War is delightful to those who have had no experience of it.

Host: The evening air was thick with smoke and the distant echo of sirens. A war documentary flickered across the small projector screen in the corner of the room, its images washing over the peeling brick walls of an abandoned warehouse café. Rain pressed against the windows, blurring the world beyond into streaks of gray and silver.

Jack sat near the window, his coat damp, his eyes cold as steel. He watched the images in silence — soldiers marching, cities burning, faces screaming without sound. Jeeny sat across from him, her hands folded around a cup of untouched coffee, the steam trembling with the faint draft.

Host: In that dim light, war looked almost beautiful — and that was the cruelty of it.

Jeeny: “It’s strange, isn’t it… how even the most horrifying things can look almost artistic from a distance.”

Jack: “That’s the problem with distance. It makes everything bearable. Even hell looks like a painting when you’re not in it.”

Host: A silence settled, thick and uneasy. The projector hummed, spitting out images of battlefields, flags, and men whose faces looked ancient, though they couldn’t have been older than twenty.

Jeeny: “Erasmus said it — ‘War is delightful to those who have had no experience of it.’ He was right. People cheer for wars they’ll never have to fight.”

Jack: “And sometimes, people need to fight for the right reasons, Jeeny. There are wars that save more than they destroy. You wouldn’t be sitting here with that idealism if someone hadn’t fought for it once.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But they didn’t fight because they loved the war. They fought because they loved peace. There’s a difference.”

Host: Jack exhaled a slow breath, smoke curling from his cigarette like a ghost. His jaw tightened; his eyes flickered with something buried deep — a memory, perhaps, or a regret.

Jack: “Peace doesn’t come cheap. History’s full of people who wished for peace and got chains instead. Look at World War II — do you think diplomacy would’ve stopped Hitler? The world had to bleed so it could keep breathing.”

Jeeny: “And after the bleeding, what was left? Cities reduced to ash, children without parents, men who came back with half their souls. You call that a victory?”

Jack: “Sometimes, Jeeny, a wound is better than a death. You don’t always get to choose between good and evil — sometimes it’s just survival.”

Host: Her eyes softened, but her voice sharpened — a quiet anger born from empathy, not hate.

Jeeny: “And yet, people still glorify it. They make movies, write songs, build statues — all to remember what should have been forgotten. The young grow up thinking war is noble, heroic, even necessary. Until the first bullet takes their illusion away.”

Jack: “You’re blaming the wrong thing. It’s not war that’s beautiful — it’s courage, sacrifice, duty. We honor those, not the blood.”

Jeeny: “But courage without conscience becomes madness. Sacrifice without purpose becomes slaughter. Tell me, Jack — when does it stop being defense and start being pride?”

Host: The rain intensified, hammering against the glass like a thousand tiny drums. Outside, a neon sign blinked, its red light reflecting like a faint wound across Jack’s face.

Jack: “You think I don’t know what it looks like? I’ve seen it. I’ve watched men burn, Jeeny. I’ve heard them call for their mothers. I’m not glorifying it — I’m just saying the world’s built on it. Rome, America, every so-called ‘civilization’ — they all came from someone’s sword.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe civilization isn’t progress, just a cycle of blood dressed up in better uniforms.”

Jack: “Maybe. But what’s the alternative? A world where no one fights for anything? That’s not peace — that’s paralysis.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. It’s a world where we learn before we bleed. Erasmus lived during the Renaissance, surrounded by thinkers who believed knowledge could replace violence. He saw war not as strength but as a failure of imagination.”

Host: Jack leaned forward, his hands clasped, his voice low and bitter.

Jack: “Imagination doesn’t stop tanks. Books don’t stop bombs. You talk about ideals like they’re armor, but ideals don’t mean much when a bullet’s in your chest.”

Jeeny: “And yet, it’s those ideals that make someone pull the wounded from the rubble instead of leaving them there. It’s what makes someone refuse to become what they’re fighting against. That’s not weakness, Jack — that’s what keeps us human.”

Host: The projector whirred to a stop. The room fell into a heavy darkness, the only light now coming from the streetlamp outside, flickering like a dying candle.

Jack: “You ever met a soldier, Jeeny? Not the ones on TV — the real ones. The ones who don’t talk about what they’ve done?”

Jeeny: “Yes. My uncle. He came home from Vietnam. He used to sit by the window, just staring. Never said much. Sometimes he’d whisper names when he thought no one could hear. I saw what the war did to him. It took something he never got back.”

Host: Jack’s face changed then — a shadow passing through his eyes.

Jack: “My brother was in Iraq. He thought it would be like the stories. He came back… and stopped speaking for a year. The night he came home, he told me, ‘It’s not the dying that haunts you. It’s the ones you didn’t save.’”

Jeeny: “Then you understand. You both understand. That’s what Erasmus meant. War seduces those who haven’t touched it. The rest just try to forget.”

Host: The rain softened, turning into a gentle whisper against the glass. The tension in the air began to fade — replaced by a quiet, aching understanding.

Jack: “You know, I used to think we were made stronger by conflict. That we needed it to evolve. But maybe… maybe all it does is show how fragile we really are.”

Jeeny: “Fragile — but capable of learning. Maybe that’s our strength. Not in fighting, but in remembering why we shouldn’t have to.”

Jack: “And yet, every generation forgets.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe our job is to remind them — with words, with art, with truth. To make sure no one finds it ‘delightful’ ever again.”

Host: The rain stopped. The projector bulb, still warm, cast a faint glow across the table, illuminating their faces — both tired, both haunted, both changed.

Jack reached for his coffee, now cold, and raised it slightly, as if to toast something invisible.

Jack: “To remembering.”

Jeeny: “And to feeling. Even when it hurts.”

Host: Outside, the clouds began to part, and a thin blade of moonlight spilled through the window, cutting across the floor like a path. The world was still scarred, still imperfect — but in that small, fragile moment, there was a sense of quiet resolve, as if the night itself understood the weight of their words.

Host: And in the fading echo of silence, Erasmus’s truth lingered — that war, no matter how beautifully it’s told, is only delightful to those who have never heard its scream.