Escape from Rodeo Burger—Chapter 8

The fishmen didn't speak English but they spoke telepathically and what they said could be understood quite clearly. I suppose, inside their big fish brains, there was some sort of natural doohickey that translated anything anyone thought into their fish language, and exported their thoughts into the language of the second party. It was a part of their cerebral cortex, I suppose. Things I don't understand. I felt a little like what a baby must feel like—in that I don't understand how anything really works in the rest of the universe and probably never will. The human brain is a significantly smaller brain than most. And everything around me was something new and I was all goo-goo-gah-gah.

It is strange communicating with someone without saying anything at all, but you get used to it. It might seem like it is an annoyance, but it truly wasn't. They could only read your thoughts if you made eye contact with them. So if you wanted to preserve the privacy of your thoughts, you need only cover your eyes or look away and they wouldn't be able to tell a thing. You could simply wear sunglasses and they couldn't talk to you. Still, I wondered if they could somehow bypass your eyeballs. I don't know.

They were gracious hosts. Esther and I were all set to go home to Earth. We didn't have to do anything at all but sit back and take it easy and enjoy the trip. The boat we were on sailed out to sea until an enormous island was in view, which was our destination. We docked on that island which was full of monkeymen who were very friendly to the fishmen but seemed very skeptical of us. There was however one monkeyman who took a liking to us and welcomed us to the island as though he were the ambassador. He spoke perfect English. He sounded like he could be an English professor from Oxford University the way he enunciated everything so perfectly. He wore spectacles and was eager to explain everything to us.

"I've never met a Cowboy Cody before. This is—quite the honor," he declared softly, shaking my hand. I wondered if he knew that on Earth and Pseudo that there were apes and he looked like a small evolutionary footstep from them. As intelligent as he seemed to be, I am sure he did. I quickly learned that he couldn't communicate telepathically.

I shrugged. What was I to say to him? Yee-haw, or something? He talked to us for a while and said the ship would be taking off in the morning for Earth and invited us to have a look around the island and enjoy our time while we were here. He went over a long list of luxuries that were at our disposal. 

The island was beautiful. The sand was gold in color and the trees were various shades of green, orange, and red. The water was pale pink and the sky was a pinkish-orange bannered with whispy clouds. The landscape reminded me of a Hawaiian Island I once saw in a textbook in elementary school. It was a black-and-white photo so I had to imagine the colors. The beaches were breathtaking and there was a volcano in the distance capped with pillowy-white clouds that looked like balls of cotton. Through the trees towards the volcano there was a sort of railway system on giant glass-like poles, and on that track a train disappeared into the trees which rustled with the wind of a capsule that had already passed. It reminded me of a rollercoaster at an amusement park.

It was a strange society, I quickly learned from Stuart, our monkeyman ambassador. Of course, anything is strange when you are foreign. There was a king who decided everything. But equal to the king was an advisory committee that could dethrone him with a unanimous vote if he did anything to rash. No one really cared about politics and they didn't vote on anything. They paid no taxes and everyone seemed well-to-do and happy. There were no drugs, and crime was non-existent.

Esther spent hours on the beach playing her Stradivarius. During that time, Stuart and I spoke about Rodeo Burger and their intolerable cruelty. He said they don't come to the island and the island, which he called Vespa, doesn't come to them. He explained that since their expulsion, their society has greatly improved. Years earlier he carried on in a broad overview, Vespan ships brought Kalgon humans for Rodeo Burger meat. It was a very profitable business. But then they realized the error of their ways and refused to do so any longer. He explained they converted to Christianity after Dr. Jeworm introduced them to a Christian missionary named George Ringo. 

"Morality was born," he grinned, "and we charted a new course for our people by the example of Jesus Christ—given to us by George Ringo. We used to eat meat and kill for food, but we learned a new and healthier way. Fruit and rice. Vegetables and grain. Have you given you life to Jesus and asked for forgiveness of your sins?"

"I believe in Jesus Christ and accept Him as my Lord and Savior. But I've not asked for forgiveness of my—recent sins."

"One must," he said. I thought about the sins I had committed. I read The Bible a few times and "Paradise Lost," of course. But I don't think I had committed many sins until I was abducted and taken to Kalgon and Rodeo Burger. Until I had sex with Barbie Swoon and Willa Wescott and the rest of them for the purpose of staying alive. I suppose I should ask for forgiveness for all that, but it embarrassed me to even think about. I suppose Esther and I committed some sort of sin—in that we were not married, but it was beautiful and it was love and I couldn't understand asking for forgiveness for love.

