Terra Firma

Joker

"Happy Birthdaaaaay to meee Happy Birthdaaay to meee..."

"SHUT UP BOY, 'FORE I MAKE YOU SHUT UP."

The melodic sound of glass breaking, flinching as I topped my pitifully made cupcake with stale fruit loops, the most colorful substitute for sprinkles I could find in the tiny trailer kitchen. The cupcake was just something I'd unwrapped out of a hostess box, and it was topped with marshmallow fluff instead of cool whip or whatever the rich people used on cake, but my pride and joy of that operation was the dusty red little candle I'd found rummaging around for breakfast that morning. I don't know where it came from, but it was like a beacon of hope on top of my poorly constructed cake, and I lit it proudly by myself, smiling up at it.

I waited until my Mother left her position on the old floral couch and headed off to her bedroom, where she would sit in front of a mirror and apply makeup for hours. My Mother had several cycles of moods. Most often she would yell and scream and pull my hair and spit in my face or throw things at me. When she was too lazy or on the verge of passing out, she would tell me about how I looked like my father and I was stupid and ugly and would never ever amount to anything. When she was in a good mood, she'd smile and tell me I was going to be a famous movie star, that I was handsome and so much smarter than she could ever be.

But those moments were very rare, and her stinky breath told me it was just the funny liquid in her wine bottles talking for her.

I now held my cupcake very carefully, setting it on the grimy windowsill. I paused to watch a few minutes of cartoons on the tube. Just once, just one little time, I wanted to see the coyote catch the roadrunner. Just once!

I turned back to the cupcake with the burning red candle atop it, watching as some of the wax drip drip driiiiipped off onto the white, sloppily applied marshmallow fluff.

I waited a very long time, until I saw her.

She kept looking over her shoulder, as if she was afraid someone was following her. Then, she went to work, some strange ritual in the patch of wildflowers growing across the way. She would inspect each one carefully, sniff them, pluck some. Sometimes she would come to the place crying. Her red hair would be a mess and she would tear grass from the roots, throwing it into the air. I could not hear her, but I could tell she was screaming.

But today my mystery friend was happy. I knew she went to the normal school. I was 'home-schooled'. My Mom was supposed to teach me, but mostly I taught myself. I read a lot of books, because I could run away in them. But sometimes I wanted to go to the normal school too. But Mommy Dearest said it was a bad place, with drugs and sex and rock and roll.

I shrugged, smiling and watching the girl who would never ever look back at me.

I took a deep breath. Today I would go outside with my birthday cake and introduce myself. Today I would say hi to my stranger friend. I would not be afraid. I would share and be nice and tell her it was my birthday. I had Daddy's old fishing knife in my pocket and Mommy would not catch me...

I peered through the window now, for the little girl was screaming. A man came into to veiw, a scraggily looking heavy man, taking her by the ear and yelling, dragging her away. A high whining noise grew in my head, getting louder than anything else. I stared at my candle dripping red on white and instinctively reached for the knife in my pocket.

"No!" I yelled in protest, banging on my window. I could've sworn she looked over for just a moment, and this made me even more desperate, "LET GO! LET HER GO OR I'LL CUT YOU!"

I heard my Mother's voice screaming to shut me up and 'stop acting like a lunatic' but it was faraway.

The little girl's hands were reaching over to my house. To me. I reached back.

But she was dragged away and I was dragged away at the same moment, and all I felt was fists and glass and bad words and all I tasted when I licked my lips was blood.

I crawled over to the window when Mom left, but the scene was empty. I stared at my cake, licking more blood off my cut gums. Blood tasted like pennies. Sometimes when I was hungry I would swallow pennies.

I stared at my cake on the window, leaning oddly, covered in melting wax from the cheap candle.

"Happy Birthdaaaaay to meeee...."

One small lungful of air, and the flame died.

I never saw the girl return after that, and left that part of my life behind.

(until you stumbled on this shit hole called GOTHAM and saw her in the alley HA)

I never celebrated a birthday after that either.

