I used to love to play pretend as a kid. With a plastic stethoscope draped professionally around my small neck and a fake thermometer in hand, I used to take mommy's 'blood' when she wasn't busy. I was simply Nurse Stella, with a flashy pink post-it note name tag to prove it. I wanted to be a nurse when I was younger, much, much younger. My five year old self was convinced that working for Gotham General would be like living the dream- taking patients' temperatures every day and making sure they felt top-notch and as fit as a fiddle, after ensuring they took their 'non-stinging special medicine injection', of course. And I'd always be especially gentle and kind to Cassidy, who was dead-set on becoming a supermodel and become as pretty and perfect as the girls in magazines.
It was sad to think that most kids grew out of that phase as soon as they reached age ten. But Cassidy- wow- Cassidy had kept her dreams, her hopes higher than the clouds in the sky. She'd succeeded, as she took modelling and cosmetics courses outside of college, whilst she studied the art of fashion and figure back in school. She wasn't giving up. Once Cassidy made plan A, there was no plan B. She got what she wanted even if it killed her. And I admired that.
Realising that being a nurse in Gotham General was impractical, I took a different approach. At age fourteen, while I was experiencing my hormonal state of depression and romanticising the obsession of mental health, I decided to take psychology classes. I wanted to be a therapist. I wanted to work for the one and only Arkham Asylum for the Critically Insane. Sure, art was and still is my passion and number one priority, but treating the sick in more mental ways meant more to me at the time and it seemed to fascinating.
Now, I wasn't so sure.
I felt like I was five again. Playing pretend, but this time, with a real patient.
The Joker laid like a log on my bed, facing the ceiling with a dead, nostalgic glare. I sat in my wheelie desk chair, one leg comfortably draped over the other. I had a notepad and a pen in hand, but I didn't write anything in there, I just doodled stars and moons and anything that came to mind. The Joker wanted me to hold the notebook though, as he said it 'set the scene' and made it 'look more convincing'. Heck, I already looked like a 'natural', apparently, so maybe he was right.
"So," I patiently said, tapping the back of my pen against the paper. "Why'd you feel the need to be so..."
"Destructive?" Joker offered, tilting his head towards me.
"Yes."
He squinted his eyes in thought and licked his lips quickly, his tongue lashing out like a serpent's. He did a strange gesture with his hands, his fingers twitching now and then. I had to admit, whether it was a set up joke or not, I was having much more enjoyment out of this than I should've. I wondered if perhaps during this little game I'd eventually come up with a miracle method to set his mind straight? What if, within a breath of my word, I'd cured the Joker and turned his head the right way up, causing doctors and psychologists and therapists everywhere to marvel in awe at my fantastic discovery? What if my name alone wiped out every other professionals' from the list, and I suddenly became some sort of miracle- worker? If I could cure the Joker, everybody'd believe that I could cure the Devil himself if he came to my door. What if-
Yeah, that was just it. What if. It was just a what if, anyway, and the Joker was far beyond curable.
Suddenly, the Joker smiled and his eyebrows raised as though an idea had struck him. "Ah. I, uh, I like control, doc," He explained, and I cracked a little sideways grin when he'd called me by his slang term for what could be an astounding professional. "Like, as a kid, I never got what I wanted. What I wanted didn't. Matter. At all. It's... it's, uh, it's delightful to discover how... powerful you actually are, if you really set your mind to it. Rage. Rage is like the mother of power. And with power..."
