~• Jonathan Crane's Journal •~

Dated: Someday in April, 2017.

It is supposed to be spring, the time when trees shed their old leaves and wrap themselves in new shrouds of greenery. When flowers bloom from buds on thin stalks, birds chirp happily in the breeze.

Spring... The season of happiness. The season of renewal. Revival. Regeneration.

People like to describe spring in such a positive light. It's almost as if they think that nature's cure for every sadness, every problem, is spring itself.

If you're feeling a little down, take a walk in the park. You probably need some fresh air, so go outside. Look at the flowers, the breeze, the birds... And then there's Gotham.

Spring is a joke in this city.

A deception.

It is lovely enough to go outside for a few days, but it doesn't last for even a month.

The rain and gloominess are back so soon that it seems as if spring was merely a dream cut short by a rough awakening. On one day, we had somewhat pleasant weather with the rare occurrence of flowers, and the next, the rain washed it all out in somber greys.

Perhaps Gotham is so poisonous that even spring shies away from it. It does have the reputation of leaching out life's colors and swallowing the many young souls in orbit through the gargoyle-infected buildings.

Did it leach out my colors too or was I colorless to begin with?

The only colors I remember seeing on my palette were red, yellow, and green, all swirling together to create a sickly dark hue of fear-the same color scheme that I once saw in Van Gogh's painting of a night cafe.

I'm no art enthusiast, but the choice of colors in that painting was no mistake.

A scene that induces despair, loneliness, and selective desolation... When mingled all together and viewed through a distorted glass, it almost looks like someone puked on a piece of paper.

Those were the colors of my life, and I still can't figure out whether they leached into gray or darkened so much that they formed a grayish residue.

Red. Yellow. Green.

Stop. Be ready. Go.

Danger. Deception. Disgust.

Somehow, they mingled together to create an emotion I was once obsessed with.

Fear.

I promised myself not to write about fear again.

If I write, I'll be tempted to read my essays on the topic, and if I give in to that temptation, I worry I'll spiral back into the obscene hall of mirrors that I've been trying so hard to get out of ever since I got released from Arkham.

In each mirror, all I saw was myself, only a more distorted, unrecognizable version that screamed out to me ceaselessly.

Those screams have numbed into an almost silent whisper, and I don't want to press that trigger.

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Doctor Fischer says that each time I hear those voices getting louder, instead of giving them power over me, I should occupy myself with other things. Look for distractions. Cook, clean, work, read... Do anything that occupies the mind and takes the attention elsewhere.

Instead of isolating, go to someone you trust and talk to them. Make yourself believe that you are not alone.

How should I tell her that there is no one I can trust around me? Timothy left for his studies, so I don't wish to disturb him repeatedly. I am barely on talking terms with my colleagues at Wayne Labs. Miguel is also going through some dilemmas of his own and I would rather not burden him with my troubles.

That leaves only Doctor Fischer, and I am still unsure whether I can trust her.

True, she is trying to help me out. But we are already in a precarious situation and I can't complicate it further by adding her to the almost non-existent list of people I trust.

The fact that I see her often for my sessions already means that she knows a lot about me compared to others. Sometimes, I talk to her of my own accord and tell her things that I wouldn't normally say out loud.

Perhaps I am just humoring myself into believing that talking about it could help...

Has it really helped or not in the past few months?

I don't know.

However, I will admit that it is easier to talk to her than to anyone else in her position. She never interrupts, she is never imposing, and she lets the conversation flow even if it loses direction sometimes.

Or perhaps it is one simple trait that I have found so rare in my life that it seems hard to digest.

She listens.

Unlike most of the people who surrounded me in my past.

I tend to lose direction a lot these days. My thoughts start from a point and then spiral out everywhere, like a spider's web that even I can't control.

My conversations, no matter how rare, are no different from these intricate webs of thoughts barely translated into words. Words that are sometimes voiced out or just remain on the pages of my journal.

Perhaps, this journal is like that too. A hall of mirrors where every page reflects myself, only a bit more incoherent and disoriented than earlier. A string of words that are only connected visually with the lines underneath them.

These sentences pour out of their own accord, filling up pages with ink and fragments of my thoughts, or resonating around us each time I go to her place and start contributing to the conversation she starts. Sometimes, it doesn't even make sense as they are a jumble of thoughts that are reaching out in all directions, yearning to find a place to stop... Not very unlike myself.

But she still listens, and even if I try to convince myself that she is only doing her job, I can't help but think that there is something slightly more to her patience and eagerness to help me out. That is why I can't trust her. It feels as if she knows everything about me and yet I know nothing.

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