Bobby-Burnt-Toes Destroys the World

“Bobby Burnt Toes Destroys the World”

THE WORLD ENDS 

It was my birthday when the world exploded. I think it was around 8:45 AM. I came to a few hours later draped across the piece of rubble that was the concrete bench I had been sitting on. I thought I had gone blind for a few seconds, but it was actually just so dusty in the cavern that was once the room I sat in I couldn’t see. Also, the lights had gone off which hadn’t helped. It took a few seconds for the fog in my head to clear and a few more for it to stop ringing, but when I saw what was around me I wished it never had. 

If I were to describe it in one word it’d be chaos. Complete and utter fucking chaos. Paper was everywhere, electrical lines were flapping around erratically, I saw a man who had lost his hand trying to wrestle it back from a dog: it was well and truly nuts. Everywhere I looked people were standing in a daze, thousand-yard stares looking nowhere. Whenever I close my eyes I see that scene. 

I was helping first responders rescue people from out of the rubble that was once city hall when I first saw him. He was standing amongst the debris, people streaming all around him and he was just standing there. I looked him dead in the eyes and I knew the second we made contact that he had done this. 

I ran over to him, or tried to run –turns out I had a piece of rebar stuck in my leg that I wouldn’t find out about for a little while– and tackled him to the floor. I stared down into his eyes again and I saw the truth I had seen before. 

I screamed at him. “WHAT DID YOU DO!” 

Then I punched him. 

He looked back at me with an insane glint in his eye, “Where is Timothy?” 

ROBERT HITS AND RUNS

Bob Smith sits in his car, waiting for his turn at the stop sign. He’s been in the car for a while now, and, combined with the lack of sleep from last week, he begins to doze off at the wheel. 

The sun beams down upon his bald, egg shaped head, turning the milky skin on the left side of his doughy body a nasty shade of tomato red. Sweat begins to pour down his head. In addition to the sweltering heat outside of the car, in which the air conditioning unfortunately does not run, Robert is also running late. 

His phone buzzes, jerking him awake, and with that buzz comes the notification he had been dreading– “Hey Bobby-Burnt-toes, in case you hadn’t noticed, you’re running a bit late.” Bob had noticed, but forgot. “Was busy with something. Will be there soon. Go back to your mindless task minion” He fires back. A few seconds pass, he may just be in the cle– “What happened?” 

Nothing had happened, Bob was simply late. His response must be handled with care and grace, thus he chooses to simply ignore the text. Another text buzzes into his phone, ”What, did u stick ur toes in another BBQ?” Bob fumes silently. You stick your toes ACCIDENTALLY into a traeger grill one time and all of a sudden you’re Bobby-Burnt-toes, the village idiot. Whatever. Bob would show them, he’d show them all. Somehow.

 Bob looks around at the surrounding buildings, graffiti on the walls, and at uneven intervals there are even bits of litter. The city is going to ruin, Bob thinks. 

It’s finally Bob’s turn at the front of the line. The disgusting paint that covers the walls of the city extends even onto the stop signs; however they remain effective, controlling the flow of traffic. Bob eases onto the gas, the everpresent, albeit five minutes behind, clock on his dashboard reminding him of his lack of time. 

Just as Bob’s car crosses the threshold into the intersection, a man crosses onto the crosswalk. Bob slams onto the breaks, narrowly avoiding the man by twenty feet, adrenaline coursing through his middle aged veins. The man looks Bob dead in the eyes, and continues walking across the crosswalk. No wave. “Hey!” calls Bob, out of his window, “You’re welcome for stopping!” The man continues walking. No response. No wave. I deserve a response. Bob thinks, incensed. “I deserve a wave at least!” Bob yells. Once more, the man does no such thing. No response, No wave, doesn’t even pretend to do a little half jog, which everyone knows is the bare minimum someone could do when crossing the street. It was like the man thought Bob was not even there. Like Bob was nothing. 

Like he did not think of Bob at all. 

And that. Won’t. Do. 

Suddenly, the ruined city, laborious traffic, and above all ungrateful citizens became too much. The city needed saving, and only Bob could do it. Only Bob could save his city. 

Turning up his music, Bob slams his foot on the gas pedal. The city blurring around him as he sped up, Claire de Lune by Claude Debussy crescendoing alongside him. Crossing the intersection, one could almost imagine he had gone over a speedbump. Bob craved more.  Justice will be served, he thought with a smile. 

Looking at his phone, Bob’s triumphant smile turns to a frown: Justice will be served after work. 

ROBERT BREAKS AND ENTERS 

The night was dark, and a cool breeze flowed through the city, his city, as Bob peered downwards from his rooftop perch.

 “Hey Bobby, are you going to come over here and help or stand around like a jackass?” Phil, his unfortunate coworker, called out from behind his shoulder. Bob turned back towards the rooftop; Phil stood, mop brandished forward. Bob had to clean. 

