The tragedy of war is that it uses man's best to do man's worst.

Host: The rain had just stopped, leaving the streets of the old city glistening under the dim amber light of the streetlamps. A faint mist hovered above the cobblestones, curling like smoke around the shadows of two figures sitting beneath the awning of a half-lit café. The smell of wet asphalt mingled with the bitter aroma of coffee, heavy with silence and memory.

Jack sat back in his chair, a cigarette between his fingers, its ember pulsing like a small, dying star. His grey eyes reflected both weariness and clarity — the kind that comes from seeing too much of the world. Across from him, Jeeny leaned forward, her hands wrapped around a cup she had long forgotten to drink. Her dark hair hung loose, catching the faint light, her eyes deep with quiet fire.

The quote hung between them — Harry Emerson Fosdick’s words written on a torn napkin, smudged with coffee and thought:
“The tragedy of war is that it uses man’s best to do man’s worst.”

Jeeny: “It’s a cruel truth, isn’t it? That war, of all things, summons the most brilliant, the most brave, the most devoted among us — only to destroy everything they stand for.”

Jack: “Or maybe that’s what makes it necessary. The worst things in this world don’t get done by cowards, Jeeny. They’re carried out by people who believe they’re doing good. The soldier, the scientist, the leader — each one thinking he’s serving some greater purpose. That’s the irony. It’s not tragedy, it’s design.”

Host: The sound of distant traffic rolled like a tired wave. Jeeny’s eyes flickered, a flash of both sorrow and anger behind her gentle voice.

Jeeny: “You call that design? That we turn our finest virtues — discipline, loyalty, courage — into weapons? That we train our best to kill in the name of what they think is right? You think that’s just how things are meant to be?”

Jack: “I think it’s how things are. War doesn’t change people; it reveals them. You remember World War II? The scientists who built the atomic bomb — Oppenheimer, Fermi — they weren’t monsters. They were geniuses. They thought they were saving humanity. Yet their creation burned cities to the ground.”

Host: Jack leaned forward, the smoke from his cigarette curling into the damp air, tracing the shape of invisible ghosts.

Jack: “It’s always been that way. Man’s best instincts — loyalty, innovation, sacrifice — become tools of his worst. You call it a tragedy. I call it the price of having both a heart and a mind.”

Jeeny: “And what’s left when both are used up? When the mind becomes the weapon, and the heart becomes the target? You think humanity can survive that kind of logic?”

Host: A car passed, its lights casting a brief glow across their faces — his sharp and stoic, hers soft but unyielding.

Jeeny: “You talk about Oppenheimer, but you forget what he said after the bomb fell. He quoted the Bhagavad Gita — ‘Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.’ That wasn’t a man celebrating design, Jack. That was a man mourning what human genius had become.”

Jack: “Maybe. But his work also ended a war. That’s what people forget. You can call it murder, but it saved millions. You think the world runs on purity? It runs on decisions. Ugly ones.”

Host: The rain began again — soft, almost like ashes falling. The café window reflected their faces, two silhouettes locked in a quiet battle neither could win.

Jeeny: “So that’s it? You think necessity justifies everything? That as long as the cause is noble, the methods don’t matter?”

Jack: “You think we can afford the luxury of clean hands in a dirty world? Sometimes the only way to protect what’s good is to fight with what’s bad.”

Jeeny: “And who decides what’s good? Who gets to draw that line? Every tyrant, every dictator in history claimed to fight for something good. You think Hitler didn’t believe in his own cause?”

Host: The air grew thick, the rain louder now — drumming on metal, stone, and the fragile space between them.

Jack: “That’s the curse of conviction. Every man believes he’s the hero of his own story. That’s what makes war inevitable.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. What makes it inevitable is that people like you accept it. You call it a fact of life. I call it a failure of the soul. We build machines to kill faster, weapons to destroy more efficiently — all under the banner of progress. And then we wonder why our children grow up in a world that’s terrified of its own brilliance.”

Host: Jeeny’s voice trembled slightly, but it wasn’t fear — it was fury held in restraint, like a flame behind glass. Jack sighed, his fingers pressing against his temple, his cigarette now a dead stub on the table.

Jack: “You talk about the soul, Jeeny, but the world doesn’t run on souls. It runs on strategy, power, and survival. You can’t stop wars with poetry.”

Jeeny: “But maybe you can stop them with empathy. With understanding. With the courage to say no when everyone else is saying yes. You remember that photo — the one of the lone man standing in front of the tanks in Tiananmen Square? He didn’t have weapons or strategy. Just humanity. And for a moment, it stopped the entire world.”

Host: Silence. The kind that feels like truth taking a breath. Jack looked at her — truly looked — as if the rain had washed something clean inside him.

Jack: “You think that changed anything? The tanks still rolled, the system still stood.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But the image endured. It haunts, it inspires, it reminds us that even in the darkest moments, humanity still exists. That’s what Fosdick meant — war takes the best in us, the part that sacrifices, the part that believes, and twists it into something monstrous. But it never fully kills it. There’s always something left — a small, stubborn light.”

Host: The wind shifted, carrying the faint chime of a distant church bell. Jack’s eyes softened, the sharpness fading into a weary reflection.

Jack: “So what then? You want to believe that we can just — what — evolve past it? That someday we’ll be too wise for war?”

Jeeny: “Not too wise. Just too tired. Too aware of the cost. Maybe peace isn’t born from wisdom, but from exhaustion — from seeing too many names carved into too many stones.”

Host: Jack nodded slowly, his gaze fixed on the raindrops sliding down the glass — each one catching the light before it fell into the darkness.

Jack: “You might be right. Maybe the real tragedy isn’t that war uses man’s best to do man’s worst… maybe it’s that we keep letting it.”

Jeeny: “And maybe the real hope is that someday, we won’t.”

Host: The rain eased into a soft drizzle, the streetlamps flickering like tired stars. Jack reached for his coffee, cold now, but steady in his hands. Jeeny watched him, a faint smile touching her lips — not of victory, but of understanding.

Host: Outside, the world kept turning, slow and silent, as if listening. Two souls, bruised but not broken, sat in a small café, their words fading into the hum of a night that seemed — for once — almost at peace.

End Scene.