Coven - Part 2

The Bogan councillors were bored and bored enough to experiment with an Ouija Board with dreadful consequences. Mayor Porky fell into a kind of ‘dream state’ and met Bart Rugarse who, it seemed, had taken over the persona of Winnie Quark.

Bart has told Mayor Porker it is his intention to assist Porky to rule the world. Mayor porker is confused and horrified by the experience. She ‘wakes up’ some hours later slumped across a desk. Only gradually does she become aware that there is something dreadfully wrong not only with her but also with the place she finds herself in. The room is furnished in an early Victorian style and appears to be a library but the occupants of the room seem more Edwardian in their dress and manner, particularly the dapper little man who approaches her taking dainty, mincing steps across the floor. He wears a natty grey suit and has a slick little moustache. He looks like the love child of Grimy Hobo and Virginia Wolfe.

Grimy Hobo: You have awoken, Miss Porker. I am delighted.

Mayor Porker: It’s Mrs Porker, or Mayor Porker if you prefer. Grimy, is that you?

Grimy Hobo: Ah, Madame confuses me with another. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Hercule Poo Rot and I am delighted to make your acquaintanceship Madame Porker. It is a pity it could not have been under the more pleasant circumstances.

Mayor Porker: What? Where…..? How did…..?

Hercule Poo Rot: You are befuddled, Madame, which is perfectly understandable. Perhaps a cup of tea? Lizzie would you kindly fetch some tea for your Mistress, she is in need of the refreshment.

Lizzie: Yes Sir.

Mayor Porker: Hold on just a minute! Let me think…….let me think. What’s going on, Grimy? Why the get-up and why the silly accent. You sound as bad as Shizeknicker trying to do his Austrian voice. And why is Liz dressed like a French maid in a porno movie?

Lizzie: Beg pardon, Mum?

Mayor Porker: Well? Come on - Monsieur Poirot, what’s going on?

Hercule Poo Rot: Madame, if you insist on addressing me thus I would prefer you to pronounce it correctly. Please to repeat after me – Mon Sewer Poo Rot – nest pass?

Mayor Porker: Okaaaay. I’m waiting - Mr. Poo Rot.

Hercule Poo Rot: Very well, Madame Porker. You returned this morning from Assbored-Lightly Moor where you had been shooting ferrets. When you entered this library to fetch your copy of Sir Harold Robbins’ biography of your late great-great-great-great grandmother, Lady Elanora Slag-Slapper, you found the body of Lord Bart Rugarse slumped upon a portable commode. Tell me, Madame, when was the last time you had been in the library previous to that occasion?

Lizzie: Do you still want me to fetch some tea, Mum?

Mayor Porker: Uh….No, I mean yes. If you would, Lizzie.

Lizzie: Yes, Mum.

Hercule Poo Rot: You have not answered my question, Madame. When had you last been in the library?

Madame Porker: It must have been last evening. Yes, I remember I had left my spare tube of Anusol in the escritoire.

Hercule Poo Rot: Madame, you will notice from the advanced state of decomposition, the bloating, the maggots, the pool of body juices on the turkey carpet, and in particular the smell, that this corpse of Lord Rugarse has been here for a little more than four weeks. Do you contend that you did not notice this body last night?

Madame Porker: Well of course one notices. As for the smell, he was on the commode and one doesn’t like to poke ones nose in to another’s business. Mon Sewer Poo Rot, what are you suggesting?

Lizzie: Tea, Mum. I took the liberty of bringing some sandwiches.

Madame Porker: Thank you Lizzie; that was most thoughtful. If you would be good enough to serve the tea and pass the sandwiches to our guests – I am quite exhausted. If there are any sandwiches left over you may leave them for me to eat later. You may rest the plate on Lord Rugarse’s back. He is slumped over most conveniently on the commode and I am sure he will not object.

Hercule Poo Rot: I am suggesting nothing, Madame Porker. I am merely gathering information that my little grey cells may then process and, in so doing, reveal the murderer of Lord Bart Rugarse. Fluck!

Madame Porker: Is your tea too hot, Mon Sewer Poo Rot?

Hercule Poo Rot: No, Madame. I was merely calling for your butler, Fluck.

Madame Porker: My butler is called Fluck?

Fluck: Yes, Madam?

Madame Porker: Sean?

Fluck: How may I be of assistance, Madam?

Hercule Poo Rot: It is I who needs assistance, Fluck. It is my belief that you know the identity of the one who murdered Lord Rugarse.

Fluck: I really could not say, Sir.

Hercule Poo Rot: That is a distinctive toilet water you are wearing, Fluck. What is it called?

Fluck: I believe it is called ‘The Devil’s Cheese’, Sir.

Hercule Poo Rot: It is very similar to the odour emanating from the commode on which Lord Rugarse is slumped is it not?

Fluck: I….I am not sure, Sir.

Hercule Poo Rot: Be so good as to tell me the time, Fluck.

Fluck: I cannot, Sir.

Hercule Poo Rot: Because the grandfather clock usually standing near the door of this library is missing, is that not so?

Fluck: How did you know?

Hercule Poo Rot: Because I instructed the gardener, Axeman, to drag the contents of the commode and the grandfather clock was discovered in the depths where the luckless Lord Rugarse had painfully deposited it. Someone had force fed the clock to his Lordship until Lord Rugarse choked on it. Someone who had left traces of his toilet water in the toilet water.

Lizzie: Gasp!

