The Oldschool Harlequin

So, I’ve been writing this for the last few days. It’s meant to be, quite simply, a piece about the Oldschool Harlequin. The supernatural being I imagined up, not me myself. I didn’t want to give too much about him away, while still explaining some things about him.

“So, who or what is the Harlequin i hear you say.
Have you not seen him?
The regal man in a top hat and emblazoned with outlandish face paint.
A madman or visionary?
A vagrant or pilgrim?
Criminal or revolutionary?
Good or wicked?
In truth, nobody really knows.

He came to these shores from out of the distant mists.
A chaotic phantom.
An outsider.
A force of nature.
A demigod.
Appearing in one place, then another almost instantaneously.
He has shown himself to be both benevolent and malevolent.
Unnaturally brutal and kindly all at once.
Occasionally appearing to act simply on a whim or out of boredom.
To understand his ways is to understand chaos itself.

Why is he here?
To know that would be to know the universe.
He preaches about insanity, Armageddon and anarchy.
But also of individuality and freedom.
He rejects government, while also shunning leadership himself.
He seems to prefer to influence and instigate, rather than direct.

His servants are equally unknowable.
The cane, Domnall.
The knife, Tournefoux.
The doll, Pandora.
And the crystal ball, Jack Frost.
These bizarre machinations carry out his will, their actions just as alien.
Heartless, or perhaps soulless?

He’s drawn to the mentally ill and the impressionable.
To the Harlequin, an asylum is a chapel.
The inmates, his flock.
The amassed corpses of the staff, his altar.
He likens himself to a priest of sorts.
A priest of madness.
A cleric of the apocalypse.
Anarchy and insanity, his sermons.
Self belief and self-indulgence, his hymns.
Apocalypse and the end of the world, his prayers.

For all his doom saying, the Harlequin just as often acts with charity.
Helping the weak and strong alike.
He is, no doubt, a freak.
But he is no monster.
He saved my family.
We had no food and were beset by bandits.
With a flick of his hand, he cut them asunder.
We owe him our lives, for what they’re worth.
We’ll follow the Harlequin from now on.
To whatever hell or heaven he leads…”