads slashing against the windows of a dim office building, long after most of its lights had gone out. The city below was a maze of blurred neon reflections, the kind that made everything look slightly unreal. Inside the conference room, two figures remained — the last survivors of another long corporate day.

Jack stood by the window, tie loosened, a faint smudge of exhaustion beneath his grey eyes. The city’s light danced on the surface of his half-empty whiskey glass. Jeeny sat at the conference table, flipping absently through a stack of insurance policy forms, her long black hair falling like a curtain over her shoulder.

The clock ticked quietly. The air conditioner hummed. The rain kept talking to the glass.

Jeeny: “You ever think about how absurd this all is?”

Jack: “You’ll have to be more specific, Jeeny. Life? Work? Or the fact that we’re still here while everyone else is asleep?”

Jeeny: “Insurance.” (She lifted a form, waving it lightly.) “Ambrose Bierce called it ‘an ingenious modern game of chance in which the player is permitted to enjoy the comfortable conviction that he is beating the man who keeps the table.’”

Host: Jack turned, a faint smirk ghosting across his face, but his eyes betrayed curiosity.

Jack: “Ah, Bierce. The man who could make cynicism sound like scripture.”

Jeeny: “Maybe because he understood how people lie to themselves — especially when they think they’re safe.”

Jack: “Safety’s a myth we pay for monthly.”

Host: Jack took a slow sip of his drink, his voice as dry as the amber liquid. The office lights buzzed softly, flickering once before stabilizing — as if reluctant to stay awake for this conversation.

Jeeny: “You sell protection against fear. That’s what you do every day, Jack. Do you ever think it’s just… legalized gambling?”

Jack: “Of course it is. But unlike gambling, insurance lets you lose gracefully. You’re not betting to win — you’re betting to not lose everything. That’s the difference between chaos and civilization.”

Jeeny: “And yet you call it civilization. I call it illusion.”

Host: She closed the folder with a soft thud, her eyes steady, sharp. The sound seemed to echo louder than it should in the empty room.

Jeeny: “People buy insurance because they’re terrified. Of death. Of illness. Of disaster. And we — people like you — tell them they’re protected. That there’s a net. But isn’t that the cruelest comfort? Because when life really strikes, no amount of policy paper can mend a broken soul.”

Jack: “No policy ever claimed to fix souls, Jeeny. Just wallets.”

Host: He spoke plainly, but the edge in his tone was unmistakable — not arrogance, but the weary defense of someone who has lived too long among fine print.

Jeeny: “But don’t you see? That’s what Bierce meant. We think we’re beating the house — outsmarting risk. But in the end, it’s the system that always wins. The man keeping the table — the insurers, the markets — they never lose. Even your safety has a subscription fee.”

Jack: “And yet, people still buy in. Because they need to believe someone’s keeping the table steady. Isn’t that faith too, Jeeny? The secular version of it?”

Host: The rain softened outside, the thunder retreating into the distance. A faint glow from the city lights washed over Jeeny’s face, tracing the lines of thought and fatigue there.

Jeeny: “Faith built on contracts and clauses isn’t faith. It’s fear dressed as reason. It’s humanity trying to manage the uncontrollable.”

Jack: “And what’s wrong with that? That’s what progress is — managing the uncontrollable. Predicting floods, forecasting illness, mitigating loss. Insurance isn’t gambling; it’s the mathematics of mercy.”

Jeeny: “Mercy?” (She laughed softly, bitterly.) “You think there’s mercy in profit margins? In algorithms deciding whose tragedy gets compensated and whose doesn’t?”

Jack: “I think mercy has to survive somewhere, even in spreadsheets.”

Host: The tension between them pulsed like static. Jack’s jaw tightened. Jeeny’s eyes glimmered — not from anger, but from something more painful: belief that had seen too much disappointment.

Jeeny: “You remember the earthquake in Manila? Thousands lost their homes. Whole families sleeping on asphalt. And what did the insurance companies do? They fought claims. Argued technicalities. ‘Acts of God,’ they called it. Isn’t that the cruelest irony? That even faith gets itemized?”

Jack: “And yet, Jeeny, without those same companies, half of them would’ve had nothing. Some got their homes rebuilt. Some got back on their feet. You talk like the system’s evil — but it’s the only one we have.”

Jeeny: “That’s what makes it tragic, Jack. Not that it’s evil — that it’s all we have.”

Host: The clock struck eleven. The sound filled the silence between their breaths. Jack walked toward the table, his footsteps echoing softly against the polished floor.

Jack: “You’re too idealistic for this world, Jeeny. You think life owes fairness. It doesn’t. Insurance doesn’t promise fairness — it promises order. A way to make loss calculable. Maybe that’s not beautiful, but it’s something.”

Jeeny: “But don’t you see? That’s the gamble Bierce was mocking. We play at control — convincing ourselves we’ve tamed fate, while fate just smiles. The house always wins, Jack. Always.”

Host: Jack sat across from her now, folding his hands. The light between them flickered again, briefly plunging them into shadow — then back into the dim glow.

Jack: “Maybe. But I’d still rather play the game than sit in the dark pretending I’m not in it.”

Jeeny: “Even when you know it’s rigged?”

Jack: “Especially then.”

Host: Jeeny looked at him, her expression softening. There was something almost tender in her silence — like sorrow meeting respect.

Jeeny: “You really believe that certainty, even false certainty, is worth more than truth?”

Jack: “I believe that truth without stability can destroy people. Give them a lie they can live with — sometimes that’s more merciful than giving them the truth they can’t.”

Host: His words fell heavy. The room seemed to breathe slower. Outside, the rain had stopped completely. A soft mist curled around the windows, reflecting the city’s lights like the faint afterglow of an extinguished fire.

Jeeny: “You sound like you’ve made peace with the illusion.”

Jack: “Maybe peace is the illusion. Maybe that’s the point.”

Host: The silence that followed was long and strange — not empty, but full of understanding, like two opposing truths finding the same center. Jeeny leaned back, her eyes on the ceiling, the hum of the lights above her a kind of lullaby.

Jeeny: “Maybe Bierce wasn’t mocking insurance after all. Maybe he was mocking us — for needing comfort so badly we’d rather play a rigged game than face chaos alone.”

Jack: “He was mocking humanity, Jeeny. But he forgot — even cynics buy policies.”

Host: She laughed softly, the sound small but bright, like the first spark in fading darkness.

Jeeny: “So what are we then, Jack? Players or dealers?”

Jack: “Both. Always both.”

Host: He stood, stretching slightly, his silhouette framed against the glass, the city glowing beneath him — fragile, restless, alive. Jeeny gathered her papers, her fingers brushing one last policy form before she slipped it into her bag.

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s what makes us human — we know the odds are against us, and we play anyway.”

Jack: “Exactly. And maybe that’s what faith really looks like — not in prayer, but in policy.”

Host: They both smiled — the kind of smile that doesn’t erase the cynicism, but softens it. The lights clicked off as they left the room. The city outside pulsed faintly through the mist, its glow stretching upward like a gambler’s sigh toward an indifferent sky.

Host: And as the door closed behind them, the echo of their words lingered — a quiet truth beneath the hum of the modern world:

we build our comforts on illusions, and call them safety —
and somehow, that’s enough to keep us alive.