Laptner Riley's Rolled Up Soul

Laptner Riley raised a hickory stick and struck his snare drum a vicious blow. The report cracked and echoed like a musket shot. The sound took his breath away. It was, Laptner decided, a sonic triumph--a majestic wavelength of raw, undulating power.

Laptner searched for something larger than a spindly hickory stick with which to strike his drum. He tried bowling pins and table legs. Then he discovered that if he doubled over and contorted in just the right way, he was actually able to reach in his mouth and pull out his own soul. Laptner gave the snare drum an exploratory tap with the edge of his soul and the pyrotechnic systems in a thousand unused arenas worldwide simultaneously erupted.

Somewhere in Canada, Neil Peart dropped a book of photography.
"My god," Peart gasped, "what was that?"
Deep in the American South, Carter Beauford raised a window shade and gazed across a mangrove marsh.
"Someone's done it." Beauford breathed, "I do believe someone's done it."
In a pub just outside London, Stewart Copeland set his pint down and promptly burst into tears of joy.

(And in a Los Angeles crack house, Tommy Lee paused mid-thrust, belched twice, and resumed fucking.)

Laptner Riley played those drums with his own rolled up soul for nearly five minutes. It was a rhythmic outburst that shall never be equaled. A drum solo by which all others shall be eternally judged. At its conclusion, Laptner half-stood then pitched forward and sprawled out, stone dead, across his kit.

Such is glory's price sometimes.