A mysterious singer wreaks havoc on a shop that sells musical plants.
This story feels about a decade ahead of its time, much closer in tone to the “Dangerous Visions”-era “new wave” than most science fiction of the 1950s. We are dropped into a strange world, vaguely familiar but with many disorienting details, and given very little explication. The singer Jane Ciracylides is described as a beautiful, golden-skinned woman with insects for eyes, and her effect on the narrator’s musical plants is a heady blend of aggressive and erotic.