Chapter 2: The Happy Farm; Where Life Is Beautiful All The Time

The day after my encounter with Wendy the entertainment value of the meeting had begun to wear away and now I was once again totally and utterly bored. Not only that, but I also had a major itch dying to be scratched right next to my left scar. Unfortunately, I couldn't do anything about it considering that I was wrapped tightly in my straightjacket. Deliberately, I rolled over onto my front in an attempt to cure the itch by rubbing the side of my face into the pillow. I hissed when a stinging pain was a result to trying to scratch my cheek. I wasn't sure what it was that caused the pain but I gave up scratching my face seeing as my paint had began to smear off onto the pillow case. It wasn't as if I was concerned with the cleanliness of the pillow; no, I only intended on leaving the paint that coated my face on for as long as humanly possible. Eventually, I knew it would fade away, but I was going to do whatever I could in my power just to leave it on.

Anyway, asides the fact that I had an incurable itch, I assumed that I had woken up early in the morning; judging by the irritatingly, singing birds and the pinkish red sky. Red sky in the morning, sailors warning. The amount of sleep surprised me seeing as wearing the Arkham straitjacket gives nothing but discomfort, so any sleep at all was a miracle. I hardy slept normally. Not being able to have my normal fix of caffeine was the most likely problem. I needed the coffee to keep me going, but now that it was taken away from me, I had resorted to sleeping on the uncomfortable Arkham beds. I was pretty sure that today my first session with my new doctor was being held. Who the doctor was and when the session was being held was beyond me, so all I could do was wait and wriggle my toes.

The doctor better be fun to play with. Doctors were always best when they struggled in attempts to overcome my tries to break them completely. I never like the wimpy doctors who were far too emotional. All I'd had to do was lick my lips and they'd crumble to the ground in fear, metaphorically speaking of course. What were they trying to say? I was far too ugly to be in their presence? I don't know whether to be slightly offended by their disgusted behaviour. No, I had no reason to be. I should be proud to know I had this affect on people, if anything. Preferably, I wanted a female doctor. Only because the male doctors tended to be jerks and always tried hiding their fear behind their false masculinity. It didn't get passed me though. I could see clearly the overwhelming terror building up in their eyes no matter how hard they attempted to hide it. Women were more up front about their feelings and said amusing things like 'I'll scream if you come any closer' or 'Don't you think I won't press this panic button'. Pfft. As if that'll stop me.

My thoughts were interrupted when the door to my cell was unlocked and then opened by one of the Arkham guards. "Get up! It's time for your session with Dr Clarkson!" He exclaimed as he gripped my shoulder tightly and heaved me off the bed, clearly abusing his power. A little disorientated from standing up too quickly, I was shoved out of my cell and lead down a corridor which had a series of doors with the names of doctors printed on them. The guard knocked on one of the doors once we reached the door that read 'Dr Audrey C. Clarkson'. In response a faint 'come in' was heard from inside the office.

So now I knew it was a woman...and a beautiful woman at that, now that I had first lay eyes upon her. Her hair was dark brown which fell past her shoulders in soft curls and her eyes matched her hair colour perfectly. Her skin looked smooth and was naturally, lightly tanned...Slicing into that delicate skin wouldn't be a difficult task. Whilst establishing that I had been given a good looking doctor, the guard began unfastening the buckles on my straitjacket after I had sat down on the couch. Thank God! I stretched my arms as soon as I had the ability to move freely. My moment of freedom was soon shattered when the guard roughly gripped my wrists and tightened some handcuffs around them. I glared at them feeling somewhat down heartened. Nonetheless, at least I could scratch the itch now, no matter how painful it was for some bizarre reason. I continued scratching and scratching, but nothing seemed to suffice the itch. Why was this bothering me so much?

The guard had now left the room and I didn't acknowledge the fact that it was just me and the pretty doctor left in the room. "Hello, my name is- "

"Is it normal for me to, ah, randomly bleed from my cheek?" I asked interrupting whatever it was she was going to say. A single drop of blood was now rolling down my finger after I had removed it from my face. I touched my cheek again and more blood was now covering my hand.

"What are you talking about?" She asked as she stood up from her chair and made her way over to me with her heels clicking against the floor in the process. "Oh my god, your face is bleeding," she gasped as she placed her hands over her mouth in shock.

"I figured."

"How did you do that?" She asked as she examined the cut on my face. Strange. It's usually the other scars the doctors ask about. "Stop scratching at it," she ordered, gripping my wrists with her delicate hands and attempt to pull them away from my face. Yet, it was to no prevail. In the process, she only managed to get her hands covered in blood too. Figuring that she was too weak, her hands slipped away and some blood flicked onto her white blouse in doing so. I couldn't help but laugh as she gasped and stared down at her top with displeasure in her eyes. She groaned before stomping over to her desk for a box of tissues in a moody manner. I laughed more realising she was already beginning to break down without me doing anything deliberate. "This isn't funny," she sighed wiping blood of her hands with the tissues. I laughed nevertheless.

