There is nothing quite so peculiarly human, in my opinion, as lying awake at night. Despite one's best efforts, one is not able to shut off one's mind at the drop of a hat. Instead, it often insists on humming and buzzing and denying rest. The experience is so widespread, I think there is a strong case to be made that to be human means you have developed a part of yourself that keeps you up at night.
You can imagine my surprise, then, to now find myself in the opposite position. Although for the last few nights I have been desperate to stay awake, my mind does not oblige. This leads me to the conclusion that the mind is eternally the enemy of the self, and whatever the self wishes the mind will always oppose. But tonight I was determined to win that fight. I would find some way of distracting myself, no matter how unsavory it seemed to me.
So hello again, mate.
The last time we spoke, if I recall correctly, was shortly after I lost my eye. It's still missing, if you were wondering. I'm not entirely sure what happened to it. I did go back to look for it, scouring every inch of that recreation room. Thought somebody might have kicked it under a table or into a corner. But I came up empty. I have a sneaking suspicion that he took it with him. If I ever see him again, I would very much like him to give it back to me.
They gave me a new one, of course. A prosthetic, made of glass or something. I don't like it. It doesn't fit as well as my old one. But the doctors insist that I wear it. Something about "keeping up appearances". As if we were expecting visitors. I suppose you can cut them some slack, though. The staff are more than a little flustered at the moment. That tends to happen when there are murders in your workplace.
I sat up. This wasn't working very well and I still had hours to go. So I stood and paced back and forth three times across my cell. That got old pretty quickly. I went to the sink and looked into the mirror.
Why didn't eyes grow back?
Perhaps I would go to the library and look that up. Nobody was ever there at this hour. Or I could go to the recreation room and watch television. Although there were probably a bunch of weirdos there now. Perhaps I would go out to -
A crack of pure, white light suddenly split the mirror in front of me in half, bisecting my reflection.
Damn it, I thought.
A second, larger crack, opened up. This one ran off the mirror and onto the wall. I stepped back slowly from the sink as more and more cracks, some small and some large, spiderwebbed about the walls, the ceiling and the floor.
Damn it all to hell.
And then everything around me shattered into white light.
Despite my best efforts I must have fallen asleep. I should have guessed because my both my eyes were, in fact, there. I still dreamed with both eyes. Lately, though, I only had the one dream. A nightmare, really, and it always began with the cracks of white light. And the place I found myself in now was either very small or very large. It was difficult to tell, as the only thing in front of my face was the whiteness. And while I could walk about in it, the paleness continuously pressed upon me. Yet the suffocating white light seemed to stretch on forever. It made one feel peculiarly claustrophobic and agoraphobic at the same time.
He was there, too. He was always there, with his purple suit and his sickening green hair. When I looked at him, he turned to look at me. His face was split into a grin, his head and shoulders shaking with wild laughter. But I couldn't hear it. I could never hear anything in this place. It swallowed everything into itself. Even now, I could feel it pressing on me and him, threatening to take us both away.
But he didn't seem to mind. He liked it here. Or at least he thought of it as something like his home. I was only visiting.
I started awake, back in my dark little cell. I sat up, annoyed that I had lost the battle again. Making a snap decision I decided I would go out and walk about outside. That ought to help me stay in the world of the living.
I vainly struggled to force my prosthetic eye into a more comfortable position and thought about my dreams of the white light. I knew they were nightmares, even though they didn't always seem like it. I hadn't had a nightmare in ages. And then I met the Joker.
I left my cell shortly after that and wandered down the long, empty asylum halls. I met no one on my way to the grounds. At one point I did hear the soft notes of a piano seeping down from somewhere. I stopped to listen to the music for a while. It was a slow, haunting melody, and I rather liked it.
Eventually, I stepped out onto the enclosed grounds behind the asylum and took a breath of the crisp, autumn air. I stared out across the harbor at the twinkling lights of the remote city. I sat down on the porch, leaned back on the palms of my hands, and looked up at the stars. The few that were visible, anyway. There was no moon tonight, unfortunately. That would have been interesting to look at.
It was certainly very quiet. I wasn't usually one to appreciate the serenity of a dark, sacred night, but I could savor a still moment when one came along. Especially since recent times had been so … chaotic. My thoughts turned briefly towards the Joker, isolated in his maximum security cell. What did a man like that think about when he was alone?
"Nice night?"
The voice came out of the dark. I dropped my eye down to where it had come from, and saw someone leaning against the wall that enclosed the grounds. He was half-obscured in shadow, but I could tell he was wearing street clothes, not asylum garb. He had a leather jacket and, because this was Gotham, a mask covered his face. It was a dull, reddish color.
