I had more or less forgotten about her for the rest of my work shift. So much so, that when I saw her name written on a piece of advertisement later that day, I couldn't quite remember where I had heard it before.
The clock had struck noon, which ends my shift, so I just packed up all my stuff and left. It was a fifteen minute walk from the bookstore to my high school. I was so used to the city center that I could get there and back blindfolded. Assuming no crazy drivers tried to run over me while I attempted to cross the streets. Which they would, because this is Rio. I've spent enough of my life in this city to know what its people are like. You won't see me trying to perform that feat anytime soon.
Point is: I never payed any attention to my surroundings anymore. It was all a bunch of busy people hurrying around minding their own busy businesses.
So when I passed by a museum (more like an art gallery) that was announcing this shiny new exposition, I almost failed to notice the words on the poster. Almost.
"Ceres," it said, in big capital letters. I noticed it, walked straight past it, then stopped.
I knew I had heard that word somewhere recently.
Upon closer inspection, I noticed it was some sort of space photography exhibition. Nasa pictures, mostly. I was never too interested in astronomy, not after I outgrew my dream of being an astronaut, so I wouldn't have known from the name and the gray planet photograph what this was all about. But that name stuck to me: I heard it before and I couldn't quite tell where, or why. Maybe that was why I completely forgot about my afternoon classes and just decided to go see the exposition, right then and there.
Ceres, I began to learn as I read the text on the walls, was a dwarf planet located in the asteroid belt, right there between Mars and Jupiter (something I would have known if I were at least an average student in sciences). It was named after a Roman Goddess. And the exposition was a collection of photographs taken by Nasa's space probe Dawn, which was orbiting the dwarf planet since 2015 and was nearly out of fuel by now. Which, judging by the quality of the pictures, was an utter shame.
The photographs were otherworldly, and quite literally so. It was nothing like the usual pictures we get from other planets (round little colored balls). These pictures, or at least the most striking of them, made me feel as if I had been actually there, on alien soil. It looked a bit like how snowy mountains look when you look down from an airplane window. Except they weren't here, on Earth, they were somewhere so far away that human mind was unable to grasp the distance. Somewhere no human had ever been before. Somewhere I wanted to be.
The bewilderment and awe must have shown on my face, because the guy who was standing next to me chuckled.
"Like this one?" he asked, gesturing at the photograph in front of me. He didn't sound presumptuous or anything, but it still made me a little mad that I was being laughed at. I might have been nobody, but that was still uncalled for.
I ignored him.
He started speaking to me, disregarding my contempt for him. At first, I just tried to shut myself off, but the subject he was talking about made it impossible to do so. He was telling me details about the Dawn probe and the Nasa team behind it. Some of that was actually rather interesting, like how the probe had actually shot pictures of another asteroid before heading towards the beautiful dwarf planet that now enchanted me. He was right. Down the hall there was a smaller photo section dedicated to pictures of that other asteroid, called 4 Vesta, along with graphs and charts explaining the probe and the mission.
The guy also spoke to me about the two roman goddesses those celestial bodies were named after: Ceres was the goddess of agriculture and fertility, while Vesta was goddess of home and family. I shrugged. That sounded a bit too much like the gender roles which had been imposed on women throughout the ages. I didn't like that aspect of it. It sounded way too old-fashioned.
"Not all of them are like that," he explained hurriedly. I think he might have read my thoughts on my face. "Minerva, for instance, was the goddess of wisdom. And Diana was the goddess of hunters." I glanced at his slightly exasperated face, thinking it looked just too amusing right then. "Oh well," he sounded defeated. "I guess the Romans did have a poor opinion of women back at their time. I'm sorry, it sucks, I know."
This guy, I concluded then, seemed inoffensive enough. And he was obviously trying to impress me with his talk about space probes and ancient goddesses. It wouldn't hurt to have a friend like him, provided I made sure he knew I didn't want anything other than that with him. Why? I don't know. I'm not a people person. Also, dating just seems really bothersome. Having a friend with common interests, though, that could work.
"Janis," I told him, extending my arm to offer him a handshake.
"Oh!" he exclaimed. "Like Joplin?" he shook my hand amiably.
"That's the idea of it, yes."
"Wow. You must have really cool parents, to name you after her."
I grimaced.
"Janis is more of a nickname," I explained.
"Got it!" he said, then dropped the subject. Which was just as well. Family tends to be a complicated issue.
We stood there facing each other in silence. At first he was smiling at me, then as the silence dragged on his smile turned into an expression of concern. He didn't get it.
"So..." he started to say. I interrupted him, right then:
"Your name," I told him. "You didn't say what it was."
"Right!" he did a facepalm. "Yes! Duh! Obviously. I'm David."
"Oh! Like Bowie?" I told him, jokingly.
He burst in laughter.
"Yes," he said, "that's precisely it."
"So, David," I called him. "You wanna go eat something somewhere? As friends," I made sure to add, seeing his eyebrows raise in surprise. "It's just that I was hoping to hear a bit more about outer planets and goddesses, that was rather interesting to learn about, I admit. But just friendly chatter, okay?"
He nodded, smiling amiably.
"Sure. I know just the place." §
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