The vote came like a knife. No speeches could blunt it, no spin could hide the bloodless arithmetic of lives traded for leverage.
In seconds, abstractions turned into body counts, signed off with a sterile “aye.” Screens glowed with suffering; eyes looked away.
The chamber chilled as the clerk began to read the fin… Continues…
They filed out beneath cameras and choreographed talking points, but the decision clung to them like smoke.
In the quiet of town cars and hotel rooms, the language of “security” and “credibility” unraveled into nameless families
they would never see, into cities that would never appear in their stump speeches.
Some slept, some justified, some stared at the ceiling and rehearsed answers for questions no reporter would ask.
Beyond the marble and flags, people counted the dead with a care the roll call never pretended to show. Staffers tracked who stumbled over “aye,”
who suddenly discovered a conscience in private memos, who demanded legal briefings they’d once waved away.
The shipments would move, the alliances would endure, the news cycle would move on.
Yet something hairline and permanent had cracked: a small, silent entry into history’s ledger that no amendment could erase.
