last night's craziness - ii

My view was very much restricted by the tininess of the crack in the shed wall, but I could still see a very disturbing little cross-section of the interior. It was well-lit in there. Funny that I hadn’t noticed before. The shed had windows that faced into the garden, but no light had ever emitted from them. I figured that there must be more than one room in the shed. Its certainly big enough. What I could see now was something like a well-budgeted laboratory from the year 2200. Flourescent lights, glass cupboards, strange machines with digital readouts, beakers, aluminium benches and tables, those weird-ass taps and sinks you find in Chemistry labs. Laptop computers, monitors, cables laid in an orderly fashion. Biological hazard stickers and radiation suits. Fire extinguishers with strange chemical symbols on them. Little posters on the wall detailing safety procedures. And the back wall, a small section of which I looked directly onto, was one huge glass shelving unit filled with identical bottles. Large bottles, 4 litre capacity, each with the same large label. Mostly unreadable from this distance, but I could still make out the warning at the top. It read “POISON! POISON! REALLY BAD POISON!”.

Poison Poison Really Bad Poison? Surely this wasn’t an official hazardous materials rating? Perhaps it was. Perhaps poison came in three grades: Poison, Bad Poison and Poison Poison Really Bad Poison. Didn’t seem likely. Its not the kind of labelling system the scientific community generally tends to employ. But what other explanation could there be? Homemade labels? That would imply homemade products. That would imply that Mr Bertram was making his own lawn products, and labelling them himself, and choosing the words ‘Poison Poison Really Bad Poison’ as a warning on the label. That would imply its time to go, to jump the fucking fence and spend some time seriously wondering if it is worth returning for the party tonight – flowered underwear and jazz dancing aside, I don’t want to get on the wrong side of an unbalanced backyard chemist with a poker.