Chapter Three: Agent of Chaos
Strawberry: The third time I saw the movie in theaters, I dressed up. There's a few pictures on my profile, I believe. I now own the movie, though I'll admit to having illegally watched it via interweb… However, it feels so much better to be able to have it playing all day long, over and over again. It makes me really feel good. I don't know. Does that make you crazy? But anyway, sorry for the delay...school starting and plays starting can monopolize a person's time... however, please do enjoy!
"Miss Williams," the Joker was hissing. "Do you like…to ice skate?" Fana eyed him calmly. Her arms were entirely immobile at the back of the chair. She could have simply stood up and walked away. She could get someone to untie her hands later. All that mattered was that she was completely free to escape at any moment, and he did not seem to care or perhaps notice. Whichever of the two things it was, she decided to simply stay put—as if she had anywhere to go as an alternative. Then again, perhaps her shoddy one-room apartment would feel a lot homier after escaping the clutches of a man wearing makeup. Who knew?
"Do you?" he said again. She looked entirely at ease from where he stood. He noticed her shivering a little but he deducted that it was only from the cold, for he had seen enough of her to know that she did not conform to the most human feelings of fear. Perhaps he would be bored after all with this hostage. She seemed almost…too much like him. That was it. Not human enough to really be any fun.
"I haven't been ice skating since I was young," she answered at last, and he almost gave in to a sigh. He stared into her amber eyes. His own narrowed as he looked for some kind of emotion in her. He was nowhere near being able to read her thoughts, and that was unusual. Fana looked back at him, her eyebrows beginning to knit together at the middle of her forehead as she sat and wondered what he might have planned for her—what he might have been planning right then, as he gawked at her. Suddenly he twitched and shook his head so fast that she could hardly see. With a deep groan, he straightened up and turned his head to the side, looking out to a section of the ice skating rink that might have once been a food court. There were three men in clown masks sitting inside, the glass windows of the area broken, and the door ripped off so that the entire room was visible. The Joker cleared his throat rather quietly, but it carried through the empty icehouse loud enough to catch the attention of his henchmen. All three of them perked up, and one of them rose slightly from the table, ready to serve. He pointed a finger impatiently at something in the room, and Fana watched the clowns turn and look behind and around them until two of them seemed to catch sight of what the Joker wanted. They scrambled to the door with something in hand.
Fana watched a bottle of water fly through the air. It was a plastic disposable bottle, one that would usually have a label but did not. He nonchalantly stretched out the fingers of his left hand, exposing his palm. He was standing on the ice, where balance was scarce, but he looked as though he had been walking on the slippery surface all his life as the bottle crashed into his hand with a crackle of the plastic.
He took a gentle step on the ice, and he shivered with unkempt glee as he noticed Fana cringe slightly away from him, as if she were afraid that he might go back on his word. Oh, he had no intention of hurting her. All of those…people…they just thought he was completely insensitive to life…well, they finally had something accurate. Hee hee, ha, mmha…People, people, people, please use those brains! It's enough to play with a victim. I don't have to kill them unless they become…a roadblock… He unscrewed the cap of the bottle of water and gave it a shake once it was open so that some of the water splashed onto the ice beneath his feet. He grinned. "Out of dust we were created; to dust we shall return"… "Fana banana," he said, snickering as he sensed her argument against the term. "You're not a roadblock."
In a swift motion, he tilted his head back and dumped some of the liquid into his mouth without touching the mouth of the bottle to his lips. "So," he said, and the water was almost audible as it slipped down his throat. "Why has it been so long since you've ice skated? I hear it's good for the muscles. Those skaters are strong people, you know…what'll you do when you're in a difficult situation and you can't defend yourself because you never built your leg muscles and can't deliver a good kick?" He locked the air in his mouth and watched for some kind of stirring in her stomach or mind, any kind of indirect movement that would determine some kind of discomfort.
She gave him nothing.
"Sometimes…" His ears perked and he raised his eyebrows, suggesting she continue. Her throat was dry and scratchy, though she had only been in the icehouse for half an hour at most. "…You just don't get the opportunity to do certain things," she said quietly. She stared off into the corner. The Joker was reading her. He watched at her eyelids fell so that her expression was half-lit. He knew that she was shutting down her emotions. He himself had to fight the inner desire to stop the barrier she was creating by yelling or finding something sensitive to whatever caused her to flinch away. "I don't know you or anything about you. Nothing about your past or what…whatever. I don't know if you ice skated when…"
Fana stopped and stayed silent, refocusing her attention to him. She was not sure if she had any reasoning for thinking so, but she was left wondering if she had taken a step too far into his past. She did not mean to imply that she was going to pry into his life and try to understand him. She knew that there was most likely no hope of that. The goal was to make it out alive, and in the back of her mind, there was no doubt that he would stay true to his promise, no matter how out of his mind he might have been.
