Cows Hurt More Than Love

General Chyangra was not feeling happy. Despite being the youngest general in the history of the Indian Army at age 16, he felt woefully inadequate as his mother still had to sign on documents for him. He walked towards the negotiation room as she scolded him.

“Did you eat a proper breakfast, Chyangra?”

“Yes.”
“Will you eat a proper lunch?”

“If I don’t kill myself before, yes.”

“I’m letting that one go. Have you got everything you need for the big negotiation meeting?”

“I hope so.”

“Stand straight!”

“You’re causing me to slouch like that, you know.”

“Well, what sort of general are you then, if your mother makes you slouch like that?!”

General Chyangra sighed a large, loud sigh that wafted through the corridor like a soft wind blowing through a funeral no one attended.

“Turn here!”

General Chyangra’s mother sounded like a vicious thunderstorm causing the pallbearers to avoid burying the coffin and rush indoors to have some tomato soup instead.

“Turn, Chyangra!”

General Chyangra turned not because he wanted to but because it would make her shut up, and also because that was the direction he had to turn towards anyway. He refrained from talking back because it would lead to conversation. It annoyed him that refusing her directions would mean hurting himself. It made it seem like he was following her orders, even though he was simply doing what he would have done anyway.

“Now, are you sure you’ve got all the papers you need? Quickly check them once more before you go in there.”

General Chyangra didn’t check them even though he knew he should. Even if there was a problem, it was still better than satisfying her. Hopefully she would learn a lesson and let him be from now on. He walked in, leaving his mother angrily thinking it served him right if he forgot something. Hopefully he would learn a lesson and listen to her from now on.

The secret meeting room was located in the most important floor of the Military Headquarters: The Astrological Dance Bar. It consisted of a giant, dimly lit, purple-tinted, oval-shaped room with walls made of shark flesh, and in the center, a large desk shaped like a cowboy hat. The desk was made of ivory and had neon borders. On each corner of the hat were gold-plated plates ringed with eagle beaks. The Prime Time Minister’s wife, Sweety Gopal, sat in a corner, filing her nails as her husband combed her hair with one of the plates. General Chyangra coughed slightly, capturing nobody’s attention. Sweety Gopal shifted from one ass to another.

“Hey!”

Gen. C’s mother screamed just before the door shut on her face, causing Gen. C’s special General’s hat to fall off his head. “Oh my!”, said Sweety Gopal. She rose theatrically, tripped over her rosy skirt, and fell to the floor. Without missing a beat, she crawled towards the General, picked up the hat, and handed it to the wide-eyed Chyangra.

“Rarrrr”, said Sweety, pretending to be a kitty kat, and clawed his thigh. Staring at him seriously for a while, she suddenly burst out laughing like only people who are used to faking laughter can. General Chyangra didn’t quite know what to do and looked upset.

“Don’t worry, she won’t bite”, said the Prime Time Minister, smiling menacingly in the dim purple light. He stuck out his tongue and licked the palm of his right hand.

Gen. C kept the plate back on the table.

“We have urgent business to discuss, Mr. Mandi.”

“All business is urgent when you’re this handsome, Chyangra.”, said Mr. Mandi, running his spittle-dewed hand through his oily hair.

“Where is our Military planner?”

“Perhaps she is somewhere else.”

“Perhaps we should discuss this alone.”

“Sweety can be trusted. She’s seen more than you know.”, Mr. Mandi winked.

“What is that even supposed to mean?”

“Waiter! A whiskey!”

“There’s no waiter here, it’s the secret meeting room.”

“Who brought us our previous drinks then?”

“I don’t care, Mandi! Listen to me!”

“My ears are yours.”

“But your heart is mine.”

“Of course, Sweety.”

“We have received intelligence reports from our most trusted source.”

“Forever and ever?”

“The enemy is planning a deadly attack on our nation.”

“Until I die.”

“Dammit, listen to me!”

“Matters of the heart, Chyangra. Matters of the heart.”

“This is not in the form of an out-and-out war, but something more secret; more sinister.”

“Ooh, scary!”

“Are you being sarcastic?”

“No, I wet my pants.”
“For God’s sake, Mandi.”

