Escape From Rodeo Burger—Chapter 1

It is a sad fact that once the aliens have you, they have you. You are not going to escape. Try as you might try. Dream as you might dream. Hope as you might hope. They are not going to suddenly develop a conscience and let you go. They don't have feelings like we have feelings. They have dominion, and technology, and they don't speak our language. They are immune to compassion—motivated solely by pleasure and profit and nothing else besides an insatiable appetite and hunger. 

There I sat in the cold metal ship with approximately 400 other people. There was no room to move. We were like sardines in a can, piled over top of one another. People screamed and pissed themselves. It was an ignomonious way to be, but we tried to find some order amongst ourselves, some dignity in our precarious condition that we weren't afforded by our ruthless captors. 

Somehow, I managed to stand and help a few people up, who, in turn, helped others until we all were on our feet. And there we were, shuffling around, face-to-face to a total stranger who would shuffle their feet and try to turn or wedge between someone else to find someone they knew—maybe a loved one. It wouldn't be as difficult to stand there nose-to-nose to someone you love or care about in such a way that the proximity was no longer a matter of awkwardness. 

For me, it was futile. I had no family or friends on the ship. I had no one, really. I had a father and a mother, but they never progressed to anything but the title they bore. They were both rather emotionless and pragmatic people who showed very little affection to each other, and much less to me. Everything was logic and reason to them. Love and compassion had no place in the house of Ulysses and Martha Von Gogh. 

They were also not creative people and we were in no way related to the insane Dutch artist Vincent Van Gogh. We were the Von Goghs—not the Van Goghs. Thinking of my father painting a picture was absurd. Thinking of my mother singing a song or writing a poem was impossible to conceive in my mind. It was just as well to imagine a pig to fly. 

My parents were very ordinary-looking as well, and their only pleasure seemed to be in eating and watching the TV which was full of emotional displays of hysterical people doing ridiculous things that they were not capable of doing, but that captivated them to no end. 

It is a wonder that I wasn't named John, or Michael, or some terribly dull and ordinary name. But, instead, inexplicably, they named me Victor—Victor Von Gogh. I often wondered why Victor, but I was never given an explanation. For short, in what might be confused as a semblance of affection or playfulness, my mother Martha often called me VV, but never when my father was around. Pet names were as forbidden as pets themselves. There was no "I love you" in the Von Gogh household, and had it appeared, it certainly would have been treated the same as an intrusive mouse or roach, either poisoned, squished, or shooed in some manner until it was no more. 

They also seemed to enjoy taking me places and leaving me as a kid. The few times I went to the zoo and the playground, they left me there. Same with the grocery, and the museum, and the pool. After a while, it was to be expected, and when I made my way home, they were just there watching TV, mowing the lawn, or something. A few times, I thought I saw my mother smile as though she were happy I made it. But my father never did. He only said, "At least you remembered how to get home."

So, no, mother and father were not in the cold belly of this alien spaceship with the blue lights flashing. It was the last place they'd be. They were home, undoubtedly, watching TV. I looked down at my watch and saw they were having dinner as they never missed their 6:30 dinner time. My mother probably said "VV" under her breath, maybe spelled it out with her peas, but my father would have given her a glare that made her recalibrate to the emotionless person she pretended so well to be. 

Hunger never compelled an earlier dinner hour, nor did anything ever delay it. My disappearance would have been nothing to get them off schedule. I was 19, after all, and I should have been gone anyway, as my father said. I should have been off to college at 18, but I wasn't sure where I wanted to go or what I wanted to do, and neither of them helped me to decide. So, I sort of lingered until one day when the issue would be forced and my bags would be packed and placed on the front porch and the locks changed—which is what I expected but it never came. 

But now, all that aside, I was caught in the awkward situation of shuffling through strange people, as we turned like cogs, coming nose-to-nose with someone who wasn't looking for me—repeatedly. Someone who wasn't looking for me at all. And I saw in each of their faces the uncomfortable panic and terror of not seeing a face they desperately wanted to see. 

It was foreign to me, that look, as I had only seen people in a utilitarian sort of way. There was mother, father, teacher, the trash man, the letter carrier, the newspaper boy, the doctor, the dentist, the grocer, and occasionally, the stranger. In that order. Of course, there were those on TV, but they were fiction to me—about as real as figments of my imagination. 

And so there in that blue belly we turned and turned and turned and mixed and matched until I came face-to-face to someone who didn't look foreign to me. She wasn't familair in the sense that I had met her before, only that she didn't appear like a stranger. Perhaps, I had read of her in a book and she reminded me of one of those long-lost characters who had only before been words to me—simple characters—black letters on a page which were codes of my imagination. 

