The Joker: Prologue

He, the Joker, had figured it all out. He once held all the cards in his hands and with one look he saw the society of Spades, Hearts, Clubs and Diamonds. All structured in the same manner. Every society existed out of thirteen members. The lower and middle part of society were build up by numbers two until eight. A higher class consisted out of nines and tens. Above these you had the jacks and queens, who were in fact company to the highest of all cards: the King. In every society, the King was the card that people looked up to. He divided and ruled all. The Ace was the only card that could overrule the King in decisions, mostly this happened when the Ace saw a decision or action from the King that could create problems among the nines and tens. And occasionaly he would care for problems amongst lower cards. As such the Ace was the force that had the final say when things got tense.

The Aces and Kings were the leaders in the eyes of the others, but the Joker knew better. Let the two’s, three’s, four’s and so on live in the illusion that the King and Ace are the world’s leaders, that they know everything and can solve it all, who cares for the cards under nine in the stack anyways? Once in a while there was a ten that said something interesting and to the point, he admitted, and very rarely a nine would come up with a brilliant idea as well. But the eights and lower, they were just created to keep the Kings and Aces in power. They were only called upon when the higher classes lacked an amount of cards. No one really cared, no one ever wanted a five or lower around, an eight or perhaps seven were acceptable in case of necessity.

As a Joker, he did not belong to any of the four societies. He was the only card that was able to live in diverse classes, in diverse societies. He could run amongst Hearts, Spades, Clubs or even Diamonds. He could talk to fours, fives, eights, tens and even Kings. And they all liked him as long as he did not stay around for too long. The only card that did not care for the Joker was the Ace. Their relationship was ever tense. The Ace seemed to know more about the Joker than any other card in the game. This made the Joker very uncomfortable around the four Aces. So whenever he visited the Hearts, Spades, Clubs or Diamonds, he tried to stay away from the Ace, the only card he felt a certain hate for. The other cards he did just despise, look down upon, feel sorry for, some he even regarded as plain useless to have in the stack, but hate he did reserve just for the Ace.

Although he was the only card that could mingle with any other card, the Joker was the loneliest card of all. Every card knew that somewhere in the game, in another society, there was someone just like him or her. And they were all part of a certain class within their society, so although lonely at times, none of the cards was ever totally alone. The Joker would start to feel anxious when too long around one type of card , and that moment his inner self told him to move on to another card. Strangely enough he felt most comfortable around the Kings and Queens. The Queens felt beautiful around the Joker, and they appreciated his company. Often the Joker had thought he would rather be a Jack, so he could be around a Queen all the time. The Kings appreciated his company, his view on society and his stories about the other cards, but they found him too tiring after a while, and at those moments where he was no longer welcome, he mingled amongst nines, tens and jacks.

There he had his share of fun, but their lives were so empty to him, it saddened him. Amongst them he felt their emptiness growing in himself, how sad must it be not to be able to escape that emptiness? Not even to mention the emptiness of sevens or lower, cards which he mingled with to keep in touch with all of society, not to become estranged from the world as was the case for the Kings or other high cards in society. But fond of the low cards, no that he was not. At least the low cards did not know how low they really were, some even thought they were in fact high cards, if they would realize how low and useless they were the world would change for the worse, so the Joker left them in their illusion.

Although he had been born a Joker, he once became close to accepting the position of the Jack. Every few years a card would leave the stack, and the Joker was the only one fit to replace a card. It would’ve brought him very close to the Queen of Spades, of whom he was very fond. The problem with a Joker is that deep inside he knows he does not really want to be pinned down into the society of cards he despises so much. And so it happened that a Jack from another stack entered the Spade society. The Queen of Spades was very hurt by the Jokers refusal of the position and handed him a blank card, telling him “I hope you can fill in this card with something your heart craves, because I will never be yours.”

Every night since receiving that card, the Joker looks at it and wonders what it is that his heart desires. All he has to do is draw it on the card and he will have it. But the years go by for the Joker and the card remains blank.