Me and the Canteen Manager walked towards the JNR’s office. There was an eerie silence throughout the CVI HQ.
We approached the door, which was halfway open. I pushed it with caution, and it opened up a bit more with a creak.
“JNR?” I said. “JNR…are you there?”
No answer.
The room was dark, with just a bit of sunlight creeping through the curtains…and at the end of the sunlight was the CVI typewriter on the desk.
I began to enter the room. With every footstep I felt like I was being watched.
“I will wait here,” said the canteen manager from outside the room.
As I approached the typewriter I noticed pages and pages of paper in the shadows surrounding the typewriter.
Maybe the JNR went old school and cranked out some blog posts on the typewriter? I thought.
I opened up the curtains and with the bright sunshine now fully lighting the room I picked up the first piece of paper.
This is what I read:
Just chips and no sauce makes Jack a dull boy
Just chips and no sauce makes Jack a dull boy
Just chips and no sauce makes Jack a dull boy
Just chips and no sauce makes Jack a dull boy
and on and on it went…
I picked up the second piece of paper and read even more…
Just chips and no sauce makes Jack a dull boy. Just chips and no sauce makes Jack a dull boy. Just chips and no sauce makes Jack a dull boy. Just chips and no sauce makes Jack a dull boy.
And on and on it went. Page after page. The same words written over and over and over and over again.
“I think I know why he was so eager to get in the stationery cupboard,” I said to the canteen manager…”He wanted to get to your homemade tomato sauce….”
“It is very popular,” he replied.
“I think I should give him a couple of days off…once we find him,” I suggested.
10 minutes later and I was sitting in my office and drinking a whiskey. Still trying to piece together everything that had happened, right here at the CVI HQ over the holidays.
Obviously the JNR had gone crazy without any tomato sauce on his chips, to the point where he went mad and got the axe out of the garden shed…before smashing open the stationery cupboard.
And this “shining” thing the canteen manager was talking about…just what is going on here?
I poured myself another whiskey when my eye suddenly caught a glimpse of a picture on my wall that I knew well, only this time…something seemed different.
I moved closer…
The framed picture on my wall was of a party here at CVI HQ in the noughties, where everybody was dressed in the height of fashion.
It was a party with all of the original CVI staff, to celebrate the introduction of our now famous “3 minute form.”
As I looked closer I saw the CNR in the picture. He had only been working at CVI for a few months, he was still a young lad…an apprentice.
As I looked at his face I dropped my whiskey.
The young lad in the picture…was the JNR!
“He’s always been the CNR, has the JNR,” I said to myself.