Hi guys! Sorry for the delay, but I decided to wait for some incredible writers' comments: I try to give a soul to every chapter, and so it's very important to know what people think about them. Anyway, this one is a little longer: I'm not completely sure about the translation, if you find mistakes please let me know it. I think that freedom is an important topic in Joker's vision, and a difficult matter for Batman. So, thanks for your support, and let's go to the story.
My Freedom
There is no sky, in Arkham.
Neons are punches of light along the corridor, but the cell stinks of dark and disinfectant. Joker sits against the farest wall, arms knotted by the straitjacket; his eyes are fogged by the downers, but his smile shines and hurts as always.
-He's completely sedated, but anyway we must move carefully- the doctor explains next to the black knight, just beyond the bars. He's pale, his eyes reek of broken glasses. Nothing intoxicates as much as the shadows of other minds. -Yesterday he pulled out the canteen attendant's eye with a spoon.-
Batman doesn't answer, staring at the man behind the door. He knows that it doesn't help, it will never help, to lock him away from the sun and treat him like a beast because, despite what Joker himself loves believing, to be a dark jester you need first to be a man. To break every rule and every faith, you need first to have believed in them.
You can't tear another man's heart out, if you don't have it.
The Bat goes near, face illegible. Maybe, this is the turning point. Maybe, this night won't end in anger and blood like all their dances. Maybe.
-Joker, do you hear me? I have to ask you some questions and if you answer them, maybe the jury will revise your case. But I warn you, I will not play tricks.-
The jester's head jerks upward, with mechanic grace. They cut his hair and took away the purple jacket, but his face is still too white, too surreal. And his mind can hide itself in places that most people don't want to see. -Oh, why a guy can never have fun with you, Bats? My tricks are always so entertaining.-
Joker laughs, a short braying laugh, looking at the black, impressive figure waiting for his answer. He can understand why a single glimpse of that mask, a quiver of that cape can terrify a lot of criminals and a lot of their victims; but not him. He knows too well the threads around the Bat's heart; and that, if you pull them rightly, you'll make him bleed.
The knight sighs. -All right, cooperate or not, I'll ask you those questions.- Batman clings to the bars, teeth gritted. -Who are you, Joker?-
The grin widens. -I'm the dream you won't dare to confess, I'm the desire you won't admit to have, I'm the horrible word trapped in the throat.-
I'm the darkness that sprouts with every light.
-If you don't talk you'll have all the time to muse over it, but remember that I won't let you scamper around the city spreading caos any more.- the knight's voice is hard.
-And what will stop me, sugar?-The jester lazily bent his head.
The vigilant looms over him, like a tower. And it's so easy to make a tower fall.
-Because you're pent, Joker. You're a prisoner.-
The man in the cell hides the face in the shadow; another laugh, the one that awakes the monsters in the soul, rises in his throat. His rival doesnt' understand, he's never understood. He doesn't understand that madness is simply a life not stained with guilt, and that to be truly free you have to die a little. He doesn't understand that are precisely he and his dull friends that choke in the spider net of their moral and their justice, in a shell that isn't made for them and cuts the flesh. That they, especially he, chase a humanity which will never exist, and don't see that the path is littered by bones.
The laughter gurgles in the dark, filling it, vibrating on the crack at the exact center of every human.
-Am I a prisoner?- he smiles. -Oh no, Batsy. The prisoners are you.-