The Story of Bob the Cob

Here starts the story of Bob. Bob was a corn cob.

Bob the Cob was having a very pleasant day. There wasn't any reason against having one! The sky was blue, the air was fresh, the sun was warm; it was one of those perfect days.

But then all of a sudden, he heard a loud and rumbling noise coming closer, closer, closer! He heard other cobs yelling and screaming and crashing against one another, but that was soon drowned out by the roar of this huge noise! All Bob could do was sit and wait for it to get closer!

Closer

closer

closer!

Just as he thought the sound couldn't get any louder, it started to get quieter

and quieter

and quieter.

It had passed him.

He was extremely relieved. He felt like he could fall off the stalk he was so relieved.

And that's what he did.

He fell

fell

fell

all the way down to the ground.

It was a new sensation to him, because up until this point, he'd only grown and been pushed around by the wind along with all the other cobs.

When he hit the ground (yet another new sensation) he found a few other cobs already down there. (Their names aren't relevant to this story, but I'll tell them to you anyway: Rob, Gob, Tob, and Lob. Lob was always made fun of because he was more round than all the others. But that's another story for another time.) They didn't say anything to each other (because they can't exactly talk), but they appreciated the fact that they were there together.

After a while, Bob the Cob noticed a faint sound again:

grrrrrrumblecrashhhrumblerumblegrrrrrr

and it got louder

and louder

and louder!

Bob didn't know what to do! If he'd had wings (like those pesky birds did) he would have flown away, but he couldn't! All he could do was sit there in mortal terror!

GRRRRRRUMBLECAZOOOCHRASHETEPEHPELKADFJHLDKGDSSOIWNDEOIHXCLKNWKJAGLHATKJAHTLKJ

It got louder and louder! Even louder than before!

Bob the Cob felt something come over him.

Something black

and smelly

and huge!

This, too, was a new sensation, and Bob the Cob didn't know what to do with it! The huge black thing passed over him and the colossal noise started to diminish

and diminish

and diminish.

Bob was listening so hard to the noise quieting down that he suddenly realized a change around him that he hadn't noticed since the thing passed over.

Rob, Gob, and Lob were all squished down into the ground. The sun sweetly warmed them, they felt the breeze, and saw the sky, where before, it was dark, cool, and still. Bob looked around in amazement as he realized all the stalks had been severed to about six inches from the ground. What used to be a full field of beautiful corn stalks gently moving in the breeze was now a brutally stark field of rigid stumps.

The sun gradually made its way across the sky and eventually sank behind the horizon. The breeze picked up for a while, but then it started to calm down. The stars came out as the sun went down, and soon the moon peaked over the east mountains.

All of this was not new to Bob--he'd seen it for months now--but it all seemed very different because the whole field was different.

As he contemplated the meaning of life, he noticed the faint footsteps slowly approaching. The footsteps eventually got close enough that he could see the moonlit figure that belonged to them. It was a small person, carefully and painstakingly stooping to the ground, picking things up and putting them into a bag.

As the figure got closer and closer, Bob the Cob didn't feel any fear at all; he felt peace. So when he was gently scooped up in the little hands and carefully placed in the bag with other cobs (along with Rob, Gob, Tob, and Lob), all he felt was happiness.

He didn't know why he felt happy, and neither do I. Because, really, he was getting put into a bag to be eaten or sold to be eaten, and who would ever feel glad about that?

"Hello, I'm going to be eaten. And I feel glad about that."

Who says that?!

But Bob is a Cob, not a human. So I won't pretend to understand him. He was happy, though. So it's a happy ending.

The End