Excerpt: Yet Again, I Have No Title

There seemed to be an eerie aura in the air, of rot and stagnation. Jason wasn’t sure he liked this place all that much. As they reached the shaft of light, Jason looked Danny up and down. He seemed ok, but there was a banana skin on his head.

“Danny, what’s that?” Jason said, pointing to his head.

Danny’s eyes rolled up to try and see, but he couldn’t so he reached up with his hand and had a feel instead. His fingers brushed the hard yellow exterior of the banana skin, and he recoiled in shock, doing a funny little dance and screaming, “GET IT OFF!”

“Hold still!” Jason said, trying to reach it, but Danny wouldn’t stop and continued to jump around, trying to shake the banana skin loose and simultaneously trying to stay near Jason, such that he kept jumping into Jason and knocking him to the floor.

Then Reggie came to the rescue, punching Danny hard in the face so that he fell over, and Jason peeled the slimy banana peel from his scalp, tossing it aside.

“Oh, it was just a banana skin!” Danny said, laughing.

“A BANANA SKIN FOR YOUR BANANA SINS!” a voice boomed out of the dark.

“What the hell was that?” Jason asked.

“I don’t know,” Danny said, his voice high-pitched with terror.

“I AM THE GHOST OF BANANAS PAST,” the invisible entity said in a loud voice, deeper than Barry White’s. “I HAVE SEEN ALL OF YOUR CRIMES, DANNY.”

“But I haven’t committed any crimes!” Danny said. “I don’t even like bananas!”

“EXACTLY!” the voice roared with furious anger. “THOSE ARE YOUR CRIMES! EVERY TIME YOU HAVE EVER BEEN OFFERED A BANANA AND DECLINED, EVERY TIME YOU HAVE EVER PASSED A BANANA IN A FRUIT BOWL AND NOT EATEN IT, YOU HAVE STRUCK A GREAT BLOW TO THE VERY HEART OF BANANADOM! AND WE DO NOT FORGET, DANNY.”

“My god Danny, have you never eaten a banana?” Reggie said.

“No!” Danny said. “It’s not my fault, I don’t like them!”

“YOU HAVE NEVER BITTEN INTO ONE OF US IN YOUR LIFE, DANNY! WE EXIST ONLY TO PLEASE! BANANAS ARE A VERY PROUD RACE, AND WE ARE ESPECIALLY PROUD OF OUR ABILITY TO SPARK EXCITEMENT IN THE DULLEST OF PALATES, YET YOU HAVE NEVER EVEN GIVEN US A CHANCE! YOU MAY NOT LIKE US DANNY, BUT WE HAVE A MESSAGE FOR YOU – WE HATE YOU AND WE WANT YOU TO DIE!” the banana voice said.

Suddenly, out of the dark hundreds of bananas swarmed, some flying through the air, some bouncing along the ground as though they were being pulled by strings. They swamped Danny, jumping all over him and pulling him to the floor, piling on top of him with their fruity weight and their erotic curvature, trying to crush him beneath their combined mass.

“Reggie, we have to think quickly! How are we going to save Danny?” Jason asked.

“I don’t bloody know! And you don’t have to tell me that we need to think quickly! And why do you always ask everyone else to think of everything when you’re supposed to be the bloody leader?” Reggie asked him. “You’re the main character, dammit! Take responsibility!”

“It’s called delegation, Reggie,” Jason said. “Ok, let’s think… these must be all the bananas that Danny has ever scorned… the Ghost of Bananas Past said that he had insulted them by not eating them… so the only answer is to eat them all!”

“What? But aren’t they undead or something?” Reggie said.

“I guess so,” Jason replied.

“And bananas don’t exactly die in their prime. Look, they’re all brown and rotten!” Reggie said.

“Do you want Danny to live or not?” Jason asked, grabbing the nearest banana, unpeeling it hastily and biting into it. It gave a little sigh of satisfaction, and evaporated into smoke in Jason’s hand. “Come on Reggie, you only have to take one bite! They’re easy to please! Danny’s going to be crushed!”

“Ok, here goes,” Reggie said, grabbing another and biting into it. “OH MY GOD, THAT’S SO DISGUSTING, I HATE BANANAS!” Reggie said. Angered, a number of the bananas turned on Reggie, jumping all over him too.

“No Reggie, pretend that you like them and they’re the best food in the world!” Jason said.

Reggie was still holding the banana that he’d bitten into in his hand. It was struggling to get free and jump on him, but he took another bite. “OH MAN, THAT’S SO GOOD!” he said, and forced a wide smile so big that a number of other bananas jumped in his mouth, eager to be eaten and set free from their misery. Reggie bit down on them. “HOLY ****, I CAN’T BELIEVE HOW GOOD THESE BANANAS TASTE,” Reggie said. “THEY’RE EVEN BETTER THAN ORANGES! I THOUGHT NOTHING WAS BETTER THAN ORANGES!” The bananas in his mouth all dissipated in yellow smoke, and more jumped at Reggie, eager to replace them. All they needed was a little love.

“Danny, can you hear me?” Jason said.

There was a muffled cry from beneath the swarming yellow mass that now existed where Danny had been moments before.

“Eat the bananas! Bite them and tell them that you love the way they taste!” Jason said.

There was a pause, and then suddenly cries of disgust and horror from deep within the pile. The bananas began to move more frenziedly, as though the price on Danny’s life had just doubled. Jason grabbed some more bananas and bit the tops off, not even bothering to unpeel them. “Damn, that’s good,” he said quickly, his mouth full, and then grabbed some more.

“I HAVEN’T EXPERIENCED THIS MUCH PLEASURE IN MY LIFE!” Reggie was still shouting behind him, taking on more and more bananas. Jason did the best he could to keep up with him, biting and complimenting, biting and complimenting, in a dull and increasingly nauseating cycle. Just how many bananas had Danny angered in his lifetime? At least they had stopped arriving now, and Jason could still hear muffled cries from within the pile of fruit, so Danny had not perished yet.

Twelve hours later, Reggie bit the last banana, and Danny was free. Well, he’d been free for an hour already, but that one final banana had been in his pants, and Danny refused to let them touch him to get it out. Instead, he had eventually wandered off some distance into the dark and taken his clothes off to release it, before putting them back on and running back to the lamplight, still with the banana in tow. Reggie snatched it up, bit its top off, and threw it aside, saying, “Bananas are my friends,” incredibly unenthusiastically. The banana puffed out of non-existence, and they stood facing each other, Jason and Reggie looking quite queasy.

“Have you pissed off any other foodstuffs?” Jason asked Danny.

“I AM THE GHOST OF GHERKINS PRESENT,” boomed an even deeper voice, echoing back and forth across the chasmal space.

“RUN!” Danny screamed, and they ran. Even Reggie.