Black Friday - What is BLACK?

 

(Based on ‘Toccata’ from ‘Concerto Grosso No.1’ by Alfred Schnittke)
 

The stores open up, one after another,

Hoping to see their sales go high up,

For its Friday – the Friday after Thanksgiving,

And everything seems to go perfectly well

Clothes, shoes, toys go up the counter-line…

Until someone (damn his soul)

Shouts out, ‘Nike shoes have a 35% discount!’

 

Oh, the people rush toward that spot

Littering the floor with dirt and brown frost,

Beatings, red necks soon follow after,

Ah – it has turned into a Red Friday, after all!

 

The supermarket becomes silent

For a while,

But ho! Again, the customers rush…

For – Jesus, now for cotton candy bars?!

 

The people now take it to the extreme,

They strangle their fellows for a simple lasagna!

Men become Brock Lesnars, pounding the

poor, innocent, non-Black Friday customers to deep oblivion…

 

Silence - today perhaps -  is like those dolls that get smashed

Discarded once…oh, no time to explain that!

The shoppers sprint – this time for high heels!

(wonder whether their heels can keep up with this maddening blackness!)

Gunshots, kicking, punching, codswallop!

Christ is this a market, or some horses’ frantic gallop?

 

The market suddenly lays still, the situation under control

The assistants give out a heavy sigh – the insane back to sane.

They walk among the customers, keeping an eye,

If danger strikes out again, they might be able to then…

BLAST! WHO GAVE THAT BLOODY ANNOUNCEMENT?!

SHOUTING, ‘GET ORGANO PRODUCTS AT 50% OFF!’ ?

 

The horror – oh the horror on the faces,

As they saw the violent crowd dashing yet again upstairs.

They rush upwards, but gasp

And nearly get trampled by the human wildebeest!

 

Now, a cacophony of terrorizing chords intensify,

As people battle to get the best products.

Oh, oh you tomfool beasts, stop this madness,

Get some help, oh I beg you, please!

But who listens, who cares, who stops by,

Nah, THE MADNESS SEEMINGLY DARKENS BY THE MINUTES PASSING BY!

 

Bloodstains, someone’s tooth lies on the floor,

The floor brutally murdered by a thousand feet.

The workers now cry out, starting a walkout,

As shopping carts continue to break

Under the weight of excess greed!

 

‘BOOM!’ goes off a bullet,

Issuing from a gun held by some man,

An innocent customer falls to the ground,

Screams, BUT IS LOST IN THE DUMB VIOLENT CACOPHONY!!

 

The workers run out, light up matchsticks,

And set fire to their uniforms – their very best friends flare up in the blackening daylight…

Uniforms now become enemies!

But who cares, the shoppers only have one intent:

TO DESTROY AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE THAN THE CORONAVIRUS DOES!’

 

The sirens are now heard, so the cops

Have now felt the need to come and control the savages?

Well great, I guess they are deaf –

Perhaps deafer than Beethoven himself!

 

The stairs now seem to break down,

As the crazy stampede comes down now…

OH GOD WHO NOW SPOKE IT,

‘70% OFF ON TURTLE SHIRTS?!’

A DAMNED ASSISTANT PERHAPS,

WHO STILL WANTS TO KEEP THE SHOW GOING ON!

 

Alright, you might tell me now to stop ranting

Shouting, stop being hyper-violent,

But how can I, for

EVEN THOSE COPPERS CAN’T CONTROL THE CROWD!

 

Oh, what a sight one sees,

Broken nose, bloodied mouth,

Cracked ribs, torn lips,

Oh and not to mention a dead body –

A victim to this madrigal stampede!

 

Now the police also lose hope, as

More discounts seem to pile in

(later the blasted manager stated

that they were pre-recorded – he should be in jail!)

And thus, the people now run helter-skelter,

Murderin’ the woodland market floor…

 

Surprised to find the women, too

Bare-knuckling their fellow kind.

They – I thought – would at least shop kindly,

OH, THE DEVILISH ANTONYM OF MY THOUGHTS!!

 

Saw an innocent man entering,

Encountering those crazed discounted zombies,

And, OH HOLY MOTHER IN HEAVEN,

They literally STABBED HIM TO DEATH!

I repeat, LITERALLY STABBED HIM TO DEATH!!

 

COME ON HUMANS, HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MINDS?

HAVE YOU BEEN COMPLETELY ARRESTED OF THOUGHT?

HAVE YOU JUST STOPPED….OH HELL!

The sixth one, ‘CADBURY AT 20-40% OFF!!’

(and to my horrifying surprise I saw

the obese guys and gals running like damn deer!)

 

CHAOS, I tell ya,

THE GOD OF CHAOS REIGNS TODAY!

Shopping is forgotten, now the people

dissonance like Shosty, who nearly

got his neck cut off by some Josip Stalin!

SENSES LOST, PASSIONS LOST,

THE FEELINGS OF KINDNESS GO DOWN THE DRAIN!!

 

It’s towards evening, and now some damage

Has subsided, but still the dangerous cacophony

Echoes, making one wonder about

Two simple, burning questions:

Looking at what happened today,

WHAT GOOD IS THERE ON THIS ‘BLACK FRIDAY’?

WHAT DO SHOPS GET BY OPENING UP THE PREVIOUS NIGHT, OR

DAWN, IF THEY GET RAVAGED AND MUTILIATED BY

SENSELESS HUMAN BEINGS??

And as one ponders on this, another Q flutters by,

IS BLACK REALLY THE CASHBOXES FILLING UP?

OR IS IT HOW BLACK THE SOUL OF HUMANS CAN TURN??

 

And speaking of that innocent shopper,

His family was – well, told

That he had gone there to buy - two packets of milk…

 

***

M.Macabre

27.11.2020

Dedicated to: Bruce Lee (Happy Birthday!), Alfred Schnittke, Roald Dahl, Dmitri 

Shostakovich, Anonymous