Time is kind of an amazing thing because you can do so much with

Host: The subway hummed beneath the city, a low metallic pulse carrying the echo of a thousand lives in motion. Fluorescent lights flickered over faces, weary and dream-stuck, lost in their screens. The walls were tattooed with graffiti, each stroke a whisper of rebellion, each color a brief defiance against the grey.

Jack sat slouched in the corner seat, his earbuds dangling, a faint buzz of static playing where music used to live. Jeeny stood beside him, one hand gripping the pole, her reflection shimmering in the dark window, her eyes catching every passing light like a camera recording the heartbeat of the world.

Jeeny: “You ever think about how much time we waste down here?”

Jack: (without looking up) “I think about how much time we don’t have. That’s different.”

Jeeny: “Billie Eilish said something once — that time is kind of amazing because you can do so much with it, but people underestimate it. I think about that a lot when I see everyone staring at their phones. Like they’re bleeding their hours away.”

Jack: (smirks) “You sound like my grandfather. ‘Put your phone down and live a little.’”

Jeeny: “And you sound like someone mistaking distraction for living.”

Host: The train screeched into a station, the doors sliding open with a hiss. A wave of warm air and city noise swept in — the murmur of vendors, the distant honking, the muffled cry of a street singer. Neither moved.

Jack: “You think time is this magic thing you can ‘do so much with’? Most of it’s just filler. Commutes, jobs, errands, sleep. You spend half your life doing things you don’t even choose.”

Jeeny: “And the other half you waste complaining about it.”

Jack: “You don’t get it. People talk about using time wisely — like it’s some tool you can hold. But it’s slippery. You blink, and it’s gone.”

Jeeny: “That’s why it’s precious, Jack. Because it’s slippery. You don’t hold it — you enter it. You live inside it.”

Jack: “Poetic. But tell that to someone working double shifts. You think they can just ‘enter time’ and make it art?”

Jeeny: “Yes. Even exhaustion is time lived. Even pain counts. You can make the smallest second mean something — if you notice it.”

Host: The lights flickered, briefly plunging the car into darkness. A few faces glowed from phone screens, the rest stared into the black window, where their reflections looked like ghosts. When the lights returned, Jack was watching Jeeny — half amused, half moved.

Jack: “You make it sound like time’s alive.”

Jeeny: “Isn’t it? It changes everything it touches. It grows trees, heals wounds, turns children into strangers, lovers into memories. It’s not just passing through us — we’re passing through it.”

Jack: (leans back, thoughtful) “So, what, you think scrolling TikTok is a sin against time?”

Jeeny: (grinning) “Only if it’s the only way you measure your day.”

Jack: “But you do it too.”

Jeeny: “Yeah. I fall into the screen like everyone else. But sometimes I look up. That’s the difference.”

Host: The train lurched forward again. Advertisements flashed through the windows like short dreams — vacations, perfumes, fast food — each promising happiness in thirty seconds. Jeeny turned her face away from the blur, her voice softer now.

Jeeny: “Do you know what scares me most? Not dying — but wasting time pretending to live. Billie was right. People underestimate time because they think they have more of it. But time isn’t generous, Jack. It’s polite. It lets you think you’re in control.”

Jack: “You sound like you’re blaming people for existing.”

Jeeny: “No. I’m saying existence isn’t enough. It’s not the same as being alive. You can sit on your phone for hours and call that resting — but what are you resting from? What are you resting for?”

Jack: “Maybe people are just tired. Not lazy, just… empty.”

Jeeny: “Then time’s the one thing that could fill them again. If they’d let it.”

Host: The tunnel roared outside — a steady wind, an endless dark river. Inside the car, a child laughed at a balloon twisting between her hands. The sound was small, but it cut through everything — the metal, the grind, the static — like pure, uncomplicated life.

Jack noticed it too.

Jack: “You ever think maybe people bury themselves in screens because reality’s too heavy? The news, the noise, the chaos — it’s all too much. The phone’s a small, controllable world. It’s... safer.”

