What is it that love does to a woman? Without she only sleeps;

Host: The night hung heavy over the river, its waters black, silent, and faintly shimmering under a half-moon. The old bridge of the city was nearly empty, save for the sound of distant music drifting from a nearby bar — the lonely echo of a saxophone that seemed to cry and laugh at once. Streetlamps leaned into the darkness, their light breaking in golden puddles across the stone walkway.

On one of the benches, facing the river, Jeeny sat — hands folded around a small paper cup of coffee, eyes unfocused, lost in something too vast for language. Jack stood beside her, a faint smoke curling from the cigarette between his fingers. Neither spoke for a while. The air was thick with that kind of silence that isn’t empty — the kind that’s filled with everything that hasn’t yet been said.

Host: The quote by Ovid had started it all — a sentence from two thousand years ago, still ringing in their heads like a church bell that refused to stop.

Jeeny: Her voice was soft, but it carried a quiet conviction. “He was right, you know. ‘Without it she only sleeps; with it alone, she lives.’ That’s exactly it. Love doesn’t just fill a woman — it awakens her.”

Jack: He exhaled, the smoke drifting into the night. “Awakens her to what, exactly? Pain? Dependence? You make it sound like love is oxygen, and without it, women just... die.”

Jeeny: “Not die. But they forget how to breathe. It’s not about needing a man, Jack — it’s about feeling seen. Love makes a woman remember she’s not invisible.”

Jack: “You don’t think that’s dangerous? To hinge your existence on someone else’s perception? What happens when he stops seeing her? When he walks away?”

Host: The wind moved through the trees, stirring the leaves into a low, mournful rustle. Jeeny’s fingers tightened around the cup, the paper slightly crumpling.

Jeeny: “Then she still lives — because even if love leaves, it leaves something behind. A mark, a memory, a wound maybe — but that’s proof she felt. Without that, life is just... routine. It’s survival, not living.”

Jack: “You romanticize it too much. Love’s not some divine fire, Jeeny. It’s a biological trick — chemicals convincing two people to tolerate each other long enough to reproduce. That’s what evolution says.”

Jeeny: Her eyes flashed. “And yet people have died for it, Jack. Nations have fallen, art has been born, poems written, wars started — all for love. If it were just biology, we’d move on after heartbreak the way we move on from hunger. But we don’t, do we? We bleed.”

Jack: “And we call that noble.” He laughed, a short, bitter sound. “I call it foolish. People destroy themselves chasing something that doesn’t last. Look at Cleopatra — love didn’t awaken her, it consumed her.”

Jeeny: “And yet thousands of years later, you’re still talking about her. She lived through that love more fiercely than most people ever live through reason.”

Host: The river’s surface shifted, rippling under the faint gust. Jack’s reflection shivered, like a man being unmade by the wind.

Jack: “So you’d rather live in fire than in peace?”

Jeeny: “If peace means numbness, yes. I’d rather burn than sleep.”

Host: A long silence followed. The saxophone in the distance had stopped; now there was only the river, the wind, and the occasional sound of footsteps crossing the bridge.

Jack: He dropped his cigarette, crushing it under his boot. “You think love defines women, then?”

Jeeny: “Not defines — transforms. It doesn’t take away who she is. It just reveals it. Like light through glass.”

Jack: “But isn’t that unfair? You don’t think men are changed by love too?”

Jeeny: She smiled, faintly. “Of course they are. But not in the same way. Men often find direction through love — women find existence. It’s not weakness, Jack. It’s a different kind of alchemy.”

Jack: He leaned against the railing, eyes fixed on the water. “You talk like love’s a religion.”

Jeeny: “Maybe it is. The oldest one. And Ovid was its first prophet.”

Host: A laugh slipped from Jack, low, tired, but real. The moonlight caught in his eyes, revealing something softer beneath his cynicism — the faint shadow of someone who had once believed too.

Jack: “You know what love did to me? It made me build a life around someone’s heartbeat. When that heartbeat stopped, the world went silent. And I realized I didn’t know how to live without the noise.”

Jeeny: Her hand moved, hesitant, resting on his for just a moment. “That’s what I mean, Jack. You were alive then. You still are. The pain proves it.”

Jack: “No. The pain proves I was a fool.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. It proves you were human.”

Host: The city lights reflected in the river now like a thousand floating candles. Somewhere, a church bell rang twelve times — each chime deep, resonant, like the slow heartbeat of time itself.

Jeeny: “Do you know what’s worse than heartbreak?”

Jack: “I can think of a few candidates.”

Jeeny: “Indifference. To never have felt anything worth breaking for. That’s real death — the kind Ovid meant when he said a woman without love only sleeps.”

Jack: “And what about when love turns cruel? When it hurts more than it heals?”

Jeeny: “Then you still live — because even in pain, you’re awake. Love isn’t supposed to be safe, Jack. It’s supposed to make you see — even if what you see breaks you.”

Host: Jack looked at her for a long moment, his expression unreadable — part anger, part understanding, part something he could no longer name. The wind lifted a strand of Jeeny’s hair, catching the moonlight like a thread of silver.

Jack: “You know, Ovid ended up exiled. Maybe that’s what happens when you believe too much in love — you get banished from reason.”

Jeeny: “Or maybe exile is just another word for devotion. Some people are born to wander the deserts of love, Jack. And some build walls around themselves so they never have to.”

Jack: “And which am I?”

Jeeny: “You? You’re the man who stands at the wall’s edge, waiting for the courage to climb.”

Host: The river murmured, as if agreeing. A boat passed, its light casting fleeting shadows across their faces — moments of dark, then illumination, then dark again.

Jack: Quietly. “You really think love is worth all this? The risk, the wreckage, the madness?”

Jeeny: She nodded, her voice almost a whisper. “It’s the only thing that makes the wreckage beautiful.”

Host: The moon rose higher, silvering the rooftops, turning the river to a ribbon of light. Jack and Jeeny sat in silence — not as adversaries now, but as two souls standing on opposite shores of the same truth.

Love, they realized, wasn’t about safety or logic or even happiness. It was about life itself — the one thing that could make a person awake, afraid, and divine, all at once.

And as the wind swept over the river, carrying the last faint notes of the saxophone through the night, Jack finally smiled — a small, fragile, human smile.

Because for the first time in years, he felt something.

He was, in the truest sense of Ovid’s words — alive.