She noticed him stretch his jaw. His lips were pursed together, the red paint accentuating them eerily. He tossed his saliva and she winced ever so slightly. There was a slightly demonic edge to his eyes, though they were rolling around, scanning the room as if he were expected to come across something he had not previously noticed. For a brief millisecond that, when ended, she could not believe having actually considered, she wanted to sympathize with him. There must have been something wrong and disturbing that had affected him. Perhaps it was the story of his mother that he could have even been lying about. But perhaps it was true, and if it were the case, Fana could not help comparing her own life to his, though it made her feel guilty and out of her own mind.
Something clicked in the Joker's mind. Fana could see the light bulb flash on over his head as he thought of something that she dared not try to guess. "You!" he shouted suddenly, glee echoing between his vocal chords. She jumped in the chair, startled and made worse by the realization that her movement had caused her to skid a few centimeters backwards on the ice. Water in hand, he galloped over to Fana, immersing himself in her blank, white expression like a dear in headlights. "Fwoom!" he shouted, clapping his hand against the bottle he held with the other. More liquid spilled onto the floor, this time splashing onto his purple suit and Fana's ankles. He smirked at the water droplets running down her left leg, knowing it must have been cold. "Fana! Darling, I know something about you." As he ran he gave a jump and let himself slide across the ice, making sure to make it directly into her path so that he could grab the back of her chair and pull her along with him as he slid. "I know something, I know it, I know it, I know it, you sneaky little sidekick!" He giggled as he skated around the rink on his shoes, the frozen air biting as his makeup-smeared face devilishly. He was power. He was on top of the world as he twirled around a hostage, hostage, hostage, in a skating rink, rink, rinkety-rink…
Fana was falling forward, stopped only by her arms secured behind her in the chair. She bit her tongue, flexing each muscle she could to keep herself from falling onto the ice if he decided to drop her. He very well might have, if she continued circulating weight in his opposite direction. She shut her eyes, slightly dizzy as he swung her around and she could hear him cackling in the empty rink. He smacked his lips together and hummed, thinking of his demon father, his lifeless mother, his one chance at a normal life…all had been sucked away: and was there any possible means of making the entire idea funnier! Solitude. Any transcendentalist would have argued that solitude was a beautiful thing and deserved to be honored by those who did not have the gift. Perhaps it was beautiful. If humor and beauty were interchangeable, that is…"Round and round and round they go." He threw the water behind him as his ran along the walls, laughing at how chaotic it all was. "Where they stop, nobody—"
The string that had been fastened around Fana's hands audibly ripped apart and she went flying into the center of the rink, skidding along, emotionless as she could barely comprehend anything having happened. "Oohha, haha, hahaha!" he laughed, envious of her unexpected adventure. He enthusiastically threw himself to the ground, scrambling forward on his knees toward Fana, whose face was buried on the floor, though she looked to have been doing her best to roll over. He slid up next to her, and rested his head on the ice, shaking with a moving laughter that came from his lowest cavity of being.
Her wrists were numb. She was not sure if they were even there at all as she frantically tried to lift herself to her feet. She was dizzy and now had a splitting headache due to the way she had been smashed against the floor. She knew her eyes to be open, but was not certain that she had not gone blind, as she was looking at a thin sheet of white with sparkling bugs flying all around her peripheral vision. She could feel something warm trickling onto her face, and her ears were roaring painfully, though the one thing she could hear above it was laughter. "Oh, no, no, come here…"
The laughter died away. Fana felt the cold transfer to her back and she had to shut her eyes once more as the ceiling became the ceiling again the floor was out of her sight. She muttered a gentle, "Ow," that carried musically to his ears. Ow? She wasn't crying. His hands were curled around her upper arms as she lay there with her eyes closed and blood running from one side of her head. Her expression was dormant, as though she had died. He squinted curiously. Her chest was rising and falling steadily and he could feel her pulse strongly even from her arms. With some kind of hopeful stare, he noticed her eyelashes batting together soothingly, as if they were a song with the tune of a lullaby. He was reminded of the reception or party or ball…he thought of the elevator and how it had been so hilarious to watch the people in the room do their best to look sturdy when they were positively leaking fear. Everything was funny! It was all a joke; the pain was a joke, the weapons were a joke, the fear was a joke, the girl was a joke, the scars were a joke… even the scars, yes. Even they themselves instilled wild glee within him to know that he had beaten humanity. He had triumphed over pain and sadness, regret and fear.
