Women of the Grey- The Complete Trilogy

by Carol James Marshall

  Lisa laid down in the shower, allowing the water to rain down on her while her mind focused on the heat and steam. She wiggled her toes and let the water go up her nose. Lisa felt completely at ease wasting her time. She felt satisfied with wasting resources. This could be the beginning of her ending. A meat eating, time wasting empath… what would Superior Mother do with her? Lisa shuddered to imagine it.

  Craig

  Craig came home from work with a brick in his chest and a rock in his gut. The idea that he was going to come home after a long day of work and have to “hang out” with somebody was making Craig anxious.

  Even as a child Craig never “hung out.” He was either in school, in the waves, or in his house. Other people expected too much from him. They expected to be talked to, listened to, and entertained in some way by him. It was never relaxing being around other people. Craig always felt that he was on stage. That was the one thing that he could just never fully understand; why did people crave so much attention?

  He was starting to consider a shower when he heard Lisa at the door. Well, he heard somebody at the door and who else could it be. She was standing there smiling… again. What the hell is it with this chick and smiling? What did she have to always be so damn happy about? Craig mistrusted smiles. He felt that, unless they were coming from a child, there was no truth in it. Maybe old people… yeah old people and children were the only ones in this universe with true smiles. Lisa’s smile seemed against her nature. As if her smile was a heavy rock she had to push up a mountain.

  Craig stood at his doorstep and Lisa stood on the porch. Both seemed to be sizing one other up. It was two gun slingers wondering who would draw first and it was Lisa. “I was thinking we could go for a walk?” Craig again was dumbfounded. A fucking walk… what the fuck, a walk? Women always came up with stuff like that.

  “A walk? Here?” Lisa nodded and pointed to the street. Craig wasn’t going to walk down Feline Street unless somebody had a gun to his head. “Get in the truck,” is all he said, grabbing his keys.

  A small drive later, Lisa found herself walking along the beach with Craig—watching his eyes dart up and follow the crest of each wave—seeing that his shoulders slunk down and his chest didn’t puff out so much. He breathed deeper and seemed to connect with the water. Lisa didn’t know what to say or how to act. She witnessed this human’s deep connection with nature. Craig had a connection with the water that Lisa could not visibly see, but could tangibly feel. She touched the sand. She touched the water—sniffed the water and tasted it. Lisa wanted to understand it. She wanted to know why he felt this connection to the water, so she jumped in.

  She jumped into a wave. It was freezing. It was ice, not the itchy chill of the mark, but icy salt that ran up her nose and into her brain. She stood up in the waves and was amazed that Craig stood by her, looking intently at her. Lisa was determined. She shook to her core. Every cell in her body was covered in cold and the salt stung her eyes, but she wasn’t going to give up. She pursed her lips and dove back in, going farther out into the waves.

  Craig blinked and shook his head, there was just no telling with woman. This crazy woman just ran and dove into the water. Craig watched her for a couple minutes trying to calculate how many times she had completely flabbergasted him in the past 48 hours. He didn’t like being in the water unless there was a board in his hands, but he couldn’t stand there like a douche with her bouncing around out there, so he dove in after her.

  She came up for air after being tossed around by a couple waves and looked at him. He felt amused, truly amused, looking at her. She looked like a maniacal mermaid that had lost her ability to be a mermaid. Then, she dove back in and tried to swim farther out. “Holy shit,” is all Craig could think or say.

  In the end, both Craig and Lisa came out of the ocean feeling different. Chasing Lisa around the waves in his jeans and shirt added some spontaneity that Craig had never tasted. Lisa felt completely frozen and drowned. She was also conflicted on how she could come out of a large body of water feeling like she needed a shower. Shouldn’t she feel clean and refreshed?

  “So much water, and all I want is more water…as in a hot shower.” Craig nodded at Lisa and sighed. He dropped Lisa off at her apartment without so much as a handshake, but before he could drive away Lisa waved him down. “So that’s hanging out?” Craig had no answer, he just shrugged and drove off. Chasing Lisa around the waves let him have a taste of spontaneity, but Craig was Craig and it left a numb sensation on his tongue.

