«The Blog of Wistar Watts Murray

The Existential Diet

Excerpt from Chapter Two: The Very Hungry Caterpillar

I ate a banana. I ate it slowly, in small bites, folding down the stiff peel as I went. I let the fruit coat my gaseous stomach. I washed down each bite with cold tap water from a faded Burger King cup. The banana was the first thing I’d eaten all day. I was doing awesome.

I stood at the kitchen sink and stared through the window at the maple tree in my backyard. The tallest branches craned towards my back porch in the breeze. Rogue limbs perched unbidden over the railing. Two squirrels ran down the branches onto the deck where they ate scraps from old hamburger buns and bird food from the feeders I filled devoutly every week.

The maple branches were coming my way, stretching nearly into my house, grasping through my window in spite of the roots residing across the yard. The tree was invading my habitat, threatening to turn my colors with the season. What if the branches broke? Small twigs already scattered across the deck after every rainstorm. I wanted to kill the maple. I could dig a deep hole around its trunk and starve it out. I tapped on the window but only frightened the squirrels—I couldn’t spook the tree limbs.

Another piece of banana in my mouth. My teeth sunk into its supple fruit. I rolled the morsel across my tongue. Leafy shadows cut across my face, across the silver reflection of the sink faucet. I was beaten by shadow and vegetation and always by the oppressive daylight. I was crushed by the daylit world outside and by the illuminated leaves bridging the distance between the tallest trunk and my clumsy spine wrapped in cheese burritos.

The world could target me through the window. The tree could fall and plunge through my chest or take the food right out of my hands. I chewed my banana. I ate it and ate it. I swallowed it. I ate it until it was gone. I squeezed the peel in my hand like a rubber ball. I turned away from the window. My stomach fell into my bowels and I needed to shit and shit and shit.

I left the house in a hurry. I carried the peel with my keys to the car before I realized it was still in my hand. I threw the peel into a composted corner of my yard, where the spring ants could feed on its wealth.

I traded places with the banana peel. The banana peel drove to the twenty-four-hour pharmacy and bought some shaving gel, a can of low-fat chicken soup, a gallon of chocolate chip ice cream, and some sugar-free gum; and I sat in the corner of the yard in a pile of dead branches, sticks, and leaves, and I began to decompose. My yellow skin turned brown and started to wilt. I withered into the tiny mouths of insects. The silken threads of my skin rotted in the sun.

The banana peel stood in the checkout line and used its VIP keychain card to get a forty-nine-cent discount on ponytail holders. The banana peel read the covers of the tabloid magazines while it waited in line. Which celebrities had plastic surgery? Which colors were fashionable for fall? The banana peel pulled back into the driveway and hauled its plastic shopping bags off the passenger seat. I sank into the forest of debris.