(Author's Note...I've looked all over the Internet for the backstory of how the Joker got his scars, and found several versions, everything from his wife being
disfigured by a car accident, and he cut his own face so she wouldn't feel so ashamed, to a drunken and abusive parent with a knife. I've heard several
versions of torture, (most commonly known as the Glascow smile, and the Chelsea Grin,) in which a victim's cheeks are sliced upward by a blade,to give the victim a huge, permanent 'smile.' Human depravity has a lot of imagination, but very little limits. I am in no way attempting to justify the dark path that the Joker chose
to go down. Life is hardly a picnic for any of us, but we all have to choose how we deal with our pain. Having horrific things done to a person can give a reason, but
not a justification, and not an excuse. My apologies if I offend in saying that...I do like the fact that the Dark Knight is one of the few films that makes no attempt to humanize a monster, or justify what he does. It's quite a refreshing change.
I've looked all over the Internet for the Joker's actual name, and the only one that I have found consistantly used in both the comic books
and the cartoons is Jack Napier. Lest there be any doubt as to where my particular version of the Joker came from, it is based on Heath Ledger's phenominal
performance in Dark Knight. I would recommend seeing the movie, but only with a very strong warning that his role is extremely dark, and a case study in
chilling depravity. It's not a movie for little kids, at all, or those who are affected by dark themes, or violence. I saw quite a few little kids viewing the film, and
found that disturbing. Finally, for my last bit of this very rare rant...Heath Ledger was a human being when he died. He wasn't worthy of worship, nor did he
or his loved ones do anything to deserve the cruel speculations and outright vicious rumors that have surrounded the poor man since he passed away. I don't think
he did anything to deserve dying so young, and I don't know if he did anything to deserve being cannonized. From the very shy way he seemed in interviews, I don't think he would have appreciated either one. Mr. Ledger might have gone to some extreme limits to conjure up the Joker, or he may not have. He may have only had
a bad reaction to some pills and it might have all been nothing more than a very, very heart-breaking accident. Only God knows the reasons, the whys, whatever
last thoughts might have, or might not have been. I don't. Neither does anybody else, including the assorted media whores who surrounded the story like a bunch
of vultures before he was even buried. Regardless of his actions, or not, Mr. Ledger didn't deserve that, and I cringe at the thought of his loved ones having to endure such a painful moment in public. So, if you want to remember him, do so. Post a good tribute on YouTube, say a prayer for his family, make your peace with God, and live each moment while you're here. Anyway, God bless, thank you for putting up with my rant, and reading my stories. And, of course, Mr. Ledger, wherever your soul abides, may you find peace. Thank you for the glimpse. Anyway, onto the story...
He tilted his head to the left, peering at her, his dark eyes narrowed and gaging her reaction with detached curiosity. " Tell me, Doctor, what is it?
What exactly is making you so...all twitchy and uncomfortable, the fact that you're wrestling with guilt over the disgust you have with my scars, or the
..unease you have with my reaction to a situation that should have a sane person pissing themselves in tears?" His voice was a low, languid crawl,
rising and dipping from those scarred lips with maliced glee.
She had gone several shades paler, looking as if he really had stabbed her, and was taking her down for the kill. But, no..he shook off the horrible thought
with no remorse. She was the one who was so eager to pry away the wound that lay festered and bleeding beneath the jagged scars.
"Let's at least drop the pretense, Doctor. Sanity is relative. It's a wide standard that you use to decide if I'm broken enough to need fixing, if my functioning
in the narrow confines of your world are enough to live up to your own ideas of how I should behave. But, that's not sanity. That's obedience. And even as a child,
I was very, very disobedient." He leered.
She looked as if she had swallowed her tongue, as her eyes bulged. Shaking herself to regain the indifferent veneer of proper, and clinical detachment, she dropped his gaze, and took her eyes to the notebook. Resettling herself into the seat, she took the pen to the pad, and sighed. "Do you think that medication...might...help?"
He snorted. "Legal, or illegal?"
She raised a peeved eyebrow in irritation. "Legal, of course! I'm not writing a prescription for whatever chemical enhancement you found on the streets!"
His eyes darkened, narrowed. The temperature in the room seemed to drop with the chill that suddenly filled his eyes. "And what makes you think that I ever
descecrated myself by doing some sort of chemical like the common thugs who cut up my face? Are all of these assumptions that swirl around your head there for the necessity of avoiding having to think too hard, or are they there because you're too scared to? What resides in your head, anyway? Do the voices talk, or yodel? "
Her face had gone from trembling white to raging scarlet in a matter of moments. Shaking, she rose, carefully tucked everything back into the leather satchel, and
swirled on a heel to face him. 'I think our session is done for the moment." She faltered miserably when she saw that alien sadness cloud those eyes again, as he
jerked uselessly against the straps. With a sadistic smirk, the moment was gone, but his voice was still soft and almost forlorn, as he whispered, "It hurts to be probed, Doctor. Remember that."