Stuart smiled, as though he knew what I was thinking so I looked away, slightly embarassed. But he set me at ease with his words.

"In that, in your belief and acceptance in Christ, you will have eternal life. I am pleased for you." We said nothing for a while. And I set there and enjoyed the sound of Esther playing the violin to the waves crashing on the beach. Stuart didn't press. He seemed to enjoy the music as well and said they don't have music on Kalgon. Something about it being nonsense, really. Their music is natural. Then he went on about Rodeo Burger. 

"You know, Rodeo Burger created Pseudo and from Pseudo they raise meat. But they don't do that anymore."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"They take only a handful of people from Pseudo—merely for show. To fool their customers into believing they are, as one might say, 'wild caught.' But their human meat is created in a lab—artificially grown in birthing pods. But if their customers knew they created meat in such an unnatural way, they'd revolt against them. Profits would fall dramatically and if you should know one thing about business, profits falling due to a change in business model is unacceptable—no matter the reason. There is no moral imperative in business."

"I understand," I nodded.

"So they take a few here and there and make a show of it. They have you, Cowboy Cody, every season, and Wildwood. They have androids who live in Kalgon City who are just like humans in every sort of way except that they have no soul. You, yourself, should know in that Willa Westscott was one such android."

"So what will happen to those they take from Pseudo?"

"They will be killed, of course. It would be just as easy to return them to their homes, but that is inefficient. Why would they? Human life is not respected in the universe. It's barely respected on Earth, after all. They have no use for them, but for entertainment sake. They'll clone them, probably, then turn them into rodeo burgers and mix them with the cloned meat of six or seven year-olds. But you are safe, Victor. You and Esther have survived and will return to Earth."

"But we are from Pseudo—not Earth."

"Ah, but Earth and Pseduo are one in the same. When I say they created Pseudo, I mean to say that Pseudo is simply an alternate reality of Earth—another dimension, if you will. On Pseudo, it is 1965. On Earth, it is 2025. But they are one in the same.

"We, Vespans, do not have the ability to go to Pseudo or else we would return you there happily. Inter-dimensional time travel is, well, beyond our current capability. Kalgon is more advanced in that realm than are we, though we are catching up now that we've teamed with Dr. Jeworm. He could take you there, but he won't. He says that sort of travel is unethical. But we can travel to Earth where we take things and sell them on other planets. Anything from cars to patio sets. We don't however traffick people or animals. We recognize all life as being valuable and non-expendable. We believe in Jesus Christ, Lord and Savior."

"I don't understand," I admitted.

"There is much in the universe that you will never understand as there is much in the universe that I shall never understand as much as we both desire. Pseudo is simply a ghost of Earth's past from which you come. Time creates a shadow and in that shadow, there you live. But when we return you to Earth, you will be home no less, among your own kind of people and—things. And if there is one thing that every man, woman and child deserves, it is to know the peace of their own people and the comfort of their own home. You are welcome to remain here, if you so desire, but otherwise we can send you home as early as tomorrow, and you'll be home in six or seven hours."

Esther came back to us from the water. She was shoeless and smiling. Gold sand covered her small feet. We were sitting in the shade on the beach in chairs that were made of the large leathery leaves and the wood of the trees that bountifully surrounded us. It was a comfortable, lazy sort of existence, and it had the sort of peace that Kalgon City lacked.

Esther took a seat across from us and I marveled at her beauty. I had never seen anyone as beautiful and I feared that I was enamored by her to the point that I was drunk on her beauty—so thoroughly intoxicated by her that I hadn't considered her in her entirety, and it was that beauty with which I was in love. I realized in that way, blindness would be a gift.

There is so much more to love of a person than their appearance. There is their soul and their mind. Their humor and their wit. Their follies and vulnerability. Their character and personality. But I was so attracted to her that I simply couldn't get through to consider the rest of her, and though the rest of her was guileless, there was so much more to consider. The fact that I knew nothing of classical music, or of the violin, or of her wants and dreams—only of my own—was to be considered. Perhaps, she preferred beaches to my mountains, and black licorice to my cherry taffy. And she was not a vegetarian as I was—she had no expressed or apparent affinity for animals, other than cats. And politically she was a supporter of Lyndon Johnson, whereas, I was a young Republican who favored Barry Goldwater in the last election.