I woke up, angry to find I was alone on the mattress, punching my pillows and feeling sick from lack of sleep or food. Angry with the fact that when I usually had a bad dream, she was there for me to yank her hair and wake her up and talk her ear off about it, and she would nod, no matter how much the words in my mouth ran together.

It had been a few days, I was going nuttier than usual, and my dreams and memories were getting worse and more vivid.

I stabbed my wall, muttering angrily.

"Happy fucking unbirthday to me. UNBIRTHDAY, GODDAMMIT!"

I screamed, throwing that bucket at my desk, sending papers to the floor. I rubbed my eyes, staring at the empty side. Ivy's side... growing confused as the breath in my lungs hitched and I felt that stupid stupid stupid crap spill from my eyes again.

Angel

When I was young... very young and without a brother, when my Father had just begun taking those business trips, and my Mother was not so crazy, she took me to one of the parks in winter.

I loved snow, it was so soft and white and blanketed all the dark parts of earth--all the reds and blacks and worms and loathesome critters crawling among grass. It was earth's renewal, Mother Nature's blanket. It froze all the bad so things could wake up good again. I remember twirling happily, sticking out my tongue to catch fat flakes in my mouth. My Mother laughed as she watched me dance. I stopped when I heard desperate chirps near a thicket of bushes, peeking in to find a bird, of all things, chirping on the ground. Its beak was open, its beady little eyes sad.

I heard my Mother's crunching footsteps on the ground beside me.

"A bird." I said, "But what would a bird do here? All the others go away in winter, don't they?"

"This bird is a different bird," My Mother's voice smiled above me, "she does not follow others."

"Why is she on the ground like that?"

"She's dying."

And she was. The fluffy white of the ground was covered in tiny, perfect circular droplets of red, trailing around her. It looked like ink on paper, or tears on bedsheets.

"What happened?"

"She must've cut herself on something. She's bleeding to death."

"Can we help her?"

"Yes. But not in a way you'd expect."

"What do you mean?"

"We have to kill her."

"No. No." I said, "That's not right."

"She will die slower if we don't, Angel. It's the only way to end the pain...."

My Mother's footsteps grew far off, then returned. I looked up, and she was carrying a large stone, dusting light snowflakes off the top, like powdered sugar. I looked up at her, horrified.

"It's better this way Angel. Mad birds don't deserve to die in such a sorry state."

THUMP.

She dusted off her reddened hands. I could only cry.

When I stared at Ivy asleep in that room, after being instructed to do so by the man who insisted I call him Two-Face, covered in a thicket of leaves, her blood-tinted hair trailing around her terrifying yet pretty face against the plain white pillows, I could only think of that bird.

Jay

I walked along the first floor hall, sniffing out the kitchen.

I need a drink need a drink need need need need it

My hands were shaking, my toes tingling. My tongue was flopping heavily in my mouth and the roof of my mouth tasted sour--that taste you get when you wake up in the morning as a college student and then go to the grocery store because your freezer just magically ran out of Hot Pockets or Pizza Rolls and the cupboard is bare of Ramen, and you have to walk down the isles of Gatorades and Coca-Colas and Root Beers all smacking you in the face, beckoning to you, making you want to just take one of the 32 oz bottles off the shelf and chug the whole thing down like a madman.

Except this was much worse. This was a 21 year old male who'd been drinking since he could multiply without using a chart, a 21 year old male who'd suddenly had that taken away and hadn't had access to his comforting friend for a few days, days that felt like endless eternities spiralling into one another like colors in a Picasso painting.

I leaned against the stony wall outside of the door to "Boss'" room, feeling sweat trail down my temples in tiny rivers, probably making patterns like skinny tree branches.

I heard a foreign sound within the room and paused, listening.

A sound everybody knows but sounded so unbelievable coming from that room that it was like I was hearing it for the first time.

Crying.

The emotionless, freakishly apathetic, monster of a clown was...

I frowned, twisting my head away.

