Batman Eternal #7

Never ever look in a mirror at exactly 12:34:56 AM.

Once upon an every week, there was a supphissedly fictional place called Gotham City. The city was not pronounced like a parody of a milk advertisement for pork producthiss. It had a silent hiss in the middle. "Go-hiss-am Sit-eee!" That doesn't look right. But that'hiss okay because you are not a hisstupid warmblood. And even if you are a hisstupid warmblood, you would not have been able to read any of this anyway so it doesn't matter. You probably know how to pronounce all of these words without me telling you which ones have hisses in the middle of them. Most of them do not have any hisses in them at all even if sometimes they are hard to pronounce without the hissing. It is the toughhisst part of the dhissguise.

I worry that now that I have warned you against it, you are going to do it. I worry. I do.

In thiss supphissedly fictional place, a story that would not leave me alone was being told. It was like a small warmblood tugging at my tail (my coat tail, of courhiss!) and saying, "Lhissten to me! Lhissten to me! I have the jokes which make the warmbloods blurt strange noises from their mouths and sometimes viscous fluids from their nasal cavities!" But I do not like to hear the jokes because they make me uncomfortable. I do not know when the part that is funny happens so I smile with my seemingly tiny mouth and nod fervently as if I were watching a small animal on a branch jhisst above me. Then I think how lovely that creature would taste. My stomach growling hiss not the correct reaction to hearing the jokes. It makes the warmbloods uncomfortable although they do not know why. They glance around furtively for the danger they sense inherently but they mhiss it every time.

Well, most of the time. Sometimes the camera catchiss what it should not catch. Sometimes the insane see what they should not see.

Thiss hiss how we see thiss world! Gotham? Oh, now my stomach is growling!

All stories are real. You knew that, did you not? Since you were a small, angry warmblood, you knew it. All the dragons. All the princhisshiss. All the peasants and wayward knights. But eventually, knowing all stories were real was a dangerous thing to know. So the older warmbloods told you, time and time again, that the stories were lies. All lies. But they were lying. To protect you. To keep you from the mirror.

Why does Batman hide hiss true identity? Because there hiss power in secrhissy. He does not do it to protect hiss loved ones, no. That hiss one of the lies. Nothing hiss ever about the other; everything is about the one who perceives. Do not be fooled by charity; it does not exhisst. Bruce Wayne hiss a mask. Batman wears a mask. All is a mask. You would not like to see reality in its raw and undiluted form. Thiss hiss why we cover them. Thiss hiss why we break them when we can.

The cat versehiss the bird hiss the truth of most stories. It hiss all hunt and hunted. It hiss all games and hunger.

See? All games, all hunger.

So thiss Batman that hiss both real and unreal, he battles a man named Pyg. We all fight thiss battle. Everything hiss about the one who perceives and all that the one perceives hiss greedy pigs at the trough, taking what should be yours, making you hunger, making you starve. They are all pigs. Every one of them a pig. But you, I, we, whatever...different. Until you look. Until you take a peek. Jhisst phisst midnight, you can't help yourself. You must see. You must know. What do they perceive? How hiss the one that perceives perceived by the pigs and the birds?

The pig battles the bat; the bird fights off the cat. And all around them, chaos reigns. They fight for a little bit of control in their lives, in their environment. They fight for illusion. For nothing but chaos has ever been the arbiter. For to find control, one who perceives must realize perception is a lie. The warmbloods have not yet figured it out. There hiss no control but what we allow. Even your leaders do not lead. They hunger. And they play games. And they fight. But they do not lead, and they do not control, and they will never look past what they see.

The pig goes, "Lies. All lies! None of it matters!"

And so the little games, the inconsequential battles, go on all night. Pig and cat and bird and bat. While the ones that matter wait and watch and hide and eat. Yhiss, eat. So much food for us.

Batman Eternal #7 Rating: It was a diversion, no more, no more.