I was young and didn't know the parameters of a relationship. I didn't know if even she was interested in me in such a way and here I had been since the beginning, falling over myself for her, preoccupied with the idea of keeping her and myself alive so that we might have some sort of life together—a fairy tale happily-ever-after. But was that all some sort of instinctual glitch? Misplaced loyalty, wishful thinking, or the presumption of something that was not in reality what it was so beautifully in my mind. There was no way for her to choose me as I had chosen her—not in this world. We were joined by fate, chance, not by choice.

I felt horrible for the other twelve—those women that we left behind and I thought of them as I sat there on the luxury of the beach. I wondered if they were alive or dead, and I wondered if there was anyway for us to save them. There had to be a way, I resolved. But when I proposed the idea to Stuart he laughed uneasily and said that going back to Kalgon City would be certain suicide and then assured me there was peace in death. They have nothing to fear of death if all they gain is their eternity reward. 

"Besides that," he went on, "you would have to have a ship, and a pilot to make it. It would take a surgical strike and we Vespans aren't exactly the bold type. It isn't in our nature to create a war with a superior force, rather we choose to live harmoniously in objection, whilst praying for souls."

"Well, it is in mine. I'm an American and that is how we were born."

Esther smiled. But the smile faded from her face and she looked at me in such a way that made me think she was having the realization that she loved me and that I was planning something that might jeopardize my life. I could see the fear in her eyes, which was selfishly comforting to me in my insecurity.

Stuart squirmed in his seat for a moment. Some other monkeyman walked up with a tray of three orange frozen drinks with straws in them. The island was like a paradisical resort. I realized quickly that the Vespans were in no way fighters and they would not condone what I proposed to do. I knew a rescue operation would be impossible, but I knew I had to destroy Kalgon City to stop it from growing and abducting and killing more humans.

When we finished our drinks, Stuart agreed that he would take us to someone who might be able to help me out. He took us into the woods and there was a train station in the thick of what felt like a jungle of sorts where other monkey people and some fishmen and women were riding an escalator to the platform to board. There were people that looked like panthers and koala bears and skeletons of various sizes and shapes. The train looked like a long silver bullet and the track was a simple single clear pipe. Esther quietly asked me if I was serious about going back to Kalgon City. I told her I had to.

"You don't need to be a hero," she whispered loudly squeezing my hand. "We can leave and never return."

"I am not trying to be a hero. If we don't blow up that city and that tower, they will keep abducting people from Pseudo. I wouldn't be able to live with myself any other way. For the rest of my life I'd be somewhere wondering what would have happened if I had done something."

The train was comfortable. I wasn't sure how it was powered, but it moved smoothly through the trees and the air was cool and smelled sweetly of mangos or papaya. The other monkey people and fish folk looked like happy commuters. Some were children and I thought of Natasha from Lithuania who said she had children. And I thought of the Hill of Crosses she described to me, which I saw so vividly in my mind as though it lived there.

"I'll show you where you'll be staying tonight," Stuart said when the train set out on its way. "Then after you settle in, I'll introduce you to Bill. He has a relic of a ship that might be of service to you. Though it's quite old, I think you'll find it rather—operable."

I shook my head in agreement as Esther sighed to the contrary. It felt as though Stuart had all the details worked out in advance of me asking, as though he knew I would. And rather than to disagree with my intentions, he fully supported them. Conversations with a Vespan, I learned, was like playing chess.

The train swooshed through the trees and the giant leaves, the course perfectly cut through the limbs and branches. There were treehouses along the way and towns, villages, rather, in the trees that must have been hundreds of feet tall—towering trees with foliage that rolled on and on. It was an impressive display and my imagination was being stretched with every look and every new thing that my eyes devoured.

Esther sat next to me in the cushioned seat and held my hand like an old lady. She curled up into me and for once she seemed not to care much for the Stradavarius which set in the bag next to her. It was the first time I had seen her neglect it, and she did so in favor of me.