“What were you looking for anyways, another Traeger?” Phil leers at Bob from the other side of the half cleaned rooftop. 

This roof was especially gross, soot and oil covering much of it. 

“No,” Bob responds, “I was looking for criminals.” Like a hero, Bob thought heroically. 

“Well you should be looking for dirt to clean, cuz we have two more roofs to get after this one and I want to get home before my wife watches Survivor without me,” Phil says, irritation creeping into his soot-covered face. Bob doesn’t respond. “Why do they keep pairing me with this freak?” Phil says quietly, but not quietly enough for Bob to miss. 

Minutes pass in silence before Phil breaks the tension.

 “Anyways, I think the company’s having another BBQ cookoff tomorrow, but I’d understand if you don’t want to be around that.” 

Just the words “BBQ cookoff” send Bob into a whirlwind of emotions. Screams, fire, pain and an earth-shattering, unquenchable hatred for assorted BBQ equipment flash through his mind as he is taken back to his darkest point. 

Phil chuckles, but Bob is struck with a bolt of inspiration: the next step in his quest to rid his beloved city of evil. To find justice. The Traeger. 

Feigning a sudden bout of sickness, which, despite his best acting abilities, hardly seems to convince Phil, Bob rushes through the rooftop door, down a flight of stairs, takes a ten minute breather, contemplates the stairs, runs into the elevator, clicks the bottom floor, rushes out and into his car, and then back onto the road. 

Bob arrives at the roof cleaning company’s main office as the clock strikes 9:30 PM.  Nondescript on the outside, but Bob knows the evils that lurked within. He creeps in through the back door, empty office none the wiser, and into the warehouse, the location of tomorrow’s cookoff. 

Entering in a crouch, he rounds a corner and spies his prey: The Treager. It stands mockingly in the center of the room, unpunished for the crimes it has committed. Bob stalks up to the Traeger, the pain in his burnt toes magnified by its aloof stance. 

“Hello again,” Bob says, “I bet you thought you could just get away with what you did.” 

The Traeger stares back at Bob defiantly.

“I will not let your presence tarnish this great city any longer,” Bob says walking to a crowbar lying on a shelf nearby. “Your rain of terror is at an end, any last words?” Bob glares at the Traeger. 

It says nothing, just like the man on the street, contemptuously robbing Bob of his existence. A dull red creeps into Bob’s vision, his flabby arms bringing the crowbar above his head, vengea– Justice would be his! 

Bob hammers the crowbar into the traeger, scratching the paint off its circular top; the crowbar rebounds off and nicks his shin. Bob squirms in agony, however manages to avoid screaming, lest he be heard by any night cleaners in the office. The pain fuels his rage however, and he resumes his onslaught. 

Bob lays into the machine, gouging holes through the side, the machine squeaking and squealing in agony, oil splattering onto his face and clothes. Bob throws a mighty swing, and disconnects the chimney from its side, knocking it to the ground with a clang. Bob grins as the machine is destroyed part by part, until only its creaking carcass remains, lying in a pool of its own oil. 

With one last thrust, Bob stabs the Treager through the lid, into the grill, and out the coal slot, the irony smell of rusted metal fills the room as Bob stumbles away from the grisly scene, picking up the dismembered chimney on the way out. The smell begins to make Bob’s eyes water, however the pain in his toes is gone. The Treager is no more, and Bob vanishes into the night. 

As he drives through the night sky, the cool air cools his raging emotions, allowing him to think rationally of the day’s events. As the cold creeps into his bones, so too does a sense of conviction, to save the city from the woes that he alone can identify. 

ROBERT LITTERS

Bob arrives back at his apartment, the humble abode of the city’s protector. The apartment consists of a single room and a bathroom. Bob stumbles to his bed, and falls into a deep and restful sleep. 

Robert’s apartment would have been described by almost anyone as squalid. As a part time roof cleaner, and a crappy one at that, he barely made enough to support his dreadful existence. The single yellow light illuminated three quarters of the room, although you’d wish it showed nothing. 

Trash and unused junk littered the room on either side of the bed, which is actually just a pull out couch. A borderline relic of a TV sat across from the bed, connected to a cable box that Robert had long since forgotten to pay the bills for. 

In addition, a bulletin board hung on the wall at the edge of the room. It looked like it should have held christmas cards, or important notices, or perhaps anything of use at all, but sadly, Robert had no friends for christmas cards, and was involved with nothing important enough to warrant a notice. Besides his feeble connection to his roof cleaning company, at which everybody viewed him as a weirdo who stuck his toes into a barbeque, Robert had connections to absolutely nothing. 

Bob opens his eyes at the crack of noon, and shoots out of bed like a bolt of electricity had been shot through him, Traeger chimney still in hand. Rushing to the window, he flings it open, filling his room with the warm daylight of a new day, a new opportunity. Another day, and another chance to start spreading his code of justice. 

