She also wanted to jump on top of the produce tables and throw apples at everyone in the store until she got kicked out. She was deeply disappointed that she hadn’t done that; so instead, Lisa whistled and waited. She waited for Iggy. Lisa had the feeling that he followed her around and that, maybe with enough apples, she might get some information out of him on why he was looking for grass.
It was just a feeling of hope, she guessed. The Date was very near; she could see the tip of its head coming up over the horizon. What if she didn’t fulfill her mission? What if she couldn’t get her marks there on time? Then what? Did she go with the naughty girls? Was she sent away? The Mothers never gave second chances. There was this or that, and that’s it. The whole thing gave her a feeling in her stomach like bubbling soda spilling over, and that made Lisa whistle even louder.
Iggy
Iggy could hear the whistling and smell the apples, but he had this feeling in his fingers that told him to stay put—stay where he was, don’t move, don’t wiggle, or look at the sidewalk. He listened to the whistling and his toes heard it to. His toes wanted to go and his fingers told him to stay away. Iggy tried to think of nothing, and do nothing, and be nothing; maybe then his toes would chill and not pull Iggy towards the lady.
The lady was that man with the pipe and the mice. The story Iggy heard long ago at the place with the green, green grass and the apple trees. The first place he met the other lady; the one that looked just like this lady. The lady who listened to him. That lady was there or maybe it was this lady—no this lady was different; she didn’t listen like the other one. This lady looked at Iggy with judgment. Iggy could feel her thinking about him with every glance and this made Iggy’s fingers claw at the floor. Stay put, stay still, don’t go wherever she goes…don’t be her chump. His fingers hurt and his toes where dancing but Iggy knew… he had a feeling that he should listen to his fingers—his toes were betraying him. His toes where leading him to hell.
Craig
Sitting up in bed, Craig was sound asleep and now wide awake… why? He got up, peed, and looked around. There was no reason for him to just wake up in the middle of the night like this, but Craig had this feeling in his chest that wouldn’t go away. It was clawing at him, this thing in his chest. It wanted out; it wanted to get away from him, but Craig didn’t know what it was. He just knew that when he went to sleep, it wasn’t there; then it woke him up, and now it had every intention of getting out.
Craig grabbed his gun, his lighter, and his cigarettes. He figured this seemed like a perfectly good time to sit on his porch and smoke—seemed like a perfectly good time to sit in the shadows of this old house and watch his neighborhood float by in nighttime traffic. He had to understand why, for the first time in his 55 years, he had woken up out of a dead sleep for no reason other than a strange feeling. Craig wasn’t used to feeling much; he turned that off many, many years ago. His life was mundane and predictable. There was no need to feel anything about anything. So this clawing beast in his chest, the feeling or hunch, was nothing more than slightly interesting. Interesting enough that Craig would linger on it—get a sense for it, think on it. “Think on it…” Craig told his lighter. “Think on it…” With every puff…
Rafael
Rafael never went to sleep that night. He pretended to go sleep for his mom’s sake. That way she could go to her room and pretend to sleep. Rafael knew she couldn’t sleep a lot and neither could he. Sometimes, he wanted to crawl into her bed and they could pretend to sleep together, but that always felt weird.
Instead, Rafael would stay put in his bed with his dictionary. A big dictionary full of word after word with every idea of what words are for. Most words Rafael still couldn’t read well, but that didn’t matter. Some words even had pictures. He spent hours with that dictionary; he didn’t know why, he just had a feeling that it might be important one day. One day, it would matter in his life if he knew these words.
Lisa
Lisa sat on Craig’s porch for what seemed like an eternity before he bothered to answer the door, or peek through his window, or even think about opening the door. By the time he finally did, Lisa forced a smile and forced herself to be gentle. In The Grey, such apathy to another person would be looked at as rude, pointless, and time consuming. It seemed to Lisa that these humans were rude, pointless, and time consuming.
