Love built on beauty, soon as beauty, dies.

Host: The city was a blur of lights, a thousand windows flickering in the misty night like souls trapped behind glass. From the balcony of a tenth-floor apartment, the rain slid down the iron railing, falling into the darkness below. Inside, a record player spun a slow jazz melody, soft, melancholic, as if the saxophone itself remembered someone it had once loved.

Jack stood by the kitchen counter, shirt sleeves rolled, cigarette burning between his fingers. His grey eyes were fixed on the window, watching the city glow through the rain. Jeeny sat on the sofa, her knees drawn close, hair loose, her fingers tracing the lip of a wine glass as though it could tell her the truth she was afraid to ask.

The room smelled of coffee, smoke, and the faint perfume of lilacs — the kind that lingers when everything else is gone.

Jeeny: “John Donne once wrote, ‘Love built on beauty, soon as beauty, dies.’”
(She looked up, her eyes deep, her voice soft.) “Do you believe that, Jack?”

Jack: (exhales, smoke curling upward) “It’s not a belief, Jeeny. It’s biology. Beauty fades — the body weakens, the skin wrinkles, the voice cracks — and so does attraction. Love’s just an illusion that lasts as long as youth does.”

Jeeny: (shakes her head, eyes fierce now) “That’s not what he meant. Donne wasn’t mocking love — he was warning us. He meant that love built only on beauty dies when beauty does. But love built on the soul, on truth — that kind of love doesn’t need youth to survive.”

Host: The record hissed, then looped, the needle scratching faintly like memory replaying its own sorrow. Jack crushed his cigarette in the ashtray, the sound sharp in the silence. Rainlight shimmered against his jawline, revealing a man hardened by realism, but not untouched by loss.

Jack: “You talk about souls like they’re separate from the body. But when she walks into the room, it’s not her ‘soul’ that makes you stop breathing, is it? It’s her face. Her laugh. The way she moves. You don’t fall in love with someone’s soul — you fall in love with their presence.”

Jeeny: “Presence is part of the soul. It’s how it shines through. Beauty is just the light it travels on.”

Jack: “Until the light burns out.”

Jeeny: (leans forward, eyes unflinching) “No, Jack. Until the eye goes blind. Beauty doesn’t die — our perception does.”

Host: The rain softened, becoming a fine mist tapping against the balcony rail. Jack turned, hands gripping the counter, his jaw tight. The air between them was thick — with tension, yes, but also with the weight of two people trying to define something they could both feel but not control.

Jack: “You ever seen an old couple sit in silence for hours, Jeeny? Not saying a word, not touching, barely looking at each other? Everyone calls that love. But sometimes, it’s just resignation — two people who outlasted desire, not nurtured it.”

Jeeny: “No. That’s still love. Maybe it doesn’t have the same fire, but it has roots. Desire burns — love endures. You think endurance is failure? It’s proof.”

Jack: “Proof of what? That people get used to each other’s company like they get used to breathing the same air?”

Jeeny: (voice rising slightly) “Proof that something deeper took root. That love became habit, yes — but not the empty kind. The kind that stays when the mirror lies, when the hair greys, when the voice softens. That’s not illusion. That’s loyalty. And loyalty is love’s evolution.”

Host: The lamp flickered, light gold and trembling, casting shadows across the walls where paintings hung — one of a young woman in a white dress, her face frozen in an eternal smile. Jeeny’s gaze drifted toward it, then back to Jack.

Jeeny: “Think of all the people who chase beauty, Jack. They fall in love with faces, not hearts. That’s what Donne was warning — that love tied to beauty is a house built on melting ice. But love tied to truth, to understanding — that survives the thaw.”

Jack: “Truth doesn’t make your pulse race. Beauty does.”

Jeeny: “But truth makes your soul stay.”

Host: Jack laughed, a low, rough sound, half mockery, half confession. He moved closer, standing now just a few feet away. The rainlight caught his eyes, and for a moment, they looked almost tired, as though he’d argued this battle a thousand times — not with her, but with himself.

Jack: “You think you’d still love me if I lost all this?” (He gestures — to his face, his strength, his presence.) “If I got old, broke, bitter?”

Jeeny: (without hesitation) “If you lost all that, Jack, you’d finally have to let your heart speak. And that’s the part I love.”

Jack: “You’re lying.”

Jeeny: “No. I’m imagining.”

Host: The record changed tracks, a new melody — softer, slower. The sound of piano filled the room, like rain turning into memory. Jack’s shoulders sank a little. He leaned on the balcony doorframe, the city’s reflection glimmering in his eyes.

Jack: “You know, when I was younger, I thought beauty was everything. The way someone looked — that was the measure of meaning. But beauty is cruel, Jeeny. It sets expectations no one can meet forever. You start chasing ghosts of the person they used to be.”

Jeeny: “Or you start learning who they really are.”

Jack: “And what if who they really are isn’t beautiful anymore?”

Jeeny: “Then you love them harder. Because love, Jack — true love — isn’t blind. It just forgives what the eyes can’t.”

Host: Silence fell again. The rain stopped, leaving behind a haze of moisture clinging to the glass. Streetlights blurred into gold halos, and somewhere below, a woman laughed, the sound faint but alive. It drifted up like a memory of youth neither of them could return to.

Jack: (quietly) “You ever notice how people fall out of love faster than they fall in? One wrinkle, one scar, one bad day, and suddenly everything changes.”

Jeeny: “That’s not love fading. That’s attraction mistaking itself for love. Love isn’t about the first look. It’s about the last one.”

Jack: (studying her face) “And if the last one hurts?”

Jeeny: “Then it means it mattered.”

Host: The words hung between them like smoke after a burning match. Jack turned, opened the balcony door, and stepped out into the cool night air. Raindrops touched his face, tiny, cold, grounding. Jeeny followed, standing beside him. Below, the city hummed — cars, voices, a heartbeat of strangers.

Jack: “You really think love survives the death of beauty?”

Jeeny: (whispers) “I think love is the only thing that survives it.”

Jack: “You make it sound holy.”

Jeeny: “Maybe it is.”

Host: The wind shifted, carrying the faint smell of jasmine from somewhere unseen. Jack’s eyes softened, no longer challenging, just quietly searching. Jeeny turned her head, and their faces caught the same moonlight, silver and fragile, as if time had stopped between them.

Jack: “Maybe Donne was right — beauty dies.”

Jeeny: “Yes. But if love dies with it, then it was never love — only admiration in disguise.”

Host: The city below flickered like a sea of stars, and in that moment, the two figures stood still — one believing, one questioning, both learning that truth often lives in the space between them.

The record ended. The silence returned.

Jeeny’s hand brushed against Jack’s, and though neither spoke, the gesture said what words could not — that beauty may fade, but tenderness endures.

Host: And as the moonlight lingered on their joined hands, the camera pulled back, the city shrinking beneath them — until all that was left was the soft glow of two souls, defying time, proving that love, once real, never truly dies — it simply changes its shape.