Slipping from shadow to shadow was easy, the pools of light cast by the strings of festival ‘festoon’ bulbs served to make the darkness around them even more impenetrable. So quietly, so noiselessly, he made his way through the maze of tents looking, watching, waiting… biding his time until he was ready to strike.
Almost caught out by the glare of a torch, held by some late night toilet goer, he shrank back into the darkness. If he was to be seen it would be on his terms, and his terms alone. Nothing should interfere with this, almost sacred, task. Nothing must get in the way. Nothing would.
Some saliva started to form in the corner of his mouth, and around his tongue, as he thought about what came next. His appetite sharpened, he pushed his tongue against the back of his teeth and waited, controlling his breath. In through the nose, then out through the mouth, slowly, carefully. His heart slowing, his focus broadening.
The feral hunger was really on him now, his appetite was awake, he felt the familiar rumble in his belly. He wouldn’t have to wait much longer - it was almost time. Almost time to do what he came here to do. To fulfil his appetites, to sate his hunger.
Nobody heard the snap, or the breaking, when it came. There was no scream, no shriek, just a swift, sudden, practised movement of both hands and then in the next moment - as teeth met flesh - his appetite was fulfilled. His teeth, sharp and bright in the darkness, did their work. And then he was gone. The only evidence of his presence was that which he left lying, limp and lifeless, on the ground.
“Seriously,” I said. “Has anyone else had a banana skin left outside their tent?”
“So weird,” said the eldest.
“So weird,” I agreed.
“I’ve got one too,” said one of my friends.”
“There was one outside Steve’s tent, too,” said someone else.
“What, real Steve?”
“Yes, real Steve.”
We have to check, because there are two Steves, one real, one less so. Come to think about it, only real Steve has a tent, so it wasn’t really necessary to check.
“Who even eats bananas any more?” I said.
“Have you ever heard,” said the youngest, “of the bananaman?”
“The bananaman?” I said.
“The bananaman is never far away, and always ready to strike. He leaves banana skins in front of people’s tents,” the explanation goes.
“Why does he do that?”
“Don’t gender the bananaman.”
“Surely with a name that says ‘man’ at the end of it, he’s gendered himself?”
“You’re liable to end up with another banana skin in front of your tent.”
“Chilling,” I said.
‘Saturday columns’ are short, sometimes (relatively) funny, basically true* stories of mundanity and mishaps from my life.
*Some names, locations and other details may have been changed to protect the guilty.