I’ve been eating more bananas lately; usually one a day but two when I go for a walk around the lake. It started as an attempt to cut down on processed foods – particularly salami and chocolate bars – whilst still satisfying my animalistic hankering for the dopamine release of a sugar hit. I thought it a clever besting of my subconscious impulse to expand my fat reserves by my health-aware conscious mind. More than just improving my physical health, an overall improvement in my mental health has occurred at perhaps an alarming rate.
My temper has definitely lengthened, as has my patience for the inconvenience of ideocracy - a change I noticed about a week into my daily dedication to bananas; However, this mental improvement seems to be very gradually reaching a plateau. The space in my brain preoccupied by my pre-banana frustrations in life is being replaced with a strong anxiety that lives somewhere between my conscious and subconscious mind. Put simply: I am terrified to stop eating bananas.
To be clear, I have absolutely no reason to want to stop eating bananas; I feel better, I am healthier and (while certainly not as tasty as a good chocolate bar) bananas are pretty darn delicious. But I am beginning to feel the control over this decision slowly slip away from me – it is less and less the benefits of bananas that keeps me persistent with my eating of them, and more and more the fear that something dastardly may occur should I suddenly stop. This fear (perhaps even dread – though that seems a silly word to use over some bananas) paralyses my conscious mind, whilst my less cowardice subconscious acts to address this fear by peeling back the waxy yellow skin, exposing the white flesh and shoving it down my gob to protect my mortal and spiritual coil from any potentially negative effects of a sudden banana withdrawal. It’s a real carrot and stick scenario… or I guess a banana and stick scenario in my case.
It's not so much that I feel totally weak without the power of bananas – I was mostly fine before I started this habit – it’s that I’m worried my body has become accustomed to the added sugars, fibres, vitamins, etc. that the banana provides. It stands to reason then, that if I was suddenly to stop eating these bananas, I could relatively starve my now spoiled body of these luxuriously high levels of added sugars, fibres, vitamins, etc. that it may now assume as necessities for my bodily function.
It’s much like those little orange pills… Whilst they never made me truly “happy”, it subtly numbed my thoughts enough for me to continually work on fixing the underlying problems, but a sudden withdrawal from these false-tic-tacs is highly likely to induce anxiety and depression much worse than it was originally meant to treat. I can’t help but wonder why they don’t put such warnings on bananas the way they do on the outside of the pill boxes.
I realise that, quite unlike myself, I haven’t actually researched if my worries have any scientific merit. I will quickly google the benefits of potassium to see what I might miss out on should I cheat my new diet…. It’s worse than I could have imagined. The first results for a search of “benefits of increase potassium intake” are the following: “reducing blood pressure, protecting against strokes, protecting against osteoporosis…” the list goes on but I can’t see any further without actually clicking on the website and frankly I’ve already seen enough… If my body has, as I have hypothesised, become accustomed to the nutrients of my banana habit, then surely suddenly stopping would greatly increase my risk of high blood pressure, strokes, osteoporosis, and whatever else may have been on that list… never mind the effects of withdrawing from all the other good stuff the humble banana is full of.
Still, as I have no plans or reasons to stop… as far as a dependency goes, I could do a lot worse than bananas…
I just don’t like not being in control.
It’s been another fortnight of dedicated banana decadence and I think my brain is tricking itself into becoming more and more reliant on the fruit.
About five days after my last entry, my first outward expression of concern about eating bananas, the great energy boost I usually get after my daily banana started to diminish as if trying to prove that the added energy and nutrients were no longer a bonus but had become just my baseline intake. It was my body’s subtle way of telling me of its thirst for more bananas, but my anxiety over a potential increase in blood pressure, having a stroke or developing osteoporosis turned this subtle want into a need.
I’m now up to three bananas daily – if I don’t become vigilant in criticising my cravings, I’m sure before long it will be four. To say I still emotionally enjoy or take pride in my diligent fruit intake is difficult; it’s more like the relief of a coke addict snorting a line that’s ninety-eight-percent flour and two-percent amphetamines – it’s a pale of water against the raging house fire of desire inside of me, but at least it’s something.
There’s a continual internal conflict between what I can only describe as a primitive need for more bananas and my more developed human rationale that allowing myself to give into these desires is only further developing my dependency for bananas.
