The dove landed on the rusted fence, feathers pale against the soot-stained air. Below, the ruins of yesterday still smoked; homes shattered, voices silenced. A child spotted it, eyes wide. He reached out, hesitant, as if the bird might vanish with a breath. But the dove stayed, calm, unshaken by the wreckage. In its stillness lay something stronger than the chaos around it. Not denial, not forgetting, just a quiet insistence that gentleness still existed. The child smiled, the first smile in days. One small bird, a fragile reminder: peace begins by refusing to flee.

Mind you, so does death.