ORION

"The answer is in the stars. That's what I feel every time I look at the night sky. How do I know the answer is indeed there? I'm not sure, but there's a voice inside my head that is convinced that it is truly so."

As I finished typing these lines onto my computer, I was quickly filled with regret, so I pressed the backspace button and deleted the words I'd just made up. No, that's not how the story should start, I thought.

I got up jerkily from my seat, making the chair fly backward. It tipped on its hind legs like a horse about to gallop before finally settling down again. I left the desk and headed for the kitchenette, where I made myself a cup of black coffee, purposefully saving the sugar. Then, with my mug in hand, I went out to the balcony; it was 11:13 at night. Here, from the hotel room, I could clearly see the stars. I brought the cup closer to my lips and my nostrils widened in light of the brew's rich aroma. I sipped the black liquid—its velvety texture breathed life into my lungs and restored my dry power cells.

I looked up at the celestial bodies—the constellations winked at me, implying that they have much more to say than just the expansion of the universe. "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth His handywork," the Psalm read. King David was filled with a sense of awe and wonder; gazing at the heavens, he saw something more than just glimmers in the dark. With these thoughts running through my head, I decided to return to the craft of writing. I sat down in front of the computer and placed the half-empty coffee cup on the table.

I stared at the blank page and felt how the words were getting lost in my head, how the ideas failed to form. I was losing the story I wanted to tell, and another cup of coffee and this night's breeze weren't aiding my creative process. I let out a heavy sigh, feeling despair settling in different corners of the room. I had a hard time concentrating on my new piece, and I thought the walls of a cheap hotel on the outskirts of town would change the situation.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. I wondered who it might have been so late at night. I got up from the chair, came up to the door, and asked before opening, "Who is it?"

"A surprise," answered a familiar female voice.

"I do not like surprises," I said as I turned the knob.

In front of me stood a young, beautiful, fair-haired, blue-eyed girl. I knew her. I was in love with her. Nay, I'm still in love with her.

"Mika, what are you doing here?!" I asked, dazed, as I wasn't expecting her.

"I work here," she replied.

"Really?! I didn't know that." Mika was indeed wearing a hotel uniform.

"Will you make a lady wait at the door, or will you invite her in? Unless… you are not alone?" she peeked behind my shoulder.

"No, I'm alone. How did you find me?"

"I happened to see you check in. I called you but you didn't hear. Finding out which room you are in is not a problem for someone who works here."

She entered the room as if it was her own and threw herself onto the bed. Her golden hair spun like spider webs on the sheets and pillows as if made of gold twine; it glowed in the light of the lamp. Her uniform was very simple—black pants, a white button-up shirt, and a black sleeveless jacket with a gold emblem of the hotel. Mika lifted her feet to the ceiling and began to draw shapes with her toes on an invisible canvas.

"So, what are you actually doing here?" I asked, avoiding her unassuming behavior.

"I told you, I work here," she replied nonchalantly.

"No, I mean, what are you doing here, in my room. I'm working, you know. I came here specifically so I could disconnect from the entire world and write," a grumpy tone was seeping into my voice.

"I see, so that's how callously you're going to evict me?" She looked at me with her beautiful big pair of eyes. My heart skipped a beat. I was afraid I would drown in her eyes if I didn't look away.

"I-I'm not evicting you," I stuttered. "You just popped out of nowhere and—"

"Are you still writing science fiction?" she cut me off.

"Yes, I'm currently working on a short story for a sci-fi magazine."

"How about writing detective fiction instead? You have the talent. I'm sure you'll be good at it," she rested her chin on her hands, looking at me inquisitively.

"Writing is not a trivial process, Mika. There are a lot of factors involved. I cannot just write something. In-depth research is needed."

"Research..." Mika rolled her eyes. "Well, I have something for you."

"Mika, I don't have time for this… I have to work."

Mika jumped up from the bed and sat in the chair in front of the computer. "You haven't written anything yet!"

"It's because you're bothering me." I knew that if she saw the blank page, she wouldn't let me off the hook.

"I promise you, it's not going to take long. Come with me." She took me by the hand and led me out of the room.

"What's the deal, Mika?" I tried to shake off her grip.

"There is a suspicion of a break-in at one of our electronics warehouses. I just got word and was on my way to check it out."

"I'm sure the staff or the police can figure things out," I tried to escape yet another game of detectives. When Mika and I would meet in the library, we would conduct thought experiments where we investigated mundane mysteries and tried to solve them with deduction alone. Beyond that, our relationship had unfortunately not developed any further.