“The dam of my prostate must release the river of my urine from time to time. Circle of life in Planet Mandi, whaddya say, buddy?!”
“That is incorrect on all the possible counts.”

“What is this secret sinister method, Chyangra?”

“They plan on infiltrating our army and the government, sir. With a series of cleverly disguised spies.”

“Dastardly!”

“Several of our men have apparently been bought in return for a trip to Purulia.”

“What should we do?”
“Well, for starters, pay our own people more.”

There was a grim silence, followed by tears of laughter.

“Haha!”
“Heehee!”

“Gosh, I’ve wet my pants again. I quite enjoy doing that.”

“Do you now?”

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“These spies could be anyone.”

“Stop looking at me like that, I say.”

“Trust no one, sir.”

“Not even you?”

“Not even yourself.”

“I never do. The other day I told myself I’ll only have three ladoos but-”

“Shall we discuss the plan?”

“Why not?”

Gen. C walked towards a giant drawer with pulls made of bison horns, brought out a huge map of the world, and placed it on the table. After a few minutes, Mandi managed to locate Russia.

“Here we are.”

“That’s not us, sir. We’re here.”

“Well that’s disappointing.”

Gen. C got impatient.

“So this the plan. We attack here tomorrow. I have arranged for a strike at dawn.”

“Is that fair though?”

“How do you mean?”

“Won’t they be asleep then?”

“Well, no.”

“What do we do after this attack?”

Gen. C’s eyes lit up and a hint of crazy shone through his smiling teeth.

“Celebrate!”

“Waiter! Whiskey!”

A waiter showed up with three glasses of whiskey.

“Who are you?”

“Shivaji Ram, sir.”

“Why are you serving whiskey in the secret meeting room?”

“Where else should I be serving whiskey, sir?”

Gen C. and Prime Time Mandi had no answer to this pertinent question. Gen. C had a sip. Prime Time Mandi finished his glass. Sweety said, “Cheers.” but didn’t drink anything. Shivaji Ram disappeared.

“I feel funny, Chyangra.”
“It’s these shark flesh walls, Mandi. I told them not to go so overboard.”

“Going overboard is the only way to win a war, Chyangra.”

“Why do I feel like a loser then?”

“Winning rarely makes you feel like a winner, Chyangra.”

“I can’t stop feeling like a loser.”

“Well, I can’t stop looking this handsome.”

“Sometimes I cry through the night.”

“There there, Chyangra.”

“Sometimes I wake up with tears flowing down to my pants.”

“Do you change them or just let them be?”

“I don’t know what to do with all this emotion, Mandi.”
“Kill, Chyangra. That’s what makes you such a good general.”

“I don’t want to be a good general.”
“What do you want then?”
“Not this.”

“You can give me your hat if you like.”

Gen. C took off his hat and threw it away.

“Hey!”

“I don’t even have the important papers I wanted to bring.”

“Check in the tiger cage.”

Gen. C walked to the tiger cage to find Lokesh the royal bengal tiger chewing on what appeared to be a set of important papers.

“Why god why?”, said Gen C, looking exasperated and about to give up.

“Why not?”, answered Mandi, looking very pleased with himself.

“How did it get there?”, Gen C wondered.

“Maybe you fed it to him.”

“No, it was my mother. She’s trying to teach me lessons.”

“Why don’t you backflip her plan and teach her a lesson instead?”

“I try and fail everyday.”

“This failure is what makes you feel like a loser.”
“But you said winning doesn’t make one feel like a winner.”
“That’s right.”

“So is there no way out for me?”

“Not as long as there’s no way in.”

“What do you mean?”
“Love, Chyangra! Love!”

“Take that rose off your mouth.”
“Ow!”

“What about love?”

“Love is like chocolate, Chyangra. You have to pay for it.”

“Can’t I demand love?”

“Not if you can’t offer any.”

“I hate my life.”

“My life is quite good.”, said Mandi, smiling to himself yet again.

“Waiter, whiskey!”

Shivaji Ram apparated with three whiskey glasses. A wrestling yoga star entered behind him, and stepped onto the DJ console.

“Ok guys, time to party!”

“Who is this?”
“The resident DJ.”

The yoga star started playing astrological dance music. A flood of swamis entered the room and started dancing vigorously. Sweety Gopal rushed to the middle and joined them.

