Very Short Story - A Surfeit of Irony

I should really be writing something profound and thought-provoking here but, to be candid with you all, dear readers, I'm really tired and can't be arsed so I have chosen to share with you another little story written many moons ago for a writing challenge far away in a distant corner of the internet. Once more, it shows my tendency to try and angle things a little differently. Copyright is mine, of course, and if my little note in the original document is accurate, the prompt was "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want". Enjoy. :)

A Surfeit of Irony

He couldn’t say when he’d first noticed the pattern.

That was the thing people tended to forget. He was an intelligent man. Calling himself Dr De’Ath was no affectation – he’d earned the title legitimately through studies conducted at numerous highly considered universities and the surname had been a bonus of lucky parentage. After all, being born Xavier Marvolio De’Ath the third pretty much guaranteed a high level entry in the business of career criminal mastermind.

And he’d been certain he’d make a success of it right up until the first time he met Charles Sterling.

How did the man do it? At first he hadn’t understood. Every time he would capture him, the handsome secret agent with his slick hair and his shiny bow tie, he would gloat appropriately, exposing his plans to make his enemy’s helpless but suitably ironic demise all the more painful and every damned time, the impossibly, irritating, smug man would escape his fate and thwart him. Sterling had cut himself free of the laser designed to drill into the earth’s crust and sink Hawaii using a tie pin. He’d sunk the warship he’d personally designed to capture the Queen of England’s yacht with a piece of grapefruit and an elastic band. He’d escaped from a locked vault that was slowly flooding with water in time to flood the superconductor he’d devised to take over the world’s energy systems using nothing but a mouse and three grams of cheese. He’d seduced at least five of his glamorous, dangerous female sidekicks. The bloody man had even managed to steal his cat.

And it was that, at last, that persuaded De’Ath to stop and think.

He knew he was becoming a laughing stock. It was hard to maintain a good rep as a criminal mastermind when one was continually thwarted in such absurd manners. No, he had to be doing something wrong.

And then he’d realised. Slowly but surely, he’d spotted where the mistake was coming from.

It was the surfeit of irony.

De’Ath was a clever man. He wanted people to know he was clever. He wanted Sterling to know he was clever. And so it was that he’d taken to making sure that Sterling knew his plans and placing him in a position to die ironically because of them. The trouble was, smug secret agents in shiny bow ties being what they were, the delay was always perfectly timed for a slick escape.

And so it was that when his massive death ray was aimed at major cities across the globe and, as expected, Charles Sterling was dragged before him by his burly henchmen, hair still perfect, face filled with expectation as to the revelation of the latest master plan for him to defeat, Dr De’Ath had smiled, nodded, pulled out his revolver and shot him on the spot.

The surprise preserved on Sterling’s face as he crumpled was oddly satisfying.

His evil plans tended to go better after that.