Why So Serious?
The front door slammed, shaking the entire house. He was home. The air was thick with tension. Two people sat nervously on the couch, both pairs of eyes fixed on the floor. They were waiting for something bad to happen. Heavy footsteps were heard from the hall. A middle-aged man appeared in the doorway, a bottle of alcohol in one hand. His face was battered and bruised from the many street fights he had been in. His eyes were bloodshot with huge dark circles underneath. Dark brown hair was plastered to his head from sweat. He looked terrible. The man's eyes scanned the room, landing on the two silent figures. He stumbled over to the couch and looked down at his wife and son.
"What are you two doin', huh?"
The woman looked up quickly and locked eyes with her husband. "N…nothing Darling… we were just waiting for you to come home."
"Lies!" the man scoffed, slapping her hard. She flinched and let out a choked sob, moving further away from her husband.
"I bet you and the boy were both talking about ways to escape! Well guess what?" he took hold of his wife's chin and leaned down to whisper in her ear. "You can never escape." The smell of alcohol and stale cigarette smoke filled the air. The woman whimpered and started to struggle against his tight hold on her.
"Stop struggling you bitch!" he yelled. He slapped her again, letting her fall back onto the couch. She clutched her red cheek. The man spat on her then turned his attention to the boy. The boy tensed when he felt the drunken man's gaze on him.
"What has she been telling you boy?" he whispered darkly.
The nine year old boy looked up at him, brown hair falling in his eyes. He quickly pushed it out of the way so he could look at his dad clearly. "She hasn't been telling me anything."
The man growled and slowly walked to where his son was sitting. Eyes widened in fear with each step his father took. The man looked down at his son with a disgusted expression. He slowly set his beer bottle on the glass top table. A moment of silence passed and then he lunged at the boy. Strong hands wrapped tightly around the young child's neck.
"Tell me, you worthless piece of crap!" He started shaking him backward and forward, making his head shake from side to side. The boy desperately scratched at his father's hands. He needed air. He was going to die. Suddenly his father let him go. The man staggered backwards, clutching his head. When the pain subsided he spun around and glared at his wife. A frying pan was in her hand and she had a look of anger on her face.
"Leave Jack alone!" she shouted. She raised the frying pan but before she could land another blow on top of her husband's head he had tackled her to the floor. The frying pan was snatched from her grasp and was thrown across the room where it hit the wall and fell to the floor with a clatter.
"Who do you think you are?!" he shouted, making her scrunch her face up in fear and because of the smell that came off him. It was a big mistake. "What the hell is that look for huh?!" He didn't wait for an answer, instead he pinned her to the ground with one hand and used the other to punch her hard. He punched her everywhere. She cried out in pain and quickly shoved her knee into his groin making him let out a strangled cry and fall over. She didn't waste any time. Leaping up, she dashed to the kitchen frantically looking for a better weapon. Something glittered from the corner of her eye and she ran over to see what it was. It was a large kitchen knife. She grabbed it and ran back through to the living room. When she ran through the doorway she was expecting to see her husband still writhing in pain. But he wasn't.
"Mom behind you!" The woman glanced at Jack and tried to turn around but was too late. The furious man grabbed her by the back of the neck and by the wrist. He squeezed her wrist making her drop her weapon. He bent down to pick it up, still holding her so she wouldn't escape. The knife was suddenly pressed to her throat.
"You're gonna die tonight, Baby" he whispered venomously. The terrified woman looked over to her son for help, but for some strange reason he just stood there. The crazed man looked over at him too. He then slowly cut across his wife's throat hard enough for it to be painful but not hard enough so it would kill her right away. He never broke eye contact with the small boy in front of him. He pushed her aside and made his way over to Jack. Jack looked at him with an unreadable expression on his face. The older man noticed this and he also noticed that his beloved son's mouth was in a thin line, not smiling.
"Why so serious?" he asked quietly. Jack looked at him in silent confusion which quickly turned to surprise when the man pushed the knife passed his chapped lips and to the corner of his mouth. "Why so serious?" he repeated, moving the blade closer to his skin, making a bead of blood drip out of the small cut. He paused, waiting for an answer.
"Let's put a smile on that face." He then slit a deep gash in the corner of his mouth. It didn't stop there though. The knife was dragged up Jack's cheek, making a sort of half smile. Jack cried out and tried to push his father away from him but couldn't. The man snarled and pushed him up against the wall.
"Now Jack… that's only half a smile isn't it?" He swiftly moved the knife to the other side and did the same thing. Jack squeezed his eyes shut. The weird thing was that he didn't feel sad or angry, it was painful, but in a pleasurable kind of way. After what felt like hours of sawing into his face Jack's father finally let him go and he crumpled to the floor. Jack felt blood streaming from his new "smile".
He saw his father return to his mother. He grabbed hold of her lank brown hair, yanking her head back. The knife that was coated in her own son's blood was put to her throat again. She looked up at her monster of a husband through cloudy eyes. "Goodnight Sweetheart." She was gone. He smirked and turned on his heel heading to the front door, never looking back.
He was gone. Jack was left alone. Shakily getting to his feet he looked in the mirror that hung on the wall. He thought about the strange emotion he had gone through when his father had been hacking at his face. Why did he find pleasure in his pain? It just didn't make sense… but he had liked it. He looked over at his mother's corpse. Why did his heart pump faster with excitement all of a sudden, and why did his veins fill with adrenaline?
He no longer felt like Jack. He felt like someone else. Someone more sinister. His eyes fell upon the empty beer bottle on the table, but then saw something else. A pack of playing cards lay next to the bottle. The top card was a joker. Jack smiled, making his other "smile" widen. He wanted to feel more pleasure like that, and he wanted to inflict pain on others for some reason.
Picking up the card he walked out of the house. Strangely he didn't care about his mother anymore or his father or anything else for that matter. He just wanted to feed that weird sensation inside of him. He knew he was no longer Jack Napier. He was a new person, a stranger person, a stronger person, a person the world would fear.
The Joker.