Telling a story in a futuristic world gives you this freedom to

Host: The city shimmered like glass and shadow — skyscrapers twisting toward the cloudless sky, their mirrored surfaces reflecting not clouds, but drones that moved in perfect formation. Far below, neon lights pulsed against the fog, painting the world in restless color. From the rooftop of an abandoned theater, you could see everything — and nothing.

That’s where Jack and Jeeny stood, surrounded by old film reels and flickering holographic ads that still whispered: “Buy happiness. Rent forever.”

A projector, scavenged from another time, hummed beside them, casting a flickering scene from a classic film — black-and-white faces filled with emotion the modern world no longer practiced.

Jeeny: “Suzanne Collins once said, ‘Telling a story in a futuristic world gives you this freedom to explore things that bother you in contemporary times.’”

Jack: “Ah, dystopia — humanity’s favorite mirror.”

Host: Jeeny smiled faintly, pulling her coat tighter as the wind carried the hum of machinery from the streets below.

Jeeny: “It’s not about dystopia, Jack. It’s about distance. You put a story in the future so people can look at the present without flinching.”

Jack: “So — science fiction therapy?”

Jeeny: “Exactly. You disguise your fear in technology. Your guilt in invention. It’s safer to say, ‘Look at what they’re doing in the future,’ than ‘Look at what we’re doing right now.’”

Host: A drone buzzed overhead, its red light cutting across their faces like a brief, mechanical heartbeat. Jack watched it vanish between the towers.

Jack: “You really think people still listen? I mean, Collins gave us war, rebellion, the hunger for control — but we still build the same empires, just with better graphics.”

Jeeny: “Maybe she didn’t write to stop us. Maybe she wrote to remind us what happens when we stop listening.”

Jack: “Then we’re terrible students.”

Jeeny: “Yes. But the story keeps teaching anyway.”

Host: The projector clicked; the reel skipped — an old sci-fi scene flashed for a second: a man in a silver suit staring at a barren Earth, whispering, ‘We did this to ourselves.’

Jeeny: “See? Even back then, they knew. We’ve been writing warnings for centuries.”

Jack: “And ignoring every one of them.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s the point. Art doesn’t fix the world — it records the sickness so the next generation can diagnose it.”

Host: The wind shifted, carrying the scent of ozone and rain. Jeeny’s hair lifted slightly, her eyes reflecting the holographic skyline.

Jack: “You talk like the future’s a confession booth.”

Jeeny: “It is. Writers like Collins use imagination to confess what reason can’t. When she builds her Capitol, she’s talking about us — our vanity, our appetite for spectacle, our blindness to suffering. She just moves it far enough away so we can look without denial.”

Jack: “So the future is camouflage for truth.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. The farther you set your story, the closer it hits home.”

Host: A soft rain began — droplets catching the neon, turning into tiny mirrors that reflected the city’s pulse.

Jack: “You ever notice how future worlds always look beautiful and broken at the same time?”

Jeeny: “Because beauty without conscience always collapses. The future is just the present amplified.”

Jack: “That’s grim.”

Jeeny: “No — it’s honest. Dystopias aren’t prophecies, Jack. They’re reflections. They ask us: what part of this are you already living?”

Host: The rain thickened, drumming softly on the old projector case. Jack wiped his sleeve across the lens, clearing the fog. The black-and-white movie ended; the holographic skyline kept playing its endless loop — brighter, emptier.

Jack: “You know, when I was a kid, I used to love futuristic stories. Flying cars, robots, utopias. Now they feel like documentaries waiting to happen.”

Jeeny: “That’s because you grew up. The best speculative stories grow with you — what used to be wonder becomes warning.”

Jack: “So what bothers you, Jeeny? What would you write into the future?”

Jeeny: “Silence.”

Jack: “Silence?”

Jeeny: “Yes. A world so loud that people forget how to listen. Where everyone speaks, but no one connects. That’s what terrifies me most — not machines replacing us, but indifference erasing us.”

Host: Jack nodded slowly, the thought settling in him like a stormcloud finding a home.

Jack: “And you’d set it in the future, so people don’t realize it’s already here.”

Jeeny: “Exactly.”

Host: The city below pulsed with light — not joy, but movement. Screens blinked with endless news, endless distraction. The same patterns Collins once warned of — power disguised as entertainment, control disguised as comfort.

Jack: “You think there’s still hope?”

Jeeny: “Always. The moment we recognize the reflection, we can change it.”

Jack: “But what if we don’t?”

Jeeny: “Then at least we left the map behind.”

Host: The projector light dimmed. The city noise rose — sirens, laughter, distant music — a strange orchestra of the modern world still pretending not to repeat its mistakes.

Jack: “You know what I love about her quote?” he said quietly. “It’s not just about the freedom to explore. It’s about courage — the kind it takes to hide truth in fiction and still make people feel it.”

Jeeny: “Yes. Because truth is radioactive — you have to bury it in story to make it survivable.”

Host: Jeeny stepped to the edge of the rooftop, looking out over the city that glittered like both promise and warning. Jack joined her, the hum of the drones passing above them again.

Jeeny: “Maybe one day, we’ll learn to tell stories about the future that aren’t warnings — maybe just love letters to what we could become.”

Jack: “If we make it that far.”

Jeeny: “We will. Storytellers will make sure of it.”

Host: The camera widened — two silhouettes against the city of tomorrow, the world humming beneath them like an unfinished song.

Rain shimmered in the neon light as they stood there — small, defiant, human — holding onto the only thing more powerful than progress: imagination.

And over the sound of the storm, Suzanne Collins’s truth whispered like prophecy:

To write the future is to hold a mirror to the present — to reveal what we fear, what we’ve lost, and what we still have the courage to dream.