After wiping the blood off her hands, she started on mine. I let her do it until she started for my face. Hastily, I gripped her arm with both my hands and stared at her warningly, my laughter coming to an immediate stop. "You're going to have to let me wipe the blood off your face," she reasoned with me still trying to reach the cut.

"Ah tah tah tah tah, I can do it myself, thank you very much," I protested as I moved my face away from her hands.

"Fine," she sighed defeated and handed me the box of tissues. "Anyway, enough with all the shtick. How did you get that cut?"

I merely shrugged my shoulders in reply because I sincerely didn't remember getting sliced across the face. It was so close to my old scars too. An inch higher and the cut could have reopened the stitches and that wouldn't be very pretty.

"How can you not know where you got that cut? Did you have it yesterday?" She questioned as she pulled out something from her desk draws. It was a medical kit.

I was in deep thought for a moment, trying to think back and figure out how I could have possibly gotten a deep enough cut. I dabbed the cut, staring up into space as I chewed the inside of my scars. My eyes widened in realisation when I figured out where I must have gotten them from. "Ah, yes! I remember," I exclaimed before bursting out into laughter again. It was two days ago, before I got sent to Arkham when I had received the injury. During the final fight between me and Batman, he sliced my cheek with one of his bat gadgets. "The bat gave me it," I explained still giggling slightly.

"Um...the bat? Care to explain?" The doctor asked as she sauntered over to me again holding the kit. She sat down beside me and stared at me eagerly awaiting my response. "Are you hallucinating already?"

"No, no, no. The Batman gave the cut during a fight," I explained more clearly. She nodded acknowledging what I had said and unzipped the medical kit before pulling out a bottle of antiseptic. "I hope you're not intending to cleanse the cut," I warned her threateningly, even though I had not yet made any clear threats against her. If she was smart, she'd stop what she was doing right this second, but she showed no intentions of stopping. I had nothing else to do but grab that bottle out of her hands and hurl it across the room. The bottle didn't smash, but a lot of the contents poured out of it as it fell to the ground.

"What is wrong with you?" She exclaimed and then went to pick the bottle up.

"You tell me. You're supposed to be the doctor." She sighed as she picked up the bottle and screwed the top back on. She stared down at the puddle of antiseptic on the floor and shook her head in frustration. "I did warn you. Maybe you should listen next time, hmm?"

"It's going to get infected especially with that make-up covering it," she protested still not having given up. The main reason I didn't want it cleaned was because of the make-up.

"I don't care, just leave it," I ordered now growling slightly. She was trying my patience and my anger was now reaching the threshold because she just wasn't taking the hint. When the antiseptic made contact with the cut, I arose from the couch abruptly and glared down at her. She looked around 5' 10" while I still stood towering at 6'1". The sudden realisation of how much bigger I was to her immediately made her hand retract in intimidation. My teeth were clenched and my fists were balled up, hoping that my actions spoke louder than words. It seemed to be working since she was now packing the antiseptic away. I noticed as she was packing, that she had a ring on her wedding finger, so I automatically assumed that she married.

"Um...okay. We'll leave that for now," she stated sheepishly and made her way over to her desk. Now that she had gone, I slowly sat back down on the couch again my anger slowly decreasing. "Considering that majority of our time together has been wasted from these silly predicaments, there really isn't any point in getting in too deep with this session. Therefore we'll just spend the rest of the time getting to know each other, okay?" I didn't say anything back, indifferent on the idea. She picked up a clipboard that was lying on the desk in front of her and gazed down at it. "There's hardly any information on here. Who did your medical with you yesterday?" Audrey asked still staring at the clipboard with her eyebrows knitted together in frustration.

"Uh, Wendy."

"Oh. Go figure," she breathed ironically.

I stared at her confused by what she meant and the tone she had used. "What's the problem, hmm?"

"She's the problem, that's all," she replied cynically. The abhorrence was thick in her words and I could tell she had a strong hatred to Wendy for some unknown reason. Wendy was in no way a sweet person, but I still couldn't tell what the reason behind Audrey's hate was. I suppose Audrey could sense that I was confused, so she took it as her duty to elucidate further. "Asides from the fact that she's a completely incompetent nurse, she's hated me ever since I started working here. There's no particular reason behind the hating, but I assume it's because of my job title. I'm younger than her so the fact that I'm a psychiatrist and she isn't really hits a nerve and it's created a strong sense of jealousy towards me. I've been working here for almost three years now, since the age of 23 and she has never ever made any attempt to be nice to me in the slightest."

I calculated in my head that she must have been 26 or approaching. That was way too young to be working as a psychiatrist in Arkham I would have thought. A lot of the doctors here are at least above the age of thirty after years and years of practice to get a psychiatry degree. And somehow Dr Clarkson comes along and she's a psychiatrist immediately. It all seemed a little too shady for me. She couldn't have possibly gotten the degree or the job with her intelligence; she was far too inexperienced. Looks was the most likely possibility. I had heard of people satisfying certain people's sexual desires for them to be able to achieve some sort of higher status on the totem pole and I figured that this was maybe what Audrey had done.

