Like normal people, leftists now have to get up in the morning

Host:
The night had a quiet bitterness, like a smoke-filled café after closing time. Rain tapped a lazy rhythm against the windows, and the city lights outside looked like blurred eyes staring in from a colder world.

Inside, the walls were lined with books, political posters, and an old radio humming faintly with static. A half-finished bottle of wine sat between two empty cups. The air was thick — not with tension, but with that strange fatigue that comes after a debate long overdue.

Jack sat by the window, sleeves rolled, tie undone, staring into the wet glass as though it held a map to something he’d lost. Jeeny leaned on the table, her hair messy, her voice quiet but deliberate.

The quote — cynical, biting, unapologetically satirical — still echoed in both their heads:
“Like normal people, leftists now have to get up in the morning and earn a living, seeing as the fascists have come down so hard on social welfare fraud, and this is the cruel reality. The good old days are gone, and increasingly, leftists are to be found working in ordinary, proper jobs.” — Michael Leunig

Jeeny:
(sipping her wine) “It’s a joke, but it’s not funny, is it? It’s like he’s holding up a mirror and smirking at how we’ve aged — how ideals grew tired and started clocking in.”

Jack:
(smiling grimly) “That’s the point. It’s supposed to sting. Leunig was mocking the self-righteousness — the kind of intellectual rebellion that only ever existed in theory. He’s saying the revolutionaries are now just taxpayers.”

Jeeny:
“But he’s also mourning it. You can hear it in his tone — that nostalgia for a time when people still believed in something. It’s not just mockery. It’s grief disguised as sarcasm.”

Host:
The rain grew heavier, drumming against the roof like a slow, reluctant applause. The radio flickered — a snatch of a news broadcast, a political scandal, a stock report — the usual chorus of disillusion.

Jack:
(gruffly) “Belief doesn’t feed anyone, Jeeny. Reality caught up. The romantics who spent their twenties protesting now have mortgages. The idealists who preached solidarity now fire employees to make quarterly targets. It’s the circle of capitalism.”

Jeeny:
(raising her eyes) “And that’s exactly what’s tragic. Not that they work, but that they’ve stopped questioning why they work. They’ve forgotten meaning. Leftists, rightists, it doesn’t matter — everyone’s become a gear, spinning because the clock demands it.”

Jack:
(sarcastic) “That’s poetic. But the clock pays the rent, Jeeny.”

Jeeny:
(firmly) “And the clock kills the soul.”

Host:
The lamplight flickered, drawing shadows across their faces — Jack’s, hard and angular; Jeeny’s, soft but burning with quiet defiance. The space between them pulsed with philosophical heat, that strange tension between comfort and conviction.

Jack:
(leaning back) “You talk like a revolutionary, but you’re drinking French wine in a downtown café. Don’t you see the irony? We’re all complicit now. We buy, we consume, we compromise. That’s not corruption, Jeeny — that’s adulthood.”

Jeeny:
“Adulthood or surrender? There’s a difference. You call it realism, but sometimes realism is just cowardice with a better vocabulary.”

Jack:
(quiet laugh) “And what would you rather? Everyone live off idealism and dreams? You can’t pay bills with ethics, Jeeny.”

Jeeny:
“No, but you can’t live without them either. Not really. You can exist, you can work, you can even thrive — but you won’t have a self. Just a function.”

Host:
The rainlight turned silver, streaking the window in crooked lines. The city outside was alive — workers, waiters, drivers, faces lit by phones — everyone moving, everyone tired, everyone pretending it was choice that kept them running.

Jack:
(softening, almost whispering) “Maybe that’s what Leunig meant — that even the ones who fought against the system ended up needing it. It’s not hypocrisy. It’s… entropy.”

Jeeny:
(quietly) “Entropy of the soul. Yes. The good old days he mentions — they weren’t really good, but they were alive. People argued, marched, believed. Now we just post.”

Jack:
(sighs) “Belief was a luxury of the comfortable, Jeeny. Try believing in utopia when you’ve got rent due.”

Jeeny:
“Belief was a necessity of the broken. It’s what kept them moving. It’s what made them more than workers.”

Host:
A train horn echoed faintly in the distance, cutting through the rain like a reminder of movement. Jeeny’s fingers traced the rim of her glass, her eyes distant, her voice trembling between anger and sadness.

Jeeny:
“You know what I miss, Jack? The dreamers. The ones who refused to become efficient. The ones who believed that being human meant being complicated, not productive. The system doesn’t just crush the poor — it flattens everyone. Turns us all into roles instead of souls.”

Jack:
(looking up, quietly) “And yet here we are — drinking, talking, lamenting. You still think that’s rebellion?”

Jeeny:
(smiling sadly) “No. It’s confession.”

Host:
The radio crackled, then shifted to a slow jazz song, the kind that lingers on every note like a memory that refuses to leave. The melody filled the room, weaving around their silence.

Jack:
(after a long pause) “You know… when I was younger, I wanted to be a writer. Thought I’d change the world with my words. Now I just write emails. Maybe Leunig’s right — maybe the good old days weren’t a time, but a feeling. Something we’ve all… worked out of ourselves.”

Jeeny:
(softly) “Maybe we still can find it. But it won’t come from burning the system again — it’ll come from remembering what it means to be human inside it.”

Jack:
(nods slowly) “To earn a living without losing a life.”

Jeeny:
“Yes. To work, but not to be worked by it.”

Host:
Outside, the rain eased to a mist, and the streetlights shimmered like lanterns in a dream. Jack poured the last of the wine, and they sat in a gentle silence, the kind that no longer felt like defeat, but like understanding.

Jack:
(after a long breath) “So maybe Leunig was wrong — or maybe he was too right. Maybe the good old days aren’t gone. Maybe they’re just… buried under the routine.”

Jeeny:
(looking out the window) “Then it’s on us to unearth them — even if all we have are ordinary jobs, ordinary days, and the courage to see them as something sacred again.”

Host:
The radio played its final note, fading into silence. The lamp hummed. The rain stopped completely.

The camera pulled back — through the window, over the street, into the city where millions of workers moved beneath the same gray sky — some bitter, some resigned, some still quietly believing that work could be more than survival, that life could still hold a little revolution, even if only in the way one speaks, one cares, one keeps showing up.

And as the scene faded, only one thing remained — the echo of Jeeny’s voice, gentle but resolute:

“The good old days aren’t behind us, Jack. They’re waiting for us to stop being too tired to imagine them again.”