It is amazing how nice people are to you when they know you're

Host: The train station was bathed in the dying gold of the afternoon. A crowd moved like a restless tide — faces half-illuminated, half-lost in shadow. The loudspeaker crackled, announcing departures, and a gust of autumn wind swept through the platform, carrying with it the scent of coffee, iron, and farewell.

Jeeny stood near the railing, her coat fluttering slightly, a small suitcase by her side. Jack leaned against a pillar, arms folded, expression unreadable, his eyes fixed somewhere between her and the horizon.

Host: It was the kind of moment that hums with unsaid words — heavy, tender, inevitable.

Jeeny: “Michael Arlen once said, ‘It is amazing how nice people are to you when they know you're going away.’”

Jack: “Yeah. It’s like suddenly everyone remembers your good side once they don’t have to deal with your bad one.”

Host: A train whistled in the distance — long, hollow, melancholy. The sound hung in the air like a held breath.

Jeeny: “You say that as if kindness is just a performance.”

Jack: “Isn’t it? People get sentimental when they realize they won’t have to live with their choices anymore. It’s guilt dressed up as affection.”

Jeeny: “Or maybe it’s something simpler — the truth that we hide until we run out of time.”

Jack: “Truth? You mean the polite regret that makes people hug at airports and promise to write — knowing they won’t?”

Host: Jack’s voice carried a faint edge, but beneath it there was something else — the dull ache of someone who’s watched too many people leave.

Jeeny: “Maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s hypocrisy. But I think… it’s also the one time people see each other clearly. When someone’s leaving, you realize how much they mattered — how much you never said.”

Jack: “Then why wait until the end? Why not say it before the ticket’s bought?”

Jeeny: “Because endings make us brave. We think we have forever — until forever shrinks into a goodbye.”

Host: The sunlight caught the strands of Jeeny’s hair, turning them bronze as she spoke. Jack’s eyes flickered — not with argument this time, but recognition.

Jack: “You sound like someone rehearsing her own departure.”

Jeeny: “Maybe I am.”

Jack: “Where are you really going?”

Jeeny: “Away from the noise. From all the pretending. I’ve spent years trying to belong to people who only noticed me when I was leaving.”

Jack: “That’s the trick, isn’t it? People only miss the warmth once it’s gone. It’s like switching off a light — only then do you realize how dark the room is.”

Jeeny: “But the light still mattered, Jack. Even if they only remembered it in the dark.”

Host: The crowd surged again, footsteps echoing like raindrops on concrete. A child laughed somewhere, and a woman wept into her scarf. The station was a collage of human goodbyes.

Jack: “You think being missed is proof of love?”

Jeeny: “Not proof. But it’s something. Even delayed love is still love.”

Jack: “No. It’s cowardice. People hold back, then flood you with tenderness when you’re already gone — so they don’t have to risk being rejected when you’re still here.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But even cowardly love can be real. We’re flawed creatures, Jack. Sometimes kindness comes late because honesty took too long to grow.”

Host: Jeeny’s eyes glistened, catching the light of the setting sun. Jack turned away, jaw tightening, the unspoken sitting like a stone in his chest.

Jack: “You know, when my brother left for the war, the whole neighborhood came to see him off. They shook his hand, gave him gifts, called him a hero. But before that, no one spoke to him. They said he was trouble. The kindness came too late.”

Jeeny: “Did it matter to him?”

Jack: “He didn’t make it back. I’ll never know.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe that’s why it mattered. Because at least he left knowing they saw him — even if it was only for a moment.”

Jack: “That’s not comfort. That’s tragedy with better lighting.”

Jeeny: “Maybe tragedy and tenderness are the same thing in different clothes.”

Host: The station clock struck five. The train pulled closer, its engine roaring, filling the air with the heavy smell of smoke and metal. Jeeny bent to pick up her bag, and for a brief second, her hand brushed Jack’s — a fleeting touch, but charged with everything they had never dared to say.

Jack: “You really going, then?”

Jeeny: “You knew I would. You just didn’t think I’d actually do it.”

Jack: “What if I said stay?”

Jeeny: “I’d ask you why it took the train whistle for you to find the words.”

Host: Jack’s breathing deepened; his grey eyes burned with the kind of tension that lives between pride and pain.

Jack: “Because people don’t say what they feel until it’s slipping away.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. That’s what Arlen meant — the sudden, fragile kindness that appears when endings strip away our armor.”

Jack: “You think that makes it beautiful?”

Jeeny: “Yes. Because even if it’s too late, at least it’s honest.”

Jack: “Or maybe it’s selfish — trying to wash away guilt before the person’s out of reach.”

Jeeny: “And yet, even guilt can teach tenderness.”

Host: The train doors opened with a hiss. A gust of air swept through, fluttering Jeeny’s coat, her hair, the edge of her ticket trembling like a bird ready to take flight.

Jack: “You always turn pain into poetry.”

Jeeny: “And you always hide truth behind cynicism.”

Jack: “That’s because truth hurts when you speak it too late.”

Jeeny: “Then speak it now.”

Host: The pause that followed was long — a silence thick with memory. Jack looked at her, the weight of every missed moment pressing into his voice.

Jack: “You made this city bearable, Jeeny. You’re the reason it ever felt like home.”

Jeeny: “Then remember me when you’re kind to someone else.”

Jack: “That’s not enough.”

Jeeny: “It has to be.”

Host: The conductor’s whistle pierced the air. The train shuddered, alive with motion, and Jeeny stepped forward. Jack reached out — not to stop her, but to touch the air where she’d stood.

Jack: “You know what’s amazing, Jeeny? You’re right. People are nice when they know you’re leaving — because it’s the only time they realize what they had.”

Jeeny: “And maybe leaving is how we remind them.”

Host: The train began to move. The world blurred — metal, light, and faces melting into streaks of color. Jeeny’s silhouette lingered in the window, soft and almost unreal, while Jack stood motionless on the platform, a figure carved out of regret and understanding.

Host: As the last carriage disappeared around the bend, the sun finally dipped below the horizon. The station fell quiet, the echoes of departure fading into the hum of the city.

And for the first time, Jack smiled — not because she was gone, but because, for one brief, aching, honest moment, they had finally been kind.

And that — in the strange arithmetic of the human heart — was something close to love.