Chapter 12 - Bananas Ad Infinitum

If there were an experiment that Jack could perform anywhere in the world it was the word experiment. All that he needed was a word and a place where he felt comfortable making a fool of himself. The objective of the experiment is to repeat the word aloud as many times as it takes for the word to lose all meaning. Jack had tried this with many words such as “toast” or “antelope”, but had always had a fascination with the word “banana.” It took a certain level of ability to say certain words over and over again. The word “banana” was one of these words. It made no difference what word one picked. It could be a very simple word or a very complex word. Usually, what Jack found was that the easier words would take longer to lose all meaning while the longer and more complex ones took a shorter period.
To Jack, for a word to lose all meaning was an excellent method of travelling back in time before the word was even invented. However, it was also a dangerous game to play because if you fooled your brain too many times, you could eventually lose the ability to communicate altogether.
Jack had attempted to run the experiment with the word “banana” several times in the past, but had failed in the goal of the trial. He either got tongue-twisted and made himself unable to say “banana” or he was interrupted by some other random event.
Today would be different. He was going to go to a place he had never attempted to perform the word experiment. A Catholic confessional. He realized of course that this may cause some backlash from the clergy at the church, but he was determined to attain a state of not knowing what the word banana meant.
Jack chose the church, Our Lady of Sacred Heart on Fourth Street as his destination. He chose a weekday afternoon to walk in and offer himself for confessional. But what he found out was that he didn’t need to go to the confessional at all. He found that he was able to choose one of the many pews that were empty and take his seat and begin muttering to himself slowly and deliberately the word, “banana” repeating it over and over again and so on. There were a couple of times where he thought someone might be approaching him. He didn’t want to be interrupted, so he pulled out a hymnal from the pew’s holder in front of him and held it close to his face so that no one was able to see his lips moving and repeating themselves word after word over and over again.
This went on for at least an hour. Jack was having great success at not getting tongue-twisted, but the word was too simple and needed more time. He could tell that the Reverend was coming over because several of people near the front of the sanctuary had become concerned for him as it looked like he were praying very intently. Jack decided to give up on this particular trial and choose another place where he could find the same quiet concentration, but without the potential for interruption.