"Awwww, a family reunion!" laughed The Joker tauntingly, "How touching. HA!"
The Joker spun round on his heels, and walked across the room to behind his desk.
"Now that you're both here, I'd saw it's time for a little history lesson," said The Joker, sitting down behind the desk, "I'm sure you have heard of the gulags. The travelling prisons in Communist Russia. I may not seem much of a history buff, but when it comes to the history of pain and torture, I'm all ears, and all smiles! HA HA!"
The Joker took a sledgehammer out from under the desk, putting it down in front of him.
"In these gulags, the Russians kept thieves, murderers and, worst of all, army deserters. And in all that time travelling around, in the unbearable cold of the Russian wilderness, they got kinda bored. So they came up with all kinds of interesting torture techniques to try out on their inmates. And one of my favourites is called 'Playing the xylophone.'"
The Joker stood up, walking back round in front of the desk. He picked up the hammer, and started cradling it in his hands.
"The bones in the prisoner's spine would be methodically cracked, one after the other," explained The Joker with relish, leering at Barbara when he said spine, "They'd start down at the coccyx, then move upward through the lower vertebrae."
As he said this, he ran his boney fingers up along barbara's back, showing her the bones that would be broken, one by one.
"Now, this was not a rapid process," he continued, "No, they would only break a single bone at a time. Then they'd wait for that bone to heal before breaking the next one. Once the last one was healed, they'd start again. They could play some pretty impressive scales on that xylophone. HA HA!"
The Joker sat down cross-legged on the floor, in front of the Gordons. He slowly tapped the sledgehammer on the ground.
"And now, I feel like playing some scales of my own," he cackled menacingly, "But I'm not entirely without compassion. I'll let you two decide between you who goes first. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
