My father was an engineer and my mother was a social worker, and

Host: The afternoon sun spilled lazily through the windows of an old bookshop café, dust motes floating in the golden light like particles of forgotten time. The faint hum of jazz played from a scratched record in the corner, and the smell of old paper mixed with roasted coffee and something bittersweet — like nostalgia left to steep.

At a small wooden table cluttered with books and half-drunk cups, Jack sat, his sleeves rolled up, his grey eyes wandering through a newspaper filled with numbers — markets rising, stocks crashing, lives measured in profit and loss.

Across from him, Jeeny leaned back in her chair, stirring her tea with deliberate slowness, her brown eyes soft, reflective. Between them lay a single quote scribbled on a napkin, its words both confession and philosophy:

"My father was an engineer and my mother was a social worker, and they met as young socialists. That probably tells you everything you need to know about my attitude to money — I've never really been bothered about it." — Jo Brand

Jack: (without looking up) “Never bothered about money, huh? Easy thing to say — especially once you’ve got enough not to need it.”

Jeeny: (smiling faintly) “Maybe. Or maybe she meant she never measured her worth by it. There’s a difference.”

Host: The ceiling fan creaked, slicing the silence into gentle rhythms. Outside, the street was alive with small noises — a vendor calling out, the soft thud of footsteps on pavement, a city humming with quiet ambition.

Jack: “You talk like money’s just a distraction, but it’s the foundation of everything, Jeeny. You can’t build a life on poetry and goodwill. Try paying your rent with philosophy.”

Jeeny: (leaning forward) “And yet you’re sitting here quoting Jo Brand instead of trading stocks, aren’t you? Maybe even you get tired of building things that can’t be touched.”

Jack: (shrugging) “Tired, sure. But I’d rather be tired than poor.”

Jeeny: “And I’d rather be poor than hollow.”

Host: The tension between them was soft, familiar — like the friction of flint before the spark. The sunlight shifted, sliding across their table, illuminating the steam rising from her cup — the kind of fragile beauty that disappears if you blink too long.

Jack: “You make it sound noble — not caring about money. But isn’t that just another kind of privilege? Only the comfortable can afford indifference.”

Jeeny: (calmly) “Maybe. Or maybe it’s courage. The courage to believe that life is richer when it isn’t owned. Her parents were a social worker and an engineer — people who built and mended, not profited. Maybe she inherited their belief that value doesn’t live in a wallet.”

Jack: “Value without money is just sentiment.”

Jeeny: (softly, but firm) “And money without value is just weight.”

Host: A car horn echoed from the street below — sharp, impatient. Jack’s eyes flicked to the window, his reflection ghosting against the glass, layered with the image of a boy running after a paper airplane.

For a second, he seemed far away — trapped between who he was and who he thought he should’ve been.

Jack: “When I was a kid, my father used to count every penny. He’d say, ‘Money doesn’t buy happiness, but it keeps the wolves from the door.’ I grew up thinking the world was a pack of wolves.”

Jeeny: “And do you still?”

Jack: (quietly) “Sometimes I think I became one.”

Host: The jazz track ended with a soft crackle. The café fell still, except for the distant ticking of the old wall clock — time counting softly, but never charging for it.

Jeeny reached across the table, tracing the edge of the napkin with her fingertip.

Jeeny: “My mother used to say the opposite. She worked with people who had nothing — the poor, the forgotten, the ones society steps over. But she always told me they were rich in ways the rest of us weren’t. They shared what little they had. They laughed louder. They belonged to each other.”

Jack: (skeptical) “That’s a pretty story. But hunger doesn’t care about community.”

Jeeny: “Neither does greed. The difference is, hunger ends when it’s fed. Greed never ends.”

Host: Her words landed like pebbles dropped in water — ripples expanding through the silence. Jack tapped his finger against his cup, a small rhythm to distract from the discomfort curling inside him.

Jack: “You think I’m greedy.”

Jeeny: (meeting his gaze) “No. I think you’re scared. You think if you stop running, everything will catch up — failure, time, yourself.”

Jack: (bitterly) “You think Jo Brand had it all figured out? She jokes about money, but she’s successful. She got there by working — same as anyone else.”

Jeeny: (nodding) “Yes. But she didn’t serve money while doing it. That’s the difference. She used her gift. She laughed her way through pain, not profit. That’s wealth — not the kind you bank, but the kind you leave behind in people.”

Host: The sun dipped lower, turning the walls to gold and shadow. The light glowed behind Jeeny’s hair, framing her like a halo of quiet conviction.

Jack: (leaning back, exhaling) “So what — I should give it all up? Live like a monk and quote comedians for enlightenment?”

Jeeny: (smiling) “No, Jack. Just stop confusing earning with living. You can make money — just don’t let it make you.”

Host: Outside, a child laughed — the clear sound cutting through the noise of the city like sunlight through smoke. For a moment, it felt like the world was reminding them of something simple: joy doesn’t require permission.

Jack: “You ever think money’s just another kind of fear? A promise we make to keep the chaos out?”

Jeeny: (softly) “Maybe. But the irony is — the more we chase it, the more chaos we create. My mother used to say, ‘The richest people I ever met were the ones who shared their last meal.’”

Jack: (frowning) “You think I could do that?”

Jeeny: “You already have. You just don’t remember.”

Host: The record player clicked, the next song beginning — slow, melancholic, familiar. The sound filled the air like a sigh that had been waiting to escape.

Jack looked at Jeeny — really looked — and something in him softened. The hard lines around his mouth eased, and for the first time, his eyes looked less like glass and more like water.

Jack: (quietly) “Maybe Jo Brand’s right. Maybe I’ve spent too much time trying not to be my father — counting everything. Maybe I forgot how to count what matters.”

Jeeny: (smiling) “Then count this — one moment. One breath. One friend who’s still here. It’s not much, but it’s honest.”

Host: The café door opened, a gust of warm wind fluttering the napkin on the table. Jack caught it before it blew away, folded it neatly, and tucked it into his pocket — as if to save the words from disappearing.

He stood, slipping his jacket on, looking lighter somehow.

Jack: “You know something, Jeeny? My father measured life in ledgers. My mother in time. I think... I’d rather start measuring mine in laughter.”

Jeeny: (grinning) “Good. That’s a currency even death can’t devalue.”

Host: They stepped out of the café into the last amber light of the day. The street glowed wet, alive with reflections — shop windows shimmering like portals to lives unlived.

Jack stopped for a moment, watching a street musician play an out-of-tune guitar under a flickering lamp. He dropped a note in her case — not out of pity, but out of understanding.

Host: The camera pulled back, the café behind them now a warm blur, a pocket of stillness in a world that never stopped calculating.

The sound of laughter — their laughter — drifted into the fading city, carried by the evening air like music that didn’t need an audience.

And as they disappeared down the street, the quote lingered like a quiet afterthought from the heart of the world itself:

“You can spend a lifetime earning — but it only takes a single moment to feel rich.”

Host: The screen faded to dusk, the last light folding gently into night —
and in that darkness, the truth shone quietly:
that wealth was never in what you owned,
but in what you could still give away.