To have frequent recourse to narrative betrays great want of

Host:
The theatre was empty — a cavern of echoes and forgotten applause. Rows of velvet seats faded in the dim amber glow of the stage lights, and a faint dust hung in the air like the residue of dreams. A script lay open on a chair, its pages curled and yellowed by time, filled with ink and correction marks — the skeleton of a story that had been told too many times.

Jack stood on the stage, his hands buried in his coat pockets, staring out into the dark void where an audience should have been. His grey eyes gleamed faintly, reflecting the lonely sheen of the spotlights. He was a man built for words but tired of hearing them, as though language itself had grown stale.

Jeeny sat cross-legged on the edge of the stage, her notebook resting beside her. Her hair fell over her face as she scribbled quietly, the sound of the pen scraping paper the only proof that imagination still breathed here.

The air between them was heavy with silence — not hostility, but the slow ache of two creators who had said too much and felt too little.

Jeeny:
(Without looking up)
Philip Stanhope once said, “To have frequent recourse to narrative betrays great want of imagination.”

(She glances up at him)
You ever think about that, Jack? That maybe we explain too much because we’ve stopped feeling enough?

Jack:
(With a faint smirk)
Ah, Chesterfield — the gentleman who thought subtlety was the height of intelligence. Easy to say when your imagination has servants.

Jeeny:
(Laughing softly)
Maybe. But he had a point. We narrate when we can’t evoke. When we lose the courage to let silence carry meaning.

Jack:
(Stepping forward, voice low)
Or maybe narrative is the last refuge of the desperate — the only way to make sense of chaos when imagination turns its back.

Jeeny:
(Smiling faintly)
Or the easiest way to avoid living what you’re describing.

Host:
The light from the footlamps flickered, throwing shadows that moved like ghosts across the worn wooden stage. Jack’s silhouette loomed over her — tall, restless, brimming with intellect that often disguised his fatigue. Jeeny’s tone was gentle, but her words struck with the precision of an artist defending her craft.

Jack:
You think words get in the way?

Jeeny:
Sometimes. The best stories don’t need to be told — they just need to be felt.

Jack:
(Quietly)
And yet, here we are. Talking about imagination instead of imagining.

Jeeny:
(Looking up at him)
Exactly. That’s the problem. We narrate to control. To name the emotion instead of drowning in it.

Jack:
(Sitting beside her)
So you think the greatest storytellers don’t tell stories at all?

Jeeny:
I think the greatest storytellers suggest stories — they build silence around ideas and trust imagination to fill the gaps.

Jack:
You’re describing poetry.

Jeeny:
Exactly. Poetry trusts you. Narrative explains you.

Host:
The sound of the old theatre creaked softly — wood settling into memory. Jack rubbed his thumb against his knee, his expression thoughtful. The idea stung, but also shimmered with truth.

Jack:
You know, I used to think narrative was mercy. That giving people a beginning, middle, and end made the chaos survivable.

Jeeny:
Maybe it does. But mercy’s not always imagination.

Jack:
So what is imagination, then?

Jeeny:
(Softly)
It’s trust. The courage to show someone the edge of a dream and let them step off it alone.

Jack:
You’d make a terrible novelist.

Jeeny:
And you’d make a brilliant confessor — you’d rather tell than reveal.

Jack:
(With a faint grin)
Telling is safer. Revealing costs blood.

Jeeny:
(Quietly)
Exactly. And that’s why imagination’s rarer than narrative — it demands vulnerability, not vocabulary.

Host:
Her words lingered in the air like candle smoke. Jack leaned back, his eyes tracing the stage’s ceiling — the ropes, the cracked plaster, the faint hum of the past pressing in.

The stage was a metaphor, and they both knew it — a place where pretending and truth had always traded masks.

Jack:
(After a long silence)
You know what I think Chesterfield missed? That sometimes, narrative isn’t weakness — it’s ritual. We retell what we can’t let go of.

Jeeny:
(Smiling)
Yes. But imagination would make you face it — live it — instead of looping it. Narrative keeps you safe in memory. Imagination drags you forward.

Jack:
(Smiling faintly)
So imagination is motion.

Jeeny:
And narrative is nostalgia.

Jack:
(Quietly)
That’s brutal.

Jeeny:
It’s true. You’ve built your life on narrative, Jack. Logic. Explanation. You’re terrified of what happens when the story stops making sense.

Jack:
(After a pause)
And you?

Jeeny:
I build my life on silence. On what words can’t carry. That’s where imagination breathes.

Host:
The spotlight above them buzzed faintly. The rest of the theatre lay in shadow — rows upon rows of empty seats that seemed to listen, hungry for something unscripted.

Jack stood, pacing slowly, his footsteps echoing. He stopped at center stage, where the light hit him full.

Jack:
You ever think imagination’s dangerous?

Jeeny:
Of course. It shows you too much truth at once.

Jack:
Maybe that’s why people cling to narrative — it filters the light.

Jeeny:
But filters dim the stars, too.

Jack:
(Softly)
You and your stars.

Jeeny:
(Laughing)
You and your fences.

Host:
The banter was gentle, but beneath it lay the gravity of two philosophies colliding: one born of control, the other of chaos embraced.

Jack turned toward her, eyes intense.

Jack:
You really think imagination can survive without words?

Jeeny:
Yes. Imagination lives in what words fail to express.

Jack:
Then why do you write?

Jeeny:
To map the distance between what I mean and what I can’t say.

Jack:
And narrative?

Jeeny:
Narrative is when I stop trusting the distance. When I panic and start explaining.

Jack:
(Smiling faintly)
You make imagination sound like faith — silent, irrational, impossible to prove.

Jeeny:
That’s because it is. It’s not a skill, Jack. It’s surrender.

Host:
Her voice grew softer, trembling at the edge of vulnerability. Jack stared at her — the poet who never preached, the dreamer who refused to decorate her meaning.

He stepped closer, lowering his tone.

Jack:
Maybe I envy you.

Jeeny:
Why?

Jack:
Because you can live in uncertainty and call it beauty. I keep trying to build logic around miracles.

Jeeny:
(Smiling gently)
Then stop building. Let it collapse. Let the story end so imagination can begin.

Jack:
And what if it never begins?

Jeeny:
It already has — you just haven’t stopped talking long enough to notice.

Host:
The light overhead dimmed slowly, bathing the stage in golden shadow. The theatre seemed to exhale. Jack and Jeeny stood in silence — two silhouettes framed by the glow of understanding.

Outside, the faint hum of the city drifted in, carrying the sound of a saxophone somewhere far away — improvisation itself, born from imagination unbound.

Host:
And in that quiet theatre, they both understood what Philip Stanhope had meant:

That imagination does not narrate — it reveals.
That the true act of creation begins where explanation ends.
That to reach the soul of meaning, one must stop telling and start feeling.

Narrative is control.
Imagination is surrender.
And the artist, suspended between the two, must decide whether to speak or to listen.

Host:
The stage light dimmed to black.
The air trembled.

And in the darkness — deeper than language, quieter than thought —
Jack and Jeeny finally heard the sound of imagination breathing,
unwritten, untamed, and gloriously alive.