This is Chapter 9 of The Universal Good Deal, you may want to start at the beginning or go back to Chapter 8.
9
Tradition has it that when the famous widow, Jane—the one who was later kidnapped—beheld the Alien spaceships hovering in the sky at the dawn of the day, with their bright red banners set, she hoped they were monsters from space which had descended from the void during the night.1
This is almost a complete fiction. In the first place, the Aliens didn't come with the dawn at all; it was late in the morning where she lived, perhaps even midday. Second, she wasn't a widow, yet. Indeed, her husband was John Franklin, the cousin of the nepotist, Flinders, in the meeting with Welles.
She was, however, a late-riser, so it is possible that the Alien spaceships were the sight that greeted her when she stumbled out of bed that day. And there can be no doubt that she could hardly wait to see what sort of monsters the ships contained,2 unconsciously hoping an invasion of green, toothy things from Outer Space would provide her with an excuse for the unpleasant gap between her aspirations and her reality. She was hoping for monsters because she was failing to write the crowning work of Martian Epic Poetry (I am, of course, referring to the incomparable Stealing Flowers, which she would eventually complete, even though her Martian language would be dead by that time).
Now, as to this Epic Poetry of the Martians; it was not one of their better forms of art, and is largely a mystery. Indeed, by the era when the Aliens arrived, the form was almost entirely extinct. It was primarily identified by its stupefying length, and was, in some cases, apparently interminable. The similar Martian terms Telenovela, and Sequel are often used interchangeably with Epic Poetry, but it may have been that Epic Poetry was distinct from these in its use of an archaic medium, such as an extinct language. Few scholars of our day have even bothered to mention it in their histories of this time. But those who have, do not dispute that Jane was unrivaled in the artistry of her work.
Whatever the case, Jane seems to have had little confidence that she was writing anything very good at all, only that she ought to be. It was not until her waning years, living in Alien captivity, that she finally accepted her destiny. As a goad to her self-doubt, neither Epic Poetry nor its siblings were well-respected. Indeed, she preferred to tell most people that she was unemployed, a term that was applied to those who retained the full use of their will, and which was seen as a very disreputable state. It would be curious to examine the Martians' tense relationship with freedom, but my subject here is Jane.
As I have said, she rose late on this historic day. Jane made coffee, and it is a fact that she spilled it. Perhaps she knocked her mug over with her elbow, or it may be that she set it down on books piled precariously. Jane only allowed herself one cup of coffee each day, even if she spilled. She never let herself make more coffee, unless she felt there were extenuating circumstances. She was firm with herself on this matter in order to maintain a facade of responsibility she did not feel about the rest of her life.
And so she sat down at her table to write feeling frustrated. She stared out the window because her attention wasn't on the work in front of her. She was then filled with astonishment by a flying saucer trailing a bright red banner and veering about in the sky, apparently without effort.3 The banner read Buy Two Get Three Free. She brewed a new pot of coffee.
Chapter 10 tomorrow, same time, same place.
Footnotes
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The natives of the island, when, at the dawn of the day, they had beheld the ships, with their sails set, hovering on their coast, had supposed them some monsters which had issued from the deep during the night. Washington Irving, A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus 1828 ↩
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These people could hardly wait to see what sort of things the ships were. Fernando Colón, The Life of the Admiral Christopher Columbus By His Son Ferdinand, translated by Benjamin Keen 1959 ↩
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Their veering about, apparently without effort; the shifting and furling of their sails, resembling huge wings, filled them with astonishment. Washington Irving, A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus 1828 ↩