You live in the image you have of the world. Every one of us

Host: The city shimmered beneath a crimson sunset, each window catching fire with light as if reality itself were trying to remember its shape. From a narrow rooftop café, the world stretched below—streets humming, voices colliding, neon signs beginning to flicker alive. The air carried the scent of coffee and rain, and the faint hum of distant traffic formed the background score to something unsaid.

Jack sat near the edge, his elbows on the table, his grey eyes fixed on the horizon where day and night blurred into one another. Jeeny sat across from him, her hands cupping a mug she’d long since stopped drinking from. Her hair caught the last bit of sunlight, a halo of dark gold around her face.

Host: The wind moved through the rooftop garden, stirring the leaves of potted plants that leaned toward the dying light. A sense of quiet infinity lingered there—as if the city below belonged to one world, and this rooftop, another entirely.

Jeeny: “Do you ever wonder, Jack, whether we’re even seeing the same city right now?”

Jack: “Same skyline, same noise, same overpriced coffee. Yeah, I think we are.”

Jeeny: “No, I mean the world behind your eyes—the one that filters what you see. Alejandro Jodorowsky once said, ‘You live in the image you have of the world. Every one of us lives in a different world, with different space and different time.’”

Jack: “Ah, Jodorowsky. The filmmaker who makes dreams feel like hallucinations.”

Jeeny: “Or maybe he just films what reality hides.”

Host: Jack gave a half-smile, that familiar one he wore when he thought she was being too idealistic—an armor made of amusement.

Jack: “That quote sounds like spiritual camouflage. We all live in the same world, Jeeny. Gravity pulls us down, the economy keeps us there, and death makes sure it ends. No amount of poetic illusion changes that.”

Jeeny: “You call it illusion. I call it perception. You live in your world of logic and consequence, but that’s not the only map that exists.”

Jack: “A map is only useful if it leads somewhere real.”

Jeeny: “What if real means different things for different people?”

Host: The light dimmed; the first stars appeared, trembling faintly above the towers. Somewhere below, a street musician played a slow violin, the sound curling upward like smoke, fragile and searching.

Jeeny: “Look down there, Jack. See that woman by the crossing? Maybe she sees the city as a place of survival—each red light another trap. But the artist painting by the wall? Maybe for him, it’s a cathedral of color. Same street, two universes.”

Jack: “That’s perspective, not parallel worlds.”

Jeeny: “Perspective is the world, Jack. For her, time moves through hunger. For him, time moves through creation. You think that’s the same clock?”

Host: Jack leaned back, the chair creaking softly. He looked at Jeeny with a kind of quiet frustration that hid an undercurrent of curiosity.

Jack: “So you’re saying everyone lives in their own movie?”

Jeeny: “Yes. Except most people don’t realize they’re directing it.”

Jack: “Or that they’re trapped in it.”

Host: The air between them tightened, a clash not of anger but of dimension—two people trying to see through the other’s lens.

Jeeny: “You talk about being trapped, but isn’t that just fear disguised as reason? If you think the world is cruel, you’ll only see cruelty. If you think it’s meaningless, everything will echo that meaninglessness back at you. That’s the prison you build.”

Jack: “And if you think the world is kind, will it magically turn kind? Tell that to people who live under bombs or behind bars. They don’t get to rewrite their perception like a script.”

Jeeny: “You’re right—they can’t change the outer world easily. But even in prison, some people find an inner one. Viktor Frankl did. He was in a concentration camp and still wrote about the power to find meaning inside suffering. Isn’t that another kind of space and time?”

Host: Jack’s eyes shifted. The mention of Frankl struck a deeper chord—something that cracked through his cynicism.

Jack: “Meaning’s a fragile thing, Jeeny. It bends under reality. You can only carry it so far before it breaks.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s because you think meaning is a tool. It’s not. It’s a language. The only one the soul understands.”

Host: The wind picked up again, sending a few napkins fluttering across the rooftop. The city lights began to glow brighter now—each window, a story, each light, a separate heartbeat in a mosaic of private universes.

Jack: “You really believe we live in separate worlds?”

Jeeny: “Completely. Even sitting here, we share space but not perception. Your silence doesn’t sound like mine. Your memories bend light differently. My world is filled with possibility. Yours, with equations.”

Jack: “Equations keep the bridge standing.”

Jeeny: “But imagination makes you want to cross it.”

Host: Jeeny smiled faintly, and for the first time, Jack didn’t argue. He only watched her, the way she tilted her head when she believed in something so fully that disbelief couldn’t touch her.

Jack: “Alright then. Let’s say we all live in different worlds. Doesn’t that make connection impossible?”

Jeeny: “No. It makes it miraculous.”

Host: The words landed softly, like feathers, but their weight lingered in the air.

Jack: “You really think understanding is possible between two people living in separate worlds?”

Jeeny: “Not full understanding. But glimpses. When one world opens a window to another, even for a second—that’s love. That’s art. That’s what Jodorowsky meant.”

Jack: “So, love is a kind of shared hallucination?”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But it’s the only one that heals.”

Host: A pause followed—long, unhurried. The violin below grew softer, as if dissolving into the air. Jack looked at his reflection in the coffee cup, distorted by the rippling surface. For a moment, he saw two faces—his and someone else’s—blurring into one.

Jack: “You know... when my brother died, I stopped painting. I told myself art was useless—couldn’t save him, couldn’t change the world. Maybe that’s when my world turned grey. Maybe I built the image wrong.”

Jeeny: “You didn’t build it wrong, Jack. You just stopped building it.”

Jack: “And you? What image do you live in?”

Jeeny: “One where everything hurts and still matters.”

Host: The sky had deepened now, velvet-blue and infinite. The first stars glinted faintly, like eyes watching from another dimension—other worlds, perhaps, overlapping the one they knew.

Jeeny: “That’s the beauty of it, Jack. Each of us carries a whole universe. Every time you listen, you visit someone else’s.”

Jack: “And every time you stop listening?”

Jeeny: “You disappear from theirs.”

Host: The city seemed to sigh—a long exhale through traffic and time. The rooftop lights flickered, then steadied, like breathing.

Jack: “So what do we do with that, Jeeny? Knowing we each live in a different world?”

Jeeny: “We build bridges. Between images. Between times. We keep visiting each other’s worlds, even when it hurts.”

Jack: “And when the bridge collapses?”

Jeeny: “We swim.”

Host: A small laugh escaped him then—low, surprised, almost tender. The kind of sound a man makes when something old inside him begins to heal.

Jack: “You always make it sound so simple.”

Jeeny: “It’s not simple. It’s sacred.”

Host: The night settled fully now, the skyline glowing like an electric sea. Jeeny leaned back, her eyes reflecting the city below—a thousand worlds shimmering within her gaze. Jack followed her line of sight, and for once, he didn’t try to define it. He simply watched.

Jack: “Maybe we’re both right. Maybe there’s one world—but infinite ways of dreaming it.”

Jeeny: “Yes. And maybe freedom isn’t escaping your world. It’s learning how to see it differently.”

Host: The wind quieted. The violin faded into silence. Somewhere below, a streetlamp flickered, then steadied—its light steady, unwavering, alive.

They sat without speaking, the universe of one meeting the universe of another, not perfectly, but enough.

Host: And in that fragile intersection of light and breath, of worlds overlapping, something unspoken yet immense passed between them—
the realization that truth, like the city, only exists in reflection.

The camera panned back, revealing two small figures against the vast, dreaming skyline—
their coffee cooling, their worlds colliding—
and the night, endless, open, quietly alive with the rhythm of a thousand unseen lives.