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  Starburst Book 1

  Women of the Grey

  Carol James Marshall

  Copyright © 2016 by Carol James Marshall

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  To Mrs. Shirely Hanson the first person to believe in my writing and me.

  Contents

  Starburst book 1

  I. Getting to Know the Marks

  II. The Countdown to End Point

  The Thinker

  Abigail

  Teresa

  About the Author

  Starburst book 1

  Women of the Grey

  By Carol James Marshall

  Part I

  Getting to Know the Marks

  Craig

  It was a decent morning. One of those mornings that's neither too hot nor too cold; a morning where life was life and the expectation of something interesting happening was zero. That was alright by him though. If the choice was nothing interesting versus something god awful, well then the former would do.

  Craig drank his coffee on the porch, nodded to his neighbors as they passed, and smoked his cigarette. His hair was a sparkly white cloud whose perfection could only be seen on shampoo commercials.

  He had the build of a man who had spent his days working with his body and hands. There was no trace of hardship or hint of grinding labor, just the stance of a man who could fix a car, build a deck, and hold a baby.

  You could hear the ocean in his voice—every California dream, every ‘surf movie’ fell off his tongue. All beach bum media lived in the tone of his dialect. Those that spoke to him instantly had a margarita and boogie board on their mind.

  His house on Feline Street was old, shabby, and a remnant of his childhood. Off-and-on through the years, he thought of selling, fixing, renovating – something, anything – his 3-bedroom home, but there was always a game on, a beer to drink, a job to do, etc. The house was just a place to sleep and shower, nothing more.

  Tossing his cigarette butt in the planter by his front door, Craig wiggled his keys and decided that he should get on with things and go to work. He should get into that old truck. He should start that truck up and drive down that road; and he would, as he always did. He just needed another half a minute—another 2 minutes, tops—to look out at Feline Street and wiggle his keys.

  Maggie

  Coffee, horoscopes, and mascara were the essential make up of Maggie in her little apartment on Feline Street. Mornings were hard on her: the feet hurt, the hands hurt, the back hurt. Everything on her body that once was useful now hurt. Everything on her body that once felt sensual now was numb. The only thing Maggie could count on was mascara on her long, thick lashes. If all was lost – all was forgotten, given away, or taken – the mascara was the constant she could rely on, even when it came from the dollar store.

  Her studio apartment was her heart; inside the apartment, the ugly street dirt disappeared. The outside faded away. She could hide from all that she saw throughout the day. Anybody that stepped into the apartment felt Maggie: she was in the carpet and in the walls. It was her favorite place to be and she treated it with the love of a proud home owner.

  In her apartment she could smell bad; she could pass gas, burp, and walk around barefoot. In this hole, Maggie cleaned what she wanted and ignored what she wanted. The loud neighbors, mixed with the sound of endless traffic, were nothing but background noise to Maggie. Because the walls kept her inside and hidden, where she could breathe and, most importantly, where nobody could see her. She was tired of being seen and wished nothing more than to disappear. Closing that door when she got home, and knowing that there were no longer eyes on her, gave her a relief that can only be equaled by death.

  Iggy

  The bugs were in his hair again and he was angry at the sidewalk. Sidewalks never led to the place; sidewalks never led anywhere but to more sidewalk. Iggy could never escape the sidewalk. Why couldn’t he ever find grass? Grass would mean trees, and maybe trees would mean apples – fresh apples that were bright red and looked like love.

  But today, it was sidewalk with more sidewalk, mixed with the drum-beat itch of the bugs. The bugs never really went away; they just nested in his skull. There were many nights that the sidewalk and the bugs were the only things that could raise Iggy's attention away from the need to find the place.

  The place, and the building where he could remember it being, was still clear in his mind. Iggy could see the steps up to the front doors. He could smell the flowers. Iggy could remember the smell of girl. Girl smelled like soap and clean. Girl smelled like books, Chapstick, and mint. The sidewalk never leads to that place anymore, just more sidewalk.

  Iggy pounded the sidewalk with his feet. He pounded it with his fists. Why does it hold him? What did he do to deserve the never ending punishment of sidewalk? No grass, no apple trees, and no place.

  Lisa

  ‘Spindly’ comes to mind when looking at her. There was an undesirable thinness to her. A creepy skinny that only looked good on runways. Here on Feline Street the skinny, the lanky, and the visible bones all screamed ‘troubled street kid’ at first, but taking a second look, there was something more to her.

  The trouble being that nobody could figure out what that something was. Everything about Lisa told the story of a young kid who was tossed away by her family: she stood too straight, she was too darty, too alert. Nothing seemed to escape her vision. She seemed to take in every angle of every corner. Lisa rarely spoke. Was that because she was smarter than everyone else, or because she was too busy observing everything? It could have been that she was dumber than everyone else and afraid to let anyone in on that secret. Nobody would guess that she was plainly overwhelmed by it all.

  There was one more thing to her – not a very interesting thing and not something that stood out to the average person glancing in her direction. Lisa seemed kind.

