The fact that we are I don't know how many millions of people

Host: The café sat at the edge of the city’s oldest street — quiet, flickering, alive with ghosts. The rain outside pressed softly against the fogged windows, blurring headlights into streaks of gold and red. Inside, the air smelled of coffee, cigarette smoke, and words left unsaid.

At a corner table, beneath a flickering bulb that hummed faintly like an anxious thought, sat Jack and Jeeny. A single candle burned between them — small, trembling, defiant. Steam rose from their cups, mingling in the air like the residue of something half-remembered.

The room was almost empty, except for a waiter wiping down the bar and a piano somewhere in the back playing notes that sounded more like sighs than songs.

Jeeny: (quietly) “Georges Simenon once said, ‘The fact that we are I don’t know how many millions of people, yet communication, complete communication, is completely impossible between two of those people, is to me one of the biggest tragic themes in the world.’”

Jack: (nodding slowly) “Yeah. Humanity — billions of mouths, and still no one truly understood.”

Host: His voice carried the fatigue of someone who’d tried too often to explain himself and failed. He looked at Jeeny — not with frustration, but with that quiet longing for someone who might finally hear.

Jeeny: “Simenon was right. We talk endlessly, but we don’t connect. We fill silence with noise, but silence’s the only place truth might actually fit.”

Jack: “That’s the cruel paradox. The more ways we invent to talk, the less we seem to understand each other.”

Jeeny: “Because communication isn’t words, Jack. It’s risk. It’s the courage to let someone see what language was never designed to hold.”

Jack: (leaning back) “You mean vulnerability.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. And that’s the one thing we’re all terrified to speak.”

Host: The light flickered again, as if agreeing. Outside, a car passed through a puddle, scattering the reflected streetlights into a thousand fragments — like meanings splintering mid-sentence.

Jack: “You ever notice how we hide behind language? Like, even this — this conversation. We use words to get close, but they’re also the thing that keeps us apart.”

Jeeny: “Because words are armor. They protect, but they also isolate.”

Jack: “And silence?”

Jeeny: “That’s the battlefield. The place where everything real happens.”

Host: Her voice softened, trembling like the flame between them. The café’s background chatter faded, leaving only the sound of rain and the faint, uneven pulse of piano keys.

Jack: “Simenon called it tragic. And it is. We can build bridges across oceans, but not across the space between two hearts.”

Jeeny: “Because hearts don’t speak in logic. They speak in longing. In things that don’t translate.”

Jack: “You think it’s possible — full understanding? Two people completely knowing each other?”

Jeeny: “No. But I think it’s beautiful to try.”

Jack: “Even if we fail?”

Jeeny: “Especially when we fail. Because the trying is love itself.”

Host: Her words hung in the air, heavy and gentle. Jack’s hand hovered over his cup, not quite reaching for it, as though reaching for something else — something invisible but felt.

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s why we create art. Because conversation fails. Music, painting, stories — they’re all just desperate attempts to bridge that impossibility.”

Jack: “Yeah. Art’s the translation of what can’t be said.”

Jeeny: “And what can’t be understood.”

Jack: “You ever write something just to prove you’re not alone?”

Jeeny: “Every day. But it never works.”

Jack: “Then why keep doing it?”

Jeeny: “Because even the echo is better than the silence.”

Host: The rain picked up again — a thousand tiny fingers tapping against the glass like ghosts begging to be let in. The candle between them flickered wildly, its flame struggling to hold form against the draft.

Jack: “You know, it’s strange. The closer we sit to each other, the more aware I am of how far apart we actually are.”

Jeeny: “That’s the paradox of intimacy. Proximity doesn’t guarantee connection — sometimes it makes the distance unbearable.”

Jack: “And yet we keep trying.”

Jeeny: “Because hope’s built into our biology. Every conversation’s a rebellion against the void.”

Jack: “But the void always wins.”

Jeeny: (smiling faintly) “Maybe. But not tonight.”

Host: Her eyes lifted to his, and for a moment, neither spoke. The silence between them wasn’t emptiness anymore — it was something alive, something trembling with unspoken things that didn’t need translation.

The world outside blurred — cars, rain, people — all distant. Inside, two souls sat beneath a single candle and dared to understand.

Jeeny: “You know what’s worse than being misunderstood?”

Jack: “What?”

Jeeny: “Being perfectly understood, and still unloved.”

Jack: (quietly) “Yeah.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s why Simenon called it tragic. Because communication isn’t just about clarity. It’s about mercy.”

Jack: “And mercy’s rare.”

Jeeny: “So is truth.”

Host: The piano stopped. The silence that followed felt enormous — the kind that exposes everything we hide behind conversation. Jack exhaled, long and slow, and the candle’s flame bent toward him like it was listening.

Jack: “Maybe that’s why people fall in love — because for a second, they think they’ve found someone who speaks the same unspoken language.”

Jeeny: “But love fades.”

Jack: “Yeah. The language stops working.”

Jeeny: “Or we forget how to listen.”

Jack: “Or maybe we remember how to lie.”

Jeeny: “Not out of cruelty — out of exhaustion.”

Host: The rain began to ease, the sound thinning into soft drips from the awning outside. The candle’s flame steadied once more.

Jeeny: “You think Simenon was right?”

Jack: “That full communication is impossible? Yeah. But maybe that’s what gives life its ache — that we’re all still trying anyway.”

Jeeny: “The tragedy becomes purpose.”

Jack: “Exactly. The failure to connect keeps us human.”

Host: The camera lingered on the two of them — their faces half-lit, half-shadowed, framed by rain-streaked glass. The world beyond the café looked blurred, distant — a constellation of lights that no one could ever fully read.

The candle flickered once, then steadied.

And in that stillness, Georges Simenon’s words whispered through the air like a diagnosis and a devotion both:

“The fact that we are I don’t know how many millions of people, yet communication, complete communication, is completely impossible between two of those people, is to me one of the biggest tragic themes in the world.”

Host: Perhaps that’s the secret —
that our tragedy isn’t in the failing to understand,
but in the fact that we never stop trying to.

The rain stopped.
The candle burned low.
And in the unspoken quiet between two people,
language finally surrendered —
and something truer took its place.

Fade to silence.
Fade to ache.