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."
