Modernity is the transitory, the fugitive, the contingent, which

Host: The city was drowning in neon and fog. Rain fell in long, slanted threads, cutting through the smoke of passing cars and the hum of midnight electricity. A billboard flickered, its lights stuttering over the wet pavement, where Jack and Jeeny walked, silent at first, their reflections stretching beneath the streetlamps like ghosts of themselves.

The air was cold, almost metallic, and somewhere in the distance, a train moaned through the dark — a sound that felt like time itself passing. They turned into a narrow alley, where a small jazz bar waited, its windows fogged, its door creaking open like an old confession.

Inside, the music was slow, the trumpet aching in the smoke-filled light. Jack sat, his coat collar raised, eyes tired, voice low. Jeeny removed her gloves, placed them gently on the table, and leaned forward, her gaze calm but alive with curiosity.

Jeeny: “I came across something tonight… Charles Baudelaire. He said: ‘Modernity is the transitory, the fugitive, the contingent — one half of art, the other being the eternal and the immutable.’”
(she pauses)
“I can’t stop thinking about that — that art lives between the moment and the forever. Between decay and immortality.”

Jack: “Sounds poetic enough to be dangerous. Baudelaire loved contradictions — the eternal prostitute, the divine sewer, the sacred filth of Paris. He saw beauty in rot because he couldn’t believe in heaven.”

Jeeny: “Or maybe he believed heaven was right here — buried inside the transient, the fugitive, the moment that dies as it’s born.”

Host: The bartender poured another drink, the liquid amber glowing beneath the dim lamp. A vinyl record crackled, and the trumpet player closed his eyes, lost in a melody that would vanish the second it ended.

Jack: “You really think the fleeting deserves worship? The modern world chases trends like shadows — and you want to call that art?”

Jeeny: “Not the trends, Jack — the truth beneath them. The feeling that moves and then disappears. You can’t paint the sky without acknowledging it’s going to fade.”

Jack: “That’s sentimental. The eternal is what matters — the work that lasts, that outlives its time. Why admire the fugitive when you can build the monumental? Beethoven. Michelangelo. They weren’t chasing moments — they were conquering them.”

Jeeny: “But even they were modern once. When Michelangelo carved David, it was new, daring, alive — as shocking as graffiti on a cathedral wall today. What you call eternal was once rebellion.”

Host: The rain beat harder against the window, drumming like a heartbeat. Jack’s eyes flashed in the low light, grey and sharp, while Jeeny’s were dark and soft, reflecting the flame of a single candle on the table.

Jack: “You’re saying the eternal is born in the modern?”

Jeeny: “Yes. The eternal is the modern that refuses to die.”

Jack: “That’s a nice slogan, Jeeny, but look around you. This bar — this city — every inch of it is built to decay. The screens, the noise, the constant turnover. We don’t create monuments anymore — just content. Do you think Baudelaire would call TikTok modernity, too?”

Jeeny: “Maybe he would. He said the modern should never be despised. Even the most disposable things — a short clip, a meme, a slogan — carry the spirit of their age. Art that denies the now is already a corpse.”

Jack: “Then art is doomed. If it belongs to the now, it dies with it.”

Jeeny: “No, it transforms. Like a phoenix that burns every second. That’s what Baudelaire saw — the beauty of art is that it dies to stay alive.”

Host: The music shifted, the tempo slower, the room quieter. The air filled with the smell of cigarettes and whiskey, and the light from a passing car briefly sliced through the fogged glass, illuminating their faces — two souls arguing not about art, but about time itself.

Jack: “You want impermanence to mean something? Fine. But what happens when no one remembers it? What’s left of the artist when the moment’s gone?”

Jeeny: “Memory. Influence. The echo. That’s the eternal half. You think permanence means marble or fame — but it’s not that. It’s the way a fleeting thing stirs someone decades later. The way Baudelaire’s words still make us talk now.”

Jack: “So you’re saying the eternal is a consequence, not an intention?”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Eternity is what happens to sincerity.”

Jack: “That’s… inconveniently beautiful.”

Host: Jack smiled — not out of joy, but recognition. He leaned forward, resting his hands on the table, his voice quieter now, more tired than sharp.

Jack: “You know, I used to believe what you believe. When I was twenty, I wrote songs that no one heard. I thought each chord mattered because it was honest in that instant. Then I realized — moments fade, and the world forgets.”

Jeeny: “And yet you’re still here, remembering them.”

Jack: “Maybe because part of me wants them to mean something.”

Jeeny: “Then they already do.”

Host: The bar fell silent for a moment, the record needle scratching softly, as if the room itself were breathing. The rain slowed, the light shifted, turning the window into a mirror. Jack and Jeeny looked at their reflections — two faces, one sceptical, one believing, yet both haunted by the same yearning for meaning.

Jack: “So what do you think Baudelaire was really saying?”

Jeeny: “That to love beauty, you must love decay. That art isn’t just what survives — it’s what dares to vanish.”

Jack: “That’s a cruel kind of faith.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But cruelty is what keeps it pure. The artist must accept impermanence — not resist it.”

Host: A glass clinked behind the bar, and the sound seemed to echo through the conversation, like the toll of a small bell at the end of a mass. Outside, the fog lifted slightly, revealing the wet cobblestones and the distant lights of the city, trembling as if alive.

Jack: “So art is both a heartbeat and a fossil.”

Jeeny: “Yes. And the tragedy — the beauty — is that you can never know which half you’re making.”

Jack: “And yet we keep making it.”

Jeeny: “Because to create is to hope that something fleeting can outlast its own disappearance.”

Host: The trumpet rose, a final note — long, trembling, then gone. The bar dimmed, and for an instant, the world felt paused, suspended between the fugitive and the eternal. Jack lifted his glass, the ice clinking softly.

Jack: “To the transitory.”

Jeeny: “To the eternal.”

Jack: “And to the strange, impossible marriage between them.”

Jeeny: “The only marriage that ever lasts.”

Host: The camera would pull back, leaving them in that smoky bar, faces half-lit, shadows long, rain falling again. The street outside glistened, every droplet catching light for a second before disappearing — like art itself, like life itself — fugitive, beautiful, and unashamedly temporary.