Mark

You are

I am Dottie

You look quite sensible

It is short for Dorothy

You learn something every day

I am the tenth character

There is no tenth character

Mark have you ever been anything else

Other than an Open University lecturer

I once studied frogs in Peru

Why Peru

Because there were not many in Stoke on Trent

Have you always worked in these summer schools

No

I studied frogs in Peru

What was your first summer job

I worked in a paint shop in a factory

What did they make

Various weapons to kill innocent people

Did you not feel guilty

I hardly think that painting happy faces on the nuts and bolts

Made any difference to the defenceless victims

As the missile slammed into the their apartment block

Indeed they might have found it amusing

Before they were blown to pieces

Did you make any friends in the factory

No just model soldiers from the Third World War

There have only been two world wars

The first and the second one

I wondered why I had difficulties

When researching the uniforms

To answer your question yes I did make a friend

His name was Paul Smith

He worked in the paint shop with me

What was his job

Working in the paint shop

He also ordered the paint

What colours were the missiles

Grey grey grey and grey

The colour scheme was a little tedious

That must of been of a great concern

To those on the receiving end of the attacks

That is why I was the happy face painter

What colours did you use

Grey grey grey and grey

Tell me about Paul Smith

He was considerably older than me

And was a glutton

Paul ate everything that was not nailed down

He was your original fat cunt

Although he was a nice chap

He took me under his wing

Was he a part time albatross

Paul would have found it difficult to fly

He also had a huge sexual appetite

He would fuck anything on two legs

And sometimes even four

Quite why women found him attractive was beyond me

He smelt of food and stale paint and tended to sweat

I can imagine the dried up slags looking for one last fuck

But he fucked the Jackson sisters (probably together) from Accounts

And they were not exactly rough

Do you keep in touch with Paul

No

Why

Because he is dead

Did his body give in

Yes and no

There lies a sad story

Pray tell

My name is Mark

Paul was in the habit of fucking off whist he was supposed to be working

Either to pop down to the local Indian when a new Alsatian was delivered

He liked his curries and was not fussy about the meat as long as it was dead

Or he was fucking the local nigger slags so that they could pay for their next fix

So when he vanished nobody questioned it even the bosses

It was because they liked Paul so much

Normally if he vanished he would return in a couple of hours

But on the night of his passing he obviously did not return

It was supposed that he had gone home faking sickness

So his absence was totally ignored

It was only when he did not report for his shift

That we began to get worried and contacted Me Lai

She thought he was sleeping it off somewhere

We were both wrong as when Mr Bags our cleaner

Tried to enter the bogs in Building C he was unable to enter

Which indicated that somebody had entered the building but had not left

Building C was a secure area where the boffins when needed designed all kinds of new and deadly weapons

It had a kitchen a TV room a gym and two bogs both with pink tissue paper

Something was not right so the cops were contacted

They found him in Cubicle Z which in theory did exist as it was a top secret shit house with a wanking facility

Although the custard mags had long been stolen and flogged elsewhere

Paul had been dead for nearly a day and Rigor mortis had set in

He was also attracting flies who were no longer interested in the local curry houses

He had died whilst having a massive shit

It was supposed to have been due

To one of the Alsatians being off

Or something he had picked up elsewhere

How many years ago was this

It was the same year as Chernobyl

What happened to Building C

The same as Chernobyl

It was covered in low grade concrete

And the whole operation was moved to Southall

Where nobody would notice it or even cared

Did you attend Paul’s funeral

No I had returned college as I was training to be an Open University lecturer

He was buried in a lead coffin

Why

Because they ran out of bubble wrap

Did you keep in contact with Me Lai

For a while yes

But she later married a nonce from New Brighton

And was last heard of doing ten years



End of Act Two