Stage Play / The Pickle Factory

Dramatis Personae

Michelle
Daniella
Cab Driver
Tour Guide
Jonas Bormann, MSc

Scene I

The Devon skyline seemed downcast. From four inspirationless clouds, four gooey raindrops mushed down in icky splodges upon the heads of several jam-filled bumpkins. Michelle stretched her arm across the hotel desk and yawned, startled by the frozen assistant beside her and the sub-zero grimace on her face.
“Oh, God! I had no idea you were there. Sorry!” she said, smirking back at the mirthless woman. She did not return the grin. The second clerk, equally short and vacant, lifted a pen from the desk and scribbled some random words onto a blank sheet of paper.
“You’ll be heading out now, I take it? Not planning to find any men in town today, by any chance?” she asked. Daniella trundled down the stairs to greet her colleague; utterly baffled and her mouth just on the verge of forming an answer.
“Ready?” Daniella asked.
“Um… yeah, let’s go,” Michelle replied, squinting while the clerks kept their expressions lifeless. The two colleagues walked out of the hotel, two pairs of eyes boring into the backs of their heads, and the taxi driver honked madly from the inside his car. They approached and boarded the cab; the rain now settling into a light, mid-morning drizzle overhead.

Daniella: Could you take us into town, please? Thanks.

Driver: Into town? No bother, lass. 10 minutes, tops. Not planning on finding yourselves any fellas, now were you?

Daniella: Um… no. We weren’t actually. Why do you ask?

Driver: Oh, no reason, love. Just that there’s been a shortage of men around here for a while. Lots of lasses are moving to Shropshire to find husbands and that. It was in the paper this morning. You not see it?

Michelle: No… I didn’t. That’s funny, though, ‘cause that woman in the hotel asked me exactly the same thing.

Driver: Oh, yeah. Everyone knows about it now. Anyway, the town centre it is.

Daniella (To Michelle): I bet you they don’t even have a centre for tourists in town. They’ve probably just got some tramp holding a marrow in the town square who points randomly towards buildings and grunts out the names of his favourite sheep. That’s their idea of a tourist guide here.

Michelle: God, you’re so bigoted! Just give it a chance. You’ll be converted, I swear. Won over by the stunning architecture.

Daniella: Are you being ironic? Because unless they’ve winched St. Paul’s Cathedral over from East London since we left, then I doubt that.

Michelle: I tell you, you’ll be blown away. Plus, St. Paul’s Cathedral is in West London, not East London.

Daniella: Well… pardon me, little miss pedant.

Michelle: Little Ms Pedant, actually. Don’t forget about George.

Daniella: I won’t forget about George if you don’t forget about Derek.

Michelle: Right, Derek, yeah. I’ll have to try and remember what his face looks like again before the end of the day. When is he getting here?

Daniella: I told you, he’s meeting Derek at the airport and they’re travelling in together.

Michelle: Yeah… I knew that. I just wanted confirmation straight from, you know, the horse’s mouth.  

Daniella: So I’m a horse now? Well, that’s nice. Hang on a minute! I’ve just come up with a better idea. Driver? Do you know a good place for first-timers to this adorable city?

Driver: Eh? What’s that lass?

Michelle: I said, do you know anywhere good for us to go ‘cause it’s our first time here. Could you recommend somewhere?

Driver: You tourists, are you?

Daniella: Yes, of course we are! Was that not obvious? We’ve just come down from London.

Driver: Came up from London, I think you mean, lass.

Daniella: Right, yeah, sorry. Came up from London.

Driver: Well, I’m just a humble cab driver, so I suppose my tastes would be no match for a couple of well-grazed turbanites like you. I could take you on by the old pickle factory, if that floats your world. It’s not exactly St. John’s Cathedral, but you know…

Michelle: Um, I’m not sure that is precisely the sort of thing we were after. Not on the first day, anyway.

Driver: Oh, it’s very nice, love. They’ve got all sorts of pickles there; from thin pickles to big pickles, from medium-sized pickles to preserved pickles in those plastic pickle jars. Let’s see now… Well, there’s dill pickles, marmalade pickles, sugar-coated pickles, salted pickles, malted pickles… those pecked and potted prickled pickles, hand-pricked and hand-picked by premier pickle picklers and peppered in those piping hot pickle pots. They’ve even got some of those new organic pickles. Sprayed with DET for your pickle pleasure!

Michelle: Right. So lots of pickles, then.

