‹ Prequel: The Joker and the Thief
Status: Don't worry. There's another one...
A Serious House on Serious Earth
Burning
The Joker lunged and managed to grab hold of my feet. I nearly bashed my head against the handrail of the staircase as I fell to the ground. Together, we rolled around on the hallway floor, both trying to gain control of the other. I started to wonder how long before the other residents would become aware of our brawl, since we both were shouting a number of abuses and obscenities at each other. I managed to pull my legs up and push the Joker off. Unfortunately, he used my force against me and, using the momentum, he rolled on to his back with his hands locked around my wrists which caused me to roll with him.
I came to a stop on top of him and the Joker immediately wrapped his legs around my midsection, locking me in place. As I struggle against my restraints, the Joker just laid there was a wide smile on his face. “Get off me!” I said after a minute. I heard a door open and close upstairs and I was certain more than one person was looking in on our scuffle. I just hope someone had the brains to call the police.
“I hate to bug about position, sweetie, but you’re the one on top.” The Joker said before digressing into laughter. With better aim than I had with my hand moments earlier, I pushed my head sharply forward, hitting the Joker roughly on the forehead. He let go and I scrambled for the stairs. But he caught me and this time I was pinned to the floor.
The Joker’s makeup was now messy and his nose bloody from our wrestling match. Both of us were breathing heavy. I had no idea what his plan was. I doubted that he was going to killing in the third floor hallway of my apartment complex. There was no punch line, unless the Joker was going for irony. “What’d I ever do to you?” The Joker said, seemingly taking great offense to my last attack. “You can’t blame me for that haircut of yours.” Again he finished his sentence with more laughter.
I tried to head-butt him again, but he easily dodged it, still laughing. Exhausted, I yelled, “What do you want?!”
The Joker quit laughing so suddenly, I was sure anger had taken its place. But he was silent and his face vacant of emotion for a few moments. “What do I want?” He repeated, thinking. “All I've ever wanted... is to have a good time. And to annoy Batman, whenever possible, of course. And to one day murder Batman and defile his carcass. And a pony.”
“And what category does this fall into?” I asked referring to our current state. Where were the police? And where was the Batman?
“Don’t try and tell me you’re not enjoying yourself. Pssh. But this is definitely an ‘annoy Batman’ kind of day.” His smile slowly faded away. “What’s taking him so long…?” The Joker thought out loud to himself. He stared at me looking for an answer. I watched his eyes move over the word engraved on my right arm.
The knife he drew from his pocket reflected in the fluorescent lights of the hallway. I was screaming before the knife cut my skin, this time on my left arm. Again, the pain and panic wasn’t enough to send me into blackness, as I would have liked. I kicked and pushed again his body trying to get him to stop. With my free hand, I grabbed a handful of the Joker’s hair and pulled. Instead, this awarded me with a long but shallow cut across my face. Tears mixed with the blood as they journeyed down my face as I reserved myself to the knife’s slashing.
Abruptly, the Joker’s weight and the feeling of his knife cutting my flesh were gone, leaving behind a sharp but steadily disappearing pain which was soon to be replaced by numbness. A few moments passed before I had the energy to sit up. My arm was covered in blood, which was still flowing from the cuts. The cuts looked random and no words were visible underneath the blood. I looked around the hallway, but there was no one there. I was alone apart from the broken window which looked down on the street below. Pieces of glass covered the floor around me. I wasn’t sure what to do as I tried to pull myself up with the handrail. By the time my balance returned allowing me to stand with support, I heard a number of footsteps climbing the stairs. A moment later, the hallway was full of policemen.
I gave no protest as someone, a young police officer, picked me up gently in his arms and began to carry me downstairs and outside where an ambulance was waiting. I let my mind wonder as I sat in the ambulance, though I made sure it didn’t wonder anywhere near recent events. Instead, it went to my parents. I hadn’t spoken to my mother in over three years. Before my resignation from the mob. I wondered what she thought of my current life, the one she saw through the eyes of the jealous news anchor and annoying photographers. Did she miss me? Or did she even acknowledge in her mind that I was her daughter? Was she happy? Did I care?
