Ernie made his way down the roadside, leaving behind him a five foot stretch of freshly trimmed grass where before his passing it had been tall and unruly. He pushed his body forward from the center, rolling his globular outer layer over and over like a carefully guided ball. His body wasn’t perfectly circular, of course. It shifted and expanded and pulsed in bright pinks with blue striations as he moved over the grass and fed on the delicious greenness below him. This job he had was perfect. He got paid for keeping the roadside grass short. It was like making money munching on an all-you-can-eat-buffet each day. The only problem came from all the other blobs in the area. They formed a gang of malicious creatures that chased and devoured people on a whim. Ernie had met with a lot of prejudice against blobs when he began working for the city. Even the fact that he was a vegetarian didn’t soothe much of the hatred and rage. It certainly didn’t go over well with the other blobs, either. Despite the varied threats from all around him, though, Ernie was determined to be himself and not be manipulated by others. He continued, day after day, eating blade after blade of grass, focused and determined, doing his part to make the world a more beautiful place.
NOTE: The brief narrative above was brought to you by TZ Books and The Bite-Size Fiction Project, created by Dave Baldwin and Sheila Lee Brown (this particular one is a Sheila-story). The results of this project are bite-size story morsels for short attention spans. These tidbits are sometimes fun, sometimes weird…but always short!