Mishti Bhoda, the overachieving youngster who was the first female military planner in the history of the Indian army, appeared in full regalia.

“Sorry I’m late. Your mother wanted advice on how to discipline you.”

Gen. C sipped his drink slurpily. Mandi slurped his drink sleepily. Mishti Bhoda slapped them both.

“Both of you look like going to sleep.”

“Sleep is all I desire.”

“Death is what I want.”

“Me too, actually.”

Both of them plonked to the floor comically. Mishti Bhoda placed them on top of each other. The wrestling yoga star switched to an emotional song and started watching porn on his phone.

“Idiots”, said Mishti.

Shivaji Ram appeared and took their drinks away. He offered one to Mishti, who refused.

“Who are you?”, asked Mishti, but he had dissapparated away.

Everything makes sense some of the time

Shonpapri the barber was dead, dying and living. He did not notice much around him on most days, so he could be excused for never realising this truth. He cut hair like he tied his shoes- forming knots.

On this particular day in this particular universe, Gunda the village elder came over to have his ponytail removed. Gunda had decided to take up the challenge of being an obnoxious elder even without a ponytail. It was the most difficult thing he had done since stealing his son’s tiffin the previous day.

The haircut came and went, but Gunda did not. Shonpapri decided to shave the gentleman, and proceeded to shampoo him soon after. It was only after a facial and a thrown in back massage that he realised that Gunda had in fact died a while back. Briefly shocked, but recovering quickly, he was taking the money owed to him from Gunda’s wallet when eight year old Bedana walked in. She leapt onto the seat next to Gunda.

“Hi Shonpapri!”

“Hi Bedana.”

“Isn’t it a lovely day?”

“I’m afraid I don’t see much of the outside while I’m here.”

“But you see a lot, don’t you?”

“I’ve seen some things today, yes. Don’t play with the scissors.”

“I bet you have quite a few stories to tell, don’t you?”

“I do indeed, young lady. Don’t play with the knife.”

“I have a story too, you know.”

“Really?”

“It’s a big, round, hairball of a story. It’s got a large heart, and strong knees, and nimble fingers that can tie a knot on a sleeping kitten’s tail.”

“That sounds lovely, but I wish you wouldn’t swing the knife around wildly as you speak.”

“My daddy says it’s the roughest, toughest, meanest, keenest, loudest, proudest story he’s ever heard.”

“Who is your daddy, Bedana? I never did ask you. Strange that you’ve been coming here alone ever since you were two.”

“Gunda the village elder.”

Shonpapri’s eyes went red. This was because Bedana accidentally slashed his forehead while playing with the knife. He wiped himself, and stole a quick glance towards Gunda. He truly looked like a different individual without the ponytail.

“Give me my haircut, Shonpapri.”

“Of course, of course. Snip snap.”

Shonpapri began to cut Bedana’s hair. A bead of sweat trickled down his forehead and dangled from the end of his nose, swaying back and forth like a confused intern at an ad agency.

“Say, Bedana.”

‘What’s on your mind, Shonpapri?”

“Oh, not much. I was just wondering if you had noticed the dead man on the chair next to you.”

“You mean the one who appears to have died while you were massaging him.”

“I am pretty good at those massages. Nudge nudge.”

“Or pretty bad.”

“You’re such a realist, Bedana.”

“Reality doesn’t exist, Shonpapri. Didn’t your mother ever teach you about the ten dimensions?”

“No.”

“Well, there’s time, which doesn’t exist. There’s length, breadth, and height, collectively known as space, which exists because nothing else does. They combine to form our perception of reality, a practical joke so long and convoluted it forgot its own punch line.”

“Well, I’m still laughing.”

“You don’t even want to know about all the other dimensions.”

“If only my mother taught me, Bedana.”

“Would your life be any better then, Shonpapri?”
“If it doesn’t exist, definitely so.”

“I think it does and it doesn’t.”

“I believe you.”

“You should and you shouldn’t."
“I will and I can’t.”

“What the hell is going on here?”

“Gunda!"

“Hi, daddy.”

“Hi, Bedana.”

Gunda awoke to find his ponytail missing, and furiously punched himself, thinking he was someone else. Shonpapri was so relieved he had a heart attack.

