You will obtain a vision of matter that is perhaps fatiguing for

Host:
The museum was almost empty. Evening had folded over the city, and what little light remained spilled through the high windows like the last breaths of a dying day. The corridors smelled faintly of marble, dust, and old varnish — the scent of human thought preserved in silence.

In the central gallery, surrounded by statues frozen in mid-revelation, Jack stood before a single canvas. It was abstract — a wild, impossible blur of light and darkness — shapes that seemed to tremble between form and dissolution. His grey eyes studied it with quiet skepticism, the way one studies smoke: intent, yet uncertain whether it can ever be caught.

A few feet behind him, Jeeny wandered slowly between sculptures, her fingers grazing the air near them as though afraid to touch but unwilling not to feel. Her brown eyes, wide and bright, seemed to translate the space around her into emotion.

The museum hummed softly — the electricity of stillness, the echo of old genius sleeping under the weight of centuries.

Jeeny:
(Quietly, as if afraid to wake the statues)
Henri Bergson once said, “You will obtain a vision of matter that is perhaps fatiguing for your imagination, but pure and stripped of what the requirements of life make you add to it in external perception.”

(She pauses)
I think about that every time I walk through here.

Jack:
(Tilting his head toward her voice)
You think about philosophy in an art museum?

Jeeny:
Always. Because both ask the same question — what do you really see when you look?

Jack:
(Smirking faintly)
Most people would say “a painting.”

Jeeny:
And Bergson would say “a piece of matter without your expectations clinging to it.”

Jack:
(Stepping closer to the canvas)
So — stripping perception down to its raw essence. Sounds clinical.

Jeeny:
No, not clinical. Honest. He meant that we never see things as they are — only as our survival allows us to.

Host:
Her voice drifted like soft music through the room, blending with the echo of their footsteps. Jack stood motionless, his gaze fixed on the painting — a landscape disassembled by truth. The colors seemed to vibrate, not with logic, but with energy.

Jack:
So you’re saying reality’s not what we see, but what we ignore to survive?

Jeeny:
Exactly. We edit the world constantly — remove what’s too heavy, too slow, too meaningless. Bergson believed imagination could undo that editing, could reveal matter as it truly is — terrifyingly alive.

Jack:
(Softly)
Terrifying’s the right word. Most people can’t handle pure anything — truth, beauty, or pain.

Jeeny:
Because purity strips away comfort. It’s raw. It demands surrender.

Jack:
And surrender isn’t in our nature. We’d rather name things than understand them.

Jeeny:
(Smiling faintly)
That’s because names are easier than essence.

Jack:
So when I say “painting,” you hear “illusion.”

Jeeny:
When you say “painting,” I hear “translation.” The artist saw something none of us could, and this is how they tried to show it.

Host:
The lights overhead flickered — that small, fragile pulse of human control in a room built to worship the uncontrollable. Jeeny walked to stand beside him, both their reflections caught faintly in the glass before the canvas: two ghosts observing another’s dream.

Jack:
You ever wonder what the world would look like without perception?

Jeeny:
(Softly)
It would be unbearable — too much reality, too little meaning.

Jack:
So imagination protects us from truth.

Jeeny:
No. It translates it. It makes the invisible bearable.

Jack:
(Smiling)
Then I suppose we owe imagination our sanity.

Jeeny:
And maybe our humanity.

Jack:
(After a pause)
So what did Bergson mean by “fatiguing”?

Jeeny:
He meant that pure seeing — unfiltered, unguarded — exhausts us. Because it strips away the familiar layers that help us feel safe. It’s the fatigue of wonder — the exhaustion of awe.

Jack:
(Smiling faintly)
A beautiful kind of tiredness, then.

Jeeny:
The kind that empties you out so truth can fit.

Host:
Her words lingered like incense. The painting before them seemed to pulse — not literally, but emotionally, as though their conversation had stirred it awake. The lines between light and shadow blurred, revealing the trembling anatomy of color itself.

Jack took a slow breath.

Jack:
I think I understand now. Bergson wasn’t warning against imagination — he was saying it’s the price of perception.

