Words are all we have.

Host: The night hung heavy over the city, cloaked in a mist that softened the edges of neon signs and turned the streetlights into blurred stars. Inside a dimly lit bar, the air was thick with the smell of old whiskey and rain-soaked wool. Music, slow and distant, drifted from a half-broken jukebox, each note trembling like the last breath of something once alive.
Jack sat at the far end of the counter, his hands wrapped around a chipped glass. His eyes, grey and cold, were fixed on the thin curl of smoke rising from his cigarette. Jeeny sat opposite him, her long black hair damp from the rain, her eyes bright and searching, as though she were trying to read a hidden truth in the air between them.

Host: The clock above the bar ticked faintly, marking the slow erosion of silence.

Jeeny: “Do you ever think,” she said softly, “that maybe words are all we really have left?”

Jack: He gave a dry, bitter laugh. “Words? Beckett again, huh? You love that kind of melancholy.”

Jeeny: “It’s not melancholy, Jack. It’s a kind of truth. When everything else falls apart—money, love, faith, even memory—words remain. They’re what we use to hold the world together.”

Jack: “Or tear it apart.” He took a long drag of his cigarette. “Words started wars. Words have justified violence, lies, and power. Don’t dress them up like saints.”

Host: The rain outside grew harder, tapping against the windows like impatient fingers. The bar’s few patrons were silent, lost in their own shadows. The bartender wiped a glass, slow and mechanical, as though hypnotized by the rhythm of their voices.

Jeeny: “But you can’t blame the knife for the hand that wields it. Words are just tools, Jack. They can destroy, yes—but they can also heal. Think of Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’—those words lit a fire in millions of hearts. They moved history.”

Jack: “And Hitler’s speeches moved millions too, Jeeny. Same principle. Same weapon. Different intention.” His voice was low, steady, like a blade against stone. “You talk about words like they’re divine, but they’re just symbols—cheap, slippery things that people twist to make themselves feel right.”

Host: Jeeny’s fingers tightened around her cup. The steam rose, swirling, catching the flicker of light. Her eyes didn’t waver.

Jeeny: “No, Jack. Words aren’t cheap—they’re sacred. They’re the only way we reach each other. Without them, there’s just silence, and silence is death. You can’t love in silence. You can’t forgive, or dream, or promise.”

Jack: “You can act. You can touch. You can build. Actions—that’s what matters. Words are just air pretending to mean something.”

Jeeny: “Then why are you still talking?”

Host: The air cracked between them like thunder. Jack’s jaw clenched. For a moment, the smoke seemed to pause midair, suspended in the tension that neither of them wanted to break.

Jack: “Because you push me to,” he muttered. “Because maybe you’re right. Maybe I still want to believe they mean something.”

Host: The lights flickered. The music stopped for a breath, then resumed—slow, aching, the kind of melody that seemed to remember pain.

Jeeny: “Do you remember when your father died?” she said softly. “You couldn’t even speak at the funeral. You just stood there, stone-faced, and everyone said you were strong. But I saw it. You wanted to say something—you wanted to use words.”

Jack: His eyes hardened, then softened. “I didn’t want to make it worse. Sometimes silence is mercy.”

Jeeny: “No. Silence is fear. You were afraid of what the words might break open.”

Host: Jack looked away. His reflection stared back at him in the mirror behind the bar, blurred by condensation, fractured by bottles of amber liquid. For a moment, he looked older—worn by the weight of memory.

Jack: “Maybe. But fear keeps us alive. If we said everything, we’d drown in it.”

Jeeny: “And if we said nothing, we’d vanish. Look at history, Jack. Look at Anne Frank—just a girl, trapped, terrified, yet her words survived the war that killed her. Her words became her voice, her life beyond death. Isn’t that proof that words are all we have?”

Jack: “Or proof that we cling to ghosts because we can’t face how empty it all really is.”

Host: Jeeny’s eyes glistened. Her breath trembled as she leaned forward, her voice growing sharper, burning with quiet anger.

Jeeny: “Empty? You think a child’s diary is empty? You think the last letters of soldiers, or the poems written in prison cells, are just ghosts? No, Jack—they’re the soul refusing to die.”

Jack: “The soul? You still believe in that?” He let out a harsh laugh. “There’s no soul, Jeeny. Just neurons firing, chemicals reacting. Words are sounds our brains use to dress chaos in clothing.”

Host: A distant thunder rolled through the sky. The rain smeared down the windows, distorting the lights of passing cars. The bartender stopped pretending to clean, listening now, eyes flicking between them.

Jeeny: “Maybe chaos is exactly what we’re meant to clothe. That’s what makes us human, Jack. Our need to speak—to name things, to give them shape. Even God began with words: ‘Let there be light.’ Without words, there was only darkness.”

Jack: “And that’s just mythology.”

Jeeny: “Mythology is humanity’s oldest truth. Even when we lie, our lies reveal what we long for.”

Host: Jack leaned back, exhaling smoke through his teeth, watching it curl and fade like a thought trying to escape. His eyes were tired now—less steel, more shadow.

Jack: “You talk about words like they’re salvation. But what about the people who use them and still get crushed? Poets who starved. Journalists killed for telling the truth. Their words didn’t save them.”

Jeeny: “No—but their words outlived them. And maybe that’s all salvation means.”

Host: The rain began to slow, turning from a downpour to a quiet drizzle. The clock ticked louder, each second cutting through the silence they shared.

Jack: “So that’s it, then. Beckett’s right—‘Words are all we have.’ But he meant it as despair, not faith. He saw words as a prison, not a bridge.”

Jeeny: “And I see them as both. A prison, yes—but one with windows. We can still see the world through them. We can still reach.”

Host: Jack stared into his empty glass, the last drop clinging stubbornly to the edge. He rolled it between his fingers, lost in thought.

Jack: “You know, I once read that in the trenches of World War I, soldiers carved poems into the walls before dying. Crude, rough, but real. Maybe you’re right. Maybe even in hell, people still try to speak.”

Jeeny: “Because to speak is to exist.”

Host: The bar was nearly empty now. The last patron stumbled out into the mist, leaving behind the faint echo of the door’s closing. A fragile quiet settled—an almost holy stillness.

Jack: “So what are we, Jeeny? Just two voices in a world that keeps forgetting?”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But as long as we keep speaking, we remind it to remember.”

Host: The rain finally stopped. The clouds parted just enough for a thin beam of moonlight to fall across their faces. It touched Jack’s eyes, softening them, and Jeeny’s smile, faint but unwavering.

Jack: “You always manage to make the darkness sound poetic.”

Jeeny: “Because maybe it is.”

Host: Jack nodded slowly, then whispered—not to her, but to the night itself—“Words are all we have. Maybe that’s enough.”

Host: The camera would have pulled back then, framing the two of them against the dim glow of the bar, the city breathing beyond the glass. The light flickered once, like a heartbeat, before the scene faded to black—leaving behind only the soft echo of their words, still hanging in the air, still refusing to die.