Aaron Steen

I went to a Flaming Lips concert this weekend, and standing a few rows in front of me was a Giant Walking Banana.
    The line for the concession stand was long, and I was hungry, but just as I was beginning to ponder the logistics of peeling and eating the Giant Walking Banana without alerting the sentient bipedal fruit itself, it turned around and I became witness to its full form: tall, imposing, and - judging from the cool way it regarded me - intelligent.  Putting away my knife, I began to ponder for the first time the reality of human and Giant Walking Banana cohabitation.
    On the subject of Giant Walking Banana intelligence, a perusal of relevant literatures has little to reveal beyond cursory observations.  Maier states that, “One may infer from existing studies on Giant Walking Plantain mathematical aptitude that the Giant Walking Banana would perform similarly on analogous assessments” (317).  I myself can attest to the fact that the Giant Walking Banana possesses facility with human language (“Good show, huh,” I commented to it.  “Yeah,” it responded, with a terrifying urbanity).  Regardless, the inchoate state of modern Giant Walking Banana scholarship is unsurprising, because researchers would encounter significant difficulties in capturing one.
    It is generally accepted that Giant Walking Bananas are adverse to conflict, choosing to avoid fighting and escape peacefully whenever possible.  An aerodynamic shape, which generates lift in a manner not unlike an airplane, helps them greatly in this regard.  Hypotheses based on advanced computer modeling, and practical lab experiments, based on the controlled tossing of actual bananas, concludes that Giant Walking Bananas can leap as far as ten times the length of their own bodies, or upwards of 60 meters.  This is initially perplexing when considering that, based on observation (during the summer months when they often wear shorts) their legs appear similar in structure and muscle tone to that of a human’s.  Undoubtedly, it is their soft, porous flesh, which allows them to survive the long fall from the branch in infancy but also contributes to a relatively low body weight (~30 kg) that allows them to leap such remarkable distances.
    Unlike, say, the Giant Walking Condom, which is similarly skilled at evasion, but is easily punctured and thus easily subdued, it appears that the Giant Walking Banana becomes positively dangerous when cornered.  Its two hands, one of which I observed gripping a Bud Light, could no doubt accommodate a weapon: a sharpened stick, say, or a firearm, if it managed to acquire one.  Also I theorize that, should it find itself unarmed, the Giant Walking Banana could defend itself by means of one of its two ends.  The bottom end (I mean the one closest to the ground) could deal a significant blunt-force blow by means of a thrusting motion.  The top end, meanwhile, appears to be in the case of most varieties quite sharp, and could perhaps be lethal if the Giant Walking Banana became inclined to bend over and charge in the manner of a bull.
    Also worthy of consideration is the Giant Walking Banana’s ability to adapt to environmental changes.  It is commonly believed that the northern parts of North America are inhospitable for the Giant Walking Banana during the colder winter months, and yet the one I observed withdrew as the night grew colder and appeared several minutes later attired in a sweatshirt.  This previously unobserved ability to adapt to temperature changes in the environment has significant implications.  Should the Giant Walking Banana one day progress to, say, coats, or hats or mittens, it could continue migration to the northern regions of North America, Europe, and Asia unimpeded.  On the other hand, such adaptation may be unnecessary: Gore predicts that by the year 2050, global temperatures will have risen by as much as 30 degrees Celsius (approximately 86 degrees Fahrenheit) (639).  The Giant Walking Banana thrives naturally in such a harsh equatorial climate.
    The discreetness with which the Giant Walking Banana has infiltrated our cities has made a calculated nuclear attack on the species impossible, and increasingly, we are forced to consider the prospect of cohabitation.  Already the Giant Walking Banana has begun to appear outside of public social functions where one has the opportunity to make a fool of oneself, such as outside venues where alcohol is served, to which it previously confined itself.  What if, one day, the species achieves true integration?  It appears that, in the near future, Giant Walking Bananas will be using our public facilities and our public transportation.  I thus suggest that we present a list of demands to the Giant Walking Banana population, two of which I will posit below.
    Though we lack significant research on the Giant Walking Banana, it is possible to draw conclusions about its biology based upon studies of its non-sentient relative.  It is highly likely, then, that the flesh of the Giant Walking Banana produces a stench that grows in potency as it ages.  We must thus demand that the Giant Walking Banana withdraw from society after reaching a specified age.  One has only to imagine a riding a public bus during the hot summer months that is populated by several aged Giant Walking Bananas to see the necessity of this stipulation.
    We may also hypothesize that the shedded exoskeleton of the Giant Walking Banana would present considerable dangers to the pedestrian or motorist.  Each of us can conjure, offhand, an image of an unsuspecting person stepping on an errant peel that lifts them into the air with a comical slipping sound effect and deposits them hard on their back.  This painful, and in the case of the elderly, lethal potentiality must be addressed.  We must require that the Giant Walking Banana establish its own, Giant Walking Banana-regulated program by which they would detect and remove these potential dangers from our communities.  In a perfect human-Giant Walking Banana cohabited society, the Giant Walking Banana would simply pick up after itself.  But I think it is reasonable to assume that the vagrancy is not something that is unique to humanity. 
     Some of you may object to the idea that we allow the Giant Walking Banana to assimilate at all.  But I would return that the situation is too far gone.  That I espied the Giant Walking Banana at a psychedelic rock concert indicates that they have already sufficiently penetrated our culture to the point that it has now become necessary to make pragmatic decisions to ensure that our human culture is not overwhelmed by this intruder that already threatens to penetrate deeper.  If we do not act now, it is conceivable that the opening band for The Flaming Lips’ next tour will not be Minus the Bear, but a band of Giant Walking Bananas.  And if not this, then at least a band comprised of mostly humans with a Giant Walking Banana on lead guitar, playing some bad ass punk rock riffs, or on vocals, harmonizing sweetly with a violin player in the manner of the neo-country artists.  I heard recently that Led Zeppelin was considering a reunion tour without Robert Plant – perhaps they would, in a bizarre push for contemporary relevance, consider offering the position to a Giant Walking Banana.  If, one day, a Giant Walking Banana shares the stage of a sold out arena with Jimmy Page, as he rocks the crowd hard with an updated version of the “Stairway to Heaven” solo, we will rue the day that we did not act.
    For all of humanity, the reality of the Giant Walking Banana poses significant scientific and spiritual questions.   Some of them I hesitate to ponder: is the original Giant Walking Banana the product of an unholy union with a human being and… a banana?  Did the much publicized – but mysteriously, uninvestigated – explosion at the Norfolk, Ohio Chiquita Brands International Research and Development Labs in 2005 produce the first Giant Walking Banana, which then escaped through the methods described above, and began procreating asexually?  Or did God, in the nebulous haze of the Early Earth, fashion the first Giant Walking Banana from a second Adam rib – and a banana?  These are questions that we must force the Giant Walking Banana to answer if it continues to assimilate into our culture, and if we hope to move forward as a society.