Music is the best means we have of digesting time.

Host: The city hummed under a slow rain, its streets washed in neon reflections and lonely footsteps. Inside a small bar, tucked beneath an old cinema, the air was thick with the scent of whiskey, dust, and melancholy piano notes. The lights flickered — one dim bulb swinging slightly, like a metronome marking time’s quiet exhaustion.

At the far corner, Jack sat, his hands wrapped around a half-empty glass. His eyes, gray and sharp as flint, followed the rhythm of the pianist’s fingers. Across from him, Jeeny leaned forward, her hair glistening in the dim glow, her gaze soft yet alive with unspoken thought.

The pianist’s song ended. A brief silence followed — the kind that feels like it’s waiting to be understood.

Jeeny: “Auden once said, ‘Music is the best means we have of digesting time.’ I think he was right, Jack. Listen to it — it’s how we survive the passing of moments that would otherwise break us.”

Jack: (smirking) “Digesting time? Sounds poetic, sure. But time doesn’t need digestion, Jeeny. It just is. Whether there’s music or not, it keeps moving — steady, indifferent.”

Host: The rain struck harder against the windowpane, its rhythm merging faintly with the last lingering notes from the piano. Jeeny’s fingers tapped the table, as if trying to summon the sound again.

Jeeny: “But that’s exactly it, isn’t it? Music gives shape to the formless. It’s how we feel time, instead of drowning in it. When you’re lost, or grieving, or even waiting — music stretches or shrinks the moment until it makes sense again.”

Jack: “You’re confusing therapy with truth. Music’s just sound, organized to trick your brain into feeling something. It doesn’t change time, it only distracts you from it.”

Jeeny: “Distraction isn’t always deception. Sometimes it’s the only way to make meaning. Think of prisoners who sing to survive isolation, or refugees carrying songs across borders because it’s the only thing they can take with them. They’re not escaping time — they’re transforming it.”

Host: Jack’s jaw tightened, his reflection in the glass trembling as a train rumbled past outside. The room seemed to sway slightly with its motion, the air vibrating with old echoes.

Jack: “Transformation sounds romantic. But you’re talking about survival mechanisms, not metaphysics. Music doesn’t digest time — it helps people forget it. That’s not digestion, that’s anesthesia.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe anesthesia is what digestion looks like for the soul. You ever listen to Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony? Wagner called it ‘the apotheosis of dance.’ Every note feels like time rising from pain into motion. Beethoven was half-deaf when he wrote it — yet he turned silence itself into rhythm. If that’s not digestion, what is?”

Host: The piano player lit a cigarette nearby, the smoke curling like slow thought in the air. Jack watched it twist upward, gray and elusive, then fade — much like her argument, he wanted to believe. Yet something in her words had cracked a door inside him.

Jack: “Beethoven turned pain into structure. But that’s not time; that’s control. He built architecture out of chaos — the same way we build routines, schedules, rules. We’re taming time, not feeling it.”

Jeeny: “But you can’t tame what you don’t feel. You think logic can handle what the heart endures? You’ve been sitting here staring at that same drink for an hour. You don’t want to control time, Jack. You want to pause it.”

Host: Her voice trembled softly at the edges, though her eyes burned with quiet certainty. Jack looked up, caught off guard — his expression half-defensive, half-exposed.

Jack: “And you? You want to romanticize it. Pretend every heartbreak has a melody. But music doesn’t stop time from stealing what it wants. It doesn’t bring anyone back.”

Jeeny: “No, it doesn’t. But it helps us remember them without collapsing. When I lost my mother, I played her favorite record every morning. The same old scratchy jazz track. I hated it at first — it felt like reopening a wound. But after months, it began to change. The song didn’t just remind me of her death — it gave me back her life.”

Host: The words lingered like a low chord, reverberating in the smoke-filled space. Jack’s eyes softened, just for a heartbeat. He looked toward the pianist, now lost in another quiet melody — something familiar yet unrecognizable.

Jack: “I get it. Memory. Nostalgia. It’s a form of preservation. But that’s not digestion, Jeeny. That’s preserving rot. Holding onto moments that should have passed.”

Jeeny: “You think forgetting is cleansing? Maybe digestion isn’t about disposal — maybe it’s transformation. Time consumes us either way; music just teaches us how to taste it.”

Host: The rain eased, thinning to a mist. The city’s neon flickered softer, like an old heartbeat returning to calm. There was a quiet pause — the kind that happens when two souls realize they’ve reached the edge of their own certainty.

Jack: “You really believe sound can change what time does to us?”

Jeeny: “Not sound — meaning. Music is how we teach time to speak our language. Without it, the minutes are just numbers. With it, they’re stories.”

Host: Jack leaned back, the chair creaking beneath him. He rubbed his temple, then laughed faintly — not mockery this time, but surrender.

Jack: “You know, when I was a kid, my father played old records on Sunday mornings. Sinatra, mostly. After he died, I couldn’t listen to them for years. Then one day, one of those songs came on in a café — and I froze. It was like time folded. I was ten again. I could smell his aftershave, hear him humming off-key. For three minutes, he was alive.”

Jeeny: “That’s what I mean, Jack. Music doesn’t erase time — it rewrites how we carry it. You didn’t just remember him; you relived him.”

Host: The bar’s clock ticked, each sound a small reminder that the world outside still moved. But inside, in that dim, fragile glow, it felt as though time had paused long enough for something to heal.

Jack: “Maybe Auden was right. Maybe music digests time because it lets us absorb it without choking.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. It’s not that we conquer time — it’s that we learn to live inside it, one note at a time.”

Host: The pianist shifted to a softer tune — something slow, like a heartbeat drifting toward sleep. Jack’s hand moved to his glass, but he didn’t drink. Jeeny smiled faintly, the kind of smile that acknowledges both sorrow and peace.

Jack: “So, music is digestion. Pain becomes melody. Memory becomes rhythm.”

Jeeny: “And silence becomes understanding.”

Host: The camera of the moment widened — from their small table to the city outside, the mist curling over wet pavements, the faint glow of a distant streetlight trembling like a dying candle. Inside the bar, two people sat in quiet harmony — not victorious, not defeated, but human.

Jack: “You know what’s strange? I don’t even like jazz. But right now... it feels like it’s breathing with us.”

Jeeny: “That’s what music does, Jack. It reminds you that time isn’t the enemy. It’s just another instrument waiting to be played.”

Host: The piano faded, the last note trembling before dissolving into silence. The rain stopped completely, leaving only the faint hum of the city — a living metronome. In that stillness, Jack and Jeeny sat, side by side, quiet, thoughtful, and alive — as if, for a brief instant, they had truly learned how to digest time.