My position is that serious and good art has always existed to

Host: The gallery was almost empty, save for the soft hum of the air conditioning and the faint echo of footsteps against the marble floor. The paintings loomed under spotlights, each a silent storm — streaks of color, pain, and memory frozen on canvas.

It was late — past closing hours — and the rain outside pressed against the windows like a persistent visitor.

Jack stood in the middle of the hall, his hands in his pockets, his grey eyes scanning a massive piece that dominated the wall: a black figure, faceless, reaching toward a horizon of fire.

Behind him, Jeeny approached quietly. The click of her heels was soft, deliberate, like the sound of thought forming.

Host: The light caught the edges of her hair, still damp from the storm, and for a moment she seemed like part of the painting herself — something luminous, human, fragile.

Jeeny: “It’s beautiful,” she whispered. “Terrible, but beautiful.”

Jack: “Beautiful?” he said, not turning. “It’s a scream painted in color. You call that beautiful?”

Jeeny: “Achebe once said, ‘Serious and good art has always existed to help, to serve, humanity. Not to indict.’ Maybe this is what he meant. It’s not just a scream. It’s a call for help.”

Jack: “Or it’s just another artist selling despair,” he muttered. “Every brushstroke dripping with someone’s misery. Art doesn’t help anyone anymore, Jeeny. It just reminds them how broken they are.”

Host: The rain intensified, drumming softly against the glass ceiling, a rhythm that felt like a heartbeat too large for the room.

Jeeny: “Then maybe the reminder is the help,” she said. “You can’t heal what you refuse to see.”

Jack: “That’s the problem,” he replied sharply. “Everyone’s obsessed with showing the wound, not healing it. Every gallery, every song, every film — it’s all anguish now. Everyone wants to indict humanity, as if despair were virtue.”

Jeeny: “And you’d prefer art that lies?”

Jack: “I’d prefer art that builds.”

Host: His voice echoed, bouncing off the cold walls, breaking the quiet like glass. Jeeny stepped closer, her eyes reflecting the canvas — that faceless, burning figure.

Jeeny: “But Achebe wasn’t talking about comfort, Jack. He was talking about service — the kind that wakes people up. He believed art should lift humanity, even when it’s heavy with truth. That’s not indictment. That’s devotion.”

Jack: “Devotion?” he scoffed. “To what? To pain?”

Jeeny: “To understanding.”

Host: A pause, thick and trembling, filled the space between them. The rainlight filtered through the ceiling, silver and restless, tracing the outlines of their faces.

Jack: “You always think art should heal,” he said quietly. “But sometimes it just hurts. What about the artists who destroy their own souls for the sake of others’ feelings? Van Gogh didn’t heal himself. He painted his madness.”

Jeeny: “But he gave the world vision,” she replied. “He turned madness into language. That’s what Achebe meant — art that serves. It doesn’t have to save the artist. It has to reveal what it means to be human.”

Jack: “And what if being human isn’t worth revealing?”

Jeeny: “Then art reminds us it is.”

Host: Her words landed softly, but they carried a weight that lingered. Jack turned toward her, the lines of his face drawn tight — part anger, part ache.

Jack: “You think art has a moral duty. But isn’t that just another form of control? Shouldn’t art be free — even to offend, even to indict?”

Jeeny: “Art is free,” she said, “but freedom without purpose is chaos. Art that exists only to wound has no soul. Achebe wrote about this — that the artist must be responsible to the community, not detached from it. You can’t serve humanity by despising it.”

Jack: “Maybe despising it is the only honest thing left.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack,” she said, her voice trembling slightly. “That’s not honesty. That’s exhaustion.”

Host: The lights dimmed slightly, as if the gallery itself was listening. Outside, a car horn echoed faintly in the wet distance, then faded back into the hum of rain.

Jack: “So you think every artist should be a preacher now?” he asked bitterly. “No anger, no judgment — just hope and harmony?”

Jeeny: “Not a preacher,” she said. “A witness. Achebe didn’t write to scold the world — he wrote to guide it. His stories didn’t punish; they revealed. That’s what good art does — it holds a mirror without shattering the viewer.”

Jack: “But sometimes the mirror needs to break.”

Jeeny: “Yes,” she said softly, “but not to cut — to let in light.”

Host: The painting before them seemed to shift under the changing light — the figure reaching upward, its fingers almost touching the edge of brightness.

Jack: “You’re too kind,” he said, almost whispering. “You still believe in humanity. I’ve seen too much to share that faith.”

Jeeny: “Maybe faith isn’t about believing people are good,” she answered. “Maybe it’s believing they can become so. That’s why we create — to remind ourselves we’re still capable.”

Jack: “And what if creation just repeats the same suffering?”

Jeeny: “Then we keep creating until it doesn’t.”

Host: A drop of rainwater slipped through a tiny crack in the glass above and fell onto the floor, its sound barely audible. Yet in that vast room, it felt enormous — like time marking its passage.

Jeeny walked closer to the painting, her hand hovering near the surface, her fingers trembling slightly.

Jeeny: “Achebe’s art helped his people reclaim their story. It didn’t accuse — it restored. He understood that art’s purpose isn’t to win arguments, it’s to reawaken dignity. That’s how it serves humanity.”

Jack: “And if dignity’s gone?”

Jeeny: “Then art becomes the last place it hides.”

Host: Jack stood silent for a long time. His reflection in the glass merged with the painted figure, two silhouettes tangled in color and shadow — both reaching, both unfinished.

Jack: “Maybe you’re right,” he said finally. “Maybe the world doesn’t need more indictment. Maybe it just needs to be seen — even in its brokenness.”

Jeeny: “Exactly,” she said, turning toward him, her eyes glistening. “Art isn’t a verdict. It’s a hand reaching through the dark.”

Host: The rain outside softened, the sky paling into a gray whisper of dawn. Light began to creep through the ceiling glass, catching the edges of color on the canvas.

Jack stepped forward, studying the figure anew. For the first time, he saw not its torment — but its reaching.

Jack: “You know,” he said quietly, “maybe good art isn’t about how much pain it shows… but how much it helps us bear.”

Jeeny: “Yes,” she said, smiling faintly. “And that’s the difference between art that punishes and art that serves.”

Host: The morning light spread, gentle and unhurried, washing the gallery in a soft, forgiving glow. The painting now seemed to breathe — the figure’s hand stretching toward a horizon no longer burning, but brightening.

Jack and Jeeny stood side by side, silent, their faces lit by that growing light.

Host: Outside, the rain stopped. The streets shimmered, newly clean, like fresh canvas awaiting the next brushstroke.

And in that stillness — between reflection and creation, between doubt and belief — art fulfilled its truest purpose: to serve, not to condemn, and to remind humanity that it still has the strength to begin again.