Bananas

It needn’t be grapes, not always: his wife and children bring the man in the next bed bananas, yellow and green. The Touretter, who knows how to bark when he wants, calmly wipes the bubbles from the edge of his mouth and begins the ceremony: peels and bundles it down the hatch. He looks like he’s never felt more grateful for anything in his life. ‘Fuck you’, he tells them with tears in his eyes, ‘fuck you all.’