He tries not to be forgotten. He has marred Gotham, scarred it for the greater good. Well, his greater good that is. He has shouted his name from the rooftops. Laughed through the city's streets until it laughed with him -and stopped afterwards because a certain bat had to be a spoilsport- which ended him up in Arkham where he got another chance to make people smile. He took that chance and crafted with it until he got bored. Guess what he did when he got bored, he escaped.
What does he fear most though? To be forgotten. Who wants to end up with a nameless tombstone weighing his coffin down anyway? Not the Joker.
But..
Why had he already been forgotten?
"What's your real name, Joker?" Batman asks him.
"Tell us your name." They demand in Arkham.
"Who are you?" He asks himself, looking down at his hands.
If they didn't know his name, he'd already been forgotten.
The irony. The man who refuses to be forgotten has no recollection of his own name. He had forgotten himself! He felt like laughing, so laughing is what he did. How could no one remember? How could he not remember? Selective amnesia? No, he doubted it.
He was looking up at the blank ceiling of his cell in Arkham. A room, they liked to call it. A cage, he liked to correct them.
He stared at the shadows surrounding the ceiling and tried to envision staring through a window, looking at a paradigm of raindrops. He shook the thought out of his head immediately. Why would he prefer dreaming of raindrops and their meaningless patterns when he could easily imagine himself maiming the first person who would enter his cell next. No matter how he'd do it. He'd manage.
He closed his eyes and imagined a world where he was king. No, not a king. Let someone else be a king. He'd prefer to be the Jack or something. Or better yet! The Joker! He started laughing. It was a resounding sound that filled the room with lost echoes where they bounced off the walls until they died down. Tragic. So he laughed some more, compensating for his imaginative void of dying echoes.
Jack. He held his breath for a moment. His smile frozen on his lips. Jack. Jack. Jack. So familiar yet so foreign. Must have had a henchman going by that name. So he shrugged it off and giggled to himself, the feeling of yearning heavy on his chest, but easily ignored because he was happy! He was in Arkham! The funny doctors were terrified of him! So he laughed, knowing he would never be forgotten. He was the Joker.
The guy before his time had already passed away. That guy wasn't forgotten. He was simply remembered by people Joker didn't know. Lucky for them.
That guy. He mused. Not a very appealing way of referring to someone, now was it? He would care less if it hadn't been for the other guy who made him who he was today. So he decided to be nice and give him a name. Nothing fancy though. Bob? Too plain. Well, since he was unknown to even the person who saw him in the mirror every day, he should get a fitting name. John Doe?
John. A very very formal gentleman, always eager to tell the next joke. No one really laughed, but he didn't mind. At least, he didn't until his world started to crumble. And crumble it did. It went blurry really fast after the announcement of John's wife having died along with their unborn child. Joker laughed at that. Joy! Such tragedy. He loved a good sob story so he could try and make it worse! But he didn't know poor John. All he knew was the name he just gave him and the life he had lost. Joker shrugged the thought of mister Doe away and took a seat on the cot they called "bed" in Arkham. He sat there for a good five minutes until his door opened. He just glared at the doctor who didn't appear fazed by the unsightliness he must present being the Joker and all. The doctor he recognized because of his coat, but his face was new. The fun he was going to have messing around with the unlucky sod's mind. New doctors were always so much fun.
"Good afternoon, Joker." The doctor started. He was holding a syringe, Joker noted. He hated the man already, he concluded. He hadn't even opened his mouth yet and they were already coming at him with a tranquilizer. He remained silent and settled for just observing the doctor while he edged closer to him as if he was an animal with an intent to kill the moment he felt threatened. Not that there wasn't any truth in that notion though. He did feel corned in a way. So what was a clown to do? Back away and retreat until he hit the wall? No, of course not! He was going to pounce the minute he got the chance. However, with his attention driven to the needle in the doctor's grasp, he hadn't noticed the two guards entering his cell. He gritted his teeth and scowled, an unusual thing for the man who drowned the halls of the asylum in folly laughter on a daily basis.
"I fail to see what I did wrong this time." He told the man, his eyes never leaving the syringe. The doctor stopped moving and held a hand out in front of him.
"I want to try something, but I need your cooperation." He told the clown who just laughed at him with new-found amusement.
