Monday, January 21, 2008

Bananas

A few days ago I caught a cold. Walking around in a T-shirt was not such a good idea. They say the cold affects your stomach this year. (When you think about it, they say so every year, actually.) On the morning after I found that I lost my appetite, and could not bring myself to eat breakfast.

I expected a full working day ahead, and had to eat something. On the table I found a banana. I took a nibble, and felt that I could eat on. In less than a minute, I finished the whole thing.

Thanks to the banana, I could carry the weight of my life that day. Now the cold is gone.

Aren't the bananas wonderful. They used to belong to the luxury food category in the postwar Japan. They were like jewels. The sight of bananas would make people filled with yearning and envy. Now they are sold very cheap. A child doesn't take much interest in the bananas. I don't, either, usually. But the fact remains that the bananas are wonderful.

I once heard it said that people react to beautiful things even when they are deeply depressed. Bananas must be to the stomach as beauty is to the brain.