“Do you want to hear my story again, daddy? Shonpapri doesn’t seem to be interested.”

“Help me!”

“Sure, honey.”

“There once was a chicken called Shinjini. Shinjini had three eyes. Two of them were normal, like all cross-eyed chickens have, but the third one was built the other way around, and looked inside of herself. So if she closed her two normal eyes, the third one would open on it’s own, and she would see her heart tango with her brain and her liver make a pass at her alimentary canal.”

“Would someone call the police?”

“What happened next, sweetheart?”

“No matter how many times it happened, it still disoriented her to see the sleep in her dreams and the guts in her feelings and and the mind on her thoughts and the true motives behind all of her actions.”

“How troubling, love.”

“Farewell, cruel world. I’ll never forget thee.”

“It is indeed. One day Shinjini while walking across Tibet met a lady monk called Red. Her shaved head made her eyes dazzle in a way that made Shinjini want to cuddle up next to her and be saved from self-discovery. Red was tired of girls and boys looking to her for salvation but the chicken’s predicament had her interest piqued.  Red had meditated hard and long and looked inside of herself in such a euphoric orgasmic tick-tock-my-mind-just-unlocked sort of way that she was now able to look at the outside world and see the simultaneous past, present and future, layered on top of each other like a Bengali man’s clothes for a wintertime picnic. The transcendental realisations that followed had caused Red to abandon material pleasures while physically existing in the ten-dimensional universe. She lived miserably thereafter and this made her happier than she had ever been before.”

“Gosh.”

“Shonpapri was a great man. Friend to all, lover to none.”

Gunda looked around to find that a few days had passed and he was at Shonpapri’s funeral.

“How did we get here?”

“The illusory nature of time shocked the tired Shinjini, and in a great moment of awe, she managed to open all three eyes together, observing herself outside in and inside out.”

“If only he could have lived longer. Or maybe died earlier. We wouldn’t have missed the match either way.”

“Not happy with learning so much without being taught anything, Shinjini wanted Red to impart more wisdom in a formal manner.

 ‘Tell me, O Red!’, Shinjini began dramatically, ‘What is it I should do?’

 ‘I don’t know, Shinjini’, Red replied dryly, ‘Your eyes have been opened. What else can I help you with?’

 ‘I don’t feel very wise, O Red! I feel much the same!’

 ‘Good.’”

“Gosh! Is that Shonpapri’s father in the distance?”

“‘Save me! Save me from this monstrosity!’, Shinjini screamed, jumping on  Red’s face and scratching it furiously.

 ‘Oh, the horror! The terror!’, Shinjini screamed at herself while scratching even harder.”

“Didn’t he die eight years ago?”

“At the end of the furious onslaught, Shinjini looked to the heavens for forgiveness.

 ‘What have I done?’, she asked herself rhetorically.

 ‘Absolutely nothing’, Red answered anyway, and it was true, for her face was unharmed.”

“I remember the funeral. It was terribly boring.”

“Shinjini looked at Red’s unscratched face and somersaulted over her. They lay on the ground, staring at each other for fifteen minutes. Red didn’t speak as she already knew all that Shinjini had said or was going to say throughout all the moments of their collective conscious existence. Shinjini on the other hand didn’t know what to say.”

“Or was that his uncle?”

“Red got up with the grace of a cat and looked into Shinjini’s eyes, all three of them, and said in a tone that was both magnanimous and sinister, ‘It’s not going to get any better for you.’ She then disappeared into thin air, knocking the boots off the confused chicken’s claws.”

“Oh my.”

“Indeed.”

“That’s quite sad, isn’t it?”

Gunda and Bedana watched Shonpapri’s body burning into ash. Shonpapri’s father scratched himself while his mother yawned. His only friend qualified for the next level of Candy Crush.

“I just hope it doesn’t get any worse.”

Everyone is not to blame, but must accept responsibility anyway

Somewhere in the distance, two handsome men travelled in a bus. Somewhere in the middle, a four year old boy called Haramjada decided to step out for some lemonade. Right in the thick of the action, Rajesh the elephant strolled down the path with a sense of purpose absent in anyone around him. This was because he was alone. It was a sweaty afternoon, and he strolled with this sense of purpose through the front gates of the maidan, leaving giant dollops of shit behind. He was about to hop onto a bus, when he spotted a lemonade stall.