She didn't look like any of those useful people I've known, or like anyone from TV. It was only that when I looked at her, I didn't want to look away. And unlike the others, she didn't look at me with absolute dread, hoping that I was someone that I wasn't. No—she looked at me in perhaps the same hopeful sort of way that I looked at her, as though she was content not to shuffle and turn anymore. So we locked hands without even speaking a word.  

We looked at each other and the drone of the ship's engine, and the frequent psychotic horn that blared for some purpose we didn't understand, didn't bother us in the least. The dread was washed from us. The moment, in turn, lost its sense of terror—and somehow I knew that everything was going to be alright, even if it wasn't.

I have never been in love before. I didn't even know what love was, and, perhaps, I don't still. I am only 19, after all, and I was never taught. I had heard about it on a TV show. I read about it in a book—The Great Gatsby—and other books. I read Shakespeare. I knew of it in various degrees of the concept. I had the longing of Gatsby and the desperation of Romeo and Juliet, but my tongue was frozen in my mouth, which I suppose is an early symptom, along with nervousness. I managed to eek out a hello, to which she replied, hello. And when she said her name was Esther, my mouth opened and the words fell like meticulously placed dominoes. 

"I knew I would know you if ever I was lucky enough to see you. I didn't know what your eye or hair color would be, how tall you were, even the complexion of your skin. I had no idea. Of course, I thought for a time or two that maybe you would look a little like so-and-so, or the pretty girl I knew in 7th grade who all the boys liked. But then I figured not. I knew you would look like you—and no one else—someone I look at and see an entire future and no past. Someone who would calm and excite me at the same time. Make my body revolt against logic and comply with irrational thoughts and desires. Who is as overwhelming as the ocean, yet simple as a raindrop. Who makes me want to go to church and want to go to bed all at the same time. To be a better person in every way. To be good and bad—a sinner and a saint. A hero and a coward. Someone who brings out desires I've never known to exist. 

"I never thought I'd see you in this way, of course. Like this. I thought I'd have to search for you. Not be thrown into you. I figured I would see you in a shopping mall or a grocery store feeling papayas. Pushing a cart with a squeaky wheel where, in a moment of chivalry, I would offer to trade you my cart that rolled smoothly. I thought a lot of things—not this. 

"Not that I'd meet you in a crowd of people in a field looking up at the sky in search of a spaceship. At an impromptu alien festival. But amongst those curious cats, there I saw you. In a crowd of hundreds—your distinct face. Waiting for the aliens to come. You were smiling. Pointing up. 

"Maybe it was meant to be this way, or meant to be another way. Or I knew you in another life and I have been unsuccessful in finding the right person in this one because you were her all along. But now that I've seen you, I know who you are. I know you are the one. The only one. 

"I thought I would probably never in a thousand years meet you. I thought I'd never get the chance to be close enough to say this to you. You will likely think that I am weird. And maybe you're right. Maybe I am not that face to you—not that person. But I hope you take this as a sincere compliment and know that these words have never been, nor ever will be, spoken to anyone else. You are the dream within the dream. You are the most beautiful woman on this planet, and soon to be, on the one to which we are going."

"Thank you," she whimpered. She gave me a hug and stayed there as though she melted into me.

Perhaps, it would have gone over better had it been under different circumstances. It wasn't suppose to be this way. The recent sightings of UFOs was an orchestrated chain of events by the aliens of Kalgon. They've done it this way for the past 100 years because it is the most efficient means of gathering people for collection. Fishing, you might say—only their lure is curiosity.

"Do you know what's happening?" she begged weakly. She rested her head on my shoulder and I held on to her so we would not be separated. 

"I'm afraid that I do, Esther."

"Then what?" 

"This is a cargo ship owned by Rodeo Burger—which is the universe's largest fast food chain. The next one to it isn't even close. It sprawls across several galaxies and is on 77 planets. The are known for their signature sandwich—the rodeo burger—or the rodey—which is a burger loaded with special sauce, bacon, two patties, onion rings, and cheese. They don't even count how many they have sold because it is such an enormous quantity."

"I've never heard of them," Esther interjected. 

"Well, they're not on Pseudo, or Earth II, or whatever you want to call it. But—I'll get to that. So the burgers are 100 percent human meat. The bacon, as well. The cheese is made from the lactating breasts of female humans. They were originally wild caught—meaning ships would go to the real Earth and steal people, but that was horribly inefficient, mostly because of the distance. And so after RB (Rodeo Burger) expanded to outside of the original planet which it served—Kalgon—it was determined that there must be a planet entirely dedicated to raising meat for their burgers. So, in the infinite wisdom of the powers that be, they created a planet in their own galaxy called Earth II, or Pseudo-Earth, or just Pseudo, where the inhabitants believe that they are living on Earth and everything is okay."