Turning in circles, Bob analyzes his room meticulously before coming to the conclusion that it can, and must, serve as his new base of operations. Gathering anything he did not view as absolutely essential, Bob opens the window and flings his former belongings out, “Here you go citizens, a free gift from your savior!” He yells magnanimously. No response. No matter, these things take time, they take patience. 

Looking at the bulletin board, Bob saw his new leads board, allowing him to track his soon to be found crimes. Turning to the television, another idea crashed into Bob’s head, here is where I will hear of my achievements. 

Looking over his new headquarters, Bob knew he was ready, the only problem was time: There were 24 hours in a day, twelve of which Bob spent sleeping, and six of which he toiled at the roof cleaning company. That left only six hours in which he could fight for his city, which was simply not enough time. 

Pondering this conundrum, Bob paces his lair, perhaps I could fake my death, no that would be too difficult, maybe I could sleep less? No. Impossible. Maybe I cou– Bob’s phone call jerks him from his thoughts. His boss is on the line. Bob is confused, his boss had never even talked to him, much less known his phone number. . 

“Hello?” Bob says

“Is this Bobby-Burnt-toes?” His boss asks. 

“I would prefer not to be referred to in that way,” Bob fires back wittingly. 

“Well Bobby-Burnt-toes, we caught you destroying the Treager on the security cameras last night.” 

Bob is shocked; he had been so sure of his secrecy. 

“Anyways, you’re fired, and we’re going to take the cost of a new Treager out of your last paycheck, please never return to our office.” 

The boss ends the phone call, leaving Bob alone with his thoughts, and the now unaccounted for 6 hours of time. Problem solved, Bob thinks, walking out the door.

“My city is dirty,” Bob declares, “and I’m going to clean it up.” He joins the throng of people walking down his street. A silent guardian. Nobody, but a hero nonetheless. 

That was the biggest problem with Robert. He was a nobody. No connections, no relations. It’s what made it so hard to catch him. But I did, I always do. Too bad this time it was too late.  

MEET ME

I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is Dilroy Filbroni and I am a detective. I work in major crimes, although technically the name is the Filbroni Division; it’s a subset my department made just for me which specializes in stopping higher level criminals before their string of crimes escalates, and I’ve never failed a case. I have worked three thousand nine hundred eighty-four cases, and each one I have solved before the criminal could get to his next crime. 

People think that it’s an odd job; crime is almost non-existent here, violent crime at least, so I think it’s fair that they would wonder about that. There isn’t much high level crime in this city because me and my team have pretty much eradicated it.

I know that sounds braggy but it’s true, I’ve got a good group working with me and to be honest I’m pretty good at what I do too. 

I don’t do it for the money, or the awards, although they sometimes force me to accept them. I do what I do because I just want to help people. I also love solving crimes. I know it’s weird to be so obsessed with terrible violent crimes, but I just can’t help myself. Everytime I hear about one I just need to crack it.  

The trick to being a good detective is being able to pick out a pattern. Most criminals, no matter how smart they are, end up leaving traces at their crime scenes that lead me back to them. For instance, I once caught a guy who wore the same pair of shoes to two crimes. Shoe prints are a bitch, eh? That is how I’ve always done it, and I think that’s what hurt me with Robert, or Bob as he calls himself. 

Nowadays, he is known by pretty much everybody as the greatest criminal mastermind of all time, which is unfortunate for a couple reasons. The first one’s that it happened on my watch. The second is because, despite his moniker, Bob Smith is an idiot. 

I suppose I am too because I couldn’t catch him, but I guess that’s what happens when you’re used to stopping actual geniuses. 

That’s why I started reading his journal. I needed to figure out what made this guy tick, because if I can’t, then it’s only a matter of time before some other idiot stumbles his way into terror. 

As you have seen so far, it’s an odd read. I know I said I was this great detective, but to be honest I don’t really know how he wrote it. It’s all in the third person for one, and it’s also somehow in the present tense? Maybe he ran around with a tape recorder 24/7, who knows? 

The only thing I do know is that it is absolutely full of Robert’s bias. I swear to God the full journal documented every part of his day. I cut it down to the most important stuff –you can only read about Robert sitting in a chair for so long– but I couldn’t cut out how Bob it is. To balance it out a bit I added some of my own interpretations, but I only did it when Robert was sleeping since there wasn’t anything there either. 

ROBERT ASSAULTS AND BATTERIES

It has been two weeks since Bob first dedicated his life towards solving the crime wreaking havoc in his town, and Bob is quite honestly a bit stuck. What seemed like such an easy plan had begun to sputter out underneath him. The only thing keeping him going was the praise he saw the local news had shown for taking out that ne’er-do-well on the crosswalk so long ago, sure the news had to pretend that it was some horrible crime, but Bob knows the truth. 