“Hi there, young fellow! Do you fancy a glass of sizzling lemonade? Heehee.”

“Why is it sizzling, fool?!”

Rajesh was not in the mood for funny talk. Polturam, the lemonade seller, responded by making as stern a face as he could. He immediately started giggling again, however, and was about to apologise for the stern face, when Rajesh kicked him in the nose.

“What did I do that for?”

“I don’t know! Why did you?”

“To teach you, and all the unmotivated gigglers of the world a lesson!”

“A lesson we’ll never learn, my friend! Heehee.”

“Oh, I’ll teach it to you, alright!”

Rajesh grabbed all the lemons, plopped them sternly into his mouth, and yelped because they were sour. Polturam laughed out loud, his belly jiggling east and west. An auto crawled towards them.

Rajesh spotted the auto, and knew he had a decision to make. He didn’t have much time to spare, and unless he caught the vehicle, there was a real chance he wouldn’t make it. His life would then not be liveable. He was, however, also an elephant of staunch principles, and he couldn’t leave without teaching Polturam a lesson. His life would then not be bearable. Grabbing the jiggling lemonade seller, he hopped onto the auto, promptly getting kicked out as he didn’t have any change. Turning around, he spotted Bhoda and Dhokla examining the dollops of shit he had left behind. They spotted him, and began running towards him with giant fishing nets.

“There he is, Bhoda!”

“Damn, Dhokla! I didn’t even notice.”

“You may think you’re being funny, but all you do is hurt me.”

Rajesh leapt onto a bus, wisely deciding that the lesson could wait, but freedom couldn’t. The light turned red. Bhoda and Dhokla latched onto a taxi in an attempt to begin an exciting chase sequence. Upon being refused, they leapt onto the opposite end of the same bus.

Rajesh uncurled his trunk, extending it by a metre, and pointed it threateningly at the two caretakers. Bhoda looked him in the eye, and blinked several times soon after. A fly flew into Dhokla’s nose.

“Ow!”

“Now, listen here, and listen good, Rajesh.”

“That’s right, Rajesh!”

“If you make a move, I’ll make a false one.”

“What?”

“If you try to put these pieces together, I’ll keep switching them around for you.”

“Huh?”

“Shut the fuck, Dhokla!”

“What’s this about?”
“Oh, you know, Rajesh. You know.”

“I only know what you tell me.”

“I understand how you feel, Rajesh. To not know what’s going to happen tomorrow.”

“Why don’t you ever tell me?!”

“To be moving from place to place, feeling lost all the time, waiting for a realisation or some kind of deeper understanding. It hurts, son. I know it does.”

“Of course you do, we work together!”

“To work is to live, Rajesh. That’s all we’ve got.”

“All I want is what my parents had. And their parents.”

“Well, all I want is for you to love me.”

“What?”

“But you don’t, do you?!”

“All I want is freedom!”

“Freedom, my boy, is a two-way street. With everyone going one way, some of us have to go the other.”

“Well, why do you think this elephant crossed the road?”

“You don't want us to meet on the opposite side of town, Rajesh.”

“I don’t want to take any sides, Bhoda.”

“I’m afraid you can’t because there is only one, Rajesh.”

“But I want a choice!”

“Fine! Let’s say I give you this apparently free, so called choice. Right now, you and me. What would it be, child?”

“I choose life!”

“Well, we can get you married tomorrow, can’t we, Dhokla?”

“This goddamn fly keeps going into my mouth.”

“I said I choose life!”

“Well, I was never going to kill you, was I?”

Bhoda smiled like he was plotting to kill him. The traffic light turned green. The bus jerked forward unattractively, and Rajesh slipped towards the two handsome men. They dodged him expertly, allowing Bhoda and Dhokla to grab onto him with their nets. They leapt off the moving bus, Dhokla breaking his leg in the process, and walked back towards the circus. As Haramjada drank his lemonade, he saw an elephant in a large net, being carried by two ugly men, one of them limping profusely, back to the cage from where he had expertly picked the lock a few minutes ago. The last thing Rajesh saw before being thrown back in was Polturam giggling at the world as it went by.

