Ara was traveling alone. Astronomy had been his hobby when he married his wife. She never bothered to take up things that were his before or after, so it remained his.
At his office everyone took their vacation days at the traditional times, holidays, summer break, to go places with family and friends. Ara used to also but now it was late February and windy but warm for the season. He wouldn’t have taken the days at all had his boss not insisted. It was his boss that had found this Astrology weekend trip package and told Ara he needed it, that the time was as good as it would get and his vacation days would expire if nothing were done. Ara didn’t even have the energy to mention that there was a difference between Astrology and Astronomy. Astronomy not Astrology was his hobby all these years. He had a telescope. He subscribed to Discover,Scientific American, andAstronomy Magazines.He used to read them as soon as he got them each month to hear about new galaxies and dark matter. They piled up a little more now. A stack went 3 issues deep on his nightstand with water glass rings instead of being put away neatly on the shelf in his den, next to the telescope, in chronological order and marked with slips of paper for any future reference.
When Ara walked into his hotel room, he placed his single bag on top of the dresser. He surveyed the room looking for the extra things that distinguished this boutique hotel from a chain, making it a $100 more a night. He was fascinated by the difference between fast food coffee and drip coffee at fancy coffee shops. To him there was little difference what the world around him made some distinction.
“All hotels were designed,” he said to the empty room, “I just can’t understand.” The desk seemed modern, the dresser seemed old and there were large pieces of ‘design’ on the wall instead of what he thought of as hotel art. Three white pyramids protruded from the wall like a giant monochromatic dog collar instead of a simple painted landscape or pleasant abstract art. There was a blanket draped over the chair that had constellations printed on it, but that was a special decoration for the package weekend. He sat down at the desk. There was a welcome packet with a letter and itinerary next to the vase of stargazer lilies. Ara rubbed the flower petals between his fingers to test if they would rip or if the plastic would resist. “Boutique hotels have real flowers, that’s the difference,” he said. The bright orange pollen from the lilies fell on the back of his hand and wrist. He grabbed a tissue from the desk to wipe it off but the pollen smeared and stained, rubbing in instead of wiping off. It was used as an ancient pigment to dye clothes and now it stained his skin deeply enough that it would take a week of washing to completely remove the yellow spots from his wrist. He began to read the packet.
…anything you see, you can have. In the morning on the last day we will survey your rooms and anything marked with these Silver Star stickers will be charged to your room and sent to your home. 5% of the proceeds of your stay with us will benefit the Orion astrological society located just 20 miles from our hotel…
He skimmed the rest of the packet. He knew the activities were what his boss had sent him here for, to meet people. They both knew he wouldn’t. Most of the events would be late at night. The kitchen would be open before sunrise for those who were hungry at strange times due to the odd hours.
He’d brought several granola bars in his suitcase. If he was being sent away from everyone else on vacation he intended to act like it. Where he went had become more about who wanted him to stay away. His boss had sent him away, his coworkers, his wife, his old friends (really those were parents of his son, not friends on his own. He’d lost his old friends years ago when his son was born and raising a child took over his social life.)
He thought he should rest, adjust a little to the pace of vacation. He knew he couldn’t sleep so he lay across the foot of the bed, wrapped the top half of the comforter around him and turned on the TV. The Destinations Channelcame on, reels of mini infomercials about the amenities in the hotel and local attractions. He didn’t look further to what the other channels might offer. The loop would eventually comfort him like his daily routine at home, the same thing over and over again. And like in his daily routine he felt awkward, even here, by himself.
He grew antsy not sleeping on the bed. He ear and the side of his head burning a little bit from the pressure put on it without any rest. He walked over to his bag on the dresser and began to unpack. He pulled out his dob kit, set the charger for his phone by the desk, set his clothes in neat folded piles on top of the dresser. He didn’t understand why people put things in drawers in hotel rooms but he always checked everyone before leaving. It was something he remembered from going on vacations with his own family as a kid. They’d drive down I-75 and stay at different hotels off the freeway on the way to Florida. They’d only stay one night in each so they’d live out of one suitcase his mom had packed to take into the hotels. But at checkout time his whole family, all four of them, would open every drawer and lift up every blanket making sure that nothing was left behind except Gideon's Bible. His Dad urging them on and relooking in drawers asking ‘did you look in here?’
Maybe it was the bathroom, Ara thought and got up to explore. “This doesn’t smell like a hotel bathroom,” he said as he stepped into the bathroom and looked and sniffed. It didn’t smell of lemony disinfectants and indistinct bar soap. It smelled like orchids and baby powder. The water glasses, real glass wrapped in plastic, and the small coffeemaker were at the far end of the large counter. The sink bowl was raised out of the countertop and Ara felt as if he were using a bowl and pitcher, elegant in some way he couldn’t understand. He unpacked his dob kit, carefully placing things – his disposable razor, mini shaving cream, small scissors, nail clippers, a travel package of Q-tips – little things in a grouping under his reflection in the mirror. He took off his watch and laid it beside the other things. This one spot of the hotel room looked less designed now and more personal, more like a vigil.
