The night before

Doctor Harleen Quinzel's journal

Thursday, 15th September

Aunt Alice,

I know this is crazy, 'cause you are never going to read this. This is my private journal and I definitely intend to keep it that way.

But I have been staring at this blank page for way too long now.

It's almost midnight and it's driving me crazy and I didn't want to end up writing to a f*cking 'diary' which will most certainly not greet me back.

The moment I scribbled 'dear diary'', the whole idea seemed so incredibly stupid that I almost snapped it shut. Then my eyes fell on the red and black prayer shawl you sent me last Christmas. Suddenly I could taste the cookies you used to bring me and my mouth and eyes watered at the same time. :-)

So I am gonna write to you each night,, without you even knowing about it.

The more I think about it, the funnier it seems.

It's like keeping a secret from you, which I could never do when I was a kid.

You always called my bluff early, be it on a poker game or in real life.

It was scary as hell...the way you used to read my thoughts!

You must be wondering what made me keep a journal in the first place, since I suck so much in putting down my thoughts into words.

I was always the talker, not so much the thinker / composer type.

It so happened that I met a former patient of mine, who was a brilliant mathematician before the neurons started playing tricks with him.

I bumped into him a few days back in the park around the corner. He was accompanied by his sister who was pushing the wheelchair with an expression on her face that clearly told me she could've thought of a few better ways to spend her Sunday afternoon.

I walked up to him and said hello. His eyes resembled a spider's web when he finally managed to look at me . There was no sign of recognition in them.

His sister shrugged and made a face "Never mind, Rob doesn't even respond to mama now. The doctors said it will be like this."

I wanted to tell her that I used to be one of his doctors, in the early days when the nerves didn't have such a vice grip on him; That he was barely the same boy with a lanky frame and strikingly green eyes who lightly flirted with me on our first appointment.

Trust me, Alice, I have been to places in human mind often enough to know that the boy was not gone forever. He was right there with us, buried beneath his ghostly current shape, sensing every emotions and weight of each word being spoken about him.

But he couldn't say his side of the story.

And it scared me.

What if it happens to me someday?

What if I lose my mind one day and become a silent observer of my own life passing by, but can do nothing about it?

I have roamed the dark alleyways of human psyche so often and I know how thin the line between sanity and madness is.

One little push and you could end up on the other side of the looking glass, don't you think Alice?

I hope when I return to this journal and trace my secret and sole journey etched on ink and paper, I can remember why I started writing it in the first place.

I don't want to lose myself in the darkness I see every time I look into a victim's (people call them criminals, but I know they are the victims of their own mind) eyes.

I want to be the light in that darkness.

But experience taught me that darkness is powerful and demands to be feared.

I will never be able to tell it to anyone...anyone except you, that I am scared of the darkness.

My job scares me sometimes, Alice.

They say that an awakened mind can sense your fears!

And what if such a mind is trapped inside the body of the devil himself?

That's what the people of Gotham refer him as...the devil.

The man without any conscience, who does not abide by the moral codes, who has stripped his soul off humanity and made a deal with the Lord of the ungodly things couldn't have a more apt name, you'd think!

Tomorrow I am going to meet him in Arkham Asylum. My first day of internship and Dr. Markus was kind enough to grant me something that's possibly every psychiatrist' s dream and other people's nightmare.

I get to meet the clown prince of crime tomorrow.

I won't deny the rush of excitement in my veins when I first heard about it from Dr. Markus.

"I know you can do it, Harleen. I am yet to see you give up on someone, even if he is goner in everyone else's eyes!" He patted my back when I was desperately trying to suppress the thrill bursting inside me.

But when it's finally happening, something about it won't let me sleep tonight.

I think I am a bundle of nerves and blabbering right now.

I should try and get some sleep.

I pray when I finally meet the man (or the devil-in-disguise, whatever it is), he can't smell the anxiety curling in my veins.

Love

Harleen FQ