"Who did you have to blow to get this job?" I asked bluntly with a smirk.

"...Excuse me?" She questioned after a long pause, looking taken aback to say the least. "Who did I blow to get this job? What are you talking about?"

"Surely, you didn't get this job through good grades and high marks in your school's pop quizzes."

"Actually, I'm a very worthy psychiatrist here in Arkham. I got here through a lot of hard work and dedicated training. I'd appreciate it if you weren't so stereotypical in the future, please."

"I'm not being stereotypical, uh, doc. It was only an assumption. I knew for a fact that all the doctors here are above the age of thirty, so I automatically assumed you must have chosen the easier option to get where you are. If anything, you are the one being stereotypical."

"How so?"

"Why am I here, doc, hmm?"

"Well, you are classed as criminally insane- "

"Enough said; that is a stereotypical comment in itself. I'm labelled as insane, but it's never occurred to anyone to think that maybe it's me that's in the right and that maybe I'm the only one who's realised the, ah, true view of human nature. They're all far too afraid to go against society and its rules so they all jump on the same band wagon and frown upon the underdog or that one person who isn't afraid to stand up against society. In this case, that one person is me. Maybe you should think about what you say before you begin contradicting yourself, thus proving your intelligence and therefore proving that you couldn't have possibly gotten this job with brains. However, maybe that's an unfair statement, considering that I'm only comparing your intellect with mine, which is far more superior to yours," I gloated, knowing how right I was.

Audrey said nothing back; just simply stared at me looking slightly beat. Oh, I had hit a nerve. She knew I was right, so there really wasn't any point in arguing further. Already she had begun to crack and the first session hadn't even finished yet. She coughed, clearing her throat, before starting her sentence. "Well that's just your opinion." I rolled my eyes at her stubbornness. "I can clearly see you are a very opinionative guy. Is there anything else you want to share with me? Tell me a little about yourself."

"Well, where do I begin? I was born and raised in Gotham. I've never travelled anywhere else. I enjoy rainy days. I listen to classical music quite frequently. I've starred in many pornography movies. I've won the award for 'Father of the Year' many times before. I have to step off curbs using a specific foot. Wet towels scare me. As a child, I wanted to be a giraffe. I can't eat lasagne because all the layers make it feel like a journey to the centre of the earth. And I think you're a beautiful psychiatrist with lovely long legs."

The amount of information given at such a high speed was overwhelming for Audrey and the words were still sinking into recognition, so she simply stared at me dumbfounded. "Um...How much of that was actually true?" She asked as she scratched her head.

"The pornography part was true," I replied.

"Don't lie."

"How would you know I'm lying?" I asked smarmily.

Before Audrey could protest, the door to her office opened, revealing the burly guard. Saved by the bell. "Has it been half an hour already?" She asked and he nodded as a reply. Audrey must have noticed the guard staring down at the puddle of antiseptic, so she ordered, "someone's going to have to clean that up. It's antiseptic." The guard nodded again, still not quite understanding. He entered the room holding the dreaded straitjacket again and began placing it back on me once the cuffs were off. "Goodbye, Mr Joker. See you next session."

"Goodbye, doc," I grumbled not happy that I was forced back into my straitjacket again. I was shoved back into my cell for the boredom to once again consume.

*.*.*.*

AN: *waves sheepishly* I am so sorry for the extremely long wait! Please, don't hurt me! I seriously forgot all about this story. I've been so consumed with revision and exams to even realise I actually had people subscribed to this story! Ugh...sorry. I've kicked myself for you.

Anyway, the second female protagonist has been introduced. I imagine her with Mandy Moore's looks.

The chapter title is taken from someone called "Napoleon XIV" who sings a song called "They're Coming To Take Me Away" but I have no idea what album it is off. I've just heard the song on so many Joker fan videos on Youtube and I think it fits him perfectly. I'd look them up on Youtube if I were you. The majority of them are really good.

The stepping off curbs with a specific foot is a strange habit that I have myself. No-one else seems to have the urge to use one specific foot except me. I don't know why it happens. Maybe something subliminally scarred me, but I just can't remember what it is.

The wet towels thing is a problem to me too. But I'd assume that many others would have that problem too. They're disgusting when they're wet and they've clearly been used, so it's really repugnant to me.

The wanting to be a giraffe comments is also a personal experience to me. I remember a long time ago in my infant school; a teacher was asking around the class what they wanted to be when they grew up. And this one kid in total seriousness answers with, "When I grow up, I want to be a giraffe." I don't actually remember laughing at the time, but I find it funny now. It's strange how that's stuck with me throughout my life.

Reviews are needed...please? Just tell me what you like about it and...shit.