Ghostbusters

I knew we would never be friends, but working for him would have been so much easier if I at least respected him. I looked at his socks again and knew it would never be possible. I was a tolerant guy, but even I had my limits.

The left sock was clearly green. This was plain wrong. Just a few minutes before, I had seen Ralph's right sock. It was blue, and what made it worse, it was ringed. The universe worked because there were rules. Gravity pulled downwards. I had no luck with women. Socks should match, and in no case should a grown person's socks be ringed. Those were the laws of nature. Again, I wondered if I was the only rationally thinking person on this planet. Statistically, it was extremely unlikely, but empirical data was stubbornly supporting the theory.

Of course, seeing Ralph and the other comedians I worked for, you could argue about the 'grown person' part. He was wearing some kind of mechanic's overall. On his back was what might have been a fire extinguisher. He held a simple hose that came out of it, and he acted as if it was a terrifying weapon. He was wearing a cheap hard hat, with some painted-on symbols. Safety goggles completed the exceedingly silly outfit. It looked like a combination of construction worker and ancient Egypt.

Hey, he was paying for this whatever-it-was, and the least he could expect for his money was that I didn't laugh at him. Humor was not my strong suit, so that was easy. Plus, the money was good.

The group consisted of five persons, and even compared to the normal craziness of the world around me, they stood out as complete lunatics. It seemed that the five craziest persons in the area had formed a group and hired the only rational one, which happened to be me.

Three guys and two girls, and they took whatever absurd shit they were doing very seriously. I had never been able to decide if they really believed in what they were doing or were just overambitious cosplayers. Still, they were nice enough, in case you liked people, which I didn't, and the money was good.

As always, they had picked me up in their van, which was loosely based on the Ghostbusters theme, but featured a huge "Exterminators" logo, maybe for copyright reasons. With solemn faces, they opened the sliding door and beckoned me inside like an important dignitary. As always, it struck me how absurd the whole thing was. I had no real role in this. Hell, I didn't even know what this thing was that I had no real role in.

As usual, they started the journey by cackling and babbling like a group of 15-year-old girls on speed about to meet their favorite boy group. The ride was always the hardest part of the trips. I tried to shut them out, ignore them, think about entropy or quantum physics. Luckily, before we reached our randomly chosen target destination, they always turned silent and introspective, which suited me much better.

After they had left the van and did whatever absurd stuff they thought needed to be done, I felt much better. I didn't really dislike people, I just preferred if they were somewhere else.

I could work on my current programming project while they were busy doing whatever absurd stuff they did. Ralph had led the group inside. His mismatched socks and the painted fire extinguisher on his back didn't seem to qualify him for any leadership role, but the group seemed to disagree.

When they returned, they would be tired and subdued. Sometimes they had minor cuts and bruises, sometimes even open wounds. Whenever that happened, it caused me to once again to doubt humans in general. Why was everyone behaving so irrationally? Why did I seem to be the only mentally sound person around?

Now that they were gone, I could concentrate on the really important aspects of life, which were coding and natural sciences. Coding earned me most of my money; science, especially physics, was my passion. The idea that the whole universe could be completely described by a few formulas always fascinated me, even though some of those formulas had not yet been found. The human race was part of a well-running machine, living under the illusion of being individuals with a free will.

The rest of my income was provided by the weirdos who had just left the van. I remembered when I had first met them. A friend had invited me to a 'special' private party, which sounded quite promising for a nerdy loner like me. After my divorce, I hadn't gotten laid even once. At the few parties I was invited to, tales about my programming abilities never seemed to impress the girls, but I didn't really know what else to talk about.

On that day, I was told to just enter the house, which I found unlocked and dark when I arrived a bit late. Yes, I thought, I might finally get laid. This looked more than promising. When I entered the living room, though, the scene greeting me wasn't what I had hoped for. The eight people in the room were fully clothed, sober-looking and sitting at a round table. All hands were on the table, and everyone looked like they had just awakened from a dream. If this was a party, it looked like the most boring one I had ever seen.

