13. DOG ENDS

The Plastic Church

A new law was finally pushed through Parliament which allowed the prey of the manhunts to be allowed the ancient right of sanctuary if they were within the confines of a church. This meant that the Masters of the Hounds needed to retrain their canine charges not to take bites out of anyone in attendance at a church. This was done so quickly that it was easy to confuse the four legged brutes into thinking they were at a sermon as sympathisers of those who were hunted armed themselves with dog collars and a Bible to quote from as they looked to literally save the souls of those about to be ravaged.

Of course, such trickery could easily be surmounted by a command to the hounds to ignore the rules of sanctuary once the human hunters arrived on the scene, so this deception only brought temporary respite for the prey, but sometimes afforded them the opportunity to escape their inglorious fate for the present time.

However, one hunt saboteur was made of sterner stuff, well actually a more modern material. J V Fockinbridge of Northampton designed the world’s first plastic church with the intention of using it’s lightweight, portable construction and an app that enabled him to track particular hunts, to follow them with his church on wheels and provide sanctuary within on a more permanent basis for the prey about to be devoured.

The hunters objected to this flagrant display of bending the rules but Fockinbridge was able to convince many that his unique plastic church was actually an upgrade on conventional stone and brick houses of God. The pivotal moment being an interview he gave to The Sunday Star. Extracts of which appear below:

Fockinbridge is convinced his new age church has many benefits.

‘We never get thefts of lead from the church roof,’ he explained, ‘and our stained plastic windows are never susceptible to being smashed by an errant football or a brick hurled by someone who thinks the story of the Virgin Mary is a load of bollox.’

Fockinbridge admits that it gets him a little bit down that parishioners of the more conventional bricks and mortar churches call his followers the disparaging term “plastics”.

‘But our bell being made of that more modern and adaptable material is much quieter on the ear,’ he added. ‘I’m convinced that had Quasimodo been gifted with one in Notre Dame all those years ago he wouldn’t have succumbed to deafness.’

His own choirmaster Mr Henry Visconte was not so enamoured as the inventor of the building in which he now does his thing.

‘The acoustics aren’t as impressive as in a traditional church,’ he declared. ‘And my wife on keyboards gets funny looks and sniggers whenever she tells anyone that she enjoys playing with her plastic organ.’

J V Fockinbridge was quick to extol the virtues of his construct again.

‘As the gravestones are plastic in our churchyard they don’t crumble like the traditional masonry gravestones. This means we are the only burial facility that can offer whole death time guarantees on all our gravestones. Also we don’t bother with collection boxes as we only take plastic.’

‘Furthermore,’ he added, barely drawing breath, ‘with the building being so lightweight and portable compared to the traditional ones that are so heavy and anchored, if there’s a disaster say two hundred miles away, we don’t need to pray for the survivors, as the church can easily be transported there and the survivors can then pray for themselves.’

Fockinbridge then hit me with his best argument in favour of his plastic churches.

‘Put it this way,’ he said with the conviction of a man of the cloth, ‘if God in his infinite wisdom ever decides to wallop us with flooding of Biblical proportions ever again, everyone will be forsaking their own conventional church and heading towards mine. Because it’s the only one that bloody floats.’

When questioned about his motives for inventing the plastic church, Fockinbridge denies that it’s purpose was to help more hunt victims find sanctuary.

‘The Lord moves in mysterious ways,’ is all he will say, and is exactly what he also said which helped him escape punishment in the courts when his church was caught going the wrong way down the A369 recently in his attempts to save further prey.