Time flies so quick. I remember my second year in business when

Host: The gallery was quiet after hours — the kind of stillness that belongs only to places filled with creation. Spotlights cast gentle halos on mannequins dressed in silk, lace, and shadow. The walls whispered with reflections of fabric and memory, each gown holding a fragment of its maker’s soul.

Outside, the city glowed — a restless sprawl of light and ambition. Inside, time itself seemed to slow, as though the past and present had decided to share the same breath.

Jack stood by a mannequin in a gown of white chiffon, his grey eyes scanning the delicate folds. Jeeny walked up beside him, her hand trailing along the soft fabric as if feeling the pulse of the designer’s heart still lingering there.

Jeeny: Quietly. “You can almost feel it, can’t you? The moment of arrival. The first time someone saw your work and said, ‘Yes. This belongs here.’”

Jack: Half-smiling. “You mean that strange mix of disbelief and pride? Yeah. I think every creator knows it.”

Host: She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a small folded card — a quote printed on fine paper, the ink a little smudged as if handled too often:
‘Time flies so quick. I remember my second year in business when Bullocks Wilshire did a whole window of my white dresses. I was so excited, I went there at night and took pictures.’ — Tadashi Shoji

Jeeny: Reading it softly, reverently. “Time flies so quick… That’s the part that gets me. You spend years dreaming, working, worrying, then suddenly — it’s happened. And it’s already gone.”

Jack: Nods, staring at the gown. “Yeah. The irony of success — it arrives too fast to feel, and disappears too soon to keep.”

Host: The lights dimmed slightly as the timer clicked into its nightly rhythm, leaving them in a warm half-darkness that made the gowns glow faintly, ghostlike, eternal.

Jeeny: “I think about Shoji sneaking out at night just to see his dresses in that window. That kind of wonder — it’s rare. That hunger to witness your own dream from the outside.”

Jack: Quietly. “Maybe that’s what art really is — the moment your private obsession steps into the public light. And you can’t quite believe it’s yours anymore.”

Jeeny: “And so you take pictures. To prove it was real.”

Jack: Smiles faintly. “Yeah. Because success never feels as solid as failure. Failure stays. It teaches. Success? It slips through your fingers before you even know how to hold it.”

Host: Her eyes softened, reflecting the faint shimmer of sequins and satin around them. The silence hummed like music too soft to name.

Jeeny: “That’s the tragedy of time, isn’t it? It only moves one way — forward. But the heart keeps turning around, trying to see one more glimpse of what’s already passed.”

Jack: “You make nostalgia sound like a religion.”

Jeeny: “Isn’t it? We worship what we can’t relive. We build altars out of old dreams.”

Host: The rain began to fall outside, each drop a small percussion against the glass. The mannequins seemed to shimmer, caught between fashion and spirit.

Jack: “You know, I envy him — Shoji. That purity. The joy of creation before the machinery of commerce eats it alive. The moment when you’re just proud.”

Jeeny: “But that’s why his story matters. He didn’t stay up that night to celebrate money or fame. He stayed up because he’d seen his imagination made visible. That’s as close as humans get to magic.”

Jack: Softly. “You really believe art is magic?”

Jeeny: “Completely. Every sketch, every stitch, every note, every word — it’s someone wrestling time itself, trying to hold onto a moment that refuses to last.”

Jack: Leaning against the display case, his voice low. “Then time always wins.”

Jeeny: Gently. “Maybe. But art makes sure it doesn’t win alone.”

Host: The lights flickered as the rain intensified, drumming harder against the wide glass windows of the gallery. Outside, the city blurred — headlights smearing into streaks of gold and white, like brushstrokes on wet canvas.

Jack: “You know, I used to think legacy meant building something that lasts forever. Now I think it’s about how deeply you live in the moment before it fades.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. You can’t control time. But you can choose what you fill it with. And sometimes, that’s enough.”

Host: Her words settled between them like the echo of truth — soft, steady, unresisted.

Jack: “I wonder if Shoji still has those pictures. The ones he took that night.”

Jeeny: “Probably. People like that — creators — they never forget the first time they saw themselves through the world’s eyes.”

Jack: After a pause. “You ever had a moment like that? When your work looked back at you?”

Jeeny: Smiles faintly. “Once. When a line I’d written ended up quoted in a book I didn’t even know existed. I saw it by accident. It was like meeting a version of myself I didn’t remember writing.”

Jack: “And what did you feel?”

Jeeny: “Awe. And a little grief. Because that girl — the one who wrote it — she’s gone. But her words stayed.”

Host: The clock on the wall ticked gently — each second falling like silk. The mannequins stood tall, eternal, unfeeling, yet somehow alive through the gazes they invited.

Jack: “Maybe that’s the curse of creators — we live in moments that can’t last. We build things to preserve time, but they end up preserving us instead.”

Jeeny: “That’s not a curse, Jack. That’s immortality in disguise.”

Host: The lights dimmed further — the automatic system preparing to shut down for the night. Their reflections shimmered faintly in the glass — two figures surrounded by art, youth, memory, and the slow mercy of time.

Jeeny: Whispering. “Time flies so quick… and all we can do is take pictures — mental or real — before the light changes.”

Jack: Smiling softly. “Then maybe living is just that: learning when to click the shutter.”

Host: The camera would pull back now — the gallery seen from outside, its windows glowing against the rain. Inside, two people lingered a moment longer, framed by the white gowns that seemed to float like spirits of memory.

Because Tadashi Shoji was right —
time flies so quick,
and all our triumphs, no matter how grand,
live only in the small, quiet moments when we stop to notice them.

The secret isn’t to hold time still.
It’s to love it as it passes —
to build, to create, to capture —
and, in doing so,
to become part of the very thing that time can never take away.