The Dear Leader

The four thugs approached The Throne. Well, what they called The Throne anyway. In reality it resembled an old couch elevated on discarded pallets. It had all been painted a very regal red though.

Their leader, appropriately named The Leader, was sat with his head between his knees. He was shaking as if sobbing, and sounds also a little like sobbing, kept echoing through the hall. Of course he wouldn’t be crying… couldn’t be… He was the leader!

Assuming he must be ill or injured they rushed towards him but as he heard them he stiffened and sat up straight. He choked a little not stifling a sob.

“Are you OK boss?” asked one of the thugs. The biggest of the group in both height and width.

“I’m fine thank you Claude,” The Leader replied, a little curtly truth be told.

The Thugs shuffled uncomfortably and looked at each other. Then, a feeling or statement that can only be described as ‘shrug-like’ passed between them and they turned to leave. As they turned The Leader yelped,

“Wait… please… would you wait a minute?”

They looked at him, confusion in their normally quite harsh eyes.

“I know we keep losing… Wonderboy… Amazingman… Bugkid… I know the keep defeating our evil schemes but,”

“It’s because our schemes our lousy,” interrupted Vincent, the smallest of the thugs who seemed surprised to have said anything. Having spoken, he knew it was now sink or swim, “the things is boss, our schemes are rubbish. We ransom steal this, we ransom that, we kidnap them, but then it’s like we sit around waiting to be caught. We have no conviction,” he paused and grinned while the other thugs giggled at his wordplay, “I mean, we’ve never followed through on any threats. We held that reporter for a week beyond what we said because you didn’t want to hurt him! How are we going to get paid like that? Hell, how’s anyone going to take us seriously like that?”

The thugs all looked to The Leader, his trip trembling and his robes crumpled. He didn’t look much like a leader right now.

“Truth is boss, I think we might have to quit.”

The Leader gasped. “Please,” he said, “don’t go. Don’t go and I’ll tell you everything!” The thugs agreed to hear him out.

“The thing is,” The Leader began,” I don’t think I’m much of an evil genius. I’m not much of a bad guy. I don’t like it, it makes me feel bad. I… well…” He was struggling to find his words. He wasn’t used to explaining himself and he certainly wasn’t used to such emotional honesty. No matter how this went he’d be in need of a nice hot bath (with bubbles) later. He squeezed his hands into tight fists and braced himself for telling the whole truth.

“I just really like having minions.”

The thugs were dumbfounded. The silence deafening. Then, after a few moments,

“Well why didn’t you say so?” said Claude, “we just love having a boss!”

It was the dawn of a new era for all of them. Without the monkey of villainy on his back The Leader was free to do what he did best — Lead! He got them doing this and that and everything else, and without the doubt and confusion of poor leadership the thugs excelled. Of course they had to create schemes to stay busy, but it turned out The Leader was actually quite the humanitarian. The thugs stuggled a little following the path of light and goodness but as all they really wanted was to follow orders it wasn’t too tough.

Together the five of them set up soup kitchens and homeless shelters and even a school over just a few short years.

Wonderboy, Amazingman and Bugkid all claimed responsibility for defeating The Leader at various points in their career. The Leader just laughed at his TV.