My mission is to kill time, and time's to kill me in its turn.

Host: The rain had the weight of forgotten hours. It fell slow, methodical, like time itself performing its duty. The city was half-asleep, its buildings glistening under the streetlights, its alleys dripping with the exhaust of eternal repetition. Inside a cheap bar, with a clock that hadn’t ticked in years and a bartender too tired to pretend otherwise, Jack and Jeeny sat — the only two who still cared enough to argue about the meaning of decay.

The light above them flickered, pulsing like a dying heartbeat. A radio in the corner played some old jazz, soft and ghostly, as if the music itself was aware of its own mortality. Jack was staring into his glass, the amber whiskey catching what little light remained, while Jeeny watched the rain, her eyes reflecting the wet glow of the street.

Jeeny: (quietly) “Emil Cioran once said, ‘My mission is to kill time, and time’s to kill me in its turn. How comfortable one is among murderers.’”

Jack: (dryly) “Comfortable, huh? Speak for yourself. I don’t find much comfort in being slowly executed by something that doesn’t even notice me.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s the point, Jack. Time doesn’t notice anyone — it’s the only true equalizer. You kill it with boredom, and it kills you with patience. Fair trade.”

Jack: (smirking) “Fair? That’s the kind of fairness only a cynic could worship. I don’t see equality in death — just routine. Time’s a bureaucrat. It stamps everyone eventually.”

Host: Smoke drifted between them, curling into rings that broke apart as quickly as they formed. The room smelled of ash and melancholy, the texture of existence itself.

Jeeny: “But isn’t that what makes it poetic? The way we try to kill time — to fill it, waste it, ignore it — and yet, every second we spend fighting it is a confession of fear. We’re terrified of vanishing.”

Jack: (takes a slow sip) “No. We’re terrified of meaning nothing before we vanish. Killing time is the rehearsal for our own funeral.”

Jeeny: (turning toward him) “Then what’s your alternative? To live every moment like it’s your last? That’s just another way of serving time — pretending urgency makes you free.”

Jack: (grinning darkly) “So what, you’d rather accept your cell? Make peace with the executioner?”

Jeeny: “Maybe. Maybe peace is the only rebellion left.”

Host: The clock behind the bar, though broken, seemed to tick in their minds, an imaginary rhythm keeping them both awake. Outside, a neon sign buzzed, its light flickering on their faces — Jack’s, all angles and shadows; Jeeny’s, all grace and defiance.

Jack: “You talk about peace as if it’s freedom. It’s not. It’s resignation in a prettier dress.”

Jeeny: “You call everything surrender when it doesn’t involve a fight. Maybe that’s your problem — you can’t imagine victory without violence.”

Jack: “Because that’s all existence is — violence on repeat. Everything survives by consuming something else. Even time. It eats the living, and we pretend to dine with it.”

Jeeny: (smiling sadly) “And yet, you’re still here. Still drinking, still thinking, still talking. So maybe you’re not trying to kill time — maybe you’re courting it.”

Jack: “Courting the thing that’s killing me? That’s madness.”

Jeeny: “Or intimacy. What’s more human than loving the thing that destroys you?”

Host: The rain outside had softened to a drizzle, tracing lines down the window like fingers of some invisible clockmaker. The moment was suspended, fragile, as if the world had paused to listen.

Jack: “You know, Cioran had it right. We’re all in the same murder-suicide pact with time. Every day we stab it with distractions — work, art, conversation — and every night it bleeds us back. But you —” (he gestures toward her) “— you make it sound romantic.”

Jeeny: “Maybe because I think there’s beauty in futility. You can’t stop the clock, but you can dance while it ticks. You can make it your partner, not your enemy.”

Jack: (half-laughing) “So what — time’s the cruel lover now?”

Jeeny: “Isn’t it? It gives you everything, only to take it back. It lets you live long enough to understand death.”

Jack: (quietly) “And still, we call it a gift.”

Jeeny: “Because without it, there’s nothing to waste. No love, no art, no meaning. Even despair needs a duration.”

Host: Jack’s hand tightened around his glass. The whiskey shivered with the movement, catching light like a small sun in a dying universe. His eyes, once cold, now carried a strange tenderness — the look of someone who had stopped mocking the thing he could no longer escape.

Jack: (softly) “You ever wonder what happens when time runs out — not for you, but for time itself? When it’s done killing everything it can?”

Jeeny: “Maybe then it turns the knife inward.”

Jack: (smiling faintly) “I’d like to see that. Time bleeding out in silence. Finally still.”

Jeeny: “But then, without it, you’d have nothing to fight. You’d miss your murderer.”

Host: A car horn wailed in the distance, the sound cutting through the fog like the scream of something eternal and tired. The jazz on the radio had turned to static, and for a moment, it felt as though even the music had given up.

Jeeny: “You see, Jack — time isn’t cruel. It’s honest. It tells you exactly what it’s going to do, and it keeps its promise.”

Jack: (smirking) “That’s one way to define integrity.”

Jeeny: “And maybe that’s why Cioran called it comfort. Because once you stop fighting, once you see yourself as part of the murder, you realize — every breath, every wasted second, every failure — it all belongs to the same dance.”

Jack: (leaning forward) “You think comfort makes it easier?”

Jeeny: “No. But it makes it beautiful.”

Host: The bar light flickered once more, and for a moment the room was completely dark — as if the universe had blinked. Then it came back, weaker, tired, but still alive.

Jack: (after a long silence) “Maybe you’re right. Maybe the comfort isn’t in escaping time, but in knowing it’ll never escape us either.”

Jeeny: (nodding) “Exactly. Two murderers, locked in eternity — polite enough to take turns.”

Host: The rain had stopped. The silence that followed was complete, dense, and strangely merciful. The clock, long broken, now seemed to move, or maybe it was just their hearts — beating, stubbornly, in sync with the nothingness that surrounded them.

Jack raised his glass, eyes heavy, voice low.

Jack: “To time — the most patient killer we’ll ever know.”

Jeeny: (raising hers) “And to us — its willing accomplices.”

Host: They drank, and for a fleeting second, the moment itself stopped — frozen between murderers, lovers, and victims, all sharing the same crime:
the act of being alive long enough to feel it end.