Snap
Well, I'm BACK!! Typing up Joker stories seems to calm me, yes I admit that is a little strange, but hey! What are you gonna do? This is very slow, After all I just got back to writing. I think theres going to be three chappies for this, it has no beta yet...
Snap.
I ignore the sound as I scratch another minuscule 'h' into the wall. The plaster is pitted with my handiwork I'm stretch into the farthest extent I can manage with my foot bolted to the floor. The skin on my ankle is red and blistered from the chafe of cold metal.
Snap.
He's trying to get a reaction. It's like a silent struggle of wills between us. He knows that if he asks me to look up. I would, but he's just playing one of his little mind games, one of many.
Snap
I've finished the 'A' I start on a 'P'. The dull monotony of my work lulls my mind. The cracked dirty wall in front of me disappears to be replaced by a flickering image. A woman is on a swing set, smiling and laughing. The sun shines on her flaming hair and brilliantly white teeth. She's slightly chubby, but it suits her. Dry grass stretches behind her, a fence in the background with little kids playing soccer in the distance.
I hold onto that image, burning it into my mind.
Snap.
It's slow, meant to shake me out of my reverie. I realize I have stopped scratching at the caulk. I start again, drawing the lines slowly, pressing upon the knife. I feel a light touch on my leg and I look down. One of my kittens is staring up at me with soulful eyes. I reach down to pick it up by the scruff of it's neck. It's King, my favorite out of the four. He growls and bites my finger, chewing on the tender flesh. Carefully, I pry his little jaws away from the digit and run a hand down his back. king blinks lazily at me and starts to purr. Cats are such fickle creatures, like Mr. J. One would wonder why he didn't like them more.
Snap.
This time the noise was sharp, impatient, and angry. Mr. J was not a man who liked to lose. I turned, King still cradled in my palm. Mr. J didn't look up from where he was playing solitaire with his grimy cards, but his face held that smugness which came from winning a game which only he knew about.
I turned back to the wall and started on the next happy. I got to the second Y before he talked.
"How are we feeling today, little lion tamer?" he giggled and laid another card down.
Snap.
"Happy." I intone, my voice expressionless.
Happy, happy, joy, joy. Happy.
"I'm glad you've found a way to keep yourself entertained." I knew that by now he was leaning back in his chair, studying one of his knives.
"I'm not so sure about the use of the knife I gave you. You're blunting a very delicate instrument."
I stopped scratching at the plaster and laid the knife on the table next to me. I stood staring at my wall.
The word 'happy' scratched everywhere, tiny chicken scrawl. I had never learned to read or write, but once I remember seeing the letters on a billboard and asking what it meant. And I can remember thinking, happy, happy, happy. Sounding the word out trying to see which characters were which. The only word that I know how to spell.
Mr. J giggled, his voice knowing at my nerves, but I didn't say anything, just stood staring at my wall, not really seeing it.
Happy, happy, happy.
"Long have you been here little lion tamer?"
"Two weeks." My voice cracks from disuse. It seems like two years. King stretches in my palm, his tail winding around my thumb. I curl my fingers protectively around him.
Silence in the room, not even the snap of a card onto the grungy table. I resisted the urge to look at Mr. J.
A knife thudded next to my head, King gave a little start, and after assuring himself that nothing had hit him, he went back to cleaning his haunches. I gave no reaction; Mr. J must have his little jokes.
Silence, I turn my head slowly. Mr. J is studying another knife, scratching a bit of imaginary dirt from the hilt. I watch him. Studying every feature. I turned back to my wall.
Another knife landed right below my hip, pinning my lab coat to the wall, my body jerked towards the wall as the blade nailed be to it. I didn't look around. Instead I brought King closer to my bare chest.
Mr J. wasn't the best at finding clothes; he brought whatever he could find, mostly off dead bodies. I had tan dress pants clinched tight around my decimated waste, a doctor's coat hung from my shoulders to the floor, a big red stain on the left side of my chest. I lent away from it. Trying not to let it touch my skin.