She shivered, and exited the room in haste, after hearing his parting remark, "And, yes, I would like those happy pills, if you please! Make them good, darling!"
The eerie cackle that echoed from the sparse room seemed needle sharp as she shut the door behind her.
He sighed, with satisfaction. He wasn't exactly sure why it was so amusing to unsettle somebody who was supposed to help him. He wasn't sure where so much
venom came from. Wearily, he allowed his head to flop back onto the mattress, bored, needing to piss, and, if he cared to admit it, miserable. The restraints, though covered with the lambskin so they wouldn't chafe, and loose enough to not constrict circulation, or breathing, would have been irritating, if he could stand being
so vulnerable. In truth, his sarcasm, the manic mask that he had adopted, the smile so wide it cracked against the stitches, the bright, insane laughter that burbled up like poison and spewed his madness to anybody who came near...it was all he had left. It was his only defense against a world that he had discovered had grown so much more dark and cold in a matter of a few seconds, a couple of monsters, and a blade applied to his face. In a perverse way, the newly hacked and permanent smile was a far better defense than anybody could ever concoct against anybody hurting him again. Hell, from the way that even the trained professionals shuddered at the sight of him...he could only imagine what the gawking, sick world outside the ward would do, if and when he was released.
He wondered for a tortured moment, if there was any way in heaven or hell that anything would be left for him out there. It hurt too much to even consider, so he simply did not.
After the hours crawled by slowly, two burly aids came in with scowls on their faces, and stood over him like guard dogs for a moment, as one of them grunted out that he was to be released from the straps "if he was a good boy, and did no funny stuff." The loud knuckle-popping and the vicious way he was hauled to his feet and nearly dumped on the floor left him little room to ponder what would happen if he was a 'bad boy.' He bit back the snide remark about being spanked for another day. His whole body ached from being forced down for so long, and if he didn't attend to his bladder, soon...he shivered at that humilation, and was as cowed as a beaten dog as they finally stepped aside and allowed him entry to the toilet that was carved into the small room's corner. Irritated, he stared over his shoulder, silently waiting for the aids to at least allow him privacy to attend to this. "Either do it now, or do it on yourself later, mincemeat. It don't matter to us."
Sighing, he grit his teeth, turned his back and hastily finished, chafed at the cruel exhibition, and even more humilated. At least they allowed him to wash his hands without making that simple task an ordeal. Shivering in the flimsy material of the gown, he curled arms around himself. "To what do I owe the pleasure of the unstrapping, anyway?" His question was quiet, but coy as he huddled against the cold, grey bricks behind him, peering at the guards warily. From the evil exchange of smirks that the two aids gave each other, and the unpleasant smile he was given, he knew it was not because somebody felt sorry for him.
" 'Seems you had an 'episode' earlier today with one of the docs. They have therapy for whackjobs like you. Your first session begins as soon as we get you there."
"It sounds exciting." He gave them an equally wide smirk. "Please lead the way, then. I am most flattered that they want to help me here."
The aids snickered, and his gut clenched in sharp, painful warning.
"There" turned out to be a long, dark stroll down the twisting corridors of the wings that swung out into ever widening spirals of sparce metal doors and gleaming,
waxed tile and fluourescent lights that glowered down on everything. The harsh glare made his eyes ache, as he bowed his head and shuffled along meekly,
flanked by one of the attack dogs on either side. He said nothing, only reached backwards to tuck the fold of the huge gown under one arm so the back would at least stay shut, and nearly yelped at the sharp pain of their sudden, punishing grip on either wrists. They found it odd that an animal who would attack the lady doctor would have enough sense not to resist. But, they did not see the reassuring, cocky grin that lit his face for a brief moment when he felt the shank still
tucked into the hem of his gown, either. If they wanted to play that sort of game, he might as well play along.
He was uncerimoniously shoved into the 'treatment room' so hard he nearly fell on his face. When he didn't move fast enough to please them, he found himself
suddenly snatched into the air, nearly flipped over onto his back, as he was slammed down into the gurney and hastily strapped down, again.
They simply rolled him where they wanted him, locked the bed's wheels, and left him laying there. Quirking an eyebrow, and fighting down the panic, he
only ventured to mutter, "Seems that they are far too fond of bondage here. Who's there,anyway? Doc, nurse, quack?"
