Mental illness, hate and anger exist everywhere, but in America

Host: The sky was a shade of iron grey, heavy with rain and memory. The city park was nearly empty, except for the faint echo of laughter from a playground now silent. A single bench, damp from drizzle, faced a field of names etched in metal — a local memorial wall. It glimmered faintly under the soft light of dusk, each name like a wound that refused to heal.

Jack sat there, his hands folded, a faint tremor running through his fingers. Jeeny stood nearby, her umbrella tilted, the raindrops sliding down its surface like small, unwilling tears.

The air smelled of wet earth and iron, the scent of both nature and grief.

Host: Behind them, in the distance, the faint sound of sirens rose and fell — a melody that had become America’s lullaby.

Jeeny: “You come here often?”

Jack: “Sometimes. When the noise gets too loud.”

Jeeny: “The city noise?”

Jack: “The news.”

Jeeny: “Yeah.”

Host: She closed the umbrella and sat beside him. The rain had softened to a mist, thin enough to be endured but too heavy to ignore.

Jeeny: “You’ve been quiet since yesterday.”

Jack: “Another shooting.”

Jeeny: “I know.”

Jack: “Lucy McBath said something once — ‘Mental illness, hate and anger exist everywhere, but in America too often it comes armed.’ I can’t stop thinking about that.”

Jeeny: “It’s one of those truths that echoes, isn’t it? You hear it once, and it won’t leave you.”

Host: The wind moved through the trees, scattering the last leaves of autumn. Somewhere, a flag flapped half-heartedly against its pole.

Jack: “You know, I’ve lived in other countries. They have anger too. They have pain. But not this ritual of mourning, this repetition. Here, it’s like grief is part of our culture.”

Jeeny: “It is. Grief and denial. We build shrines, we hold vigils, and then we go back to pretending it can’t happen again — until it does.”

Jack: “I used to think anger was the problem. Now I think it’s apathy.”

Jeeny: “Apathy’s not the absence of feeling. It’s the scar that forms when you feel too much for too long.”

Jack: “You sound like someone who’s tired of forgiving a system that never learns.”

Jeeny: “Maybe I am. But I still believe we can heal. Just not by pretending the wound isn’t there.”

Host: Her voice trembled, but not from fear. It was the kind of tremor that comes when truth meets exhaustion.

Jack: “You know what scares me most? How normal it feels now. You hear about a shooting, and your mind already starts categorizing — where it happened, how many dead, whether it’s political or random. We don’t even react; we analyze.”

Jeeny: “That’s how trauma works. It teaches you to make peace with the unbearable.”

Jack: “But it’s not peace. It’s paralysis.”

Jeeny: “You’re right. We’ve confused numbness for strength.”

Jack: “And politicians confuse condolences for action.”

Jeeny: “Because it’s easier to pray for the dead than to protect the living.”

Host: The rain picked up again, heavier now, as if the sky itself had grown weary of being witness.

Jeeny: “Lucy McBath lost her son, you know.”

Jack: “Jordan Davis.”

Jeeny: “Yes. Shot because someone thought music was too loud. That’s the kind of story that tells you everything about this country.”

Jack: “That fear is louder than compassion?”

Jeeny: “That power needs no reason when it’s armed.”

Jack: “How does someone survive that?”

Jeeny: “By transforming pain into purpose. That’s what she did. She ran for office. She turned her son’s absence into advocacy.”

Jack: “So she found strength in grief.”

Jeeny: “No. She found direction in it.”

Host: The lights from a passing car spilled across the memorial, illuminating the engraved names for a brief, trembling second — a flicker of acknowledgment in a world that forgets too easily.

Jack: “You think we’ll ever change?”

Jeeny: “I think we’ll have to. History always forces reflection when it gets tired of repetition.”

Jack: “You really believe that?”

Jeeny: “I do. Because I see it — small changes, small awakenings. Students walking out. Parents demanding more than thoughts and prayers. People realizing they’re allowed to be angry — constructively angry.”

Jack: “And the other side? The ones who think guns mean safety?”

Jeeny: “They’re scared too. That’s the irony. Fear builds both the walls and the wounds.”

Jack: “So we’re all prisoners of the same fear.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. We just decorate our cells differently.”

Host: The wind shifted, carrying a sirens’ echo further into the night until it disappeared into silence — a silence that was both relief and accusation.

Jack: “Sometimes I think America’s addicted to tragedy. We perform grief like theater, and then forget the script until the next show.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s what art is for. To remind people that grief isn’t performance. It’s reflection.”

Jack: “You think art can fix this?”

Jeeny: “Not fix. Illuminate. Show us what we’ve normalized. Make it impossible to look away.”

Jack: “So artists are the conscience now.”

Jeeny: “If they’re brave enough to keep feeling.”

Host: The rain eased, turning into a faint drizzle. The clouds parted slightly, revealing a pale slice of moon, trembling in a pool of grey sky.

Jack: “I used to think anger was ugly. Now I think it’s sacred.”

Jeeny: “It is. Anger’s just love that’s been cornered too long.”

Jack: “You think that’s what Lucy McBath felt?”

Jeeny: “Yes. Love with nowhere to go except forward.”

Jack: “Then maybe that’s what we need — not less anger, but better anger.”

Jeeny: “Anger that builds instead of burns.”

Jack: “Anger that remembers the faces, not the statistics.”

Jeeny: “Exactly.”

Host: She reached out, her hand brushing his, grounding him — a small, human act of solidarity in a world defined by distance.

Jack: “You know, when I look at these names, I think of all the stories that stopped mid-sentence.”

Jeeny: “And all the stories that began because someone refused to let those endings be final.”

Jack: “Like Lucy’s.”

Jeeny: “Like hers. Like every mother, father, friend who decides silence isn’t an option anymore.”

Jack: “Maybe that’s what change really looks like — not policies first, but people who’ve run out of ways to stay quiet.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Change doesn’t start with power. It starts with pain that decides to speak.”

Host: A long silence. Then — a distant rumble of thunder, soft and low, like the sky agreeing.

Jack: “You know what’s strange?”

Jeeny: “What?”

Jack: “Despite everything — the anger, the violence, the fear — I still love this country.”

Jeeny: “That’s not strange. That’s love at its truest — when it’s not blind. When it aches and still stays.”

Jack: “Then maybe that’s what we need more of.”

Jeeny: “Not blind loyalty. Conscious love.”

Host: The rain stopped, the air thick with earth smell and resolve. The memorial wall gleamed under the pale moonlight — not an end, but a reminder.

They stood. Jack brushed the rain from his coat. Jeeny looked up at the sky, her face half-shadow, half-light.

Jack: “You know, maybe McBath was right. The anger, the hate, the illness — they’re everywhere. But here, we’ve given them weapons.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe our generation’s job is to disarm them — not just the guns, but the ignorance that holds them.”

Jack: “That’s a long fight.”

Jeeny: “All revolutions are.”

Host: They began to walk, their footsteps soft on the wet pavement, the names behind them glistening in quiet witness.

And as the night stretched open, the sirens faded, replaced by something fragile but unbroken — the sound of human hearts still choosing to hope.

Because as Lucy McBath reminds us:
Hate may come armed, but so can love —
with courage, with memory, with voice.