You can't feed a cat with cream and food in the kitchen and

Host: The factory floor was nearly silent, save for the distant hum of machines cooling and the faint buzz of fluorescent lights overhead. A half-finished coffee sat on a metal table, its steam fading into the cold air. Outside, the sky bled gray, and a single pigeon cooed from the window ledge, the sound small and hollow in the emptiness.

Jack stood near the loading dock, his hands buried in his coat pockets, his eyes fixed on the rain pooling beneath the streetlight. Jeeny sat on a stack of crates, a clipboard resting on her lap, her boots tapping softly against the concrete.

They had stayed after the last shift — again. The others had gone home, but their argument, like the flicker of the old light, refused to die.

Jeeny: “Olav Thon once said, ‘You can’t feed a cat with cream and food in the kitchen and expect him to go catch mice.’ I think about that every time I watch this place slow down.”

Jack: “You mean every time you see people stop killing themselves for pennies?”

Jeeny: “No. Every time I see them lose their drive because they’ve gotten just comfortable enough not to care.”

Jack: “You call it comfort. I call it survival. You can’t keep squeezing people and then complain when they stop purring.”

Host: A gust of wind rattled the shutters, and a piece of paper fluttered across the floor — a forgotten work schedule, names and hours like faint ghosts of effort.

Jeeny: “That’s not what I mean, Jack. Look around. The company’s struggling. Orders are down, and management is scrambling. But half the crew doesn’t even pretend to care anymore. They clock in, they drift through their shifts, and then they leave. It’s like the spark’s gone.”

Jack: “Maybe the spark was never there. Maybe it was just fear — dressed up as ambition. People don’t fight for glory, Jeeny. They fight because they’re hungry. You give them enough cream, enough comfort, and yeah — the cat stops hunting. But maybe that’s not laziness. Maybe that’s the first time he’s not starving.”

Jeeny: “So you’re saying hunger’s necessary?”

Jack: “I’m saying it’s honest. Nothing gets built without it. You want innovation, you want grit — you need discomfort. Pressure makes diamonds, remember?”

Jeeny: “Pressure also crushes people, Jack.”

Host: The light above them flickered, casting shadows that moved across the floor like tired specters. Jack’s face tightened, his voice lowering to something between cynicism and confession.

Jack: “You think Olav Thon was wrong? He built an empire from nothing. He understood people — and cats. You make life too easy, and instinct fades. Comfort kills purpose.”

Jeeny: “That’s not wisdom, that’s cruelty disguised as philosophy. People don’t lose purpose because they’re comfortable — they lose it when they’re disconnected. When work stops meaning anything. You can’t expect loyalty from people you treat like tools.”

Jack: “Then what — treat them like poets? We run a factory, not a monastery. Purpose doesn’t pay the bills.”

Jeeny: “And bills don’t make a life.”

Host: The rain grew heavier, drumming on the roof, a kind of metallic heartbeat. Jeeny’s eyes glistened, not from sadness, but from fire — that quiet, moral fury that had always unnerved Jack.

Jeeny: “When my father worked in a mine, he told me something I never forgot. He said, ‘If the boss thinks you’re lazy, remind him it’s his mine that’s collapsing, not your shovel.’ The cat stops catching mice not because he’s spoiled, Jack — but because he’s realized the mice don’t matter anymore.”

Jack: “You’re twisting the quote. Thon wasn’t talking about oppression — he was talking about motivation. When you give people everything, they stop striving. It’s human nature. Take a country that’s fed, housed, entertained — and watch how fast it forgets how to build, how to risk.”

Jeeny: “So you’d rather people live half-starved just to keep them driven?”

Jack: “Driven people build the world. Content ones just live in it.”

Jeeny: “And miserable ones burn it down.”

Host: The words struck between them like steel on flint, a brief spark that illuminated the distance in their faces — not anger, but belief, the kind that carves its own truth.

Jack sighed, rubbing his temple, his voice quieter now, more human.

Jack: “I’m not saying we should starve anyone. I’m saying comfort dulls the edge. Look at societies that rise too high — Rome, Britain, America. They hit prosperity, then decadence, then decay. The cat forgets what the hunt even felt like.”

Jeeny: “And maybe that’s evolution, not decay. Maybe we’re supposed to grow out of the hunt — build a world where no one has to chase mice to prove they’re alive.”

Jack: “That sounds noble. But without the hunt, what’s left? Comfort without challenge turns to emptiness. The mind needs struggle the way lungs need air.”

Jeeny: “Maybe the struggle shouldn’t always be survival. Maybe it can be meaning.”

Jack: “Meaning doesn’t fill stomachs.”

Jeeny: “Neither does greed.”

Host: The factory clock ticked, slow and echoing, marking each second like a quiet rebuke. The rain softened, and the sound of dripping water took its place — a rhythm as ancient as labor itself.

Jeeny: “Do you know what I think Thon really meant? He wasn’t just talking about laziness. He was warning us — that if we keep rewarding ease, we lose curiosity. But there’s a difference between feeding the cat and chaining it. One kills motivation; the other kills freedom.”

Jack: “Freedom’s overrated when you’ve got mouths to feed.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. Freedom’s exactly what feeds them — the freedom to think, to create, to live without fear. A cat that hunts out of hunger kills to survive. But a cat that hunts out of instinct — that’s nature, not necessity.”

Jack: “So you think the world should run on idealism?”

Jeeny: “No. I think it should run on balance — enough comfort to live, enough challenge to grow.”

Host: The lights dimmed again, a fuse buzzing somewhere unseen. For a moment, the room fell into shadow, and both of them were just outlines — two people suspended between fatigue and faith.

Jack: “You ever wonder what we’d be without the chase? Without ambition, hunger, the drive to be more?”

Jeeny: “Maybe we’d be kind.”

Jack: “Kindness doesn’t build skyscrapers.”

Jeeny: “No, but it keeps them from collapsing.”

Host: Silence. Then a small laugh escaped Jack — not mocking, but tired, genuine. The kind of laugh that acknowledges truth when words fail.

Jack: “You always find the poetry in everything.”

Jeeny: “Because life deserves it, even when it’s ugly.”

Jack: “Maybe Thon was wrong then.”

Jeeny: “Or maybe he was right, but not the way he thought. Maybe the real danger isn’t feeding the cat — it’s forgetting why he hunted in the first place.”

Host: The clock struck midnight, the lights steadied, and the rain eased into a gentle mist. Jack and Jeeny stood side by side now, both staring at the factory floor — the rows of machines, the empty chairs, the faint smell of oil and dust that spoke of years traded for wages.

Jack: “So what do we do, Jeeny? Starve the cat or let him rest?”

Jeeny: “Neither. We remind him what the world looks like beyond the kitchen.”

Host: Jack nodded, slowly, as if understanding wasn’t an instant — but an act of surrender. They walked toward the exit, their footsteps echoing off the walls, their shadows stretching ahead of them like silent partners in an unfinished argument.

Outside, the rain had stopped, and a faint light broke through the clouds — not sunrise, but something close: the color of renewal, the color of work yet to be done.

And the world, tired but still breathing, waited for its next hunt — not for mice, but for meaning.