When Craig opened the door, all Lisa saw was a bag of meat with the face of an ape. “Sleeping?” Lisa didn’t really want to know; the answer would probably piss her off further. “It’s time we do that thing…hang out?”’
Again, Craig stood staring at Lisa, looking perplexed and annoyed. Perplexed and annoyed seemed to be his constant state of mind when it came to Lisa. There was never a middle ground. Well, Lisa thought, yes… once when we were having dinner he did seem like he could tolerate me. Somewhere between perplexed and annoyed came tolerance. The annoyed feeling was bumping into Lisa’s hands, but she ignored it.
“I want a cup of coffee and a donut…I know just the place less than a block away. Let’s go,” Lisa said with a smile, even though she honestly felt like hitting Craig on the head with a brick. The clock was ticking and these humans were insufferable, stupid, and mundane. She was supposed to have her four marks at End Point on the date and time. She was never told how, only that they be alive. Craig grabbed his keys and started walking along side Lisa.
“I was thinking…aren’t these hang out things we are doing are supposed to be scheduled…or something?” Craig peeked at Lisa; he wanted to make sure he wasn’t gaining a girlfriend without girlfriend benefits and a girlfriend price tag.
Lisa glided along Craig, rubbing her hair and head. Tilting her head to the side and slowly, calmly answering Craig, “Yup, I get it…sorry I just wanted a donut and well… you seemed like the type of guy who would eat a donut.” Lisa knew very well that was a bullshit, weird thing to say. What type of person eats a donut? Fucking anybody would eat a donut, but Lisa was out of ideas, out of time, and she had heard that line in a movie. It worked in the fucking movie.
Craig gave Lisa a hard look. The kind of look a parent gives a child when they are trying to figure out if the child is telling the truth. “Okay, who pissed you off, or why are you pissed? Shit, you want a donut. Is this a pissed off lady thing? Pissed off time-of-the-month lady thing?” Craig realized after saying ‘pissed off lady thing’ that maybe he needed to stop talking right then and just go eat a stupid donut. Lisa gave Craig a smirk, if she was truly pissed off, he would not be breathing.
Lisa stood in front of the donut shop and gave Craig his own hard look. What did human women find so appealing in men? On television and the internet, human women seemed to adore men. In The Grey, there were no men. There were many Mothers and there was no one person to adore. There was no time for adoration. Adoration seemed useless, it did not feed you or house you so it would not stand amongst The Grey.
Lisa gave a couple playful hops and looked Craig in the eye, “I just recently learned the word fuck, and how you can basically use it whenever and however you choose. There was no cursing where I grew up.”
Craig went back to being perplexed, “So let’s go eat a fucking donut.” With that Lisa walked into the shop and Craig followed. Maggie also followed with her eyes, ears, and nose, but stayed perfectly still.
Lisa sat in the shop with her cup of coffee, her donut, and her ideas. She had two marks in the same place at once. This worked, but how could she get Rafael and Iggy to join these two? “Maggie, es mi amigo Craig.”
Maggie smiled that smile an older woman, who has been to the trenches of hell, gives a man when she believes he is up to no good. It’s the look of miles. Older women have miles of road paved into their senses and can no longer be bothered with desire for the opposite sex.
Craig drank his coffee and, on pure principle, refused to eat a donut. He wasn’t exactly sure why he refused or what point he was trying to make, other than he never wanted to leave his house in the firs
t place to sit here and have the old Mexican woman give him the evil eye thinking that he was boning Lisa. He could feel her scorn on him. He knew the donut woman for years. They never spoke; he just grabbed coffee and she took his money. Not a word was passed between them and that was exactly the way Craig liked it. Now, she stood there, eyes fixed on his forehead, burning shame into his skin with her glare.
Iggy
Iggy sat in the back alley of the donut shop ‘hanging out’ with a dumpster. Iggy knew the lady was inside the donut shop with a man. Iggy couldn’t understand why the man was there and Iggy wanted to know if the man understood what Iggy understood. Did he understand there were other ladies? Other ladies that all look the same; they are all the same. Did the man understand the ladies the way Iggy did? Iggy wanted to know, but he wouldn’t go ask.