  Lisa

  The shower water was hot—the salt melted away and Lisa was sitting on her couch trying to understand what had happened this afternoon. Did she truly make a connection with Craig? Did she really understand nature and mans’ kinship to it? She felt that something had happened. There was an understanding there. There was an occurrence between her and Craig—the water, the salt, the sand, and everything that was in that ocean, but Lisa could not figure out what exactly it was. She started to throw her shoes across the room, then her pillows. A glass followed, but she stopped at the glass only because she could not throw herself. The feeling that she was supposed to make some huge connection hung on her like grief.

  She should have felt something. She should have had some catharsis that explained mankind to her, but it didn’t come. It was a movie moment, but it didn’t seem to stir any emotion in Craig. The chilling cold of the waves did nothing but repulse Lisa. She wouldn’t or couldn’t do that again. The suffering of the frost without the reward of anything to go from was humiliating.

  Rafael

  Rafael’s mom sat quietly, as always, next to her son. They sat and stared at the front of the church while the priest said this or that in Spanish. Rafael wasn’t sure. Sometimes, his mom would get them up on Sunday, get them fed, and dressed, then hold his hand too tight all the way to church.

  She never did what the other people did. She never got on her knees, shook hands, said Amen, nothing… they just sat in the very back looking forward. Rafael knew that wasn’t the way it was supposed to be done because everybody else was doing different. That didn’t bother him; he was used to it. His mom never did things the way other moms did. He’s known that for so long, he doesn’t remember not knowing. Rafael tried to sneak away inch-by-inch on the very hard bench. He didn’t understand what the man in the dress was saying and he didn’t care either. Plus, the dead man on the cross gave him the creeps.

  He first would move a foot, then the other foot, then slide a bit. He did this until he was at least a couple inches away from his mom; then he thought he could inch even more and finally maybe sneak out of the door and leave. He’d go home and his mom would eventually show up. Rafael thought he was about to escape and be free of watching the old guy in a dress give people crackers when his mom reached for him and pulled him close to her again. “Stay…mira la senora.” In a split second, an elderly woman stood up, started shaking back and forth and talking loudly. She didn’t make sense to Rafael, but he was used to that. Church was in Spanish all the time and he didn’t know Spanish…then Rafael noticed that she wasn’t speaking in Spanish. It was just crazy sounds.

  The dead guy on the cross, the man in the dress with crackers, and the old lady speaking crazy was too much for Rafael. He started to cry and with the drop of his first tear his mother picked him up and walked out of the church. She walked home carrying him and never said a word. There was never a word of comfort or a word of explanation. Never a word of question to Rafael asking with a worried mommy look, wondering what was wrong. There was a silence to his mother that nobody but Rafael could accept.

  Lisa

  Lisa watched the wild woman shake and speak gibberish while the priest in front said whatever it was in Spanish. Lisa, sat patiently next to Maggie—who Lisa was sure would rather be sitting next to a diseased chimp than her. When the lady started speaking loudly, Lisa glanced at Maggie for some answer, a reason as to what was going on.

  Maggie looked over at the woman
, watched her for several minutes, and with a look of pure annoyance glanced at Lisa, then back at the priest. Lisa didn’t know where to look, her eyes darted from the priest in the front—who seemed to be giving people who lined up some sort of snack—to the woman speaking gibberish and making a scene, to Maggie, and the thin man on the cross in the front.

  The emaciated man on the cross concerned Lisa the most. She wished she had researched religion more before coming to church with Maggie, but her concern was bonding with Maggie, not whatever it was they did or believed in the building. Now, Lisa knew she was very wrong in not researching religion; the confusion she felt along with the panic was sitting in her thighs and yelling at her to escape. It was useless to ask Maggie; she wasn’t much for explanations.

  The Grey have no gods. There is no religion. There are the rules and the orders of Superior Mother. Other than that, it was never taught that some magical being was watching them, or helping them, or whatever it is that they believed this being was doing. The women of The Grey were too busy with real life matters to bother with such nonsense.

