Young Writers Society

8 hours ago…

Joker comes out of the pine forest with as many pine cones as he can fit in his arms. Since the incident, he has been depending on them for sustenance. It has not been enough even for his slender body but at least the nuts harvested from them taste good.

The cold wave has been adding to his struggle. He might have frozen to death if it wasn’t for a coat he nicked from a drunken boatmen in the docks. Not that he is an expert in weather patterns and foresaw the wave coming a week in advance. No, he just liked the purple tint on the fabric. He looks odd wearing it over his blood-stained Arkham uniform.

Joker drops the cones a couple feet away from a slumbering campfire. He looks off into the firmament. It seems that the sun will set soon. In restless steps, he goes back into the forest, returns with some more cones and drops them in the same place. Some of the falling cones bounce off the grounded ones and scatter away. Unfortunately, the campfire has died out completely now. Joker sighs. It has been difficult to maintain a fire because of the cold. However, starting one hasn’t been too much of a problem, thanks to the flint pieces he found in the shore. That’s still only half the work. He spent the afternoon collecting dry leaves and twigs. Everything he found he stashed in his warehouse.

Having piled up a good amount of leaves on top of the ashes, he crosses two curved twigs over them. But they collapse and he has to rearrange them. He does so with a groan. Then he takes a flint stone and lines his knife up for a brush at the corner.

CLANG!

He lands the stroke but nothing happens. He goes again and—

SCRAKTCH!

The corner of the flint burns a hot red, with curls of smoke erupting out of it. Joker smiles at the sight. He places the heating stone under the twig-cross, shuffling some of the leaves over it. The leaves ignite. He engrossingly watches the flames spread to the rest of the kindling. Once the process is complete, he bursts out laughing, like he just thought of the funniest joke regarding a fire.

He has also set up two logs near the campfire, differing in size. The bulkier one is for harvesting. He has it placed vertically in front him. Picking up two pine cones, both of them light brown with shades of green, he sits on the other log.

The campfire and the logs are positioned in a way that gives him a clear view of the horizon. The sun looks like it’s dipping its toes, testing the waters. It also has an entourage of clouds. The biggest of them are as tall and grey as tsunami waves. But they’re standing still. Thinner and more scattered sprays are passing them by. The orange sun—half-hidden by clouds, obscured by the fog and in the process of drowning—and the river’s murmur seem to have his undivided attention. But the aesthetics of it do not move him. He is only just keeping an eye out for boats or fleets.

He smashes a cone onto the vertical trunk with a thud. Pine nuts pour out. He hits the cone until it is empty, and repeats the process with the other one. He then gathers the nuts in the log-surface, making his hands into a cup. “Here comes the jading part,” he probably thinks as he groans. “Peeling the nuts one by one.” The smarter move would be to peel them all first and eat later. But Joker barely has the patience—he’s too hungry for that. So he peels one nut and throws the kernel into his mouth and chews. Peel. Throw. Chew. Repeat.

“That looks frustrating,” a voice says.

Joker looks up at a silhouette blocking his view of the bight. It’s the Man in Black. He wasn’t there a second ago. “Move aside,” Joker says.

“If you’re so anxious about getting caught, you should’ve left the city like I advised.”

“I don’t care about getting caught. I’m upset that he isn’t here yet.” Joker throws a kernel at the Man in Black. He doesn’t react and it bounces off his coat. Joker shrugs. “Suit yourself.”

The Man in Black reaches into his inner pocket and pulls a revolver.

Joker makes a funny face. “It was just a kernel! It took me a good ten seconds to peel it. If anything, I should be the one pulling a gun!”

“What? It’s the gun you asked me to bring, you crazy jester.” The Man in Black tosses the weapon, forcing Joker into a difficult catch. “I don’t understand why you need it. You’re already armed.”

“I ran out of bullets.”

The Man in Blacks frowns. “What did you do with them? Did you fire any? Don’t you know there is a checkpoint beyond the forest?”

“See, what you’re doing there… it’s called catastrophizing. You should really see someone about it. I recommend Dr. Quinzel. She can get on your nerve sometimes but mostly she’s helpful,” Joker says as he peels more pine nuts.

“I can’t believe this,” the man says. He speaks as if he was a disappointed parent.

“Don’t worry. I’m insane, not a fool. I didn’t fire any bullets. I just buried them somewhere in the sand.”

The man shoots Joker a look. “Now why would you do something like that?”

“I was bored.” Joker brushes off the peels from the log, having eaten the last of the nuts. “But I guess I don’t have to worry about that anymore, now that you’re here.” Joker looks past him. The sun has set, making the campfire the prominent source of light in the shore. “I just had the craziest idea.”

“Yeah?”

Joker scratches his skinny neck. “Imagine if we sat by the fire and exchanged tales. You ever do that?”

