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Bob's Recounting

Tyger Wei

This story was submitted as a contest entry for The Center for Fiction's National Teen Storyteller Contest: Myths Reimagined, 2024.
Bob looked at himself, a shell of his former glory. He used to be the biggest and baddest penguin on the block, feared and revered by all other penguins. But after being betrayed by his former second hand penguin Dob, he was sent to The Zoo. They said it was a horrible place, and it was indeed a horrible place, meant to contain the worst of the worst. Penguin legend says that no penguin soul ever leaves after they enter, regarded as fact in most penguin primary schools. The irony here was that he was here many years ago, back when he was still in his prime. Back then, violence was strife among the penguins, and property values were decreasing. So Bob knew he had to do something about it and met with his closest advisors. He was suggested three possible plans, each one more unhinged than the one before. The first plan was about turning the old decrepit Ice store into a place of worship, and along with it a new religion centered on Ice Cream. They figured a bit of religion would do good for the penguins. The second plan was to carry out an attack on the seals, a natural enemy of Bob's people. This was done in an attempt to focus all the penguins' anger and violence and direct it somewhere else more useful. Bob played with this idea for a while but just when he was about to call the general, he realized the seal lobbyists had a good point, or rather a good stack of cash. The third and final plan was to construct an Alcatraz of the snowies right here in Penguinville. Originally his cabinet had wanted to call it something like "The Penguinville State Prison '' but Bob named it "The Zoo '' after the 2084 cult classic hit movie "Polar bears from the Planet of Zoo". Our friend Bob would eventually go with the prison idea, due to his great naming design. He was so happy with the prison he stopped all funding for the many penguin welfare programs like the ice cream Tuesdays to increase funding for the prison, which would eventually fuel his demise. He spent night and day, working on this new prison, his magnum opus, the thing that generations onwards would remember him by. Eventually he was finished, a changed man, but it was finished. The constructed prison towered above all, and had the span of sixteen icebergs on both sides. Yet it was this which killed him, as discontent rose with the local penguin population ready to rebel. So Bob thought this was the perfect time to accept some new tenants and told the police chief to go free with the arrest, which days later resulted in half the workforce in prison, resulting in productivity halving. And it was at this point where he thought he won, and became overconfident. The remaining population banded together and followed dob to Bob's throne, and then a brawl commenced, with dob and his populists as the clear leader. Nowadays, years after that, Dob is regarded as a folk hero and Latter Day Saint while Bob's legacy is all but forgotten, except in a fairy tale about sleeping earlier.
 
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