The letters, the food - I had no idea I wouldn't see a shrimp for

Host: The night unfolded like a deep blue canvas, heavy with rain that hadn’t yet decided whether to fall. A single streetlight flickered above the pier, where the air tasted of salt, iron, and forgotten dreams. The waves lapped against the wooden planks, slow and steady — like a heartbeat trying to remember its rhythm.

Jack sat on the edge of the dock, a half-empty bottle beside him, his coat collar turned up against the wind. His eyes, pale and grey, followed the dark water as though it held an answer he couldn’t reach. Jeeny stood a few steps behind, her hair whipped by the breeze, a quiet sadness etched into the soft corners of her face.

The moon was hiding. The stars had turned away.

Jeeny: “You ever think about how much of life we waste not noticing what we have?”

Jack: without looking up “Every day. Usually right after I lose it.”

Jeeny: “Da Brat once said, ‘You don’t look at those little things you take for granted so easy, until you get sat down, get locked up, or get into a position where you see other people who are less fortunate than you — that don’t have anybody.’” She pauses. “She was talking about shrimp, Jack. Can you imagine missing something that small, that ordinary, that much?”

Jack: “You’d be surprised how much you can miss when everything else is taken away. A cigarette. A voice. Even the sound of a door that opens instead of locks.”

Host: The wind sighed through the pier’s railing, carrying the faint scent of the ocean, rust, and the ghost of freedom. A ship horn echoed in the distance, a long, lonely note that seemed to stretch through the darkness and into the bones of those who heard it.

Jeeny: “You talk like you’ve been there.”

Jack: “Maybe I have. Maybe not in a cell with bars — but in my own kind of prison. One made of routine. Of doing the same thing every day until you forget what joy even feels like. You don’t need a warden to be locked up, Jeeny. You just need to stop feeling.”

Jeeny: “That’s the worst kind of prison — the one you build yourself. At least behind bars, you know where the walls are.”

Jack: “Exactly. Out here, they’re invisible. And you call it normal life.”

Host: A wave crashed harder this time, splashing against the wood. The bottle rolled slightly, its hollow sound echoing like a clock ticking in the silence between them.

Jeeny: “It’s funny, isn’t it? We have so much, but still, we hunger for more. Then someone like Da Brat talks about shrimp, and suddenly you realize — you’ve been blind.”

Jack: “That’s because we’re wired for blindness. Gratitude doesn’t make headlines. Loss does. We don’t see the worth of what’s simple until it’s gone — and even then, only if we’re lucky enough to remember what it felt like.”

Jeeny: “But isn’t that what makes it sacred? The fact that it’s fleeting? Every meal, every letter, every moment with someone — they all mean something because they end.”

Jack: “That’s poetic, Jeeny. But I think it’s cruel. Why give us something beautiful if we’re destined to lose it?”

Jeeny: “Because beauty’s not meant to be owned, Jack. It’s meant to be witnessed.”

Jack: bitterly “Try telling that to someone who’s lost everything. To a prisoner who counts the days by how long it’s been since he’s tasted real food or touched another human being. Witnessing doesn’t fill your stomach.”

Jeeny: “No. But it fills your soul. And maybe that’s the only hunger that can really be satisfied.”

Host: The rain began to fall, softly at first, then with growing insistence. The drops shimmered in the pier’s dim light, striking the surface of the water like tiny silver truths. Jeeny didn’t move. Jack tilted his face upward, letting the rain sting his skin as if testing whether he could still feel.

Jack: “You ever read about Viktor Frankl?”

Jeeny: nods “The psychologist who survived the concentration camps?”

Jack: “Yeah. He wrote that people who had a reason to live — love, purpose, faith — were the ones who survived. But you know what haunts me? The thought that it wasn’t the suffering that killed people. It was forgetting why they suffered.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s what Da Brat meant. When you lose the world — when it strips you of everything, down to the taste of shrimp — what you’re left with is gratitude, or despair. And gratitude’s the only one that keeps you human.”

Jack: “Gratitude’s easy to preach from the outside.”

Jeeny: softly “And hard to practice from the inside. That’s what makes it real.”

Host: The rain thickened, pounding now against the dock, the water, the wooden beams. But neither of them moved. They sat in that storm, two silhouettes in the trembling light, their voices blending with the rain’s rhythm — steady, raw, and human.

Jack: “You know what I miss most, Jeeny? The ordinary. The sound of someone calling my name, not for work, not for obligation — just because they wanted to.”

Jeeny: “You miss belonging.”

Jack: “I miss mattering.”

Jeeny: “You still do.”

Jack: a long silence “Then why doesn’t it feel like it?”

Jeeny: “Because you’re still measuring your worth in things you’ve lost. You need to start measuring it in what remains.”

Jack: “And what remains?”

Jeeny: smiles faintly through the rain “You. Breathing. Talking. Sitting here instead of giving up.”

Jack: “You make it sound noble.”

Jeeny: “It is. Survival always is.”

Host: A flash of lightning illuminated their faces — Jack’s streaked with rain, Jeeny’s glowing faintly in the reflection of the water. For a moment, they looked less like two people and more like fragments of something eternal — one sculpted by reason, the other by faith.

The storm roared, but the pier held.

Jack: “Maybe I get it now. Da Brat wasn’t just talking about shrimp or letters or food. She was talking about how even small things can tether us to hope.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. When life strips you down, it’s not the grand things that save you — it’s the tiny ones. The taste of salt. A friend’s laugh. A memory that refuses to fade.”

Jack: “And when you have no one?”

Jeeny: “Then you find someone else who has no one — and you share the silence.”

Jack: smiles faintly “You really believe that can make a difference?”

Jeeny: “Yes. Because sometimes that’s all people need — proof they’re not invisible.”

Host: The rain eased, turning into a light mist that carried the faint scent of seaweed and hope. The moon finally emerged, pale but persistent, painting a silver path across the water.

Jack stood, brushing the rain from his coat, and for the first time, he looked at Jeeny — really looked. Her eyes, dark and alive, reflected something he hadn’t seen in himself for years: belief.

Jack: “You’re right. We take too much for granted — even each other.”

Jeeny: “Then don’t. Start with this moment. Right here. It’s yours until it’s gone.”

Jack: “And when it’s gone?”

Jeeny: “Then you’ll miss it. And that means it mattered.”

Host: The waves rolled gently now, the tide calm, as if the world itself had exhaled. The lights of the distant shore shimmered like forgotten stars, each one a quiet reminder that even the smallest things — a meal, a letter, a friend — could hold an entire universe of meaning.

As they walked away from the pier, side by side, the moonlight trailed them like a promise:

That what we take for granted today will one day be the very thing that saves us —
because sometimes, the smallest things are the last pieces of our humanity.