"He's gone!" a girl cried in desperation. "Gone! What happened? He was here! I clearly felt him."

"The spell is broken," a guy added in a gravely tone. He wore a ridiculous black cloak and seemed to be some kind of master of ceremonies. I noticed a board with numbers and letters on the table, and a wooden pointer at the 'R.' I had no idea what they were doing, but it didn't look very promising for my primary objective for the evening: getting laid.

Suddenly, the people at the table seemed to notice my presence. Everyone turned around to look at me. I had done nothing wrong, but still I had a massive 'oops' feeling.

"Who is this guy?" the hooded dope asked.

"That's just Tim," the friend who had invited me said, as if that clarified everything.

"He must leave. Right now. His presence alone sucks all the energy out of the ritual. I feel him closing the gates."

"What?" I inquired eloquently, having no idea what they were even talking about. I hadn't closed anything, not even the front door.

"You," one of the girls accused me, pointing her finger at me accusingly.

"What?" I repeated, not sure if I really wanted clarification about whatever weirdness had been going on.

"Just go. Your presence alone blocks the energy flow," the hooded MC elaborated, as if that was supposed to explain something. It didn't.

"Okay, okay," I agreed, thinking that actually sounded like a good idea. I felt like an n+1th wheel on an n-wheeled vehicle anyway and this was not the kind of party I had hoped for. Whatever shit they were doing at the table was nothing I needed to be involved in. I turned around and was about to leave when a pretty girl stopped me.

"Wait, he might be useful."

"Seriously, Cara? What could that dork be good for?"

"He's immune. His presence alone stops the flow of cosmic energy."

Yeah, these people have clearly gone off the rails, I thought, and continued my way out of this hotspot of lunacy. "Cosmic energy my ass," I muttered.

"Wait, wait. We could pay you."

I stopped in my tracks. That sounded interesting, as I still had more than a year of alimony ahead of me and money was tighter than a black hole singularity.

"What for?" I asked.

"Just accompany us. We sometimes have special assignments. You could wait outside and whenever things get out of hand, we'd call you in."

"Okay, and then?" I tried to sound as if I had some idea what we were talking about. I didn't, but the girl was pretty.

"You just enter whatever place we're in. I think you'd be perfect. Just come in, as you just did."

"How much?"

And that's how it started.

It was always pretty much the same. They drove to some "haunted house" or other spooky fairytale place. This wasn't a problem. People believed in all kinds of shit. In reality, they were just that: abandoned places. Dirty, boring, but not scary in the slightest. I would have no trouble spending the night in any of them, if it wasn't so inconvenient.

Unfortunately, I couldn't focus on coding immediately. Thinking about the group of fools and the money they gave me led me to thinking about my ex-wife.

I usually didn't tend to overthink things, but I couldn't get what happened out of my head, and it wasn't about the money. My still thinking about it was irrational, but there seemed nothing I could do about it.

For a while, I was reasonably sure Irina really liked me. She was warm and caring, was interested in the things I did and asked a lot of questions about me. When I had a bad case of the flu, she nursed me back to health with an almost scary dedication. At that time, she was the only person whose presence I actually enjoyed. I remembered the day things started to derail, although I didn't notice at the time.

"Tim, you know I really love you, right?"

Damn, I hated such questions. How should I know for sure what she felt? To defuse the situation, I just nodded.

"I do. Really. Although you never say the words, I just know you feel the same about me."

That one was even worse. I didn't really believe in the concept of love, but as I at least liked her, I knew I could never mention this. There was no need, as she just kept going anyway.

"I've really tried to understand what you're interested in. Tim, I'm really trying. I do my best to develop our relationship, to turn it into something deep and meaningful."

'Seriously,' I thought. 'I don't even know what she is talking about.'

"All I'm asking for is that you open up a bit, okay? I feel like I hardly know the real you and you're not really interested in me."

Damn, I thought. Those were exactly the situations I always failed at. People seemed to expect me to have irrational emotions, which I could fake, but only to a certain limit, as I didn't understand things people did when they got emotional.

"Just try for me, okay?"

