Collective Musings
I want to call Mike and wake his ass up RIGHT NOW even though he has a migraine and went to bed hours ago just so that I can drag him to Holy Land with me so I can take pictures. In the dark. With meth addicts and crackheads and alcoholics.
It’s a good thing I blogged this first; I don’t think things through very well.
I have had many best friends.
The first was Emily, in kindergarten. We talked on the phone.
The second was Elizabeth, in second grade. Then I met Jackie, Desi, and Miranda, and in third grade the four of us were sort of inseparable.
In fourth grade, I met Vanessa. We were best friends all the way up until 8th grade. Even when she moved to Panama during our 5th and 6th grade years, we still kept in touch, and when she came back to Connecticut, we continued to stay in touch. We were best friends again in 8th grade, but lost touch during high school.
The summer before 8th grade, it was Leugim.
During 8th grade, it was me, Vanessa, Jessica, Reshma, and Sandra.
My freshman year of high school, it was Lauren and Ryan, interchangeably. When sophomore year came, I met Sandy. We were best friends up until maybe a year or so ago.
Now I consider the cat my best friend. Or Mike, depending on how the day is going.
I scroll through Facebook status updates and Facebook pages, read old journal and blog entries, cycle through memories. Each of these people were once a huge part of my life, but they aren’t anymore. And I don’t get it.
I don’t get why I can’t seem to hold on to anyone that I care about. I don’t get why the relationships I think are precious to me end up not being precious to the other person. I don’t get why distance, time, and differences ebb away the closeness that once was. I don’t get the petty backstabbing. I don’t get why I move through life like a ghost, passing by people but never sticking to them. I once thought that it wasn’t me, that it was them, but maybe it really is me.
I think about inviting these old friends out for a cup of coffee or some lunch. I can see us sitting at a table, catching up, sharing the years that passed without a word over an hour or so. A simple message over Facebook could arrange this. But then I hesitate. What if we don’t have anything in common anymore? Or even worse: what if they say no?
Then the moment passes and I feel like an idiot. Normal people don’t cling to the past. Normal people move on through the future. Normal people make new friends.
I am not normal. I don’t make friends. Everyone I ever knew or cared about just drifts away. And I find that I have to look at myself, very closely. I once thought I was a good person, that I was a great friend — the kind who would bend over backward for my friends. I thought that I was fun to hang out with, that I was interesting enough to keep around.
More and more, I feel like a hermit. I fear that I will be alone. I fear that these friends from the past don’t think of me anymore. Maybe I meant nothing to them. Maybe I will never mean anything again.
Is this normal? Or should I just suck it up?
Read my Batman/Harley fan fiction! Harley Quinn decides she’s tired of Joker’s bullshit and decides to take revenge…
A Batman fan fiction that I got the idea for earlier today and just had to write. I haven’t written fan fiction in years, but this just begged to be written. I’m not sure when I’ll write more. Please leave me comments and let me know what you think! UPDATE: Please rate and review “The Last Laugh” on FanFiction.net!
The Gotham Savings alarm bleated halfheartedly, as if someone had dropped it a few times before installing it. The dazed security guard watched from his spot on the floor with blurry vision as the team that had broken in shoved money into large black duffel bags.
“Do ya think the cops are still comin’, J?” A tall, dark figure that sort of resembled a woman picked up two very full duffel bags. She had taken off the strange hat she wore when breaking in, and the guard thought that she might have had long, wavy blond hair. He moaned and shivered as he tried again to reach the gun that lay a taunting three feet from his hand.
“Shut up!” The man with the blond practically spit at her. “Just get the money in the bags so we can get out of here.”
From what the guard could tell, the man wore a suit. He thought that he might have green hair, but that was ridiculous. Only punks and sceneagers — as his college aged daughter called them — dyed their hair. The woman had shot him right beneath the ribs before he even saw them coming. After that, the man had whipped him in the back of the head with the butt of the gun. Everything between then and now was hazy. The guard’s badge read PATRICK NEILSON, and he had started tonight’s shift as a guy new on the job, fresh out of the police academy but unable to get a job at the Gotham Police Department. He had thought the guard job would be easy. Fate had thought otherwise.
“J, these are heavy!”
Patrick turned his head slightly to see the blond struggling to pick up the now even fuller duffel bags.
“You dumb slut,” the man grumbled. He picked up all four duffel bags and started toward the hole they had blasted in the bank’s front wall. The alarm continued to sound, bleating pitifully over and over and over in the guard’s ear, lulling him to sleep. His fingers twitched as he tried to reach the gun again.
“Oh no ya don’t,” the woman said. She bent over him, and her hair brushed against the guard’s face. This close to her, he could clearly see the white makeup covering her face and the black mask around her eyes. She wore a half black, half red suit.
He laughed. “I thought you were a myth,” he said. “Just something for publicity.” His accent was laced with Georgia twang.
“So you’ve heard of me!” She clasped her hands and did a little jump. “Hey, puddin’, we’re celebrities in the deep South!”
