ANDROMEDA

Josephine Greenberg
University of Massachusetts Amherst

The following fictional excerpt was performed as part of a monologue in a one woman show in February
of 2013.

REBECCA: I try to find people a home. Thats what I tell people when they ask what I do. Not the white
picket variety from cul-de-sacs in far flung suburban neighborhoods - I look up. Im an astronomer, and I
look for tiny fluctuations in light from far away stars, fluctuations that could be planets. And after some
really boring calculations done by algorithms on a computer, I can tell whether that planet travels in this
perfect, orbital path. It needs to be perfect, because if the planet drifts too close to its star, life would be
scorched into nonexistence. But if the planet drifts too far life, human or otherwise, would be frozen in
a perpetual state of ruin.
So I technically look for homes, even though they float lightyears away. Its a stellar excellent way to
introduce yourself to people. He gets a clever line, and I get a bit of credibility as a female astronomer.
And believe me, I do not receive enough of a reputation at the observatory. Were a rare breed.
Now I want to ask you: have you ever thought about telescopes? They were invented in the Netherlands
in the 17th century. Some probably-misogynistic Dutch man put together two lenses in a tube, and saw the
far away up close. But when I first picked up a telescope in Middle School, I thought it looked like a
penis. A long metal rod that a man decided to thrust into the heavens? Definitely phallic. And the
telescope at the observatory, this massive, million-dollar piece of equipment? Someones
overcompensating.
The telescope that my parents bought me when I entered public high school was modest. I recall driving
out to the top of a craggy hill in Northern California, staring at the stars, stark in contrast to the murkiness
of the milky way and the haze of city lights. It seemed impossible that we were just pinpricks on a
miniscule planet in a miniscule solar system in a miniscule branch of a comparably tiny galaxy. I walked
around school for the next week with the heavens etched onto my irises.
Back then I was religious, and the concept of exploring Gods work just captivated me. I graduated from
my local university with a degree in Astronomy, and my parents werent the best about it. My dad was
furious that I hadnt studied for a second major as a backup, but after graduating, I quickly found work at
a local observatory. Now they say if you do what you love, youll never work a day in your life. That is
patently false. It was exhausting. I was disheartened by how long it took to acclimatize myself to the
equipment and begin my work as an assistant, spending 12 hours a day on the most tedious bullshit.
You probably believe that astronomers spend their entire lives as night owls with telescopes, but most of
my work consisted of writing computer code during the day to sweep areas of the night sky. It was tough,
but starting out in a difficult field was made easier by good teachers.
My boss pardon me, my mentor, transferred to the observatory a month after I was hired: a researcher
named Robert King. He never really acted like a king; he was humble. Polite. Robert would hold open
doors in that uncomfortable period when youre far away from the door and have to speed up to make it
less awkward. After 2 weeks, my coworkers and I felt relaxed enough to make jokes and be open towards

him. But that all changed when Craig, one of the employees I was closest with, made a joking remark
about him. It was pretty funny, but after we left, we could hear the echoes of shouts from outside the
dome.
I supposed that Robert was a red supergiant of a man, emitting a warm glow, all while on the verge of
supernova.
But I still needed a reference, and after the debacle with Craig, we all knew it wasnt a guarantee. God, I
hated this field back then. Before I earned my way to my current position at the local university, it was
tedious and difficult to advance. Craig eventually quit, but he told me how his professors described the
1970s. Scientists and astronomers would get old or burn out in their 60s, and the field of astronomy
would constantly be infused with new blood. But these days, professors held onto tenure and their
telescopes with wizened hands, letting go only when health kept them from working.
My largest mistake came in my 5th month of working with Robert. I was working on a monitor, trying to
gather data on a star, when I inputted the wrong celestial coordinates. The telescope whirred, sliding into
position, and I knew that the outdated operating system would spend a few minutes focusing on the area.
So to save time, I restarted the computer, knowing it would force the telescope to reset.
It worked, but one of the computers I was using was in the middle of an update, and the hard drive was
corrupted. The hard drive lost our progress since the last backup, which had occurred 2 hours before. I
remember feeling the blood pound in my head, anxiety building up like an acidic invertebrate crawling its
way through my esophagus. I sat in my chair for a good 20 minutes before Robert came up and asked
what was wrong.
I explained, tears in my eyes, what had happened, feeling like years of school and work were for nothing.
When I eventually looked up, I was surprised to see no look of hate or malice on Roberts face. His brow
remained as inscrutable as ever, smooth despite his peppered, gray hair. He leaned forward his breath
smelled of coffee and tabasco.
He took me close and told me this wasnt a disaster. Not much was deleted. Also, hed apparently done
far worse in his first year working.
As I continued to shake, he did this awkward pat on my shoulder before wandering away to the server
room.
In a way, I was kind of glad. Although our observatory lost data, I thought that this experience brought
Robert and I a bit closer together. He took me as a human being, not another cold, aloof graduate looking
to advance her degree.
After that, he warmed up to the entire team. He checked birthdays on his calendars, writing a card every
time. Discovering a new planet usually involved a small celebration, or him buying dinner for the lot of
us. Truth be told, many of us began to appreciate him. His angry outbursts with Craig and other
employees gradually faded from collective memory.
One of the pursuits Robert was still relentless on, though, was the observatorys financial status. Finding
grants, especially in California after the recession, was nearly impossible. But the month after my
birthday, our observatory won a grant from the National Science Foundation. We werent on a volcano or
high up in the mountains; our observatory was a humble facility near a suburb. I was proud, in a way, that
our relatively tiny telescope attracted attention.