The words were abruptly, and painfully halted by the sudden and vicious rubber gag that was shoved into his mouth. He tasted the horrible tang of latex and
blood as the rubber spreader was plunged deeper and deeper into his throat until he felt the stitches strain and he was nearly in tears. Panting, he turned his head to the side and tried to spit the thing out. He soon found that it was impossible from the vicious, gloved fist that appeared over his face and held it firmly. He ground out
the high whine of pain, shivering as the hand suddenly disappeared, and two faces appeared in his hazy vision. One was the lady doctor, looking pale and almost sick, and the other was a man in a white coat, who gave him a beneveloent smile, and a gentle, condensending pat on the head.
The doctor did not bother pulling his hand away as the patient snarled,gave him a look of absolute loathing and a flinch for his troubles.
"Now, now, Mr. Napier. There's no need for any of this." The voice was a silken purr, elegantly mocking and benign as he smiled. Jack stopped struggling,
gave him a glare that hit like a blow. It was the eerie smile coiled around the rubber that made the doctor's stomach twist. Jack's chuckle was little
more than a muted choke from the thing in his mouth.
The doctor returned his grin with a considering tilt of the head, and suddenly, Jack felt the hands draping over his cheeks again, yanking the strap backwards
like a rider might yank the bridle of a runaway horse.
The patient tried to twist his face away from the unyielding grip, the unyielding straps, was only rewarded by the vicious tug that started tearing his flesh away.
He was flopping like a fish on a hook, fists curling into panicking white-knuckled knots, as his spine convulsed into a massive jerk that would have had forehead touching his knees, were it not for the restraints.
It was nothing less than torture. A shrill, gurgled shriek triggered by blinding, searing pain, held back by the gag that was strained and grinding against the stitches.She watched, numb and stricken, as blood seeped through the corners of his mouth, the sickening choke of muted squeals as he writhed uselessly,
before some of the threads turned scarlet and then broke. The barely healed flesh was splintering open as he twisted his head and mouth , trying and failing again
to escape.
He shuddered, instincts twitching in a spasm the way a cockroach might after being crushed.
It was the last reaction she expected. He wept.
She stared in dismay as the dark eyes crumbled shut, the scars cracking around the corners of his mouth as they drew downward sharply into a cuve borne of agony. He lay heaving, trying to inhale enough air as his violated lungs thirsted for. And he sobbed, the tears leaking in vicious trails on the path of the scars,
mingling with the gore dribbling down each cheek.
With a triumphant smirk, the doctor rose like a god above the wilted, weeping victim, staring down at his agony with only cold silence for a long moment.
"Now, then. Let's try this again, shall we? Are you going to allow me to proceed with as little interference as possible, or will I have to just wait until you pass out from blood loss and pain?" The doctor stared down at him with infinite patience, as he swallowed back the blood that filled his throat, whimpering at the fire lacing
hot across the torn muscles. With no warning, the doctor simply extended his hands, gripped the gag at each side, and with one cruel swipe, tore it free of the clenched teeth. She turned away, sickened at the snap of surgical thread and the scarlet lines that dangled from the corners of his mouth. She heard nothing from the patient but the dying sigh, the tormented whimper because he couldn't scream any more. His dark eyes locked with hers, searing with tears for the moments he lingered in awareness before he finally went limp in a dead faint. The blood formed a pool around his open mouth.
Indifferently, the doctor placed a gloved palm at the pulse point of his throat, and gave her a curt nod. "He's only unconscious. He'll live."
Her storming eyes stared mutely at the twisted form on the gurney, and then back to him. "Why did you do that, doctor?! He's absolutely helpless, and a patient!
How could you just...torture him like that?!"
Her shrill question faded when he bolted awake with a cry. He would have flown straight to the floor if he wasn't still bolted down, as if they really expected him to put up any sort of fight. The remnants of the nightmare still coiled around him, and he panted, slammed eyes shut, tried to calm the pounding in his chest and the thunder of the panic surging through his shot nerves. Shivering miserably, he winced at how cold the room was. They had only draped him with a sheet, and it was hardly adequate. He grimaced when he felt the slimed pool of something sticky and wet against his cheek, and manuvered his neck to view it, expecting it to be
nothing more than drool. It was an embarassing problem he had picked up due to his inability to sleep comfortably with his mouth closed. Clenching teeth from the nightmares only aggrivated the slender threads. He stared in gaping disbelief when he saw the scarlet pool inches from his cheek. He flinced at the sensation of cold
rubber against his shoulder, and hissed in shock to see the small, black round piece sitting so serenely on the pillow.
The gag.
