My mid 40s coworkers (kinda stuffy snobby ladies) were talking about internet celebrities and stuff asked me who my favorite influencer was, i said it was you and i lowkey I really hope they look you up with zero context as to what they will be getting into.
A/N: just a short part of the fic I'm writing now.
Warning: bullying at work, frustration, negativity, relief at the end.
Words: 2.000~
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The first sun rays enlightened three of the five seats on the farthest row. At a rushing pace, Arthur Fleck immediately makes himself a place there. His lungs caught the air in long, deep moves that caused a few curious heads to turn around. That cold morning would have been worse if he had not caught the bus, which was almost empty.
But that didn’t make the anxiety go away. Seconds passed while avoiding eye contact.
Everything else would be fine.
That rainy week on Gotham had left thousands of puddles over the streets, also causing the sewer system to collapse, leaving thousands of people affected. This urged authorities to take action into the matter, worried about the sanitary situation worsening.
That's all Arthur could recall during his rushed pace to work. His worn out, brown shoes displayed a few lines of mud, which he tried to wipe off by stepping carefully into any puddle he could find on his way. To make it more bearable, he let himself sway along the bag, cigarette in mouth. A happy hum vibrated through his throat just to be torn apart with a furious groan: a fast taxi left his bag drenched. Arthur screamed at the driver, who in turn told him dryly to fuck off.
Arthur sighed. He wasn't even halfway and he already felt he had given up.
Once he regained composure, low chuckles soon turned into an unpleasant distinctive among the hubbub. The disgusted looks didn't take long to distort people's faces when a loud cackle reverberated through the street. The loner stopped his walk, cigarette falling to the floor as his hand went up to soothe the bleeding soreness on his throat. In the midst of despair to find shelter from people and their hurtful glares and words, Arthur made his way in a dead end, filled with trash bags that hadn't been picked up. Flies orbited the shiny, black piles whose foul smell made Arthur take a step back to avoid throwing up.
"Fucking freak" he clearly heard from a teenager.
The scene was the same. The pain caused by the frantic struggle to breathe had tears pricking his eyes. He supported himself with one arm, a bag almost forgotten near the street, kicked by some other pedestrians until he grabbed, pleading to the unfeeling feet to stop it. He groaned in pain, twisting his back as he recovered from the hunched position. Resigned, Arthur continued walking his way to the dirty street that led to HaHa's door. The latch turned to the right with a clicking sound, sending the loner to a stairway whose second floor he knew too well. Walls with worn paint that felt like pelt, dusty and dirty furniture no one cared to clean and unpleasant coworkers that, much to the irony of the situation, had to paint smiles while leading miserable lives.
His thin shadow through the frosted glass of the door warned them of his arrival. And he hated it, stopping at the spot where no one could see him, despite being useless to hide from the daily mockery, usually coming from Randall.
"Well, if it isn't my boy Artie!" an uproarious series of cackles echoed. The noise was Arthur was convinced that even just one whisper would cause the incipient, gnawed structure to crumble down. That would actually pretty fucking funny. A bunch of unfunny, shady bastards whose names wouldn't take too much to be part of collective oblivion. He imagined the whole scene of HaHa's falling to pieces, including himself on it--
"Come on, Arthur! Don't be a pussy!" screamed one of the other clowns he never remembered the name of, "Hoyt wants a talk with you at his office"
He shook his head. What did he do wrong this time... besides arriving eleven minutes late?
Facing a new stressful situation carved back that resigned, silent expression always masking his annoyance. The thought of a sudden, quick death seemed to be the true remedy to stop feeling so bad. Hoyt was a patient boss and slightly nicer than his other colleagues - with Gary being the only exception, of course but boy, his harsh beratings sometimes ended with him bashing his head against the wall or laughing uncontrollably.
