One baby is a patient baby, and waits indefinitely until its

Host: The evening hung heavy with the scent of wet stone and smoke, the kind that clings to the air after a long rain. The streetlights bled amber into the mist, painting long shadows across the narrow alleyway behind an old theatre. Inside, a small dressing room flickered with tired bulbs, their light buzzing faintly, like the sound of some forgotten insect.

Jack sat on a wooden chair, elbows on his knees, a half-smoked cigarette burning slow between his fingers. Jeeny stood by the cracked mirror, removing the last traces of stage makeup from her cheeks, her reflection split by a thin fracture in the glass.

Between them, taped to the mirror, was a scrap of paper — a quote written in fading ink:
“One baby is a patient baby, and waits indefinitely until its mother is ready to feed it. The other baby is an impatient baby and cries lustily, screams and kicks and makes everybody unpleasant until it is fed. Well, we know perfectly well which baby is attended to first. That is the whole history of politics.” — Emmeline Pankhurst.

Jeeny: “It’s strange, isn’t it? How much truth can fit into a single metaphor. We all grow up being told to wait our turn — to be the patient ones. But in the world, it’s the ones who shout that get heard.”

Jack: “And the ones who shout too long become tyrants. That’s the other half of the truth Pankhurst didn’t spell out. Patience might starve you, but rage — it burns the whole table.”

Host: The cigarette smoke rose in slow, curling lines, forming a hazy curtain between them. Jeeny’s eyes, dark and alive, caught the dim light, glowing with the quiet fury of belief. Jack’s expression remained composed — the calm of a man who had seen too many revolutions begin with ideals and end with ashes.

Jeeny: “You call it rage. I call it demand. Every change worth having began with someone making the world uncomfortable. The patient baby never got fed because it was too polite to cry.”

Jack: “And yet the impatient one — the one that screams and kicks — grows up thinking that noise equals justice. You see it everywhere: people mistaking volume for virtue. Politics today is less about truth, more about who can shout the loudest.”

Host: Jeeny laughed — a small, soft sound, but filled with a bitter edge. She turned from the mirror, her hands trembling slightly as she placed her makeup brush down on the table.

Jeeny: “But isn’t that what power has always listened to — noise? History rewards those who disturb the silence. The suffragettes, the workers, the revolutionaries — none of them waited quietly. They were the impatient babies, Jack. And that impatience fed the future.”

Jack: “Maybe. But what about all the others crushed beneath those movements? The ones who never asked to be part of someone’s revolution? Impatience is a blunt weapon — it doesn’t just strike the enemy; it breaks the world around it.”

Host: The rain began again, a thin drizzle tapping against the window. Jeeny walked over, her small frame outlined by the pale streetlight outside. Her voice softened, but the fire in it didn’t fade.

Jeeny: “You make it sound cruel — but sometimes the world only changes when someone is willing to break it first. Comfort breeds complacency, Jack. The patient baby dies in peace — but it still dies.”

Jack: “And the impatient one grows up to rule with the same fists it once shook in protest. You think anger stays pure? No — it evolves. It learns to command the same obedience it once despised.”

Host: The mirror caught both their reflections now — her face, alive with conviction; his, etched with doubt and memory. The tension between them shimmered like static in the air.

Jeeny: “You’ve grown cynical, Jack. You talk like someone who’s lost faith in humanity itself.”

Jack: “I’ve lost faith in absolutes, Jeeny. I’ve seen too many causes become crowns. Today’s hero is tomorrow’s bureaucrat. The impatient baby doesn’t stay a baby forever — it grows teeth.”

Host: Jeeny’s eyes flashed — not with anger, but with deep hurt. She stepped closer, her voice trembling slightly, like the last note of a violin.

Jeeny: “Then what are we supposed to do? Just sit quietly, wait for the world to notice us out of kindness? You can’t ask the hungry to wait for fairness, Jack.”

Jack: “No. But I can ask them to see what comes after. You cry loud enough, you’ll be fed — but what if the meal isn’t what you hoped for? What if it’s power — and it poisons you?”

Host: The room felt smaller now, the air thick with heat and argument. The lightbulbs above them buzzed louder, as if echoing the tension.

Jeeny: “You talk like power’s a disease. Maybe it is — but at least it’s one you can catch by fighting. The rest of us are just ghosts in someone else’s room.”

Jack: “You think I don’t understand the fight? I do. But there’s a difference between crying for justice and crying for attention. Politics thrives on the latter.”

Host: She turned her head sharply, her hair falling like black ink over her shoulder. Her voice cut through the air, soft but piercing.

Jeeny: “And who decides the difference? The ones already at the table? The ones telling everyone else to wait their turn? No, Jack. Noise is the sound of life. Silence is the language of the satisfied.”

Jack: “And chaos is the anthem of those who don’t know what they want.”

Jeeny: “Better chaos than obedience.”

Host: Her words struck him like a quiet blow. For a long moment, he said nothing. The cigarette burned to its end, its last ember falling and dying against the floorboards.

Jack: “You remind me of someone I once knew. She believed in the same kind of fire. She led marches, shouted until her voice broke. But when she finally got what she wanted… she realized the world doesn’t listen — it bargains. The impatient baby doesn’t get fed; it gets pacified.”

Jeeny: “Then the answer isn’t to stop crying — it’s to cry louder.”

Host: The mirror caught their eyes again — two faces, reflections of the same struggle. One weary with realism, the other lit with unshakable faith.

Jack: “You’ll burn out, Jeeny. The world doesn’t reward passion. It drains it, packages it, and sells it back as politics.”

Jeeny: “Then let it try. I’d rather burn than wait.”

Host: The words lingered, echoing through the small room like a prayer or a curse. The rain outside had stopped. A thin beam of light cut through the clouds, spilling through the cracked window, catching the edge of the mirror — the fracture shining like a silver scar.

Jack looked at it, then at her, and something in his expression softened — not defeat, but understanding.

Jack: “Maybe the world needs both — the patient and the impatient. One to hold the line, the other to push it forward.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s the only way we survive — by taking turns being hungry.”

Host: She smiled then, small and tired, but real. Jack’s hand found the old ashtray, crushing the last bit of smoke into silence.

Outside, the city began to stir again — the sound of distant horns, a dog’s bark, the pulse of human restlessness. The mirror caught their faces one last time — two souls on opposite sides of history, bound by the same eternal hunger: to be seen, to be fed, to be free.

And as the light flickered, the fracture in the mirror split the reflection — not to divide, but to remind them both:
Every cry for justice begins as a cry for life.