My dad was a journalist. One great trip we took was to Israel. We

Host: The train rattled through the hills, cutting a thin silver line through the landscape as the sun bled orange across the sky. It was evening — that strange, quiet hour between motion and memory. The window glass glowed with reflections of light and shadow: a collage of the world passing by too quickly to understand.

Jack sat by the window, his coat folded on his lap, his eyes tracing the outline of distant villages — small houses of clay and tin, scattered across the dry fields. Jeeny sat across from him, her camera hanging from her neck, the strap frayed from years of travel. The rhythm of the train’s movement was slow and hypnotic — the sound of two souls running away and toward something all at once.

Jeeny: “Patrick J. Adams once said, ‘My dad was a journalist. One great trip we took was to Israel. We went there and drove through the whole country, and it was pretty incredible. We went to the Philippines and saw the beauty of that country but also what poverty really looks like. That had a profound effect on me.’”

Jack: (smiles faintly) “A journalist’s kid. Always watching. Always learning what the world hides.”

Jeeny: “Not hiding. Showing — if you’re willing to look. That’s what struck me about his words: the beauty and the poverty, both seen with the same eyes.”

Jack: “Yeah, but seeing doesn’t always mean understanding. Sometimes it’s just shock dressed as compassion.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But it’s a start. You can’t change what you refuse to see.”

Jack: “And what do you do after you see it, Jeeny? After you’ve driven through the whole country and witnessed both its grace and its grief — what then?”

Jeeny: “You remember. You let it change how you live.”

Host: The train curved along the coast now, the sea flashing silver under the dying light. Jack turned from the window, his face half in shadow, half in the soft glow of the sunset. Jeeny lifted her camera and took a photo — the shutter clicking quietly, like a heartbeat.

Jack: “I used to think travel made people wiser. But sometimes it just makes them sadder. You see too much — too much beauty, too much pain — and you realize how small you are in the middle of it all.”

Jeeny: “That’s not sadness, Jack. That’s awakening. It’s what Adams was talking about — that kind of humility you only get when you see the world’s edges.”

Jack: “Edges?”

Jeeny: “Yes. Where luxury meets hunger. Where belief meets despair. Where people still smile even when they have nothing. That’s the edge of humanity — and that’s where the truth lives.”

Jack: (sighs) “You sound like a missionary.”

Jeeny: “No. Just someone who still believes seeing is sacred.”

Host: The conductor passed by, his steps steady, his face weathered by years of watching others come and go. The train hummed softly, carrying stories through the veins of the land.

Jack: “You ever been somewhere that changed you?”

Jeeny: “Yes. Manila, actually. I volunteered there once. Kids playing barefoot on streets flooded with rain and garbage — laughing like it was paradise. That’s when I realized we mistake comfort for joy.”

Jack: “And discomfort for failure.”

Jeeny: “Exactly.”

Jack: “So what — we’re supposed to embrace suffering?”

Jeeny: “No. Just see it. Let it remind us how fragile — and connected — we are.”

Jack: “I saw poverty once. In India. Whole families living under flyovers. The smell, the heat, the silence — not from peace, but exhaustion. I gave a boy some money. He smiled. Next day, ten more kids were waiting. I didn’t go back.”

Jeeny: (softly) “Why not?”

Jack: “Because I couldn’t stand the feeling — that my help was nothing but a drop in an ocean.”

Jeeny: “But even drops make ripples, Jack.”

Jack: “You believe that?”

Jeeny: “I have to.”

Host: The train slowed as it approached a small station, barely more than a platform with a single light swaying in the wind. The villagers outside moved like shadows — carrying baskets, herding goats, waving to no one. The air smelled of dust and salt.

Jack stared through the window, his eyes tracing the thin outlines of homes built from metal sheets, smoke curling from makeshift stoves.

Jack: “You know what struck me most when I saw poverty up close? It wasn’t the hunger — it was the grace. How people still shared what little they had. How they smiled like life still owed them laughter.”

Jeeny: “That’s what Adams meant, Jack. Seeing that contradiction — beauty and suffering living side by side — and realizing how wrong it is to separate them.”

Jack: “But doesn’t that make you feel helpless?”

Jeeny: “It makes me feel responsible. To notice, to speak, to not turn away. That’s what journalists like his father did — they bore witness.”

Jack: (quietly) “And paid the price for it.”

Jeeny: “Yes. But truth always demands a toll.”

Host: The station faded behind them as the train picked up speed. The sky deepened into violet, the first stars peeking through like secrets too shy to be told. Jeeny leaned back, resting her head against the seat, her eyes distant — as if replaying all the faces she’d seen on her travels.

Jack: “You ever think maybe seeing too much breaks you?”

Jeeny: “It doesn’t break you. It breaks the shell around you. That’s how empathy gets in.”

Jack: “And what if empathy’s just pain we can’t fix?”

Jeeny: “Then it’s still better than apathy. Pain connects; apathy isolates.”

Jack: “You talk like the world’s wounds can be healed with awareness.”

Jeeny: “No. But healing starts there. Awareness is the first kindness.”

Host: The rhythm of the train became slower now, like a lullaby for travelers who couldn’t sleep. Outside, the villages disappeared into darkness, leaving only the silhouettes of palm trees against the sea.

Jeeny opened her notebook and began writing. Jack watched her, curious.

Jack: “What are you writing?”

Jeeny: “Thoughts. Fragments. Sometimes they turn into poems later.”

Jack: “About what?”

Jeeny: “About what the world looks like when you stop pretending not to see.”

Jack: (after a long pause) “You really think we’re meant to carry all this — all this beauty and all this pain — inside us?”

Jeeny: “Yes. That’s the point. To carry it. To let it make us more human.”

Jack: (softly) “More human… feels heavier than it should.”

Jeeny: “That’s how you know it’s real.”

Host: The train moved into a long, dark tunnel. For a moment, their reflections appeared on the window — two faces suspended in black glass, side by side. Jack’s looked worn, haunted, thoughtful. Jeeny’s looked calm, illuminated from within by some unbroken faith.

When the train burst out into light again, the world outside had changed — a wide river, still and vast, shimmering under moonlight.

Jack: “You know… I think I envy people like Adams. People who see the world and don’t just observe it — they let it change them.”

Jeeny: “Then stop observing, Jack. Participate.”

Jack: “How?”

Jeeny: “Start by letting what you see move you again. Don’t harden. Don’t look away.”

Jack: “That’s hard.”

Jeeny: “Everything worth feeling is.”

Host: The train whistle blew softly — a mournful sound that carried over the river and the fields. Jack leaned his head back, eyes half-closed. The reflection of the moon floated across his face like a blessing he didn’t expect.

Jeeny’s voice came softer now, like prayer.

Jeeny: “We go to foreign lands thinking we’ll find stories. But what we really find are mirrors — of what we’ve lost, of what we’ve ignored, of what we could still become.”

Jack: (barely a whisper) “Maybe that’s what travel is… a confession in motion.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. You see the world, and it asks you one question: Now that you know — what will you do?”

Host: The train thundered into the night, carrying them through darkness and memory. The lights inside flickered gently, casting their shadows on the window — two silhouettes moving endlessly forward.

Outside, the world slept. Inside, something awakened — not dramatic, not loud — but honest:

The understanding that seeing the world’s pain doesn’t make you powerless.
It makes you responsible.

And in that small, silent responsibility — like Adams once felt — lies the beginning of compassion,
and the first quiet step toward being changed.