And then there was the elevator that made his stomach squirm as it rose to where more humor lie. He wondered vaguely if a man could really beat humanity after all if he were still breathing, if his heart still beat, if an elevators lift made his stomach dance. Could he really have beaten humanity if he could not tear his eyes away from Fana's daft simplicity in aura? The squirming of stomach, the blind fascination…humanity.
Her eyes opened very slowly and rested directly and instantly upon him. He stared back with no trace of a smile, peaking her interest. He was distressed in his curiosity, his seriousness of character. It was all made worse when her eyes had opened. There was an immediate feeling that overtook him, that seemed to lighten a sort of bind across his chest that he had not noticed. He felt overly compelled to exhale deeply. Relief. Was there some reason for him to be relieved? Fana saw his expression contort and heard a growl escape the pit of his throat. He looked almost sane for a brief moment. Sane and caring or perhaps even worried. Then he sneered and hissed in some sort of stressed anger at something she could not figure out. Before she had bore no curiosity for him, believing it impossible to figure him out. Yet there she was, trying her hardest to figure out what he was thinking or what had made him the way he was. The scars… Up close she could see how much the wounds must have hurt. She could scarcely imagine having her face thoroughly carved, and if he were truthful, she could rarely stomach the idea that his mother had been crazy enough to do it to him in the first place.
"Your head is empty," he whispered, pulling off one of his gloves and rubbing his fingers on her face to remove some of the blood. He lifted his hand and examined the stains of red that had been left from it. His fingers and palms were already covered with white, chalky paint from the morning. Mixed with the blood, he felt somewhat…
He felt like himself. That was what mattered, it was all that was important…it was what was funny!
He put a hand on the back of Fana's neck. Half-heartedly, she waited for him to pull a knife to her eyes and retell the story of his scars, but he did not. He simply lifted her into a sitting position and offered her his forearm for her to grab onto as he pulled her to her feet. He no longer was looking in her direction. For a series of minutes, he looked glum and dismal, as if he were a little boy, watching his mother prostitute herself to pay for both of their lives…
As soon as she had thought it, he had planted a smile on his face. "Heh…look at you," he said with mock impression. She could barely keep her vision steady let alone attempt to figure out what had happened to her or where she was bleeding from. "This is what happens when you can't see the funny side. Listen, kiddo…we were sliding around, getting dizzy, and then bam! You get hurt. But why does the entire mood have to change? If you have fun, you're having fun! When something…unexpected happens, it's just not necessary to make such a drastic change in emotion. It gets you all…twisted and out of your mind. It's wrong…humans are all wrong, Fana. I can teach you all about that." He was carting her out of the rink and into some area of concession where there was a line of benches against each wall. He set her on one of them and disappeared around the corner for a bit. Fana looked after him, half wondering where she had been stuck. She knew well that she had been taken by the Joker. She knew well that she was in an icehouse. What she did not know was that he might have been something worth her intellect or wonder. His story…over the blasting of her ears, she yearned to hear his story.
"You gotta look at the irony of things," came his tainted voice from wherever he had gone. Fana could tell that he was approaching. Soon enough, she noticed him rounding the corner towards the bench with a dripping rag in his hands. He twirled it around in his hands, moving it this way in that to make it dance in front of him. He snapped it twice and repeated the process. "Hey, hey." His breath blew over her face hotly. He slapped the damp rag against her forehead and started dabbing at it. He then tapped her head and nodded to her, hoping to give her the idea that it was her turn to fix herself. "Caught on," he croaked when she took hold of the rag and began cleaning her cut on her own. "Don't feel bad, Fana. Everyone needs to be taught. And listen…" He sat down next to her and ruffled her hair, finally destroying the mess of a hairdo she'd had sloppily done. Her ginger hair fell chaotically to her shoulders. She did not appear to have noticed. "Listen, we all make mistakes. Look at me! I just threw you on the ice when we were having fun…chaos is what a mistake is. Mmha…I'm an agent…of chaos."
Fana still felt woozy, but could easily detect his devious smirk as he stood, laughing, and turned off the master switch the minute he reached the doorway. Curiosity is chaos, he thought, snorting with laughter.
Curiosity is chaos, she thought, massaging her temples. She wondered how long she would be there with him before she could no longer contain herself and had to know what went on in his head and what the reason was.
PS. I never update unless I get reviews xD