This is just something that I did months ago for a challenge on LiveJournal. It's random, but hey I figured it was appropriate to post it today.

March 31st

We all know what tomorrow is, don't we?

The big day for pranksters, the great Four Dash Oh One, the day that everyone -and I mean everyone- tries to be just like me.

April Fool's Day

Or is it April Fools' Day?

Quite a debate right there. That tricky apostrophe must drive those punctuation pervies crazy. I mean, the former is the popular spelling, but that implies there's only one fool and that just sounds plain old selfish---- I mean, what about everyone else's fun? It makes it sound like the day belongs to Him (no chicks, that's a weird joke) and since it's basically my brand of fun… wait, whoa whoa ho ho hooo, no. I certainly don't want it. It'd be too easy. Too predictable. And I just… don't want it.

Do you know how simple it'd be to do something so expected? Not to mention irritating as hell? That's why people are so routine, afraid to put in just a little effort to surprise me.

It's like that one writer said. You know the one that if you Google it, he seems to have an opinion on essentially everything? "The first of April is the day we remember what we are on the other 364 days of the year." [1] I like it. It makes me giggle. It's too true, and I think I might claim it as my own if anyone inquires about my perceptive anecdotes.

There's really so many things to choose from.

I could issue a bomb threat for noon and wait till one to set it off. It'd be funny for a few seconds but… eh.

I could go to the blood bank, switch the good kroovy [2] for the AIDS ones. Then cause a nasty accident.

Maybe let my pooches loose in the maternity ward at the new Gotham General. They do have to be fed after all. Like a Christmas for them while I'm down stairs switching toe tags and bending their stiff limbs into tasteless positions. Then flick my knife out. Funny Faces Time!

Ooooo, what I should do is play dress up and go to one of Gotham's hottest clubs: Surreptitiously add drops of Visine [3] to random people's drinks. Then watch as their dancing with or chatting up that night's romp come to an abrupt stop -a flash of horror flashing across their pretty faces- before they excuse themselves in a casual manner (quite unsuccessfully) and dash to the restroom where -uh oh- some asshole fucking saran wrapped all the toilets. Something about beautiful people going from almost creaming themselves in ecstasy to literally shitting themselves with an audience can compete with a good stabbing any day. Both equally messy. This, a bit more juvenile, but one mustn't be too picky when it comes to laughs. Come to think of it, I could plan to do this anytime. The boys do tend to get rather… stifling. Okay, scrap that idea. For now.

Something a bit more spot on for the day would be to commandeer a chopper and kidnap Bruce Wayne, announcing our engagement to the world. Then whisk him to the painstakingly cliché Niagara Falls to perform our simple ceremony: Hovering over the very top with the mist rising and making my paint drip and the water roaring in our ears as we shout our vows (a gun pressed firmly to his temple, of course), and when he says "I do," I'll shout "April Fools" and push him out. He'll plummet to any icy death. A real win, win.

Or I could start a bunch of fires all over town then conveniently throw a parade right in front of the hospital, blocking all those emergency vehicles wailing to get out. All of Gotham's citizens will be happy to help because I'll be showering the greedy buggers with money. [4](They'll think stolen, I'll know counterfeit.) Come to think of it, one of the fires should be at a nursing school.

Perhaps out of the goodness of my heart I'll donate a whole heap of food to a homeless shelter… neglecting to mention it all might have been handled by cyanide fingers.

I could crack open the Gotham High yearbook and find the Junior Varsity cheerleaders, with the yellow pages laid open for my perusal. Hiii there, this is Planned Parenthood [5] calling for _______. Just wanted to confirm your appointment for two next Thursday. Lucky we managed to squeeze you in before prom at your request… Mom and Pop would just love that. But really I could do that on any Off day when I'll undoubtedly be bored.

Another idea would be to send a sexy note to our mayor, who has an interesting affinity for eyeliner, as his wife, telling him not to work late and to hurry home for a special surprise. For his arrival candles would be lit, soft music playing, and a trail of crunchy rose petals leading to the guy's favorite chair before a blazing hearth, champagne chilling off to the side. (Trust me, I've been in their house before and not too shabby, but typically boring.) He'll settle in with that Gosh it's been such a tough day but I'm now about to get some and I am just so darn lucky! sigh you just wanna shove back down his throat.