I was so cold, colder than I had ever been before, and not just the temperature. My body was numb, unfeeling. I drew King closer to my frozen chest and something seemed to thaw. I could breathe a little easier.
I turned my head again. Mr. J was balancing the tip of his knife on his index finger, keeping it vertical.
His face was still something that didn't happen very often.
His make-up was smeared, the black, red and white running into each other, creating little pinwheels of color on his cheeks.
Mr. J was always happy, happy when he was angry, happy when he was surprised. Happy when he was in pain.
I watched dispassionately as Mr. J flicked the knife up and caught it by the blade, all in one fluid movement he threw it, still staring at the columns of cards before him. I watched it flip in the air, hilt blade, hilt, blade, spinning cart wheeling over and over as it headed straight for my chest.
Don't run, let it hit you, let it come. Die. Die. Die.
happy
I sidestepped and tripped over my shackle. My head hit the floor and little spots of color flared up around me.
There was a dull thunk and a soft trembling note as the knife quivered in the plaster.
King was still in my grasp and he gave an annoyed mew. Clawing my wrists he hissed at me and stalked away, his head and tail held high
I looked to Mr. J. He had an apple in one hand and was contemplating it. His feet were on his desk, scattering the game of solitaire he had been playing. I stood up and dusted my filthy jacket off, watching the powder bloom. Me and Mr. J both knew that he wasn't really trying to kill me. Just playing another head game.
Happy happy happy
I watched him take a bite of his apple and glance out the window, his mind on other things, despite the fact that he had just chucked a knife at me. I sighed and picked up one of the fallen cards, a nine of spades. The little spade looked like a spear point.
I tucked the card into the breast pocket of my white coat. I stood, ignoring the throb in my ankle and retrieved the knives that had been thrown at me. It took me a while, the blades were buried deep and I had to work to get them out.
Chunks of plaster came with them, and my bare toes tickled and stung from the white powder that showered down on them. I looked sadly at the wall that I had devoted so much time to. Great lumps were gone, the carefully spaced words ruined. For the first time in three days I felt like crying. But I held the urge in check, Mr J would not like it if I cried. Mr J would not be very happy.
I stared at the knives in my hands. All of them were a different shape but each had the same little Joker symbol engraved onto the blade. I stared so hard it made my eyes hurt. When Mr. J first gave me a knife, he probably expected me to slit my wrist or go for his heart. But I sat back and scratched words onto his wall.
He didn't have a TV. Or a radio, or a telephone. He had books. Very few. A medical book, with some precise diagrams, the cover was speckled with blood, singed and the first half had water damage. The second was a children's story, all the pages ripped out leaving only the hard cover. And last was a plain, unmarked notebook. The spiral was bent and smeared with white make-up. I had never seen the Joker use it, but then again, I had never even seen Mr. J sleep.
King sauntered over to Mr. J's chair and mewed up at him. I wanted to scream out to the little animal, wanted to warn it. Wanted to save it.
King leapt onto Mr. J's lap. I gave an involuntary little shudder. King was past saving. I resigned myself to the little cat's fate.
I turned my head to the wall. I couldn't watch him do it. I couldn't see the life leave that little figure. There was no sound, perhaps the Joker had done it quickly? Not like him. I stared at the little symbols I had chiseled into the grimy plaster.
Happy, happy, happy.
It was easy to pretend that nothing was wrong when I was writing the words. It was easy to forget that I was chained to a wall.
Queenie nuzzled my ear. I suppose she'd be my favorite now.
"Curiosity killed the cat."
Mr. J was always one for a joke. I felt a tear trickle down to my temple. My hand tightened on the knives I held.
A noise filled the room.
Purring.
I whipped my head around. King was on Mr. J's knee. I let out a surprised hiccup, it was just another head game.
Mr. J absentmindedly scratched King on the scruff of the neck. I tensed. With one easy movement he could snap my little kitten's neck.
"Satisfaction brought it back."
Mr. J discarded the apple core and settled back into his chair. He picked at his teeth and looked out the window. There was nothing outside, only a brick wall, crumbling and dirty. But he looked as if there was something fascinating going on.
