Category: Chapters (Page 4 of 5)

CHAPTER 13

September 10, 2021 / Dave Heilker

Dentist : Shall I use gas?
Patient: [nervously] Well, gas or electric light. I’d feel nervous to have you fool around me in the dark.
The Dentist (1932 Film)

The Man Who Laughs

“You better be careful out here, it’s getting late, Dick,” the woman warned with a gentle smile.

“Mrs. Givens,” Dick returned the smile, “You’re the last young woman I have the pleasure to visit today, and, well, when I saw your name on my list, I didn’t want to miss a chance to say ‘hello.’” (Barbara tried not to visibly roll her eyes or audibly groan when he called the sexagenarian a “young woman.”) “Please give Henry my best, and tell him that me, Bruce, and Alfred all wish him a speedy recovery, and we’ll be by for a proper visit just as soon as Al returns from Atlanta.”

CHAPTER 12

September 3, 2021 / Dave Heilker

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.
Lewis Carroll, “Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There“

Jabberwocky

“You’ll receive a severance,” Lucius Fox said from across the conference room table. “We value our workers, even those who are leaving us, and we think it’s very generous.

“One month at one-hundred-and-twenty percent salary for each year of service, Jeremy. I am, however, afraid that this specific circumstance isn’t subject to appeal.”

Jeremy thought that the man had a way of delivering devastating news like a loving – but disappointed – father (or at least how he imagined a loving father ought to act). The disappointment stung emotionally, but not in the very painful and physical way that Jeremy’s grandfather used to show it.

“I understand, Mr. Fox,” Jeremy’s usually vibrant eyes looked down at his lap and the patchy porkpie hat that sat there. “Do you think I could trouble you for a letter of recommendation?”

CHAPTER 11

August 26, 2021 / Dave Heilker

“To die will be an awfully big adventure.”
J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

Neverland

“Peter Pan.”

It was a terrifying whisper among the waifs in Gotham City.

Many of the homeless youth had started corralling together, even if it meant they needed to split the scraps and pocket change they made off of their manifold hustles.

The orphan Pockets didn’t know his real name. He was smaller, more nimble than the boys from the park, but his harelip never healed properly, meaning that it was easy for people to ignore him.

So Pockets became invisible.

CHAPTER 10

August 19, 2021 / Dave Heilker

His father was a drinker
And his mother cried in bed
Folding John Wayne’s t-shirts
When the swingset hit his head
The neighbors they adored him
For his humor and his conversation
Look underneath the house there
Find the few living things, rotting fast, in their sleep
Oh, the dead
Twenty-seven people
Even more, they were boys
With their cars, summer jobs
Oh my God
Are you one of them?
Sufjan Stevens, “John Wayne Gacy, Jr.”

Privileging The Hypothesis

Bruce Wayne wasn’t used to being blindsided by a possibility that he hadn’t even considered, but Commissioner Johnny Gelio, in naming the Batman as the primary suspect in the murders of three Gotham boys had struck him dumb.

Dick Grayson, witnessing this, was concerned. He’d seen Bruce get something wrong before, but usually there was, at least, some level of preparation for it. Proportionate preparation, was what Alfred had called it.

The commissioner hadn’t just zigged when they expected a zag, he had oranged when they expected a triangle.

CHAPTER 9

August 12, 2021 / Dave Heilker

“The power which has always started the greatest religious and political avalanches in history rolling has from time immemorial been the magic power of the spoken word, and that alone. The broad masses of the people can be moved only by the power of speech.”
William L. Shirer

Corrupt Simplicity With Delicate Ferocity

The Devil himself wore all black, stood seven feet tall, and looked every bit the menacing ruler of hell portrayed in William Blake’s The Number of The Beast is 666 (currently on display at the Gotham Fine Art Museum). The Beast’s coming was foretold by the sudden power outage, and it stood, in front of the elite of Gotham with its wings spread behind, lit only by starlight.

It beat its leathery wings, and with glowing eyes, it cast judgment upon the assembled through a sudden hole in the side of the home of the luxurious Silverwood Barrens estate of Carmine Falcone, also known as The Roman, and Gotham’s untouchable criminal kingpin.