  Lisa’s eyes cut back to the man on the cross. Torture so blatantly put in front for everyone to see. It was as if they were proud of whatever was done to this man. They wanted to display his pain for everyone to see. Lisa couldn’t help believing it was a warning. A warning of what? A warning to believe, or else that priest and his minions would do this to her? A warning to not cross the ideals of their God; if not, that magic man would come down from heaven to stick her on a cross?

  What was with the getting on their knees and begging for a way for their God to not starve them or put them on a cross? Was there a room in the back with crosses of all sizes for those that did not behave? The whole situation made Lisa itch and she kept remembering the bad girls who wouldn’t listen in The Grey. Did the Mothers do something horrid to them also? It seemed like torture would be time consuming; Lisa was sure the Mothers were much more efficient and quick to rid themselves of trouble makers. How could these people sit here and look at the man on the cross, look at his face, the suffering that he endured, because he did not believe?

  Not listening to the priest, not doing as they say… would she end up on a cross in some back room. The lady speaking gibberish suddenly screamed and fainted. Lisa looked over at Maggie who did not budge, she sat there glued to that damn bench. Lisa poked Maggie, then pointed to the woman, “We need to help her. Is she hallucinating? Alucinaciones?”

  Maggie snorted at that, “Esa pinchi vieja no mas quere atencion.”

  With that, church misa was over. Maggie got up and walked to some candles. She nudged Lisa to light a candle and pray. Lisa lit her candle and watched Maggie bow her head for a while. She wanted to know, why the candles? She wanted to know, why the portraits of women in the church showed them veiled with bowed heads? First the skinny, tortured man, and now all the sad women. Lisa could not understand what was going on, but it was clear… she wouldn’t get answers from Maggie, not today anyway.

  Maggie walked out of the church and never looked back to see if Lisa was following or with her. Lisa allowed her to do this just so she could follow Maggie and see where she lived. Maggie thought she was clever in not looking back at Lisa and that she had won. Lisa won, she saw where Maggie lived and watched her walk in her front door. But, it didn’t matter at the moment; to Lisa, the tortured man on the cross was stuck in her eyes and she couldn’t get that sight out of her mind. It made her question humanity. She had so far not seen any beauty on Feline Street and now there was evidence that humans were wicked and cruel. Wicked and cruel was something Lisa just didn’t consider in dealing with the marks and now it was tossed in her face.

  Iggy

  Sitting in the sun next to the sidewalks wasn’t where Iggy wanted to be. Iggy stared at the church and couldn’t focus on why he was staring at the church. He knew that something about that church got his attention. Something happened while he was walking that made him look at the church, but what was it?

  For now, he was stuck in a parking lot with the sun burning his face, trying to remember what he wanted to know. Sometimes scratching helped him remember, but the bugs were gone for now and he wasn’t itchy. Iggy scratched his neck a little, pretending there was an itch there, hoping it would help him remember why he was looking at the church. Then, Iggy bounced around a bit trying again to remember, hoping that maybe if he moved his brain would clear out the garbage and help him focus. Then, he stopped and realized that the sidewalks were angry this time of day and if he wanted any peace at all he’d have to play it cool and be silent. The scratching and the bouncing turned into Iggy just shaking a bit and watching the front doors of the church. It was all hapless to him, like life itself. It was impossible to remember anything. It was impossible to focus on anything. Life was impossible for Iggy; there were too many ideas, sounds, smells, and people.

  Iggy was internally fighting with himself; there were two dragons on his shoulders: one told him to stay and watch the church, the other sneered and told him to move. “Keep moving before you’re noticed. MOVE before people call the cops,” hissed the dragon. “MOVE, MOVE, MOVE,” said one dragon while the other only put its fingers to its lips and pointed at the church door. Sweat poured into Iggy’s eyes—it stung, it hurt, and like everything else, it was miserable, but he saw her. He saw the lady, the demon lady leaving the church.

