bob: a poem

by horace p sternwall

illustrated by roy dismas and konrad kraus

once there was a guy named bob his fellow humans thought him a slob even his mama didn't like him much and his brothers and sisters never kept in touch bob would go for long walks at night but was never blinded by a sudden light he was never mugged or accosted by strangers and was curiously immune to danger zombies and werewolves walked the streets but none of them he chanced to meet alien spaceships patrolled the skies but kidnapped other girls and guys he had a television in his little room but viewed it as the voice of doom and preferred, if you please his solitary fantasies sometimes when the weather was hot and his brain as usual was empty of thought or even when the night was cold and nothing in his mind would unfold he would put on his coat and hat open his door and just like that find himself outside in the street without a soul to meet or greet this night was a little different where had everybody went? you’d say, the streets are empty, not really true there’d always be some people, one or two but tonight the streets were really bare there was just nobody there bob thought it was sort of strange and wondered by whom it had been arranged bob had suspected from birth that he would be the last person left on earth the gypsy had told him he was fated and through the centuries he had waited he had watched other people grow old and die but kept his mouth shut, because he was sly and was afraid of how they would regard him if they knew his chances of dying were so slim and now the moment had finally come he thought he heard a distant drum the letters of fate would be unsealed and his destiny was to be revealed raindrops began to fall on his head as onward the street inexorably led he awaited a sign - a light - a token and yet the silence remained unbroken day later dawned in a swirling mist bob was never found nor missed other humans passed by in streams with even sadder and grander dreams