Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

Host: The wind howled through the empty train station, dragging along the smell of metal, smoke, and the faint ghost of departure. The clock on the far wall had stopped at 11:47, as if time itself had grown tired of waiting. Under the flickering fluorescent lights, two figures stood at the edge of the platform — Jack and Jeeny — their faces pale beneath the trembling neon hum.

The rain outside fell in steady sheets, painting the glass doors with streaks of silver, the kind that make the world blur, like memory dissolving into mist.

Jack’s coat was damp, his hair disheveled, his fists clenched. Jeeny stood a few feet away, her umbrella resting on the bench, eyes steady, her breathing calm, though her hands trembled faintly, betraying a hidden fear.

On the bench between them lay a crumpled newspaper, its headline screaming in bold:
“Protest Turns Violent — Three Injured, One Dead.”
Below it, a quote she had written by hand, as if to remind him:
“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.” — Isaac Asimov.

Jack: (hoarse) “Don’t quote me books tonight, Jeeny. You weren’t there. You didn’t see how they looked at us — like we were animals. You don’t understand what it’s like to be pushed so far you forget what you’re fighting for.”

Jeeny: (softly) “I understand more than you think. But violence, Jack… it doesn’t make you heard. It just changes the kind of silence that follows.”

Host: The lights flickered, a weak pulse of electric breath in the hollow station. Rainwater trickled down the windows, drawing uneven lines, like the paths of two people who had tried to walk together but always drifted apart.

Jack: “What would you have done, huh? When they hit your friend, when you saw him bleeding on the ground while those uniforms laughed? You think you’d still be quoting Asimov then?”

Jeeny: “Maybe not. Maybe I’d have wanted to hit back too. But I also know that rage is the easiest thing to reach for and the hardest thing to let go of. And that’s why it’s dangerous. It feels like justice, but it’s just control you’ve lost.”

Host: Jack’s eyes flashed — not with hatred, but with hurt — a deep, desperate kind of pain that burns only in those who once believed in something pure. He turned away, breathing hard, his reflection broken across the rain-streaked glass like a man split between who he was and who he had become.

Jack: “You always make it sound so damn simple — like peace is just a choice you make. But out there, when they’ve taken your dignity, your voice, your future — peace doesn’t even make the list. You want to feel like you exist, even if it means fighting.”

Jeeny: “But violence doesn’t make you exist, Jack. It just makes you like them. Every revolution that forgot compassion became another tyranny. Remember Robespierre? He started with justice, ended with the guillotine. The line between freedom and fury is thinner than you think.”

Jack: “You talk about history like it’s some neat lesson plan, Jeeny. But people don’t bleed in lessons. They bleed in streets.”

Jeeny: “And they keep bleeding because no one learns from those streets.”

Host: A train horn wailed in the distance — a long, low cry that filled the station and shuddered against the walls. Neither of them moved. The sound seemed to hang in the air, stretching the moment thin, like a wire pulled to its breaking point.

Jack: (lower) “You think I wanted this? I didn’t go there to hurt anyone. I went to speak. But when they hit us — when they called us dogs — something just… snapped.”

Jeeny: “That’s what I’m saying. Violence doesn’t begin with hate, Jack. It begins with hurt. You think you’re fighting them, but you’re really just fighting the part of yourself that they wounded.”

Host: Her voice trembled not from fear, but from truth. The echo of it seemed to cling to the air, like a melody that refused to end. Jack looked at her, his face hard, but his eyes — his eyes were beginning to listen.

Jack: “You think I’m incompetent then? Is that what you’re saying? That I’m too stupid to find another way?”

Jeeny: (quietly) “No, Jack. I think you’re too good to settle for this one.”

Host: The rain outside softened, turning into a fine mist. The light above them steadied. For the first time that night, the station seemed to breathe again.

Jeeny: “Asimov didn’t mean that the angry are fools. He meant that when all your imagination dies, when you can’t see any path except the one with blood on it — that’s when you’ve lost your competence. Because violence is what we choose when we’ve run out of wisdom.”

Jack: (bitterly) “Wisdom doesn’t stop a baton, Jeeny.”

Jeeny: “No. But it stops the need to become the hand that holds one.”

Host: A long pause followed — the kind where two souls stand on opposite sides of a line, waiting to see if either will step forward. The station clock, though broken, seemed to tick again in their minds — marking each second of unspoken reckoning.

Jack: “You ever think maybe violence is just what’s left when the world’s logic stops working?”

Jeeny: “No. I think it’s what happens when we stop listening to what pain is trying to say.”

Host: Jack’s breathing slowed, his shoulders lowered, and something in his face softened — not defeat, but recognition. He had spent too long shouting, and suddenly, in her quiet, he could hear the echo of his own rage — hollow, endless, tired.

Jack: “You really think words can stop violence?”

Jeeny: “Not words. Understanding. The moment you see the fear in the person you hate — the same fear that’s in you — the weapon starts to feel heavier.”

Host: Jack looked down at his hands, scarred and strong, the hands that had thrown stones, that had pushed, that had hit. For the first time, they looked foreign to him — like tools built for something he no longer wanted to do.

Jeeny: “You know what’s worse than being hurt, Jack?”

Jack: “What?”

Jeeny: “Becoming the reason someone else is.”

Host: Her voice cracked — just once — but it was enough to break the remaining armor in him. He sat down heavily on the bench, head bowed, the fight gone.

Jack: “Maybe I am a fool. Maybe I thought anger was strength, that violence was action. But all it did was make me feel empty afterward.”

Jeeny: “That’s because violence doesn’t solve anything, Jack. It just resets the hurt — passes it on, generation to generation, until someone decides to stop.”

Host: The train horn sounded again — closer this time — its rumble rolling through the floor beneath them. Jeeny picked up her umbrella, and Jack stood, his eyes tired, but finally clear.

Jack: “So what do we do now?”

Jeeny: “We do what the competent do, Jack. We think, we listen, we build. We make justice without fire, and change without blood. We become what they said we never could — better.”

Host: The train arrived, its doors sliding open with a quiet hiss, like an exhale of the night itself. They stepped inside, side by side, the lights of the station reflecting in the glass as the train pulled away.

Outside, the rain had stopped. The world, though still broken, seemed just a little more forgiving.

And in the reflection, for the first time, Jack’s eyes no longer carried anger — only resolve.

Host: The words of Asimov lingered in the air, silent but certain, like a truth written into the bones of every civilization:
“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.”

For those who dare to imagine, there is always another refuge — one built not from fear, but from understanding.
And that night, as the train disappeared into the dark, two souls began to build it.