The Joker And The Fool

3.(1) The origin of the Fool

3.1

Diana lay on the concrete floor, she almost always seemed to be asleep, ither that or she must have fainted regularly. It seemed almost as if she was dead, but not yet. Her eyes adjusted not to the darkness surrounding her. It could have been because they were too tired to envision her surroundings, it could have been that she was scared to see where she had found herself. In her mind, she dreamt that she was back in her hospital bed in St. Elizabeth hospital. She felt like she had the same strength as she had at her time of her brief demagnetization with anorexia. After all, when was last time she had eaten?

"When was the last time that I ate something?" Diana whispered to herself.

Nothing but silence returned to her. She lost the time; she lost the weariness and energy. She was in the dark, yet never before so torn. She felt nothing but regret. And in fact, she did not fear to die at all, she knew she was going to die if change wasn't  applied soon enough.

"What day was it?" she wondered.

"Monday?" she asked, "Friday, perhaps?"

Judging by the colour in her cheeks and the sight of her thin body, it could have been more than a few weeks ago that she had been locked up in that room.

"a week? Not a month, it must have been a week, maybe two." She continued.

You can live for a week without having to feed, two if you're lucky. Diana wondered how close she had been to death once before and she wondered if she would recognise the feeling. The feeling that her life passed before her eyes, that winter turned to spring and spring turned to summer in the blink of an eye.

Diana heard footsteps, but then again, she always had heard footsteps, which meant that the space between the world above, and the dark room she had been forced into hadn't been too large. But Diana hadn't the strength nor will to find a way out. Besides that, if she would find her way out of the room, she would have been confronted by the brutality of her keeper, and she knew that she was no match for him.

"If it has been at least a week, or two, I can't  survive any longer without food, and what about water?" Diana looked at the small bucket of water in the corner, or at least reached for it.

For a moment she tried to recall how it had gotten there. For she could not recall that there had always been a bucket of water in the room, though she had used it more often. Not had she spent much time wondering how de bucket seemed never yet to become empty. Though she had, for a moment, thought of the idea that it could have been poisoned. She did not know how, when or who filled that bucket. And above all, she did not know if it would be refilled again.

It was empty at that moment.

"I'm  going to die here" she stated.

And though Diana had come past the hysterics, she couldn't help but shed a tear. Oh, look what had come of Diana Jane Watson, respected psychiatrist, daughter of Thomas William Watson. She reckoned her father would be concerned, at least if she wouldn't  return his calls in a year. But a year from now she would be dead, and there would be no telling what was to become of her body. And what would come of Bruce if he'd lose his substitute lover. Would he fall into decay once more, or would he be able to move on? No, she thought not. Bruce would never forget her; she was sure of it. She was arrogant enough to think that. Perhaps it meant, that he would look for her (even find her).

Oh, what a lie.

She had never before thought of where that voice inside her came from. Nor did she believe it to belong to herself. It sounded not like her own voice, thus she could easily deny it to be her own. But it was. It were her very deep and honest thoughts.