Taste of banana - A story written in five minutes

I quit smoking two years ago and the most common question I get is still the question of how a chain smoker of twenty years managed to quit the habit for good, and whether it was even worth it for anything else but saving money.

To this day I still give the very same answer to whoever asks me that question.

I tell them I quit cold turkey and that it got really hard for me by week three when the stress from work fully kicked in. I tell them I was at the verge of giving in, daydreaming about having a cigarette before bed, when I walked over to the counter and picked up a banana from the fruit bowl.

The moment I peeled it open something miraculous had happened. Something I couldn’t remember happening ever before. The banana I had peeled had a scent to it.

Years and years of smoking have blunted my sense of smell to such a degree I could no longer pick up the aromas of fruit even if I held them up to my nose. For the longest time I either didn’t believe other people when they told me bananas had a distinct smell to them, or I chose to believe I am missing some receptors in my nose, all while the true cause for my inability to smell was my smoking habit.

Bedazzled by the banana’s odor alone, I foolishly believed the banana would carry the same taste it has before. I couldn’t have been more wrong. The banana tasted as if it was a hundred times more potent and I could feel its aroma on my every taste bud.

Needless to say I didn’t have a cigarette that evening. Nor any of the following evenings.