Derranged
Chapter 9- Jay
"A dirty no-good
Down to the bone
Your worst nightmare
Can't take me home"
When an eligible suitor came to call upon the princess he chose to marry, Jafar, the Sultan's head advisor, had the guards drown the prince after throwing him off a cliff. Aladdin survived only because of the hidden magical lamp he had stowed away. He got lucky that time and his exposure of the wicked Vizier led Jafar down a path of self-destruction. He stole his way to power and gained the powers of a Genie but then found himself a slave to the lamp, imprisoned by the same street rat prince that he failed to kill that night by the cliff.
Jafar spent a great deal of time trapped in that lamp before King Adam plucked him out of the Cave of Wonders. He ordered Fairy Godmother to remove Jafar from the lamp and strip him of his Genie status. Jafar was just a normal man again and became one of the countless faces in the forced exodus to the Isle. He watched with dismay as the shimmering dome encased the island. He looked around to see the lamenting faces of his new neighbors.
Jafar had not learned anything from his years of confinement to the Isle. He still craved power and he didn't care whose life he had to destroy to get it. He began to steal and trade, marking up and marking down in order to secure proper profits. No matter how he twisted tales, he could not sell to people just as poor as he was. He was trapped in a perpetual cycle and there was no way out of it. His thievery led to his capture by the Imperial Guards when Jay was 16. His hands were cut off and he was left to rot in his dilapidated bungalow.
Jay recounted all of the decisions that had led him to this point in his life. He sometimes wished that King Adam had left his father to rot in that lamp. Jay realized that if that happened, he would not exist and he was fine with that, mostly. Jafar was a wicked, cruel man who was never satisfied with what he had; he always craved more. His avarice led him to this place and he took out his anger and frustration on the only thing he had that was actually his: Jay.
Jay was fitter than his father, agile and strong. He was the frontrunner and thief for his father's shop all of the years he was growing up. He gave up this life of crime when the Imperial Guards came to town. He knew that he couldn't run forever and there's little places you can hide on an island that is cut off from the rest of the world. Fakim seemed like a decent sort as long as you followed the rules. Jay saw first hand how the Imperial guards enforced the rules. Public flogging of Queen Grimhilde was brutal. This cruel Queen who held beauty above all else was completely shattered when she put her hands to the open wounds on her back. She gripped the torn fabric of her dress and watched as the blood stained the expensive threads. The scars would never heal properly on the Isle and no amount of makeup would take those away.
Jafar kept the business running while Jay thought of another way to make money. What few friends Jay had called him a coward for choosing to give up the life of thievery, but he did not need another example of law enforcement. He liked his hands exactly where they were.
Perhaps this was a chance for Jay to explore new avenues of creativity. As he guessed, Jafar was not accepting of Jay's new lifestyle but he was unaware of how badly his father would take the news. Jafar beat him within an inch of his life, shattering the bones in his right leg and destroying Jay's left eye. His father left him a with a permanent limp and only one good eye that day. Jay thanks every day that he still had his right eye. He watched with satisfaction as Fakim dragged his hysterical Father into the Isle's center market two years later.
The stone courtyard in the direct center of the island had been used for public humiliation and punishment long before the Imperial Guards arrived and this was the spot where they would punish the guilty even today. For the crime of thievery, extortion, and various other nefarious crimes committed in the quest for power, Jafar had his hands removed with the warning that his next offense would cost him his head. He hunched over at the spot, tears running down his face and onto the tattered dirty garb he wore. He watched as Fakim placed his hands in a basket and secured them to a clip on his belt. Jafar looked at his bleeding stumps and began to scream in despair. Each of the onlookers watched with glazed expressions. Pain and suffering were everyday occurrences here on the Isle. The only thing noteworthy about that day's public punishment was that this handless, feeble, balding old man was once the most powerful sorcerer in all of the land. He was abandoned by everyone, especially his son.
Now at age 19, Jay sat in a bungalow of his own. He had not heard from his father in years, nor had he actively sought him out. Perhaps he bled out in is own home, or maybe he attacked the guards in an attempt to elicit a mercy kill. Jay didn't concern himself with these thoughts now. He just wanted to live in peace, but that peace that was about to be shattered as a sleek figure in black appeared behind him. The pale mask the figure wore glinted in the moonlight.
