We Sat Down With Batman, Who Opened Up About His Rabies Diagnosis

Who wouldn’t want to be Batman? He’s rich, revered, and so handsome he makes a young Michael look like throw up and Ben Affleck look like Casey Affleck. But Batman has problems. The biggest one is rabies. On Monday, Bruce Wayne spoke out for the first time about his diagnosis.  

Hard Times: Batman, it’s incredible that you’ve chosen to come out about this diagnosis here, today, with us.

Batman: Rabies is more common than many people think and easier to catch than many believe. I caught it from my adoptive batmom when she gave me a gentle nip hello in the batcave. She went batshit and died hours later, killing my adoptive batdad in her salivating torpedo of madness. 

Hard Times: Batman, you were adopted by bats?

Batman: I was. They orphaned me like everybody else. But in the case of their murders I have nobody to blame but our species, which society needs more education about. That’s the only way the medical community can get more funding to find a cure.

Hard Times: Batman, you’re not alone here, today, with us. You’ve brought your longtime friend—dare we say, sidekick—Robin.

Batman: I’m the sidekick, ha! But yes, Robin is everything. Had he not taken me aside during a call-the-cops! level psychotic episode during which I nearly gleefully violated my strict no-kill code I’d probably never have even gone to the vet.

Hard Times: Batman, incredible. Robin, incredible. What’s it like watching the most important person in your life vanish into a bloodthirsty zombie shell of themselves? 

Robin: Sucks. 

Hard Times: Batman, what’s it like hearing Robin say that?

Batman: Sucks. 

Hard Times: Batman, how aren’t you dead yet? 

Batman: I don’t know. My whole body is shivering under my thermal suit and my respiratory secretions are so seething they’re about to funnel out onto you in a projectile foam bath, and my irritability is so high all I can think about is mowing down a Best Buy parking lot on Black Friday. 

I’m a man of mystery. Not even I know why I am the way I am: this peculiar hybrid of wall-hopping orphan and nocturnal ratbird. I don’t know why I’m not dead from a virus that kills nine people a minute—a fact nobody in Gotham seems to care about, perhaps because these people are almost entirely in Asia or Africa. 

Hard Times: Batman, that tracks. Batman, what now? 

Batman: Robin is taking me back to the isolation unit I escaped from this morning. It’s a 24-hour animal hospital. There, an underpaid vet tech with minimal PPE will hurl me into a rickety cage where I will tremble for days on a bleached towel and a chihuahua’s wee-wee pad. Eventually I will…I will…I will be reunited with my parents. 

Hard Times: Batman, this sounds like an incredibly difficult and poignant—

Batman: (Hisses, gargles up foam, breaks down into tears)

Robin: turns to Batman, squeezes his hand. We’re going to be okay, Batman. This isn’t the worst stigma we’ve faced.

The post We Sat Down With Batman, Who Opened Up About His Rabies Diagnosis appeared first on HARDTIMES.