"We Were Scientists"
The night, as always, descended with a feeling of familiarity for her; a distant feeling of nostalgia mingled with a hastening pulse and a slight smile on her face – that feeling of elation, joy, fear, anger, excitement, amazement… that feeling of loss. Always, it always turned out this way. Whenever she started to feel like this, on that very day, she couldn't help but look inward into the empty place in her heart where her everyday work used to truthfully fill. That void had grown over the years; reached to other dimensions of her, reached into her very soul and had shaken it.
That night. That night where everything had changed. The night that had changed her, inside, through and through, still felt fresh; she could still feel it, inside her. She knew that if she reached out and touched that old door, she could relive everything in that one agonizing moment.
In her maddest moments, she wished that she could reverse time. She wanted to go back to it so badly… it was like a drug. While others had felt the same, Kylie knew that they hadn't felt it this intensely; consuming her being, mind, thoughts, memories, what she used to do called to her.
Who you gonna call? she thought bitterly.
She could see it already; as she had for the past hour. That firehouse, 55 Central Park West, an address she had given to many strangers so many times… It just stood there, in decay; nobody paid attention to it. Every day, as she went out to go to work, she strolled past it just for old time's sake. Her job used to be being a Ghostbuster; not working in a company full of money-grubbing capitalists too busy counting up their money for the millionth time to actually pay attention to all the priceless artifacts they excavated. However, after a while, they all had to expect that there were no more ghosts; just like before.
She remembered Egon's exact words.
…Standing in front of the Ecto-1, he had somberly announced; "It would appear that we have managed to drive every last one of the ectoplasmic entities that emerged earlier away from our realm. As much as it pains me to say this, I think it would be right to assume that, we are out of business."
He had sighed deeply, filling the silence that had crept into the firehouse.
"I don't see a reason to continue keeping you here on permanent stand-by. I think its best we ended it. It's been going on for too long… perhaps its time we accepted the reality of what we have done."
"What we have done?" Kylie had asked when she had seen the silence of others, "We saved the city I don't know how many times over! There may still be gateways to other ghostly dimensions, we have to find them still and-"
"That is quite enough Kylie," Egon had said, "Even if they were, inactively they remain in stasis and therefore can cause no damage. If, even by chance, somebody was to stumble upon such a dimension by accident and cause another surge of ectoplasmic phenomena, I don't think it will happen anytime soon."
"But-"
"Kylie, that is quite enough, I said." Egon had said curtly, "You kids… no, I shouldn't call you kids anymore… you have done what Peter, Ray, Winston and I have done in the past; make sure that humankind was safe and secure. While we had done what we had set out to do, investigate paranormal activity, you were just pushed into this. You found yourselves in this situation and you gave up more than I could ever ask you. I'm sorry it had to come to this… but it was coming. This crusade, if you will, had to end. And it has ended. The Ghostbusters is no more…"
That had been the end of their little "crusade" as Egon had put it. But Kylie couldn't help but miss it. She wondered, as she often did, if Slimer still haunted the firehouse after Egon had passed away. Often times, when she went out for walks at night and found herself there and heard Slimer weep.
Kylie could understand Slimer. Like the ghost, she felt so alone. As much as she had had arguments with all of her teammates, she had found that they met somewhere in the middle. Now that they had dispersed, there was nobody left. Nobody at all.
As she sat on the bench and looked at the firehouse, a voice, a familiar voice, uttered one word, one word to make her feel both the excitement and the pain in the same moment.
"Hola…"
Kyle didn't have to look to see who was there. She did, however, feel a little surprised; now that she had grown to reach almost middle age, had given up her previous, more 'Gothic' (as Garrett called it) outfits for standardized things; like the ones she had on, blue jeans, a black blouse, a red, leather jacket and pointy-toed, low-heel shoes.
"…Long night, huh?" Eduardo asked as he sat next to her, without looking at her. He knew he would be disappointed if he did; he knew that she must've changed. But the image in his mind was always of the girl who wore those black, worn out combat boots with a torn, red skirt and a black blouse; a girl who didn't spend time on tidying her hair or make-up besides the minimal eyeliner. He sensed that he, too, had changed. He wondered, for an instant, what she would think if she saw him wearing a dark blue, three-piece suit with a red tie (untied, of course).
"They're all long…" Kylie said, without looking at him. She knew that she would be disappointed if she did; she knew that he must've changed. But the image in her mind was always of the slacker who kept on repeating that he was a scientist although he didn't know the first thing about science, who had kept nagging at her to help him pass his exams, who argued with Slimer on an hourly basis and always suggested somebody was dead when they were unaccounted for. She sensed that she, too, had changed. She wondered, for an instant, what he would think if he saw her.
"What you doin' here?" Eduardo asked.
"I come here every day."
"Not every day."
"And you would know?"
"I've been comin' down here every day."
Kylie froze.
"You… what?"
"Yeah… I feel like I gotta respect the dude… now that he's dead? I come down here to pay my respects."
"You come out of respect for Egon..?"
"Yeah. Somethin' wrong with that?"
