The Rockin' Rodents

Going underground

 In every big city, there is a world beneath people's feet, that they have no idea exists. Underground, deep down in the drains, in the dank sewers. There is a place for rats and mice. There are often far more rats and mice living underground than there are people above.

In one such subterranean place called Sewerville, beneath where we're standing now. There is a city beneath a city, a thriving community of rodents lives there, collecting the things and food thrown away by your kind as you go about your daily lives. Here in that ill-lit subterranean world live rats and mice packed together, in a 3D labyrinth of houses and tunnels and tubes.

Now, one thing I don't get about you humans is how ignorant you are of the world around you. You ponce about the place as if you own it, but you don't take care of anything.

"Hey! I recycle!" Gerry interrupted.

"That's great kid, I'm sure your noble peace prize is in the post, Greta Thurnberg is bringing it in person. Now don't interrupt or we'll be here all night," and with that, the mouse continued.

People are normally guilty of helping to kill off several species of animals. They burn down a rain forest here, poison a river there, fill the oceans with plastic bags, bottles, and Q-tips. However, in the case of rats and mice people, they have done them a huge favor. People are so wasteful, throwing uneaten food all over the place and with that mountain of abundance, nobody goes hungry and underground civilizations thrive.

As if to make his point the mouse jumped off the bench and found the remains of a hamburger that someone had tossed on the floor as he continued his story.

Vast societies grow down there, deep under the streets, where the creatures stealthily creep among the garbage cans, picking up tasty morsels and bringing them back down beneath the streets to share. It's not only food they find; soon all sorts of useful things are taken.
Rats and mice take recycling to a whole new level. The old saying "waste not, want not" may indeed have been started by a rat. Soon the rats began to become well... more human as they began to copy them, even following their fashion and culture. They were in a sense like humans or perhaps even better than humans (or at least less wasteful).

Ger decided not to comment on how anti-human the mouse was, after all when it came to the environment, the mouse was right, humans are wasteful.

One such creature was Jerry Lee Mouse.

"Is that you? Are you referring to yourself in the third person?"
"Not exactly kid, that was a different time, a different me," Jerry answered mystically.

Jerry Lee Mouse's dream was to be a rock star. He wasn't doing very well.

Jerry tried to play his guitar every day. He played loud! Just like his heroes The Rolling Cheeses. The problem was he wasn't very good at playing his guitar. Now, this is very normal, when you start doing something, you're not going to be good at it straight away, you have to practice. The problem was people didn't want Jerry to practice anywhere near them.

This also made it difficult to get better, when all your trying to do is just play and not play better. Don't bring up the Sex Pistols and how they couldn't play their instruments, a bunch of hacks.

Ger had only just opened his mouth to make the Sex Pistols comment and closed it quickly. He felt that talking to (what he erroneously believed to be) an aspect of his subconscious was a very frustrating experience.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, so he tried practicing in the morning, to get the most out of the day, but his Mam and Dad yelled at him, "Jerry! Quiet Down! It's six o clock in the morning and it's Sunday! Stop making so much noise!"

He tried to practice at lunchtime, but it was a disaster. As he practiced spinning on the kitchen floor, whilst attempting a guitar solo (like the lead guitarist from one of his favorite groups "Don't Touch That Socket!") he knocked over his soup and it went everywhere. His mother went ballistic with rage.

"JERRY! STOP MAKING SO MUCH NOISE! LOOK AT THE MESS YOU'VE MADE!"

He joined the choir at church, but they're not very fond of rock music. They very politely (but in perfect harmony) asked him to leave.

He busked outside the supermarket, but the manager phoned the police. "He's scaring away all our customers," he told them.

He did music at school, but they didn't let him play his guitar. It's hard to rock on a plastic recorder. In fact, it's hard to produce anything but a horrible, shrill, squeaking noise on a plastic recorder, and rats and mice already know how to make shrill squeaks.

He practiced at the park, but the mothers complained that the sound frightened the smaller children and made them cry.

Finally, his parents couldn't handle it anymore. One day, his father came to him with his electric guitar and amplifier (which was so loud that the volume went to 11!) and said "I'm sorry son, but you've got to give up all this music business. It's a waste of time and the neighbors are complaining, not to mention the walls of the house are starting to crack and not a single window is intact. I want you to take this stuff to the dump," his Dad said to him, in his "I'm not taking any nonsense this time" tone.

"But Dad! It's my dream! Haven't you ever wanted to be something so much you can taste it? That you can't stop thinking about it, you even think about it when you're sleeping!" pleaded Jerry.

For a moment, his father stopped in his tracks and seemed to daydream for a couple of seconds. Jerry also started daydreaming on his father's behalf, because if there was one thing they had in common it was daydreaming. He imagined him thinking about having his own corner cheese shop, stocked to the brim with cheeses of all kinds from creamy Brie to foul-smelling blue ones, to salty orange cheddar and soft hole-riddled Swiss in round red wax skin.

Of course, before that could have happened, he'd gotten married, he'd become a father, and had a comfy little job as an above-ground scavenger that paid the bills...

"No, Jerry. It's a hard lesson to learn, but sometimes we can't always have our dreams come true. That's why they are dreams."

Ger sighed at the comment. "I know what that feels like," he said. At that moment a young teenager who was freezing in just a tracksuit in the cold wet night passed by, and gave Ger a strange look as he spoke to his imaginary mouse friend. Since the youth wasn't a lost musician he couldn't see the reincarnated saint. Jerry Lee Mouse continued the story.

The wisp of Jerry's story about his father blew away back into the foggy realm of fairy tales and songs. Jerry felt his hair stand on end in rage, his tail whipped left and right in anger. He grabbed his guitar and amp and stomped out of the house, and headed for the dump.

"If you're so into recycling, why did your father make you take the guitar to the dump?" asked Gerry, who was glad to be out of the public toilet back alley, as he walked down O'Connell Street psychosomatically tripping off his balls and talking to a mouse.

"I don't know kid, why didn't Simba notice his Uncle Scar was Evil, he was voiced by Jeremy Irons for Christ's sake! Are you going to be interrupting me every five seconds, I mean this is your high, just sit back, relax and listen" answered the mouse grumpily.

They sat on a bench beside a statue of James Joyce. Jerry Lee Mouse took a deep breath, grabbed a claw full of burger bread, and continued the story.