However, the lack of new justice to dole out has been extremely trying to even Bob’s massive attention span. In search of a solution, Bob hunts the night with an even fiercer vigor than usual, desperately attempting to find something, anything! 

As he crawls over a guard rail and onto a roof, briefly snagging his jacket on a hook and falling to the floor, Bob gains an excellent view of his city block for the night, and sits down to watch. Thirty minutes pass and Bob is about to pass out, the strain of watching an entire city block is starting to hamper even his prodigious stamina. However, at thirty one minutes, Bob sees what he is looking for, a man robbing an ATM. 

Bob can tell even from his vantage point that something is amiss; sure the man may LOOK like he’s simply pulling out cash in a completely normal fashion, but Bob knows. Bob cannot be fooled by such machinations, his clever eyes pick up the man taking far more money than even Bob has taken from an ATM machine; he must be stealing. 

Bob climbs down the fire escape behind the man, and jumps from the bottom level towards the ground, already poised in an heroic stance. Bob misjudges the distance slightly and falls on his face. 

The ATM caper now notices Bob and rushes to him to perform aid, or so he says, Bob knows he is only trying to cover up his devious doings. Bob stands up, warm liquid flowing from his nose and mouth onto the ground. Blood, its nlood. The blood feles good on Bof’s fave. Bon fels so warm ight sow. 

WAIT, THE ROBBER! Bob thinks, jerking him from his reverie. He is still trying to pretend to help Bob, that scoundrel.

“Unhand me you scoundrel,” Bob says triumphantly. “And hand over your ill-gotten gains.”

“What?” the man replies. Like a liar, “You need to go to the hospital man, your face looks disgusting.” 

“The only thing disgusting is your theft! Now hand over the money or I will bash you with this crowbar!” Bob yells nobly.

“What crowbar?” The robber says. 

At that very moment, Bob realizes he has forgotten his crowbar at home. Confound it, he thinks, time to improvise.

“Maybe I have a crowbar, Maybe I don’t,” Bob says, “All I know is that if you don’t hand over that money that you stole, then justice will prevail, crowbar or not.” 

“Sir you desperately need to go to the hospital” the man tries with one last dastardly attempt. 

“So be it rapscallion, I shall retrieve the money from your cold fingers!” Bob declares, and with that he launches into a dazzling array of punches: right, left, another right, right again, one more right!

Somehow, the man is able to dodge them all, nimbly slipping in and out of Bob’s blood-soaked reach. With one more mighty burst of adrenaline, Bob surges forward to hit the man with a surprise right-handed punch. The punch rockets out, and nearly clips the man on the chin. 

The robber, sensing his impending doom, throws the money to the floor and shouts out, “Enough! Take the damn money and go to the hospital, Jesus.” 

Victory is mine, Bob thinks, blood pouring out victoriously from his nose, mouth and eyes. Suddenly the earlier warmth retrns to im and he is once adgain on the groaund, a pool of blod surrounding him. He loks acroass the puddle to tdhe stack of money lying on the ground. Wow Bob thinks, ’ve never senen two hudred dollars in cah before. With that thought, Bob falls gloriously into unconsciousness. 

That was actually the start of the trail to get to Bob. That guy who Robert thought was a robber? Turns out he’s a middle-school teacher –good guy too, volunteers at a food clinic on weekends, donated his kidney to his best friend, his name is Ronald, called an ambulance to go pick Bob up. Ambulance never found anyone, but the police did make Ronald file a police report, which was the very first thing that introduced me to Robert Smith. 

ROBERT BREAKS HIS LEASE

Agony. 

Bob lies in ludicrous amounts of pain for what seems to be an eternity, every waking moment is torture as it feels like the skin on his face has been scraped to the bone. Bob knows in his heart that these are prices he must pay if he is going to save the city, however, he does not know if that will be possible for him. 

For what seems like days, Bob lies dormant, patiently waiting for the pain in his body to subside to a tolerable level. At this point, Bob only has the strength to sometimes order a well-deserved pizza to the house, to serve as sustenance. In need of funds, Bob must also turn to the cash that he retrieved from the robber stealing from the ATM. Bob feels guilty about this for a second but then realizes that the city would of course permit him to use its funds in order to secure his health. It is probably not long before they are rewarding me handsomely for my efforts as it is, thinks Bob. After his second family-style pizza, he falls into a coma of food-induced lethargy still asleep in his chair. 

From what I can ascertain, this period of Bob’s life lasted about five days. Regarding the injuries, he definitely should have gone to the hospital, and I think that is part of the reason why things started to really escalate. Another thing; he stole about 200 dollars, and he spent the entirety of that on pizza that week. Based on the boxes, unless he threw some of them away, Bob ate 20 large pizzas from one of those cheap pizzerias. I know he hurt a lot of people, and hey I hate him more than anyone, but Jesus –you have got to respect how this guy put those pizzas away. 