"I just want you to take a look. I'm curious to hear your theory," she begged.

She stared at me a great deal, and since I didn't have the immunity, I caved. With her, it was always a losing battle.

I was dragged out of my hotel room and into the corridor, toward the elevators. Coming closer, we saw the elevator doors closing. Mika shouted at the guy who she spotted inside to wait for us.

"Thank you, Jim," Mika said to the man, a hotel employee.

"You're welcome." He smiled as he eyed her from top to bottom, which irked me.

For a few long seconds, we all enjoyed the quiet as the elevator made its way down. Then, suddenly, Jim's pants fell to the ground without any warning. Mika burst out laughing obnoxiously. I tried to keep a straight face.

"Sorry," Jim hurriedly picked up his pants and ran out of the elevator as soon as its doors opened.

"Did you see it?!" Mika still had a hard time stopping her laughter.

"Hardly," I joked. "Now, back to our business. Where is this warehouse?"

We crossed the lobby and turned left into a short corridor. At its end, we entered through a door with a 'workers only' sign. We went down a dark staircase, continued down the hall, and not far to the left, we reached the warehouse door. Already at some distance, I began to hear shouting emanating from there. As we approached, I saw a man in a suit—the big boss-man apparently—shouting at one of the workers. The employee seemed to be protesting the manager's claims but was only reprimanded. The manager barked a few more words at him and stormed out.

"What's going on here, Nigel?" Mika met the hotel employee, whose face was covered with sweat.

"As you can see, a serious mess. Who is he?" He gave me a cold, nervous look. "This is an employee only area."

"It's okay, he's a friend. Can you tell us what happened here?" Mika redirected his attention.

"You can see very well what happened, I just went in to take something from the inventory, and then I saw that the whole shelf had collapsed and toppled the second and third shelf after it! A lot of the stuff in here is broken. Who knows how much damage there is!"

"Did you see it happen?" she asked.

"Of course not, I'm not responsible for what happened here, but Dick blames me for everything. I've got the keys, so I'm the only one who should have had access to the warehouse."

"Dick is the boss," Mika whispered to me.

"Someone broke in here, I tell you!"

"When was the last time you were here?" I spoke for the first time.

"About twenty minutes ago… a few other workers and I loaded some stock, and after we finished, I went out and locked the door behind me. Then, ten minutes later, I came back to all the mess you can see here."

"Was something taken from the warehouse?" I asked.

"Yes, a TV and a universal remote."

I looked inside the warehouse. On the floor were various scattered items such as DVD receivers, converters, and speakers. Additional workers inspected the boxes, sorted out the defective goods, and returned what seemed like undamaged merchandise back to the shelves. Some of the packages were heavy, and it took two guys to lay them comfortably on the bottom shelves. Two frames were still leaning against each other. All the boxes and containers seemed to have fallen out of them, but there was one thing that stood out—one plastic container remained fixed to the top of the shelf at an impossible angle. I approached and tried to shake it, but the container was anchored tight.

"What do you say, Sherlock?" Mika asked me with extreme curiosity.

"I say I'm wasting my time and leaving a lot of work left undone."

"So, you'll think about it?" she pressed.

"I didn't say that."

I left Mika behind and took the elevator back to my room. I hated that she had come to visit me just to play sleuths; she could have said hello and asked how I was. I didn't remember us having one casual conversation during our acquaintance. Angry and annoyed, I went out to the balcony again, looking for an answer in the stars. I tried to forget the problem Mika had presented to me, but it bothered me, and I could not completely ignore it. Intermittently, Mika came to my mind, again and again. Her expectations weighed on me.

I don't know how much time passed between me looking at the stars and staring at the blank white screen when the door opened by itself. Mika entered carelessly without bothering to knock.

"Well, did you think about it?" she asked.

"No," I lied.

"Come on, think about it for a moment." She pulled on my shirt sleeve and gave me a puppy-eyed look—I was paralyzed. Like Kryptonite to Superman, Mika was my weakness.

"Well, first of all, theft it is not," I distanced myself from her so I could pace the room and collect my thoughts.

"That's not what Nigel thinks."

"Before that, let me ask you a question," I pointed my finger at her. "Did you see how the workers sorted the boxes? The hefty electronics they put on which shelf, top or bottom?"

"The bottom."

"And why so?"

"To maintain the stability of the shelf."

"True, and also because it's easier. Those boxes are heavy. I saw how difficult they were to lift. My theory is this… Nigel loaded merch pulling from the bottom shelf, which made the shelf become unbalanced and eventually fall."

