At various times the sirens went off and a power shut-down plunged the factory hangar into ‘silence and darkness’ ©. Suddenly the dark seemed more dark than wer ever possible before and bombers flew overhead in the sky above as part of the long full-scale showcase re-enactment of World War Two in which all European nations was currently co-operating. Bombs fell outside with a terrifying crash, troops were mobilised, the hole thing a supposed tribute or trophy to international good co-trade-development and joint-venture capitalism. John John muttered:

“Fucking Battle of Britain . . .”

He waited out the re-enacted air raid til the all-clear was sounded, his head nodding in near sleep, the room illuminated only by the glow of them skellingtons and other items, his fat face awash in a faint green hue.

*

Somehow at some point in the near dark John John had a ‘brilliant idea’ ©.

After work he went down the local and talked to Reg the barman and Reg (the barman) in turn talked to this other bloke who sometimes went in that same pub and who worked at an embalmers and he in turn talked to another regular, ____________ one of the fearsome chief canteen staff in the local prison* (*an evil mismanaged institution on a nearby hill known as Doncitraz).

Before long they had a ‘big mixer’ going on out in the back yard of the pub, creating a whole wheelie-bin half full of evil potion. The landlord pours the beer slops in there and __________ the woman from the nick tips in three sacks full of old runny mash potatoes and bolied to death greens and sundry leftovers. The embalmer chucks in a few bits and bobs of skin and formaldehyde and then to cement the mixture they get this old bloke from the pub to do a massive shit in there, holding him over the bin shrieking, with his crusty old ‘before the war’ trousers flapping round his ankles and his nylon shirt pulled up on his skinny tattooed belly. The stuff most definite smelled fucking awful and even John John (who had no sense of smell whatsoever since he long ago worked in a slaughterhouse) had to have a big wooden clothes peg on his nose to stir the fucking shit into the mixture.

When all the whole potion/lotion was prepared John John nipped back to the factory and gathered together ‘sundry items of its produce’ that was also needed for his plans.

*