{"id":126,"date":"2014-02-28T17:15:39","date_gmt":"2014-02-28T17:15:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/henrybrook.com\/?p=126"},"modified":"2014-02-28T18:01:20","modified_gmt":"2014-02-28T18:01:20","slug":"only-the-happy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/henrybrook.com\/?p=126","title":{"rendered":"Only the happy&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>have nightmares, says Guy Sajer in his <em>The Forgotten Soldier<\/em>. Sleep is a refuge for the wretched and the miserable, somewhere to hide. Nightmares are a luxury? I guess they are if you&#8217;re always awake in one, pressing your face into the dirt at the bottom of a trench outside Kharkov. I&#8217;ve been digging trenches this week, trying to keep the water out of my house in the sticks. But nothing to compare with Sajer&#8217;s excavations. I don&#8217;t have Old Popov shooting at me, for one thing. And the house is just about dry and I only moved a few shovelfuls of sodden, chalky gunk before strolling off to chat with the neighbours. Even a few minutes of digging was enough to remind me of Celine and his bitching about having to show enthusiasm in his army days, staying chipper. I&#8217;ve never been much good at chipper. But, driving over the ridge from the village I saw the sky clear over the two trees that flank the high, lonely road and above that the blue haze that thins out to the stars and I glanced into the rear-view and caught myself smiling like a loon.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/henrybrook.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/tree.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-127 alignleft\" alt=\"tree\" src=\"https:\/\/henrybrook.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/tree.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"516\" srcset=\"https:\/\/henrybrook.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/tree.jpg 640w, https:\/\/henrybrook.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/tree-300x241.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>have nightmares, says Guy Sajer in his The Forgotten Soldier. Sleep is a refuge for the wretched and the miserable, somewhere to hide. Nightmares are a luxury? I guess they are if you&#8217;re always awake in one, pressing your face into the dirt at the bottom of a trench outside Kharkov. I&#8217;ve been digging trenches [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-henry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrybrook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrybrook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrybrook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrybrook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrybrook.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=126"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/henrybrook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":136,"href":"https:\/\/henrybrook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126\/revisions\/136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrybrook.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrybrook.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrybrook.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}