Bananas for Carly

THIS STORY CONTAINS SOME SWEARING.

To get up, or not to get up? That is the fucking question. What’s today? Another stupid Wednesday, another boring day with the same boring people. I glanced over at my buzzing phone. I couldn’t even be arsed to reach over and turn it off. The effing thing was useless anyway. I had been up since 5, staring at the cracks in my ceiling. Specks of paints probably fell on me as I struggled to sleep. I was always finding that shit all over my bed.

        Finally, with a loud banging from the other side of my bedroom wall, and the muffled shout of my next-door neighbour, threatening to come and shove the phone down my throat, or failing that, up another orifice, I turned off the alarm.

        Maybe, I should just call in sick, I thought. It’s not like they’d miss me at Tesco’s. Oh no ! Martin is sick, how on Earth will we ever manage to put these tins of dog food on the correct shelf? I can see it now. Panic in the supermarket. They’ll have to call reinforcements, they’ll pull everyone from their regular jobs to make sure there is enough ‘Puppy Delights’ for all shoppers. People will be rioting in the shop! “What’s going to happen to Snuffles? He needs his food!”

        The only real reason I would ever find the strength to go in to work would be to see Carly. But I mean, I’d just end up staring at her over by the crisps as she chatted to that twat Tony. Big muscular, 6 foot, looks like an American jock, fucking Tony! With his stupid blond hair, and his stupid blue eyes. I hated that guy.

        Oh but Carly, lovely Carly. Petite, with long brown hair, sparkling green eyes that I swear had flecks of gold in them. A face to rival an angel’s: perfectly oval, with smooth pink skin, usually with a hint of blush and a dab of mascara. Nothing extravagant. She didn’t need it, she was naturally pretty. She was always kind to me. I liked the way she would put a hand on my arm to tell me something.

        “Oh Martin, I forget to tell you…” she would say. She was always telling me stories, and I would always stand there, like a prat, smiling and laughing at even her flimsiest jokes. I was never the one to tell her a story. I never said a word.

        Maybe today would be different.

        I decided to go into work.

        Two hours later, I was standing in the produce section, putting apples in boxes. Turns out they didn’t need me for the dog food today, for which I was grateful. It smelled in that section. But stacking shelves, or fruit, was boring, no matter how you looked at. I took my time, watching the shoppers go by. Watching as husbands and wives argued about trivial things. “Why did we come today? We should have come yesterday?” “No you didn’t tell me to get shampoo!” That type of thing. Or kids screaming at their parents that they wanted toys, or some shit.

        I had yet to see Carly, I had taken a couple of unnecessary trips to the crisps section, but there was no sign of her. Maybe she had been moved to another aisle as well. I carried on working.

        It wasn’t until another hour later, as I was arranging oranges into an artistic pile to fight off the boredom, that I saw Carly appear, laden with a trolley full of melons. She smiled when she saw me. She reached over and put a hand on my arm.

        “Martin,” she said, with such obvious joy that I was surprised. “Looks like we’re working together today.”  

        “Hmm,” I said lamely attempting to smile back at her. Well done Martin! What a witty and interesting human you are. Pathetic! I tried again. “How are you Carly?” God that sounded so formal.

        “Oh Martin, I forgot to tell you…” Carly launched into a story about how she had run into Jasmine, one of our co-worker’s on Saturday night at the pub. She had already told me this story on Monday, and it wasn’t particularly interesting or exciting, but I was enthralled. I just stared at her, smiling and laughing at the right times. I swear I was drooling. I must have looked like a puppy waiting to go for a walk. I hate myself.

        As she neared the end of her story, I was desperately thinking of something interesting to say.

        “- so her boyfriend’s name is Steve…”

        God, I had nothing. I glanced around, and spotted some bananas, lying a foot away. I reached out and grabbed one just as she finished.

        “You know,” I said, unable to fully understand what the hell I was doing. This had nothing to do with her story, which she had finished without me reacting to it at all. “Bananas are slightly radioactive.” An odd expression filled her face. She looked at the banana that I was waving in front of her. “So, every time you eat a banana, you’re actually eating a little bit of radiation.”

        She just stared at me. I was even boring myself. Where the hell did that come from? How did I even know that? Carly looked as if she was about to turn away. Do something! I yelled to myself.

        I did the first thing I could think of. My muddled brain must have thought it had something to do with being brave. I started peeling the banana. This wasn’t my banana, my brain was telling me. I didn’t pay for it, and it’s slightly radioactive. This a dangerous and reckless thing to do.

        I peeled the banana quickly and took a large bite out of it.

        Carly stared at me, and slightly disgusted by the amount of yellow mush I had just shoved in my mouth, put a hand over her face.

