I was in town. I’d met up with Mike and our friend Nelson and was now on my own. I went to a shop called The Range, though it wasn’t like the one in real life. I had a wander round but didn’t buy anything. I couldn’t see the toy section, then I noticed there was one more floor. I went up and followed a sign to the toys. I had to go through another section of items and then through a door. There was a room with kids playing video games, but then I had to go down a long corridor to get to the toys. I sighed and complained how long it was, as my feet were already tired.

But halfway down, I saw at the end there were two guys. One was dressed like Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker, with a clown mask rather than the make up. The other like a general thug in black with a leather jacket and black beanie – typical robber. I hung around and heard the manager shouting at them. I realised this was a proper robbery and got scared, so I decided to quickly leave.

I took the stairs down, but about halfway down I saw the guy dressed as Joker. He heard me coming and cocked his gun, but he couldn’t quite see me. For some reason I felt brave, so I continued down and threw a clown mask I’d picked up at him. Since it was light plastic, it didn’t reach him and just floated down the middle of the stairwell. He aimed his gun at me and I asked him if it was true they were doing a sequel. He started firing, but it was just blanks, no real bullets.

After a while, he stopped and took his mask off and seemed to change, like he’d been in a trance and was now out of it. I led him downstairs and he told me the Joker persona took over him. His clothes had now changed from the red suit to normal, slightly tatty clothes with a muted brown palette. I advised him to try and distance himself from Joker and Arthur Fleck (Joker’s alter ego in the film), including dressing like Fleck, as his normal clothes were quite similar to those Fleck wore in the film.