Driver: Oh, blimey! You’ve never seen so many pickles in one place, love! It’s a pickle paradise!

Daniella: Really? Ha! Well, yeah, all right! Take us there, then. That sounds fantastic!

Michelle: Wait a minute! Are you kidding? You really don’t want to go to a pickle factory, do you? I mean, it might seem like a good idea now, on a whim, but you’ll regret it when we get there.

Daniella: Oh no, it’s perfect! He’s really sold it to me. Besides, what could be more Devonian than pickles?

Michelle: I don’t know… haggis, cuckoo clocks, the light sabre… anything else?

Daniella: The light sabre?

Michelle: I was thinking on my feet. Look, I really don’t want to go to a pickle factory this morning, OK? For one thing, imagine the stink of the place. One jar of pickles is bad enough but imagine a whole bloody factory of the things. It must be as bad Derek’s armpits when you wake up in the morning.

Daniella: Right, well… that’s it. We’re definitely going now. The pickle factory it is, please, driver. What’s your name?

Driver: My name? Thomas Frank Wilson, love.

Daniella: Thanks for suggestion Thomas. I hope it’s as good as you said it is.

Driver: Oh, you’ll be surprised! It’ll make quite an impression on you, I guarantee. Unless we there and you discover you’re allergic to pickles. What a cock-up that would be!

Michelle: I don’t bloody believe this! The first time I leave London in five years, and I end up going to a pickle factory because you go in the huff. Life is too short to go on spontaneous trips to pickle factories, you know.

Driver: Oh, you’ll love it, love. And don’t worry about the smell; they’ve got masks you can borrow before you go on the tour. Plus, you can get some overalls which absorb the pong.

Michelle: Great. Well, that makes it all right then.

Daniella: You’ll have to excuse my colleague’s pickle ignorance, Thomas. She never even knew there was such a thing as a pickle factory before you mentioned it. When was the last time you had a pickle, Thomas?

Driver: Oh, I have one every night, love. They have those new pickles now, I forget the name of them… they’re gorgeous pickles. They have a taste which is positively… pickletastic. Really sweet pickles, you know, with a meaty centre. More like little sausages pickled in brine than pickled cucumbers or onions, in fact.

Michelle: How yummy(!)

Daniella: Come on, lighten up would you? You don’t have to actually try any pickles. Plus, this is much better than just trudging around the same old boring tourist spots with the rest of the herd, isn’t it?

Driver: Actually, the pickle factory is very popular with the tourists nowadays, love. Ever since that new management bloke came in last year. I forget the name of him. Yeah, he used to work for some coporation called the Perapo ages ago or something. Contrerversial choice, but he’s turning over millions for ‘em with his new type of pickle. Yeah, he pulled them out of a real… quandary. Still, you know what they say… mony a pickle makes a mickle… of pickles.  

Michelle (To Daniella): He keeps mispronouncing all his words. And mixing his metaphors.

Daniella: So what? He’s friendly and charming. Proving that not all people from the country are hostile and backwards.

Michelle: I never used the word backwards. I used the word ‘repressed’ and possibly ‘psychotic,’ at some stage, but I never said backwards.

Daniella (Coughs): Fascist.

Scene II

All three occupants of the cab alight at the central entrance of pickle factory. Tucked away on the southwest side of Devon and surrounded east and west by one of the town’s largest farms, the landscape sprawls out into the countryside and beyond, and is rich in vegetation and produce. The vegetables are cultivated in conjunction with farmers and pickled inside the factory; swiftly distributed to wholesalers or directly to retailers. As they drive through the main gates, Michelle looks up askance at the anonymous, sterile and surprisingly modern building and out towards the barbed-wire fence which annexes the entire site. Her reaction is instantly unfavourable, and beneath the general dissension is an odd murmur of genuine discomfort. Having left the cab, the driver leads both women to front door.

Michelle: Looks like such a welcoming place. Do we get the overalls here or inside?

Driver: Oh, inside love. I know the tour guide, here, he’ll lend you some. The tour usually runs in the morning and the afternoon.

Daniella: Thank you, Thomas, that is very helpful of you. Isn’t it Michelle?

Michelle: Yeah… I suppose it is. Um… thank you. All right, look… I’ll try and enjoy this, for what it’s worth, but I still can’t believe you talked me into it. Or rather you guilt-tripped me into it.