I am also beginning to worry about developing hyperkalaemia – an elevated level of potassium in the bloodstream. Apparently, this can lead to cardiac arrest in extreme cases but I’m more worried about its potential links to psychosis. I came across a paper stating the elevated risks of hyperkalaemia in mentally ill people. Supposedly this is due to a strange tendency for the mentally ill to overeat dried fruits, but my question is this: is the mental illness driving a higher potassium intake or is the high potassium intake driving the mental illness?
I guess only time will tell.
Something is definitely wrong… The very tips of my fingers have turned almost completely black over the last three days. I started writing due to my conscious mind’s apprehension to eating bananas but now my physical form seems to be showing an attitude toward such curved yellow fruits. I can not yet determine if this attitude is a resistance or an encouragement to my continually growing banana intake.
Part of me – the alexithymically logical part – thinks that it is some form of diabetes. Though this hardly seems likely though as at my worst, before I started eating bananas, I had a much higher daily sugar intake from processed foods so it would be strange to now develop diabetes on a relatively low sugar intake. Alternately however, a lineage of type one diabetes runs through my family so perhaps I may have inherited the condition and have only just started exhibiting symptoms. Although it seems much too perfectly timed for my fingers to blacken so shortly after changing my diet.
The other part of myself – the part that truly feels like me (maybe my soul or my human-ness) – seems to know that I have un-locked some hidden mechanism by reverting back to the diet of my pre-human ancestors. My form is also starting to revert back to that of the apes from which I evolved, perhaps in order to assist me in climbing trees so I can reach the longer curved yellow fruits.
My hair is also turning darker in colour, I hope no one thinks I’m vain enough to be dyeing it.
Writing is beginning to hurt the ends of my now alien fingers. My immediate response to pain is now to reach for a banana in the hopes it might give me the energy to mend myself, but writing this is distracting me enough to take the edge off my cravings. My skin seems to be slowly getting thicker, strapping in much of my body heat, causing me to feel like I have a constant flu. It is becoming increasingly more difficult to sweat this heat out as a result of my thickened skin; only the sweatiest areas (armpits, back of the knees, and the back of my neck) are able to produce any drops at all. I keep my pillow in the freezer now so that I might get enough release from the discomfort to fall asleep.
I wonder if this correlates to my ape theory? Is my skin thickening to that of an ape’s? Do apes even have thicker skin?
I was at four daily bananas a couple of weeks ago. When my fingers began to blacken, I got an almost irrepressible urge to up it to five. I’m ashamed to admit I only resisted this urge for a day; it felt like the long-anticipated clearing of a blocked nose.
Up to nine daily bananas; it is getting very expensive but I see no alternative.
Fingers are now almost twice their original diameter and all black down to the first knuckle. Below the knuckle, my fingers have discoloured into a pale, sickly sort of hue.
The backs of my knees no longer produce any sweat. I have to take frequent breaks whilst walking around the lake now.
Took my niece around the lake for a walk today. She is only five so we both need brakes while working our way around the circumference. I enjoy this bonding time, the fact that we are both panting by the end of the walk makes me feel less unfit even though I am much closer to what should be my physical peak than she is.
A large bandicoot jumped out unexpectedly from the bushes about halfway around the lake, sticking its nose up at me as if it smelt something sweet. This scared my niece (rightly so since the bandicoot probably weighed about one-and-a-half times what she does) causing her to instinctively take hold of my hand. While trying to interlock her fingers around my now severely swollen digits, she pulled down on the blackened end of my right pointer finger and to my horror the skin peeled right back to where my finger meets my hand. It had only hurt a little – no doubt numbed by the adrenaline of the whole ordeal. My niece’s eyes were fixated on the bandicoot so she continued to try and work her hand into mine.
I quickly scooped her up with my uninjured left arm and allowed her to wrap her legs around me into a piggyback, quickly jamming my hand into my jacket pocket before my niece could notice. To my bewilderment, there was no blood on the ground and the bandicoot seemed equally surprised as its eyes fixated on my right jacket pocket. It loaded its hairy legs with its weight, ready to pounce on my concealed and peeled finger when a cyclist behind us rang his bell to overtake. The bandicoot scurried away at the noise and I moved over for the cyclist before darting away.