The forest cleared at the foot of the volcano and there sat a marvelous glass city, the likes of which I had never seen. It was a city that rivaled even the magnificence of Kalgon City in spectacle, but it was clean and safe and there was no pink mist that hung ominously over it. Nothing was out of place and no one seemed absurd or bent on any sort of debauchery. No one misbehaved and they seemed to be clean people, all of whom were possessed with purpose.

Nearly every building, every place, was made of glass and beautiful. The buildings were curved and shapely, clearly not dependent upon studs or structure, but of some other source. Some of the glass was clear, but there were colorful opaque walls for privacy. The hotel was no different and was ambiguously shaped like a naked woman full of brilliant lights and glitz. There were glass sculptures on the face and intricate designs in gold and silver. There were numerous crosses and religious statues—presumptions of Jesus and Mother Mary. Some of the glass was stained in colors that I couldn't recognize—that seemed to fool my eye.

Our hotel room was immaculate and we quickly learned that the Vespan people were all about hospitality and a quiet sort of subtle opulence. The concierge was a thin lizard-like fellow who spoke clear English and boasted that he knew 127 languages in all, but Earth English was among his personal favorites he was quick to add. He had marvelous control of his tongue, though it snuck out of his mouth on occasion and flickered. I say he looked like a lizard because my only context is to compare Vespans to things I know. But he wasn't a lizard—despite having a tail and large green eyes with black vertical slits for pupils.

The back wall of our room was an empty black wall that seemed to be nothing at first. But as we looked upon it, sitting in our bed, Earth appeared. And it was as though sitting on that bed that we were sitting on the moon. The wall, it seemed, could read our thoughts just as the fishmen could read our thoughts, and I hoped that it wouldn't expose anything terrible of me. But, for the meantime, Esther and I looked happily at Earth which seemed just out of our reach.

"What did we do to deserve all of this?" Esther asked aloud. "This place is like a paradise."

"I don't know. Do you want to stay?" I asked.

"I will if you'll stay with me," she replied.

"I will return, Esther."

"You will die, Victor. And it will all be for not."

"Gregor died for us. So I must—"

"So that we may live! Don't you see? His death will be for nothing if you die, too. You will deny him of his wish."

I didn't say anymore of it. It is silly to argue with a woman. I was overcome with a strange feeling that I had this conversation before. That I had been here before and done this before. As we stared at Earth from the moon, it was like I was duplicating my past. It was all so familiar to me that I didn't know how to react or what to say about it.

So we gave up words for touching. We made love in the bed that was a large circle—like a period to our end. It was a firm mattress made of some material I didn't know—something somewhere between velvet and silk. The lovemaking was passionate in the understood sadness that it could be the last time we made love.

But I felt I had felt this before. That I had looked up at this same blue-marbled ceiling in this sort of fixated languid daze several times over. Then the feeling dissipated as the pleasure of Esther's body hypnotized me and made me unable to process thought, only pleasure. And we devoured each other as lovers do, blissfully immersed in that romantic intoxication which consumes all, knowing that it might be our swan song.

Esther was playing her violin when I left the next morning with Stuart, who came to retrieve me for the meeting with the man named Bill, who he alluded to so vaguely as the man with the relic of a ship. She was playing "Eyes Without a Face," and had seemingly mastered it, as though to remind me of Gregor. It was slow and the emotion of it felt genuine and again, the sense of familiarity returned to me so hauntingly.

I didn't say goodbye as not to interrupt her and because she did not stop playing to say goodbye to me. Her words were somewhere in the tone of the song. I suppose we had said goodbye to each other the night before in about the best way anyone could, and it was alright to leave it at that.

I stopped and looked at her for a moment before closing the door. She was beautiful in every way that a person could be. And the form of her body playing the violin, her posture with her back slightly arched and the bow stroking the strings of the instrument was graceful and statuesque against the black wall that was absent any thought, barren of Earth.  

Stuart and I boarded the train and it coursed through a dark tunnel that seemed to go on forever. Inside the volcano, there was an industrial sort of city that glowed under what appeared to be gaslight and light bulbs on cords that crisscrossed high overhead. No natural light existed as the city was miles into the wall of the volcano and perhaps subterranean.

Inside there were airport-style hangars with various sorts of busy people in flight suits and overalls working on spacecrafts of different styles and types. Some that resembled jet planes and WWII bombers like those I had seen at an airshow once in Abilene, others that were more like those in science-fiction magazines—bubblecrafts and saucer-shaped things that whiz and whir.

