Kill the banana peel

I was making my way to the grocers one day, when I saw this old man across the road, probably in his late 60s. He wore a shabby old shalwar kameez with a dirty piece of cloth hung over his shoulder. His skin darkened from the blistering Karachi sun. As he made his way down the footpath, he noticed a banana peel lying right in the middle of the sidewalk. Now, one would expect that he’d just pick it up and throw it aside, or better yet…just push it aside using his foot.

I don’t know what unfortunate occurrence this poor chap had had in the past involving a banana peel. Maybe he slipped on one and went tumbling down a flight of stairs. I don’t know. But this man, he advanced towards the banana peel like a soldier would towards an enemy in close combat and began pummeling it. He pounded it into the cement sidewalk with the heel of his foot like a lunatic. He kept on driving it into the floor until he was convinced he had wiped the damned banana peel off of the face of the Earth. He adjusted his ragged old cloth over this shoulder with a satisfied look on his face and continued down the walkway.

I stood there with a blank expression on my face for a few minutes before I too made my way to the grocers with laughing voices inside my head.