CHAPTER 2 Visitors Who Arrived Too Early

People began arriving in the mornings.

Not in groups. Not with equipment. They came one at a time, often earlier than necessary, standing outside the gate until the door unlocked.

Mira noticed that none of them asked about stars.

A woman arrived just after sunrise and walked slowly around the central chamber.

“I thought I’d feel disappointed,” she said.

“Do you?” Mira asked.

The woman smiled slightly. “No.”

She stayed until noon, then left without looking back.

Another visitor arrived carrying a notebook filled with diagrams.

He opened it once, stared at a page, then closed it carefully.

“I don’t need this anymore,” he said, setting the notebook on a bench before picking it up again and taking it with him.

Mira said nothing.

The observatory did not require explanation.

That afternoon, Mira discovered a thin logbook inside a side cabinet.

No dates. No names.

Only brief entries:

Stopped searching upward.
Looked outward instead.
Left before darkness.

Mira closed the book slowly.

As sunset approached, the observatory dimmed again.

The telescope remained still.

No measurements were taken.

No data collected.

Mira realized then that the observatory did not fail at night.

It succeeded before it.

It was a place for decisions made while things were still visible.

Before imagination took over.

Before certainty dissolved into endless possibility.