The goal, I suppose, any fiction writer has, no matter what your

Host: The library was closing, its last patrons long gone, leaving only the faint scent of old paper and lamp oil lingering in the air. Through the tall windows, the city lights glimmered faintly — distant, dreamlike, like the pulse of another world beyond these walls. Inside, the rows of books stood in solemn silence, each one a grave of a thousand voices.

At the far corner, by the reading table near the window, sat Jack, a thin stream of smoke curling upward from his cigarette. His grey eyes moved over an open book, though his mind seemed far away — perhaps back in some memory he never could rewrite. Across from him, Jeeny flipped through her notebook, her pen tapping softly against the paper, her dark eyes full of thought and quiet light.

A quote, handwritten in the margin between them, caught the lamp’s glow:
“The goal, I suppose, any fiction writer has, no matter what your subject, is to hit the human heart and the tear ducts and the nape of the neck and to make a person feel something about what the characters are going through and to experience the moral paradoxes and struggles of being human.” — Tim O’Brien.

Jack: “Funny thing, isn’t it?” — he said, exhaling smoke. — “Writers chasing tears like it’s some prize. I’ve never trusted art that tries too hard to make you feel.”
Jeeny: “But isn’t that the whole point? To make you feel?”

Host: The lamplight flickered, casting shadows across the spines of the books — titles like War and Peace, The Things They Carried, The Road. Stories of pain, redemption, and the quiet ache of being alive.

Jack: “I don’t know. I think it’s manipulation. Emotions are easy. You want tears? Kill a dog. Give a dying soldier a letter home. Cheap moves. The real challenge is making people think.”
Jeeny: “But thought without feeling is just noise. O’Brien didn’t say ‘make them cry’; he said ‘make them feel something.’ There’s a difference.”
Jack: “Is there? Emotion clouds judgment. Feeling blinds clarity. The best stories — Orwell, Huxley, Kafka — they disturb you. They unsettle your logic, not just your heart.”
Jeeny: “And yet you remember them because they hurt.”

Host: Her voice was soft, but the edge beneath it was sharp — like silk concealing steel. She leaned forward, her hands folded.

Jeeny: “Tell me, Jack — what’s the first story that ever stayed with you?”
Jack: “What’s that got to do with anything?”
Jeeny: “Everything. Just answer.”
Jack: “Fine.” — He paused, eyes flicking away. — “When I was twelve, my father made me read All Quiet on the Western Front. I didn’t understand it then, but… there’s a scene — the one where the soldier stabs a man in the trench and watches him die all night. I couldn’t sleep for days.”
Jeeny: “That’s it. You felt something. That’s what O’Brien means — not sentimentality, but truth. A truth so raw it burns.”

Host: Jack tapped his cigarette against the ashtray, his jaw tightening. The room seemed smaller now, the air heavier with remembered grief.

Jack: “Maybe. But that’s not art. That’s trauma.”
Jeeny: “Sometimes they’re the same thing.”
Jack: “You really think fiction can heal that?”
Jeeny: “Not heal. Reveal.”

Host: The clock on the wall ticked softly. The sound seemed to echo through the quiet, as if even time was listening to their words.

Jeeny: “The best stories aren’t escape. They’re mirrors. They show us who we are when no one’s watching. The tear ducts, the neck, the heart — they’re not targets. They’re doors.”
Jack: “Doors to what?”
Jeeny: “To recognition. To empathy. To seeing that we’re all a little broken in the same way.”

Host: The wind outside pressed against the windows, making them rattle faintly — like a reminder that beyond the walls of this library, the world itself was still full of unfinished stories.

Jack: “Empathy’s overrated. The world doesn’t run on feelings, Jeeny. It runs on facts, systems, survival.”
Jeeny: “You say that, but every system ever built — from law to religion to government — started as a story someone believed. Fiction built the real world, Jack.”
Jack: “Belief also built wars, crusades, and propaganda. Same pen, different ink.”
Jeeny: “Because truth isn’t in the pen. It’s in the heart that guides it.”

Host: Jack looked at her — really looked, like a man realizing he’d misread the ending of a book he thought he understood.