  To watch her actions, her motives...she seemed like the type of person who would take a kitten home. The kind of girl who’d help old people at grocery stores reach things on high shelves.

  Lisa’s malnourished form gave a hint of injury, which would trick anybody into believing that she had the capacity to be considerate of others. Kindness was an ill-conceived notion when it came to Lisa.

  Rafael

  Thick white-blonde hair—the type of hair you see on lifeguards in movies. He was the type of kid who could easily smile on a TV commercial for all parents everywhere to envy his perfectly put together face. The angels kissed him before he entered this world, then promptly forgot about him.

  Forgotten was not quite right, his mom was a good woman—a solid, down-to-earth, no nonsense type of lady who tried. She really tried to be a decent mother. She tried to keep the house clean, the kid fed, and the love going. But with two jobs and a boy, she had no time or energy to understand.

  Why did he repeat the same word all day? Why didn’t he play with the neighborhood kids? Other kids ran to the piñata, Rafael cowered from it. He wasn’t right. There was something about her boy, something off. She prayed that it would go away. She asked her Saints to free him of his spinning and hiding and bring her a son—not just some kid that lived in her house; a kid she was responsible for; a kid that came out of her body without the spirit of a son. He was empty and she knew it. She recognized the empty because she was empty also.

  Craig

  After a long day and long work hours, he was finally home. The house sat before him, telling him to come in. Th
e house felt the void of its empty space and wanted to be filled with some warmth, even if it was just one man, his beer, and his news channel. Maybe tonight, this one man would warm the house by lighting a fire or cooking something in the kitchen. Probably not, but the empty house could hope.

  Craig couldn’t seem to get out of his car. It was one of those days when his childhood home sat in front of him, judging him. Why didn’t he ever find himself a woman to help fill the house with warmth? A woman would have given the house children to run down its halls, hide in its closets, and slam its back door. Craig felt the house watching him some days and as tired as he was, sitting in his car listening to Van Halen seemed less awful than a cold, empty house.

  So, he sat and smoked, thinking about the dirty looking porch, the dead grass in the front yard, and a hot meal he wasn’t going to bother cooking.

  “Should have picked up some drive-through....” Craig told himself. He never bothered grocery shopping and knew damn well there was nothing to eat in the kitchen. He listened to the music another minute and told himself to restart the car, get going, and get some food—the drive-through burger place, the taco shop, anything; just get some grub in his belly. It really didn’t matter to him what he ate; between the cigarettes and the coffee, he didn’t taste anything anymore. It was all warm or cold mush to chew on.

  He first spotted her as he was backing up his truck – something moving caught his eye. There was a blinding white something under the glare of the sun. It bobbed up and down and flowed like water. The face was almost invisible, perfectly camouflaged by the glow of the California sun.

  Craig long ago forgot about women. On some nights, the idea of breasts to touch and a hand to kiss made him wish he was a better man—a man that had the depth of character and charm to seduce and keep a woman. He tried his best, but it always seemed to fail. Sooner or later, they would all realize that no matter how hard they tried, no matter how much they loved him and cared for him, he’d be nothing more than a cold fish. Craig hated that about himself and saw no way of fixing it.

  When her face came into view he saw nothing remarkable about it other than the fact that he could finally make out that she was a woman – a woman of white-blonde hair and pink, pouty lips. The look of this woman’s lips could easily distract Craig for a while, being that – despite his lack of warmth in the sack – he loved kissing. He missed kissing: the taste of another mouth, the feel of warm lips and breath. This woman with the halo of platinum blonde hair made Craig wish he had someone to kiss.

  She was walking and then she stopped. She seemed to take in the street, to really look at the curb. She stopped dead in her tracks to do nothing more than watch the constant flow of cars whizzing by. Craig couldn’t tell if she was high or lost. He told himself to move along and stop staring at her; stop watching her hair flip around in the breeze while she seemed a bit too interested in the gutter.

  “Stupid tweaker cunt,” Craig said, if only to make himself feel better about her, knowing he wouldn’t even bother talking to her, and knowing that he’d never get to kiss those pouty lips… it was better to insult her and move along.

  Lisa

  He had noticed her and, for now, that was all she needed. She wasn’t completely sure if that was the man she sought, but the directions and the description all came together. Over the next couple days, she’d get him to notice her again and again until he had to speak to her.

  All she needed was one touch. A simple, one finger touch to his skin to know if it was right. If she felt the frosty itch from skin-to-skin contact, then it was him and she would have found mark 1. Mark 2 through 4 were still wandering out there somewhere, very near her grip.

  Lisa could sense that the marks were near and she had a good idea of where to find them. Knowing what to do and how to do it wasn’t her problem; it was the simple pleasure of not knowing them for just a tiny bit longer that appealed to her.

