Oh, I was never a businessman. I was a visionary, a dreamer.

Host:
The studio lights burned low, leaving only the pale haze of after-hours. The air was heavy with smoke and the faint hum of an idle projector, its flickering reel spilling light over dust and shadows. A half-finished poster hung crooked on the wall — an echo of a once-grand idea: a film, a plan, a dream that had yet to pay for itself.

Jack sat slouched on an old director’s chair, his tie loosened, his eyes raw with the exhaustion of too much realism. Across the cluttered table, Jeeny stood by the lightboard, a cup of coffee in her hands, her posture straight but her gaze soft — the kind of composure one learns after weathering disappointment.

Outside, the rain whispered against the windows, soft and steady. A neon sign from across the street flashed “OPEN,” though everyone inside the café it lit seemed long closed.

The projector’s reel spun to an end. Silence followed — deep, electric.

Jack:
Jim Bakker said, “Oh, I was never a businessman. I was a visionary, a dreamer.”
And you know what, Jeeny? That’s the most dangerous kind of confession — the one people mistake for humility when it’s really an excuse.

Jeeny:
(Quietly) Maybe it’s both. Maybe being a dreamer is dangerous — not because it’s false, but because it’s honest.

Jack:
Honest? No. It’s self-deception dressed as faith. “I wasn’t practical, I was inspired.” That’s just another way of saying, I didn’t think it through.

Jeeny:
Or maybe it’s saying, I dared to believe before I calculated.

Host:
Her voice carried a strange warmth — soft, but unshakable. Jack tilted his head, a sardonic smile creeping across his lips. The light from the projector stuttered across his face, splitting it into frames of disbelief and fatigue.

Jack:
Belief without reason is delusion, Jeeny. How many dreamers have ruined their lives chasing visions they couldn’t afford?

Jeeny:
And how many businessmen have ruined others’ lives for dreams they didn’t believe in?

Jack:
Touché. But don’t pretend vision absolves failure. Bakker wasn’t noble — he just confused charisma for purpose.

Jeeny:
(Stepping closer) Maybe he confused faith for control. That’s not the same thing.

Jack:
No — but it’s worse. People like him build castles in the clouds, then act surprised when gravity calls the bill due.

Jeeny:
And yet without people like him, we’d still be crawling. Every great thing that exists began as something impractical, ridiculous, impossible.

Host:
The rain intensified, like a hand drumming against the windowpane in restless rhythm. Jack’s hands tightened around the armrest of his chair, knuckles pale, as if gripping the edge of the argument too tightly to let go.

Jack:
You think dreaming excuses failure. It doesn’t. “Visionary” is just what people call you before they realize you’ve failed. Afterward, you’re just another fool with good intentions.

Jeeny:
(Smiling sadly) Maybe. But maybe “fool” is the price you pay for believing in something larger than yourself.

Jack:
You’d rather be a beautiful failure than a practical success?

Jeeny:
I’d rather build something that mattered — even if it broke.

Jack:
(Scoffing) That’s poetic. It’s also naive. The world runs on numbers, not dreams.

Jeeny:
And yet it’s the dreamers who keep inventing the numbers to begin with.

Host:
The lamp above them flickered, its filament buzzing faintly like a nervous thought. Jeeny moved toward the table, set her cup down, and leaned in slightly, her eyes burning with quiet conviction.

Jeeny:
You talk like logic is safety, Jack. But you can’t reason your way into greatness. You can only imagine your way there first.

Jack:
And what happens when the imagining fails?

Jeeny:
Then you dream again. Because the alternative — living without vision — isn’t safety. It’s death by repetition.

Jack:
(Softly) You sound like Bakker himself — baptized in idealism, blind to consequence.

Jeeny:
No. I’m not blind to consequence. I just refuse to worship it.

Host:
The projector flickered again — a brief resurrection of motion. The half-finished film on the screen showed a child running through a field, arms outstretched, face turned toward light. Then static. Then darkness.