Jack: “You talk about truth like it’s universal. But what if the writer’s truth isn’t yours? What if all these moral paradoxes O’Brien mentions are just… illusions of sincerity? A trick of language?”
Jeeny: “Then it’s a beautiful trick. Because even a lie that makes us remember our humanity is better than the truth that makes us forget it.”
Jack: “You sound like you’d forgive anything if it’s written beautifully enough.”
Jeeny: “Not forgive — understand. There’s a difference between judgment and compassion. A good writer knows the line.”

Host: A soft hum filled the room — the old heater waking for the night. The light from the lamp turned golden, spilling across the table like a quiet blessing.

Jeeny: “Do you know why O’Brien wrote The Things They Carried?”
Jack: “To exorcise his guilt, I suppose.”
Jeeny: “Exactly. He said fiction can make things truer than the truth. Because sometimes facts aren’t enough. You need emotion to give them meaning.”
Jack: “But emotion can distort meaning. Make you sympathize with the wrong people.”
Jeeny: “Or make you realize there are no right people.”

Host: The silence that followed was almost tender — like the moment between thunder and rain.

Jack: “You think writers are moral architects.”
Jeeny: “No. I think they’re moral archaeologists. They don’t build; they dig. Into our contradictions, our shame, our courage.”
Jack: “And sometimes they dig up things better left buried.”
Jeeny: “Maybe. But isn’t that where the truth hides? Beneath the polite soil?”

Host: Jack closed the book before him, his hand resting on the worn cover. The title was half-erased by time, but the weight of it remained. He looked at Jeeny again — his voice lower, quieter.

Jack: “So what do you think O’Brien meant by ‘the moral paradoxes of being human’?”
Jeeny: “That we’re capable of both mercy and cruelty. That sometimes, in trying to do good, we wound. That love can coexist with guilt, and courage with fear. Fiction doesn’t resolve those paradoxes — it reminds us they exist.”
Jack: “You make it sound sacred.”
Jeeny: “It is. Because storytelling is how we atone for being human.”

Host: Outside, a car passed, its headlights sliding across the window, then vanishing. The library felt infinite for a moment, the silence too big for just two people.

Jack: “You know, I used to write once.”
Jeeny: “I know.”
Jack: “Stopped after my brother died. It felt wrong to invent things when the real world had already written a tragedy.”
Jeeny: “Maybe that’s exactly when you should’ve written. Fiction isn’t invention — it’s conversation with ghosts.”

Host: Jack’s eyes darkened, the smoke from his cigarette curling upward like a thought he couldn’t catch.

Jack: “You think ghosts answer back?”
Jeeny: “If you write honestly enough, yes.”

Host: A long silence. The clock struck ten. Somewhere in the building, a door closed softly.

Jack: “So — the goal isn’t to entertain?”
Jeeny: “No. The goal is to touch. To remind someone they still have a pulse.”
Jack: “And if they don’t want to feel?”
Jeeny: “Then you write until they do.”

Host: The lamp flickered once more. The library was now almost dark, except for the small pool of light around them — like two souls caught in a circle of memory.

Jack: “Maybe you’re right. Maybe fiction’s the last place we can still tell the truth without being crucified for it.”
Jeeny: “That’s why it matters. Because it makes us human twice — once when we live, and again when we read.”

Host: Jack smiled — not the cynical smirk he often wore, but something softer, almost forgotten. He reached for his pen, tapping it against the table.

Jack: “Maybe it’s time I start again.”
Jeeny: “Then write, Jack. Don’t aim for genius. Aim for the heart.”
Jack: “And the tear ducts?”
Jeeny: “If you do it right, they’ll follow.”

Host: The light dimmed, but their faces still glowed faintly in the lamplight — two silhouettes framed by books and silence. Outside, the night deepened, but inside, something small and luminous had been rekindled.

And as Jack wrote his first line in years, Jeeny watched, her smile quiet and knowing — like a reader who already sensed the ending.

The lamp flickered, then steadied, and in that fragile glow, the words began to flow — not for fame, not for art, but for what O’Brien had always meant:
To touch the human heart, and to remind it — in the dark — that it still beats.