Friday Black

The unnamed narrator of “Friday Black” is a dynamic protagonist who becomes disillusioned with the system that his workplace, the Prominent Mall, uses to drive high sales performance during the Black Friday weekend.

When the story begins, the narrator has already experienced three previous Black Friday sales. The first of these sales resulted in an injury that enabled the narrator to comprehend the infected shoppers’ fragmented speech. This gives him a natural advantage over the other salespeople at the Prominent Mall. Outside of his unique ability, the narrator is intuitive about the competitive aspects of retail sales. During a past Black Friday sale, he correctly sensed that his coworker, Wendy, had fed the sales team poisoned pie to sabotage them, and he avoided consuming it. In doing so, he managed to outperform her and assume the title of sales lead.

The narrator is initially motivated by the rewards the Prominent Mall offers to its top-performing workers. Earlier that year, the loss of his mother’s job caused increased animosity within the family and a lack of interest in celebrating the holidays. After a new coworker named Duo tells him that his mother will love him even if he doesn’t win her a reward coat, the narrator comes to recognize that the rewards have never mattered.