There were robots that were working on them alongside the various Vespans—mostly fishmen. I made sure not to make eye contact as we walked past and they turned to look so that I didn't think anything of which they might take offense. Then Stuart, seemingly understanding what I was doing, handed me a pair of aviator sunglasses which I put on posthaste.

"The Blonde Bombshell," a voice called out from the shadows, startling me. "World War II bomber. She made seventeen successful bombing runs over Northern Africa. Chased Rommel all over the desert. Complete—with bullet holes."

The man walked forward and as I turned he struck me odd in that he was not really a man at all, though he sounded like a man. He was made entirely of glass—or so, at first, it appeared. Perhaps, he was only a sophisticated sort of bubble—like those that float in Kalgon City.

I could see right through him, and only occasionally when the light struck him a certain way could I see his lellucid form in the reflection of that light. But then his silhouette appeared, however briefly, as though to reassure me of his presence, and a fantastic gleam of light traced over the entirety of his form. He spoke broken and methodically—much like a robot—emphasizing parts of words in a sort of choppy autistic dialect.

"I am Bill—Stuart has told you about me, I am sure. And before you ask, I will tell you that I am your personal assistant. I am made of hyde-sorcium, a matter that does not exist on Earth. I was created by Dr. Jeworm for this exact purpose. To assist you in destroying—Rodeo Burger."

"How would he know that I'd want to destroy Rodeo Burger?"

"Nature. He knows everything about you. He created you, Victor Von Gogh."

"He created me?"

"Yes. In a sense—he is your God."

Bill became visible for a moment like a neon light and then fizzled back to his original transparent form. I learned in that instant that he could change colors and he became much more visible when he was angry or excited. He looked over my shoulder and waved Stuart off as though to ask him to leave. He appreared like a pot of boiling water left on the stove too long—this strange, liquidous man.

Stuart smiled and left, assuring me that he would be outside when I was done. Then it was only me, Bill, that B25 bomber, and my discomfort due to his revelation of my origin.

"How did he—create me?"

"Your mother and father aren't your mother and father, traditionally speaking. Biologically, yes, but in no other way. You were created in a lab, Victor. Like all the rodeo burger meat. Only you survived because you were stolen at age five by Ulysses Von Gogh and raised on Pseudo-Earth. He took you when he escaped from—Rodeo Burger. There were thousands of kids being raised for slaughter at a place they call The Orphanage, and he kidnapped you. It was like winning the lottery for you. A lottery you never—played."

"I don't believe it. I don't. So what am I?"

"A genetically-altered human-being, but human no less. None of your brothers or sisters have lived past age six or seven—the optimum meat age of a rodeo burger. But here you are, only one of thee known to have survived of over 786 million slaughtered. You were created in a lab, replicated a thousand times over by scientist with technology Dr. Jeworm created.

"You see, he once worked for Rodeo Burger until his road to Damascus moment when God made clear to him that his energy was better served in matters of love. He fell in love with a girl from Earth, and though she broke his heart, he loved her no less. The egg he cloned to make rodeo burgers was hers—which offered him no sense of relief.

"You were in an artificial uterus in a pod in a giant hive. When you were born, you were sent to pasture. You were reared in The Orphanage in the countryside with a thousand other kids who looked similiar to you. You were fed well. Not really educated. But let to play. Then your soon-to-be adoptive father and mother escaped the city and grabbed you. Then they hijacked a ship, which they took back home. It was a daring feat, one the resistance heralds as evidence that even humans feel and are sentient beings with souls, which is contrary to the opinion of most Kalgonese people, and the majority of the universe." 

I didn't say anything. I was never told that story by my parents—or they whom I presumed to be my parents. I wasn't told anything at all. And in my mind, standing there in silence, I went back to The Orphanage—a gray dismal-looking building of gothic-style architecture like that of an old asylum. They copied it from Earth. But it wasn't an orphanage at all, it was purgatory for the hell of a slaughterhouse.

I remember the ladies who ran it, dressed all in white. They looked like nuns, only their dresses were older and larger. Their skirts looked like white satin bells. Their heads were shrouded and they wore masks that were plain and merciless with no expression—pale as death. They fed us. Let us play. Nursed us. But then the day came at age six or seven when it was time to board the bus. We weren't told where it went, but it was exciting for we never left the grounds of The Orphanage  except when that black bus pulled up to the front and a load of children went away, never to return. Time to grow up, they nuns would say. Or time to go home. Nuns, who were not nuns at all, but rather morbid farmers of sort. Our cruel caretakers.

