This is Chapter 24 of The Universal Good Deal, you may want to start at the beginning or go back to Chapter 23.

It was around this time that the Martian holiday of Black Friday was celebrated. This was a festival of feasting and plenty where people re-enacted the many massacres of the indigenous populations throughout their history. In the hours before dawn, people moved about in the cold darkness, jostling for prime positions in lines at the doors of popular businesses. At the exact moment of sunrise (a time determined by scientists far in advance of the holiday), the doors were flung open and violence ensued. On this day, it seems, members of the public committed grievous assaults against other members of the public whom they had never before met, in order to have the right to purchase things off the store shelves, thereby reenacting their violent and greedy history of expansion. It was a holiday established by productive people to celebrate the success of their work.¹ The Aliens joined in the festivities, with a great many discounts and special deals.

Jane did not attend the celebration. The excitement of the Alien invasion had diminished for her. Their arrival had not changed her relationship with poetry. Franklin was solicitous as ever, which further irritated her. He had the holiday off of work, but she made it clear to him that she intended to spend the day writing, and would not be enjoying herself. Franklin announced that he was going to see what the Aliens were selling and left her at her table, writing.

No one truly knows what inspired Jane to write those awesome opening lines of her great epic, Stealing Flowers. Most historians believe that she based the work on an actual interaction. And so the story goes that as she was home, gazing out her window instead of writing, a wild man appeared on the street and threw a bouquet of flowers at her window. Some say the man stole the flowers that were growing in Jane’s garden, and ran off with them. Such literalists obviously have no sense of language or its many magical vagaries.

I believe that it wasn’t until Franklin returned from his shopping venture to the Aliens that Jane was seized by inspiration. Certain statements which are attributed to Jane imply that Franklin’s genuine enthusiasm for a particular Alien product was the source of her inspiration.

When Franklin returned home, he could barely contain his excitement.

‘Jane! Jane! You have to check this out!’ he shouted as soon as he burst through the door. He made it to the table where she had been working before she could get up.

‘What do you think? Isn’t it amazing?’

‘It looks like a fanny pack,’ said Jane.

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ said Franklin. ‘It’s way better than that. It’s got built-in burden amendment.’

‘Is that what you’re calling the shoulder straps?’

‘What? Oh no, these are to help with the weight. Watch this!’ Franklin picked up one of the chairs near the table and stuffed it into the small bag tied around his waist, which expanded to accommodate the chair.

‘How about that, huh?’ said Franklin.

‘I have to admit,’ said Jane, ‘It’s not what I expected.’

‘You can put pretty much anything in it, it doesn’t even feel heavy. Something about the way it’s designed or something.’

Franklin turned from side to side to demonstrate how light it was, and accidentally knocked over a small tree that was growing in a pot in the kitchen.

‘I got one for you, too,’ said Franklin.

‘Thanks,’ said Jane. ‘But I want to keep working a little longer, if that’s okay.’

‘Oh sure! I was going to go get groceries, anyway; I want to give this baby a real workout.’

After Franklin left, Jane started writing. All the words that had been swirling in her mind fell out of suspension and onto the page before her. It was on this very afternoon, according to what she later told the anthropologist Tarzan (the one who put her in the museum), that she wrote those incomparable lines about daffodils that open Stealing Flowers.

Listen goddammit! These are for you. I didn't know there were three of you, So you're going to have to fucking share.