She kissed and cuddled, and at the time I thought I had dodged that bullet.

After a while it got worse, though, and I had no idea why. Irina started to complain I was "depressingly rational," making that sound like a bad thing. As a scientifically interested man, I was a good observer, so I had noticed her growing discontent for quite some time. I could never find a reason for it, though. We had a good life, we lacked for nothing. Her arguments that she never really reached my core just didn't make any sense. Why would she want to do that? What did she want to achieve with it? What was "my core," anyway? I was completely confused.

She seemed obsessed with what she called getting to really know me, but I didn't even know what that meant. I never hid anything from her, and I never lied. She asked a lot of personal questions, all of which I answered, but she never seemed satisfied. After a while, she just stopped asking, and I sensed she was disappointed that I was more than okay with that. She complained that I could never open up, and I didn't know what that even meant.

After she gave up trying to explore my inner self, she joined what she called 'spirituality groups,' which was a translation for 'complete nonsense.' She always looked at me expectantly when she told me about new levels of weirdness her groups reached. I was never sure just what kind of response she expected, but obviously I wasn't giving it to her. It seemed she was trying to live as unscientifically and irrationally as possible, and it was clear she was doing it for my benefit. I just didn't understand why.

Finally, I came home at my usual time one day and found a meticulously-prepared scene. There was the strange car in the driveway, there was the trail of clothes, strategically prepared, that led towards the bedroom. She could just as well have placed neon signs. I noticed she had forgotten the candles and the soft background music. I wanted to watch a documentary later and noticed the TV remote seemed to be missing.

In our bed, I found her on her back with her skinny yoga teacher between her legs. I wouldn't exactly describe the scene as the epitome of passion. Both were looking at me expectantly. Since they just lay there as if they'd forgotten how to move, it was a bit like looking at a static simulation of sex. All of this was obviously solely for my benefit, but I didn't understand why they had done it or what they expected from me.

"Oh, sorry. I didn't want to disturb you," I said. I felt absolutely calm and unaffected.

"That's all you have to say?" Irina cried and she definitely sounded frustrated, which confused me. If someone had the right to be angry, it was supposed to be me, but that would be silly. The scene and its consequences were self-explanatory.

"What do you want to hear?" I asked and meant what I said.

"Don't you want to know why? Don't you want to fight for me? Still no emotion? Still the iceberg? Doesn't anything ever affect you? Are you even human? Hell, are you even alive?"

I noticed yoga guy was naked, apart from his socks. While they were of the same type, one was old, worn and grey while the other was still deep black. That wouldn't have happened to me. My sock drawer was properly sorted.

"Tim?" she asked, obviously expecting some kind of answer. I had assumed her questions had been rhetorical, but I guess they weren't. I noticed the older sock had a hole, right at the ball, where socks' holes usually were.

"Okay, what's to say?" I was genuinely unsure what she wanted to hear. "You seem to want a divorce. Why didn't you just tell me?"

"Aaaargh," she cried. "I hate you! I really tried to love you. I'm doing this for you, you asshole! This is your last wakeup call!" Her eyes were fixed on me; yoga guy was clearly forgotten. Her usually pretty face was red and splotchy, and wet with her tears.

That really didn't make any sense, and even the yoga guy seemed embarrassed. It was an awkward situation all around. Not knowing what else to do, I looked at my new smartwatch and noticed it was 12:34, which was one of my favorite times. I considered making a screenshot, but realized I already had too many of those.

I did what I always did in situations I didn't know how to handle. I abstracted and calculated things. It wasn't easy in this case, as a lot of emotional and irrational behavior was involved.

The chance of her wanting me to find them like this was above 90%. That and her reaction told me the probability of her wanting to fundamentally change her life was near 100%. Did she want to live with him instead? He was a skinny little thing, and not very attractive. I was his complete opposite. No, the chance of her wanting him was below 15%. He was obviously just a tool for her. That probably made the likelihood of him wanting her irrelevant. It was none of my business anyway.

