By Tim Miller
PINEAPPLE CROWN
I now call this meeting to order. Apple, the floor is yours.
APPLE CORE
Thank you. Eight score and four years ago, a member of our family, little known at the time, made the trip from the squalor of Panama to the greatest city in the world, (winks at PEAR CORE) known as the Big Apple. Once arrived, due to the lack of trash cans, this fruit, like so many, was left to rot in the streets. The inverse relationship between decay and friction led to slipping in the streets, causing widespread broken limbs, some of which had to be amputated.
It wasn’t long before a vaudeville performer known as “Sliding” Billy Watson, desperate for fame, usurped this risk to public health in the name of physical comedy. From there it was a short toss to the silver screen, where silent film stars like Charlie Chaplin seized on this remorseless schadenfreude and called it slapstick. And the rest, a century of egregious monopoly on all exocarpic humorous appeal, is, as they say, history.
PEACH PIT
Speak plainly. What are you saying?
PEAR CORE
Maybe Apple would if you wouldn’t interrupt.
APPLE CORE
That’s fine, my goodly Pear. I can speak for myself. I’m referring, of course, to the Banana Peel. But this is no history lesson. Rather, it’s a call to action. Fruits, it is time to be funny. All of us can be symbols of comedy. Why should Banana Peel be the only one?
PEACH PIT
Come off it. You can’t be serious. Banana peels are floppy, yellow, slippery. They’re hilarious. Monkeys eat bananas. ‘Go bananas’ is an expression. Did you grow underground? Have you no eyes? Tell me, what is humorous about my wrinkled outer core?
PLUM PIT
I know it all too well. We are a humorless bunch. At least you have 90210.
ORANGE PEEL
Peach is right. We could never compete with the floppy yellow tails, the history of falls. That noise on cartoons when someone slips.
MOLDY PUMPKIN
Grgryrlllyplbvvvdr.
WATERMELON RIND
It’s true. The same fate as Moldy Pumpkin awaits us all. If not mold, then it’s the compost bin. Do you not fear the worms, writhing in the darkness? What is funny about our decaying? Where is the humor in a slow demise?
APPLE CORE
(hesitates)
PEAR CORE
Tell them, Apple. Tell them about your plan. Just like you whispered to me, last night. It’s magnificent. Tell them.
APPLE CORE
(rolls toward center)
I believe that all of us have the potential to be funny in the face of such darkness. Banana peel is not unique in having comedic properties. Rather it is a question of outlook, confidence. If each—
PEACH PIT
We are born this way. Better to accept our true identity and seek suitable soil for our seeds.
APPLE CORE
To sleep, perchance to dream— ay, there’s the rub.
ORANGE PEEL
I’ll never be funny. How can I have appeal? No one even peels me right? I just end up in pieces.
GRAPE STEM
I’m thin and prickly.
LEMON WEDGE
How can I make puckered lips smile?
(STRAWBERRY LEAVES bursts into tears. CHERRY PIT rolls over to soothe.)
WATERMELON RIND
It’s hopeless. Life is hopeless. Bring on the worms.
MOLDY PUMPKIN
Grgryrlllyplbvvvdr.
APPLE CORE
My sweet ones, do you not hear yourselves? Do you not have ears? Orange Peel, who says you have to be ripped into odd shapes? I tell you, if a floppy yellow peel can be funny, then we can too. I am a mere core, chewed and browning, what incentive do I have to lie? This is our birthright. All fruit, everywhere, can be funny. (Rolls around, getting animated, gesturing forcefully) There is something amusing about each and every one of us. Look at Pear. Tell me that a pear-shaped body isn’t an opportunity for self-deprecating humor?
PEAR CORE
It is my shape. I cannot change.
APPLE CORE
We are depriving ourselves of more than just giggles. I tell you we are renouncing liberty itself! The freedom to inspire laughter at the end of our lives. This shouldn’t be limited to bananas. All fruits are created equally funny.
(The hall erupts in a din of fierce arguing. PEACH PIT charges APPLE CORE. PEAR CORE faints. The rinds try to break up the melee. )
PINEAPPLE CROWN
Order! Order!
CANTALOUPE RIND
(Shouting)
KNOCK IT OFF!
(Silence ensues. APPLE CORE and PEACH PIT are separated.)
CANTALOUPE RIND
Look at me. Pale. Buff. Ridges arranged in a mesh pattern. I look like an old net. All my life I’ve thought that about myself. That I’m just this pale net and someday I’ll rot as becomes all fruit that is born of flower. Sure, my seeds may grow anew. And that’s been enough for me. But I’ve listened to what our learned friend is saying. And now, for the first time since I was just a little sprout, I’m thinking that there might be more for me. More than just crude breast humor. The warm sound of real, genuine laughter. Who knows, maybe a belly laugh or two? If a banana peel can do it, well why can’t I?
ORANGE PEEL
(Over the outburst of other fruit.)
I’ve always wanted to be pithy!
KIWI SKIN
Your crown, a visitor has arrived.
PINEAPPLE CROWN
Allow the visitor to enter.
(A soggy tomato rolls in.)
SOGGY TOMATO
I have heard the winged words spoken in this hall, and I’ve come to speak truth.
GRAPE STEM
You’re just a vegetable. Get out of here!
SOGGY TOMATO
Aye. I thought that of myself once, too. Before I knew myself. Before I knew the truth. But lo, I am a fruit like ye.
(The hall is filled with gasps. STRAWBERRY LEAVES begins wailing.)
GRAPE STEM
Liar! You’re a rotten vegetable.
(In a dramatic gesture, SOGGY TOMATO rolls past PINEAPPLE CROWN, slicing itself open, spurting a gooey puddle of seeds.)
PEACH PIT
Look! Seeds! It’s true.
WATERMELON RIND
If a tomato is a fruit what else is out there? We’re all lost, lost, lost.
MOLDY PUMPKIN
Grgryrlllyplbvvvdr.
SOGGY TOMATO
My dear edible friends, let me not mince words. I too once dreamed of laughter in the sunset, the warmth of comedy in the winter of life. I also felt the jealosy, nay, rage, at the fortune of Banana Peel. I too thought I could cause humans to fall.
GRAPE STEM
I don’t care if it’s oozing seeds. I’m telling you it’s a vegetable. It could have got those seeds anywhere….
SOGGY TOMATO
But heed these words: I became not a source of laughter and light in the world, but an object of derision! Of shame! They hurled me at the unfunny! And the same will happen to you!
(The hall erupts again into fierce arguing. LEMON and LIME WEDGES restrain GRAPE STEM from assaulting SOGGY TOMATO.)
APPLE CORE
(Calling vainly above the shouts.)
Fruits! Fruits! If we all focus on our own unique gifts.
(A walnut shell and a peanut shell walk in.)
WALNUT SHELL (To KIWI SKIN)
What’s all the hubub?
KIWI SKIN
A matter between fruits.
PEANUT SHELL
Step aside hairball. If you think we’re not getting involved, you’re nuts.
Tim Miller is a writer and humorist living in San Marcos, CA. His writing has appeared in places like Across The Margin, Defenestration, The Piker Press, The Writing Disorder, Sammiches & Psyche Meds, and The Scarlet Leaf Review. To the dismay of plumbers everywhere, he blogs his leaky thoughts at https://thefaucetblog.com/. Find him on Twitter @faucetwriter.
boop boop