Every newspaper feels it must have an astrology column, and even

Host:
The library light hummed low — a single fluorescent buzz echoing through the aisles of old university shelves. Dust floated lazily in the sunbeams cutting through high windows, settling on books that smelled of age, ink, and thought. A faint smell of coffee and rain-soaked pavement drifted in from outside.

It was morning — early enough that the corridors of Carleton University still held a hush, the kind of quiet that feels intellectual, reverent. On a long oak table scattered with physics journals and half-eaten muffins, Jack sat, flipping through a crisp copy of The Globe and Mail. His grey eyes skimmed over the headlines — politics, science, culture — and then stopped on the last page. He sighed.

Across from him, Jeeny, her brown eyes wide with gentle amusement, sipped from her thermos of tea, her notebook open but forgotten. She watched him the way someone might watch a storm cloud form in a blue sky — both curious and slightly entertained.

Jack looked up, the faintest edge of irony in his voice as he read aloud, the words cutting through the soft morning silence:

"Every newspaper feels it must have an astrology column, and even in the Carleton University bookstore this morning, I found books on astrology for sale." — Gerhard Herzberg

Jeeny:
(laughing softly)
You sound offended, Jack.

Jack:
I’m not offended. I’m just... disappointed.

Jeeny:
In what? That people like stars more than science?

Jack:
Exactly. Herzberg was right. He devoted his life to molecular spectra, and the world repays him with horoscopes about “Mercury being in retrograde.”

Jeeny:
(smirking)
Maybe people just need to believe there’s a reason their day went wrong besides caffeine withdrawal.

Jack:
Or maybe they just prefer mystery over math.

Jeeny:
(softly)
Can you blame them? Mystery comforts. Math humbles.

Host:
The clock above the shelves ticked quietly, steady and impartial. A few students passed by, whispering, their footsteps muffled on the carpet. The morning outside began to glow a little brighter, illuminating the contradiction in the air — a world built on science still yearning for stories.

Jack:
You know, it’s ironic. We can measure starlight, map galaxies, decode the origins of atoms — and yet, people would rather read about their “rising moon in Sagittarius.”

Jeeny:
(chuckling)
Because starlight tells us where we are. Astrology tells us who we are.

Jack:
(skeptical)
Does it, though? Or does it just tell us what we want to be?

Jeeny:
Maybe both.

Jack:
That’s dangerous.

Jeeny:
No — it’s human.

Jack:
(smiling wryly)
So humanity’s addiction to comfort explains everything?

Jeeny:
Not comfort. Meaning. Science explains the how. Astrology pretends to explain the why. And when life hurts, people reach for “why.”

Host:
The light shifted, washing over Jeeny’s face — the calm fire in her eyes, the patient defiance of someone who believed in emotion over proof. Jack leaned back, his features thoughtful, half caught between irritation and reluctant admiration.

Jack:
You realize Herzberg would’ve rolled his eyes at this. He believed in facts — in evidence, not energy.

Jeeny:
Of course. But even scientists look at the stars differently sometimes.

Jack:
Yeah — through telescopes.

Jeeny:
(smiling)
And poets through hope.

Jack:
But hope doesn’t calculate orbital velocity.

Jeeny:
No — but it gets you out of bed in the morning.

Jack:
(laughs)
You make superstition sound noble.

Jeeny:
Maybe it is. Maybe superstition is just faith dressed in human language.

Jack:
Or delusion dressed as destiny.

Jeeny:
(pauses)
Or yearning trying to make peace with randomness.

Host:
The wind outside pressed against the tall windows, making the glass tremble faintly. The trees swayed, their shadows shifting across the bookshelves like the hands of an unseen clock.

Jeeny:
Tell me something, Jack. Why does it bother you so much that people look for patterns in the stars?

Jack:
Because they ignore the beauty of the real patterns — the ones written in physics, in chemistry. They think the universe cares whether they get promoted. It doesn’t.

Jeeny:
Maybe they know that — and believe anyway.

Jack:
Faith in nonsense is still nonsense.

Jeeny:
(smiling gently)
And yet, it’s everywhere — even in you.

Jack:
(skeptical)
In me?

Jeeny:
Yes. You call it “reason,” but you still believe in it. You trust equations the way others trust intuition. Both are faith — just with different gods.

Jack:
(quietly)
That’s not faith. That’s understanding.

Jeeny:
No, it’s trust — and trust is the heart of belief.

Host:
The room’s air thickened — not tense, but thoughtful. The two of them sat in the stillness of opposing truths, the kind that circle each other without ever colliding. Outside, the first snowflakes began to fall, catching in the light — tiny pieces of sky descending without prophecy.

Jack:
You know, Herzberg was probably standing in this same building once, annoyed at the bookstore for selling astrology books next to physics texts.

Jeeny:
(chuckling)
And now here we are, still doing it. Maybe the bookstore knows what we don’t — that people need both.

Jack:
Both?

Jeeny:
The measurable and the mysterious. Science feeds the mind. Story feeds the soul.

Jack:
(pauses)
But don’t you think it’s dangerous to confuse them?

Jeeny:
Only if you forget that they serve different hungers.

Jack:
(sighs softly)
Maybe you’re right. Maybe the world’s just trying to balance its equations — atoms on one side, awe on the other.

Jeeny:
(smiling faintly)
Exactly. And both are written in the stars — just different alphabets.

Host:
The clock ticked toward noon. A few more students drifted in, shaking snow from their coats, their laughter soft and distant. The morning calm was dissolving into the noise of another day.

Jack folded the newspaper carefully, the horoscope page still visible. Jeeny watched him, her smile not mocking but full of understanding — the quiet kind that recognizes the dignity in both skepticism and wonder.

Jeeny:
You know what I think Herzberg really meant?

Jack:
What?

Jeeny:
That even in a world obsessed with truth, people still need a little magic.

Jack:
Magic’s just science we haven’t named yet.

Jeeny:
Or maybe science is just magic we forgot how to feel.

Jack:
(smiling)
Touché.

Host:
The sunlight shifted again, warmer now, cascading over the table, over the newspaper, over two cups gone cold. The hum of the library became a melody of motion — footsteps, whispers, pages turning — life moving forward, searching in every direction for understanding.

Host:
And as the morning gave way to day, Gerhard Herzberg’s words lingered — not as dismissal, but as quiet irony:

That even in halls built for reason,
humanity still looks up at the sky
and asks the stars for stories.

That science may explain our existence,
but it cannot erase our longing.

That every newspaper,
even one filled with equations and politics,
still finds room for destiny.

And that perhaps,
beneath the rational and the mystical,
there is no real opposition —
only two ways of saying
we want to matter
in a universe vast enough to forget us.

The snow fell harder now,
covering the campus in quiet white.
And as Jack and Jeeny stepped outside —
their breath visible,
their laughter soft —
they both looked up,
not to calculate the stars,
but simply
to see them.