[Intro | tight stomp groove | dry commands] Step to the mark. Step to the mark. Step to the mark. Next. Step to the mark. Step to the mark. Step to the mark. No. [Verse 1 | crooked riff | snapped vocal] The tape on the floor had learned every shoe. Yellow little border telling bodies what to do. The window stayed closed. The guard checked the time. The line took one breath and swallowed the sign. Someone should move. Someone should nod. Someone should make the machine feel like God. But one heel turned sideways. One hand left the rail. One mouth opened early. One number failed. [Break | stop-start band | commands breaking] Next. No. Next. No. Next. No. The room heard it. [Chorus | sudden clean lift | tense anti-anthem] There’s a break in the line and the air gets through. Not enough to save us. Enough to prove the shape can move. [Verse 2 | punk-metal burst | frantic delivery] The clerk lost the sentence. The stamp missed the page. The guard touched the radio, then looked at the cage. A laugh came loose from the back of the room. Too sharp for hope, too late for doom. The old man stood straighter. The mother looked up. The child stopped tracing the crack in the cup. Nobody planned it. Nobody led. The line forgot what the line had said. [Drop | sudden silence | single snare] For three whole seconds the country was wrong. [Verse 3 | heavier riff | pressured vocal] Then the lights got white. Then the voices rose. Then the screen by the door said: keep it closed. Then the man in the corner found someone to blame. Then the woman beside him remembered her name. Not freedom. Not fire. Not history’s wheel. Just a foot on the tape and the tape losing steel. [Chorus 2 | bigger clean lift | falling apart] There’s a break in the line and the air gets through. Not enough to save us. Enough to prove the shape can move. [Breakdown | tempo jerks | shouted fragments] Move back. Stand clear. Hands down. Not here. Wrong door. Wrong day. Calm down. Go away. The line bent left. The line bent right. The line got scared of its own small light. [Outro | damaged slow groove | close vocal] By evening, they had fixed the tape. By morning, they had changed the sign. By Monday, they had named the trouble. But everyone had seen the line. [End | crooked stomp | abrupt stop] Step to the mark. Step to the mark. Step to the— No.