Was this the first time? I estimated an above 80% probability of him just being a tool for this specific occasion, so almost certainly, yes. The chances of it happening again were rather low, but that wasn't relevant.

As I cogitated, I noticed that they had started some mild fucking movement, probably because their static display seemed a bit pointless. Or perhaps they were just bored from watching me think. There was obviously no joy in it for either of them. I returned to my calculations.

In the end, there were just two decisive numbers: the likelihood of me wanting to stay married and of her wanting to stay married. Combined, they approached zero. There was only one logical solution. Any further words or effort were wasted. It just made no sense to go through an exhausting reconciliation effort for such a low chance of success. It led to only one possible outcome, which was a divorce.

It really was a shame, as she had matched most of the requirements I had for a wife. Of course, I hadn't loved her: that concept was beyond ridiculous. Only fools lost themselves in the illusion of that feeling. Love was merely a chemical reaction in the brain, and not a helpful one. It led to irrational behavior, much like a mild poisoning.

The remarkably unattractive yoga wacko had picked up his pace, and I didn't think what he was doing could possibly be pleasurable for a woman. Irina was looking at me with an expression I couldn't read while she was rocked back and forth. Yes, she obviously wanted a divorce, too. I wondered why she hadn't just told me. It seemed so much easier than this rigmarole. I remembered the science show I wanted to watch.

"Do you know where the TV remote is?"

That stopped their movement immediately, it seemed that wasn't the right time for that question. All I got was astonished faces, so I turned around to look for the remote.

I never understood why people made such a fuss about that whole marriage thing, a fact that drove Irina crazy. I tried to come up with the necessary display of emotions, but I'm not much of an actor, and I wasn't sure she really bought it. I'm good looking, so she tolerated it for a while, but in hindsight, this escalation was probably inevitable. She wasn't happy with her life, but that wasn't my problem. At least I could stop acting, I thought.

While the fallout didn't exactly wreck me emotionally, it turned out to be surprisingly expensive.

I watched the building. It was an abandoned warehouse this time, and everything seemed calm. They rarely called me for help, and if they did, I never had to do much. In my opinion, they were completely wacky, but they paid for the show, so who was I to complain?

I returned to coding that damn encryption routine that had already cost me more time than I had hoped. Just as I was about to make progress, my damn phone interrupted me. It was a message from Cara, just saying '911.' Sighing, I closed my laptop and went towards the building. That was my job, follow them wherever they were, whenever I got that message. It didn't happen every trip, but it seemed quite important to them, for a reason I never really understood.

I entered the old warehouse, looked around and tried to find them. There was some ruckus from the end of the corridor, so I followed the noise. That usually worked.

As usual, I stumbled into one of their cosplay action scenes. Everyone was in some kind of frozen, ridiculous fighting pose. It would have been an impressive sight, but there was one thing missing. There were no enemies. In my opinion, that was vital for a good fight.

Instead, there was a lot of junk lying around. Things had been smashed at some point, and I wondered if that had happened recently. They were sweating, and someone seemed to have spread some weird brownish stuff on the ground. Overall, the scene was absurd and disgusting.

"They're gone," Max exclaimed, still out of breath.

"Yeah. Fuck, that was close. It was just one, though. I could already feel the cold of the void. That is my absolute horror," Cara added. She looked at me, seemed genuinely happy to see me and I had no idea why. Still, having a pretty girl look like she was glad to see me was probably a good thing.

"Void? there was no void. I felt like I was suffocating. You know how much I hate that feeling," Max replied.

Once again, I thought that they really took this shit a bit too seriously. I had long since given up trying to find a reason for what they did. There weren't even cameras around. They always did some kind of fight simulation and stopped whenever I appeared.

"Good job, Tim. You saved our asses. You closed the portal."

"Umm, yeah, right," I replied, deciding to play along. "That's why I'm here, right?"

"Oh yeah," Melanie added. "That's why you're here. Clueless, but necessary. Clueless is just perfect."

I chuckled, unsuccessfully trying not to take it as an insult. I was pretty sure I was way more educated than all of them combined. "Yeah, my special ability. Are we done here?"