I hear a plane flying by.
I imagine a little boy looking up into the sky. With a puzzled and inquisitive face he tugs on his dad's shirt and asks, "Dad, what is that?" The dad looks down lovingly at the boy, slightly surprised by the question that sounds a little silly to him. But he remembers that he too had asked the very same question when he was a child. "It's an aeroplane, son. It takes people up into the air," he says. "Wow, so it's almost like flying, right?" the boy asks, amazed by the new concept. The father smiles at his son, "Yes, son, and one day I'll take you on a plane and you can fly." "That's so cool!" Content with the answer, the boy continues to walk down the street, holding his father's hand, contemplating the idea of flying through the air in a plane...
I imagine another young boy of the same age, looking up into the sky then turning to his dad. He sees that his dad's face has changed. He looks to his mom and her face, too, is filled with horror. Sometime between looking up and looking down, something deep within them changed, for reasons unknown to him. "Dad, what's wrong?" the boy asks with a sense of urgency. He is starting to feel scared too, but he doesn't understand why. "Son, you hear that sound? Those are airplanes, they're coming, we have to go hide somewhere safe," the dad grabs the boy's hand and begins to walk towards the house. The boy complies but he is still confused. "Dad, what are airplanes? Why do we need to hide?" Now the dad starts to feel a little impatient, but remembering how he felt when he first saw those planes as a little boy, he turns to his son and explains, "The planes carry bombs, and when the bombs drop they explode. People die and houses are destroyed, that's why we must find a safe place to hide." The boy is even more confused now. What are bombs? Where do they come from? Why does anyone want to kill people and destroy their homes? But when he sees the fear in his dad's eyes, he swallows the words that are coming out of his mouth and jogs silently by his father, holding tight onto his hand...