(Untitled)

[gone_byebye]

SUDDENLY, BANANAS! ... thousands of them!

No, seriously. They're pouring in through the door. Just- thousands of bananas, piling up in a huge yellow heap that at least promises to block the flow of even more bananas... at least until the heap starts moving and scatters more of the bananas in all directions.

For what it's worth, that's the fault

Comments

[doyousmellfudge]

HOLY FUCK BANANAS.

The pudgy, bearded Jewish man in the corner booth is out of his seat and up on the table in an instant. Even when the avalanche of produce stops he seems highly disinclined to come down.

[gone_byebye]

"Sorry! Sorry," Ray calls to all and sundry within hearing as he steps free of the fruit. "Wow. Now that's what I call a manifestation. Let's see what we can do about cleaning this up... I'm sorry, sir, did you get hit? My apologies."

[doyousmellfudge]

"Manifestation?" echoes Artie. "That's--what do you mean by that exactly?"

[gone_byebye]

"A class six fully solid materializiation of this nature hasn't been seen in the downtown New York City area since the frozen calamari incident of 2007," Ray says. "Generally our poltergeists can't be bothered to materialize anything more substantial than ectoplasm. This one appears to've portaled in the better part of a banana plantation's shipping output for the day, although I have yet to find a brand label..."

[doyousmellfudge]

"So you deal with this sort of thing often? I mean, not this thing, specifically, but..."

(Something is niggling at Artie, like he ought to know this guy from somewhere.)

[gone_byebye]

"Pretty nearly twenty-four-seven, three-sixty-five," Ray says. He pauses in the shoveling a moment to dig out his city identification, which was jointly authorized by Public Health Commissioner Thomas Farley and Mayor Nathan Petrelli sometime late in 2009. "Ray Stantz. Ghostbusters, founding unit. Pleased to meet you, sir."

[doyousmellfudge]

...

"A-Arthur. Arthur Nielsen."

Pardon him, he's a bit busy boggling at the moment.

[gone_byebye]

Ray puts his wallet away and looks around for that shovel. "Pleased to meet you, Mr. Nielsen," he says. "New here? I have to admit, I don't remember your face and Iive been out for a while."

[doyousmellfudge]

"Ah--relatively, yes. It's only been a month or so," he says. "And call me 'Artie.'"

[gone_byebye]

"Artie it is, then," says Ray. "Call me Ray, everyone here does. Can I ask when and where you're in from?"

[doyousmellfudge]

"South Dakota, 2009," says Artie. "And you?"

[gone_byebye]

"New York City, also 2009," Ray says. "Current occupant of the White House, Lacey Davenport."

[doyousmellfudge]

"Barak Obama," says Artie. "Is that a, a typical way of identifying alternate timelines here?"

[gone_byebye]

"I don't know that I would say typical," Ray says as he falls to shoveling the bananas into the cart, "but it's certainly convenient in my experience. And I've had to deal with enough alternate timelines to know."

[doyousmellfudge]

"Hm. You want some help with that?"

He's already reaching into his bag for his Neutralizer-impregnated gloves as he asks. Artie's not about to touch spectral bananas with his bare hands.

[gone_byebye]

"I certainly wouldn't say no. This is going to take a while," Ray says. "Thanks. So what's going on out in South Dakota these days?"