Iggy saw that man every day; he knew the man’s house, the man’s car, and he knew that this man sometimes did things men shouldn’t do. Iggy told the dumpster to be careful, the sidewalks were hot from a long day and cranky…and inside the donut shop sat this lady with a man who did not know this lady at all. The dumpster listened to everything Iggy said and when Iggy was done, it said nothing, but nodded and slid closer to the wall.
Rafael
Rafael sat up in a dead tree, in a dusty parking lot, watching Iggy talk to a dumpster. From where Iggy sat, he had a clear view of Rafael watching him, but he never saw the little boy and his backpack staring at him like a concerned father. Rafael watched Iggy with fascination, the way some kids watched ants on the sidewalk or animals on TV. Rafael wanted to know everything about Iggy. Where did he sleep? Where did he shower? Did he dream and when he dreamed, what did he dream of? Did this funny walking man go to school? Did he hate school the way Rafael hated school? Did he wish somebody would just really listen to everything he had to say no matter how long it took to get the words out, or no matter how long it took to find the words to explain himself? Did Iggy want that the way Rafael wanted it? Rafael hugged his back pack and tried to get comfortable; it looked like Iggy would be talking to the dumpster for a while.
Down the ally stood Rafael’s mom, watching the boy sit in the tree. She didn’t find it interesting that he sat in the tree. She didn’t find it humorous or take pictures of it like most moms. She would never chatter about it on social media. There would be nothing more than the look down the alley and up the tree followed by the recognition that this was in fact her soulless child. There would be a moment, just a small one, where his mother would wish Rafael had the spirit of a normal child, but it would pass in seconds and she would continue walking home to cook dinner—to sit looking at her blank wall lost in her thoughts of absolutely nothing until Rafael came home.
The Mothers
The Mothers sat in their tidy room—that was comfortable yet efficient, warm and cool, dust free and well-lit—watching Lisa sit at the donut shop through one of their many computer monitors.
“She is completely unaware that she has all four marks in the same location…” said the first Mother.
“I wouldn’t say it was the same location… they are in proximity to each other, agreed, but hardly the same location,” the second Mother stated smugly, then sipped her perfectly brewed herbal tea.
“I will say, I think the poor thing is hopeless. There’s no way she’ll get to End Point on time. Poor thing, shameful really; I thought you trained her so well,” a third Mother commented, passive aggressively, to the fourth Mother who grinned, dusted off her dustless pants, then left the room.
The fourth Mother, Helen, paced her bedroom, careful to pace in different patterns so that the carpet wouldn’t wear and alert the other Mothers of her incertitude about her life among The Grey. She must handle this with complete conviction and there could be no awareness to her motives.
“Lisa…Lisa…” Helen whispered, finally sitting on her small twin bed, rubbing her tongue against her teeth, and popping her knuckles in very un-Mother-like manner. She knew, like all Mothers, that behind their bedroom doors the real women appeared. That’s when she let her posture fail, scratched her ass, burped, coughed, and relaxed. A Mother’s bedroom was the only place Superior Mother granted complete privacy. When you became one of the Mothers, the one privilege that was granted was a place to finally hide from constant super vision. In the life of The Grey, a refuge away from all knowing eyes was very much coveted.
Helen couldn’t handle waiting—couldn’t handle watching Lisa on video screens. She would have to go see for herself. Helen needed to watch in real time and in person to see if her child would fail or go on. She needed to find a way. Helen needed a way to convince Superior Mother to give her leave. She needed leave without another Mother to trail her, watch her, and passively aggressively suggest that maybe she needed a trim to help her split ends and streamline her training methods so her girls would succeed. Helen needed to convince Superior Mother that she was doing nothing but surveillance, and then she needed to convince herself to do nothing but surveillance.