"Could be better," I said.
"Heh. 'Course it could. You're stuck in an asylum. Everyone thinks you're crazy, but you're not. Am I right?"
Judging by his clothes and his comment, I was guessing this stranger was not, in fact, a patient. And I doubted he was a doctor either. Which naturally led me to my next point.
"In my opinion," I said, "no one needs an asylum more than people who come to it voluntarily, for no good reason. That reeks of a fractured psyche drowning in cognitive dissonance."
I heard a low chuckle emanating from the darkness.
"You," the stranger began, "have got one hell of a mouth. Did you know that? But you're dead wrong. I've come to your crappy little home-away-from-home for a very good reason."
"I'm sure you believe that."
"In fact," the stranger continued, "it is the same reason why you are here, whittling away the night. And why you came here three nights ago. And two nights before that."
The stranger straightened and took a few steps forward out of the shadows. The lamps that illuminated the grounds shed more light on his clothes and the red mask that encased in his entire head. And to my surprise, I actually recognized him. Somewhat. I knew I'd seen him on the news a couple of times, and that he had one of those funny vigilante names. I knew it began with Red, but for the life of me I couldn't remember the rest of it.
"Well Red," I said, just going with that, "I can't say I appreciate being spied on."
"Ah," Red replied, "but you haven't heard what I've come to say. See, I came to talk to you about the Joker."
Oh. So that's what this about.
"I'm afraid you've got the wrong guy."
"No." He said flatly. "I know all about what happened. What the Joker did. How he ripped out your eye."
Behind his mask I saw his own two eyes flick to my glass one.
"And I actually know how you feel. When it comes to the Joker's cruelty, you might even say I'm the expert."
"Is that so?" I said, "What did he do to you that was so bad? Because unless I've forgotten how to count, you've still got one eyeball over me.
"Even if I told you," Red said, "you wouldn't believe me."
I thought about asking him to try me, but I didn't really care.
"Well, Red," I said, "thanks for stopping by. I hope I never see you again."
I stood and turned towards the asylum doors.
"Wait," Red said, his voice short and harsh, "I'm not finished."
"Weren't you?" I said, sighing and facing him again.
"I have a proposition for you."
"Let me guess, you want to go halfsies on killing the Joker?"
"Oh," Red said, stepping closer and speaking quicker, "don't be so presumptuous. I would be doing the killing. Eventually. You would be more of my inside man. Making sure everything's in position and going according to plan. And you get the pleasure of witnessing his demise. Minimal risk, maximum reward. And -"
"And blah blah blah," I said, ignoring the sudden anger that flashed in Red's eyes when I cut him off, "you know, I've actually heard this one before, and it's not very funny. So good night, Red, and goodbye."
I turned back towards the asylum. But I only made it a few steps before my face was slammed into the wall. Pain exploded in my head as Red's surprisingly strong hand gripped the back of my skull kept it plastered against the rough stone. I felt a droplet of blood seep out of a cut above my left eye and roll down my cheek. Unceremoniously, Red peeled my face off the wall, turned me about, and shoved me back up against it. His eyes were locked onto my single one and they were blazing like the fires of hell.
"Listen, punk," Red said, his tone icy, "that indifferent, sarcastic show you put on might fly with your little asylum friends, but not with me. Got it?"
As if to underscore his point, Red suddenly had a gun in his right hand, and he pressed the cold metal of the barrel against my temple.
"Now, I don't know what you did to end up here and I don't need to. Because no one in Arkham is innocent. I could blow your head off right now and I'd sleep like a baby tonight. So listen up and think carefully."
Red pressed the gun harder into my skull.
"What the hell is the matter with you? You scared, or something? Frightened of what the clown will do to you if you mess up? Is that why you don't want to help me take him out? Because he pulled your eye right out of your head. What did that make you feel?"
I said nothing, and Red stared at me for a very long time.
"Guess it's gonna be the hard way," Red said softly, almost to himself. "I want you to fix this moment in your mind, your life completely in my hands. Every breath you take from this moment on is a gift from me to you. Remember that when I come calling."
And with that, Red brutally thrust me to the ground before melting away into the darkness.
Back in my cell, I sat on the floor with my back against the wall and spun my eye across the floor. I liked the sound it made. A dull, rumbling sort of sound, punctuated by a sharp crack when it bounced a wall. That was the kind of thing that passed for entertainment in this place. And it also helped one to stay awake. So for the rest of the night I skidded my glass eye across the floor, and tried not to think of white light.