Jack stared at it, silent.

Jack:
You see that? That’s what I mean. Incomplete. Half-realized. Just another dream that didn’t make it to the end.

Jeeny:
(Quietly) Or maybe it’s waiting for someone to believe in it again.

Jack:
You make belief sound like oxygen.

Jeeny:
It is. For those who still breathe in color.

Jack:
(Leaning forward) And what if color’s an illusion?

Jeeny:
Then I’ll take the illusion over your grayscale truth any day.

Host:
The tension between them vibrated like the last note of a symphony refusing to fade. Jack ran a hand through his hair, his face caught between anger and admiration.

He stood abruptly, pacing toward the window. The city lights reflected in the glass — distorted, shimmering, alive.

Jack:
(Slowly) I used to be like you, you know. Believed in vision, in art, in the sacredness of ideas. But the world doesn’t reward visionaries. It devours them.

Jeeny:
(Softly) Maybe. But without them, the world would starve.

Jack:
(Quiet laugh) You always know how to twist despair into poetry.

Jeeny:
Maybe because poetry is how despair redeems itself.

Host:
The rain eased. Outside, the street began to shimmer again — not with despair, but with reflection. A man under an umbrella paused by the glass, his silhouette merging with Jack’s. Two figures, one real, one imagined.

Jeeny approached him slowly, standing beside him. For a moment, they both looked out at the world — its mess, its beauty, its endless, ridiculous persistence.

Jeeny:
You know, Jack… Bakker’s words weren’t an excuse. They were a confession. “I was never a businessman.” He wasn’t rejecting failure — he was owning it. He was saying: I wasn’t built for profit. I was built for wonder.

Jack:
And look where it got him.

Jeeny:
And look what it gave us. His dreams might have failed him, but they made others imagine differently. Isn’t that the point of a visionary — to plant seeds that someone else might water?

Jack:
(Softly) So vision without reward is still enough for you.

Jeeny:
It has to be. Otherwise, why dream at all?

Host:
He turned to look at her. There was something different in his expression now — the edges of cynicism softening, revealing the weary tenderness beneath.

Jack:
You really think dreaming saves us?

Jeeny:
No. But it gives us something worth saving.

Jack:
(Quietly) And you think that’s what I’ve lost.

Jeeny:
Not lost — just buried under too much realism.

Jack:
(Smiling faintly) You make faith sound like excavation.

Jeeny:
It is. Dig deep enough beneath the rubble of logic, and you’ll find your dream still breathing.

Host:
The projector hummed back to life suddenly, without warning — the last reel unspooling on its own. On the wall, the image returned: the child running again, this time reaching the horizon. The film froze there — hand outstretched, almost touching light.

Jack stared. His reflection in the window merged with the image — man and dream, reason and innocence — both caught mid-motion.

Jack:
(Whispering) Maybe he was right…
Maybe I was never meant to be a businessman either.

Jeeny:
(Smiling gently) You were never meant to count things. You were meant to create them.

Host:
He looked at her — really looked — as though he had just remembered what it meant to believe in something intangible. The rain outside had stopped completely now, leaving the glass clear, the city lights sharp and real again.

Jeeny turned off the projector. The room dimmed into soft gold.

Host:
They stood there, side by side, two silhouettes framed against the city — one heart tethered to practicality, the other to faith. Between them hung that fragile word vision, no longer a wound, but a bridge.

Because perhaps Bakker was right.
The visionary isn’t the one who succeeds — it’s the one who dares to dream after failure,
who still looks at a broken frame and sees what it could become.

Host:
The light from the street bled into the room, touching the table, the reel, their faces.
And in that gentle, final glow, Jack whispered — not to Jeeny, but to himself:

Jack:
“I was never a businessman… I was a dreamer. And maybe that’s the point.”

Host:
Jeeny smiled — not triumphant, not pitying, just proud.

Outside, the city pulsed again — imperfect, luminous, alive —
built by all the fools who dared to dream.