  Iggy

  Iggy spotted Lisa looking at the curb. Iggy knew these ladies—he knew them, saw them, been around them. They were long, like the sidewalk. Always white hair and always just one. Just one at a time, sometimes two. Iggy saw two once, a long time ago, before the sidewalk prison started – before he forgot what it felt like to sleep in a bed and to shower every day. Iggy remembered seeing two of them nodding at each other through a fence at his school. He didn’t think anything about the second one—his favorite teacher had a twin, so what.

  Long skinny arms and a quiet nod was what she gave him in class and was all Iggy really remembered of his teacher. He could still see her in his mind, sitting at a desk, nodding quietly while Iggy talked endlessly about apples and green grass. He had a sense, at that point, that all common sense, all reason, and all normal thinking were slipping away; and this teacher was the only one who knew it, but allowed him to spew nonsense at her for hours because nobody else would.

  One day, the long lady was gone and Iggy had nobody to listen to him anymore. He had nobody that would let him vomit out his thoughts for somebody else to piece together. After she was gone, it all went dark for Iggy. It all went black. He couldn’t remember what happened, when, or how he got to where he was, or if there was a way to get to where he was going. The sidewalk never stopped and all he wanted was some green grass.

  Today, she stood a block away – the long lady with the white hair. She looked like his teacher, but Iggy was confused. It wasn’t her. It wasn’t right. It was a trick. His brain was always playing tricks on him. Seeing things that weren’t there. Feeling things that weren’t real feelings. Iggy could see his long lady, but he turned and left before her eyes met his. He ran and hid in the alley before she spotted him. She looked exactly like the same lady.

  “Not the same lady.... not the same lady.” Iggy crawled into a dumpster and closed the lid. He was shaking with terror and didn’t know why. She would soon be looking for him…Iggy felt it.

  Across the street and to the left, Lisa spotted a tiny figure crawling into a dumpster. She glimpsed the bottom of feet as they popped in and had the sense that this person was hiding from her. He knew her before she knew him. Lisa looked around at the nearby trees and stretched her arms. He was a mark; she knew there was a reason that her eyes floated his way. But, she wouldn’t bother with him now. He couldn’t hide forever.

  Maggie

  She watched the homeless man crawl into a dumpster and looked over her shoulder. It felt like someone was watching her watch him. Nothing there. Nobody was looking. Maggie walked away. Give the poor man some peace. Leave him be in that dirty dumpster... she thought, feeling dirty herself. To watch him hide like that and not help wasn’t right. Maggie knew he was scared, but scared of something real or scared of something only his eyes can see and only his brain can understand? Maggie did the sign of the cross and couldn’t understand why she felt scared herself. Fear entered her chest and crawled down her skin. So, she started walking toward the laundromat at a quicker pace than normal.

  Maggie’s job at the laundromat was like everything else in her life—hard labor and tedious: nothing beautiful and nothing fulfilling. The only thing it did was give her a check every two weeks that she used to buy food. Without the stinky mop, the garbage cans to clean out and the old Asian owner who had gotten too old to clean himself, Maggie would not eat. But, that didn’t mean she went to the laundromat quickly or with a light heart; it was always a block and a half of seeing the building and trying her best not to get there while getting there.

  Opening the doors to the laundromat was always the same, the glass was dirty just like the floors, the toilets, and everything else, but it smelled like fabric softener and detergent. Walking in with eyes closed, a person could imagine clean sheets hanging on a clothes line at some country cottage like you see in the commercials. The laundromat was a liar.

  Mopping the floor, Maggie could feel eyes on her. Looking up, she saw Frank—a neighbor from her apartment building. He was a quiet man who lived alone. She couldn’t remember if
she had ever seen anyone at his apartment or with him. Maggie liked looking at him because she imagined that he was the male version of herself. A person just trying to overcome all of their short comings, trying to get through life even though they started in a deficit that would never be caught up. Maggie had her first breath in Sonora, Mexico and had a running balance against her ever since.

  Frank finished folding his clothes, gave the laundry basket a nod, and noticed Maggie. He looked right at her and gave her the same nod he had given the basket, then walked out. The nod almost, almost, made Maggie want to cry. She was better than the same nod he gave the basket. With stinky mop in hand, bent over scrapping the gum off of the nasty floor, in all her deficits she deserved at least a wave.

  Maggie started to feel enraged! Her whole life, everyone had always treated her like she was less deserving of the common respect that every human deserves.

  “Yo no soy hija de un rey, pero yo si sangro. Yo si sento.” Only the mop heard her and yet it was just as apathetic towards her as everything and everyone else.

  Lisa

  Lisa sipped her coffee and watched the woman mop the floor. This woman seemed sloth-like in her movements. Mopping the floor is a tiresome, nasty job, but it’s something that should be done quickly and efficiently. If someone loathes doing something, why not do it quickly? It was very clear to Lisa that this woman wanted nothing more than to dump the mop water on the floor, toss the mop aside, and leave the building. But, she stayed and carried on in the slowest, saddest way possible. Why carry on a task that she hates to do? What is her motivation? If she has to accomplish this task, why do it slowly, dragging out the weariness even more? Why delay it? It didn’t seem logical to make a dreaded task last longer than it should.