Short Story Collection

The Joker Card

Each baby born gets a card that represents what they will be like in life.

My name is Jest.

I was given the Joker as my card.

"Oh, you must be sooooo funny then!" No, shut the fuck up and listen. I'm an anarchist and everything that can go wrong goes wrong around me. It's insane. I like it, despite everyone telling me I shouldn't.

Basically, I was always the outcast all the time growing up and they tried to suppress what I really was inside. That made it worse. I had counselors, but I lied to all of them. That's how I figured out how to go through life. Lie. Keep to myself. Hide my secrets.

"When you lie all the time, you must trip up once in awhile." Well, you're not wrong. However, I got those "trip-ups" done and over with in elementary school. I got better, and fast. Once people started believing my lies, they spread them themselves. Made my job so much easier.

Counselors wrote me off as perfectly sane.

Parents didn't question anything I did because "I actually turned out to be a good kid."

Teachers trusted me.

Kids my age tended to avoid me anyway, so I didn't bother with them.

I was able to make it through all my school years without many problems. Well, not many they could trace back to me. Anyway, to the present day...

****

"COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP!!"

"WE'VE GOT YOU SURROUNDED!!"

Their screams were muffled, but still rang true.

Indeed they did have me surrounded. Good job pigs. *Clap Clap* I, however, have a tunnel. I crawled slowly away from the hatch, which was hidden in a place that would take them ages to find.

I grinned as I slowly crawled my way to the exit hatch that was located outside of the city. Once I reached the spot, I climbed up the ladder and opened the hatch. I had made it away once aga-

FOOM

A search light turned on above me, illuminating the whole clearing I was in. I looked up, covering my eyes with my arms, and saw at least two police helicopters. Then a whole squadron of police officers came out of hiding amongst the trees with their guns pointed at me.

"PUT YOUR HANDS UP!! NOW!!" One of them screamed. I slowly lifted my hands into the air. I watched as my old... friend you could say.

"Commissioner, so good to see you..." I said cooly. "I haven't seen you since last fall..."

"You were the one who pushed me," he replied as deadpan as he could.

This man had been on me since I first got arrested in 7th grade. There wasn't enough evidence to point it out as me, obviously. So I got off scott-free. We've been in this cycle ever since. The last time we had seen each other face to face was when I shoved him off the roof of the police station.

He had only broken most of his bones, but he would live. I ended up sending him some white-lilies when he was in the hospital. Of coarse, I had to put in a Joker card to make sure he knew who sent it and to rub it all in.

I took a few steps towards him, all the guns continuing to follow me. Then something pinched my neck. Twice. My movement began to slow, I reached down and felt what I realized was a tranquilizer dart. I dropped to my knees and to the ground. I watched as the Commissioner started to step towards me and my vision went black.

****

I woke up later sitting in a cold, metal chair with my hands tied behind my back. The lights were bright and as my eyes adjusted, I figured out where I was. The interrogation room.

There before me was the stainless steel table and the two-way mirror. The door to the other side was to my left of the mirror. I looked down and noticed my feet were also tied to the chair. And my torso. I couldn't move.

I started trying to move the chair as my breathing and heart rate started going up. I clenched my teeth together, trying to figure out a way to get back my mobility. My mind started going a million miles per hour.

get out- get out- gEt OuT- get OUT- Get aWaY- Get OUT oF HeRE- My brain just kept running that train of thought and wouldn't find anything else to focus on. I just kept struggling in the chair.

I was jolted from my panicking mind state when the steel door clicked and swung open. Commissioner sauntered on in, with a smug grin that burned my insides. My face contorted into a snarl. He sat in the chair on the opposite side of the table and slouched down with his left arm draped around the back of the chair.

"I can't believe this day finally came...." He said to me in the most relaxed tone I've ever heard a person use. "I wouldn't believe it if you weren't sitting tied up in the chair in front of me."

I made a sorry excuse of a try to lunge at him, it barely even tipped the chair. My snarl increased with disgust and hatred. He sighed and drummed his fingers on the table.

"Of course, I have to give you this option, for the morality questions and regulations," he continued as he stood up and moved around to me. My face went into a confused look. He leaned against the table. "You could be put away for- god knows how long- or, you could join the force. Help take down other threats to our safety."

I looked down at the table. Me. On the force. Helping others? No. Never. These people haven't done anything for me. Why should I help them? I pursed my lips and turned my face back up to Commissioner, glaring at him.

"I would rather rot." Then he started... laughing? My eyebrows knitted together. Why? Why was he laughing?

"Oh, thank god," he gasped between breaths. "Thank GOD. I wouldn't be able to STAND it if you had agreed. Finally, FINALLY. You're going to be put somewhere where you can't do anymore harm. You're going to be gone for GOOD!"

He kept chuckling as he gestured toward the mirror. He seemed to be beconning someone in. The door clicked and swung open once more. A medium-sized figure in full body armor, including a face mask, walked in. This wasn't like the swat team armor I had seen. It looked, other worldly, like the kind of thing you would see in a future dystopia movie. It had a rifle strapped to it's back and a stick on it's side.

"Thank you so much for taking him out of this world, Warden!!" The Commissioner had tears of joy streaming down his face. Warden, I guess that's their name, nodded. They pulled a remote-looking thing from their pocket and pressed a button. A light-blue, swirling vortex appeared on the wall opposite of the door.

Warden walked over to me, grabbed the back of my chair and dragged me over to the vortex. My vision was flashed with white and then black as I was thrown into the vortex and into the unknown.