The dream, alone, is of interest. What is life, without a dream?

Host: The night was deep, blue-black, and still, with a thin moon hanging over the city like a half-forgotten promise. A single streetlight flickered outside the window of a tiny attic studio, its light casting trembling shapes on the walls — the shadows of paintbrushes, empty bottles, and unfinished canvases. The room smelled faintly of turpentine, coffee, and loneliness.

At the center of this small, chaotic world, Jack stood by the window, smoking, his eyes lost in the distant skyline. Behind him, Jeeny sat on the floor, cross-legged, sketchbook in hand, her pencil moving slowly, deliberately, as if tracing the shape of a thought she couldn’t quite speak aloud.

Pinned to the wall beside Jack was a scrap of paper, yellowed and curling at the corners. Written in faded ink were Edmond Rostand’s words:
“The dream, alone, is of interest. What is life, without a dream?”

Jack exhaled, the smoke curling toward the ceiling like something searching for escape.

Jack: “Rostand was a romantic. A fool. ‘What is life without a dream?’ I’ll tell you — it’s survival. That’s life.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. Survival is just the shell. The dream is what fills it.”

Jack: “Dreams don’t fill anything. They’re gas — they evaporate the moment reality gets too close.”

Jeeny: “And yet, you still paint.”

Jack: “That’s not dreaming. That’s working. That’s trying to stay sane.”

Host: Jeeny looked up at him, her eyes soft but steady, like the light of a candle refusing to go out. Her sketchbook rested in her lap, half-filled with faces, streets, and unfinished stories.

Jeeny: “You think work and dreams are enemies. They’re not. Every stroke of that brush — it’s a piece of a dream made solid.”

Jack: “Dreams don’t pay the rent, Jeeny. Dreams don’t keep the lights on when the world forgets you.”

Jeeny: “But they’re the only thing that makes the light worth turning on.”

Host: The wind moved outside, rustling the curtains. The studio seemed to breathe with them — a living organism of dust, memory, and persistence.

Jack stubbed his cigarette, crossed the room, and leaned against a paint-splattered easel. His hands were rough, stained with color, but his voice was all steel.

Jack: “You ever notice how the world worships dreamers after they’re gone? Van Gogh dies broke and insane — a century later, his paintings sell for millions. That’s the world’s idea of love. A dream’s just a convenient myth once it stops breathing.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But without that myth, the world would have no reason to wake up at all.”

Jack: “You think the world needs dreamers?”

Jeeny: “I think the world is built by them — and broken by the ones who stop dreaming.”

Host: Jack picked up a brush, turned it in his hand like a cigarette. His face was half-shadow, half-light, the perfect portrait of a man standing between disillusion and desire.

Jack: “You ever watch people on the subway? They’re not dreaming. They’re enduring. Everyone just waiting for the day to end so they can do it again tomorrow.”

Jeeny: “That’s exactly why dreams matter, Jack. Because they remind us that we can be more than that. That we can build something invisible and call it meaning.”

Jack: “Meaning’s just the story we tell ourselves so we don’t give up.”

Jeeny: “Then tell it better.”

Host: The room fell into a silence that wasn’t empty — it was thick, alive, the kind of silence that demanded to be listened to. Jeeny rose, walked to the window, and looked out at the city below — the endless constellation of lives, some dreaming, most not.

Jeeny: “Do you remember Cyrano?”

Jack: “The man who loved words more than women? Yeah, I remember.”

Jeeny: “No. The man who believed that a dream was worth more than a crown. Rostand wasn’t a fool, Jack. He knew life was brutal. He just refused to let the brutality define it.”

Jack: “That’s a pretty story. But pretty doesn’t survive out there.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe the dream isn’t about surviving. Maybe it’s about staying human while we do.”

Host: A car horn echoed below; somewhere a dog barked. But up here, time felt suspended — a little world apart, balanced between realism and reverie. Jack walked to his canvas, one he hadn’t touched in weeks — a painting of the city skyline at dawn, unfinished, the sky still waiting for color.

Jeeny watched, silent.

Jack: “I used to think art could change things. That a painting could make someone see the world differently. But the older I get, the more I realize — people don’t want to see. They want distraction, not revelation.”

Jeeny: “Maybe you’ve confused the two. Distraction is an escape. Dreaming is endurance. One hides from the world; the other remakes it.”

Jack: “You really believe that?”

Jeeny: “I do. Every revolution, every love story, every invention — they all began as someone’s dream. Before the machine, before the plan — there was imagination.”

Host: Jack paused, his fingers brushing the edge of the canvas, almost tenderly. His voice dropped, quieter now.

Jack: “You sound like my mother. She used to tell me to dream big, that I’d be an artist someday. Then life happened. The rent, the noise, the disappointments — they all came for the dream like wolves.”

Jeeny: “And yet, here you are. Still painting.”

Jack: “Habit.”

Jeeny: “No. Hope disguised as habit.”

Host: The rain began again, soft, rhythmic, forgiving. The sound filled the room like applause for something unseen. Jeeny walked to his side, her hand resting gently on his arm.

Jeeny: “You think dreams die, Jack. But they don’t. They just get quiet until we remember how to listen.”

Jack: “And if I’ve forgotten?”

Jeeny: “Then let me remind you.”

Host: She picked up his brush, dipped it in blue, and handed it to him. Jack hesitated, then took it. The canvas waited, blank in its unfinished dawn.

Jeeny: “You once said you paint what you can’t say. So say it now — in color.”

Jack: “What if it means nothing?”

Jeeny: “Then it means you’re still trying. That’s the only meaning that matters.”

Host: He lifted the brush, his hand steady, his eyes focused. Slowly, carefully, he drew a single stroke of light — a pale, rising gold across the dark skyline. Then another. And another.

Each stroke seemed to breathe something back into him.

Jeeny: “There,” she whispered. “You see it?”

Jack: “What?”

Jeeny: “The dream. It was never gone — just waiting for you to believe in it again.”

Host: Jack smiled, faintly, tiredly, but with a kind of peace that hadn’t touched him in years. He set down the brush, looked at the canvas, and for a moment, the unfinished painting didn’t feel incomplete — it felt alive.

Jack: “Maybe Rostand was right. The dream’s the only part that’s real. Everything else is just the noise we make between sleeping and waking.”

Jeeny: “And maybe that’s the beauty of it — that life itself is just a dream trying to remember it’s real.”

Host: The rain stopped, the clouds parted, and the moonlight fell through the window, spilling across the canvas, illuminating the soft glow of dawn he had just painted.

Jack and Jeeny stood together, silent, watching it — two dreamers in a world too practical to understand them, yet still brave enough to keep dreaming.

And for that moment, the dream and life were not opposites, but the same thing —
the breath, the art, the meaning, and the madness that made them both alive.