15. 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.

Hunt Saboteur J V Fockinbridge of Northampton designed the world’s first plastic church with the intention of using it’s lightweight, portable construction to follow particular hunts with his church on wheels and provide sanctuary within for the prey about to be devoured.

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 stray brick.’

Fockinbridge admits that it gets him down that parishioners of 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 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.’

‘Furthermore,’ he added, barely drawing breath, ‘with the building being portable compared to the traditional heavy anchored ones, 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 us 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 will bloody float.’

When questioned about his motives, Fockinbridge denies that it’s purpose is ultimately 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 heavy punishment in the courts when his church was caught speeding on the A369 recently.