Like a Child

The Joker looked at her with renewed interest. Lee trembled on the floor, unable to move, her fingers and toes tingling unpleasantly.

He looked up suddenly, and waved his hand over her head. From what she could see, he must be looking at the other men in the room. "Get out," he said. "Get out, get out, get out."

They did, leaving a heavy silence behind them.

Lee watched as he stared at the door the men had clicked shut behind them, watched his eyes almost quivering with intensity, never moving. His body was relaxed, though, slumped down as though gravity had a stronger hold on him than on the rest of the world. His neck looked strained without effort, trying to keep his head high in the air. As she stared up at him, his lips started moving.

At first, she couldn't make out what he was saying - couldn't tell if the sounds drifting from his painted lips were even words. Slowly, though, his voice rose, and his eyes grew colder.

"... they all sound the same ..." was the first thing she heard. His fingers twitched. "Everybody sounds the same when they scream ..." He was speaking slowly, deliberately, yet still he stared at the door behind her. She wanted to turn and see what he was seeing, but her spine felt locked into position. "It's not hard to take a life, is it?" he pondered. She thought he may just be talking to himself; she hoped, too, that he had forgotten she was there. "They always beg for life, always, but in the end ... in the end their begging and their pleading all sounds the same ... they all begin to cry, and to scream ... it's not hard to take a life when every voice is the same."

He looked down at her so suddenly she flinched. "Gotham is going mad," he said. "Gotham is collectively losing it's mind, and there's nothing anybody can do to reverse the process ... all we can do is watch, maybe give some more delicate people a push in the right direction ..." He still spoke slowly, carelessly, in a voice she didn't think fit him. She'd heard audio clips on the Internet, watched the News often enough; his voice was not this even, not so ... normal. "All of them ... out there ... wearing their suits and carrying their briefcases ... if you strip them down to the bone, they're all the same. Same wants, same needs. Same voice."

He collapsed into a sitting position, so he was cross-legged in front of her. Uncomfortable as she was, leaning on her side, her shoulder throbbing, she dared not move. She was terrified at his change in attitude. She almost would have preferred it if he shouted at her.

He clasped his hands loosely around his knees and gazed up at the ceiling. "Society raises us all to be little ... little sheep ... God gives us different voices, different skin colours and faces ... teaches us diversity is to be cherished, if we all conform."

He looked at her fully now, his gaze piercing and more intense than it had been when he was talking. His fists clenched a little bit. "I'm just surviving, sweetheart," he said. "Just giving the world the gift God gave me; the gift he wanted me to pass on. God, or Satan, or nobody, or whoever," he added. "I'm something different. Maybe I wasn't supposed to be. But I looked at the world, and I thought, That's not going to be me. I didn't want a desk job, or a job in the wars. I wanted something new. So ..." His voice rose suddenly, and yet fell, into an oily pitch that she could better recognize as him. "I gave myself a new voice!" He placed two hands on his chest and grinned manically. "I gave myself ... I even gave myself a new face!" He started to laugh, sincerely humourous laughter that hurt her ears. Once he calmed a little, he went on, "Because you see, sweetheart, I'm not gonna die one of them. No." He shook his head and relaxed into his previous position. "No matter what happens, I'm gonna die with a different voice in my throat ... with a different wish in my mind. Not to live. That other people will live like I did."

She was terrified, now. She felt like a therapist held hostage. Like he was confessing his life's purpose to her. Why would he do that? And why did he use the voice that tricked her into thinking he was human? Why didn't he cackle, or grin, or growl? Why did he just talk?

These thoughts beat themselves against her skull until she felt like she might burst into tears, or faint. He continued, however.

"The Joker," he said. "is not an alter ego. He is a person. I am. Aren't I?" He smirked a little, but it didn't last. "Something else a little different. Something more original than ... than Joe, or Jimmy, or Jack." He looked at her. "Jack. That's my name. Not very exciting ... not very out there." He sighed. "You must see a little of what I see, doll ... you've murdered. You may not be like me ... but your eyes see a bit differently, don't they? When you killed him, what did it feel like?"

He stared down at her, waiting for a response.

"I ..." she said, her voice breaking. "It felt like ... shutting ... I don't know," she blurted miserably. "It felt like ..." She ran a hand through her hair and fell onto her back, chest heaving, hot tears forcing themselves out of her eyes and down her cheeks. She sobbed, closing her eyes, not wanting to be there anymore, knowing her death was sitting so nearby. "It felt like ... shutting ... shutting something off. I don't know!" she cried again.

She heard him exhale slowly, loudly, and her eyes fluttered open again. She looked over at him, while reaching up to cradle her injured arm. He had his own eyes closed, and was rocking back and forth slowly.

"Shutting something off," he muttered. His eyes opened slowly, and he turned to look down at her, still relaxed. "Like turning off part of a ... a machine?" he asked. When she nodded once, slowly, he went on, "Maybe you're more like me than I thought. Maybe you know what it's like, to shut off a little part of the machine ... one ... by ... one." On the last syllable, he flicked a speck of dust off of his knee. "Not like murder. Like maintenance."

He started to laugh again, more madness seeping into it the longer it lasted. Her heart rate sped up painfully fast, and she found it hard to breathe. Why is he telling me all this? she thought wildly. Nobody knows these things about him ... his name! God, he told me his name! Why?

He slapped his knees and, as his laughter pounded into her brain, a chill ran up her spine.

No, she thought, fear spreading like wildfire through her veins. He wouldn't want anybody to know these things. He's only telling me ... God ... he's going to kill me!