Buzzfeed, Boys, Black Magic

astronomy isn't even real

Janice was casting horoscopes in the break room. She had cornered Manuel at the fridge. The poor kid just wanted to eat his grocery-store sushi. You could see the desperation in his eyes. I felt sorry for him, a little – but not enough to pull Janice's attention onto me.

"You must never go to medical school," she insisted. "Rahu was in Capricorn at the time of your birth. Your soul direction leads you toward the accumulation of money-"

"But surgeons make a lot of money-" Manuel's eyebrows scrunched into his forehead.

"Don't interrupt me!" Janice screeched. "You'd be the kind of doctor who's in it for the status and the sex-"

Manuel's shoulders sank downward, like a slinking cat. I'd never seen anyone look so uncomfortable.

"He's seventeen, Janice," I popped my cup-of-noodles into the microwave. "Do you have to talk about status and sex?"

"He knows what his diddler is for," Janice shot back. "Plus with moon in Leo he's clearly a narcissist. Just look at his hair."

"What's wrong with my hair?" Manuel smoothed the shaved sides of his head.

"You don't really wanna help people, you wanna prescribe opiates for the money, and get innocent young women hooked on heroin-"

"Jesus Christ!" I couldn't help myself. "Leave him alone."

The microwaved beeped, and Janice looked at me with an expression I can only describe as reality-show villain.

"You'll be good doctor," I said to Manuel, and I took my ramen and slid into the chair closet to me.

"Don't listen to her," Janice said to Manuel, but still villain-glared me. "She's not self-aware. There's no way someone so blind to her own motivations can enlighten you about yours."

"Self-aware?" I choked. "You know what your pseudo-science is, right? I mean, you know astrology is supposed to be about planets, right?"

"I fail to see your point," Janice crossed her freckled arms.

"Planets that are round," I said. "Round planets like earth."

"I'm not going to be rough on you," Janet said. "The coming eclipse is going to bring a major reckoning to Capricorns."

"I'm an Aquarius?" I was embarrassed that I even knew that.

"I follow Vedic." Janice said, "January 28th is Capricorn."

I didn't know who Vedic was, but I was alarmed. "How do you know my birthday?"

"Dr. Moreno has me moonlight in HR," Janice said. "If I didn't know the stars were about to take you for a ride, I'd make your next paycheck go missing."

"First off," I said, "that's illegal. Secondly, the 'stars' aren't going to do anything to me, because astrology isn't real."

"Wait five days and get back to me about that." Janet said. "Saturn is going to fuck you up."

"Yeah, good luck," I rolled my eyes. "You're my coworker. I'm already at rock bottom."

"You're going to have a broken heart," Janice said. "The kind of broken heart that will change who you are. The kind that destroys and rebuilds your essence."

I would be lying if I said then that my stomach didn't drop. The expression on my face must have given the queasy feeling away, because Janice sighed.

"Despite everything," she said. "I like you, Mary-Beth. On the weekends, I work at Mystic Mists downtown. You come in, and I'll give you five dollars off a healing crystal or a white sage stick."

"No thanks," I said. "I don't believe in magic."

And as soon as I uttered those five words, my whole entire body wanted to take them back.

***

I spent the five star shows that afternoon wondering how a person could reconcile a flat earth with an essence-rebuilding eclipse.

I thought about that even as I fielded string theory questions from middle-aged men, conspiracy theories from teenagers, and thorny, political diatribes from the president's supporters. On days like today- days where violence nearly erupted between my audience- I'd wonder why it was that my exhibit- and not meteorology or animal science or geology- was the tension-point. I had always supposed that it was because astronomers studied places you couldn't physically see, save for the pinpoint starlight peppering the night sky. You had to trust in mathematics and, if you couldn't understand equations, you had to trust in satellite photographs. And these days –perhaps for good reason– no one trusted anyone at all.

I didn't think even I trusted myself. How could I trust myself? How could I profess to be a scientist, or even a wannabe scientist, and still believe each Buzzfeed quiz? How could I hold myself to the cool reason of my profession, if I were shaken by a half-formed threat of eclipse-wrought heartbreak?

I didn't trust my eyes when I saw a handsome, brown-skinned blonde slide into the middle seat of the back row, five minutes after my last star show started. I thought I hallucinated him. Maybe- I admitted to myself- I had fallen in some close approximation of love, and would begin seeing Rafis everywhere. Doppelganger dopeheads.

After the planetarium lights flicked on and the Q&A section closed and I thought that maybe I'd go home at last- the doppelganger slinked down the amphitheater stairs toward me.

"Lee!" he called.

It was Rafi.

"Hi," I said.

He threw his arms out.

"I have a surprise for you."

***