"That can't be," she argued weakly. 

"Unfortunatley, it is. Of course, life on Pseudo isn't normal at all. Every so often there is a flood. Or an earthquake. Or a war. Or some sort of man-made calamity or natural disaster and hundreds, thousands, or even millions of people disappear. People on Pseudo mourn, but they get over it, as they do, thanking God they survived, which reinforces religion, and life goes on. More babies are made. It is all an extravagant ruse so the feeder ships back to Kalgon are always full. They've only recently been doing the thing where they hover the ship over a field and see who comes. Curiosity killed the cat, I suppose."

"But if you know this, why did you come?"

"I was the one who was yelling for everyone to go home. I was trying to warn people, but no one would listen to me. Here," I handed her a pamphlet. Everything I told her I had put in a pamphlet and printed at Kinkos. 

She took it and looked over it with dread. 

I explained. "I didn't know it would happen so quick. I didn't know they'd have a vaccuum capable of sucking us all up the way that it did. And, well, when I saw you, I, well, I didn't, um, want to go, you know—without you."

"So you're here because of me?"

"Well, no. I mean, well, yes. Maybe. But I don't want to be anywhere else. This is where I was meant to be."

"I was so curious," she complained. "I've loved aliens since I was a little kid and saw ET. You know, 'ET phone home.' I had stuffies, and posters, and notebooks, and t-shirts. Bought all the alien merch. I got a tattoo. I'm even wearing my flying saucer earrings. See?"

She turned and titled her head so that I could see the flying saucer dangling from her left earlobe. 

"What a dummy I am," Esther went on. "Then I heard they had been spotted above Monday's Farm and they were having the big sighting event or festival, so I had to see for myself. When I saw the light, I couldn't look away. And then the door opened and there was that horrible sound! I froze. I couldn't move my arms or legs. I couldn't look away." She began to cry. 

"I was—wearing the sunglasses. Yelling at everyone—like a weirdo," I recalled. 

"I can't believe it," she sobbed. "I just—can't believe it! I'm going to be a hamburger! How could we not have known?"

"No one on Pseudo knows it's happening. Not even the wildest conspiracy theorists on their podcasts suggest anything of the like, but it's real—as you now know. Actually, those conspiracy theorists are just there to distract us from this reality that has been going on for 100 years. To confuse us all with garbage. All they can talk about are sensational things like affairs, celebrities, and pedophile rings, or some trivial and absolutely meaningless war. Don't even get me started on sports."

"We weren't even living on Earth," she gasped in a daze of realization. 

"Get a hold of yourself, Esther." 

"I don't think I can," she cried.

"We got to fight!"

"How? I'm going to be a cheeseburger! After I make the cheese they'll put on me." She began hyperventilating, so I held her until she was calm again. No one around us seemed to hear or notice us. They were all sobbing and talking softly to each other. A man was trying to pry open a door and was electrocuted. He shocked four or five other people. 

"No, you're not going to be a cheeseburger."

"I'm sorry," she plead. "I'm sorry! The reality of this is just too much to bear. So our history? It's all made up?"

"No. The history on Pseudo is Earth's history. It's all borrowed. Pseudo's actual history is as I described it. On Kalgon, there are stockyards full of people. They live in giant barns divided into little pens and are fed and impreganted by farmers and scientists who work for Rodeo Burger and who have determined that the best meat is humans from 2 to 4 years-old. TM, they call it, or Toddler Meat. It doesn't stop them from using older meat, or OMs, even from humans up to the natural end of their life-cycle riddled with tumors or cancer. It is all ground up, anyway, but there must be a balance in what is ground up to make their burgers. A percentage of the meat must be TM or the burgers will not taste right at all."

"My God!" she exclaimed.

"Yeah. Once a human gets from Pseudo to Kalgon they are essentially screwed. They are gassed and unconscious once they arrive. The females will be put in the impregnation pens, or IPs, and the males will be slaughtered upon arrival—all but the chosen one who will be used to impregnate the captive females. One male will impregante all the females so the DNA of the meat is similar which will not allow for much variance in taste. They choose one male from every transport ship upon arrival. Rodeo Burger is a sophisticated and efficient corporation full of the brightest minds in the universe—the sickest of minds—those without a conscience."

"How do you know all of this?"

"Someone told me who knows. But I promised I wouldn't say where I heard it from."

"We are going to die, Victor!"

"No, Esther. We're going to escape." I suddenly had the unrelenting optimism of Jay Gatsby with Daisy Buchanan in my arms. Secretly, I knew we were fucked, but why go out whimpering and sniveling and admitting defeat? All we had is hope. All a person really ever has is hope. And until we are between two buns, or alien excrement, there is hope.