Why So Serious?

Neighbors are trying to kill me.
I run before the sun is up. I pass their orange brick home
Oh! That guy scared me--Wait. What's--?

 OH GOD.

WHY would anyone do this? My heart exploded.
I stopped. Okay, it's a cut-out. It's a cut-out.
Wait...IS it a cut-out? This could totally be like the time that guy stood still in Madame Tusseau's Wax Museum and when I inspected him, he offered a mild, "Boo" so I obviously jumped nineteen feet into the air and darn near knocked wax Will Smith over. If I were a serial killer and was going to dress up as The Joker, I would definitely take the possibility of being mistaken for a piece of cardboard into consideration. The advantages! So I stared at this promotional material/genius murderer for a long time. A. Long. Time. And then I felt stupid, so I ran away.

Maybe it seems stupid to you too, but when when I'm running empty streets at 6 AM, bumping into a tubby child holding cotton candy wearing a Rainbow Bright t-shirt would terrify me. Let alone ol' Heath.

So an interesting thing is happening. I see this creepy image like every other morning. This thing that completely wrecked me last week is now typical scenery. I've grown accustom, maybe even fond, of the lil menace. It means I have a quarter mile left. I imagine his overly-lip sticked face cheering me on. Maybe stabbing future marathon competitors with a pencil.

Is there inspiration here? Like, what really scares us can become routine? I'm still kinda of working on the metaphor. Not that we should learn to be comfortable with our fears, but rather, we should see them as just two-dimensional benign onlookers. Maybe.

My Dissertation on Batman Begins

Peeps be tryna accomplish the same thing: justice. But they all be goin' 'bout it differnt ways, and that's when ish gets real and Scarecrow gases er'rybody.

Soz basically, we finna wreck some trains 'n' stuff if we don' jus' sit down. Breathe. Talk it out. Maybs hug it out? And finna form a plan against fear and inequality. UH DOY. It ain't gon' work if you think er'ryone else a jerk. Er'ryone else be jus' tryna do dere tha-ang, ya hear? An' you don't gotta agree wit that, you just gotta agree with where dey comin' from--'cos you most likely already do. Like, Batman wants peace, so he fly 'round bein' all "Stop, criminals!" And ninja dude wants peace, so he wants er'ryone to hallucinate larva 'n' go on killing sprees. AND, Valcone wants peace, so he just wants er'ryone to do what he say aight! Their motives are the same! Ya dig?

Now apply the Gotham metaphor to all social issues today. ALSTAN OUT.