"My cooperation or me sedated?" He asked with a smile, his eyes finally straying away from the doctor's gloved hand.
"One or the other." The strange, but confident doctor said. Joker nodded carefully and snickered at the seemingly fearless face of the man in front of him.
"And what is this experiment of yours?" He asked. "I will not agree to something I haven't been told about beforehand." He said holding his hands out in front of him.
"It's not an experiment, Joker, and I would be grateful if you refrained from calling it that." The doctor said sternly. The guards, Joker took note of, were each holding tranquilizer guns. Wait. When had they even entered his cell? He averted his eyes from the dark clad men.
"Have you tried this before?" Joker asked, already knowing the answer. He crossed his arms and took on a sassy expression, his posture changing along with it.
"No, but I assure you. It's not harmful in any way." The doctor started coming closer again, so Joker held out his hands again.
"Wait wait. I didn't agree yet. I need to consent for any treatment, remember, I don't have any relatives you can ask so it's all on me." He told him with a smile.
"I see, but you're deemed incapable of making decisive decisions consisting of any sort of medical nature." The doctor told him, eying him like one would look at a child. Joker snarled and lunged forward, his teeth bared like a delirious animal. The doctor acted fast and quickly administered the sedative, the Joker could feel the sting of the needle. It did little to calm him though, so he started clawing at the doctor who was screaming something the Joker couldn't quite grasp. All he could hear was the blood flowing through his ears and his heart beating frantically in anger. He was offended. The Joker who had the highest IQ of any man currently inside the asylum, if not whole Gotham city, had been robbed of the right to agree or disagree on anything that happened to him within the walls of the asylum and probably even hospitals! He who knew more than any doctor possibly could! That wasn't funny. Even John would be roaring with rage. But John wasn't here. He would need to find him, Joker told himself when he finally felt his body slowing down. His mind started to cloud over and he barely registered the floor meeting up with him as he felt gravity's pull. John was definitely not amused and neither was Joker.
He woke up with a strange feeling and the overwhelming stench of some sort of chemical substance. One he couldn't quite place. Yet. He was lying in a bed. An actual bed, he noted. He looked around, seeing he had to be in the asylum's infirmary. He had yet to find out why, since he didn't feel any different from normal. As normal as he could be, that is. He thought with a giggle.
"Ah, you're awake." He heard a familiar voice. One he hated. He turned towards the source and found the doctor who had so rudely spoken to him. He seemed a bit roughed up, but still unafraid. Joker felt the urge to fix that immediately. "You're probably wondering why you're here?" The doctor inquired to which the Joker only glared. He was restrained to the bed with leather belts and steel buckles. He could easily slip out of them, but he kept his patience for now. "Since mirrors are too dangerous to bring into patients' rooms, I brought you here." The doctor said. He was holding a mirror with its back turned towards him. Joker could only assume what they had done and felt the familiar surge of rage welling up again. He started pulling at the restraints knowing how to escape, but holding back if only to see if he could get any reaction out of the annoying man. It was a futile attempt though. The doctor seemed to be made of stone. He briefly wondered if this wasn't Batman out of costume. But it couldn't be. He knew the man underneath the layers of kevlar.
The mirror was finally held up to him and the Joker took the image in. His green hair. Dyed an ugly common brown. He was fuming now. Even if the dye wasn't everlasting, it wasn't going to get out easily either.
"It isn't much, but it's a start." The doctor told him, apparently not seeing his patient's rage. A start. He said. A start. Joker felt his hands itch, he wanted to kill the bastard this instant. The doctor, however, had other plans. He came up to the clown with a reassuring smile. The IV, Joker hadn't seen earlier, was connected to his arm and the doctor was preparing a needle. Not this time, he told himself as he started the process of slipping out of the restraints so he could at least incapacitate doctor annoying.
The buckles were tight and he was struggling, he didn't even have the time to get one arm out before a chemical induced exhaustion hit him. He fought to stay awake and get out of his restraints, but whatever he had been given. It was working fast. Strange, with his metabolism, it shouldn't have affected him that quickly if at all. He shared a glance with the doctor, silently promising him a painful death before succumbing to the drug.
TO BE CONTINUED