After a few minutes he'll be getting antsy and when he looks over the high back of the chair, a black silhouette will be lingering in the entry way hidden in shadows. "What's this surprise?" he'll ask with a wolfish grin, and a girlish giggle will answer in kind. "C'mere you."

He won't notice at first that something's wrong, things are just a little bit off.

He'll be too riveted on the almost too pale flesh bathed in flickering orange flames to notice the awkward sway of her cute little figure -a jerky erotic shuffle- nor that eerie humming that really sounds nothing feminine. As the warm glow creeps up that stretch of naked torso, his eyes will be right there -absolutely shining- following that reveal and oh how entertaining that will be. The joke between his legs, ah, growing.

"Stop teasing," the clueless lug will playfully growl. His sure hand will reach for a smooth hip, cool as marble, and he'll undoubtedly frown. And wait, why are her dainty feet dragging awkwardly on the floor instead of planted firmly? "Honey, why are--"

A shrill, syrupy coo.

His eyes snap up. Then it'll be more like slow motion for him, because this will end up being very important to him. But for me the whole thing will go by too fast and I'll have to savor the look of perfect horror immediately, like one learns after the spray of warm blood on their face that cools far too quickly for my liking. That teasing, tight body quite ungracefully will collapse to the floor with a gangling thud. Oh have I mentioned the body won't have a head attached to it? Well because that's a big part of the gag. Now I don't picture our fair mayor as a "screamer" per se, so in all likelihood his oddly black rimmed eyes will be really wide and for some reason wet, and his mouth hanging open in a silent gasp.

Poor guy will be too stunned to speak!

By then the show will mostly be done with that prop and the attention should go to me now anyway. I'll be smiling even though my hands will be fucking sore from holding that bitch up by the shoulders too long. [6]

"That's crazy glue you're sitting on," I'll say, and in his stunned mind he'll absently jerk and test it because that's easier to process than a starting to smell dead loved one laying on a heap before you in the home you two share. "April Fools!" I'll then cackle with glee. Then on my way out I'll add as an afterthought, "Oh and by the way, your wife's dead… and I kinda forgot where I put her head though---whoops!"

That one sounds fun but too smooth; not in the way of carnage but too well planned. And I hate plans, so this one's flushed. Maybe I'll remember it next year for V-Day… shit, no, that day goes to only one very special person in my heart, or shall I say one very special Bat?

Funny I didn't think so far as to specifically mess with him, even though all of these things (the drink spiking excluded) ends with him playing hero and chasing after me. Since I really have no interest in discovering just who the man behind the Bat is --wonder if I end up disappointed?-- my options are extremely limited. I could just fuck with him using that: Write a giant message in the sky with hearts and smileys proclaiming "I know who the Bat is! HA! HA! HA!" then kick back and wait for him to bust down my door (or wherever the hell I end up at the time) and interrogate me brutally with fists and stomping boots and teeth. That wouldn't be till night though, so what could I do to occupy all those long, tedious hours till he came? Go for a walk maybe. I love to go the schoolyard and watch the children jump and scream… but what they don't know is that I'm using blanks [7]. And the blanks are the joke, because I normally wouldn't bother when real bullets are a lot more detrimental to one's health.

Sometimes though when I sit and I ponder and I dream, a sense of overwhelming grief crushes my ribcage -from out of nowhere and not a Bat in sight- and forces all the blood pumping in my chest to rush to my head, like rolling up a tube of toothpaste almost at its end and ready to blast off the cap. Grief for not all the people I killed or all of the horrible things I've done and will do that doesn't even involve taking a life. No, it's nothing to do with that. A bit more internal…

I'm so very sorry I'm not sane and therefore can't lose my mind all over again.

