Bob the Lumberjack Robot

It’s not Bob’s fault he was built to chop trees. And it’s definitely not his fault he was built to last. When Bob was sent to the tree planet, he could chop more trees in an hour than any other lumberjack robot ever built. He took pride in his work.

But one day Bob learnt that humans could grow trees in any shape or form and at incredible speed. In their factories they could now grow furniture overnight. Eventually, little by little the demand for natural wood disappeared.

And so the lumberjack robots send to work in the tree planet were left behind forgotten. It is now many years since any human has visited the planet to collect the wood.

When the cargo ships stopped coming the robots abandoned their work. And eventually they all broke down for lack of use. With no humans on the planet to fix them, the robots rusted away.

All but one.

One robot never broke down because he never stopped working. Because Bob had a mission, to chop trees. For years that turned into centuries, Bob chopped trees. It’s not Bob’s fault that he was built to last. And last he did. For Bob chopped until the last tree in the tree planet was cut.

Bob now has no more trees to chop, and so he waits patiently for the day that humans will return to Earth to collect all the wood and tell him what good job he’s done.