Sample Chapter
Michael Burrows WHERE the LINE BREAKS where the line breaks_title pages.indd 2 7/10/20 1:10 pm Always the same dream. He’s still on the rock. The sun rising behind the wall of khaki-clad men who advance past him. The countless boots. The endless rifl es held at the same exact angle, tips of the bayonets rolling forward in a wave that extends as far as he can see, until they rise out of the trench, and another line takes their place. Scowling as they peer back at him. Actively running from him, distancing themselves from him as they jump up on the fi re step and clamber up the ladders, climbing up the sandbags, the cli wall, the wooden supports, their heads turned back to him with disgust in their eyes, pitying him, watching him blow his childish whistle before they step up and out into the unknown. And as the fi rst wave vanishes, the next line turns, and the same faces peer back at him, judging him, shaking their heads. And the next line. Shaking their heads. And the next. Each line turns and he sees the faces of the friends he signed up with, the boys he trained beside, the men he joked and drank and swore and dreamed with: Brennan, Stokes, Collopy, Richardson, Morrow, even Tom and Robbie. Sometimes Red. And sometimes Nugget. As they fade, the noise starts, seamlessly merging with the tick of his watch. No change in tempo, no increase in speed. The steady tak tak tak of the machine gun; the relentless, ruthless, repetitive, jarring tak tak tak of mechanical bursts that ring in his head when he lies down to sleep.
[Show full text]