Next was my father. My poor father who’s final resting place had been a mausoleum in Gotham Cemetery which had been paid for by the police force. I was only fourteen when my father was killed on duty during a traffic stop. Three months later, his name was inscribed on the ‘Fallen Heroes’ Memorial outside the City Council Building. But in truth, my mother had killed my father long before that criminal did. My father loved her and, perhaps, she loved him at some point. But after he discovered that my mother had cheated, something which I sadly knew before him, he died inside. My father never confronted her about it and she, unaware that he knew the truth, continued the affair even after his death. After that, I started to make a conscious effort everyday not to become my mother.
But those efforts somehow lead me down a darker road than I had anticipated. Regrettably, the road away from my mother was also the road away from my father. Sometimes, I was glad my father wasn’t here to see the mess I had made of my life. My life was still a mess even though my illegal activities had ceased. It seemed the more I tried to make up for my former life, the more trouble I caused for my new one. The Joker was the fuel for the fire which burnt the pillars holding up my respectable life.
The Joker was a different type of crazy. The Joker was aware of the world around him. He knew he was working outside of normal moral and social codes. In fact, that was his goal; to live without rules. But by deciding to live without rules, the Joker acknowledged the existence of rules. He was aware that he worked outside the boundaries of society. So only by a society which sees the lines of right and wrong and which acts within in a moral or ethical code would consider the Joker ‘crazy’. The Joker probably would never be clinically diagnosed as ‘insane’. He just decided not to live within society’s rules. An extreme homicidal non-conformist.
The Joker was an unstoppable force. He was manic and mad; gleefully destructive, like a hurricane tentatively held together inside fragile meat and skin, trying to be a person and just barely managing it. On the other end, trying to save my life in both the physical and metaphorical sense was the Batman. An unmovable object. He was patient and enduring; an incorruptible hunter. And when they meet, that unstoppable force and the unmovable object, the world burns around them. The world was Gotham City, once burning from the corrupted center out but now fires, small but just as intense, dotted the city’s exterior. The world was me, burning both from the outside in and inside out.
Bandages covered my arm and face as I sat behind Alfred who drove though the burning city as though he was unaware of the invisible fires which posed a great peril to those within. But fires could be extinguished, whether with rain or blood, and burnt building could be rebuilt and the damage repaired. Nothing was impossible and nothing irreversible. And as the sun, that had been too afraid to fully show its face in this city, started to turn the grey into black, I smiled. Not out of happiness. But because I knew that one day, the fires would be no more. One day, I could stop running. Stop hiding. Because one day he would win. One day, there would be no pain, no loss, and no crime. Because of him, because he fought. Not for me, but for us.
One day, the Batman would win.
The End
I came to a stop on top of him and the Joker immediately wrapped his legs around my midsection, locking me in place. As I struggle against my restraints, the Joker just laid there was a wide smile on his face. “Get off me!” I said after a minute. I heard a door open and close upstairs and I was certain more than one person was looking in on our scuffle. I just hope someone had the brains to call the police.
“I hate to bug about position, sweetie, but you’re the one on top.” The Joker said before digressing into laughter. With better aim than I had with my hand moments earlier, I pushed my head sharply forward, hitting the Joker roughly on the forehead. He let go and I scrambled for the stairs. But he caught me and this time I was pinned to the floor.
The Joker’s makeup was now messy and his nose bloody from our wrestling match. Both of us were breathing heavy. I had no idea what his plan was. I doubted that he was going to killing in the third floor hallway of my apartment complex. There was no punch line, unless the Joker was going for irony. “What’d I ever do to you?” The Joker said, seemingly taking great offense to my last attack. “You can’t blame me for that haircut of yours.” Again he finished his sentence with more laughter.
I tried to head-butt him again, but he easily dodged it, still laughing. Exhausted, I yelled, “What do you want?!”
The Joker quit laughing so suddenly, I was sure anger had taken its place. But he was silent and his face vacant of emotion for a few moments. “What do I want?” He repeated, thinking. “All I've ever wanted... is to have a good time. And to annoy Batman, whenever possible, of course. And to one day murder Batman and defile his carcass. And a pony.”
“And what category does this fall into?” I asked referring to our current state. Where were the police? And where was the Batman?
“Don’t try and tell me you’re not enjoying yourself. Pssh. But this is definitely an ‘annoy Batman’ kind of day.” His smile slowly faded away. “What’s taking him so long…?” The Joker thought out loud to himself. He stared at me looking for an answer. I watched his eyes move over the word engraved on my right arm.
