[Fiction] Beans by James Yoder

FICTION - ISSUE FOUR

Beans

JAMES YODER

"Beans, beans, they’re not a fruit, and whoever said so, is not a scientist.”
- Me to my schoolyard friends

“Pass the lima beans, Ma!”
- Me, enjoying yummy beans despite being a picky teen

“Paris is worth a mass; a mass of beans, that is.”
- Me, uninspired by Paris, inspired by beans

“I have so many beans that you couldn’t even count them.”
- Me, a successful bean farmer who has many happy beans

“Lonely man seeking woman. Picture related: it’s my beanstalk.”
- Me, searching for love

“Let’s go out for some coffee beans.”
- My future wife, planning our first date

“Pinto is the cruelest bean.”
- Myself, pensively fingering a bean pod, considering divorce

“It’s either me or the beans”
-My wife, making an ultimatum. I kill her immediately.

“What would Jesus do?”
- Myself, meditating upon two green beans I hold in the shape of a cross

“A bean is a bean is a bean.”
- Me, in turn digging my hands into a gunnysack of garbanzos and throwing fistfuls into the sky to watch them rain down around me

“I have so many beans that you couldn’t even count them.”
- Me, an old, lonely, delusional bean man, speaking to a bean on which I’ve drawn a friendly face

James Yoder is the son of Ana and Jim Yoder of Dallas, TX. Beyond his curricular pursuits at Harvard College where he pursues an A.B. degree in Statistics and a minor in the Classics, he is a writer and editor for the Harvard Lampoon, a magazine that publishes jokes. You can read his other piece in Issue Four here.