Where is the banana… by Jess K. '10

Someone commented on the post regarding blogger applications asking that the selected blogger post their answer to the essay question. Seeing as I have no other use for this absolutely ridiculous piece of literature (at least, until the motion picture starring Johnny Depp as the aardvark comes out), it’s free reading material. Run wild, folks.

(INVESTIGATOR PIERCE, a portly, middle-aged man with a unibrow for absolutely no reason, is sitting at a desk, rifling through some papers. His partner, DETECTIVE POLK, is speaking indeterminately into a taupe-colored telephone. In front of him is a two-way mirror through which a nervous-looking aardvark can be seen glancing around. The same image is shown on a 10’ black-and-white television screen bolted to the wall.)

POLK: (covers the mouthpiece; jerks chin in direction of the aardvark) Case 815.

PIERCE: Case 815… (examining file) the murder of a Mr. Burton Conner.

(Pierce examines the file, smirks unconsciously at certain parts, then breezes through the heavy door. The aardvark looks up with a start.)

PIERCE: (addressing the file) Arthur.

ARTHUR: Yes, sir.

PIERCE: (can barely contain himself) A talking aardvark…named Arthur.

ARTHUR: (defeated; many a substitute teacher has made the jokes that will inevitably follow) Yes, sir.

PIERCE: Your parents must”ve had a heckuva sense of humor. Arthur. (shakes his head and turns to the camera in the corner comically) Did I just walk into a kid”s cartoon?

ARTHUR: (bristling) If I were in a cartoon, I”d probably be named Aarthur. I”d probably be a big friendly talking aardvark, with nothing – not even pants – but glasses and an innate moral compass to discern between Right and Wrong. (juts chin out defiantly) And I”d have a big vocabulary, and use words like “discern” in everyday conversation.

PIERCE: (flips through file again) Actually, Arthur does wear pants.

ARTHUR: (putting his hands – paws? – on the table) Look, I swear I”m telling you the truth. My name really is Arthur – and no, I wasn”t named after the cartoon. HE was named after ME. And I have a pet boy. My mom, whose first language was obviously not English, named him Government because she thought it sounded “refined”… or as refined as a name for a pet human can sound. I call him The Man for short.

PIERCE: Right, I was just with him. Didn”t say a word. You”d”a thought he…(raises unibrow) killed somebody.

ARTHUR: Nothing happened. I promise.

PIERCE: So you and… ”The Man” were the last passengers to be seen in Mr. Conner”s taxi cab, am I correct?

ARTHUR: I guess. I mean, we really didn”t talk to him or anything.

PIERCE: Eyewitnesses have you leaving your burrow – where you presumably live with your ESL mother, and your pet boy – at 4:42 PM EST, catching a taxi on Mass Ave shortly after, traveling southwest at a trajectory of 42.6 degrees. Is that correct?

ARTHUR: Yes, sir.

PIERCE: Is there a reason why you were traveling to the Charles… but not directly through MIT?

ARTHUR: (mumbling) I hate that freakin” place.

PIERCE: (continues) And would you care to explain why you were out particularly early? I understand the aardvark is a nocturnal creature, without any particular affinity for water.

ARTHUR: The Man didn”t want anyone to see. I realize it looks suspicious now, but…

PIERCE: (getting tired) He doesn”t talk. All that man did was turn chartreuse.

ARTHUR: He”s not proud of it, okay? (sighs) We forced Burton to turn off of Mass Ave, onto a road less traveled, to the Charles using a banana.

PIERCE: (alert) Yes, the weapon.

ARTHUR: No, we DIDN”T kill him! WHO KILLS PEOPLE WITH A BANANA?

PIERCE: You never know.

ARTHUR: We just… pointed it at his neck and told him to travel covertly. So we went around MIT, ended up at the river, and threw the file – and the banana – in the Charles.

PIERCE: What file?

ARTHUR: …A few weeks ago, The Man got the idea to apply to be a MIT blogger. I told him it was crazy since he, y”know, doesn”t talk, but…The Man gets really secretive sometimes. And he somehow got his hands on this one girl”s application, and got really jealous, ”cause I guess it was just so good, and… we had to destroy it.

PIERCE: (shocked and horrified) You did what?

ARTHUR: No one was hurt, I promise.

(POLK rushes in, wide-eyed and frenzied)

POLK: We”ve made a huge mistake. Burton Conner wasn”t murdered by an aardvark and his pet man; he was crushed by a falling piano.

ARTHUR: (enormously relieved) That”s FANTASTIC!

(Polk and Pierce both stare at him.)

PIERCE: …Wait, wait, wait. Is there anything left of that file?

ARTHUR: Er. Just this. (slowly extracts a crinkled sheet of paper from his completely made-up aardvark pouch, much like that of a kangaroo)

PIERCE: (reading aloud) Top Ten Reasons Why JKim Should Be a Blogger:
1. She likes all the music she listens to, so she must have really good taste in music
2. She is a Pokemon master
3. She has a favorite sandwich
4. She drinks more than 8 glasses of water a day
5. She wears two different-colored shoes
6. She once wrote a 5-page paper on The Economics of Richard Cheese
7. She always wears her retainer
8. Her skin is remarkably acne-free, to the point that scientists have disputed her existence
9. She invented the internet
10. She regularly exercises her ability to laugh both at herself, and at aardvarks that wear pants

PIERCE: Well, this girl sounds fantastic.

ARTHUR: I know, right? And I guess The Man was really jealous. But he feels really badly about what he”s done.

PIERCE: (shuts file) Well, as long as you help her retype her application.

ARTHUR: We will, sir.

PIERCE: Excellent.