Name Engraved

His name was Thomas Schiff. A paranoid schizophrenic and Joker's honorary puppet.  I saw him last semester when I watched The Dark Knight for the first time in Sociology. He was a minor character, and yet something drew me to him like the seas to the moon. Something in his eyes. His eyes! They whispered, beckoning me closer to tell the tale of a lost and shattered soul. They screamed and they cried, yet he smiled, an empty smile, void of all that was so many years ago.. They burn in the back of my mind. I sometimes see them staring back when I close my eyes at night. 

I know he's just an actor, but that's besides the point.

I've decided to face the fact I've flatly denied for years.

I sympathize with psychotics.

I'm drawn to them.

It's almost unnatural.

A good nine times out of ten, I've found I have the uncanny ability to unknowingly pick them out of crowd as a favorite in a television show or otherwise.

Take Russia for example. First episode, I decided "hey, I like that guy", to find out he's got quite a bit of blood on his hands a few episodes later. This is where I differ from the masses: instead of rejecting Russia for being rather mentally challenged, I ask "I wonder what could have caused him to become the way he is?" For Russia, it's General Winter, that icy in-command whispering hate-words down his ears and generally making his life a living Hell(not a curse word). Still hate him?

Next, look at the unspeakable J(half-fictional this time). He stabbed some kids to death when he was young and *now* goes on uncontrollable quests for blood when the "feeling" comes back. He murdered his own family.. Why? It all goes back to some neighborhood bullies and a couple of guns. The jerkfaces threatened and beat his brother Noah, so he grabbed a knife and fought back shortly after they burned his face completely off with a Molotov and bleach. After he miraculously recovered and the bandages were removed, his mother rejected his newly pale and scarred face, causing him to carve a smile into his own and theirs so he'd never be sad again.

Never judge a book by it's cover. There's always a cause. Next time, look for one, and if you think I'm wrong, you obviously haven't delved deep enough.

Every time I look into the eyes of Thomas Schiff, I cry thinking of how many beautiful minds are suffering as I write.

Hate the action, not the person :(