The reaction was the same: Either Hoyt yelled in panic after jolting out of his chair or the others stopped their chatting to hear the nuisance for future laughs. Everything seemed to conspire against him to always make him the joke instead of being the one telling the joke. A deep inhaling helped him to cope with anxiety. He then showed up in the hall, making use of the registration machine. No words of comeback or even a faint grin emerged from him. He just led his steps toward his locker to leave the bag, paper turning soggy and darker inside.
An impatient, thunderous yell froze everyone for a second. Arthur, of course, was the reason for such expression.
"Coming!" he rushed to the office, opening the door slowly, trying to appease his wrathful boss.
"What took you so long?"
The place was a complete mess. An ashtray full of cigarettes, pencils, small decorations and forms were all spread on the table, with Hoyt sitting at it. His harsh, older ways do hold some pity for him, he didn't hesitate lashing at him as if he were a little boy whenever he did wrong or disturbed others. Arthur closed the door behind him and had a sit as his boss indicated him to.
"Nothing," Arthur sighed, "it was just..."
Hoyt rolled his eyes, sighing.
"What now, Arthur? You are now eleven fucking minutes late and the hospital's receptionist has been pestering me over twenty minutes on why you haven't showed up!"
The loner stammered, nervous. His reply sounded like a broken whisper.
"My laugh..." Arthur tried to explain, but Hoyt shook his hand, already understanding the delay immediately, "I-- I had a laughing fit on the wa--"
"Alright, alright". Hoyt cut him off. He put down the blue pencil he was signing a form with. An annoyed sigh soured the impoliteness of not looking at him in the eye.
"You just pestered me during days to take this job and now I'll have to tell these fuckers a good excuse to keep doing business with them after this!" Hoyt screamed almost as if Arthur didn't understand what was happening.
Dissociation was a relief.
"Are you listening to me?"
He blinked, trying to fight the lightheadedness as he came back to reality.
"Yes, Hoyt," he replied.
He looked back at the form, seemingly reading another question to fill an answer in a box.
"I'll have you scheduled for a job at elderly care unit at Gotham Hospital next week. Gary and Randall will replace you, is that understood?"
His eyes suddenly widened as if his mind just regained conscience.
"Is that understood?" Hoyt seemed just about to lose his patience.
"Oh, Hoyt... Please" Arthur tried to plead to him, "I really looked forward to this job all week--" but Hoyt scoffed, already pissed off and not hesitating to raise his voice to him.
"Jesus, Arthur!" the man palmed his face in exasperation, "I'm just trying to fix this shit and these elders' event next wednesday is all I have for you. Also, kids will do better with these other two"
Arthur lowered his head.
"I can still make it" he muttered, an innocent glimpse of hope gleaming in his eyes, "hospital is not too far from he--"
"Arthur, Randall and Gary will take your place. No arguing" he lit a cigarette, shaking his hand despectively, "you'll get yourself ready for the show for those old fucks, with your fucking green wig and that fucking make up on your face on time, will you?" Hoyt growled.
The clown did not protest though a fire surge forming furiously inside his chest urged him to do otherwise.
"Arthur" Hoyt raised his voice, to scare away that insufferable habit to zone out while he was facing a difficult situation, "do you understand what I'm telling you?"
Arthur was smart enough that he intended to sound friendly, out of pity. His frequent condescending treatment was one of the things Arthur hated the most about him.
"Yes, Hoyt," he answered.
As soon as he left the office, he stepped back to the locker to get the bag, letting the verbal mockery slip like raindrops on the glass.
To insult his intelligence. To be treated like a child… or even a retarded. But the usual façade of silence and aloofness would help to survive it.
"So how did things go, Artie?" He recognised the voice. It was that male stripper whom he never learned his name from. No words emerged from his mouth, which caused more laughs.
"Good that Hoyt remembered that Halloween is in two weeks!" Randall turned around, the black make up half finished as the others continued the obnoxious derision, though it was nothing that he wasn't used to. One thing was for sure: Arthur Fleck was good at taking beatings and insults.
The radio played a happy tune that soon distorted into nothingness as Arthur directed his steps out of HaHa"s.
Another day in fucking Chuckletown.