I remember watching from the window, envious of a busload of children that boarded a bus in a single-file line. I must have been four years-old.

"Your time will come soon, Victor," one of the nuns assured me behind her mask. "Be holy. Be patient. And say your prayers."

It was ran as though it were a Catholic orphanage. There were a lot of Hail Mary's. A lot of kneeling and weeping and strict obedience or harsh punishment. I recall seeing Jesus' chalkware face in the Sanctuary. He was on a cross, perpetually dying—in agony. I was told to be a good boy often. To know my place. To wash my hands and face. To eat my food. And though life was brief, that it was worthwhile. I had no idea what parents were. I thought this was it. This was everything. I suppose I should have known then as to where that black bus was taking us.

I was out in the field picking berries when my father snatched me. I was terrified. He was dirty and frightening and he held me down in the brush with his hand over my mouth. I can taste his dirty calloused hand as I recall it. And I could hear my mother whispering to me to "shhhh, shhhh, shhhhhhhhh," imploring me. My eyes full of tears and through those tears a prism of light from the bleak gray clouds filtered in. Startled birds broke from a nearby tree, floating through my tears as simple black scattering specks. Their warnings to other birds repeating loudly in my ears. Perhaps, they were trying to warn me—though it was too late. My father savagely eating the berries from my basket, feeding them to my mother who refused to let me go though I was no longer fighting her. I was like a doll to her. A doll she couldn't bear to lose. My body quivered in shock in her frail arms. I wanted to go back to The Orphanage where I felt safe. They were expecting me back after I picked the berries.

I had no good reference to anything to know what sort of danger I faced. To know that I was being kidnapped and what a kidnapper might do to a child. I didn't know what murder was, or rape, or torture, but fear is instinctual and it welled in me and overflowed. And I knew anguish, which I had seen on the face of that Jesus who suffered for us, I was told. His anguish was imprinted on us as though in warning rather than with hope as our Savior—He who died for us. And who now was in Heaven where we all would go if we were good boys and girls. One day that black bus would come and we would be among those joyful kids taken before us. I had never heard a word of Milton's "Paradise Lost" yet. We were only read passages of The Bible. I was too young to remember what I suffered and too simple in my existence to realize that my life had been saved by Jesus Christ.

And I knew then that which Bill told me to be true. But I wondered if those of us created in a lab had a soul. Or was that just those born of the flesh. Of the sacred carnal act that has been bastardized by throngs of pleasure-seeking degenerates. But I snapped out of it and looked Bill in the eyes—his eyes that flickered nearly invisible.

"I'm going to need a crew," I specified bluntly. "And a bomb. A big bomb."

"It's already loaded, Captain," Bill smiled.

I realized then that I knew how to fly the plane. I don't know how I knew, but it was as though I had flown it before. When I climbed inside, I was familiar with all the instrument panels and the levers—even the smell. The seat felt as though I had set in it before. The woman painted on the side of the plane and I were well aquainted. We had been to hell and back together and we were going again.

I settled in the cockpit and flicked on the engine which fired up immediately. The sound of the propellers chopping was music to my ears. I took a cigar out of a cigar case, which was hidden in a secret compartment, and lit it with a match. I hoped Stuart had assembled me a crew because I didn't intend to wait.

Bill hopped aboard and sat next to me as my copilot. Thankfully, he put on his headset and hat and a pair of aviators so he wasn't so hard to see. But we were three or four men short to properly operate this bird. Then as I rolled us out of the hangar onto the runway, I saw Stuart the monkeyman standing with four fishmen already in bomber jackets. I stopped so they could board and I put on a pair of mirrored aviators which were on the control deck next to a small cross where Jesus hung in pewter to remind me of his glory and the forgiveness of my sins, paid for with his blood and agony.

I put a tape in the tape deck—there was a tape deck for some reason in a World War II plane. A later modification, I am to assume. It was a tape from Gregor's red leather jacket pocket that I hadn't played yet, but I kept as though I knew I would play it eventually. There was a simple haunting guitar chord and then the drums began to thunder...

Enter Sandman.