Banana

* * *

Some ten years later I sat starving in my student room and I waited for my boyfriend to bring me bananas. So what if he loses at dice? Finally he brought them. beautiful, yellow, ripe and fragrant. I took one and I started eating it my way. I forgot about his presence, because I was already chewing my nails, shaving my legs and picked my nose in front of him, an he had already entered the second phase of our love without frontiers announced by a chain of farts on his side without any announcement or apology, of course. We relaxed in front of each other, interestingly, even before we slept together, and for this event it is important to mention that we didn’t even have oral sex before. Then you can imagine what was the surprise in my boyfriend’s voice when he screamed:
“What are you doing? Is that the way you eat a banana?” and he startled me, as I was removing the upper layers from the banana rubbing it against my teeth and making shallow furrows that were coming under my lips. Well, I was a big girl then, and I immediately realized what was going on. I became conscious about those, for me long known, mechanical movements that I usually fully neglected focusing on the inflow of sweet mhmmm… delicious tissue, and yes, I understood why he was upset. He even looked insulted. Guess why? I turned to him. Shall I do it or not? Shall I fool around? I’ll be ridiculous. And yet, shall I try? How will he react? Let me sacrifice a banana. Instead of answering I looked him in the eyes and then I peeled the banana a bit more. My tongue almost betrayed my disguised shame and I hurried to stick it to the gentle banana tip. Come on, be brave. I licked it. His eyes opened a bit more. Huh, so that’s it. Well, see how I eat the banana. I didn’t do anything special, only continued to strip the banana bare, to its heart, more precisely, following the regular procedure. Huraah, with my lips to the inner soft part. What about him? Let me see. He lied on the bed, spread his legs a bit and displayed his stiffened crotch. So, you like it! Well, OK, I’ll try a bit more. How does it go? Look at him with your eyes slanting, don’t be ashamed, OK, and not some small obscenities and tenderness outside the program, for example, for example kiss the banana from all asides, like that, a bit of love, and not lick it all over and swallow it as deep as you can, I made a whole movie. How soft and mushy it has become. And the time when I usually bite it, removing, melting and swallowing pieces of it came, because after this treatment it could break itself and fall. Then, who knows why, I showed all of my teeth and I closed the, cutting away a piece of it that immediately went down my throat. (Freudians, here you go: envy, jealousy, revenge drive, castration, equality, Oedipus, etc). I have never seen a more painful expression. He covered his crotch with his hand. If I had known how painful it would be for him, I would’ve never done it.
“What have you done?”
“Sorry.” And I had no more courage to look at him. I turned my back and for the first time I ate a banana feeling guilty because of myself. And I swallowed it without joy, of course. Since then I don’t take any risks. I prefer not to make any concessions and I stick to my old rule: eat the banana as you like it, but always alone.

* * *

But, let’s leave my kinky banana eating. What about “normal” banana eating? What about “normal” people and who is normal?
For example, is it normal for a healthy man, in the most usual meaning of the word, the one that is called real, feels a bit unusual, uncomfortable, somehow feminine when he hold a banana in his hand and tried to eat it in a manly way. “Die hard!” but it’s not so easy.
Millions of people tear apart, open up placed before the banana identifier. It does not color red or blue, but always shines yellow and warns: attention, something is happening! Colors mix up inside us. The rainbow has reflected in us since always, although we are blinded, and we don’t do the same. And we shall fade out together. Yes, even without understanding that there is no need to pass under it.

* * *

In the end, just another banana-split of memories. Beach. There are almost as many people are pebbles. And different as well. And more heated than the pebbles. Although the sun is slanted and finished the film planned for today. A bit more and it will fall in the dark chamber of the pale blue, barely visible mountain. Beautiful final photo. People at sunset. The three of us at the sunset. I’m in a suka-sun position in between my two friends. We eat bananas with Alec who stands with his legs spread, and Dejan lies on his side, on his hip, with his head leaning on his hand and turned to the sun. It must look nice from that height. All of this towels in many colors, spongy, straw and plastic chairs next to each other… patchwork canvas stretched between the two ends of the beech, between the toboggan and bungee jumps… a banner in thousands of shades and patterns. Everything is one, mixed up, almost without borders. The ball of the hyperactive child of the second row of chairs behind us stopped next to our mineral water… and my slippers ended next to the feet of the old lady kneeling in front of me. Hairy toes and dark red nail polish, why not? What else? The newspaper that Alec bought this morning multiplied in three sub-newspapers, a bit for each couple of six neighbors next to him… And there is Dejan’s Lilo, drying separated from him with two empty wet towels, two pairs of snickers and a big bag pack. Still, something is wrong. It is a deception. It only looks good. The borders disappear only when the distance is big. Big enough to be acceptable. Emotional distance. Well, what does this banana want? I am eating it in a calculated innocent, indifferent, defaced way, and it forces me to think, to disagree with this perfect sunset. This time it shoved me into somebody else’s shoes.
Lena is smart. Lena knows. Why did I have to excuse myself: “No, thanks, I don’t feel like a banana now. Leave it, maybe later.” Nonsense, Lena understands. She is reading through me even at this very moment. Instead of eating the banana, I encounter her thoughts in front of me, touching my own stuck to the pink T-string on Alec’s butt. He stands straight and couldn’t care less. My brave friend, who in search of his sexual and general emotional freedom waxed his butt six days ago and now sits on it, shining and smooth, almost like Lena’s… No, don’t listen! Those four guys next to the cabin swear at him again, more and more creatively… Is it only for the ears of the girls lying next to them, who oil themselves and giggle… That’s not the way to score… Alec, you are the king, you’ll walk like that, like on the catwalk, waving the bag with peels in one of your hands and finishing the banana in your other hand, to the garbage can in front of the cabin itself? I have no words. They stare in disgust! It’s OK, they remembered to look down… To provocation, huh? You feel like knocking him down on the pebbles and beat him until the pale gentleness of his body is completely lost? You fools! What irritates you? His feminized movements? The T-string? Pink? How tragic-comic! You think that nature played with him, and actually he plays with it. By the way, with you and with me as well. Mainly with himself. My dear Alec. You couldn’t give a damn if they think you are gay, when you know that you like women. Lena knows you like women. And I know it too. Your body is your problem, so you parade with it. You raise it and you step on it before everybody and before yourself. You stress it and you get rid of it. Laughing on the way. You are God, Alec, although I almost had to rescue you from being beaten up, you are God. What about me? I lie here, seemingly usual, so manly, so averagely manly. Not a sign, not a move reveals me, not a single suspicious shiver. There is no mistake in my muscles, in my deep voice. I love this body that serves me well. It looks good on me. Both men and women glance at it. The ones who don’t know don’t notice, the ones who know don’t mind. Damn it, why don’t I dare to eat the banana here? And I’m so hungry. I’ll burst. Huh. Who does Lena wave to?
“Sir, over here please. Three bags of popcorn. Thanks. How much?”

* * *

“So, you’re buying popcorn now? You’re a darling! Well… where did you leave my banana? Let me eat it first.”

Translated by: Elizabeta Bakovska

AuthorGabriela Stojanoska-Stanoeska
2018-08-21T17:23:09+00:00 April 14th, 2007|Categories: Prose, Literature, Blesok no. 53|0 Comments