He filled the coffeemaker with water and turned it on. Once the water finished dripping through he poured it into one of the water glasses. He waited for the water and the glass to match temperatures and the glass and the room temperature to reconcile so his hand and the glass could meet. He frothed the shaving cream into another glass and threw away the plastic from the glasses. It was important to him to keep the area clean. The hot water was to rinse the badger brush and then the razorblade as he moved between the shaving cream from the glass to his face to the hot water glass. He noticed as he switched between the glasses that if he held either up for more than a minute, or didn’t pay attention to the hold of it, his hand would shake like he was too nervous to do anything.
When the blade passed across where his dimples would be were he smiling, little beads of blood appeared on his skin. He placed the blade in front of his altar of things and used a washcloth to wipe the blood and shaving cream from his face. His son had had the same dimples. It felt to Ara more like passing down a failure, dimples are only holes in the muscle. He picked the blade back up he rinsed it off in the glass and blamed himself for all the failures that had lead to his son’s passing.
Like a paper cut reminds you of your first scrapped knee from riding your bike. The sight of Ara’s own blood reminded him of this.
Going back to the desk Ara moved the packet with the itinerary and Silver Star stickers aside and began looking through the desk drawers. The top drawer had Gideon's Bible, a couple of pieces of hotel stationary and for this weekend a box of greeting cards. The cards had a dark navy front printed with constellations that looked like the blanket on the chair but with pinholes in the middle of the stars to let the white interior of the card shine through. Anything could be his, the letter had said, so he began to write a draft for the card on the hotel’s thin pad of scratch paper that was by the phone. He began to write his son.
Ara couldn’t fill even a piece of the hotel’s scratch pad with anything he could copy into the greeting card. He took a booklet from the packet that described the lectures for the weekend and moved to sit on the edge of the bed.
There were lectures about myths, brightness, lost constellations, and the colored stars. None made Ara want to get fully dressed and leave the room to listen to them. He read each one’s description anyhow.
Backyard Stargazing
It is simple to find constellations at home just like the pros. All you need is your naked eye and the ability to locate the Big Dipper. You can then use its handle and base to point across the sky to a dozen other constellations. We’ll teach you how!
He looked up at the window. The blackout curtain was pulled so he was unsure what time of day it was. The weekend was about hiding from daylight, just like the stars themselves seemed to. Ara knew the stars were still there even in the day, they just couldn’t be seen by the naked eye. Most of the stars we see with the naked eye have burnt out anyway, surviving light years just to get to us.
They weren’t special. The blackout curtains looked like all the ones in other hotels he’d stayed in. He imagined someone ordering them out of some Hotel specific mail-order catalogue. Maybe these were top of the line, a different fabric, he thought before turning his attention back to the brochure.
Taurus, the blue bull, was won over by the girl. She was restless and was dancing in the fields when she saw this strange creature. Instead of being afraid she picked some of the large flowers around her and began putting them around his neck to tame him. The now gentle bull let her mount him. They found a shared calmness that neither had possessed before. The bull walked into the water to transport her off the island. After the long adventure, the girl and the bull were put up in the sky to be together forever.
Ara had read stories like this before. The pace, an inevitability of any good myth, put his son to sleep each night. But he always resisted sleep. “I remember that Daddy,” he said as he turned over twisting further into the blanket.
“What champ, the story, have you heard this before?” Ara asked.
“No, the bull, I remember the bull,” he said. To him it wasn’t a story it was a memory, something given to him at birth from his ancestry. The girl in the story was the greatest of his grandmothers and the memory was passed though the generations to him like her hazel eyes, like the rotation of the sky takes away everything. If you spend too much time looking at the constellations you can no longer ignore the acceleration of days.
He took off his clothes leaving just his underwear. He folded them and set them on top of his other clothes. He went to the bathroom and washed his face without focusing on his reflection in the mirror. It was time for bed.
It was already afternoon by the time Ara woke up. He made himself some of the Stargazer Tea the hotel had provided for the weekend making hot water with the coffeemaker again. Ara took his tea to the desk where the greeting card and scratch pad still sat. He used to write his son birthday cards and letters at camp without the help of scratch pads for drafts. He opened the card he put his pen at the top of the left side, letting a large dot form while he tried to make his hand move. When it did move, he wouldn’t let it stop until it covered the entire card in his small lettering. He looked at it for a moment when he was finished. Then picked up the Silver Stars and put a one star over the word son. One by one he put a Silver Star over every part of his son that he had written down. He covered the entire card with layers of Silver Stars until he had used every one.
Ara put everything from the bathroom and on top of the dresser back into his bag and checked every drawer. He left the desk, the room, and the hotel just the way it was, not charged for anything extra.