It felt as if things were literally slipping through my fingers.

Host: The evening was a slow unraveling of light and shadow. A train station café, nearly empty, hummed with the low murmur of distant voices and the occasional clink of a cup against porcelain. Outside, the rain pressed against the glass, tracing lines down the window like time trying to return.

Jeeny sat near the window, her hands wrapped around a mug that had long since cooled. Jack stood beside the counter, his reflection fractured in the glass as he watched the world beyond.

Her voice came softly, almost as if she were reading to the rain itself.

Jeeny: “Michelle Williams once said — ‘It felt as if things were literally slipping through my fingers. Things were just streaming away from me. I lost my sense of humor. I'm still looking for that.’”

Host: The words hung there — fragile, heavy, like rain before it falls.

Jack: (quietly) “Yeah. That’s what grief feels like, isn’t it? Not a storm, but a slow leak. You don’t even notice it at first. Then one day, you realize you’re empty.”

Host: His voice was low, gravelly, almost hollow — the tone of a man who had held too many things that slipped away.

Jeeny: “It’s strange… how the first thing that goes is laughter. You don’t lose your mind, or even your hope, not right away. You just… stop finding things funny.”

Host: The rain tapped harder now, like a heartbeat in the dark.

Jack: “That’s because humor is the soul’s reflex. When it dies, it’s a sign the heart’s tired. You can’t laugh if you don’t believe there’s still something worth saving.”

Jeeny: “Do you think it ever comes back? The humor, I mean. After you’ve lost it?”

Jack: “Maybe. But not the same way. It’s like when you break a bone — it heals, sure, but it’s never as innocent as before.”

Host: The lights above them flickered, casting a faint pulse over the room, like the heartbeat of something tired but still alive.

Jeeny stared at her hands, turning them slowly, as though she could see the things she’d once held — moments, faces, laughter — all now streaming away like sand through water.

Jeeny: “It’s terrifying, isn’t it? The idea that joy can just fade — not because of tragedy, but just because you’ve forgotten how to touch it.”

Jack: “Maybe it doesn’t fade, Jeeny. Maybe we just tighten our fists too much trying to keep it. And joy, like water, only stays when you let it run.”

Host: She looked up, a faint light returning to her eyes — a glimmer of recognition, or maybe hope.

Jeeny: “That’s beautiful, Jack. But what if you’ve forgotten how to open your hand?”

Jack: (half-smile) “Then maybe you start with a finger. Then another. Until you can feel again.”

Host: The silence that followed was not empty; it was full — of memory, of fear, of the quiet ache of two people who had lost and kept losing, yet still talked about hope as though it were a friend who might still call.

Jeeny: “You know, I think Michelle was talking about something deeper than humor. She was talking about herself — about losing the spark that makes you reach out. Humor isn’t just about laughter — it’s about trust. You have to trust life enough to laugh with it again.”

Jack: “You mean, humor as an act of faith.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. You can’t find your sense of humor until you forgive life for being so unfair.”

Host: The clock on the wall ticked, a steady rhythm against the rain. Jack walked over, sat beside her, and for the first time that night, the distance between them narrowed.

Jack: “You ever lose something like that? Something you didn’t know how to get back?”

Jeeny: “Yes. My laughter used to be loud. The kind that filled rooms. But then life… it just quieted it. Not all at once, just — over years, like dust on a piano no one plays anymore.”

Jack: “And now?”

Jeeny: (smiling faintly) “Now I still listen for it. Sometimes in music, sometimes in people. Sometimes… in you.”

Host: Jack’s eyes met hers, surprised, a flicker of something — not romance, but recognition, as if a mirror had finally reflected him back.

Jack: “You think I’m funny?”

Jeeny: “Not funny. Just… honest. And that’s close enough.”

Host: The rain had softened to a whisper. A train passed in the distance, its sound like a memory being pulled away, carried somewhere neither of them could follow.

Jack: “You know what scares me, Jeeny? That maybe when you lose your sense of humor, you lose your sense of self. Because humor is the only thing that says, ‘I can still stand the absurdity of being alive.’”

Jeeny: “And yet, when it’s gone, we still wake up, still breathe, still hope it will return. That’s what keeps us human — the search.”

Host: She looked at him, and for the first time, he saw her eyes shimmer not from sadness, but from the raw honesty of being seen.

Jack: “So maybe Michelle’s still looking because that’s the point — not to find the humor, but to look for it. Maybe the search itself is what saves us.”

Jeeny: “Yes. The search is the smile that hasn’t yet formed.”

Host: A moment of quiet — only the sound of the rain and the breathing of two souls who had just shared the weight of something fragile.

Jack reached for the mug, took a sip, winced at its coldness, and laughed — a soft, genuine, rusted laugh, but real.

Jeeny: (grinning) “There. See? It’s coming back.”

Jack: “It’s awkward. It’s like trying to run after forgetting how to walk.”

Jeeny: “Then stumble beautifully.”

Host: The lights from a passing train swept across the room, painting their faces in a brief wash of silver before fading again.

The rain had stopped. The air smelled of wet earth and second chances.

Host: And in that quiet, as laughter — shy, hesitant, but alive — returned to the space between them, the world seemed to breathe again.

Somewhere between the loss and the search, between the tears and the small smiles, Jack and Jeeny had understood what Michelle Williams meant:

That when things slip through our fingers, when humor fades, it is not gone forever. It is only waiting — like light beneath the surface, ready to rise when the heart remembers how to laugh again.

And tonight, under the soft rhythm of the rain, they both did.