The right time is any time that one is still so lucky as to have.

Host: The evening settled like a slow heartbeat over the city, its skyline bleeding amber into the coming darkness. A thin mist coiled along the riverside café, where music from a rusted speaker whispered a tune that no one was really listening to. The air smelled faintly of coffee, rain, and the end of something tender.

Jack sat by the window, his grey eyes reflecting the neon flicker of passing cars. His hands were wrapped around a ceramic cup, not for the heat, but for the weight — as if to remind himself he still existed. Jeeny sat across from him, her hair catching the dim light, her fingers brushing a napkin into quiet folds.

The world outside moved fast. But inside, time was slow — stretched between two souls trying to find what Henry James once called “the right time.”

Jeeny: “Henry James said, ‘The right time is any time that one is still so lucky as to have.’ Do you believe that, Jack?”

Jack: “Depends what you mean by lucky.” He leaned back, the chair creaking. “If you’re alive but tired, if you wake up every day and feel nothing, is that luck? Or is that just survival?”

Jeeny: “It’s life, Jack. And that’s the point. The very fact that you can still feel tired, that you can still question, means the clock hasn’t stopped ticking for you. That’s luck — the kind you don’t have to earn.”

Host: A truck horn sounded from the bridge outside, echoing through the glass. Jack’s jaw tightened. The neon from the streetlight cut a faint scar of light across his face.

Jack: “Luck is just a word people use to make chaos feel poetic. The right time? That’s an illusion. You only know it was the right time when it’s gone. People waste years chasing right moments — to start, to love, to change — and then they die with a list of ‘almosts.’”

Jeeny: “And yet, they still try. That’s the miracle of it. Even when they lose everything, they still reach for another morning. Think of Anne Frank — she wrote ‘I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.’ That was written in a dark attic, under the shadow of death. If she could call that moment worth having, who are we to call any of ours wasted?”

Jack: “Anne Frank was an exception. Most people aren’t saints. Most just endure because they don’t know what else to do. Look around you — half the world’s working jobs they hate, in relationships they’ve stopped believing in, staring at screens instead of faces. You call that being ‘lucky to have time’? That’s a slow suffocation.”

Jeeny: “But still — it’s time. It’s breath. It’s the one currency that can’t be taken back once spent. Every second of that suffocation, as you call it, still holds the possibility of change. You could walk out of your job tomorrow. You could call someone you love. The luck lies in the chance — not the comfort.”

Host: The rain began to fall, soft at first, then heavier — each drop tapping against the window like the quiet persistence of memory. Jack watched it, his eyes distant, as though searching for something in the blur.

Jack: “You talk like time is a friend, Jeeny. But time’s a thief. It doesn’t care if you’re hopeful or hopeless. It just keeps taking. You start young, you believe in possibility, and then one day you look up, and half your life is behind you. What’s lucky about that?”

Jeeny: “That you can still look up, Jack. That you can still see what’s behind you — it means you’re not blind yet. Maybe that’s what James meant. The right time isn’t some grand moment waiting for us. It’s this — this rain, this table, this breath we still get to take.”

Host: The room dimmed further. A flickering lightbulb buzzed above them, and a waiter passed by with a tray, their reflection ghosting across the glass like a fleeting shadow of another life.

Jack: “You always make it sound so simple.” He smirked faintly. “But tell me, what about those who’ve lost everything? The man who buries his child, the woman who watches her home burn? You’d tell them they’re lucky to have the moment?”

Jeeny: “Yes. Because even in grief, they’re still part of the story. Because that pain — unbearable as it is — proves they were capable of love. Do you remember Viktor Frankl, the psychiatrist from Auschwitz? He wrote that even in suffering, there’s a possibility for meaning — that a person who has a ‘why’ can bear almost any ‘how.’ That’s what James was talking about — the miracle of still being here, when you might not have been.”

Jack: “Meaning, purpose, luck — words for people who can’t stand randomness. Frankl was extraordinary, yes. But most of us just drift. You think time forgives that?”

Jeeny: “Time doesn’t forgive. But it offers. Every second, it extends a hand, asking, ‘What will you make of me?’ And most of us… we just don’t see it until we’re standing on the edge of losing it.”

Host: The rain turned into a downpour. A flash of lightning lit the street, illuminating the steam rising from wet pavement. Jeeny turned her face toward the window, her eyes glistening — not just from the light, but from the truth of what she felt.

Jack: “You sound like you’re trying to save time itself.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. I’m just trying to notice it.”

Host: The silence that followed was not empty — it was heavy, like a pause in a symphony before the final note. Jack’s hand trembled slightly as he reached for his cup. The steam had faded.

Jack: “You ever think maybe time doesn’t belong to us at all? Maybe we’re just its witnesses, passing through it, not the other way around.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But that still makes us part of it. That still gives it color. Time might not belong to us — but our moments do. We get to decide which ones we’ll remember, and which ones we’ll let fade.”

Host: The rain softened again. Outside, a streetlight flickered back to life, casting gold over the wet asphalt. The café seemed to breathe again, as if relieved that words had finally caught up with feeling.

Jack: “So… the right time is now, huh? Even if it’s painful, even if it’s messy.”

Jeeny: “Especially then. Because it’s real. Because it’s yours.”

Jack: “You think James was trying to say that the only time that matters is the one we’re still lucky to be alive in?”

Jeeny: “I think he meant — we don’t get to choose when life is perfect. Only when we’ll call it enough.”

Host: Jack looked at her for a long moment, his eyes softening. The world outside had slowed; even the rain seemed to listen.

Jack: “You know,” he said quietly, “maybe that’s the closest thing to luck — having someone to argue about time with.”

Jeeny: smiling faintly “Then don’t waste it.”

Host: The lights dimmed as the café prepared to close. The rain stopped. For a brief instant, the sky opened — a thin silver seam where the moonlight broke through. Jack and Jeeny sat in silence, both aware of the fragile beauty of that passing moment — aware, perhaps for the first time, that it was the right time, simply because they were still lucky enough to have it.