ROBERT HOUSES UNSANITARY CREATURES

After a certain amount of time unclear to Bob at this point, he is woken up by a licking sound. Cracking his eyelids open, morning light filters in through his somewhat unkempt room, he sees a dark shape licking at the crumbs around his mouth. His head is on the ground; it appears he fell out of the chair he had fallen asleep in.

“Who is that?” he murmurs, the sleepiness of the pizza not having released its clause from his brain. 

The licking continues.

Bob forces his eyes open in a gargantuan force of effort,  opening his eyes to see the largest rat he had ever seen. 

Shrieking, Bob jerks his head away from the rat, slamming the back of his skull into the chair behind him. Wincing, Bob gets up, making sure to keep his eyes on the rat that was now watching him with curiosity. 

“I’m not afraid of you,” Bob says, clearly not afraid.

The rat stares back at him, quirking its head. The beady black eyes stared at him, staring up at him, and the crumbs on his face with emotions that could only be described as love. 

“You’re not afraid of me either” Bob looks down at the creature and, tentatively, offers it his hand. The rat begins to lick his fingers, Finally, Bob thinks, somebody with a little bit of respect. 

It nips him, but Bob can tell it is in a playful way. 

Reaching into his old pizza box, Bob fishes out a discarded piece of crust, and proffers it to the rat. Gently, the Rat begins to nibble on the piece of crust before it, before sitting back on its haunches. Bob joins the rat on the floor, finishing the piece, since he had gotten a bit hungry, Bob looks down at his new hairy friend. 

“I think I am going to name you Timothy,” Bob says. 

Timothy does not respond, however, it creeps over to Bob’s lap and begins crawling up his arm. 

“Woah there,” Bob says, starting to shake the rat off his arm, before allowing himself to trust the furry creature. Timothy climbs up onto his shoulder and promptly falls asleep. 

“Sleeping is the most important part of the day,” Bob says knowingly, “You know Timothy, I think we’re going to be really good friends.” With that, Bob falls asleep, head resting against the rat’s body. 

Robert wouldn’t know this, but as it turns out, he got rabies right around then. I’ll let the reader guess how that happened.  

ROBERT DINES OUT

After that fateful morning, Bob and TImothy are absolutely inseparable, wherever Bob goes, so too does Timothy, tagging along on his shoulder. Going throughout the city, Bob can’t help but laugh as he is invigorated by the love and respect that emanates from the hairy rodent on his shoulder. 

The best part was that the respect seemed to be seeping into the people around them too, almost like they could pick up on the silent waves of respect directed towards Bob from his rat. Everywhere they go, people stare, yes they really STARE at Bob, they even get out of the way when he is walking. Hell, they are so keen to appease him, that they even stammer when speaking to him and avert their eye contact. 

Bob is so overtaken by the majesty of the moment that to be honest he forgets to continue his crusade against justice in his city. However, to be honest, it seems like it has worked, everywhere it goes people are paying him with respect, and doling out attention. Clearly, the work he has put into the city has been paying off, and now is the time to reap the rewards. Bob is not even that angry that he has not been as well congratulated on the news as he should have been. 

While the city may not be perfect, it is good enough for Bob. 

ROBERT DESTRUCTS PROPERTY

Life is better for Bob than it ever has been before. He has gained a new, and first, best friend in Timothy, and that friendship has resulted in the respect and admiration of all of his peers. Sometimes people on the street still deny the magnanimity of Bob’s brilliance, so Bob must sometimes teach them a lesson. Usually, it is in retrieving the money (that they probably stole) from their wallets. 

With a now solid source of income, Bob is now able to fully commit his life to touring the city with Timothy, basking in the glory of his rightfully deserved respect. Life is better, and then one night, after a fruitful day in which Bob managed to two thefts, Bob looks up from a sloppy pasta that he and Timothy were eating in their favorite restaurant, the furniture section of Home Depot, and Bob sees a curious headline on a TV in the electronics section across the aisle. 

On the TV, what appears to be a news channel was reading off a peculiar report. The Woman on the screen is speaking to the mayor. 

“Well sir, the amount of complaints is startling, people want to know what there is to be done,” she asks. 

Why are they asking that bum then, Bob thinks, they should know by now that if they want something done, they come to me. 

The mayor turns back towards the woman with a serious look on his face, “That’s very true, we are taking various steps to curb this crisis,” he responds
The woman looks back and retorts “So will there be something done about the growing rodent problem?” 

The mayor turns towards the camera, almost peering into Bob’s soul, “Of course,” he says with a soulless grin. 

The blood drains from Bob’s face as the claws digging slightly into his shoulder become all the more present. 

“I won’t let them take you from me,” Bob screams as he throws a nearby ottoman at the television screen, cracking it down the middle. 

The store goes quiet, and Bob can feel the stares of those behind him. They’re trying to take Timothy he thinks, terrified, I won’t let them. As he rushes towards the door, employees begin chasing after him. Chasing down Timothy, trying to steal his best friend! 