Jeeny: “Safer isn’t the same as better. You can’t build meaning from safety alone. You can’t grow there.”

Jack: “Easy for you to say. You find poetry in weeds.”

Jeeny: (smiling) “Because weeds are still alive. That’s what counts.”

Jack: “You think every second can mean something, huh?”

Jeeny: “Not every second. But any second.”

Host: The city flashed by — billboards, streetlights, the faint neon pulse of a sleepless world. Jack’s face reflected in the window, his eyes caught between the past and the glow of the present.

Jack: “You ever feel like time’s mocking you? Like it’s running faster the more you notice it?”

Jeeny: “That’s because noticing means you’re finally alive. Time moves differently when you’re awake.”

Jack: “Then maybe ignorance is bliss.”

Jeeny: “No. Ignorance is sleepwalking. Bliss is knowing time’s fleeting and loving it anyway.”

Jack: “You make it sound like we’re supposed to worship every second.”

Jeeny: “Not worship — witness. There’s a difference. Worship is blind. Witnessing means seeing it all — even the boring, even the ugly — and still saying, ‘This counts.’”

Host: A man in a wrinkled suit snored softly in the next seat. A woman scrolled through photos of food she never tasted. A teenager stared at his reflection in the black glass, eyes glazed with scrolling light. The train felt like a mirror of the world — everyone moving, no one arriving.

Jeeny: “You ever wonder how many people will look up one day and realize they’ve lived most of their life in other people’s worlds — through screens, through shows, through someone else’s timeline?”

Jack: “And what’s the alternative? Staring at the wall?”

Jeeny: “No. Staring at the sky.”

Jack: (scoffs) “That’s not productive.”

Jeeny: “Neither is wonder. But it’s necessary.”

Host: The train emerged from the tunnel, spilling into sunlight. For a moment, the windows filled with blue — the same color as a Billie Eilish lyric, like a bruise turning beautiful.

Jack shielded his eyes, blinking. Jeeny smiled at the way he squinted at the brightness, as if the world had surprised him.

Jack: (softly) “You ever think we romanticize time because we’re afraid of wasting it?”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But maybe that fear keeps us from wasting it completely.”

Jack: “Or maybe it keeps us anxious. Always counting minutes, never living them.”

Jeeny: “Then stop counting. Start listening.”

Jack: “To what?”

Jeeny: “To time itself. It’s not ticking — it’s breathing.”

Host: The sunlight spilled deeper into the car, warming the metal, turning every reflection to gold. The city skyline appeared beyond the window — towers reaching, glimmering, pulsing with invisible seconds.

Jeeny: “You know what I think Billie meant? When she said she didn’t want to sit on her phone for hours — she wasn’t condemning anyone. She was craving something. She wanted to be present in the world before it scrolls past her. That’s what time asks of us — not obedience, but presence.”

Jack: “Presence…” (pauses) “Maybe that’s what I’ve been missing. I’m always either too early or too late — never here.”

Jeeny: (smiling softly) “Then be here now. This train. This light. This breath. That’s all time ever gives us — now.”

Host: The train slowed into the next station, the doors sliding open to the rush of daylight and voices. Jack stood, shouldering his bag, hesitated.

He looked at Jeeny, then out the window, where the world moved — raw, bright, alive.

Jack: (quietly) “Maybe time isn’t running out. Maybe it’s waiting.”

Jeeny: “Exactly.”

Jack: “Then I don’t want to waste it.”

Jeeny: “Then don’t. Look up.”

Host: He did. For the first time that day, Jack looked up — not at a screen, not at a clock — but at the vast, impossible sky above the city, where the sunlight scattered like music.

For a brief, weightless moment, time stopped pretending to be an enemy — and became a companion.

And in that bright, fleeting second — both of them, the cynic and the dreamer, breathed the same quiet thought:

“We still have time.”