The polling stations were quiet. The air was not. It carried a low, electric hum of spent anger and fragile hope. People stood in lines that snaked past murals of gunmen and political slogans, their breaths visible in the cool spring morning. They marked ballots with a simple pencil, a weight in the hand that felt heavier than any weapon.
You could smell the damp wool of coats, the faint tang of newsprint from the folded papers under arms. The sound was a murmur—no cheering, no chanting. Just the shuffle of feet on linoleum and the occasional whispered instruction from a poll worker. For thirty years, the soundtrack had been one of sirens, explosions, and funereal drums. This new quiet was unnerving.
In kitchens and pubs later, radios were tuned low. The count was not a spectacle but a vigil. When the result was clear—71.1% in favor—the relief was profound but private. There were no grand street parties in most neighborhoods. There was a nod across a fence, a longer handshake, a kettle put on for tea. The agreement was a complex document of power-sharing and decommissioning, but in that moment, it was simply a permission slip to imagine a different morning. A morning where the first thing you heard might be birds, not news.