Bob bursts out of the front door and into the dusk air, the employees coming to a stop behind him at the door. He rushes home, desperate to seal Timothy away from the world that now wants to separate them. Bob could not lose him. He could not go back to not being seen. To not being respected. He races into his flat, ignoring the mysterious letter on his door. Something about some sort of eviction party or something. Bob didn’t have the time to think about such trivialities, he had to hide his rat. 

Closing the door behind him, and entering his lair, Bob has to make safe the area; no one may touch his precious. 

“Hide, Timothy!” Bob yells, tossing the rat at the table as he goes to the window to close the shades, “We must stay inside for a while, no pizza tonight.”

A solemn sigh escapes Timothy, standing forlornly on the living room coffee table. Going to the door, Bob looks over his abode, it will suffice he thinks confidently they won’t get to Timothy. With that he slowly locks the door, shutting off all entrances to his lair. 

As the morning breeze filters through the room, Bob wakes up from a troublesome sleep before glancing around the apartment. 

Timothy was gone. 

ROBERT PLANS TREASON

Bob is at his wit’s end. The very city that he had fought tooth and nail to save had betrayed him. Had taken his greatest friend. Why would they do this to him? Are they so jealous of him that they had to take his greatest ally? How did they know where his secret lair is? And most importantly, who is “they?” Bob is incensed, he can not live like this. 

Bob sinks into a deep state of melancholy, all is for naught. For a short while his life had been bliss, and now that is all gone. Timothy had loved Bob, and so had everybody else. Bob cannot go back to the nothing that was his existence before Timothy. He could not go unseen. The people who stole his rat could not go unpunished. 

But how? Bob flips on the TV to brainstorm. He’d hijacked his neighbor’s cable a few days ago, so he had access once more. Bob flips to the news channel by mistake and sees another interview between the mayor and the news woman, this time about some gas issue. Them. Bob realizes. Bob can see in the background it is being held at the city hall. The den of evil Bob extrapolates. He rockets from his sofa chair, filled with resolution. 

There is only one way to get Timothy back. And with him, the love and affection that Bob so clearly deserves. For the first time in his life, even more than that time he taught that grill a lesson, Bob knows what he has to do. The city has turned against him, and thus he must do what he must to gain justice. Through fire and blood, Bob will even the score. How dare they take his beloved rat? Bob is the conductor of the train of justice, the destination? City hall. 

IN THE INTERIM

After that journal entry, the stream of Robert turns into only a couple of short bursts that are spread out over longer periods of time. I think it’s a testament to how focused Robert really was. If you were wondering, no, nobody took Robert’s rat; that would be crazy. That interview he saw about the rat crisis? That was a rerun from a couple of years prior that was probably replaying at the Home Depot just to demo the screens. 

What I do know, however, is that by that point Robert was really starting to lose it more than ever. I think part of it is that he got a whopper of a concussion when he fell off that roof trying to stop someone from using an ATM. The rabies probably didn’t help either. 

Anyways, since Robert’s story kind of goes AWOL for a while, I figured I’d fill you in on what I was doing during that time. I’ll try to be quick, but I do want to explain why we didn’t find Bobby before he did what he did. 

  LEAKY GAS

Right around when Robert lost his rat, I got an anonymous tip-off from one of my sources that somebody had something planned with the gas connected to the downtown area (real specific I know). Now I don’t usually deal in public health stuff, that isn’t really my jurisdiction, but something about the way it had been described got me a bit curious. So me and my team went out to look around to see if anything was off. 

I should say, my team was not happy about this at all. Not for any selfish reasons, they’re a great bunch. I picked them myself, but it was my birthday in a few days so I was supposed to be on leave. It was something stupid about me not having taken a day off in 15 years or something, I don’t really know, I think sometimes they don’t understand how important this job is to me. Anyways, I had to call in a couple of favors with some higher-ups to be able to get into work, and thank god I had. 

Turns out, some guy had dug a hole leading to the centralized gas chambers underneath the city and was attempting to put low doses of amphetamines into the gas system, which would get people hooked to drugs without their knowledge once they started using gas. The guy who had masterminded it had figured out a way to drill into the gas lines while only causing medium amounts of leaking. 

To be honest, it was actually pretty lucky we found him. I had recognized that certain hotspots were being bought by shady hedge fund groups for dubious reasons. I was then able to triangulate the focal point of all the locations, which aligned with the central gas chamber, and from there, it was just waiting and watching for something suspicious. 

I don’t want to bore you with the details but suffice it to say, we went down into the tunnels, there was a shootout, and we were able to apprehend the criminals with only a few minor injuries sustained. 

According to the experts, we had gotten them before a point in which they were able to release a significant enough amount of narcotics into the supply for it to meaningfully affect the population. As for the released gas, besides various pockets, it was supposed to diffuse into the surrounding environments within a few days, and we had managed to keep it pretty bottled up so we weren’t too worried about that. 