  “Demon in the church,” Iggy told one of the dragons. It nodded and vanished while the other dragon sneered then flew off. Iggy knew it, he had to choose either being a slave to the demon or running from it. Fighting was out of the question; he was no warrior, and he was hardly alive. It would be a coward’s way, just which coward’s way: the slave or the runner? He still had to choose.

  Maggie

  When Maggie got home she wasn’t sure what to do with herself. Church was over and she was grateful for that. She didn’t understand why she went anymore. She went because she thought her sister would be glad she did and that was the only logical answer Maggie had in her brain on why she kept going.

  She sat at her kitchen table drinking tea and trying to pull apart Lisa. She envisioned Lisa on her kitchen table, cold and lifeless. Maggie wanted to take her best knife and slice Lisa open. She wanted to look at the lady’s guts, her heart, her lungs, because Maggie wasn’t convinced she was real. Lisa had to be plastic or a ghost. She wasn’t real. What real person would want to be friends with Maggie when, for years, people hardly noticed she existed?

  Maggie was still sure it was a trick; someone had sent this lady, Lisa, to Maggie and she wanted to know why. At first, she wanted to be left alone and the panic of someone peeking into her pathetic life was too embarrassing, but now Maggie felt stronger, not so embarrassed, but more bullied. She was being bullied by this friendly white lady. She was stabbing Maggie with kindness, sweet looks, and friendly words.

  Maggie gazed at the kitchen table, the imaginary corpse of Lisa still lay there cut open, organs spilling onto the floor, and blood pooling around the arms and legs. How wonderful it would be to cut her open, find machine parts, and smash them with a hammer? At that moment, Maggie made her choice and it would be fight—if it came to it, she would fight. Fighting was a strong determination considering that some days she felt so old and tired that she didn’t even have the energy to eat.

  Lisa

  Laying on her bed with the fan blowing on her toes gave Lisa some relief that the church thing was over. Now, she lay in her apartment with the idea of time ticking away at her nerves. The continuous sounds of clock works pulsed around her nowadays. She knew time was coming to a near end and she would have to have her mission complete or not be a…a what exactly she did not know. What would happen to her if she did not complete her mission? Would she go where the naughty girls went, never to be heard from again?

  Wiggling her toes and pretending apathy was not working, Lisa couldn’t quiet her mind to the fact that this afternoon, or tomorrow, she’d have to go out again and
work on her marks even more. Work them how? She wasn’t even sure.

  “We are all the same and none different,” Lisa told the fan, then the pillows, and her elbows. They were all the same on the outside, but on the inside was it different? The stain of empathy clung on her. Could she follow the same path as the Mothers? Did some of the Mothers share feelings with the humans? Were they confused or calculated?

  Watching the fan blades spin, she knew she needed to put her shoes back on and walk out the door. She had seen Craig. She had seen Maggie, but Iggy and Rafael still stood there solemn staring at her in the back of her brain. Iggy she would purchase with apples and get him to follow her with whatever item he’d whore himself for. But the boy… the boy, the boy… how would she get the boy? She knew when the time came she’d have to make choices about the boy, and they might be not-so-nice choices. She might have to get the boy to the End Point in a way that wasn’t pretty.

  Craig

  Drinking coffee and staring at his dirt yard seemed to be enough for now, but Craig knew he’d have to get with it sooner or later and change the oil in his truck. His truck was old and ugly, like Craig, but also a hard worker and not a quitter, like Craig. The truck and Craig had a lot in common—unlike Craig and the house. The house sat very still this morning, dormant even, keeping its opinions to itself.

  He wanted to go to his fence and look for Lisa, but he knew he wouldn’t. Not today; today he would change that oil in the truck and mind his own business. He could get the truck fixed up in time for a game on TV, close the windows, shut the curtains, and let the house swallow him even if it wanted to spit him out.

  The coffee was hot, and the breeze smelled like gasoline. Craig grabbed the bag with the oil in it and flung it across the yard. He picked up the biggest crescent wrench he had, grabbed his sunglasses, and headed out the gate.