        “But, ish shnot so mush ‘adiation to be ‘angeous” I tried to say, struggling to chew the large quantity of banana in my mouth. Carly looked horrified.

        This was a nightmare. Why couldn’t I just act like a normal human being? I forced myself to swallow, but as soon as I did, Carly disappeared.

        She didn’t walk away, she actually vanished! One second she was there, then poof, gone. But not like in a cloud of smoke or anything. This wasn’t like a magician’s trick. I was staring at her when it happened. She just vanished into thin air.

        I blinked several times, trying to overcome the sudden madness that had fallen upon me. Without thinking, I raised my hand to take another bite of banana, but then I realised that my hand was empty. Wait, I thought. Where’s the banana? I looked around. The stack of bananas was where it had been before, a foot away from me, but there weren’t any open or partially eaten ones. I felt dizzy, what was going on?

        I turned my attention to the oranges I had been stacking. Something was very wrong there too. I had unloaded half of the crate when Carly had joined me, but now the crate was almost full again. I looked back to where Carly had been a second before, and noticed that her trolley of melons had also disappeared.

        What. The. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck?

        Carly suddenly rounded a corner with a trolley full of melons. She smiled when she saw me and put her hand on my arm. She looked delighted to see me.

        “Martin,” she said. “It looks like we’re working together today.”

        I didn’t say anything. The spinning in my head increased.

        “Martin,” Carly said, her expression changing to worry. “Are you okay? You look very pale.”

        “Fine,” I managed to gulp. “I’m just… Tired,” I mumbled.

        “Rough night?” she nodded sympathetically. “Out on the slash, eh? Oh, I forgot to tell you, I ran into Jasmine on Saturday…” Carly launched into the exact same story she had told me only a minute earlier. And what’s more, was that she didn’t seem to remember telling it. I looked around the aisle. There was only one other person, and elderly gentleman perusing the strawberries a few feet away.  

        What had happened? Had I moved back in time? That was absolutely ridiculous, and I was an idiot for thinking it. But boy was I thinking it. It was either that, or I was having a psychotic episode. But how could I have moved through time? If I remember my science classes correctly, that was supposed to be impossible. It had happened when I had eaten the banana. Was it a magical banana? I looked over at the yellow stack of fruit. Which one had it been?

        Carly was still talking. Without taking any notice of what she was saying, I grabbed a banana, peeled it quickly and shoved into my mouth.

        She stopped talking and stared at me, that old face of disgust was back.

        “What the fuck are you doing, Martin?” she asked. “That is…”

        The moment I swallowed the banana, Carly disappeared, mid-sentence. I looked around: the trolley was gone too. The old man was on the other side of the produce section now, near the lettuce. It had happened again. When I ate the banana, I time travelled. But only a couple of minutes into the past. This was so weird. Could I do it again? Does Carly remember any of it? As I thought about this, she suddenly appeared around the corner with her trolley, and smiled at me. It was clear by her expression that she didn’t remember the banana incident.

        “Carly,” I said, before she could speak. “It’s so good to see you.” Her smile deepened and I swear she even blushed slightly.

        “Hi Martin, it’s good to see you too. Where were you this morning?”

        Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the old man move towards the strawberries. It was all the same. But I could change things. This was my opportunity to change things with Carly. It didn’t matter what I said or did, because I could just do it again by eating a banana. Wow, that sounded stupid. But it didn’t matter, because it was true.

        “I was here,” I replied. “But I was looking for you.”

        “Were you? Why?” she asked, and I could swear she sounded coy.

        Because I love you, I thought, but I couldn’t say that.

        “Because I love you,” I said. Shit.

        Carly took a step back.

        “You love me?” she said, then laughed. “What?”

        Oh, well, I thought, in for a penny, in for a pound.

        “Yes Carly, I love you. I watch you all the time; you’re so pretty, I just want to be with you.”

        Uh oh. Definitely overdid it there.

        I watched the transformation of Carly’s face go from looking quite flattered, to horrified. I must have stepped into stalker territory there.

        “Ok,” she said slowly. “Um, I think Adam wanted me to…” she trailed off, apparently struggling to find an excuse.

        “Wait,” I said, reaching for a banana. “Please!” I peeled the banana and ate as fast as I could while she stared at me; then, again, as I swallowed, she disappeared.

        Yes, I thought. It had worked again. A quick check told me everything was in place. The old man, the oranges, and the banana I had eaten had gone, but the stack was still there. Good.

        Carly appeared with her trolley, once again, delighted to see me.

        “Hey Carly,” I said, before she could say anything. “I missed you this morning,” I said trying to sound casual.