I dropped my niece at my sister’s place and unconvincingly made an excuse to not stay around for a cup of tea. Once around the corner from her abode, I released my aching finger from my jacket pocket. I realised the skin from my finger had peeled back very neatly and the flesh underneath was firm and solid, white with a tinge of red but still not at all bleeding. I could no longer move my finger. Whilst it was still attached to me it no longer seemed a part of me. I brought my (or what, forty minutes prior, was my) finger closer to my eye line for closer inspection. On its passing next to my nose, my olfactory responses were bombarded with an intensely sweet aroma (no doubt what had attracted the bandicoot).
I think it was a mixture of the smell, my requirement for energy after the traumatic ordeal and the fact I hadn’t eaten a banana in almost three hours that gave me the impulse. A sharp, stabbing impulse. Too fast through my subconscious mind to pass through my conscious reasoning. An incredibly inhuman impulse… I bit off my injured finger. I then chewed it. I then swallowed it.
Despite its sweet smell, its flesh was quite bitter and very hard – also salty
First came dissapointment... disappointment in the taste and texture of my most recent meal. Then the realisation... realisation like a bandicoot where clear path once lay. I immediately turned in the direction of the hospital… I had just lost a finger!
I never made it there. The slower realisation of the fiasco of explaining the whole ordeal came to me. Slowly, but not calmly.
If anything could get me locked up in a psych ward that would have to be it. Especially since I felt no panic in the moments after. They would think I was crazy and I’d be sent away to a white padded cell and they’d tell everyone I know what had happened. I could never return to normal life; alongside any friendliness I might eventually gain back, would be an underlying sense of pity for poor old me who had completely lost it and bitten off their own finger.
I got home and found some release by eating three bananas in the span of about forty seconds. Thank God my fingers weren’t as tasty as the bananas otherwise I might develop an even more horrifying habit – albeit one that could last ten rotations max. I still don’t know what took over me or why I’m experiencing all these strange changes but I think after today I’ve earnt the right to not think about it until tomorrow.
I can’t believe how ignorant I had been to not realise what happened yesterday; I guess hindsight is as clear as a sluggard’s schedule. It seems so clear now, granted I don’t think anything would have changed had I worked out the trivial enigma of my condition.
This whole time I have been worried about my blood accustoming itself to the added sugars, fibres, vitamins, etc, it got from my daily bananas. I failed to realise that my blood has now started mimicking those same sugars, fibres, vitamins, etc. My physical form is turning into the very thing it gets its energy from. I am becoming a banana.
It must still be early stages due to the aroma and taste of the new flesh that resides under my skin. I don’t think there’s anything I can do. If I thought stopping eating bananas before was potentially dangerous, for all I know stopping now might resort in a fate worse than increased blood pressure or a stroke or osteoporosis or whatever else was on that list.
The signs have been there for months but can I really be blamed for not recognising them? Like this is actually fucking insane…
Why didn’t my sister or my niece or that cyclist or that cunt of a bandicoot say anything to me?
Were they worried, like I, of being labelled crazy for telling another human being: “Hey, just so you know. You look more and more like a giant banana lately”?
I woke in what would have been a cold sweat (could I still get any sweat through my thick banana skin) this morning with the revelation in mind. I think I was more worried that my now incredibly high potassium intake had actually induced schizophrenia causing me to imagine my banana transformation, but looking in the mirror there was no denying what was and still is happening. I noticed my tongue had transformed, much like my fingers, into a banana. I pulled back my lips and realised my frenulum was no longer its pink fleshy self but had been replaced with the stringy gross bit of a banana (apparently called the “phloem bundle” according to Google).
I couldn’t find any such conditions on the internet anywhere and I don’t think any medical professional (or anyone sane enough that I would want them to believe me) could come to the same conclusion, but I know it must be true. While I still resemble the human on my passport, I need to leave for somewhere tropical so that I might ripen and live out the rest of my new life as a prosperous and healthy banana. I am afraid that due to the bizarreness of my circumstances alerting my family of my plans would only cause concern, essentially forcing them (albeit out of love) to lock me up in some kind of ward where I am sure to become a blackened dreary old fruit.
I wish not to leave my family (particularly my sister and niece) with no explanation so I will leave this manuscript behind. Hopefully they will understand and not worry for me.
To my beautiful family: please do not fret for my wellbeing. I am on my way to becoming the best banana I can be,