The bad part is, the phone was at the bottom of the briefcase with a rotten banana smashed over it.

If there is anything that rots with grace, it is surely a banana. Consider the forensics:

This banana, the epidermis was shiny black as polished monkeywood. The innards oozed in the manner of wayward butterscotch pudding from the burst vertical seams, each bleeding edge festooned with frilly white fruiting bodies.

A rotting banana has no stench. Rather a faint patchouli and latte musk. Which of course was the telephone's downfall. If this had been a rotting Blue Gill, or Delmonico steak, par example, the cell phone might have been saved.

Alas.

Partners in forgotten lunch and death, cell phone and banana cleave in a final, mushy, Dahlian embrace. I suppose I must compost them together, along with all the unanswered messages.