There is no end to the violations committed by children on

Host: The rain had just begun — a slow, persistent drizzle that clung to the edges of the windowpane like old memories refusing to fade. The streetlights outside flickered through the mist, bending their pale glow into trembling halos. Inside the small apartment, the air was thick with silence — that heavy, aching kind of silence that arrives not from peace, but from the weight of things unspoken.

The living room was dim, lit only by a single lamp whose shade was cracked. A half-finished bottle of wine stood on the table, beside two untouched glasses. Jack sat on the worn couch, his hands clasped together, knuckles white. Jeeny stood by the window, her hair damp from the rain, her reflection dissolving and reforming against the glass.

Neither spoke for a long time. The clock ticked — steady, indifferent. Then Jeeny finally broke the silence, her voice soft but trembling with restrained intensity.

Jeeny: “Elizabeth Bowen once wrote, ‘There is no end to the violations committed by children on children, quietly talking alone.’ I read that line today, Jack... and I couldn’t stop thinking about it.”

Host: Jack lifted his head slowly, his eyes gray and distant — like someone seeing ghosts only he could name.

Jack: “It’s a strange quote. Almost cruel in how true it feels. We think cruelty begins in adulthood — with wars, systems, politics. But no... it begins in the playground. In whispers. In the way one child learns to wound another without even knowing what cruelty means.”

Jeeny: “Yes. The first violence isn’t physical — it’s emotional. A glance. A laugh. A word. That’s how we learn hierarchy before we can spell it. Childhood isn’t innocence, Jack — it’s rehearsal.”

Host: The lamplight flickered as she spoke, casting their shadows across the peeling wallpaper — two silhouettes, distant yet bound by the same invisible thread of memory.

Jack: “You think we ever grow out of it?”

Jeeny: “No. We just learn to disguise it better. We call it ambition, confidence, leadership. But it’s the same instinct — to dominate, to exclude, to survive by diminishing someone else.”

Host: Jack’s jaw tightened. He looked down, rubbing his thumb across the scar on his hand, an old mark from a forgotten fight in school — a memory he rarely visited.

Jack: “You’re right. I still remember... when I was twelve, there was a boy — small, quiet, always drawing. The rest of us used to laugh at him. Not because we hated him, but because it felt... necessary. Like the world demanded someone be smaller so the rest of us could feel big. I never hit him. But my laughter hit him harder than any fist.”

Jeeny: “And that’s the violation Bowen meant. Not violence with noise — violence in whispers. The kind that hides in conversations, in the quiet ways we learn who matters and who doesn’t.”

Host: The rain pressed harder now, smearing the city’s lights into long streaks of gold and gray. The sound filled the room, but still couldn’t drown out what hung between them — a truth too old and too close.

Jack: “But we were just kids. Can you really hold a child responsible for cruelty they didn’t understand?”

Jeeny: “No, not responsible — but aware. Children feel guilt long before they understand morality. The real tragedy is that adults forget that guilt. They carry the habit, not the remorse. That’s why the world keeps repeating the same small cruelties, just with bigger tools.”

Host: Her voice cracked slightly on the word “repeat.” She turned from the window, her eyes glistening, not from tears, but from a kind of weary clarity.

Jeeny: “I used to sit alone at lunch, you know. When I was little. Not because I wanted to, but because the others had already decided who belonged. They didn’t hit me. They didn’t even speak. They just... looked through me. And somehow, that hurt more. That’s what it means — violations committed quietly, talking alone.”

Jack: “I’m sorry.”

Jeeny: “It’s not about me anymore. It’s about the world we’ve made from those same children. We built offices, governments, families — all with the same unspoken rule: inclusion is power, exclusion is survival.”

Host: Jack rose from the couch, pacing slowly, his steps heavy on the wooden floor. He paused near the bookshelf, running his fingers over the spines of old novels, their titles faded.

Jack: “Maybe we never outgrow childhood. Maybe we just grow taller, get better words, fancier masks. But deep down, we’re still standing in some schoolyard, trying not to be the one left out.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. That’s why there’s no end to those violations. They evolve, they adapt. Today, they’re in the boardroom, on social media, in politics — wherever people talk ‘quietly alone’ to decide who belongs and who doesn’t.”

Host: The wind howled through a crack in the window, sending a thin chill through the room. Jeeny pulled her sweater closer, while Jack leaned against the wall, his expression darkening with thought.

Jack: “So what’s the cure, Jeeny? Awareness? Forgiveness? Or do we just accept that cruelty is part of human nature?”

Jeeny: “No. It’s part of human fear. The fear of being invisible, powerless, unloved. Every cruelty begins with someone trying to escape their own helplessness. We teach children to be strong, but never how to be kind.”

Jack: “Because kindness doesn’t protect you.”

Jeeny: “Neither does cruelty. It just isolates you in a prettier cage.”

Host: The rain softened again, a whisper now. The world outside shimmered with its quiet grief, and the city’s distant hum sounded almost like breath — weary, but alive.

Jack: “You know what’s strange? We always say children are innocent. But maybe innocence isn’t the absence of cruelty — maybe it’s just the ignorance of consequence. Maybe that’s what makes it so pure... and so terrifying.”

Jeeny: “Yes. Innocence without empathy becomes cruelty without awareness. And the worst part? We grow up thinking that’s normal — to hurt as long as it’s quiet.”

Host: A long pause followed — that tender, fragile space where truth finally sinks deep enough to be felt.

Jack: “Do you ever wonder what happened to them? The ones we hurt — or the ones who hurt us?”

Jeeny: “All the time. I think they’re still inside us, sitting in some corner of memory. Every time we feel small, every time we make someone else small. They’re still there, watching, waiting to be acknowledged.”

Host: Jack’s eyes softened. He moved closer to her, standing beside the window. The city’s reflection stretched beneath them — a map of light and shadow, of love and harm intertwined.

Jack: “So maybe the only way to end those violations... is to finally listen to the silence we left behind.”

Jeeny: “Yes. To talk to it. To answer it. To make sure the next child we raise — in the world, or in ourselves — knows that belonging isn’t a prize. It’s a gift we owe each other.”

Host: The rain stopped. The window cleared, revealing a faint moon behind the drifting clouds. The two stood there in stillness, neither speaking, both knowing the conversation had gone beyond words.

The lamplight hummed softly, casting a gentle halo around them. Jack looked at Jeeny, his voice quiet, almost reverent.

Jack: “You know... maybe we never outgrow the child in us. We just decide, every day, which kind of child we want to be — the one who laughs in cruelty, or the one who listens.”

Jeeny: “And maybe that’s how we heal. Not by forgetting, but by remembering differently.”

Host: Outside, the city glowed faintly under the pale moonlight. The world, for a fleeting moment, seemed fragile but forgiving — like an old wound that no longer bleeds, only reminds.

And in that stillness, Bowen’s words lingered — not as accusation, but as echo:
There is no end to the violations committed by children on children, quietly talking alone.

Host: Yet tonight, two voices — no longer children, no longer silent — began, at last, to unlearn the quiet.