The Bear and Barnacle

Video file from the security camera in Arkham's common room

The nurse sighed as the man in front of her spoke.

"The patient continues to exhibit dissocial personality disorder..." he said, blinking behind his glasses.

"Well, THAT patient shows classic megliomaniac tendencies" drawled the Joker, rolling his eyes, "Need I remind you, neighbor of mine, that you are on the wrong side of the glass to be giving a diagnosis? You're just one of the squirrels in the nuthouse, now, just like the rest of us...Scarequeer."

The man beside him at the table flinched slightly but remained calm as he removed and polished his glasses, glancing around the recreation room. "Don't call me that."

"Oh, we all know who, and what, you are, Doctor Crane." The Joker sneered merrily, poking at his afternoon Jello with a spoon. When the nurse wasn't looking, he slipped the spoon casually into his jumpsuit. Not a fork, but he'd make do. "Care to share any opinions on the matter, Two-Face?" The Joker turned to eye the disfigured man on his left, who was staring down at the table sullenly.

The eyes swiveled to look to at the Joker, partly missing cheek flexing over jaw. "I have no comment." He looked back down at the table.

The Joker frowned. "Well that's no fun. Didn't you use enough of that line out there?" he gestured toward the world outside. Turning back to Jonathan Crane, he continued. "Harvey just doesn't know how to play, yet. He'll learn. Give him a little more time, then he'll be just like the rest of us."

Jonathan bristled. "Do not include me in your 'us', I am not one of you. I am a doctor, and a genius."

The Joker laughed so loud the nurse jumped. "Hahahehehohahaha, oh, you're funny, doc, I'll give you that."

It jolts him upright when he hears it- the quiet tinkling of a metal windchime. Yet another damn windchime. And he knows just where it's coming from too. The neighbors to the south of them, an elderly couple named Fitzwilliam, have some damn fetish for the things. Perhaps it's their age that has prevented them from taking the hint that the only acceptable windchime is a wooden one, all hollow clunks. That one still hangs in their back garden in the arbor over their breakfast table. The others have all disappeared. Not that Zel has any idea how, of course.

But there it is again and Zel's back goes ramrod-straight. It's just too damn close to the sound of Rezo's walking staff, metal rings clinking to tell others that a blind man was approaching, metal rings that had rung far too often against the side of Zel's head or across his back. If he was lucky that would be the only thing the sound of the staff heralded, but if not....

Zel still heard that staff in his nightmares, his body tensing with every remembered or imagined ring. He'd be damned if he had to listen to it (or anything even remotely close to it) when he was awake too. Growling under his breath, he waited until the couple went out in their shuffling steps on their evening walk then he levitated over the fence between the two properties and took the cheery bronze sun and its dangling accompaniment of clouds and vindictively melted it in his hand. The twisted but finally silent mass of metal was then tossed with a quiet word of offering into the ocean. Deep-Sea Dolphin should at least appreciate the way it sparkles.

Who is your neighbor? What are they like? Do you even HAVE neighbors? Tell us about them!


Knock yourselves out! Feel free, as always, to interpret this liberally and post as you want- an encounter with them, a discussion about them, incriminating pictures of them, incriminating pictures they have of you *coughJackandZelcough* :P

The tag for this month is neighbors. (Yeah, yeah, American spelling because I say so. And I suck. And um... whatever.)