That story has now been rejected.
I shall be sending my profound and everlasting maleficient curses through to them shortly, along with another submission.
In the meantime, since I don't know what else to do with it, here's one of the stories I sent through. It was written a few months before the October election, and was originally intended to go along with an article I wrote on Conspiracy Theories...
And Finally - The Conspiracy You Never Expected
Deep in the gloomy dungeons of the dank basement of a shabby mansion in a minor town in an unimportant country (called
The meeting was opened by a customary manic laugh by the leader, Dr. Ughnor. “Bwa ha ha ha ha ha ha!”[1]he laughed. “Welcome, my felonious friends, my colleagues in conspiracy, my nefarious neighbours … Welcome to the inaugural meeting for the Collective Union of Insanely Evil Supervillains!”
“I don’t like that name!” piped up the Baron von Nonhoffen from the back of the room. “It’s too long!”
“Ja, ja, and besides, it is pronounced CUTIES for short!” said Helga the Horrendous. “It just vould not be good for our reputation!"[2]
“Silence!” shouted Dr. Ughnor. “I called this meeting, and I get to decide what the name is! Anyway, we’re not here to quibble over little things like names. We’re here to discuss our super-secret plans for WORLD DOMINATION! Bwa ha ha ha ha ha![3] We can quibble over little things like names later!”
“Oh, alright,” said the Baron.
“Get on with it, then,” said Helga.
“Very well,” replied Dr. Ughnor, grinning evilly[4]. “But I must warn you, the plan is so diabolically clever, that it would take a genius to figure out. I’ll have to draw a diagram for you. Slave!” (to his assistant, who had been dozing off at the back of the room,) “fetch – the BLACK-BOARD!”
“I’m not your slave!” said his assistant crankily, wiping the sleep out of his eyes.
“Oh, maybe not – but at least I don’t pay you enough!” replied Dr. Ughnor.
“And it’s not a blackboard. You wrecked the blackboard the other day,” said the assistant, “When you used it as a shield in that gun battle we had with the FBI. We have to use a white board now!”
“Oh, very well!” snapped Dr. Ughnor. “Fetch … fetch the Slightly-Off-Blackboard of Pestilence and Death, and hurry up about it!”
When the assistant had returned with the Slightly-Off-Blackboard of Pestilence and Death, the Doctor picked up a felt-tip marker, but, discovering it was the wrong sort, settled to draw diagrams in the air as a way of illustrating his point to the collected villains.
“My partners in crime,” he began, “What I have to reveal to you today is a conspiracy so insidious, so dark and deep and diabolical, that it will surely deliver us the keys of ultimate power…”
“Yes, yes, hurry up!” called out the Baron.
“In short,” said the Doctor, “What I am proposing is that secret representatives from our Conspiratorial Collective infiltrate the Government, and …”
“No good,” interrupted Helga. “The Illuminati tried that in
“Ah!” replied Dr. Ughnor. ‘But you haven’t heard the clever bit yet!”
“Alright then, what is it?”
“Well,” smirked the Doctor,[5] “We will bide our time, being careful to perform everything by the book … and pretty soon, we will have infiltrated into the very highest echelons of power!”
“And then … we will stage a coup, AND IT VILL BE JUST LIKE DER REICHSTAG FIRE ALL OVER AGAIN!” shouted Helga excitedly, jumping out of her seat. She was very excited, and trembling all over.
“No, no!” insisted the Doctor. “That’s not the clever bit. We haven’t got to the clever bit yet. You’ve got to hear the next stage in my plan first!”
Helga frowned like an evil Supervillain who had just been told that she was going to have put her plans for World Domination on hold, and sat down, muttering, “Well, it sounded good to me …”
“And then, when our numbers have grown,” said the Doctor, “We will stage an election! And promise to lessen taxes! And increase jobs! And lower the crime-rate! And improve the quality of our hard-pressed public services! And … And … And we will…”
“Oh, what’s so good about that?” snapped the Baron impatiently.
“Well, it’s just a clever ploy to gain the trust of the people!” replied the Doctor smoothly. “So they’ll elect us. And, unbeknownst to them, once we have been elected…”
“VE VILL CRUSH THEM WITH AN IRON FIST!” shouted Helga.
“AND OPPRESS THEM AND SLAUGHTER THEIR CHILDREN,” roared the Baron.
“AND BUILD A MIGHTY MILITARY FORCE VICH VE VILL USE TO …”
“No, no, no!” interrupted the Doctor. “We won’t do any of that. Not right away, at least. No, first of all, we will have to ingratiate ourselves with the people… We will implement our policies to the best of our ability! And when our policies don’t work, we will give transparent excuses and make long speeches in parliament about how it’s the fault of the other side! And we will go on in this way, until our forces have gathered! And then … and this is the clever bit …”
“Yes?” hollered the Baron.
“Well, I haven’t thought about that yet,” admitted the Doctor, grinning sheepishly and evilly at the same time[6]. “But I’m sure the clever bit will be really clever…”
“Huh. That’s no good at all,” said Helga, crossing her arms. “You’ll just be like another of those politicians! All promises, and they never deliver anything!”
“Well, can you think of anything better?” challenged the Doctor.
“Well… no,” she admitted, and flopped back down in her seat sulkily.
“Then let’s do it!” finished the Doctor, grinning evilly and sheepishly and triumphantly all at the same time[7], “Right. First things first, the public is never going to relate to us unless we have normal names. I’ll call myself… ammm, well, John Howard; you, Helga, you can be Bronwyn – oh, Bronwyn Bishop, and you, Baron, I’ll call you … hmmm, let’s see … Alexander Downer…”
[1] Actually, it was considered customary for Dr. Ughnor to close every second sentence with a manic laugh. For the sake of brevity, this will be edited out from the transcript from here on.
[2] And every girl, even a barbarian girl, has got to look after her reputation.
[3] That one just slipped in. Sorry.
[4] He was very proud of his evil grin; he practiced it ever morning in the mirror. How do I, a humble reporter, know this? I just do.
[5] Somehow Doctor Ughnor was able to smirk and grin evilly at the same time. Another one of his many exceptionally minor talents.
[6] See note 5, above.
[7] Well, you get the idea.
1 comment:
"I suspected you were a bit batty..."
A bit batty? Hmmph!
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