Whatever else is unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world a

Host: The rain fell in slow, silver threads, dripping off the edges of an old rooftop café. The city below glowed — not with glamour, but with weariness — the kind that came from too many neon lights and not enough stars. The hour was late; the streets half-empty, half-alive. Inside, a faint radio hummed an old Irish tune, something ancient and tired, like a memory refusing to die.

At a corner table, Jack sat hunched, a cup of black coffee before him, steam rising like a small ghost. Jeeny sat across, her hands wrapped around her own cup, her eyes reflecting the rain-lit street outside. Between them lay an old photo — a mother and child, smiling into a sun that no longer existed.

Host: Tonight’s conversation wasn’t about work, or love, or politics. It was about something older, something sacred, born in the blood before words could even name it.

Jeeny: “James Joyce once said, ‘Whatever else is unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world a mother’s love is not.’” Her voice trembled — not from uncertainty, but from memory. “And I believe that, Jack. In this whole messy, rotting world, that kind of love is the only thing that never lies.”

Jack gave a quiet snort, eyes still on his coffee.

Jack: “Never lies? That’s a bit dramatic, don’t you think? I’ve seen mothers abandon their kids for less than a bottle of cheap gin. Love’s not sacred — it’s just chemical. Oxytocin, biology, the survival instinct of the species. That’s what you call eternal.”

Host: His tone was cold, but his hands betrayed him — the way they tightened, shook, then stilled again. A man arguing not just with Jeeny, but with the ghost of his own past.

Jeeny: “And yet,” she said softly, “you still came to her funeral, didn’t you?”

Jack froze. The rain outside seemed to pause.

Host: The word hung in the air, sharp as glass. Jack looked up, eyes pale with something between anger and hurt.

Jack: “Don’t,” he said quietly. “You don’t know what she was like.”

Jeeny: “Then tell me,” she whispered. “Tell me why you think her love wasn’t real.”

Host: He leaned back, his jaw tight, breath shallow. The lights from the street caught the side of his face, tracing the hard lines that life had carved there.

Jack: “She left. I was ten. She said she’d come back after the weekend — she didn’t. My old man drank himself into silence. You tell me, Jeeny — is that love? If it is, I don’t want it.”

Jeeny looked down at the photo, her fingers brushing it gently, as though touching the pain within it.

Jeeny: “Maybe she loved you in her own broken way, Jack. People don’t stop loving just because they leave. Sometimes they leave because they can’t love themselves enough to stay.”

Host: The rain began again, harder this time — like a pulse from the sky itself.

Jack: “You sound like one of those self-help blogs. ‘They hurt you because they’re hurting.’” He gave a bitter laugh. “Some people are just selfish, Jeeny. You can dress it up however you like.”

Jeeny: “No,” she said firmly now. “I’ve seen selfishness, Jack. I’ve seen people step over others just to feel tall. But a mother — a real one — she carries something deeper. Even when she fails, even when she breaks, her heart keeps beating for her child. It’s not logic. It’s not choice. It’s something primal — like the sea always returning to the shore.”

Host: Her voice cracked, the kind that only comes when truth rubs against pain. She took a slow breath, then continued.

Jeeny: “My mom — she had cancer when I was sixteen. She used to wake up at night just to make sure I was warm. Even when she couldn’t walk without help, she’d still ask me if I’d eaten. That kind of love, Jack, it doesn’t care about its own survival.”

Jack looked away, eyes unfocused. His fingers traced the rim of his cup, round and round.

Jack: “You talk like you know love’s rules. But love isn’t always kind, Jeeny. Sometimes it’s just a wound that never heals. My mother wrote once — from another town, years later. I tore the letter before I finished it. I didn’t want her guilt.”

Jeeny: “But you kept the photo,” she said quietly.

Host: The camera lingered on that — the photo, slightly creased, edges yellowed, faces frozen in sunlight. Proof that even bitterness carries memory like a scar that refuses to fade.

Jack: “Maybe I just didn’t have the heart to throw it away.”

Jeeny: “That is the heart, Jack. That’s what Joyce meant — even in the stink of this world, even in the rot of betrayal and cruelty, something of a mother’s love stays pure. It survives us. It haunts us. It forgives us.”

Host: Her words settled like ash after a fire — soft, heavy, inevitable.

Jack: “You think it forgives me?”

Jeeny: “Yes,” she whispered. “Because she loved you. Not perfectly, not cleanly — but completely, in her flawed human way.”

Host: The rain began to slow, the sound softer now, as though the world was listening. Jack’s eyes were wet, but he didn’t wipe them. He just sat there, breathing, each breath more like a confession.

Jack: “When I was a kid, she used to sing to me. Something about a river. I can still hear it sometimes. Funny, huh? I can’t remember her face that well, but I can still hear her voice.”

Jeeny smiled faintly. “Because sound doesn’t fade the same way. It stays in the body. Maybe that’s how love works too — it stays where memory can’t reach.”

Host: The lights in the café flickered. Outside, the rain had stopped completely. The sky was still grey, but there was a faint glow on the horizon — the kind of light that comes just before dawn, hesitant yet alive.

Jack looked out the window, his expression softening.

Jack: “You know what’s strange? I hated her for leaving. But now… I think I just miss her. Maybe that’s what forgiveness feels like.”

Jeeny reached out, placing her hand gently on his. “Maybe that’s what love feels like.”

Host: For a long moment, neither spoke. The city hummed quietly around them — a thousand souls, each carrying their own versions of love, loss, and the spaces in between.

A faint sunlight broke through the clouds, catching on the raindrops still clinging to the windowpane. The light turned them to tiny jewels, trembling but radiant.

Host: The camera slowly pulled back — two figures in a quiet café, the rain ending, the light returning. The world outside still uncertain, still imperfect — but inside, a single truth remained sure, shining like the last drop of gold in a storm-tossed sea:

Whatever else is unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world — a mother’s love is not.