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Feeling bananas


You got the promotion in January 2020. ‘Regional Sales Manager.’ With it came a car and you moved your family to the suburbs and your kids to group of schools. People cry about Njaanuary but not you. You were laughing all the way to the bank. Your wife was happy, your kids were happy. The receptionist was even flirting with you. ‘Regional Sales manager.’ It had a nice ring to it. If you could you would flirt with yourself too.


January went quickly and February was here. Time flies when you have money. You developed a palate for golf and got a membership in that country club. It was already end-of-February before you could pronounce ‘caddie’ and there was talk of a flu from Wuhan. You shrugged. Flu? You even laughed. Not with your top-of-the-range health insurance.


March knocked on the door. The upper echelon of the organization called an emergency meeting and told you, you had to take a pay cut and lay off half of your team. A pay cut was all right. You would just dial down on the country club membership and besides the kids were home now. You were upbeat even though you had a chill down your spine. ‘What if it all goes away?’


April came and you saw that email you were dreading. You were all being sent on leave without pay. You stared at it unblinking as if you could see right through the screen. You tried to comfort yourself. ‘By May things will be back to normal.’ April was slow. You spent your time sitting uneasily on your sofa and burning through your savings wondering who you were now. Who were you really if you were not the Regional Sales manager?


The arguments with your wife started. You could no longer pay the mortgage in suburbia. The internet was cut. Then the electricity followed. Food was under candlelit but that disappeared too. And then the wife took the kids and disappeared.


You made it through a week without electricity, water, and dignity with auctioneers banging on your door before you decided to end it all. You were going to do it in that car. You were going to smash into a bridge at ninety miles an hour. It was the means of your rise and now it would be the means of your demise. Poetic.


While en route to the bridge you came across these vendors with big cars on the roadside. It piqued your interest. Besides you didn’t want to gamble. You didn’t know if you would make it to your maker in time for supper so you slowed down for a banana. 


While peeling it you talked shop. There was an accountant selling tomatoes. An engineer selling potatoes and the professor who sold you bananas. He was short of hands and he asked if you could come on board and you did.


You look back, it's 2024 and now you have a smoothie and ice cream joint at Sarit whose focus is banana flavor. You did go bananas and with the Njaanuary sun, your bank account is going bananas too. You smile at the memory and feel a little bit bananas that you were a Regional Sales Manager who could sell water to a well yet there you were about to end it all.


As told by Kisauti 

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