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It was a big day for Bob, as he suited up for the interview for the lamp lighting job. Busied with last minute preparations, his final task was to choose the right suspenders. Suddenly he felt overwhelmed as he stared down at the colorful elastic jumble before him, and so quickly he realized the interview was doomed. Next to the suspenders lay an untouched copy of "Common Mistakes Made by Lamplighters and How to Avoid Them". What a fool he was! He'd been so lost in the moment listening to the Turkish March that he'd forgotten to prepare for the interview. But then it hit Bob.
"The salamanders are taking over the biz, and the winner goes to the spores!" Bob had seen that sign on the road every day, and at first he thought it was only vandalism. How wrong he'd been. Every day there was something to hide, and though Bob knew not what those things were, he knew they existed. Such a complex conundrum it is to wonder if it is better to know or not to know. Knowledge is power, and ignorance is bliss. To be unaware frustrated Bob, yet to know certain information was to carry a heavy and inescapable burden. Bob knew this well from his time on set for the filming of "The Tragic Story Behind the Triangle Headed Bolts on Escalators." Seeing the truth behind that small part of the giant machine that was called an escalator really put things into perspective for Bob. Not that there was anything to do about any of it, thought Bob and he picked at his modest breakfast, infused with bacon flavored saccharin. What a world it had become. Had it always been this bad? Alone in his tiny kitchen, Bob sat with that copy of "Common Mistakes Made by Lamplighters and How to Avoid Them." A few days ago, that book had been a symbol of hope. Now it was just another reminder of how he'd failed.
Maybe he should've payed more attention in school. Even as a boy, Bob had never taken an interest in anything related to that awful place. At recess, Bob sat alone, shaded by an old brick wall that closed the schoolyard from the street beyond. "Into the woods we went" he mused to the ants, who ignored him as dutifully as any human. That's how all of Bob's stories started back then. Come to think of it, he'd spent more time with those ants and that brick wall than anyone at that school. Only now did he realize that a brick wall is not a good role model. Is that where he'd gone wrong? Was it that early? All this time, Bob had thought he'd messed up in that public speech he'd attempted so long ago, but maybe he'd been a failure since day one.
"We'll run out of food long before we run out of oxygen", bellowed Bob from his soap box pedestal. "It won't be long now, and none of you people care. All you can think of is what the man on the radio told you to think. All you can talk about is the racy things you do in the lighthouse bathroom." To prove his point, Bob made to remove his clothes to publicly demonstrate exactly what those lighthouse gossips beheld. Instead, two policemen grabbed poor Bob by the elbows and dragged him away. Drowning in a sea of laughter and sirens, Bob didn't remember much else of that day.
Stiff, Bob shifted in the small chair in the small kitchen of his small house. How many hours he'd lost to thought, he did not know. He simply stared and pondered, banishing the past, contemplating the present and wondering if the future would ever be anything different. Perhaps he had no purpose at all.