When I was a teen, I would draw a really, really long line

Host:
The evening air pulsed with the sound of flamenco guitars and city noise, a heartbeat that belonged both to the streets and to the soul. The bar was dim — its walls covered with peeling posters, its lights a low amber glow, trembling against the bottles behind the counter.

In one corner, Jack sat smoking, the smoke rising like a memory that refused to fade. His eyes, sharp and grey, caught the flicker of the neon sign outside: La Llama — The Flame.

Across from him, Jeeny leaned forward, elbows on the table, her hair black as wet ink, her eyes alive with something raw, something that belonged to music and movement rather than thought.

On the radio, Rosalía’s voice broke through — wild, mournful, full of defiance — and for a moment, everything in the room seemed to breathe in rhythm with her.

Jeeny:
“When I was a teen,” she said suddenly, her voice low but charged, “I used to draw a really, really long line around my eyes with eyeliner — like Lola Flores.”

Jack:
He looked at her, his brow furrowed in half-amusement, half-curiosity. “Is that supposed to mean something profound, or just fashionable?”

Jeeny:
“It meant I wanted to be seen,” she said. “It meant I wanted to feel like I was part of something bigger than me. That line wasn’t makeup, Jack — it was a shield. A symbol. The way I told the world, ‘This is me, and I’m not afraid.’”

Host:
The light caught her eyes, where the faint shimmer of eyeliner still lingered — not as decoration, but as memory.

Jack:
“You think a line of makeup can do all that?” He leaned back, his voice dripping with skepticism. “It’s just a mask, Jeeny. A disguise people wear to hide what they can’t change.”

Jeeny:
She smiled softly. “That’s where you’re wrong. Sometimes, the mask is the only way to reveal yourself. We don’t all get to walk through the world bare-faced and understood.”

Host:
The bartender turned the radio up slightly; Rosalía’s voice grew stronger — fierce and haunting — as if echoing Jeeny’s defiance through every vibrating string.

Jack:
He tapped the ash from his cigarette, eyes thoughtful. “You think that’s what art is? Performance instead of truth?”

Jeeny:
“No,” she said, “I think performance is a kind of truth. Just a louder one. When you draw that line, when you sing like you’re breaking — it’s not pretending. It’s declaring.”

Jack:
He looked at her for a long time. “You always talk about expression like it’s sacred.”

Jeeny:
“Maybe it is,” she said. “When Rosalía sings, when Lola Flores danced — they weren’t just entertaining people. They were bleeding beauty. That’s what that eyeliner line meant to me when I was fifteen. I wasn’t trying to look beautiful, Jack. I was trying to look powerful.”

Host:
Outside, a motorbike roared past, its sound tearing through the night like a note held too long, refusing to fade.

Jack:
He smirked, flicking his cigarette into the ashtray. “Funny. You call that power. I call it armor.”

Jeeny:
She leaned closer, eyes burning now. “Maybe they’re the same thing.”

Jack:
He hesitated — the smoke curling around his face like the thought he couldn’t quite speak. “You ever think,” he said quietly, “that all this — the makeup, the music, the art — it’s just a way of not facing the emptiness inside?”

Jeeny:
“And you ever think,” she shot back, “that maybe that’s exactly what we’re supposed to do? We take the emptiness and we turn it into something beautiful. Isn’t that what creation is?”

Host:
The room pulsed with the sound of clapping from the radio — palmas, the heartbeat of flamenco — raw and urgent, echoing her words.

Jack stared into his glass, watching the whiskey ripple, golden and alive.

Jack:
“I never understood that kind of passion,” he said softly. “To burn so bright you might destroy yourself.”

Jeeny:
Her voice softened. “It’s not destruction, Jack. It’s translation. Some people write to understand the world. Others sing, or dance, or draw eyeliner lines around their eyes like they’re drawing borders around their souls.”

Jack:
He looked at her, and for the first time, something in his expression changed — a flicker of memory, perhaps of his own younger self, before the world taught him to think instead of feel.

Jack:
“So when you looked in the mirror back then,” he asked, “what did you see?”

Jeeny:
She paused, her smile slow, nostalgic. “I saw a girl who wanted to be seen, but not for being perfect — for being alive. That line around my eyes wasn’t a wall, Jack. It was a spotlight.”

Host:
The music swelled — a soft guitar, a voice rising, trembling between power and pain. The air itself seemed to shimmer with memory.

Jack:
“You know,” he said finally, “I think I envy that. That kind of fearlessness. I’ve spent my whole life hiding behind logic, while you were out there painting your face with fire.”

Jeeny:
“And what did logic give you?”

Jack:
He smiled, faintly bitter. “Control.”

Jeeny:
“And what did it cost you?”

Jack:
He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. The silence said everything.

Host:
A gust of wind blew through the open door, flickering the candle on their table. Smoke and flame danced briefly — chaos and order, meeting, blending, separating again.

Jeeny:
“Maybe we all draw lines, Jack,” she said softly. “You draw yours with reason. I draw mine with eyeliner. But both are just ways of saying, ‘Here I am. This is me.’”

Jack:
He looked at her, and for the first time, the skepticism in his eyes melted into something like respect. “And maybe,” he said quietly, “that’s what makes us human. Not the tools we use, but the need to draw those lines at all.”

Jeeny:
She nodded, smiling through the soft light. “Exactly. The need to define ourselves — not by what we have, but by what we create.”

Host:
Outside, the rain had stopped, leaving the street glistening beneath the soft lamplight. The radio played its final song — Rosalía’s voice fading into silence, like a prayer whispered to the future.

Inside, Jack and Jeeny sat in the warm stillness, the eyeliner of memory still glimmering faintly between them — not as decoration, but as testament.

And as the night settled, the words of Rosalía lingered — playful, personal, yet deeply human:

“When I was a teen, I would draw a really, really long line around my eyes with eyeliner, like Lola Flores.”

Because in that line, drawn in trembling hands and burning spirit, lives the eternal human vow —

to be seen,
to be bold,
to turn even a simple stroke of color into a statement of existence.

Host:
And beneath the flicker of the last candle, it was clear:
every artist, every dreamer, every teen with a mirror and a hope,
is just trying to do what the world sometimes forgets —
to draw a line around their soul,
and call it life.