Chapter 3
Bob arrived remarkably early at work that morning, mostly because Fred had insisted on “putting the pedal to the metal,” for no particular reason. Perhaps Fred just wanted to impress the boss by getting to the office before him. Perhaps he was looking for a raise. Or perhaps he just wanted to leave behind all that irrelevant, unimportant, forgettable nonsense that had gone on at the bar. In fact, Bob could barely recall any of it, as those memories had been instantly replaced by fear of obliteration as soon as he had stepped into Fred’s car.
When Bob first entered the office, he noticed that it was mostly empty, except for Linda, who was busy barking orders at a stapler that refused to do its job properly. The stapler, of course, did nothing but exist in defiant silence, which only made matters worse. Bob waved at Linda, but quickly replaced his hand back next to his left leg as Linda’s glare pierced through his face. The stapler did not wave back either—it only continued in harsh reluctance to just be. Bob couldn’t help but sympathize with Linda. The stapler had always been terribly rude and non-responsive to everyone at the office. And everyone had been terribly jealous of it ever since the boss had declared it the Employee of the Month back in February and given it a generous raise. That company sure encouraged laziness.
Bob’s eyes then moved towards Tom’s general direction. He could have walked past, but instead he just stood there for a moment watching him play Candy Crush and gulp down his coffee, and when Tom looked back, he instantly regretted doing so.
“What’s up, Brob!” Tom said, in his usual festive manner. Bob had never found the nickname amusing at all. He decided a quick nod would do for a greeting. Tom, however, insisted upon offering him a “bro high five,” which social norm did not allow him to refuse, and then proceeded to attempt to engage him in effusive conversation. After a quick exchange, Bob excused himself by telling Tom he was supposed to be making some copies of some important documents in some other room, to which Tom simply replied, “aight, Brobster, latahz.” Bob sometimes pictured Tom’s face being torn open by a hungry chainsaw. Sometimes, it was even him holding the chainsaw.
But a loud noise suddenly interrupted these unspeakable images forming in Bob’s mind. For a second, Bob feared for his life, thinking he might have just had a stroke, or maybe an asteroid had suddenly impacted Earth, and he was only seconds away from complete annihilation. But then he realized it was only the Roar. And of course it was the Roar— after all, it was Thursday, and it was 7:58 A.M. How silly of him to just forget about scheduled Roar.
The Roar instantly caused his sight to go numb, as it was known to do when it caught someone unprepared, so he had trouble trying to find the government-approved Roar Suppressor. But eventually he did. As he was adjusting the Roar Suppressor to his head, he was astonished to notice the fine lines of warm blood that were slowly sliding down his cheeks from his ears. Oh, dear. He quickly reached out for the box of tissues that sat on his desk, undisturbed by the unfathomably loud noise, and proceeded to wipe the liquid off his face. Bob hoped none of his coworkers would see him like this, as bleeding while the Roar was occurring was almost as severely frowned upon as forgetting about the Roar altogether, and Bob had done both. This was the kind of thing that happened when Bob distracted his mind with strange bars, silly ideas about sentient voices, and Big-Brother-like entities controlling his every action. Perhaps Bob should take a moment reflect upon his mistakes now and to willingly choose to forget all distracting elements that could cause him to ridicule himself like this in the future.
But Bob seemed to have a rebellious soul, because, although he was no longer entertaining those silly ideas, what he was doing now was equally reckless, dangerous, and unrecommended—he was being actively curious. He was wondering what caused the Roar. Looks like Bob doesn’t learn from his mistakes after all.
Bob was reviewing the different theories in his mind. There were, of course, the good old scientists with their maths and their statistics and their nonsensical physics, but Bob didn’t believe in silly, old-fashioned things like science, not in this day and age. Science had stopped fooling him back when he was a teenager, and he had instead favored well-documented and socially-acceptable Paganism. He just thought it was stupid to believe in all those numbers you couldn’t see and all those extremely restricting laws of physics that scientists preached about all day, according to which you couldn’t allow yourself to do great things such as flying or shapeshifting without feeling guilty and having everyone call you horrible things like “impossible” or “unlikely,” especially when you had very capable and instructed people from a well-respected and trustworthy institution such as the government writing peer-reviewed books about Thor generating lightning—things that you could certainly confirm by mere observation.
It’s good to know there’s still some sense in that thick head of Bob’s. And you know what was in his head, too? His ears. Covered in blood. And Betty, Bob’s crush, entered the room just then and saw Bob’s ears covered in blood and instantly knew that not only had Bob forgotten Roar day, but he had also failed not to bleed during the Roar. And she found this endlessly amusing. So much so, that she laughed at Bob. At first, Bob did not notice she was laughing, because of the Roar Suppressor and all. He thought perhaps she was singing or something. But then she started pointing at him and bending her knees and throwing her head back and pounding on a nearby desk with her other hand, tears running down her cheeks, and Bob knew she was laughing at him. Because of how careless he had been. Because of all the distractions.
Ugh, what? Come on! Bob is smiling at her! He seems to find her laughter irresistibly adorable, and his heart is now filled with the joy of watching someone you secretly love laugh at the top of their lungs! What?? And now she’s smiling back at Bob, cheeks slightly flushed? That is not…that…
UGH.
She goes away. Now. She’s going away. She has a lot of work stuff to do, and she has to do it now or she will be fired. There you go. Now she left, and Bob is still smiling. Unbelievable. Kids these days.
Oh. Wait a second…
I know.
The Roar suddenly went away, and Bob immediately went back to work, as he was expected to. It was a long, boring, uneventful day from there on, except, perhaps, for the unexpected news that Linda had asked the stapler on a date. Bob would have never guessed. The stapler had always ignored her, and all that Bob had ever seen Linda do while it was around was yell at it nonstop. Looks like there was something behind all that irrational anger after all. Bob fell a bit bad about himself when he heard about it, not because the stapler had a much, much better life than him all-around, which it did, but because he didn’t dare ask Betty out himself, and he didn’t think he ever would.
He thought to himself, “if only I was more confident. If only I believed in myself a bit more…” And then he dismissed the thought, a bit ashamed of himself for even entertaining it. He was being horribly deep! That was not the shallow, plain Bob his parents had raised him to be. He was just being dragged by the social norm of reflection and spirituality, and he felt terrible about it. There were much more important things in life than self-betterment—he knew that.
A car, for example. If he had a car, perhaps Betty would appreciate him for what he had instead of for who he was, like everyone did. He really wanted to have things that were special for her, and a car would really help his case. But he had no money, especially now he had worked all day, and he had had to pay about 140 dollars to his employer for the time he had been allowed to be at the office.
Poor Bob. Maybe if he had a car, he could convince Betty to date him. Maybe then he would think about the things he is supposed to be thinking about. Maybe he would be happy with his car, and be content and satisfied enough for the faint embers of curiosity to die away.
Yes.
Maybe we’ll get him a car.
///DO NOT FORGET to like and/or reblog (preferably both) to keep Bob alive. If you don’t, I stop writing and Bob DIES. I mean that. This is the last chapter covered by the current audience. If we don’t have at least one new person reading Bob, he will vanish into the literary Void forever, as Bob feeds on things that are only available in your head and to which Bob only has access when he’s inside your mind while you read. This keeps him alive. Please, feed your brains to Bob and spread the word so Bob can have more brainstuffs to eat.///