“In law, as in life, it is not the answer that shifts the room -it is the courage to ask the right question” It was the third day of the trial. The courtroom had become familiar: the heavy wooden benches, the dust dancing in light beams, the quiet shuffles of hope and cynicism seated shoulder to shoulder. Aurelia had prepared meticulously — statutes cited, precedents bookmarked, witness outlines rehearsed. But as she sat at the counsel table, a deeper voice inside her stirred: Don’t just present. Pierce. That afternoon, she stood to question a government officer — a man who had signed off on dozens of eviction orders during the wartime resettlement. He was polite. Trained. Slippery. “We followed the guidelines,” he said calmly. “We ensured minimum damage.” “There were no formal complaints filed at the time.” The room listened with the dull fatigue of bureaucracy. Aurelia tried facts. Dates. Discrepancies. He dodged with expertise. And then — she stopped. She closed her file. She looked up. And she asked, simply: “Sir, when you signed those orders… did you ever picture their faces?” Silence. He blinked. “What?” “Their faces,” she repeated. “The ones who lived in the houses you ordered down. The girl who stored her schoolbooks in a tin trunk. The father who still thought forgiveness was possible. The old woman who had folded her savings into her sari. Did you ever imagine even one of them before you signed?” The courtroom stopped breathing. He opened his mouth, then closed it. “I… that’s not part of the process.” “That,” Aurelia said gently, “is the problem.” She didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t accuse. She just let the question hang there — like incense curling into spaces no judgment ever reached. The judge leaned back slowly. The officer shifted in his seat. “No,” he whispered finally. “I didn’t. I saw numbers. Not people.” “Thank you,” Aurelia said quietly. “No further questions.” She returned to her seat, her heartbeat steady now. Because that was the question. Not legal. Not tactical. Not rehearsed. But true. After the session, one of the journalists approached her and said, “You didn’t win the cross today.” Aurelia smiled. “I didn’t need to win. I needed the room to remember.” That night, Aurelia wrote just one line in her journal: Sometimes, justice isn’t a verdict. Sometimes, it’s a question that refuses to be forgotten.