This Mad World

Patient Zero

Who would have thought such a tiny, itty bitty little thing could change my life so much?

Okay, maybe he wasn't that itty bitty. More like tiny. A tiny human with all the force of an hydrogen bomb behind that crazed, maniacal smile of his.

Humans are tiny compared to the rest of the Earth, so my comparison still counts!

But where are my manners? My name is Quinzel. Harleen Quinzel. Gosh I've always wanted to do that. Actually the full title would be Doctor Harleen Quinzel, although I'm no doctor of medicine. I'm a psychiatrist, yep, a shrink! When I was little I actually dreamed of being a gymnast after I watched the Olympics at the tender, impressionable age of five, and for a long time I was really good at it. And yet when I was growing up and going through my teenage years I found my second passion in my life: psychology.

How ironic, isn't it! One love of mine about the strength of the body, and the other about the mind! I tried to juggle them for a long time, but sadly I'm no circus performer. It was hard for me and it broke my heart to do it, but eventually I had to chose which of them I wanted to devote my life to. After months of angst and no small amount of cognac involved, I finally settled on psychology and threw myself into my studies with all the passion and love I could muster! Years of my life dedicated to nothing but my now one true love!

Well, that and the occasional party. I'm not that boring after all.

Anyways after I had that shiny little piece of paper in my hand I went off to become a pretty successful psychiatrist, if I do say so myself. Good enough to actually get me landed in the Elizabeth Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane after a pretty short time. Ah, Arkham. My love and my greatest fear, both my fortress and my prison. Honestly I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I accepted the position. I just heard so many stories of famous, insane criminals put there by none other than Batman himself, truly unique cases of just how far the human brain can fall in its depravity. And now I was being offered a chance to study and help them!

My rosy glasses were shattered pretty quickly, but the shock of it didn't stop me from staying. If anything, after picking up the pieces, my resolve only increased. I wanted to help these people, as naive as that sounds in hindsight, but these people need at least one person to believe that they can change, that there is some good left in them somewhere. In a way I still do, but now I know there's more than one way to help these kinds of people.

And all it took was a little hostage situation! Who would have thought? A hostage situation thanks to a certain insane, pasty white, green-haired, yellow-teeth individual who is far too obsessed with the color purple for how own good. Have you guessed yet? It's Joker. Of course it's Joker, but still! A surprise is always fun, isn't it?

I can still remember when I first saw him...

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She had seen him many times, actually. In blurry snapshots plastered across headlines, crime tabloids crowing about his newest schemes while lamenting upon what Batman would do next, in artistic renditions based on police sketches. One memorable time he had been caught running along the rooftops by a cameraman for Gotham News, although he looked no bigger than an action figure at such a distance, the four-second video clip had still given her chills. There was a certain way he moved, something strange that made part of her brain seize up and warn her of danger.

The amygdala. Controls the flight or fight response. Can't distinguish a real threat from a perceived threat which ends up with a lot of people freaking out even if their lives aren't really in danger. One of the main reasons anxiety even exists.