On 'Question Time,' I've noticed great anger from the audience.

Host: The studio lights were bright, almost clinical—the kind that stripped the world of warmth and color, leaving only faces and facts. The set was empty now, the cameras asleep, their red eyes dimmed. The audience had gone home, leaving behind only the scent of coffee, the hum of electric cables, and the echo of raised voices still vibrating faintly in the air.

Jack sat in one of the audience chairs, his tie loosened, his posture heavy with the residue of argument. On the stage, Jeeny leaned against the moderator’s desk, arms crossed, eyes thoughtful, watching him the way a musician watches the silence after a concert — wondering what all the noise had really meant.

A piece of paper lay on the desk beside her, half crumpled from the night’s chaos. The quote printed on it read:
“On Question Time, I’ve noticed great anger from the audience. When we discuss Brexit, emotions range from white-hot fury to cold, grey apathy. As soon as we move off Brexit, debate is much more nuanced and considered.” — Fiona Bruce.

Jeeny: (quietly) “It’s strange, isn’t it? How one word can still do that to a room.”

Jack: (rubbing his temples) “Brexit?”

Jeeny: “Yeah. Like it’s some kind of wound people can’t stop touching.”

Jack: (half-smirking) “It’s not a wound. It’s scar tissue. But the nerves underneath still remember the pain.”

Host: The overhead lights flickered once, humming softly. Outside, beyond the glass wall, the city glowed — streetlights and office towers shining like tired eyes that refused to sleep.

Jeeny: “You think Fiona Bruce is right? That we only get angry about certain things because we’ve stopped knowing how to talk about them?”

Jack: “No, she’s right because we’re not talking anymore. We’re performing. Every debate’s just a dress rehearsal for outrage.”

Jeeny: (tilting her head) “You think anger’s fake?”

Jack: “No. It’s real. That’s the problem. It’s the only emotion people trust anymore.”

Host: She walked down from the stage, heels echoing lightly against the floor, and sat beside him. Her voice softened, but her eyes were sharp — the kind that saw through arguments and into the ache beneath them.

Jeeny: “You sound like you miss reason.”

Jack: (dryly) “I miss listening.”

Jeeny: “You think we’ve forgotten how?”

Jack: “We’ve replaced it with waiting for our turn to speak.”

Host: A long silence followed. The clock on the wall ticked softly — ironic, almost poetic. A relic of rational timekeeping in a world where time itself felt emotional, fragmented, distorted by debate.

Jeeny: “It’s funny. You can feel it in the room when someone mentions Brexit. It’s like the air changes color.”

Jack: “Yeah. I’ve seen it. People stop breathing. They stop thinking. It’s not politics anymore — it’s identity. They’re not defending ideas; they’re defending themselves.”

Jeeny: “And when the topic changes—?”

Jack: “They exhale. You can actually see it. The heat leaves the room. The tone changes. It’s like watching a fever break.”

Host: The two of them sat in that imagined fever’s aftermath — the quiet strange and heavy, like a stage after the audience has gone, where the ghosts of applause and argument still linger.

Jeeny: “You know, I used to believe that anger meant people cared. But now… I think it just means they’re scared.”

Jack: (nodding) “Fear’s the fuel. Fear of being wrong. Fear of being forgotten. Fear of being one of the quiet ones.”

Jeeny: “And yet, the quiet ones are the ones who actually think.”

Jack: “Yeah. But the microphones aren’t pointed at them.”

Host: She leaned forward, elbows on her knees, watching him carefully. There was no judgment in her gaze — only a shared fatigue.

Jeeny: “It’s sad, isn’t it? We used to debate to understand. Now we debate to survive.”

Jack: “It’s worse than that. Now we debate to belong.”

Jeeny: “You mean anger’s a tribe now.”

Jack: “Exactly. And everyone wants a uniform.”

Host: A brief flicker of light from outside — a bus passing, its windows catching reflections of the studio. For an instant, it looked as if the city itself were holding its breath, waiting for clarity that would never come.

Jeeny: “So what happens when the anger burns out? When people get too tired to keep shouting?”

Jack: “Then comes the grey apathy Bruce talked about. The cold after the fire. That’s worse. You can rebuild from fury, but apathy? That’s extinction with manners.”

Jeeny: (softly) “You think we’re already there?”

Jack: (after a long pause) “We’re close. But there are still people trying to talk through the noise. You. Me. Fiona Bruce. Anyone still asking questions instead of selling answers.”

Host: The air grew still again, the studio lights now dimmed to a muted glow. The room felt fragile — like a thought too delicate to say aloud.

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s what nuance is, Jack. The courage to not know.”

Jack: “And the humility to admit it.”

Jeeny: (smiling faintly) “You’d never survive on live television.”

Jack: (smirking) “No. But maybe that’s the point. Truth doesn’t trend well.”

Host: They both laughed quietly, the kind of laughter that’s less about amusement and more about mutual recognition.

Outside, the rain began, soft against the studio glass — a small percussion to the evening’s introspection.

Jeeny: “You know, when the shouting’s over, maybe that’s when the real conversation starts.”

Jack: “If we’re still listening.”

Host: The camera would have pulled back, showing the two of them as small silhouettes against the glow of the stage — surrounded by empty seats, muted microphones, and the ghost of dialogue.

The rain blurred the world beyond the window — just shapes, light, and motion. No sharp edges, no certainty. Only the soft beauty of things not yet decided.

And Fiona Bruce’s words lingered in the air like the final line of an unfinished broadcast:

That anger might light the fire,
but only understanding can keep it warm.

That beyond the noise,
beyond the fury and fatigue,
there waits the quiet grace of nuance,
patient, steady,
ready to rebuild what shouting once destroyed.