The apple core rolled picking up dust and flecks of plaster as it went. It hit my foot. There was still a lot of meat on it. I grabbed it and began to pick out the seeds, keeping one eye on the man in the chair.
"You're a funny child." His lips stretched over his teeth as he talked, creating little creases in his make up, "That's what they called me. The funny child."
I stared at the knives in my palms, such small, deadly things. Such power hung over them.
"I wonder if I made them laugh. I wasn't really the kind of class clown you get these days." Mr. J was staring at his palms turning them to catch the light, mesmerized by his own skin. "Now, batsy on the other hand, you can tell he was the biggest kid on the block, loudmouth, attention grabber. Me, I was always in the back of the glass pulling on pigtails. Only people got hurt in my corner. But I never got caught."
Once, I had pitied Mr. J. I thought that destruction was he knew, all he had ever experienced. I learned that lesson fairly quickly. Mr J was strange simply because he wanted to be, because it amused him.
"And then one day I realized that there was no need to put the blame on anyone else, there was no method to madness."
He stared at me, his voice climbing, coming faster, trying to get some message across. My fingers curled over the blades, drawing some blood.
"You always have to stay one step ahead, play the little games with people who can do something but won't. It wears on you. It makes little holes in your mind." He tapped his head.
"These fools, they rebuild this shattered city, gluing the little pieces together, try to make it more resilient, and it works for a while, but it's so much more fun to break."
I threw the knife. It tumbled haphazardly through the air, going wide. It was a terrible throw, but in my starved, weakened state, I was no master and I had never thrown a knife before.
"Oh, that was naughty." Mr. J retrieved the knife from the other side of the room, moving so fast that his abandoned chair rocked, and more cards fluttered to the ground. "But what an improvement, Just remember to keep your wrist straight, it keeps the knife from curving, see?" He whipped the the knives from me and threw one. It hit the chair, burying itself into the cross where the two back panels met. The chair lurched forward into the table. I watched it blankly.
Mr. J leant forward. "We can't have you doing that again now, can we?"
Pulling out an extremely long knife, he slammed my hand into the wall. The bones in my arm shook and I cried out involuntarily.
"Trouble is, funny kids are always the last ones to see the joke."
He slammed point into my palm and through the wall. I let out an earsplitting scream. Mr. J winced at the noise and pulled the knife out again, this time reaching for my ther had. I resisted this time, worming away from him, trying to crawl to the door.
Needless to say, I didn't get very far. Mr. J swung me around, and I started screaming again, even before the blade and gone through my flesh.
But soon the pain came again, and I was left to spiral into darkness, alone. My mind spinning.
So yeah, I know horrible, the Joker was OOC and My character was unrealistic and my ideas didn't flow... Well, just whatever, There's going to be at least two more chapters for this as it's combining three or five ideas.
Review and I might write some more this week. The funny thing is that this story is sixteen pages long and you'll only see five of that. Hehe anyway, onto my monologue of being reviewed:
The amateur writer glanced down at her email box, she sighed, no emails waiting. Gloomy and depressed she stared out her window, looking into the rain. It was a dreary world, in the gray light of early morning the shadows bleached color out of her room and the garden outside. It was all so depressing, so boring. She would go mad in such a world. Her brother was on the opposite side of the house, perhaps she could go and smother him with a pillow?
Or just hold the pillow over his face so no one could hear his screams as she bashed his face in with her book, 'Lord of the Flies'.
She carefully turned her head, not directly looking at her computer screen, instead she glared at it sideways, willing it to show an email.
So when it did pop up a box showing the fact that she had in fact been reviewed, she nearly threw herself at the mouse. Trembling she clicked the little icon and opened her inbox. A bold heading read out on her screen, she clicked it.
'nice!, I liked it! OMG! Joker rules!'
The writer stared at the screen before bursting into tears. It was the single most beautiful thing she had ever read. She felt so... honored. And suddenly the sun came up, drying the rain, and a golden shine eliminated the computer screen casting a halo around the review. Perhaps the new day would not be so bad after all.