Daniella: I think blackmailed is the term you are looking for, actually. But let’s not get bogged down in pedantry any longer. We have pickles to peruse. Is that the tour guide? Strange uniform he’s got on…

Michelle: That’s standard Devonshire dress. It’s made out of, you know, boiled toads and the skins of American tourists.

Driver: No, no, love – that’s Thurston Hogg-Wembley. He’s a great bloke. He’ll show you ladies around safely and make sure you enjoy yourselves.

Tour Guide: All right, Tom! How are you? What are you doing here today?

Driver: Oh, I’ve got these two ladies and they were wondering whether they could get the guided tour. I’m sorry just to spring this on you…

Tour Guide: Oh, forget it, it’s fine! Come on in. We haven’t had a great deal of punters since the news broke about that incident last week.

Driver: Oh, really? What happened?

Tour Guide: Some of the stock got away and things got sort of, well… out of hand. Anyway, I’ll make sure they have a great time, all the same. If you’ve like to come with me, ladies.

Daniella: Absolutely! We’ve never been on any sort of tour like this before. Especially to a pickle factory.

Tour Guide: No, most people who come here had no idea there was such a thing as a pickle factory. I’ll just fetch your uniforms from the office, first. It’s this way.

Michelle (To Daniella): What is that symbol on his arm? This place is really creepy, don’t you think? What is that thing?

Daniella: First of all, that is a pickle on his overall, and secondly, no… it’s a factory. Those noises are common; everything you see and hear is normal. Including that machine, so just relax and enjoy yourself.

Tour Guide: There’s your overalls, ladies. You can just slip them on over your clothes and they’ll protect you from any unnecessary splashing.

Michelle: Splashing? From what? The pickles? Do they splash themselves? Are these self-splashing pickles?

Tour Guide: Ha, no love! Splashing from our stock. Although you should be pretty safe today, our productivity is low. Anyway, let’s start with the packing room, and we’ll make our way further down the factory and towards the new wing at the far end of this building. Through here is where our pickles are packed and where our employees self-pack our pickles one pickle-pack at a time. That’s Peter over there. Guess what he does?

Daniella: Um… security guard?

Tour Guide: No, Peter picks and packs our principal pickles. He’s our prime pickle-picker and our premier pickle-packer, and he oversees all of the pickle-packing throughout the entire pickle processing plant.

Michelle (To Daniella): I’m not sure I can take much more of this. I can almost taste the rotten things on my lips…

Scene III

The tour moves onwards through the factory, and the guide remains animated and informative about each process of production. Daniella is quickly pushed from her indifferent state due to the friendliness of the all-female staff and is keen to shirk her ignorance about this sector of production. After lunch in the canteen, she finds herself excited about resuming the tour and in a far more upbeat mood than when she arrived, less quarrelsome with Michelle. Michelle finds the smell rather overwhelming but also takes an interest in how the pickles make it from the farm outside and onto the supermarket shelves. After their lunch, they head back off with the guide onto the final part of the tour, to the newly-constructed extension at the back of the factory. The tour resumes at the temporarily inactive conveyor belt where they new pickle is bottled and processed. There are several doors marked around the room, one of which houses the manager of the factory.

Tour Guide: OK, onwards to the last part of the tour! I haven’t prepared any notes about this section yet, but I can tell you this is where we process our new, specialised pickles. At the moment this type of pickle is proving our most popular yet.

Daniella: Um, do you think we could try any of them?

Tour Guide: Any of what, dear?

Daniella:  Er… the pickles.

Tour Guide: Oh, really? You’d like to try some? Well, absolutely. Most people are put off by the smell at this stage in the tour. We’ve just had some new stock in this morning after you arrived, in fact, and there should be some of the fresh batch available now. Do you want to try some of the new brand?

Daniella: Oh, all right. What’s so special about this new brand?  Michelle here hates pickles, but I’m up for trying one.

Michelle: No, wait a minute… I might want to try one as well. I hate vinegar, but somehow I feel as though if I don’t have a pickle soon my head is going to explode.

Tour Guide: Ah, here we are. How fortunate – we have two ready now. We’re shipping some stock over from Manhattan and South London tomorrow, so I guess there would be no harm in giving these way. We had two new deliveries early this morning and these come straight from the cutting room floor.

Michelle: Looks rather filling. What’s in it?

Jonas Bormann (from door behind): I think I can answer that, Vincent, if you don’t mind.

Tour Guide: Oh, good afternoon Jonas. Ladies, this is the factory owner and the man responsible for our new type of pickle, Jonas Bormann.

