The lunacy continues and has every chance of becoming a way of

Title: The Habit of Madness

Host: The air was thick with smoke and memory. A dim pub sat at the end of a narrow London street, its wooden beams heavy with time, its walls lined with faded photographs of soldiers — boys with smiles too wide for the eyes above them. Outside, the rain pressed softly against the windows, streaking the glass like ghosts trying to get in.

Inside, the fireplace crackled with lazy defiance. The clock above it ticked, slow and solemn, marking another minute of peace that felt like waiting.

Jack sat at a small table near the fire, his coat damp, his hands around a half-empty pint. His eyes — gray, steady, tired — carried that strange dual light of someone who’d seen both victory and absurdity, and couldn’t tell them apart anymore.

Across from him, Jeeny stirred her tea. Her movements were careful, as if each one carried meaning. The silence between them had the weight of an unfinished story.

Jeeny: “Spike Milligan once said — ‘The lunacy continues and has every chance of becoming a way of life unless we stop it soon. Men are getting so used to wars that the psychiatric wing of the RAMC are planning how to break the news to the men when the war is over.’”

Jack: (dryly) “He wasn’t wrong. Wars end, but the madness? That’s the part nobody calls off.”

Host: His voice was gravel and irony, his tone halfway between a laugh and a lament.

Jeeny: “Milligan was joking, but it’s the kind of joke that tastes like blood.”

Jack: “That’s how truth works. You wrap it in laughter so it doesn’t scream.”

Host: The firelight flickered across his face — angular, scarred by shadows — while Jeeny’s reflected eyes softened, full of understanding that came not from sympathy, but shared fatigue.

Jeeny: “You think we’ve gotten used to it, then? The lunacy?”

Jack: “Not just used to it. Dependent on it. War’s become the background noise of civilization — the hum you don’t hear until it stops.”

Jeeny: “And if it stopped?”

Jack: “Half the world would panic. Peace is too quiet for people raised on explosions.”

Jeeny: “That’s a terrifying thought.”

Jack: “Reality usually is.”

Host: The rain deepened outside, a percussive rhythm on the glass that almost drowned the sound of the fire. For a moment, both sounds — storm and flame — merged into a perfect metaphor for humanity itself: destruction dressed as music.

Jeeny: “But surely that’s not everyone. There are people — people like you — who hate it. Who remember what it costs.”

Jack: (bitterly) “Remembering isn’t the same as changing.”

Jeeny: “Then what’s the difference?”

Jack: “Change takes action. Memory just hurts.”

Jeeny: “And yet, without memory—”

Jack: “We’d make the same mistake twice.”

Jeeny: “Which we do anyway.”

Jack: (smiles grimly) “See? Lunacy.”

Host: The bartender passed silently behind them, refilling glasses with the solemnity of a priest at confession. No one spoke. The clock struck nine, and its chime sounded like a funeral bell for reason.

Jeeny: “Do you think Milligan was right — that war could become a way of life?”

Jack: “It already has. Just with better branding. We don’t call them wars anymore — we call them operations, conflicts, interventions. Change the name, and the madness feels civilized.”

Jeeny: “And the soldiers?”

Jack: “Still broken. Still told to carry on. Except now they don’t come home to parades — they come home to silence. Nobody wants to look at what peace does to men built for chaos.”

Jeeny: “Or what chaos does to men built for love.”

Host: Her voice cracked slightly, soft but unflinching. The fire popped — a small spark leapt and died in the air between them, a tiny echo of every short-lived truce in human history.

Jack: “You know what’s ironic? The longer the war, the harder it is for peace to feel real. You start to miss the routine of madness. The orders, the clarity, the purpose. War’s easy — it tells you who to hate. Peace asks you to live.”

Jeeny: “So the real war starts after the fighting stops.”

Jack: “Exactly. And nobody writes medals for that.”

Host: The pub door opened briefly — a gust of wind blew in, carrying the faint scent of wet streets and lost souls. A man in a worn uniform entered, nodded to the bartender, and sat silently near the fire.

Jeeny watched him, then turned back to Jack.

Jeeny: “You ever think we romanticize peace the way we romanticize war? We talk about it like it’s this easy, gentle thing. But peace hurts too.”

Jack: “It does. Because peace demands rebuilding, and rebuilding means remembering every brick you broke.”

Jeeny: “And that’s harder than fighting.”

Jack: “Fighting’s instinct. Healing’s discipline.”

Host: The firelight dimmed slightly as a log collapsed inward. Jeeny reached for her cup, her hands trembling just enough to betray the weight of the conversation.

Jeeny: “You know, Milligan used to laugh at the absurdity of it all. The psychiatric wing planning how to tell soldiers the war was over — that’s not just dark humor. That’s prophecy.”

Jack: “It’s truth wearing a clown mask. We’ve made madness manageable. We medicate it, legislate it, monetize it.”

Jeeny: “And call it progress.”

Jack: “Exactly.”

Host: A heavy silence followed. The rain softened, the fire crackled low — small sounds, fragile but persistent, like sanity itself refusing extinction.

Jeeny: “Do you think it’s possible to stop it — the lunacy?”

Jack: (quietly) “Not all at once. But maybe one act at a time. One refusal to obey insanity disguised as duty.”

Jeeny: “That’s a start.”

Jack: “It’s the only start there ever is.”

Host: He looked up then — the faint reflection of the fire burning in his eyes, like a soldier’s soul still caught between memory and mourning.

Jeeny: “You know what I think, Jack?”

Jack: “What?”

Jeeny: “That peace isn’t the absence of war. It’s the rejection of madness.”

Jack: “And madness feels patriotic these days.”

Jeeny: “Then sanity is rebellion.”

Jack: (nodding slowly) “And rebellion is the only sane thing left.”

Host: The clock struck again — slow, deliberate, final. Outside, the rain had stopped. The world beyond the pub felt momentarily still — not peaceful, but paused, like a breath held between history’s sentences.

Host: And as they sat there in that flickering half-light — two weary voices in a world still learning how to live — Spike Milligan’s warning echoed quietly, timelessly, through the room:

That war, when repeated too often, stops being tragedy and becomes habit.
That madness, when normalized, wears the face of patriotism.
And that someday, the hardest news to deliver
will not be that a war has begun —
but that it has ended.

The fire crackled softly.
The soldier near the hearth closed his eyes,
as if unsure whether to dream of battle or peace.

And outside, the sky cleared,
leaving behind no thunder — only quiet.

A quiet that felt uneasy,
because it reminded the world what sanity sounds like.