Non-fiction, and in particular the literary memoir, the stylised

Host: The train station was almost empty, its wide hall echoing with the soft murmur of late-night departures. Overhead, the announcement speakers hummed faintly, reciting names of distant cities with a weary rhythm. The clock above the ticket booth ticked past midnight.

Through the window, the rain drew long, crooked lines down the glass, catching the orange light from the platform lamps.

Jack sat on a worn bench, his grey eyes heavy with the kind of fatigue that doesn’t come from work, but from memory. He was holding a thin book, the cover creased, the pages full of someone else’s life.

Jeeny stood near the window, her reflection hovering over the dark tracks. She turned when she heard Jack’s low, husky voice.

Jack: “Listen to this, Jeeny. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie wrote — ‘Non-fiction, and in particular the literary memoir, the stylised recollection of personal experience, is often as much about character and story and emotion as fiction is.’”

Jeeny: (smiling faintly) “I love that line. She’s right. Even when we tell the truth, we shape it. We give it rhythm, color, emotion — we make it art.”

Jack: (grunts) “Art? It’s still just memory. People dressing up their past to make it sound worth something. You can’t edit the truth like it’s a script.”

Host: The train outside let out a deep, tired whistle, its steam curling upward like ghosts of time gone by. The sound filled the space between them — tense, lingering, unresolved.

Jeeny: “You think memory is truth? Memory lies all the time. It forgets, it chooses, it paints. But that’s what makes memoirs powerful. They show not the world as it was — but as it was felt.”

Jack: “That’s the problem. It turns honesty into performance. It’s no longer about what happened, it’s about what sells. You read these memoirs — childhoods turned into myth, pain turned into poetry. Where’s the raw truth?”

Jeeny: “Maybe the raw truth isn’t what changes people, Jack. Maybe it’s the felt truth — the one that lives between fact and emotion.”

Host: Jack’s fingers tapped the cover of the book, his expression caught between irritation and thought. The lights overhead flickered briefly, bathing the station in alternating shadows and glow.

Jack: “You make it sound noble. But I think it’s dangerous. People rewrite themselves, make their lives into stories they can live with. They start believing their own fiction.”

Jeeny: “And what’s wrong with that? We all curate our stories — even you. You don’t tell everyone everything. You choose what to reveal, what to hide. Isn’t that its own kind of authorship?”

Host: Her words landed softly but deeply, like raindrops on still water. Jack looked at her, his jaw tightening, his eyes sharp.

Jack: “You’re saying self-deception is art?”

Jeeny: “No. I’m saying self-understanding is art. Memoir isn’t about lying — it’s about searching. About trying to find the shape of who we were.”

Jack: “But how can you find yourself if you’re rewriting yourself?”

Jeeny: (sits down beside him) “Because sometimes, rewriting is remembering. Sometimes we only understand life once we’ve told it twice — once when we lived it, and again when we try to make sense of it.”

Host: The station clock ticked louder now, its hand slicing through the stillness. A gust of wind slipped through the doors, carrying the smell of wet metal and rain.

Jack: “I don’t buy it. Facts matter. Once you start stylizing memory, you’re just doing what novelists do — inventing emotion, turning pain into performance.”

Jeeny: “And maybe that’s okay. Fiction and memoir — they’re both ways of reaching truth. Not the truth of events, but the truth of feeling. Why do you think people cry reading Anne Frank’s diary, or Maya Angelou’s words? It’s not because they list facts. It’s because they bleed emotion into reality.”

Host: Jack’s eyes softened. For a moment, the sound of rain filled the silence between them. He turned the book in his hands — a memoir of a war journalist — and traced the inked name on the cover with his thumb.

Jack: “You know, my father used to write journals. Never meant for anyone to read them. But after he died, I did. He wrote about my mother — their fights, their laughter, the small things. It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t stylized. It was just… there.”

Jeeny: “And did it feel real?”

Jack: (nods slowly) “Too real. It made me angry. Because I saw how different his truth was from mine. We lived the same years, but remembered them differently.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. That’s the beauty of it. Memory isn’t a camera — it’s a mirror that changes shape with time. Each of us polishes it differently.”

Host: Jeeny leaned back, her eyes fixed on the ceiling lights, the pale glow reflecting off her face. There was a softness there — the kind of softness that only comes from understanding sorrow.

Jeeny: “Adichie’s right, Jack. Non-fiction is full of story. Because even the act of telling the truth requires choices — what to emphasize, what to silence, what to forgive.”

Jack: “So what you’re saying is — truth is a kind of fiction.”

Jeeny: “No. I’m saying fiction is a kind of truth.”

Host: The tension broke into a faint, tired smile. Jack looked away, the corner of his mouth lifting despite himself. The train outside hissed, and a few passengers shuffled by with suitcases, their footsteps echoing like slow, distant memories.

Jack: “Maybe you’re right. Maybe we all write memoirs in our heads — stories of who we think we are. Maybe that’s what keeps us from falling apart.”

Jeeny: “And maybe what binds us. Every story, every recollection, it’s an attempt to connect. To say, ‘I lived. I felt. I mattered.’”

Host: The rain had slowed to a drizzle, and the windows began to clear. The city lights outside shimmered like old photographs, blurred but beautiful.

Jack: “You ever thought of writing yours?”

Jeeny: (smiles) “Every day. Not on paper — just in my head. But maybe someday I will. Not because I want people to know me, but because I want to know myself.”

Jack: “And what would you call it?”

Jeeny: (after a pause) “Maybe… What I Remember When I Forget.”

Host: Jack’s eyes met hers, and for the first time in the long night, something like peace crossed his face. He closed the book, tucking it under his arm, and leaned back, his breath finally steady.

Jack: “You know, Jeeny… maybe stories are all we have to fight time with. Maybe they’re our way of staying alive.”

Jeeny: “They are. Because as long as someone tells a story — even a stylized, imperfect one — we’re never completely gone.”

Host: The final train rolled in, its wheels screeching softly on the tracks. The doors opened with a sigh, and a few weary travelers stepped aboard. Jack and Jeeny watched in silence as the carriages disappeared into the dark, leaving behind the faint echo of motion and the smell of rain.

The station was still again — quiet, suspended between truth and memory.

Host: And in that stillness, it was clear: stories — whether fiction or memoir — are not about what happened. They are about what it meant. And that meaning, fragile yet immortal, is the only thing that keeps the heart from forgetting.