Shane Jones - Light Boxes

I placed my head inside a horse’s neck. Deep inside that web of flesh, among the organs and bone, I saw a miniature town that was identical to ours. I saw Thaddeus and Caldor and Bianca and everyone else asleep in hammocks tied to the ribcage. I saw a little balloon carrying horses in a basket. I saw kites pushing clouds into a burning sun. And where the stomach was, I saw myself standing on a frozen river. Wind tunnels around my legs lifted my dress and pulled my hair toward the clouds. I could feel the cracking of ice against the bottom of my feet. Fish ate water and screamed for me to come down and have some tea, have some mint.

The shopkeepers in town said they saw Selah out on the river. One of them went after her. He reached his hand out, but she shook and stamped her feet. She broke the ice beneath her and fell.

I tried to save her, Thaddeus, said the shopkeeper, who was a little old man with a crooked back. He walked with a cane that had a curved end in the shape of an eagle, which he clutched.

I lay out on the ice as best I could and tried to find her through the hole. I’m sorry, sir, but what I saw, I don’t know if it’s February getting to me or not. But here, this is what I saw. He quivered, then straightened his back.

He handed me parchment paper. He shouted for the death of February, and a few other shopkeepers rallied around him, and they disappeared inside the inn. Outside the inn were great big heaps of wilting moss, dying ants, a butcher skinning a wolf.

I unfolded the parchment. I thought of Bianca and Selah and this ongoing war. I sat on the ground in the street as the wagons passed me by, the wheels slipping in the snow. There was a drawing on the parchment. It was drawn in lead and showed a woman, Selah, underwater. Brown fish with horse heads encircled her. Her hands were angry clouds. Kite strings were wrapped around her body, and she was screaming with a mouth full of snow.

It continued snowing and theWar Effort gathered around Thaddeus, who wouldn’t move from the street. The shopkeepers cleared the snow around him with shovels. Thaddeus held a crumpled ball of parchment in his fist and refused to speak. At one point a wagon wheel crushed his hand, but he didn’t flinch.

There’s still a war to fight, one War Effort member said.

The town needs you, said another.

Caldor Clemens grabbed Thaddeus by the shoulders and shook him.

You can place your frustration on February, he said, looking into the dark eyes of Thaddeus.

Thaddeus mumbled and tightened his fists but didn’t move. Three war members — blue bird mask, a carpenter and Caldor Clemens — tried to push him over. Caldor said that it was like trying to move a chimney. They had no choice but to leave him in the street night after night after night.

The left side of my body is Bianca, and my right side is Selah. With no body I have no reason to move from this spot.

I dreamed you a field of running horses, Selah. For you, Bianca, a balloon the size of the sky, my body a kite you can throw into the air.

Pull me by string and horse.

Tell me everything won’t end in death. That everything doesn’t end with February. Dead wildflowers wrapped around a crying baby’s throat.

I’ve slowed my heartbeat to three beats a minute. I’ve redrawn the clouds into birds, a fox chasing them into the mountains.

I’m going to move my hand today.

I vomit ice cubes.

There’s a ghost next to me.

Get up, Dad.

FEBRUARY WATCHES THE SNOW FALL.

He thinks about the senseless deaths of Selah and Bianca and the ongoing war against him. He creates ten different shades of gray in the sky and then starts over again. The girl who smells of honey and smoke calls for him to come inside. He thinks, She has a light in her throat when she speaks. She has strings of light draped inside her body.

There’s a terrible war against me, he says over his shoulder.

I know, she says. You can stop it anytime you want.

The girl who smells of honey and smoke can’t hear him cry but can see the curled shoulders. She can see his black shake.

Bianca’s ghost appears in town. She wears red shorts and a white blouse and has long black hair. I watch her buy mint leaves and talk to shop owners about how soon until we will only experience summer. She walks through the streets passing out tulips whose petals have veins that spell out the word July. A bar-keep tells everyone that Bianca’s ghost has a War Plan involving the town children who have been kidnapped by February. An apprentice of mine says that when Bianca cupped her hands together it showed an entire sky of kites.

Thaddeus hadn’t spoken in a week. But when Bianca’s ghost whispered in his ear, he stood up. He pointed at the sky. He went to his home, where Caldor Clemens had taken over the War Effort. Bianca’s ghost disappeared into the woods.

Since Thaddeus’s solitude it’s never been so cold or dark in the town. My owl statues became brittle with frost and cracked and crumbled to dust, and I’m lucky I haven’t any children left to feed. That’s a horrible thing to say, but it’s true.

OWL STATUES — HALF PRICE.

Caldor Clemens gave a shirtlessspeech under the two holes in the sky. The War Effort sat in a circle around Clemens, who pumped his fists and spit into snowbanks.

Thaddeus came up the hill carrying a scythe over his shoulder. He swung it across the snow tops, causing the War Effort to cheer and Clemens to tilt his head back and shout insults at the sky.

I’d like to add something, said Thaddeus, who moved into the center of the group and, in a gesture of respect to Clemens, took off his shirt.

As the snow fell on his skin, Thaddeus thought it didn’t feel like snow. He prepared his mind to feel snow on skin. But that isn’t what he felt, because the snow was torn parchment with letters scribbled in lead. In a fury Thaddeus collected the pieces of parchment from his shoulders and arms and every scrap from the hairy back of Clemens. The War Effort helped, too. They crawled on their hands and knees and gathered the parchment into a small pile.

Thaddeus and the Professor spentthe next week deciphering the fallen parchment. They sat at a wooden table in Thaddeus’s kitchen where they could move the letters around. They took turns wearing the light box. War members brought them mint tea and tended to the fire.

There were over two hundred pieces of torn parchment. The Professor smacked the side of the light box, and the light flickered inside as they shuffled the letters.

What about this, said Thaddeus, and he moved the letters into a long row that stretched the length of the table.

FIND FEBRUARY AT THE EDGE OF THE TOWN

WEARING DARK CLOTHES FOLLOW ANIMAL

HUMAN FOOTPRINTS CREATED BY FEBRUARY AT

THE EDGE OF THE TOWN.

But it could be wrong, said the Professor. Look.

THE TOWN CREATED DARK FOOTPRINTS AT

THE EDGE OF ANIMAL CLOTHES.

HUMAN FOOTPRINTS WEARING DARK CLOTHES

AT THE EDGE OF THE TOWN.

See all the fruit, said Thaddeus.

APPLES AND WATERMELONS

AT THE EDGE OF THE TOWN.

Fruit, asked the Professor.

Yes, fruit, Thaddeus said, and spelled out more names of fruit grown during warm months.

The Professor continued moving the letters around. AT THE EDGE OF THE TOWN appeared dozens of times.

And then the Professor began moving the pieces again and came up with something entirely different. He handed the light box to Thaddeus. He rubbed his face. Thaddeus said that AT THE EDGE OF THE TOWN was where he should go. He told the Professor about the scroll of parchment left on the tree where three children once sat twisting the heads of owls. He told him about the tracks in the snow leading from the oak tree, the concentric circles, the animal prints, the human prints that might lead to February.