All in all, it was a pretty good day, not perfect but what can you do? The main guy of the whole thing was some Harvard graduate turned drug lord turned attempted mass drug inducer. I don’t really remember his name but he’s supposed to get put away pretty soon. Funnily enough, I guess I’ve met him before because the only thing I remember about him was that he kept saying “Curse you Dilroy” and “You’ll rue the day you foiled another of my schemes Filbroni!”

  I can’t say I remember him, but when you do my job as long as I have, all the goons you catch start blending in together. I guess it’s just one of those things. 

ROBERT BUYS ILLEGAL GOODS

Bob is in a hurry. There is only a certain amount of time he has and too many things to do it in. This has been the first time in several decades that Bob has slept for less than 12 hours multiple days in a row. There is simply too much to do.  Bob is more focused on this task than he has ever been on anything else. Timothy shall be avenged. 

He has already gotten all the supplies that he needs, he just needs to find a way to get them where he needs them. Bob would say what he is getting but he worries he is being watched. The city took Timothy, they could find his journal too. No. That cannot be. 

It is not that Bob thinks that anyone is smart enough to find his hiding spot, he has ingeniously stored it underneath his couch: a place no sane person would ever look. However, Bob must be practical. 

The time. Never enough time!

   MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF PAPERWORK

The other one of those things is paperwork. My life is a never-ending supply of paperwork that I have to fill out and turn in. I get that it’s important and all but Jeez Louise it is soooo boring. More than that, every moment I’m in my stupid office at city hall (the governor made me move there because I was a “high profile individual” which was unbelievably stupid) is a moment where I don’t get to be out doing my actual job, protecting people. 

What’s nice is that I got to connect mine and the police force’s databases to the city hall’s server, which in addition to being a lot more secure, had a much higher upload speed. People called me a hero for that, but hey it just made the most sense. 

So that probably takes up eight hours of my day, then I spend another twelve doing my actual job, and then I sleep for two and exercise another two. Sometimes if I’m feeling especially lazy I will go volunteer at a soup kitchen or something, but usually, I keep the same schedule. People are always so shocked when I tell them this. I don’t know, I suppose it’s a pretty busy schedule I guess, but it has worked for me so far. I do drink a lot of coffee though. 

Anyways, a few days after the gas case, the mayor made me go to a dumb press junket in front of one of the holes that we stormed to congratulate me and my team. These kinds of things happen occasionally; I make the mayor or governor or president or whoever send a donation somewhere to get me to go, I guess it helps in their polling, plus there was a hole just by the city hall that they hadn’t closed up yet so it only took a few minutes. 

It went fine I guess. Hindsight is 20/20 but maybe I should have known back then. That crazy egg-shaped guy who kept staring at me was up to something. 

ROBERT SNEAKS AROUND

Bob knows now what he has to do and how he has to do it. Those fools with their handshaking and smiling. They had no idea that Bob was watching from the crowd. A silent guardian, a protector, an avenger. 

Bob has focused on this task for more time than he can possibly fathom. However, he could fathom the lack of respect that had once more crept back into his life, and his city. Fear he does not, however, as he knows that with one master stroke, he will be able to rid all of the city of the evils that have crept back out from the rat-thieving government that he once thought he could trust. 

Now he must wait till night, and then morning once more. Then his plan will come to fruition. 

THE END OF THE WORLD REVISITED
The day started pretty normally. 

I woke up around 4:32 AM and went on a jog around the city –it helps clear my mind– and then I checked into work. Around that time, an old surveillance camera caught Robert starting to crawl through about a hundred feet of mud toward the bottom of city hall. 

 At 6:00 AM I had a tour of some facilities that needed to be checked out. I was under the suspicion that some of them were not up to code. They weren’t. Around now Robert was looking for his lighter, it turns out he had dropped it about seventy-five feet back and he had to go find it. 

By 8:00 AM I started on the day’s allotment of paperwork, and it was exactly as boring as ever. By now Robert was taking a nap.

Right around 8:30 AM, I was sitting outside one of the benches towards a courtroom (we keep our courtrooms in city hall so I have easier access) being a little lazy and doing some meditation since it was my birthday. And right around now is when Bob lit the fuse that ended the world. 

ROBERT’S MASTER PLAN

I’ll tell you quickly. 

1. Robert was so upset about his pet rat Timothy that he declared revenge on the government of the city
2. His idea was to blow up the City Hall building
3.  He took all the money he had gotten from robbing people and bought as many fireworks as possible. It was probably around 200 dollars worth of fireworks
4. He then took out all the gunpowder from the fireworks, poured it into a box, and taped all the fuses together into one really long fuse that he put in the box
5. Learned about the hole in the ground next to the city hall when he walked by our press junket in front of it 
6. Snuck down the hole with his bomb box at night  and waited till morning 
7. Crawled to where the gas pipe led to the city hall
8. Lit the fuse to his firework bomb. 
9. Crawled like hell back through his hole

To Robert’s credit, he showed a lot of tenacity in this moment that, from what I have seen from my research, he has never shown before. However, full disclosure, the bomb was not nearly big enough to do any actual damage to anything, let alone the amount it did. Worst case, maybe we would have heard it at work, and that’s a big maybe. 

