Joker: Chrysalis
Dec. 21st, 2019 09:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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prose_alchemistTitle: Chrysalis
Author:jordannamorgan
Archive Rights: Please request the author’s consent.
Rating/Warnings: PG.
Characters: Unnamed stagehand and Joker.
Setting: Before Joker is introduced on Murray’s show.
Summary: The stagehand watches Joker dance behind the curtain.
Disclaimer: Joker belongs to DC Comics and Warner Brothers. I’m just playing with him.
Notes: Written for the prompts of “Beauty” atgenprompt_bingo, and “Dance” at drabble_zone.
On the set of “Live with Murray Franklin”, the stagehand had witnessed how countless guests behaved behind the curtain. Some smiled and joked with the crew. Some remained aloof in their own thoughts, mentally rehearsing what they planned to say. Some just looked as if they would rather be anywhere else.
Yet he had seen nothing like the clown who stood waiting on that night: a gaunt creature frozen in the dim blue light, smoke curling from a cigarette that rolled between taut fingers, the darker makeup around eyes and mouth casting a death’s-head shadow on his white face.
The monitor showed a man unrecognizable as this figure, giggling and squirming like a child; but the stagehand missed the words, because his attention was drawn to a stirring over his shoulder. No longer a statue, the clown was in motion at last. His spine curved, limbs twisting and stretching as his entire body contorted in a haunting slow-motion dance.
It was like seeing some kind of eerie butterfly emerge from its chrysalis.
…Somehow, it was frighteningly beautiful.
“Please welcome Joker!”
The mesmerism shattered. Recollecting himself, the stagehand quickly parted the curtain, and watched the clown dance away into the light.
End Notes: When I was young, my mother would raise monarch caterpillars she brought in from the yard. I had the chance to see many a butterfly emerge from its chrysalis; and honestly, that was all I could think of the first time I saw the movements of Joker’s cryptic dance behind the curtain. I don’t think it was deliberately intended to evoke that image, but it’s so incredibly appropriate.
© 2019 Jordanna Morgan
Author:
jordannamorganArchive Rights: Please request the author’s consent.
Rating/Warnings: PG.
Characters: Unnamed stagehand and Joker.
Setting: Before Joker is introduced on Murray’s show.
Summary: The stagehand watches Joker dance behind the curtain.
Disclaimer: Joker belongs to DC Comics and Warner Brothers. I’m just playing with him.
Notes: Written for the prompts of “Beauty” at
genprompt_bingo, and “Dance” at drabble_zone.On the set of “Live with Murray Franklin”, the stagehand had witnessed how countless guests behaved behind the curtain. Some smiled and joked with the crew. Some remained aloof in their own thoughts, mentally rehearsing what they planned to say. Some just looked as if they would rather be anywhere else.
Yet he had seen nothing like the clown who stood waiting on that night: a gaunt creature frozen in the dim blue light, smoke curling from a cigarette that rolled between taut fingers, the darker makeup around eyes and mouth casting a death’s-head shadow on his white face.
The monitor showed a man unrecognizable as this figure, giggling and squirming like a child; but the stagehand missed the words, because his attention was drawn to a stirring over his shoulder. No longer a statue, the clown was in motion at last. His spine curved, limbs twisting and stretching as his entire body contorted in a haunting slow-motion dance.
It was like seeing some kind of eerie butterfly emerge from its chrysalis.
…Somehow, it was frighteningly beautiful.
“Please welcome Joker!”
The mesmerism shattered. Recollecting himself, the stagehand quickly parted the curtain, and watched the clown dance away into the light.
End Notes: When I was young, my mother would raise monarch caterpillars she brought in from the yard. I had the chance to see many a butterfly emerge from its chrysalis; and honestly, that was all I could think of the first time I saw the movements of Joker’s cryptic dance behind the curtain. I don’t think it was deliberately intended to evoke that image, but it’s so incredibly appropriate.
© 2019 Jordanna Morgan