"No… it just seems, strange, Eduardo, coming out of you."
"Don't push it."
"Why not? I mean, what have you done? After the college ended, you just… vanished!"
"Yeah well… I couldn't hang around. It just wasn't the same without the ghoulies. And then Egon just died. Just like that, he died. Man… if I could see the guy one more time, I'd tell him…"
"I don't come here every day." Kylie confessed, interrupting him "Just on this day. This night is when everything changed."
Eduardo didn't know what to say. Could he comfort her? Could he say the right words? What was there to say?
"I remember it too, y'know…" he said softly.
"What exactly do you remember?"
"All of it. All the slime, all the action, all that leg work… The wage we got was next to nothing, and we still went… all the ghoulies. All of that."
"How does it feel..?" Kylie asked, not out of curiosity, but just to know for sure that this feeling inside her, this feeling that somebody else felt what she felt, that somebody understood her, was true.
"I miss it."
"Me too."
"I wonder if old Slimeball is still in there."
"He is. He haunts the place."
"Haunt may not be the correct word, since haunting implies a malignant intent." A voice said.
Neither of them had to turn; they could already, in their hearts, see Roland in his brown suit, bowtie and wool vest; his glasses hanging at the very tip of his nose, standing there nostalgically with a slightly larger stomach.
"You too, huh?" Eduardo asked carelessly as Roland sat in between them, looking at neither of them, knowing he'd be disappointed if he did. He, too, had changed.
"Me too, what, Eduardo?"
"Long night, man. Long night…"
"They all seem long sometimes…" Roland said.
"They are long." another voice chipped in, "But hey, it's not like it was gonna go on forever! Hell, it could have outlasted every last one of us, but we outlasted it first!"
A little creak told them that Garrett, only in his sweats due to his late exit from the training of the team had joined their uncalled gathering. He pulled his wheelchair next to the bench and turned his gaze to the firehouse.
Briefly, he looked at them. They had all changed. They had all become more and less. They had been very different once, very different when he had known them. And he, too, was different, only, he didn't feel a difference; he only felt home – that warm feeling in the pit of his stomach, telling him that he was back where he belonged, with his friends, his comrades, his brothers-and-sister-in-arms. He had found his family on the night where he had rolled toward the direction of the firehouse, just out of habit; he did go there every year on this very night, just to see it one last time. One last time, he had kept on telling himself, but the one last times never ended; and he had found himself going there just to get a taste of what it used to feel like.
"Buenos noches, Garrett." Eduardo said.
"Hey, Gar…" Roland greeted him.
"Hello, Garrett…" Kylie exclaimed.
"So… you too..?" Garrett asked to nobody in particular.
"We all do, man." Eduardo said.
"You mean…" Garrett continued, "You feel it? This rush? The one you get when you look at this old, haunted place?"
"Yes…" Kylie said simultaneously with Roland.
"It's kinda sad, yeah…" Garrett said, "We put our lives on the line for this thing, every single day."
"Once upon a time…" Roland remarked.
"Hey man, once a scientist, always a scientist." Eduardo said.
The sentence just hung in the air. In the cold night breeze, they sat next to each other, at a loss for words. The only thing interrupting the sentence was the distant crying sound echoing in the old building. They sat in comfortable silence, feeling that they all could feel it.
The ghost of their past.
It lingered amongst them, touching each and every one of them in its special way; it made Kylie think of the Ghost Beacon ("A spectral proto-capacitator, to be precise!"); it made Roland think of the PKE Meters and the endless wiring of their equipment, it made him think that he could build a proton pack from scratch effortlessly; it made Eduardo think of all the times he had said, maybe he's dead, just to confirm that if he was, they could go home early one night for a change, it made him remember the countless times Kylie and he had had arguments and had sat in silence; it made Garrett remember the first time anyone other than his Brooklyn Heights gang treating him with respect, it made him remember the nights he spent in endless excitement and the feeling of achieving something.
The ghost slowly faded as they all started to see the pointlessness of it all; the futility of their gathering, the futility of their nostalgia. They had a singular regret in this – that they couldn't revel in it as much as they could as it lasted. They felt the presence of the ghost of their present; it was lingering in between them, showing them the distance in between them, showing them the ties they had – no matter how thin they were stretched, no matter how shallow and just how deep they cut.
A stranger walking past them saw them and froze for a second, as if hesitant. And then, smiling, he winked at them and said, "Who you gonna call?"
The question. The question that had become their oath. The oath that now was in vain, the oath that had bound them together and had torn them apart, inside and out.
They smiled to the stranger; the ghosts of smiles crossed their faces, just for this kid's sake. The stranger walked off, and yet, they all could feel the ghost of a smile only showed the sorrow inside, as it did for them.
They all thought one thing, simultaneously, Who's left to call?
The silence itself descended upon them like the night and covered them in the ghost of comfort, the comfort that they missed. Bothered by this, by their silence, by the ghosts of their unity, the ghost of their past, present and future, the ghost of their pain and memories, Eduardo spoke to banish the silence.
"We were scientists, man…"