In the year when Brussels was under siege, the army left its positions right around Black Friday, so the customers got an extra blow on the discounts.
It was not ordinary spending, dignity and freedom were being bought. People wanted to feel normal in the heart of capitalism which is stable, western and invulnerable.
Terrorists remain a threat, but if it hasn't exploded until now, it probably won't yet. So thought mediocre Francois, or some Paulina, who vowed to cure all that stress with a load of half-price cosmetics and panties. She didn't leave the house for days and prayed to Saint Teresa that the bearded delia wouldn't break into her apartment with a bomb and a scimitar. As her meek prayers were answered, Paulina flew to Victoria's Angels with a desire to shop for something made of lace and cut for the brave.
Brussels was entering the stage of recovery from the shock that evening. The department store where François and Paulina found themselves was decorated as if there was no state of emergency outside. The line of customers stretched to the front door, people were patient and grateful that Friday brought peace and lowered prices. The shopping faithful turned it into a joke. They raised their own existence to a murmur, mocking each other. Like when a man bursts out laughing at a funeral, so in the days after the curfew, the inhabitants of Brussels perked up a bit.
Shopping has become a real little adventure under the clusters of balloons specially designed for Black Friday. Sissy balls of lycra, black rhombuses and hearts, all that hung on a thin thread of truce. Brussels will be spared this time, analysts said, trade could start.
It was a very bright need for clothes and sneakers, the soles of which were sewn by children of Bangladesh, Vietnam and other non-Dojos. François and Pauline looked at each other, aware of how beautiful and sinful life in the West is. Just as he was about to introduce himself to her as a man with some flattery, an explosion broke through the room.
Everyone lay down, the armed guard shouted something in English, because the Babylonian commotion started, there were diplomats, some Bulgarians and a whole excursion of students from Greece. The pitch separated the sound of the alarm and the scream of the Chinese lobbyist and electricity trader's wife, followed by silence.
When they got up, the customers didn't feel like chatting anymore. François got up with Pauline. People no longer looked at each other. They pointed the iPhones to record the tire on the floor. Everyone stared at the rest of the black balloon. What a shame! What humiliation, what fear the flower of Western society lives in, which allows itself huge discounts and celebrations of market days. Like a curtain, that bubble burst over the heads of the consumers of the world whose safety no one believes in anymore.
How can poor Paulina enjoy her freedom? A new halter and a bra are in vain when she has to crack down on antidepressants and drink beer, ready to jump at every noise from the laundry room. Life in the West is no longer sexy, it's too fast and dangerous, Francois thought, and that same evening he became a Buddhist.
All the fragility of the peace and order of the Western man is seen in the days of Black Friday, when the greedy crowd of buyers, not knowing what else to entertain their minds, borrow some dollars or euros from their credit cards, and spend them under the sacred secret of discounts. What happens to the money they saved on Black Friday, I try to figure out, but in vain, because as I follow those faces, I can't imagine that there is any other goal and need, except for a double pair of sneakers for the price of one.
When I see how the citizens of the free world give themselves to goods, how they run along the piers as if it were their last hurray, I can remember with respect those lines for bread, milk and flour, behind which at least necessity lived as a cruel guarantor of meaning.
Yes, I forgot to say, Black Friday was strictly an American holiday that parasitically attached itself to Thanksgiving and shifted the focus to commerce. Slowly but surely, Black Friday is taking over the world.
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