Idea for a Story: Elvis’ Dump Saves Rock and Roll

In 1977, Elvis died eating a ham sandwich while taking a dump on his upholstered toilet in Graceland. That barbiturate-riddled dump was flushed into the Memphis sewer system and to a treatment plant. In time, its sanitized liquid remnants were released to a river that flowed to the ocean. Decades later, the dump returned to Earth in the form of rain and fell on a gender-neutral teenage named Rowan who was addicted to gaming and social media and living in Portland, Oregon with his/her/them struggling single mom who kicked him/her/them outside on a nice day to soak up some sun after three weeks of not leaving the house.

Elvis’ dump infiltrated Rowan’s being while he/she/them tried to rake leaves but didn’t have the slightest idea how.

A short time later Rowan began to definitively identify herself as a woman, started to grease her hair back, wearing vintage pant suits, and humming Elvis’ hits even though she had never heard the songs before and didn’t know who Elvis Presley was.

One day Rowan was outside walking in her new weird way when she spotted an acoustic guitar leaning against a tree with a sign that read FREE. She picked the guitar up, strapped it on, held it correctly, (she’d seen a character in a video game playing guitar), fingered a chord, and strummed the strings with her thumb. It was the beginning to “Heartbreak Hotel.” Rowan kept strumming, changing chords and then started singing the lyrics and knocking her knees together like hillbilly Elvis, not Vegas Elvis. She suddenly had a craving for a ham sandwich even though she was a vegan.

And thus a rock and roller was born and the spirit of The King resurrected within Rowan and the future of rock was updated and saved.