Zoe Dudack

Appetite

I can hear them rotting on the counter. A low-level vibration, a deep prolonged groan. The bundle of bananas slowly blackens, engulfed in its own shadow. You’ve forgotten me, it accuses. But I can hear you, the sound of slipping on ice in slow motion, a dragging sound. I can smell you, that off-color sweetness. The fruit flies, they’ll come from everywhere to see you. You’re ignored, perhaps, avoided. But certainly not forgotten. 

Of course all of this is a bad sign. It’s been ages since anything has sounded appetizing. What is this really all about? That’s what my grandmother asked over the phone when I told her I wasn’t feeling all that hungry. Are you feeling ill? Is your stomach turning, is your blood circulating too slowly, can you see straight? It’s not one of those body image things, is it? She is straight to the point, accusatory despite asking from a place of warmth, not knives. No, no, nothing like that, nothing like that at all. It just seems uninteresting; it’s a chore; it’s an impossible task; it requires decision, action, agency. I’m not made for things of steel and chopping and blasting heat. All of that is beside the point, my grandmother tells me, you are hungry and you must eat. But I never said I was hungry. It’s more abstract than that. Hardly, she says. 

I placed the bananas in a place where I’d have to see them every day. I urge myself to at least throw them out, if I’m not going to eat them; why stare at decay unfolding. I try to appeal to my better fiscally responsible nature—you spent money on those, somebody could have used them, somebody else is hungry for those and you stole them and took them away and hid them on your counter here where they are slowly dissolving into mush in their casings. But then I scold myself, you’re not making them appetizing, make them appetizing—but nothing comes to mind, I’m not creative enough for this. 

Banana bread! Banana bread is better with older bananas, a rough grind into batter with lighter, happier things like sugar and butter and a pinch of salt. How lovely. That’s fine, simply tipping things into a mixer and watch it get beat, beat, beaten, until its mush is even further along than before. But no, it’ll be delicious, add some chocolate chips, the kind you pick out of the bag after dinner, or used to. 

Or a strawberry-banana smoothie. The strawberries turn it bright pink, how fun, how novel. A quick splash of milk, a gentle dab of yogurt, macerated squashed bananas, chopped sliced bloody strawberries, place them on top of cold metal blades, press that tiny little button, how easy for you, obliterate them until they’re all one, it’s very equitable you see. Think about how many people want those strawberries, those bananas, that milk, that yogurt, add a little bit of spinach if you want, to make it healthier for yourself. 

The fruit flies descend upon them. I shoo them away periodically, to no avail and no intended avail, it’s all performative. Is it not charity to give the fruit flies what they need? I shouldn’t shoo them away at all, they’re enjoying it more than I am. And yet still I let the bananas sit and sit, and yet still I feel nothing of hunger. 

The compost then. Place them in the compost. Let them decompose in a place meant for decomposing. They’ll blacken, they’ll be added to the black, covered with a lid to be fully

submerged in darkness, where not even the wild animals can touch them, until again it all becomes one and I can spread that oneness in the garden and watch other things bloom. But of course there’s always the irrational worry, what to do if a banana tree inexplicably sprouts from the compost, pushes its way back to life, some horrible reincarnate or Frankenstein performing some act of vengeance? Banana trees don’t grow here, but bananas are also eaten and fruit flies are shooed away and banana bread sounds delicious. 

What do I do with them, what do I do! I cry to my grandmother, the phone far from my mouth, the speaker phone a saving grace. 

Just eat them, darling, she tells me, tired of me, I’m the fruit flies to be shooed away, I’m the blackened bananas wasting away, the unappetizing counter dweller. Pop one in your mouth, right now, she demands. Her voice is strained with restrained disappointment, exasperation. 

But my teeth do the same things knives do, the same thing mixers do, the same thing blades do. 

Yes, yes, darling, as they should. This is how all things should be. 

Not me, not me! 

What will change your mind? Eat them whole without chewing. Swallow it all in one bite, see if that’s any more kind to anyone at all. 

Fine, fine, fine, I’ll compost them, they’ll live on respectably in their bin, then in the garden. 

No, you’ll eat them. They’re not dead just yet, don’t kill them. 

You don’t understand. 

You don’t understand. Eat one and you’ll understand. 

I can’t. 

I won’t leave you alone until you do. 

…Fine. Fine. I’ll hold it, and watch it squish and bleed and bend in my hands, I’ll peel off its skin, a droopy black shawl, it’s slipping out of my hands, it’s dead, it’s dying. I’ll take a bite, it’s a soft bite, my teeth glide right through, it’s nearly creamy, certainly warm, tasting of its old color, its original color, it’s glowing in my mouth, my stomach calls out, that’s bad, surely that’s bad, I swallow and it drops down, and I take one more bite and one more, and the color returns to my cheeks, I feel it seep back in, this is hard for me, how am I doing it, what will become of me now…