"But what about the items taken?"

"Is Nigel a neat and meticulous guy?" I asked.

Mika hesitated for a long time. "No, not so much. How is that related?"

"I guess Nigel was too lazy to close the door with the key while his hands were occupied with big, heavy appliances. In other words, I think he lied. If his boss learns he left the door unlocked, much of the blame will fall on him. Instead, he preferred to accuse an anonymous thief. "

"So, if it's not a deliberate theft, it's probably a random guest from a hotel who got lucky and decided to help himself at the open warehouse," Mika theorized.

"I doubt it. The guests have no business snooping down there; the workers would immediately identify a stranger. You saw how Nigel questioned my presence there. Most likely, one of the workers was just looking to take something from the warehouse and decided not to report on his mistake that caused an avalanche."

For a moment, there was silence. Then, Mika looked at me in admiration. "Your ability to create theories from a small amount of information is simply astounding ... so, you assume that Nigel just contributed to the mess, but didn't cause it?"

"Look for a guy who took a TV and a universal remote to one of the hotel rooms. Ask at the reception who of the guests made a recent call about a TV that doesn't work."

"But how did it happen? I'm interested to know. To collapse such a shelf… it could have been off-balance, but for something that heavy... he needed a serious push."

"Or pull…" I began pacing. One of the workers entered the warehouse that Nigel left open to take a TV and remote control and caused the shelves to fall over. I recall the container stuck on the top shelf. It was meant for small items. It could be concluded that the container was meant for storing the remotes. I found myself pacing out to the balcony. The script is as follows: the employee successfully pulled out a TV, and now he only had to reach for the remote. The remote container was high up, and I assume if he had used a ladder to obtain the remote, he wouldn't have toppled the shelf. The container was stuck, so he must've used substantial force to try and get it down…

I sighed deeply and looked up at the sky. The answer lies in the stars, I wrote earlier today. I kind of know that the answer was indeed hidden there. I didn't exactly know how, but there was a small voice inside me that was convinced that it was undoubtedly so. I remembered the words I had written until a few minutes ago and looked at the map of the stars. I had learned to distinguish between the different constellations. I learned to recognize the Ursa Major; hence, finding the North Star was not a problem. But definitely, the simplest for me was to notice Orion's Belt... that's it!

"Mika, are all the workers dressed exactly like you?" I went back inside the room.

"Yes, why?" she perked her lips.

"And Dick, your boss, does he make sure your uniforms are all in line?"

"He's very strict, if that's what you ask. Why?"

"I think I've found our criminal," I announced with the guilty joy of winning a game I didn't want to play.

"Who is it?" Mika's eyes lit up as she stood to grab both my hands. I suddenly had a hard time talking.

"Jim, I think you called him."

"Jim?! On what basis do you say that?"

"Here's what I think. Jim came to the warehouse to take something—a TV and a remote. He found out that the warehouse was open and decided to take what he needed, not notifying anybody. He could have planned to tell Nigel later. He took the TV and had trouble getting the container with the remotes down, so he used his belt buckle as a hook to pull the container towards him. I saw that the container was nailed to the shelf somehow in the warehouse, unlike the other containers. Jim decided that he was not using enough force and continued to pull harder until it collapsed. "

"And why Jim? There are many other employees at the hotel. It just happened to be an employee we met by chance?"

"Remember, I asked if the boss was careful about your appearance? Jim wasn't wearing a belt. His pants even fell off him in the elevator. So, probably in a panic, he lost his belt. You laughed at it, so I didn't think you would forget."

"And from all of that, you came to this conclusion? Just because his pants fell off in the elevator?"

"I admit, the stars helped me a little bit. But, Mika, I mention that this is just a theory. In our games, I proved that you can inflate a theory out of virtually anything. So, you might end up concocting the craziest theories imaginable."

She dialed Jim on the spot to confirm if he had taken a TV and remote control from the warehouse. Jim stammered that he hadn't, and then Mika lied and said she saw him darting away from the warehouse after the accident. Finally, Jim surrendered and admitted his fault.

"Are you satisfied now?" I asked.

"You were right, as always," smiled Mika.

"I'm not always right. But I told you, it's a didactic process..."

Mika gave me a kiss on the cheek and scurried away from the room. "Bye, I had fun."

I stood there for a long minute, frozen on the spot. I rubbed my cheek, checking if the moment had been real. Maybe the answer really did lay in the stars. Then, as I sat down in front of the blank file of my laptop, I finally decided to write my first detective story.