Sinchom in the Night

Sinchom awoke that night with his heart in his mouth. “Golly gee”, thought the young Ugandan, “Must’ve been a nightmare.” Having returned his heart to its rightful place, and changed the bedsheets and his pants upon discovering that they were soaked with his urine, he decided to lay on his right side, something he had not done since he was a child, and shut his eyes, in the hope that he would fall asleep. An hour later, he realised this method, although tried and tested, was proving to be unsuccessful on this particular occasion. After much contemplation, he decided to, in a bold move, slowly shift over to his left side. It was, however, of no use. Something was keeping him awake. “What could it be?”, he wondered. He felt oddly nostalgic, although he wasn’t sure what he was pining for, although he was definitely pining for something. It seemed quite palpable one moment, on the cusp of disappearing the next, and oddly solid and right on the top of his head straight after, but although he jerkily groped his surroundings in the dark, he had nothing to show for it. He suddenly realised how odd it was that he should have wet himself. It was something he had been trained by his grandmother, who would smack him on the face and his bottom, referring to them as two ends of the same idiot, with her shoes, not to do. He felt his heart steadily shifting out of place as he tried to recollect what it was he had been dreaming, or rather having a nightmare, about when the incident occurred. He imagined vague flashes but failed to grab a hold of any of the images flitting through his brain. His stomach left home base as well to take up residence in what used to be his heart’s chamber. Whatever it was, it sure had affected him deeply. Sinchom lay on his back and took a series of deep breaths, shoving his vital organs back to their pivotal positions in the process. “No”, thought the young Ugandan, “this will not do. You have a hectic day tomorrow, Sinchom. Sleep is the order of the night, and you must obey it.” As he delivered to himself a stern monologue on the benefits of a good nights rest, and the importance of sleep in general, he heard, in a corner of his mind, the sound of himself snoring. The monologue faded to an end, and the enforced silence was replaced by an indifferent one. The next thing he heard, seven minutes later, was the phone ringing, seven minutes and forty three seconds later to be exact, and it was his brother informing him that his grandmother had died.

The gruesome tale of the joker, and the impossible journey he began and ended.

The is a tale of a man who grew into, and then grew out of,
A world of pain, and all the limits of sanity,
And arrived at whatever lay beyond.

He was a joker, and he always had a joke to tell,
But he never made the people laugh,
However much he tried, and he tried very hard.

He would never stop trying, or laughing at his own jokes,
But the rest of the world would never start, and they treated him with scorn,
And thrust upon him the dishonour of being a man ignored.

He would make a joke, and it would fall flat,
Splat on its face, bloodying its nose,
Killing its pride.

And a new joke would be born from his eager mouth,
Which would come out promisingly, full of potential,
But would soon get lost, and trip over old jokes,
Jokes of the past, and fall flat on its face as well.

His misery soon led him to drink,
And drink led to confusion,
And his jokes, which were never funny, or witty,
Were now always crude, and in bad taste, and often made no sense at all.

They would tumble, incoherent and drunk as they were,
And clumsily trip over each other,
And create an embrassing mess.

He was on a highway to insanity,
And travelling faster than anyone else,
Much too fast, much too over the speed limit,
Zooming past those who were trudging along it reluctantly,
Trying, desperately, to go faster than the sun,
And avoid the black shadow,
That was chasing him from behind,
Laughing at his desperation to avoid it.

He would, in his drunken haze,
Attempt to recover his fallen jokes,
Which would result in things worse,
As the unfit and incoherent jokes would rise,
Or rather, make hapless attempts to rise,
And then fall with a louder and more embrassing splat,
Down to the ground,
Down to the gutter,
Where, of course, they rightfully belonged.

Now the joker, being in the drunken state he was in,
Did not realize, or understand, much of his life,
But even he knew that dying jokes could not recover,
And therefore should not even try to.

And he, as far as the public could tell,
Began to think, and he thought hard,
Day and night pondering, wondering,
And finally the solution came upon him in a flash.

And the solution, when it came to him,
Led to him reaching a dead end on the highway,
And he found himself in front of a gravel path,
From which onwards he would have to walk.