Jeeny:
Exactly. The more purely you see, the more your imagination must work to hold it. To contain what your senses can’t.

Jack:
So maybe that’s what creation is — the mind trying to make peace with what it’s seen.

Jeeny:
(Quietly)
Yes. Every artist, every thinker — they’re all witnesses to a vision too large to keep to themselves.

Jack:
And we, the audience, come along and mistake their exhaustion for beauty.

Jeeny:
(Laughing softly)
Maybe beauty is exhaustion — the soul catching its breath after touching the infinite.

Host:
The air in the gallery grew still. A moment passed where nothing — not even sound — dared move. The light from the ceiling haloed them both, dust glowing like tiny galaxies suspended in gravity.

Jack finally turned away from the painting, facing her fully.

Jack:
You think we’ve lost that kind of vision — that purity?

Jeeny:
No. We’ve buried it under distraction. Every screen, every opinion, every plan — all noise covering the quiet place where truth lives.

Jack:
And you think we can find it again?

Jeeny:
Of course. It’s not gone. It’s waiting for us to get tired enough of pretending.

Jack:
(Softly)
Pretending what?

Jeeny:
That we see the world clearly when all we ever see is ourselves reflected in it.

Host:
The words fell between them like a mirror — clear, fragile, undeniable. Jack’s jaw tightened, his mind wrestling with the simplicity of her truth.

He stepped closer to the canvas again, eyes narrowing, seeing it differently now — not as art, but as matter, stripped of narrative, alive with light.

Jack:
You’re right. It’s… raw. It’s not even a painting anymore — it’s just existence caught mid-breath.

Jeeny:
(Softly)
That’s the vision Bergson meant — matter without story. The world before we claimed it.

Jack:
It’s beautiful. But… I can feel what he meant about fatigue. My mind’s fighting it — trying to explain what can’t be explained.

Jeeny:
Then stop explaining. Just look.

Host:
He did. And in that small surrender, something shifted — a faint unraveling of habit, a glimpse of wonder undressed of language. The colors deepened, the brushstrokes blurred into motion, and for a breathless second, it was as if he saw not the painting but the act of creation itself — matter remembering it was once light.

He blinked, exhaled, and stepped back.

Jack:
(Quietly)
It’s strange. I feel… smaller. But clearer.

Jeeny:
That’s what true perception does — it humbles you. It reminds you that the world doesn’t need your interpretation to exist.

Jack:
And imagination is how we survive that truth.

Jeeny:
Yes. It’s how we turn terror into tenderness.

Host:
The lights dimmed slightly as the museum prepared to close. Their reflections in the glass grew darker, ghostlike — two fragments of thought suspended in the same infinite sentence.

They began walking toward the exit, their footsteps echoing down the marble corridor.

Jack:
(Quietly)
You know, I think Bergson was describing love, too.

Jeeny:
Love?

Jack:
Yeah. When you really love someone — you stop seeing what life makes you add. You see them stripped of pretense, pure, raw, frighteningly real. It’s fatiguing… but beautiful.

Jeeny:
(Smiling softly)
Maybe that’s why love and perception both exhaust us. They ask for everything — and give everything back.

Host:
The doors of the museum opened, spilling them into the cool night air. The city glowed faintly under the streetlamps — shapes, movement, color. But now, after that room, everything looked sharper, truer — as if the veil of familiarity had been briefly lifted.

They stood on the steps, silent, the world humming around them in its rawness.

Host:
And in that moment, they both understood what Henri Bergson had meant:

That to truly see the world is to strip it of convenience and claim.
To endure the fatigue of wonder —
to bear the purity of things as they are,
not softened by story or survival.

That imagination is not escape,
but the bridge between raw matter and human meaning —
the way we give reverence to what we cannot control.

Host:
Jack turned to Jeeny, a faint, tired smile on his lips.

Jack:
Maybe fatigue isn’t failure after all. Maybe it’s proof we finally saw something real.

Jeeny:
(Whispering)
Yes, Jack. The world itself — unveiled, alive.

Host:
The wind stirred. The streetlights flickered.
And for the briefest, most fragile moment,
reality — pure and stripped —
looked back at them and smiled.