Drink drink drink you have to find a drink

I began to stumble down the hall again, but bumped into something in the darkness not far off from the room.

I fell back grunting, and two hands picked me up, shaking me.

"Be quiet!" A man's voice hissed in the penetrating darkness. I recognized it as the dark-skinned brother who'd thrown me in his office a few days back. I could sense a very tall presence above me as well, and smelled leftover pizza, freshly microwaved, radiating from a plate in his hand.

"We made him some food... he ain't been eating too well."

I got up, dusting off my clothes, "What do you care?"

"Whatchu mean? We been with him since the beginning."

"The beginning?"

"Sorry. Did we stutter?"

"No. No... It's just..."

I turned, jumping, for even stranger sounds were coming from the room. Strange babbling and growls, screams and laughs.

The plate the tall man held dropped to the floor and they moved quickly.

"Another attack?"

"Yup. Boy, we'd better help him break this case. And soon. Gambol, you coming boy, or are you gonna stand there looking stupid?"

I looked at the two men shrouded in shadows, and it dawned on me. No matter how many times this guy insisted, no matter how many times he shut himself off or seemed to act alone---he had help. He needed help. He needed to get this case solved, otherwise he'd blow his top and go off on this town again, worse than 4 years before.

I would be the one to help.

Cosette

"So, what's the fact of the day?"

He cleared his throat, twiddling his cane in expert fingers at the bar. He'd been scribbling a riddle on a napkin, smoking through his ever present pack of cigarettes and smiling at me. I smiled back.

I knew he was Happy. It was shocking, at first. But slowly over the past few days I'd begun to piece everything together.

Car accident. Addiction. Smiley face. Scars. Smarty-pants.

I didn't know how to let him know, though. What if he wanted to forget about me? What if he killed me on the spot like those other girls? I wanted to keep this mysterious, fast building friendship. I wasn't going to ruin it with past dreams and nightmares.

So I kept quiet. An easy thing for me to do, as you know.

"Did you know..." He began in the way he often did, "Did you know that epilepsy was once known as a disease for prophets and genius? Joan of Arc was said to have had it, along with Alexander the Great, Socrates, and Napoleon Bonaparte."

"Interesting."

"Always is, friend. Always is."

I hadn't seen too much of Two-Face, as he called him. He was still mad and apparently kept to his own section of the large underground ex-brothel. As far as I knew, things were just dandy with me and Mr. Green here, and I was content, healing quickly. The two of us traded knowledge like this, hours at a time at the abandoned bar, surrounded by the ghosts of bottles and flirting women.

I yawned after a very long while, realizing I was growing tired.

"The yawn is psychologically contagious. Do you know why?"

I laughed. This guy's ego was as obvious as his charm and attention-to-detail, "No."

"Back in ancient times, a tribe was to know it was safe to sleep from the leader sending the signal: yawning. And the tribe would respond to let him know they got the message."

Angel

There was a foreboding presence growing in the room. I had not left, I was too afraid and fascinated by the woman

(the bird the blood chirp drip)

I was housed with. The gentlemen with a face half from hell would bring me food and offer me anything I needed, so I was alright where I was, patient and unwavering. He would never say much, but stare at me strangely with those scary blue eyes. But I would turn away persistantly, I had no time for that man. I wanted my friend back, I wanted Jay to come find me, I wanted to be at home in peace and quiet...

and, above all else...

I just hoped Homer was alright.

I was incredibly worried for the little guy...

But I couldn't think about that now, for the plants cradling the dangerous woman were now shifting with a slight rustle, like a springtime wind running through a forest, and shrinking... leaving.

My eyes grew as her ghostly skin came into veiw, and her perfectly still frame began to move.

I bit my lip from nerves.

I backed against the wall, undoubtedly horrified but still could not tear my eyes from the woman a deep-rooted and dark shadow of my brain called 'role-model' and 'inspiration'.

(Oh no oh no oh no)

"She's awake." I said aloud softly.

She did nothing, said nothing.

Only yawned.