The beauty of the past belongs to the past.

Host: The station was almost empty. A single train hummed quietly in the distance, its lights flickering against the silver rails. Dust floated lazily through the air, golden in the dying sunlight that streamed through the cracked glass roof.

Jack sat on a worn bench, a suitcase beside him, his hands clasped, his grey eyes fixed on the blurred reflection of his own face in the metal vending machine across the platform. Jeeny approached slowly, her footsteps echoing in the wide, hollow space, each one soft but deliberate — like memory walking back into the present.

Pinned to the station wall, half-torn and weathered, was a faded photograph of a woman holding a camera, beneath it a line in neat black print:
"The beauty of the past belongs to the past." — Margaret Bourke-White.

Jeeny: (quietly) “You came back.”

Jack: (without looking up) “Only for a minute. The train leaves at six.”

Host: The wind carried the faint scent of rust and rain, mingling with something tender — the smell of old things remembering themselves. Jeeny sat down beside him, leaving just enough space for silence to settle comfortably between them.

Jeeny: “You always said you hated this place. The noise, the crowds, the delay. But I think you just hated what it reminded you of.”

Jack: “And what’s that supposed to be?”

Jeeny: “That once, we were happy here.”

Host: Her voice was soft, but the words struck sharp. Jack turned his head slightly, his jaw tightening, the flicker of an old ache crossing his face like a cloud across sunlight.

Jack: “That was a long time ago, Jeeny. The past looks beautiful because it’s over. It doesn’t have to survive reality anymore.”

Jeeny: “Is that what you really believe? That beauty dies with time?”

Jack: “No. I think beauty fades into truth. And truth is rarely beautiful.”

Host: The station clock ticked loudly, its rhythm filling the pause that followed — the sound of time itself reminding them of its authority.

Jeeny: “Margaret Bourke-White said, ‘The beauty of the past belongs to the past.’ She took pictures of war, of ruins, of people trying to live after losing everything. Maybe she meant that we shouldn’t try to live inside what’s already gone.”

Jack: (nodding slowly) “Or maybe she meant beauty can’t be owned. Once it’s lived, it belongs to time, not us.”

Host: The train whistle blew faintly in the distance — a long, mournful sound that stretched like memory across the air.

Jeeny: “But doesn’t that make everything meaningless, Jack? If every moment we love just… becomes history?”

Jack: “No, it makes it sacred. The past is beautiful because it can’t be repeated. It’s safe from our mistakes now.”

Jeeny: “You say that as if safety is the same as peace.”

Jack: (bitterly) “Maybe it is. The living keep wounding what they love trying to keep it alive.”

Host: A thin beam of light caught the edge of Jeeny’s face, outlining her cheekbones, softening the sorrow in her eyes. She looked at him as though seeing both the man he was, and the boy he used to be, all at once.

Jeeny: “Do you ever miss it? The way we used to talk, like the world was waiting for us to paint it?”

Jack: “Sometimes. But nostalgia’s a trickster. It paints over the cracks, hides the noise. You remember the laughter but forget the silence after.”

Jeeny: “And yet you came back.”

Jack: (half-smiling) “Maybe I just wanted to see if the ghosts were still punctual.”

Host: A faint laugh escaped her, fragile but warm, like a note played on an old piano that still somehow holds tune.

Jeeny: “You always made fun of my sentimentality. But look at you now — sitting here, staring at a clock like it’s going to give you an answer.”

Jack: “It already did. It told me the past runs on schedule — always arriving when you least need it.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe that’s what it means to live. To let it arrive. To let it pass.”

Host: The train’s headlights appeared down the track — two bright eyes piercing the gathering dusk. The rails hummed louder. The air shifted. It smelled of movement, of change, of endings.

Jeeny: “You know, I don’t think the past ever really leaves. It lingers — in colors, in smells, in words. Like right now. This light, this bench, that whistle — they’re all echoes. We’re sitting inside a photograph that’s trying to remember itself.”

Jack: “You sound like one of her captions.”

Jeeny: “Maybe she was right. The beauty of the past belongs to the past — but the ache of it, that belongs to us.”

Host: Her words landed gently, but Jack flinched, as if something buried had been brushed by accident. He looked at her — really looked — and for the first time in years, his expression softened, like a stone remembering it was once sand.

Jack: “You think we ever could’ve made it work?”

Jeeny: (after a pause) “We did, Jack. Just not forever. Some things aren’t meant to last — they’re meant to teach.”

Jack: “Teach what?”

Jeeny: “How to let go beautifully.”

Host: The train pulled closer now, its sound filling the station like a long breath before goodbye. The lights painted both their faces — his sharp and tired, hers calm and glowing.

Jack stood up, picking up his suitcase. The metal handle clinked softly.

Jack: “You’re better at this than I am.”

Jeeny: “At what?”

Jack: “Letting things be beautiful where they belong.”

Jeeny: “That’s because I finally stopped trying to bring the past into the present. It’s like taking flowers from a grave — they die faster in your hands.”

Host: The words lingered, heavier than the air itself. Jack looked down at the rails, the light, the motion — the steady current of departure.

He turned back one last time.

Jack: “So this is it?”

Jeeny: “No. This is now. The past already said its goodbye.”

Host: The doors opened with a soft hiss. The light inside the train was warm, golden, alive — a small mercy against the encroaching darkness. Jack stepped in, the sound of his footsteps echoing briefly, like punctuation on a long sentence.

Jeeny watched him go. The train began to move — slow at first, then faster, until its light dissolved into the horizon.

She remained on the platform, her hand pressed against the metal bench where he’d sat, as if to feel the last warmth of memory before it faded.

The rain began again, soft and uncertain, erasing the footprints that led away.

Host: The clock struck six. The station returned to silence — its kind of peace, its kind of truth. The photograph of Margaret Bourke-White fluttered slightly on the wall, and the quote beneath it gleamed in the dim light, as if whispering its final reminder:

“The beauty of the past belongs to the past.”

And in that moment, as Jeeny turned toward the exit, her face lit briefly by a flash of lightning, it was as though even the storm understood — that beauty, once lived, is never lost, only laid to rest with grace.