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“Uh. Hi.”
Squiddo blinked at the ghost sitting in the middle of her room.
“Hey, you’re not Ash.”
The spectre blinked. “Yep. I’m his best friend, Red.”
At that moment, a much more familiar voice called out. “No you’re not, you tried to scam me yesterday!”
Squiddo blinked again. “Ash, where did you go and why am I stuck with this guy?”
“Hey!”
She sighed. “Well, at least get off the table. I eat there.”
The ghost - or Red, rather - maintained eye contact as he phased down through the table and then the floor. Then broke eye contact because the floor was in the way.
At this point Squiddo was desensitised to the spirits’ antics, so she simply went to bed.
The next morning was heralded not by a rooster’s crow, but by a rather loud and incessantly chiming alarm clock. Squiddo groaned and rolled over. Why did work exist again?
“You know, if you’re a ghost, you don’t need to sleep. Or work.”
She opened one eye. “Ash, are you promoting suicide?”
Said spirit simply shrugged. “Am I wrong?”
“Yes.”
“Go away Red, you have no friends.”
Squiddo finally fell out of bed and grabbed her phone, ignoring the other two. “Oh wait, it’s Saturday. Why did I even set my alarm?”
“Cos you’re bad.”
“Cos you’re bad.”
“Wow guys. Thanks for the support.”
She sighed dramatically and trudged to the bathroom to wash up.
When she re-emerged from her bathroom, slightly more refreshed, she found only One (1) ghost hovering around her apartment. Surprisingly, it was the one that did not live there.
“Ash, where did you go again?”
Red startled and turned to face her. “Oh, he left to do something. Something about a warehouse and an attempted exorcism? Eh, I’m sure he’ll be fine.”
Squiddo abruptly wondered if Red knew she was a ghost hunter. Hm, surely that wouldn’t affect anything whatsoever.
“Anyways, this is my friend Chekhov! Say hi, Chekhov.”
Red now held up a suspiciously see-through figurine with a gun in one hand.
“Is that literally Chekhov’s Gun? And how did you make a toy a ghost?”
“Yes, and you don’t want to know.” With a flourish, both the toy and the gun disappeared, presumably into the depths of Red’s pockets. He was wearing a suit, after all.
“Oh…kay. So what do you do in your spare time?”
“Scam people. I’m a businessman, y’know? Comes with the job.”
“Nice. I’m a waitress.” And the second job does not need to be mentioned.
“Speaking of which, how much is your soul worth?”
“What?”
“Is that not a perfectly normal question to ask? Anyway, I’d approximate it as ten dollars.”
“What?”
“See, you might think that it’s worth more, but if you take into account all the hardship and pain I’m buying along with it, you’ll realise that ten dollars is already quite a good deal.”
Squiddo blinked. Well, screw it, let’s see how far we can barter, she decided.
“But then I also lose out on possible happiness and joy, so wouldn’t that ramp up the value?”
“That may be true, however, without a soul you can’t feel sadness or anger of any sort, saving any relationships you may ruin through impulsive behaviour and also reducing therapy costs if you ever get depression.”
“On the other hand, those relationships wouldn’t mean anything if I felt no emotion from them. After all, is the point of living not to simply survive, but thrive? Is emotion not the universal human language?”
“Ah, but you see - ”
Squiddo took off her glasses. “No, actually, I don’t.”
Without missing a beat, Red pulled off his own sunglasses and put them on her face. “Well, now you do. As I was saying - ”
“What is going on.”
Both of them turned to face a distinctly exasperated Ashswag standing on the carpet. With comedic timing, the spectral glasses fell through Squiddo and presumably to the core of the Earth.
“Aw, my glasses!”
“Ash, help, he’s trying to get me to sell my soul to him for ten dollars.”
A look of dawning realisation crossed the ghost’s face. “Oh. Don’t worry, you get used to it.”
“Fair enough. I have to deal with you anyway.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Red promptly rejoined the conversation with a dramatic clang as he dropped “Chekhov”, now somehow corporeal, onto the ground. All three stared at it.
“Oh look, it’s Chekhov’s Gun, which didn’t turn out to be any sort of major plot point whatsoever. Shocking.”
“This is why you have no friends, you realise.”
Ash faded out of existence to reinforce Squiddo’s words.
“Hey, I’m getting bullied over here!”
“Get good.”