Star Bores

Chapter Ten
(REVENGE OF THE SITH HEADS)

Evening at the head office of Independent Newspapers in Dublin.
The galactic emperor Tony O'Reilly is sitting at his plush mahogany desk in a plush mahogany office on the plush mahogany top floor.
It is a bright sunny day in Dublin.
But the prophylactic emperor is brooding.
His black cloak is unfurled about him.
His breath rasps through a black face mask.
"Koh, koh, koh," it says.
It sounds tremendously sinister as breaths go.
Presently there's a gentle tapping on the door.
"Come in," rasps Darth O'Reilly.
The words too sound tremendously sinister the way he rasps them.
It takes a Dark Lord of the Sith to make the most innocuous remarks sound dangerous.
You wanna hear him say: "Pass the sugar please."
Scaryyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.
Anyhoo.
The door opens and in walks Paedophile Ian O'Doherty, a humorist drone from Sector 7-G at Independent Newspapers.
"Ah," rasps Tony Vader. "My apprentisssssssssss. Sit downnnn."
All this was rasped of course.
Did I mention that?
(You mentioned it sixteen words ago - Ed note.)
And you could cut the tension with a knife.
Or a rasp.
O'Doherty couldn't be sure if he was being called in for a pay rise or to be executed.
An odd irreverence swept through him.
"Good morning Lord Vader," he said breezily drawing on a canabinoid. "Is that a light sabre in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?"
Vader shot him a warning glance.
O'Doherty genuflected, sat down and fell silent.
"We have problemssss my young apprentice, koh, koh, koh," rasped Fart O'Reilly. "This James Healy Jedi. He has a sense of humour. He should be working for us. But word on the street, koh, koh, koh, is that Heelers thinks Independent Newspapers in general and the O'Reilly family in particular, are pond scum. Can it really be five years since I first told you to rip off his material? Remember? My instructions were that you must immitate him. You must read his blog. You must write like he writes. Koh, koh, koh. Except for the bits about me of course. Koh, koh, koh."
O'Doherty looked troubled.
"I've been trying Dark Lord," he blustered drawing on another canabinoid. "This week I wrote a vaguely favourable remark about George Bush, to wit that George Bush wasn't the devil. Then I claimed to have friends who were pro life. After that I even cited South Park as part of some interminable pointless anecdote. Nothing seems to work. I still come across as a b-ll-x. Most people wouldn't p--- on me if I was on fire."
Darth Vader's malevolence filled the room.
"It's true," (he rasped), "Nothing seems to work. And you are a bollocks. You steal Heelers' every gentle life affirming insightful idea. But when you write them in your column, you still come across as a mean minded atheistic little shit. Koh, koh, koh."
O'Doherty blanched at the truth, wondering briefly why someone hadn't bothered to edit out the vowels in sh-t.
"We must find a koh, koh, koh, solution," rasssped O'Reilly. "Make yourself charming. Take a lead from those other Heelers immitators currently wandering around Irish journalism in pseudo intellectual drag. Stage a Christian conversion like John Waters. Become a born again conservative like Kevin Myers. Change your dog's name to koh, koh, koh, Paddy Pup. Something. Anything."
There was an awkward silence except for the continuing koh, koh, kohs.
A knock on the window broke the spell.
Darth O'Reilly turned in his swivel chair, rapping his cloak around the axle which annoyed him intensely.
At the window James Healy was peering in at them.
He was dressed as a window cleaner and perched on a window cleaner's crane hoist.
Truly Heelers has been doing some interesting jobs since the Johnston Press fired him from the Leinster Leader three weeks before Christmas 2007.
"Obi Wan," rasped O'Reilly. "You. Here. How? Cleaning my own windows. It's too much."
"Don't worry O'Reilly," shot back Heelers. "I'm not doing a very good job."
(And from somewhere not too far away, the ghost of John Fry, former Chief Executive at the Johnston Press, oh he lasted a good six weeks, allowed himself a wry chuckle.)
The Dark Lord of the Shits was on his feet. His young apprentice unsheathed a light cabinoid.
"When you left me, I was but a learner," rasped O'Reilly. "Or you were a learner. Well one of us was a learner. And one of us stole secrets from the Knorr Food Company to bribe Heinz International to give me the top job after I rode the bosses daughter. But I am the master now. I, Fart Braider."
Heelers just grinned.
"Listen O'Reilly," Ireland's greatest living poet said softly. "I'm gonna use small words so that even you can understand. I've never asked you, or Independent Newspapers, or the Irish Times, or your horrendous little acolyte here, to be nice to me. I've asked you to... go... away."
At which point the crane hoist cable came undone and Heelers plummeted out of sight.
He disappeared singing: "Now I'm washing windows."
(And somewhere the ghost of George Formby had a canniptian.)
The Dark Lord of the Witless and his young apprentice were left standing stunned at the window on the top floor of Independent House. They had no way of knowing if Heelers had survived the fall.
They and you, bold readers, will find out in our next thrilling instalment.