Disclaimer: I do not own anything pertaining to the Batman universe.

Hey Guys! I wrote this a long time ago, when the first trailers for Dark Knight were coming out, so it was written with Heath Ledger's (RIP!) Joker in mind. I just didn't get around to posting it till now. This is a randomly written series of shorts that cohesively join to form one long story. I hope you all like it! And yes, I know that she doesn't have a name in this. She won't have one for the first three chapters. After that, she'll get one…

Thanks for reading!

- Late March

"Body Joke"

She was walking home after work one day. Alone. The night was dark enough to spook her into carrying her keys in her hand and her mace in her big black purse. Every movement in the shadows scared her, frightened her, heightened her sense of paranoia.

Anything out of place was enough to set her alarms off. A sewer rat, hungry and greedy, scurrying down one of Gotham's many alleys. A drunk kicking an empty been can. The quick silver flash of the moon in a puddle. The weakly flickering lights of a far away bar.

Anything out of place in her mind.

'Hello.' She thought as her feet first halted and then back tracked to stand in front of the grimy side street she'd just passed. Was that a body?

Carefully, she inched her way forward, her fingers tightening around her keys till her knuckles were white, eyes glued to the halo of light from a lone streetlamp that surrounded the body. Her heart began to beat in her chest, a rapid tattoo against the cavity wall. Her lungs expanded over and over, quicker and quicker in sync with the tempo of her rising anxiety.

What if it was a dead body? What was she supposed to do if it was – stand there staring at some gory wound till the police arrived? It certainly looked like a dead body. It wasn't moving or anything and that was usually a sign of death.

She paused as another thought came to mind. It might be a robber just waiting for someone to come and investigate the sight of a "body" so that he could murder them. She hefted her umbrella up high as a makeshift weapon, just in case.

"Sir?" she called out timidly. Her nervous brain imagined a twitch of the hand. There was no other movement and she immediately resolved to stop watching so many horror movies involving zombies. "Are you alright sir?"

There was no answer. Still, the body didn't move and she got closer and closer to it. Finally she whispered "Sir?" and poked him (it was definitely a him, she could see now) in the ribs with the end of her umbrella. No response. Putting her keys away she took the time to study the man on the ground. 'Its not like he's going anywhere. I can always call the police in a few minutes.' She rationalized silently in her mind.

Whatever it was – curiosity, disgust, horror – whatever, she couldn't take her eyes from him. He was the oddest looking man she'd ever seen. A clown gone sour was her first thought, someone Batman would fight. 'Batman! What am I thinking? He isn't even real!' she giggled nervously at her cartoonish thoughts.

Still, the man did look like something out of a comic book. His clothes, completely unsullied by blood, were certainly clownish. Dark brown trousers that were slightly too short and showed off red, orange, blue, green, and purple argyle socks. There was a bright purple vest, really a darker shade of violet to be honest, that was completely buttoned up. A striped greet shirt with the sleeves rolled up pale arms to the elbows. Very eccentric clothing.

The man's head was the oddest of all though. His hair was a bright green, the color of new grass, and she wondered where he had gotten the hair dye for such a vivid color. His face was covered in some sort of white costume makeup. But if that wasn't bad enough there looked to be about a million little black creases turning most of the white makeup gray. She didn't know if this had been done on purpose or not, but it certainly lent a manic air to the man.

Going along with all this were his eyes, lined heavily in messy black eyeliner, and his lips. They seemed to be smothered in a lady's bright "Cadillac Red" lipstick. The red reached up his face in slowly curling lines, one from each corner of his mouth. Up and up they reached so that his lips looked too wide and unwieldy on his face.

She studied him for a long time and wondered if this had done to him after death. If so, it had been an extremely cruel thing to do. It was clear to her that once he could have been a very handsome man, but the makeup and some horrible emotion had completely ruined that.

As she kneeled down next to him, a drop of rain, a single and solitary one, fell from the sky and onto the man's face. It slid carelessly down his cheek and one sliver of normal colored skin appeared.

Her eyes were glued to that strip of skin, the contrast between it and the white makeup was so great. He would look so much better if her was cleaned off, and it would be easier for his family to view his body if he wasn't covered in gunk…

Slowly she reached into her purse and pulled out a bag of tissues. Wetting on is a nearby puddle, she placed it on his nose and pulled down, revealing centimeter after centimeter of clean skin. She then placed the whole of the first tissue on his cheek, running it down past his jaw line and halfway down his neck.

She went through five more tissues while gently cleaning the man's face off. When she was finished she sucked in a deep breath filled with pity.

It hadn't been dirty creases marring the white makeup but scars. Hundreds upon hundreds of them. Some very tiny while others were long and jagged. They were everywhere, crisscrossing his cheeks and nose and chin and forehead.

'How terrible.' Her mind balked at trying to figure out how this had happened to him. She ran a fingertip over one and was studying a particularly nasty scar on his chin when she felt someone watching her.

She looked up to see his eyes open, staring at her. They were beautiful eyes – a deep, intense green that would have been stunning if only they didn't completely lack warmth.

The man sat up, pushing her away and as he did he spotted the soiled tissues. The tell tale red stain on many of them. His face grew dark and angry as he scrambled over to a puddle, hoping to discern his visage in the moonlight illuminated reflection. Sprinkling raindrops of cold water upset the puddle and stopped him from doing so.

Still, he knew what she'd done. His face had a new sensitivity to the cold and wind now that it wasn't protected by a thick layer of makeup. In any case, the tissues and her own guilty look were proof enough. He slid to his feet and she scrambled to stand up, not wanting him to have an advantage of her.

Even with both of them standing he loomed over her, an immense figure. Her face contorted in fear but his melted into a dangerous smile. "My, my, my," he said in a sing song manner despite the gruff tone of his voice. "What a mistake you've made tonight my dear, yes, what a mistake." He licked his red lips. "The Joker will have fun with you." He began to laugh, high pitched and insane.

She screamed.

Author's Note – so what did you think? I've been dying to post this for months, but somehow I never did till now…Anyway, I have two other chapters for you already written…after that, it'll get sketchy. Like I said before – I have no idea in hell where this is going and it'll be written very randomly. I hope you don't mind.

Reviews feed the author's soul. If you don't feed me then…I can't possibly find it in me to write. So please review!