Task One: Tony's List
I am frequently forgetful and this task hit close to home. My interests being varied as they are, usually give me plenty of fodder to create stories based around them to help me remember things. I always seem to get stuck on the little insignificant details of the story to help me remember. So being my first fiction writing in a very long time, I kept it close to what I do for myself :) Thanks for the challenge Steemit!
The Story
"Yes, yes, Jack, I will help you with your shopping," huffs Tony. He closes his copy of "Gone with the Wind" and scans the list. He hums in his head as he scans the items. "How will I remember all this," he think to himself.
"Bananas, tomatoes, bone, shit what was next?"
"Okay, okay," he mumbles under his breath.
"Bananas, tomatoes, bananas, tomatoes, oranges," he chants.
"Oh, Bananas!" he exclaims, as his mind drifts off to a story he heard not so long ago...
The air is hot and heavy, humidity drips from the boughs of the fruit trees and the mosquitoes are flitting around the working bodies in droves. Nearby a mutt, charged with protecting the property, gnaws a bone lazily his tail swatting at flies and tongue panting from the oppressive heat. Wyatt hears the noon bell ring and lifts his head – he looks out across the once prosperous stretch of farmland and sighs.
The year is 1952. Fusarium Wilt or the Panama disease has just hit the rural area of Guayas, Ecuador. Wyatt, a former United States sailor, relocated to the area to grow bananas after a brief military tour of the area. He shakes his head as he stares out at what, just last week, had been a thriving population of banana trees. Now quicker than, he ever could have imagined, Wyatt sees the trees succumbing to the root fungus and wasting away. He shakes his head and slowly climbs down from his perch. He signals to the other men that it is time for lunch and slowly they make their way up towards the main house. The men filter in one by one, and sit silently, each lost in the type of sadness that surrounds a slow death. There is no cure to Panama disease and years and years of growth have fallen victim to it already. The men think about the impossibility of the situation and the desperate times that will follow as farms all across the region are experiencing the same plight.
Wyatt walks around the table handing out lunches to each man. Lush, garden tomatoes, topped with a myriad of spices and served over rice, the dish is simple but its warming fragrance lightens the room. A smile erupts across the face of Jon, a worker from an old farm in New England and fellow sailor who had known Wyatt since boyhood and embarked on this journey with him. He pulled out a canteen of cold Coke and passed it around to the other men recounting Scarlet O'Hara from Gone with the Wind, in a boisterous voice “As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again.” And beginning to laugh added on, “As long as we have tomatoes like these!” The men all chucked a bit and began, as a dessert of Greek yogurt and oranges soaked in white wine was passed around, to discuss the issue at hand.
Head farmer Andreas, a Guayas native and the most knowledgeable of the men, who until now had eaten in silence, lifted his heavy eyes. “These banana farms have been here since my youth watching them die,” he said softly. The men stopped their own discussions and looked at him. “These lands are so fertile, we must do right by them. We cannot stop the disease that I know. It has already decimated many farms and its toll has been seen down through into South America. There is no stopping it, no combating it, these trees are already doomed.”
“What can we do, Andreas?” Wyatt asks, his face hard braced against word of the worst.
Andreas pulls from his coat pocket some very small plant cuttings. He runs them through his fingers and a smile plays across his face for the briefest of moments. “In my hands, I hold the future,” he says, eyes fixed on the unremarkable looking plants. “The new era- the Cavendish banana!”
Tony, startled by soccer ball whizzing by, glances at his watch. "Shit, I should have left ten minutes ago."
"Okay," he mutters jumping to his feet, "Bananas, tomatoes, white wine, Greek yogurt, Coke, oranges, bone, and goddammit Jack just take my copy of "Gone with the Wind!""