The man rushed back in, still carrying all four bags. “Do you not hear the sirens? What the hell are you doing?” He dropped the bags behind her and picked up the guard’s gun.
“No, please, please, don’t!” The guard tried to shield his face with his arms but they wouldn’t move. His throat felt tight, as if it were closing up. Cold sweat broke out on his back, under his arms, and at the nape of his neck. “Please, no,” he choked. His face had turned an interesting shade of purple that matched the suit the man wore.
The Joker laughed and pulled the trigger.
“Now let’s fucking move!” He grabbed Harley’s arm hard enough to bruise and dragged her toward the bags. “Carry two of these, and I don’t wanna hear that ‘they’re too heavy’!”
She yanked the bag’s handles up and managed to drag the bags with her, falling quickly behind the Joker.
“Hurry up!” He threw his bags into the back of the van he had secured for the heist and jumped in behind the wheel. “Bus is leaving,” he sang out.
Harley halted at the back of the van. The doors stood open, waiting for her to lift her duffel bags into the back with the others. She let go of one set of handles and tugged hard at one bag. “I can’t get it!”
The sirens drew closer and closer, becoming deafening.
“Hurry up,” Joker yelled between gritted teeth.
She pulled one last time. “I can’t do it,” she said softly. A black car marked GPD in bright yellow letters came flying around the corner. She slammed the back doors shut and skipped to the passenger side. Joker threw the van into drive and sped away, leaving the scent of burnt rubber behind him.
* * * * *
The van slid smoothly into the abandoned body shop they had been staying in. Joker closed the garage doors with the press of a button and jumped out of the van.
“Harley, I couldn’t be prouder!” He bounced to the passenger’s side and opened her door.
She sat in her seat, her hat in her lap.
“Well, are ya gonna get out? We’ve got counting to do.”
She rubbed her nose and wrung the hat. “I’m sorry, puddin’,” she said softly.
“Sorry for what?” He leaned into the van, his face just inches from hers. She could smell the sweat from the heist, could feel his hot breath on her face.
“Baby, I didn’t get the bags in.”
“What did you just say?” He turned on his heels hard enough to make holes in the bottom of his dress shoes and stalked toward the back of the van. He threw the doors open, possibly breaking the hinges, and let out a not very human sounding howl of rage. Harley shrunk in her seat.
He jumped into the back of the van and seized a handful of her hair, pulling her out of her seat and into the back of the van. He slammed her against the wall and wrapped two large, cold hands around her throat. “You stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid bitch,” he said, slamming her head against the metal of the interior. “You stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid bitch.”
* * * * *
The world slowly came into view. It was like watching The Wizard of Oz, only slowed way down. First, everything was black. It began to brighten, slowly, everything coming into grey focus. There was a steady beep, beep. Things became brighter, brighter, little bits of color bleeding into things. There were nooks in the ceiling. The beep, beep got a little louder. There was a pinch in her arm, and her throat was very, very sore. Her head began to scream. Then she began to scream.
A stream of nurses flowed quickly into the room, checking her vitals and hovering over her. “She’s stable,” someone yelled. “Her blood pressure is fine,” someone else yelled. “I think she’s panicking,” said a third voice.
She kept screaming, until the scream cut off. She tried to scream some more, but her voice refused to come up out of the small hole it had decided to hide in. She began to claw at the IV in her arm, trying to pull it out. They couldn’t have her, they just couldn’t! Not like this.
More people flew into the room. They pinned her down while still more people began to cuff her wrists and ankles to the bed. She kicked and kicked, but they were stronger. Someone said something about a sedative, and she began to scream again.
Calm hit her like a bullet. She stopped screaming and stared blankly at the nurses staring down at her.
“Miss, can you hear me?” A man asked. He had to be a doctor; he wore a long white coat.
She pretended that he hadn’t said anything.
“Do we know who she is?” He asked one of the nurses.
The nurse, a woman with brown hair cropped to just above her chin, shook her head. “All we know is that Batman found her, in a dumpster outside of an old body shop, wearing just a pair of heavy work coveralls.”
“I can’t believe a human could do this,” the doctor said.
“There’s no evidence of sexual trauma,” the nurse replied.
“That doesn’t make it any better. Look at her throat. Christ, look at the back of her head! All of the MRI’s came back fine, but I’ll be damned if she ever talks again.”
A second nurse readjusted the IV in Harley’s arm. “She’s going to be pissed when she sees that we had to shave her head. A whole clump missing,” she said, and snorted. “I’m so glad that ain’t me.”
The doctor looked at her. “Thank you, Diane. You can go back to your station now.”
The room began to waver as the tranquilizer really set in. Harley squeezed her eyes shut. He had dumped her in the trash, left her for dead or for prison. He had made her lose the beautiful hair it had taken her years to grow. He had taken off, with the money.
He would have to be made to feel the way she felt now: broken, worthless, angry.
And she knew just how to make that happen.
