The Rockin' Rodents

The Dump

 The dump was where Sewerville met the human's city. It was where the majority of rat and mouse scavenging parties rifled through the discarded goodies and brought them back underground. This somehow made Jerry feel worse. The idea of throwing something away was to the rats and mice of Sewerville as silly as a person buying a car just to crash it.

Jerry arrived at the dump, guitar in one paw, amp in the other, his feet getting heavier with every step. He went straight in. He passed mountains of shopping trolleys and beds, hills of old forlorn toys, discarded mounds of notebooks with long-forgotten homework, and stories about the life of a penny. Gulls circled overhead, squawking in a horrible din, as they searched for tasty tidbits that the rats and mice had missed.

In the distance, the dump's guard dogs barked their vicious bark. He could also hear the sound of bulldozers and trucks ferrying and pushing the scrap and waste the humans brought in daily.

Jerry walked deeper and deeper into the dump, some force inside him just couldn't let him throw away his guitar and amplifier, he could have dropped them anywhere. The more he thought about it, the tighter his grip on the two things became. Soon he realized he was lost. "Today can't get any worse," he thought to himself. He tried to find his bearings.

He heard something. A rock riff? Yes, despite the faintness of the sound, Jerry's ears having been trained by hours of listening to music, picked out the sound among all the ruckus of the dump. The riff is sweet, tasty, crunchy, and bouncy, melodic, and rhythmic.

He did what Jerry always did when he was lost or didn't understand the world – he followed the music.

The melody kicked the fact that he was lost out of his head, and lured him deeper, and deeper into the dump. The sound twisted and changed with the path he followed. Sometimes it got heavy and fast, and then the player toned it back to something bluesy and overflowing with emotion. Slowly he got closer; the music now seemed like a breadcrumb trail leading him. The music got louder and louder and louder until Jerry came to a small clearing.

A rat was playing guitar, but this rat was like no one Jerry had ever seen. His fur was both as black as night in some places and white as snow in others. On his head, he wore a red broad-rimmed hat, with an eagle's white feather sticking through one of his ears like an earring. His Jacket was like the type marching bands wear in black and white. His trousers were green and his shoes were cream. He wore a purple frilly shirt.

His guitar was the color of an exploding sun, with strings the thickness of steel wires, but that didn't slow down his fingers. As they raced up and down the fretboard, he finally hit the crescendo, bending the strings up with his right hand, as he attacked them with the left making the guitar scream, his tail moving the tremolo bar, his back arched, eyes closed. He made a face like someone had dropped something on his foot, as he pointed the guitar skyward as though shooting at the Sun.

Jerry had arched his head back, air-guitaring with his arms, manipulating an invisible whammy bar with his tail, as he told the story. Ger was impressed with how invested his subconscious was in this hallucination. If he hadn't been so into the story, he might have detected the irony of watching an imaginary creature, imagine things. Of course Ger wasn't imagining anything. There was a talking mouse telling him a parable. Jerry continued the story.

The rat slowly let the note go, and eventually, the sound faded and the silence afterward made the world feel a little emptier.

The rat opened his eyes and glanced around like someone suddenly coming back from another place, and getting back their bearings. He saw Jerry, standing in awe in front of him. He tilted back his hat, let his guitar drop to his side, hanging down on its strap, which looked like the skin of a rattlesnake, and looked right at him and said "Can't I get just a little peace? Turn around son, I don't feel like showing down with yea."