Fluck: It was not I, Sir. It was the CIA.

Hercule Poo Rot: What do you mean, ‘it was not you’? You are the butler are you not? How can we be sure you are telling the truth about this CIA?

Fluck: Because they will murder me if they can and if my Chinese controllers do not get to me first.

Lizzie: Gasp!

Lord Rugarse: Would someone take this plate of sangers off my back? It’s killing me.

Lizzie: Swoon!

(There is another change in the density of the air. Mayor Porker weaves about the room like smoke then settles at the boardroom table in the council chamber, which now looks much as it did before. The other councillors sit stunned and stone-like but at least the annoying little prick Poo Rot is no longer there.)

Mayor Porker: Grimy? Liz? Sean? Anybody?

Winnie Quark: You’ve all been in a kind of trance, Mayor Porker. I didn’t know what to do.

Sean Bean: Oh God! I’m finished. It’s all over.

Grimy Hobo: Bugger me that was a bit odd. Porky, is it really you?

(The other councillors seem to be coming around. They all look distraught, particularly Sean and Ann.)

Ann: I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. Christ, what have I done?

Mower: Close the air vents! That has to have been some sort of hallucinogenic gas. Where’s my Glock? Some cunt’s got my Glock!

Sean Bean: Don’t move, Mower or I’ll blow your fucking head off. Everybody! Hands on the table where I can see them! Now!

(Mower coolly takes the gun from Sean and smacks it against Sean’s head.)

Mower: The safety is on, you prick. Calm down everyone! We need to calm down and work out what’s happening here.

Mayor Porker: Agreed, Dicky. I think we’ll go around the table and each can describe what they have just experienced.

(They do this and, with some variations, most of them have had similar illusions. The exceptions were Winnie, Sean and Ann. Winnie experienced nothing strange at all. Sean saw himself in a catastrophic battle with Ann while Ann saw her entire life pass before her in hideous detail. Her illusion seemed to occupy the same period of time as her life thus far and Ann now feels completely drained.)

Mayor Porker: It seems all of us saw ourselves ruling the world somehow, except Winnie, Ann and Sean. But Sean was a common link and Ann seems to feel very guilty about something.

Ann: I shot Bart Rugarse; at least I think I did. I might have shot Fuk Ho but I think Gabby did him.

Mower: No, I shot Fuk Ho.

Ann: Impossible. We disposed of both bodies, Rugarse and Fuk Ho. We left Jim as Kevin Rudd.

Mower: Jim?

Ann: Yes, CIA Jim. Agent 2. He was operated on for months. He is a perfect copy of Rudd and we left him in The Lodge to take over.

Mower: Um… I don’t think so. I…uh shot Fuk Ho or who I thought was Fuk Ho and left our man in The Lodge.

Ann: Who is our man?

Mower: Andy McDuck. He makes a really good Kevin Rudd.

Mayor Porker: Andy Mc-fucking-Duck is running Australia?

Sean Bean: Probably not.

Mayor Porker: Okay. Come on, Sean. Tell us every thing. You’re among……acquaintances. You can speak freely.

Sean Bean: When I was in China they tried to turn me into a traitor in exchange for my release. I pretended to go along with it. Then it all changed. Something had happened. It was something to do with an explosion somewhere in China.

They did plastic surgery on some Chinese guy who was supposed to take my place here in Bogan. I was teaching him for weeks to be me and he was almost perfect apart from a problem with certain words. They used drugs on him until he really believed he was me. It would have been impossible to tell us apart.

They told me I was going to be operated on and made into a new Kevin Rudd to replace Fuk Ho who had gone native. I was to ensure the Chinese supply of cheap minerals and gasses.

Mower: What happened?

Sean Bean: I didn’t want to be Kevin Rudd. At first I thought it would be cool to run Australia and I knew they would alter my mind with drug therapy so that I would believe in what I was doing. They said Rugarse would dispose of Fuk Ho and I would just walk in to take his place. But I like being me. I like me. I didn’t want to be someone else.

Mayor Porker: So you swapped places with the other guy?

Sean Bean: Yes. It was easy and he believed he was me anyway. So I was sent back here and he went to the plastic surgeon again and, presumably, from there to The Lodge.

I tried to keep low. I made the same mistakes with some words as the other guy did, but I’ve been terrified that at some televised question time Rudd is going to call Turnbull a flucking clunt or something. The Chinese would know and they would come after me.

Axeman: If they did, it couldn’t happen to a nicer bloke if you ask me.

Mower: That’s fine Axeman except for the fact that, on the off chance we knew something, the Chinese wouldn’t risk leaving any of us alive. If Sean goes down, we all go down.

Winnie Quark: That would be so embarrassing for Australia if our Prime Minister started calling Malcolm those dirty names.

Luke: No more embarrassing than Rudd’s singing and dancing. Did you see his little dance during the budget? And yesterday at question time he was asked about the deficit and he got up and sang ‘I’ve Got Plenty of Nothing’.

Mower: Oh, Jesus. I told that prat to keep to his instructions. It’s all right everyone. The Kevin Rudd in the Lodge is McDuck. He’s starting to do his Wiggles act. I’ll go down there and talk to him.

(Right, so now we know. Can we get on with this new story now? Please?)

Sean: So what happened to the Chinese Rudd?

(Who gives a fuck!)

Luke: Um…excuse me everyone. Look, stop me if you’ve heard this before but I think I’ve just…..um… conjured up a little demon thingy.


TO BE CONTINUED.