Rafael
Rafael’s mother stirred her tea and sat on her couch wishing she was a better mother to the soulless child. The fault that there was no, or very little, spirit in him was hers and she knew it. She needed to help him, but she didn’t know how and couldn’t understand that she needed to ask for that help. She needed to reach out; but to her, there was no one to reach out to. There was no one listening, so why speak?
Lisa
Lisa enjoyed her coffee and her donut. Two things never seen or heard of among The Grey. Such food—full of chemicals, full of sugar, baked, brewed, glazed, and delicious—was seen as disgusting in The Grey. She enjoyed her donut and sipped her coffee, eyeing Craig and Maggie with annoyed amusement. But, something was wrong with Lisa today. She missed The Grey. She longed for her sisters. She even missed the constant micromanagement of the Mothers. Her daily training had made her feel secure and strong. The strict diet left her feeling clear headed and energetic.
Maggie poured coffee and bagged a donut for a customer; she missed Mexico, the ranch where she was born—life there was so much simpler and beautiful.
Craig watched Lisa eat, and he missed his waves. He should be surfing instead.
Here in this world of human reality, life was too dusty. There was a layer of dust on everything that made things seem undoable. There was no need to fight here because the battle was already lost.
Lisa looked at Craig, “Where is the joy?”
Craig
Craig stood up, tossed his coffee cup in the trash, and looked at Lisa. It was time to go. He didn’t really understand why he waited for her to leave with him. Normally, Craig would just walk out and leave. Lisa stood up, waved at Maggie, then nodded at Craig; that made Craig remember to nod at Maggie. He wasn’t going to wave at her or speak to her, why start now? Why start talking to a woman he’s happily not spoken to for years.
Outside the donut shop, cars buzzed by and a slight cool breeze was swirling around reminding the people of Feline Street that there was a better life somewhere, but that was for the rich and not for them. They could smell that breeze, feel that breeze, but not live where it started.
Craig walked heavy footed. He tried to get his damn feet to speed up the walk home, but they wouldn’t. They had the weight of Lisa’s question on them like two bags of charcoal strapped to his boots. Women asked questions like this and expected answers. He knew she was waiting. He wanted to play dumb or ignore the question, but it would only rise again and again in different forms—shaped in different phrases. There was no escaping it.
“Life is not joy. Life is waking up, drinking coffee, working, avoiding assholes, and then going back to bed. Sometimes, you get to sleep in, sometimes you get to surf, and sometimes you get to not talk to assholes…that’s it.” Craig tossed that out there. It was all that came to mind. Fuck if he knew where the joy was. It wasn’t in his nature to search for joy. It wasn’t in his blood to demand joy in his life. The word “joy” just filled him
with anger and resentment.
Lisa calculated her steps. She wanted to be quick, to run almost, but Craig walked as if he had no purpose or place to be. “That’s not an answer…you didn’t answer the question.”
Craig pulled the weight off his feet and regained the ability to walk quickly. It was flight or fight, and he knew it. He didn’t want any part of this conversation. First a donut, now this deep feelings shit. Craig understood in that second why he was alone; he just couldn’t be bothered with the maintenance of other people.
“I know that wasn’t an answer…there is no answer.”
Rafael
Rafael was comfortable enough in the tree, watching the man talk to the dumpster, but his stomach told him to go home. Rafael was the type of kid who could sit in any tiny space, any off beaten path, any dark corner, and be content. He could stay still for hours in a box, a closet, anywhere really. The tree was different. It was out in the open. It was up off the ground, but Rafael still felt peaceful in it.
At home, he sat at the kitchen table eating his dinner while his mother watched. He wished she’d smile at him, but he knew that wouldn’t come. She wasn’t angry. She wasn’t happy. The trouble with his mom was that she wasn’t anything at all. Robot mom cooks, cleans, then goes to work, and that’s it.
Starburst book 1 Page 12