The knife he drew from his pocket reflected in the fluorescent lights of the hallway. I was screaming before the knife cut my skin, this time on my left arm. Again, the pain and panic wasn’t enough to send me into blackness, as I would have liked. I kicked and pushed again his body trying to get him to stop. With my free hand, I grabbed a handful of the Joker’s hair and pulled. Instead, this awarded me with a long but shallow cut across my face. Tears mixed with the blood as they journeyed down my face as I reserved myself to the knife’s slashing.
Abruptly, the Joker’s weight and the feeling of his knife cutting my flesh were gone, leaving behind a sharp but steadily disappearing pain which was soon to be replaced by numbness. A few moments passed before I had the energy to sit up. My arm was covered in blood, which was still flowing from the cuts. The cuts looked random and no words were visible underneath the blood. I looked around the hallway, but there was no one there. I was alone apart from the broken window which looked down on the street below. Pieces of glass covered the floor around me. I wasn’t sure what to do as I tried to pull myself up with the handrail. By the time my balance returned allowing me to stand with support, I heard a number of footsteps climbing the stairs. A moment later, the hallway was full of policemen.
I gave no protest as someone, a young police officer, picked me up gently in his arms and began to carry me downstairs and outside where an ambulance was waiting. I let my mind wonder as I sat in the ambulance, though I made sure it didn’t wonder anywhere near recent events. Instead, it went to my parents. I hadn’t spoken to my mother in over three years. Before my resignation from the mob. I wondered what she thought of my current life, the one she saw through the eyes of the jealous news anchor and annoying photographers. Did she miss me? Or did she even acknowledge in her mind that I was her daughter? Was she happy? Did I care?
Next was my father. My poor father who’s final resting place had been a mausoleum in Gotham Cemetery which had been paid for by the police force. I was only fourteen when my father was killed on duty during a traffic stop. Three months later, his name was inscribed on the ‘Fallen Heroes’ Memorial outside the City Council Building. But in truth, my mother had killed my father long before that criminal did. My father loved her and, perhaps, she loved him at some point. But after he discovered that my mother had cheated, something which I sadly knew before him, he died inside. My father never confronted her about it and she, unaware that he knew the truth, continued the affair even after his death. After that, I started to make a conscious effort everyday not to become my mother.
But those efforts somehow lead me down a darker road than I had anticipated. Regrettably, the road away from my mother was also the road away from my father. Sometimes, I was glad my father wasn’t here to see the mess I had made of my life. My life was still a mess even though my illegal activities had ceased. It seemed the more I tried to make up for my former life, the more trouble I caused for my new one. The Joker was the fuel for the fire which burnt the pillars holding up my respectable life.
The Joker was a different type of crazy. The Joker was aware of the world around him. He knew he was working outside of normal moral and social codes. In fact, that was his goal; to live without rules. But by deciding to live without rules, the Joker acknowledged the existence of rules. He was aware that he worked outside the boundaries of society. So only by a society which sees the lines of right and wrong and which acts within in a moral or ethical code would consider the Joker ‘crazy’. The Joker probably would never be clinically diagnosed as ‘insane’. He just decided not to live within society’s rules. An extreme homicidal non-conformist.
The Joker was an unstoppable force. He was manic and mad; gleefully destructive, like a hurricane tentatively held together inside fragile meat and skin, trying to be a person and just barely managing it. On the other end, trying to save my life in both the physical and metaphorical sense was the Batman. An unmovable object. He was patient and enduring; an incorruptible hunter. And when they meet, that unstoppable force and the unmovable object, the world burns around them. The world was Gotham City, once burning from the corrupted center out but now fires, small but just as intense, dotted the city’s exterior. The world was me, burning both from the outside in and inside out.
Bandages covered my arm and face as I sat behind Alfred who drove though the burning city as though he was unaware of the invisible fires which posed a great peril to those within. But fires could be extinguished, whether with rain or blood, and burnt building could be rebuilt and the damage repaired. Nothing was impossible and nothing irreversible. And as the sun, that had been too afraid to fully show its face in this city, started to turn the grey into black, I smiled. Not out of happiness. But because I knew that one day, the fires would be no more. One day, I could stop running. Stop hiding. Because one day he would win. One day, there would be no pain, no loss, and no crime. Because of him, because he fought. Not for me, but for us.
One day, the Batman would win.
The End