His guests tonight had come together to pledge money to Mayor Basil Karlo’s re-election campaign.

CHAPTER 8

July 29, 2021 / Dave Heilker

“Make sure nothing is wasted. Take notes. Remember it all, every insult, every tear. Tattoo it on the inside of your mind. In life, this knowledge is essential.
“I’ve told you, nobody becomes an artist unless they have to.”
Ingrid Magnussen, White oleander

Mount Olympus

Selina Kyle had seen her fair share of dead bodies. She told herself that it didn’t bother her anymore, and she was probably right. Growing up as a ward of the state, between orphanages and the alleys of Gotham City’s less savory neighborhoods, she’d mostly stopped being traumatized by the idea of mortality quite some time ago.

CHAPTER 7

July 22, 2021 / Dave Heilker

CONTENT WARNING:
ethnocentric slurs • misogyny, sexism • sexual harassment • attempted sexual assault • attempted drugging.

♪ ♫ Twinkle, twinkle, little bat,
How I wonder what you’re at.
Up above the world you fly,
Like a teatray in the sky ♪ ♫
the mad hatter, Alice’s Adventures in wonderland

Some Call It Work, But It’s More Like Art

“Mr. Mayor, crime is way down, and I know some of our uhh…” Gotham Police Commissioner Peter Grogan struggled for the appropriate colloquialism “…mutual friends may be alarmed, but I assure you, we’ve got our best team on it.”

The Commissioner loosened his tie, and looked longingly at the meatloaf sandwich sitting, just unwrapped, in parchment paper on his desk.

CHAPTER 6

July 15, 2021 / Dave Heilker

So this Faustus having godly parents, and seeing him to be of a toward wit, were very desirous to bring him up in those virtuous studies, namely, of Divinity: but he gave himself secretly to study Necromancy and Conjuration, in so much that few or none could perceive his profession
P.F. Gent[leman], The historye of the damnable life and deserued death of Doctor Iohn Faustus. Newly imprinted, and in conuenient places, imperfect matter amended: according to the true coppy printed at Franckfort, and translated into English

First Contact

Istanbul.

Kyoto.

Metropolis.

St. Louis.

Sacramento.

Metropolis.

Kinshasa.

Smallville.

Arequipa.

Brockton Bay.

CHAPTER 5

July 8, 2021 / Dave Heilker

“First sacrifice to the warriors who once had their home in this island…
Laid in the tombs of heroes with their faces turned to the sunset.”
The Pythia (Oracle of delphi), to solon, c. 594 b.c.e.

Meeting The Oracle

Barbara Gordon didn’t understand why she was here. She’d been working at Wayne Enterprises for about three months, and, at least per her coworkers, was doing a pretty solid job as an audit accountant.

Wayne Enterprises had been one of the few local places that was willing to hire a young woman just out of junior college, but there was this whole worker cooperative thing that she didn’t quite understand. If Wayne was owned by the employees, what happened if she decided to leave to pursue a better degree.

CHAPTER 4

July 1, 2021 / Dave Heilker

“My psychoanalyst thinks I’m perfectly right.
I won’t say the Lord’s Prayer.
I have mystical visions and cosmic vibrations.
America I still haven’t told you what you did to Uncle Max after he came over from Russia.
I’m addressing you.
Are you going to let your emotional life be run by Time Magazine?
I’m obsessed by Time Magazine.
I read it every week.
Its cover stares at me every time I slink past the corner candystore.
I read it in the basement of the Berkeley Public Library.
It’s always telling me about responsibility. Businessmen are serious. Movie producers are serious.
Everybody’s serious but me.
It occurs to me that I am America.
I am talking to myself again.“
AllEn ginsburg; “America”

A Dance With The Devil

The sun was setting, and Dimitri Vladkov was running late for a meeting on the docks at Gotham Harbor.

Not a meeting, exactly, but, a private acquisition. A favor, for his employer, Liam Warner.

Dimitri had trouble understanding why this couldn’t be done during the day, or at the office and why the shipment needed to be carried out in a place with a less than shimmering reputation for safety.