_______________________________
He rolled his eyes while giving a long drag to his cigarette. He didn't have enough money to pay for a ride on the bus back to his home.
Numberless droplets fell down the window as the sky began to fall. His day couldn't get worse. First, running out of medications, then Penny Fleck became more and more ill and the unanswered letters to that fucking millionaire worsened the situation and now this.
He counted on that gig to have a little more money so the bills and some decent food would be out of his daily worries. Why was it so hard to be happy nowadays?
Gotham city seemed so different during the morning, weak sunlight. Surprisingly far from that gloomy, dangerous landscape that citizens were so used to seeing.
The painful irony of it would have the loner six feet under if only the doctor increased his medication. At this point, comedy was the only real medication.
"Laugh"
As Penny Fleck had told him: he was born to bring joy and laughter. He just wished someone had told him the former would be at his expense. Maybe it could have been a little more bearable. Now that his steps forwarded back to the apartment, he thought of a way to avoid any berating words from her.
Anything would do.
Two drunk men started to fight. It served to confirm the horrible truth about the place: no one here gives a fuck. But the last straw was a painful fall over the floor. This time there wasn’t a no end street to shelter from the shame. Life was always too cruel to him but having to endure those disgusted looks from people was too much for his mind to bear.
Problem with Hoyt had been enough to make him scream his lungs out. His knee was hurting so much, while people ignored him as they walked by. It was almost a bitter taste of what his death would be like.
As soon as he stood up, he ran in panic passing Helm's Pharmacy, then those fucking stairs he hated stepping in, to finally reach the building. Furious, Arthur kicks a few trash bags to avoid tripping again. He put the hoodie on, lighting up a cigarette to smoke the anger away.
Arthur looked for the key that opened the mailbox, walking towards the main hall of the block.
All this to fulfill the tedious, eternal routine of his mother to check the mailbox before entering the flat. Her insufferable stubbornness had him bashing his head multiple times.
"Hey, stop it!" A small kid shouted while chasing another bunch of children went by, causing an instinctive reaction from him to step aside. The unpleasant memory of being assaulted over a sign ghosts over his mind.
Luckily for him, nothing happens. Just a mailman rushed out to the exit, with a bag full of envelopes and a very upset middle aged man.
"It smells like a sewer outside" the man complained, "never in my fucking life I've seen anything like that.
Arthur had been living in Gotham all his life to know the guy was right."What a shitty situation" he rolled his eyes, sarcastically.
Arthur heard a distant comment, to which the man replied as he walked away from the mail boxes:
"What can be worse?! My wife left me and my boss just told me I'm fucking fired!"
The party clown tried not cracking up this time. It went unnoticed for the screaming wretch of a man.
"What's next? Doctor telling me I have cancer?"
Arthur coughed trying to cover up the chuckles. His expression turned back to mirthless seriousness, while looking in his pocket for the keys.
Instead of finding a dark void, he saw a small white object hidden at the left. Arthur was speechless. So startled he was by this intriguing discovery, his hand dropped the bag to pay full attention to the mailbox.
Perplexity traces hard lines on his forehead while studying it carefully.
It was a small envelope, with his name written alongside a red lipstick kiss on it. His breath shortened when a delicate handwriting revealed who the author was:
With love
Harleen.
Arthur’s heart skipped a beat. With rushing impatience, his hands open the sealable flap to see what was inside. He didn’t remember anyone mailing him, except for bills. What had she sent him? Or better, why would she bother to do anything like this for him? The thrill the romantic envelope had caused on him just increased with every second.
It wasn’t a letter, as he initially thought. There were five pictures for what he could tell from the first one. He set his gaze upon the photo on his hands, smirking as he studied the beautiful sight of Harleen wearing a very short red dress, while smiling at the camera. Her crimson lips looked so perfect, as her icy blue eyes returned the glare to the hypnotised loner.
His anxiety made him pass to the next picture. Once he saw it, going to a more private place wasn’t an option anymore.