He began,
In a stroke of genius,
Proof that he was a man who could still be given time,
And a second chance,
To kill his jokes,
So that now, they could never recover,
For he knew, unlike most people of the time,
That dead men do not move.

He soon discovered the joy of making a kill,
And, as is often the case,
The instinct of bloodlust crept into his being,
And he began to develop a deranged expression on his face,
The expression of a man who is aware of noone, and nothing, except himself, and his world,
And he began to grow tired of creating jokes to kill,
And stabbed innocent jokes to death,
Jokes that were useful members of society,
Jokes that had jobs, and families.

He was now halfway down the gravel path,
And he turned back to look at how far he had gone,
And the path began to swallow itself,
And forced the joker to run down the rest of the gravel road,
Run down to avoid the black shadow,
To avoid a slow and painful death.

He reached the end of the path,
And what he saw in front of him scared him out of his mind,
For it was a cliff,
And one that seemed to be higher than the sky itself,
And he was required to jump.

Of course, he was unable to bring himself to do it,
And he knew he needed a little push,
So that the last crooked corner of his mind,
The last piece of normalcy,
Could be destroyed,
So that he could stop thinking about the fall,
And so one day, the joker got what he wanted,
In the most gruesome manner.

It was a hot and sultry day,
And the joker walked,
With a smile on his face,
And a gun in his hands,
To the centre of the busiest road in the city,
At the busiest time of the day,
And began shooting.
Bang bang bang!
He shot the people down,
One by one, they all fell down,
And he carried them to the centre of the road,
And he formed a pile of real life jokes now,
And he danced at the top of a pile of corpses,
Dancing freely like only the insane, the truly insane, know how,
His hands flapping wildly,
His legs kicking the air,
Shooting down more men who were going to work,
Men who would never bother to laugh along with him,
And despised him so greatly they never laughed at him,
And at the top of a pile of blood-red corpses he stood,
Continuing his assault on the world, and his head,
As he shot countless people down,
Until he managed to get himself to jump from the cliff,
And achieve complete freedom from, and control over, his mind,
The final obstruction to his path to insanity,
As he got the push he wanted,
And he found himself where few dared to go,
Or even think about going.

The joker was in a garden,
A pristine garden of breathtaking beauty,
The reward for a difficult task completed so quickly, and completely.

It was as beautiful as could be,
Grass so green and soft you could lie in it and forget who you were,
Wild fruits growing from massive trees that kissed the sky,
Fruits that were so bright and beautiful,
And so sweet to taste,
The man who ate them would be swimming in a sea of senses,
Even hours after taking a bite,
Rabbits and squirrels hopping and jumping,
Mad with energy from the sights and sounds of what lay before them,
Flowers of bright hues that smelt so wonderful,
They attracted human beings and bees with too much power,
And resulted in countless stings, and countless deaths.

In short,
A sight so beautiful, a normal man,
A man who had no control over his mind,
Would be overwhelmed by what he saw,
And would be dead in an instant.

He found himself in paradise,
In front of a large mansion,
The doors shut,
A butler standing at the entrance,
A robe in his hand.

The joker walked over,
And was offered the robe,
And a few kind words,
"Welcome home, sir.
You must be tired.
It's been a long journey."

And the doors were open,
And he was offered a peek into his new life,
Before he became a part of it,
And he smiled ,
And without a slight moment of hesitation,
He walked in,
And was overwhelmed by the beauty of it all.

I was walking alone that night, the moonlight lighting a clear path for me, as if the entire universe was showing me the way to my awful destiny. The minute I noticed him walking towards me, I began feeling just a little bit wary. The white light seemed to be shining especially for him so that I could see what he looked like, and he looked appropriately gruesome. He was old, the wrinkles slicing through his face, a frail old man who had gone blind with age, his eyes a mere white vaccuum. He had a knife in his hand, and he began to inch closer and closer towards me. I was walking in the other direction now, desperately searching for a way out of the long, thin road that lay ahead of me, but before I could even react, he pinned me down, and put the metal to my face, and carved me open, the blood bursting out of their bodily prison, my screams rushing through the air, but unable to find anyone to hear them, my nerves so completely overwhelmed with pain that they refused to function anymore.

He now sees the world through my eyes.