The sense of anger I had when I was younger is something I

Host: The sky above the city was a dull, bruised violet, the kind that lingers after the rain and before the dawn. Streetlights flickered along the empty avenue, their light thin and tired, like the last breath of a long night.

At the corner of an old bar, its sign half-lit, Jack sat at a table by the window, a glass of whiskey untouched before him. His coat was damp, his eyes distant — grey, reflective, like steel dulled by use.

Across from him, Jeeny held a coffee mug between both hands, her hair loose, face bare, voice low. There was no music, only the hum of the refrigerator and the soft hiss of the rain returning outside.

The quote had come from an interview they’d both read earlier that evening — Chris Cornell’s quiet confession:
“The sense of anger I had when I was younger is something I thought would never go away. Over time, it’s something you get almost bored with.”

Jack: (staring out the window) He understood it. The anger. That burning, that need to tear through everything — yourself most of all. You think it’s fire, but it’s really just acid. Eats everything it touches.

Jeeny: (softly) And yet, he made music from it. That’s what amazes me — he turned pain into sound, anger into art. Isn’t that a kind of alchemy?

Host: The neon light outside flashed, painting their faces with red and blue, as if the universe couldn’t decide which emotion to give them.

Jack: Maybe. Or maybe it’s just decay dressed up as beauty. People like Cornell — they don’t get rid of their anger; they just reshape it until it stops screaming.

Jeeny: (raising an eyebrow) You make it sound like we’re supposed to stay angry forever.

Jack: (bitterly) Maybe we are. The world gives you every reason to be. Injustice, greed, lies, loss — it piles up until rage becomes your only language.

Jeeny: (gently) But you can’t speak that language forever. It’s like shouting into an empty canyon — sooner or later, you realize it’s just your own echo coming back.

Host: The rain intensified, sliding down the window like veins of silver. Jack’s reflection wavered in the glass, blurred by the movement of water — as if even the weather couldn’t hold him steady.

Jack: (quietly) You think anger fades because we outgrow it. I think it fades because it loses. After enough years, you stop fighting, not because you’ve found peace, but because you’ve stopped believing anything changes.

Jeeny: (leans forward) But isn’t that just another kind of anger — the quiet kind? The one that doesn’t burn, it just sighs?

Jack: (half-smiling) You always find poetry in decay.

Jeeny: (soft laugh) Maybe because decay is honest. But there’s something else, too — when you’ve been angry long enough, you start to see it for what it really was. Fear, hurt, grief. Anger is the mask pain wears until it’s ready to speak.

Host: The light above their table flickered, a single bulb struggling to stay alive. The room smelled faintly of rain and cigarettes, and in that small space, time seemed to fold in on itself — as if the past had never left.

Jack: (his voice lower now) You know, I used to wake up angry. No reason. Just… the weight of existing. Like everything was an insult. And for a while, that rage kept me going. It gave me something to carry when I had nothing else.

Jeeny: (nodding slowly) I think a lot of people live like that. The fire keeps them warm, even as it burns them.

Jack: (sighs) Yeah. But the thing about fire — it eats its own fuel. Eventually, there’s nothing left to feed it.

Jeeny: (softly) And then?

Jack: Then you just sit in the ash.

Host: The silence between them was thick, but not empty. Outside, the rain began to lighten, turning into a mist that blurred the streetlights into halos.

Jeeny: (after a long pause) Maybe that’s what he meant — Cornell. Not that the anger disappears, but that you get bored of it. It stops giving you anything new. It stops making you feel alive.

Jack: (looking up at her) Or maybe you stop expecting it to.

Jeeny: (meeting his eyes) Isn’t that what growing up is, Jack? Realizing anger was never a weapon — just a wound that never got to heal.

Host: The wind pushed against the window, a low groan, like the city itself was listening. Jack’s jaw tightened, his eyes glinting with that old, familiar fire — the one he thought he’d buried years ago.

Jack: You talk about healing like it’s simple. But what if the wound’s part of who you are? If you let it close, who are you then?

Jeeny: (whispering) Free.

Jack: (smirks) Free? Or empty?

Jeeny: (leans closer) Maybe both. Maybe that’s the trade — to give up the rage that once kept you alive so you can finally learn how to live.

Host: Her words hung in the air, soft yet immovable, like the smell of rain-soaked wood. Jack’s breathing slowed; his shoulders eased. He looked at her, really looked — as if seeing her not as a mirror to his pain, but as the first light after it.

Jack: (quietly) You think peace is possible for people like us?

Jeeny: (smiles faintly) Not peace like silence. Peace like… the moment after a song ends, when the notes still echo inside you. It doesn’t erase what came before — it just lets you breathe again.

Host: The neon sign outside finally died, its last flicker fading into darkness. The bar felt softer now — not cold, not lonely, just still.

Jack: (softly, almost to himself) Maybe that’s what he meant. Not that anger dies — just that we stop needing it to define us.

Jeeny: (nods) And maybe that’s the quiet grace of getting older. You start realizing that what once fueled you now just weighs you down.

Jack: (half-smiling) So what do we fill the silence with, then?

Jeeny: (looking out the window) Maybe with understanding. Or forgiveness. Or maybe just with the sound of the rain finally letting go.

Host: The camera would pull back slowly, the two figures framed against the window, the city lights beyond them dim, the streets wet and shining like memory.

The quote — Chris Cornell’s weary wisdom — still echoed between them:
“The sense of anger I had when I was younger is something I thought would never go away. Over time, it’s something you get almost bored with.”

And as the rain eased into silence, Jack and Jeeny sat there — two souls who had burned, endured, and learned that even anger, once sacred, must one day be set down.

For in the end, the flame does not die —
it simply learns to glow without the need to consume.