Jonas: Hello ladies, it’s a pleasure to have you here at our factory. Are you enjoying it so far? Without being too specific, this new pickle is a certain appendage of meat wrapped up inside a hollowed-out cucumber case and then pickled in some brine at pH 4. We remove the baculum after complete dismemberment of the organ and preserve the meat before it returns back into a state of detumescence. Anyway, enough technical information – it tastes gorgeous, I assure you.

Michelle: Well, here goes. Come on, Danny… (Both Take Small Bite From Pickle)

Daniella: It tastes… not bad, in fact.

Michelle: It’s delicious! The cab driver was right. It is more meaty than the average pickle.

Daniella: That’s right, and there’s a really unique flavour you just can’t quite put your finger on.

Tour Guide: Where did you find the stock for these pickles, Jonas, if you don’t mind me asking?

Jonas: Oh, I send some men from the floor out to the airport on reconnaissance. I just wanted to make sure our equipment was ready for the large shipment of stock next week. We are running really low at the moment. The lads found these two today, fresh off the flight line from London.

Daniella: What do you mean you found the stock? Is it not grown outside in the farm?

Jonas: Oh, not for this type of pickle. We were lucky we found the stock today at the airport, in fact.

Daniella: I’m sorry, I’m not sure I quite understand. What do you mean, you found the stock?

Jonas: Yes, these two chaps from London. Can’t recall their names. Oh, there they are in fact, over there…

Michelle (looks around): Wait a minute, that’s Derek and George!

Daniella: What are they doing here? What’s going on here? What’s in this pickle?

Jonas: Well, isn’t it obvious, dear? It’s from our new range of pecker pickles. It is the flesh and skin of the gentleman’s phallus pickled inside a jar and swathed around the pelt of a cucumber.

Daniella: (spits out pickle and chokes) Oh, good God, no! That’s disgusting…

Michelle: This is a joke, right? George and Derek set this up, didn’t they? This is a joke, isn’t it? Just tell us now…

Jonas: Oh, no. I can assure you both it is no joke. Come with me and I’ll show you our three operation rooms. Over there is where we perform all of the castrations. See, in order to achieve the proper consistency for the pickle, the organ must first be stimulated, and we excite our stock with pornographic images in order to increase the girth of the meat before he is, well… de-pricked for pickling. Over there, if you squint, you can see our miniature guillotines which help slice the organ clean off.

Michelle: Oh good God, there’s real blood. Michelle, let’s get the hell out of here now. This place is sick…

Daniella (choking): I don’t think I can breathe…

Jonas: Well, not so steady now. See, I am faced with a dilemma now, ladies. Since it looked as though you knew our stock out there, then we have a conflict, don’t we? I believe you said they were your boyfriends?

Michelle: You are sick. This place is sick, it’s…

Tour Guide: I’m so sorry about this, Jonas. If I had any idea that they knew the stock I never would have allowed them in.

Jonas: That’s OK, Vincent. You weren’t to know. Now, ladies, did Vincent here tell you about our exciting new plans for diversification? We are introducing a brand new range of delicacies. How would you like to be the central ingredient in our brand new range of woman-pies?

Daniella: What have you done Derek and George? Where are you taking them?

Jonas: Oh, they’ll be included in our range of Yorkshire puddings and mince meat. We always use the bodies of our stock as productively as we can. Vincent, call some of the boys downstairs and tell them to start up the meat grinders. We should seize this opportunity before it passes us by.

Tour Guide: All right, Jonas, I’ll get on the phone immediately.

Michelle: Why are you doing this? What’s wrong with you?

Jonas: I’m just trying to liven up the snack market. See, both of you have no idea what it is like when a person has to live on nothing more than Ginsters Pasties. Along with Spam, melted cheese in tubes and Bovril, they are the most wretched things one has to eat on the face of the earth. They are truly tools of evil designed to torture and torment the individual, and I had to live on them for two miserable years. Can you imagine having to live on those even for just one month? Well, I had to live on those for two whole years. It was no wonder that I turned to cannibalism. This I believe is the future of the snack market. Just be thankful that you’ll never have to eat another one of those revolting things ever again.

Daniella (To Michelle): I told you coming here was a bad idea.

Michelle: Yeah, I should have listened. I’m sorry. Still, it was a completely different tourist experience, wasn’t it?

Daniella: I suppose so. If we survive this, remind me never to take advice from you ever again.

Michelle: It’s a deal.

                                        (Exeunt)

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