It's really like losing your virginity. It can only truly happen once, and it can not be undone. Sure there's that whole rebirthing mumbo jumbo and they dunk your head in a lake and -poof!- magically you're pure as a newborn, coughing and sputtering the traces of Petri dish water clogging your nose and lungs. But we all know it doesn't work like that. Once your cherry's popped, it's popped. Losing your perception of what was reality and all semblance of control is just like that: Something so momentous and pivotal that, when the conditions are right, you'll hardly remember the During but afterwards you're undeniably changed. Forever.

Therapy is just like that dunking in the lake, a band aid on a gushing stab wound, and wouldn't it be so perfectly apropos for all of Gotham to find me tomorrow outside the iron gates of Arkham on my knees and the biting cold rungs cutting into my bare, bony hands as I plead to be let in? A man's very highest moment is, I have no doubt at all, when he kneels in the dirt, and beats his chest, and tells all the sins of his life [8]. All would be baffled and of course immediately write it off as a joke -because it is- but the grieving resolve I'd display would convince those that count: The doctors inside itching to pick apart my brain like a spilled piñata, and the pacifist idiots that are so naïve to look for the "Good" in everyone, but they'd all pale to the one who'd be so reluctant to believe me but inevitably will because deep down He wants to believe I can change. I could, really I could, and I'd try too I would tell Him and it'd be mostly true. I'd go the sessions and talk and I'd follow their rules and build my mind back together again like any determined patient would. It'd take months, years, I imagine, for all the effort to hit its peak, when I'm breaking through the murky water's surface, coughing and choking but rejoicing because hey according to them, I'm a virgin again. I'm sane.

But as I said before, it just doesn't work like that.

It's only a matter of time really. What goes up, must come down and all that rot. Succumbing to gravity will be easier -it is now ingrained in my nature after all- but not as grand or colorful or fun; not as brilliant and devastating and bright like a rupture of lights and sound. Instead this time, it'll be like coming home from a long vacation: Rediscovering how your eyes reflect images to your electrified brain, how your eardrums vibrate to the little things you missed for awhile, how sensory overload reacquaints itself with every nerve ending in your twitchy being. Even after all the time I've been "away" -after that first drop is spilled- I'll remember why I left in the first place and I'll laugh. A long missed true sound of maniacal laughter. I've got it, and He will too, because we understand each other like that. "April Fools, Bats!"

Sure he'll be mad, maybe even disappointed since he invested some level of faith in me, but he won't hold it against me, no. Pranks consists of two parts, the setup and the execution. If I didn't give into the inevitable, the world would literally stop turning: Unscrewed salt shakers would go untipped; whipped cream would melt in your sleeping friend's palm; whoopee cushions would remain un-sat upon; bags of dog shit would unnecessarily burn to stinking ash---

See, all these things I could do, atrocities that really couldn't be held against me, because it's expected of a guy like me. Everyone dreading tomorrow and waiting with bated breath; it's the Joker their shamefully counting on to do something horrible yet tastefully macabre (though none will admit that). Even Batsy will be out on the prowl, probably eavesdropping on the police phone lines and chasing down any and all ridiculous leads -peeping through keyholes- just on the off chance I'll be out doing uh naughty things. Where is he? What despicable deed does the Harlequin of Hate have rooted in his coo coo bananas brain? Maybe it won't be put as eloquently but that's the basic jist. They'll all just be losing their minds with worry -the city at a total stand still, holding their collective breath- constantly checking over their shoulders for a glimpse of purple and my beautiful smile. Paranoid, everybody'll be comin' to find me and I'll be sitting right here, in my cozy little hideout, eating Chinese takeout and watching overrated Monty Python.

They'll be expecting the worst of me. But Tomorrow, I'm not gonna do a damn thing.

[1] Quote by Mark Twain
[2] "Kroovy" is slang for blood from the classic, A Clockwork Orange
[3] Visine (if you don't know) are eye drops and when mixed with drinks, really mess up the digestive system.
[4] The parade and showering money idea from the original 1989 movie, Batman.
[5] Planned Parenthood is used for taking care of unplanned pregnancies if you catch my drift.
[6] Elements of scene taken from the film, Strangeland.
[7] Quote from Jack Handey. Made me laugh the first time I read it.
[8] Quote from Oscar Wilde

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