“I don’t. Not much of a storyteller.”

“Well, me neither! But I’m bored. What do you say?”

“I’m not here to stay, Joker.” The Man in Black turns around to leave, even though there’s no boat in sight.

CLICK…

Joker has cocked his revolver and is pointing it at the man’s back.

“I wouldn’t be crazy enough to give you a loaded gun,” the man says without turning.

“No, you wouldn’t be. But this isn’t your gun at all.”

The man’s curiosity compels him to turn back around. It’s true. Joker is holding a different revolver after all, his own.

“But you lost your bul—” The man chuckles in realization and gives a shake of his head. “Ah, you mischievous little--”

“And I wouldn’t be crazy enough to bury my bullets.” Joker smiles like a sly fox.

“Alright, I will stay for a while.” The Man in Black continues to shake his head as he sits down. “Crazy jester…”

Joker gives some of the pine cones to the man. He dismantles the outer shell with his bare hands and extracts the nuts. Unlike Joker, he peels four or five nuts and pours the kernels all at once into his mouth. Such patience… It makes Joker grit his teeth.

“I like your hat,” Joker suddenly says, still pointing the gun.

“What?” He stops chewing.

“Your hat. I like it.”

“Well, I hate it.”

“Then give it to me.”

The man squints. “Are you robbing me, mate?”

“Of course not! You hate it, so I’m just taking it off your… head.”

“I’m flattered, but I can’t give it to you. It doesn’t belong to me,” he says as he dismantles another cone.

“Who then?”

“Why do you care, Joker?”

“I don’t.” Joker scratches his neck again. “I just think it’s a nice bowler and it’d… you know, help me make a good impression, when he comes.” Joker chuckles—it’s one of disappointment. “If he comes, I mean.”

The man frowns.

Joker folds his arms upon his knees and drops his head. “I know what you’re thinking. Just how crazy am I, right? Very crazy, I must say. The most exquisite kind of crazy. I don’t even know if you’re really sitting there.” Joker pinches himself and shrieks. “But I’m not a fool. I know he’s not coming here to have some pine nuts and talk about life. No. He’ll come here to fight. It’s our thing, you see? We’ll fight and it’ll be the most perfect thing ever. And even if it’s not, we’ll try again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again…” He goes on.

“Snap out of it,” the man demands.

“And again, until it’s perfect.” Joker is trembling and sweating.

The Man in Black stares at the jester and sighs. “How about this: I’ll lend you the hat.”

“But there is a catch, isn’t it?”

The man smiles ruefully. “You’re a quick-learner.”

“I suppose one has to be… when one’s dealing with the devil.”

The man stands up, towering above the fire. Shadows cover his eyes and his mouth. The only parts visible are his angular cheekbones. “Do not mistake me for the devil,” he sermonizes. “He does not share my patience. The devil would have pulled that gun off your slender fingers with mere a thought, melted it with his gaze and poured it down your throat, all before you ever reached the conviction of aiming at him.”

Joker leans back and points an index finger. “See, that would have spooked me,” he says, “if I didn’t know that the devil was possessive of his hats. That details puts one off.”

“I never said it was his.”

Joker glares.

“Right. You’re no fool.” The man rubs his temples.

The fire begins to sway uncontrollably even though the wind has remained stable.

“You’re not doing that, right?” Joker says. His eyes glimmer as the flame gains an unnatural level of vibrance.

“I am,” the man says as there is an explosion of light between them.

“Wait!”

“I stayed for a while, didn’t I? I got work elsewhere.”

“You didn’t tell me what the catch is!”

“It’s not much of a catch. It’s just that I’ll be back for the hat, when you won’t need it anymore.” Embers rise out of the fire, form two trails and begin circling the Man in Black. The man closes his eyes and spreads his arms like wings. Soon enough, the ember trails swirl around his arms too. He begins to levitate. “I must say, it has been interesting knowing you,” he says with a sense of finality. “I’m sorry for what I’ve made you do.”

Joker never believed in apologies. “Are you even going to give me the hat?”

The man raises an eyebrow and bursts out laughing. He laughs and laughs, to the point where it’s not clear whether he’s actually screaming—not unlike Joker himself when he’s at the peak of his lunacy. The embers get brighter, as if in reaction to the man’s squeal, and reach a level of luminance that’s hard to look at, thus impossible to describe. It dazes Joker. He tries to cover his eyes with the back of his hand but it’s not enough. The light just seeps through his skin; he even shrieks thinking his finger are burning. Then with a zap, the light disappears and the man with it. The campfire also retains normalcy.

“Did that just happen?” Joker wonders. He notices a bowler hat resting in the sand. But it looks purple now, instead of black, almost exactly matching his coat. He picks it up and takes a good look. “If the bowler is real…”