Robert and a graduate student working with us brought back drinks to celebrate, and placed them on a
foldout table far away from sensitive equipment. Robert poured me a glass of peach schnapps. The sugary
aroma made me reminisce about my grandmothers peach orchard, and of split and withered fruit rotting
in the California sun. The taste was sickly sweet, but it burned my esophagus on the way down. I coughed
and nearly spat it out, but reached the bottom of my glass. I switched to champagne as the celebration
wore on.
After midnight, I walked outside to get away from the small talk and alcohol, taking a deep breath of the
coastal air. Then I heard the door shut behind me. Robert was there, drink in hand. He asked me how I
was, and what I had spent the weekend doing, before drifting off into silence. He stood casually between
the door and I before stepping towards me.
In hindsight, I criticized myself. I shouldnt have left the party, I should have had my phone out, I should
have screamed. I had this awful mentality for months after it happened, trying to erase the memories of
what happened.
I do remember some parts. Getting dragged to the side of the building. A calloused hand over my mouth.
The clink of his belt buckle sliding along the concrete. The pain.
The whispers were worst. Something along the lines of how no one would believe me. How I should feel
grateful for the opportunities hed given me. How he could still fire me for a mistake I made 2 months
before. I forced myself to repress the exact words after it happened, but I knew the impact they had. I
didnt even tell my parents what happened until weeks after it occurred.
Every time it races through my mind, I try to think of ways it could have gone better for me. I wish I had
screamed at the top of my lungs the instant he had grabbed me. But his quiet murmurs shut me up,
because for some stupid reason I was more scared of losing his fucking recommendation more than what
he was using me for. All I could do, and all I did do, was just stare up at the night sky. I stared up at the
stars and wished I was on any planet but this one, lightyears away, but I couldnt move or breathe or
scream. I swear I stared at every star I could find by the time it was over. And I wished from the bottom
of my heart, each beat reinforcing the building pain and sadness in my chest, that I could be anywhere but
here.
He was silent after it was done. All I heard once he shuffled away was the near imperceptible din of
cicadas and crickets. I pushed myself off the ground and walked to my car.
Justice came slowly and gradually he was eventually imprisoned after a second assistant complained of
harassment, corroborating my story. God, saying the word story almost makes it seem like I imagined
everything. But imagination doesnt account for the months of therapy I went through to rebuild myself.
I still work as an astronomer, looking for far away planets that travel that perfect orbital path: not too
close, and not too far. I suppose it serves as a kind of challenge to the pain I endured.
When I was a teenager with a cheap telescope, I spent a couple of weeks looking for constellations. One
of the most gorgeous constellations was Andromeda. Her mother, Cassiopeia, told the world that
Andromeda beat even the gods and goddesses in beauty. For her mothers supposed crimes, Andromeda
was chained down to be devoured by a monster created by a vengeful Poseidon. She was eventually
rescued by the hero Perseus, but it struck a chord.
Euripides wrote of Andromedas rescue, but her rescue probably could have remained a myth. Shes been
chained for eternity in the heavens, her victimhood carved out from the stars. And it reminded me that I

dont want to be remembered as the astronomer who was raped. I want to be remembered as the
astronomer who named a faraway planet after her little sister. I want to be a woman who did something,
not a woman who had something done to her.
I lived and breathed my assault for years. I still calibrate telescopes and search through data with the same
steps Robert taught me. But nowadays, I dont flash back every time I step out of a door, and I dont need
anxiety medication at conferences full of men.
Sometimes when I walk to my car, the night sky overwhelms me with panicked memories. After getting
myself to breathe slowly, I force myself to look up. The sky above me looks like a near perfect pitch
black, but there are still glimmers of hope.