        “Oh yeah?” she said, smiling.

        “Yeah, stacking shelves is just boring without someone to talk to, you know?”

        “What about Tony?” she asked.

        “Tony’s a git,” I said, but I laughed as if this was a joke. She laughed too. Yes, it was working! “Anyway, I prefer chatting to you.”

        “Oh that’s sweet, Martin,” she said, again resting her hand on my arm. “You know Martin, if you’re not doing anything after work, we could go and grab a drink or something.” Yes, yes, yes! You’re in there mate! Now, don’t fuck it up, DO NOT fuck this up!

        “Oh yeah, I’d love to fuck you later.” Wait. Shit, did I say fuck? No, I only thought it. Surely I said ‘go for a drink’ as that is what I meant to say. Oh shit, look at her face. Oh no, she looks mad. Damn, what did I do?

        “I can’t believe you would to talk to me like, you’re a pig Martin, a fucking pig!” She slapped me across the face. Ouch. Quickly, banana time.

        A couple of minutes later, I was back at the point where Carly asked me to go for a drink with her.

        “I would love to go for a drink with you,” I said this time. She smiled back at me.

        “You know, we could go to the King’s Head, I saw Jasmine there on Saturday. Oh I forgot to tell you…”

        I let her tell her story again as I bathed in the light of joy that had enveloped me. I felt so happy. Where had these time travelling bananas been my whole life?

        So this was the one, the one where I succeed, but should I take a banana to keep with me just in case? Who knew how I was likely to screw things up tonight at drinks? And what would happen if I ate the banana while I was at drinks? Would I come back to this moment in time? Would I have to suffer through the work day again? Will it always be Wednesday? No, you know what, fuck it! She asked me out! She obviously likes me. I can do it, I can act like a normal human being. This is good. I glanced over at the bananas. The old man was examining them. This begged the question: what would happen if he ate a banana? Would he also travel back in time like I did? I put the thought in the back of my mind.

        The rest of the day was much more uneventful. I didn’t see much of Carly after that, but we had agreed to meet that evening in the pub. Before I left work, I made a decision. Heading back to the produce section, I collected as many bananas as I could carry and stuffed them in my backpack.

        You never know when they could come in useful.

*

        Carly pushed her trolley full of melons out of the store room. She had only been at work for an hour and she was already fed up. She was only doing this job until she could find something better. As she pushed the trolley, she made an unnecessary detour through the dog food aisle, hoping to see Martin. God, she had been dropping hints for ages, trying to get him to ask her out! She kept touching his arm for Pete’s sake! Poor Martin, he woudn’t know she liked him even if she stripped for him.

        Seeing that he wasn’t there, she sighed and made her way to the produce section. As she turned the corner, she saw to her immense delight, that Martin was there stacking oranges.

        “Martin,” she said. “It looks like we’re working together today!”

        “Hmm,” he replied. Damn, she thought, too enthusiastic, I need to tone it down. “How are you Carly?” He was such a gentleman. She couldn’t tell him how she was really feeling, that she thought she might be in love with him, that would be so embarrassing! Instead, she told him a story she was pretty sure she had already told him the other day. Oh well, it was better to just talk, rather than stand there awkwardly. She wished she had something more interesting to say than her encounter at the pub with Jasmine on Saturday.  

        As she talked, she noticed Martin smile and chuckle a couple of times. She thought he must be being polite. As she reached the conclusion to her story, she watched. He barely reacted to the ending. Instead he reached over and grabbed a banana.  

        “You know,” he said. “Bananas are slightly radioactive, so every time you eat a banana, you are actually eating a little bit of radiation.”

        She stared at him. That was a bit out there. She struggled not to laugh. He sure was quirky, and was always coming up with random facts like that. She was about to ask him how he knew this, but he suddenly peeled the banana and shoved some in his mouth. It was gross, Carly loved it. There was an old man standing just behind Martin and she didn’t want to laugh out loud, so she hid her face with her hand to stop herself.

        “But, ish shnot so mush ‘adiation to be ‘angeous,” he said as he chewed, which Carly imagined was “But it’s not so much radiation to be dangerous.”

        Then, Martin swallowed, and died. He just fell to the floor; all life had left him. He went from being an alive, banana chewing person, to an empty puppet, who fell onto the tiled floor with a sickening splat. The banana fell from his limp hand and slid into the puddle of blood that was forming by his head.

        Carly screamed.

        The rest of the day was a blur to her. Policemen, doctors, Martin’s parents; all came and went.  

        It’s not dangerous, Martin had said.

        Later, she was told that the banana he had eaten had contained a lethal amount of radiation, and that was probably what had killed him.

        Carly never touched another banana in her life.