The problem was the gas leaks. Turns out there was a (much) larger pooling underneath the city hall than anyone realized, which resulted in a (much) bigger explosion than there should have been. 

On paper, it wasn’t even that bad. In fact, a lot of people said it was a miracle that there were no deaths and only a few major injuries that were eventually healed. That dog did end up eating that guy’s hand though. 

But I knew. I knew that we kept both mine stations and the entire city’s police records and databases in the city hall. And when the building went up in flames, so did they. 

BOBOMIC RADIATION

Once those databases went up, it was only a matter of time before all the goons’ lawyers caught wise and they were all released due to the now dearth of evidence. Every. Last. One. 

Hell, the first prisoner we put away after it all was Robert, which only added to the infamy he ended up getting. 

All the loons thought he was a folk hero. An icon of the absurd, fighting back against the regime of “the man.” He wasn’t. He was, and is, an idiot who’s loose grip on reality led him to believe the government stole his pet rat, and then through an extremely lucky turn of events, ended up with him doing far more damage than he could have ever possibly imagined doing.

People thought he did it for a reason. That the rat he kept talking about during his trials was some symbolic structure representing the “innocence and fun” that was being taken from the society. He got so famous that people started committing crimes just so that they could visit him in prison. 

It absolutely tanked the economy. With all the big-ticket criminals out, and people everywhere trying to meet their big hero, it did not take long for everything me and my team worked so hard to protect to come crumbling down. Infrastructure was ruined, and eco-terrorists destroyed all of the crops. Some people actually believe that Robert is some sort of biblical antichrist figure. 

It has taken the last few years, but we are slowly starting to build back the society we had P.B. (Pre Bob). Sure it will never be exactly the same, but it is getting better, the shadow of Robert is starting to lighten. It’s not totally gone though, and that’s part of the reason I wrote this to begin with. 

To stop it from happening again, and to make sure that people know: Bobby-Burnt-toes isn’t some metaphysical being, he is just some guy who failed at pretty much everything he did until one time he accidentally got extremely lucky. 

I guess it all worked out for him though. He always wanted to be respected and admired, and he got that in droves, in a weird perverted way. Hell, when he got to prison he was given the rabies vaccine, so honestly, it saved his life too. Now there is just one thing I have to do, something that I have been putting off for far too long. 

ROBERT AND DILROY

I arrive at the maximum security prison a few minutes before the prison-wide dinner time, it’s penne pasta with chicken and carrots to garnish it. It actually doesn’t look too bad. 

The guards let me in without too much fuss. I’m not the celebrity I used to be, but some people still remember, which has its perks. Especially here; I have to go to the isolation chambers, it would be a health risk if he were to be held with any of the other prisoners, plus this makes sure nobody can find a way to get him to escape (that’s been an issue before). 

I knock on the door and wait for a response. Nothing happens for about an hour and a half when I knock again, louder this time. 

“What?” Bobby shouts, “I’m sleeping in here.” Typical. 

“I want to talk to you Robert,” I respond. 

The door creeps open, and there he is in all his glory. He’s lost a bit of weight since I last saw him in the trial, and his skin looks paler. His eyes narrow as he attempts to recollect what he knows me from. 

“You look pale Robert, have you not been going outside?” I ask. 

“Shut it fool.” He states, “I go outside whenever I want, and the name is The Bob, not that peasant name Robert” 

“Sorry, Bo-” I start. 

“THE Bob” He corrects. 

“Right, The Bob” I go on, “I just wanted to swing by to tell you I am writing a book about you.”

“As you should” The Bob’s eyes start to wander, I’m losing him. 

“I found your journal by the way,” his eyes dart back at that, now he’s interested. 

“Oh that old thing, bet you’re wondering how I wrote it,” He is pretty obviously extremely proud of himself, but trying to hide it the best he can. 

“Eh, to be honest, I don’t really care how you did it” He looks upset about that, but he’s trying not to show it. “In the end, it only matters that I found out how you did it.”

“Anyways, I’ll get out of your hair, enjoy the rest of your two life sentences.” I start to turn away when he calls after me. 

“I remember you now; you’re that guy from the hole, you worked for the government” he yells out behind me. “And you punched me in the face, you pissant.”

“I sure am,” I call over the shoulder, taking a bit of satisfaction over the fact that Robert still remembers that punch after so long. 

I’m smiling as I grab the door handle to take me out of the hall when I hear his voice one last time: “Where the fuck is my rat?”