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At least the stars were nice.
Everything else was horrible. Stanley was tired, lonely, and scared, but the stars were nice.
Stanley had always wanted to see stars. They were just one little thing about the ‘real world’ that fascinated him.
He remembered asking The Narrator about them during a run of the Zending. He hadn’t known what the artificial stars in the zen room were supposed to be.
The Narrator had enthusiastically educated him on what stars were, and how humans seemed to love looking at them. Stanley just let him ramble. The Narrator clearly enjoyed the topic, and Stanley didn’t mind listening.
Stanley always thought the zen room was pretty. He still did. However, being able to witness the real thing was so much better.
He was finally experiencing so many things. The desert was where he learned what heat was like, how sand felt in between his fingers, and how real stars looked. It was also where he learned that he hated being alone.
He used to think that the lack of people in the office was bad. That felt like nothing compared to the complete isolation and silence in the desert.
So, really, the stars were the only good thing. After days of trudging through the desert, he looked forward to sitting in the sand each night and looking up at the sky.
Each and every night, he thought the same thing while looking at the stars.
He would have loved this.