Shane Jones - Light Boxes

4. The creator of MySpace

5. Richard Brautigan

6. J. K. Rowling

7. The inventor of the children’s toy Lite-Brite

8. Ann Sexton

9. David Foster Wallace

10. Gauguin and the Caribbean

11. Charles Schulz

12. Liam Rector

Like every other house intown, Caldor Clemens’s received a folded square of parchment from a group of children who came up from underneath his floor. There were dozens of them down there leaning against the sides of the tunnel. They raised their lanterns for the smallest to climb up over them and hand Clemens the parchment paper.

Is Bianca Lowe down there, said Clemens.

Who is Bianca Lowe, the smallest child said.

Bianca Lowe, said Clemens. Are you stupid. Sorry. I didn’t mean that. She is a little girl with kites painted on her hands and arms. Her body was found on the riverbank. Sometimes her ghost walks around. I believe she may still be alive, since all of you seem to be. Clemens rocked from side to side. He tried to recognize a face.

The smallest child carefully turned around and asked the other children if they had seen a Bianca Lowe. A child at the bottom of the tunnel checked a scroll of parchment and called back that no such child was listed.

Here, said the smallest child, take this.

The square of parchment fit in the center of Clemens’s palm like a pebble. It was tied with blue ribbon. On the blue ribbon in tiny gold letters it read, FINAL WAR PLAN AGAINST FEBRUARY.

Thank you, said Clemens. When he looked back down the tunnel, all the children were sliding into the flickering darkness swallowed up by lantern light.

FEBRUARY WAS SO WORRIED ABOUTThaddeus he didn’t see the people in town open their squares of parchment and read the final War Plan against him. Some people danced. Others cried. The War Plan spread through the town and into the trees, where the birds flapped their wings and thought they could fly again. The priests huddled, shook their heads and waited for an order from their Creator.

Caldor Clemens was one of the people who cried. Caldor told the members of the War Effort that he would leave early the next morning to find Thaddeus. After they began the first steps of the children’s War Plan, they would follow Caldor’s path of dead bees through the woods. Then they would all meet and head back into town, together.

But when do we ready the balloon, said one of the members of the War Effort, this particular man an original member of the Solution, who wore a purple bird mask.

I wasn’t aware of a balloon, said Clemens.

So you don’t have a drawing of a balloon flying in the sky on your parchment paper.

No, said Clemens. I don’t.

Clemens studied all the parchment the War Effort had collected. Each was the same except for one that showed a balloon flying in the air. The parchment smelled of honey and smoke.

I don’t know, said Clemens. Maybe that’s the future or some shit.

People in town think I’m a ghost, but I’m not. Even when I scream out: I’M NOT A GHOST I’M A REAL LIFE LITTLE GIRL WHO ISN’T DEAD. And: I JUMPED FROM A HOLE IN THE SKY WHERE FEBRUARY LIVES, the townsfolk still ignore the real me. They eat apples and clear the snow from the wagon wheels with iron bars. Things like, The smell of mint water filled the air, are said about me when I come around. Things like, Bianca’s ghost began appearing in town, are written. Even my father thinks I’m a ghost. Do you think I’m a ghost. No, you don’t think I’m a ghost. You’re one of the good ones. You are kind and compassionate and filled with happiness. You walk through the season of February without a care in the world, maybe a shiver, only a passing complaint about the grayness of the sky that will soon give way to the flowers you planted around the mailbox.

I came to a clearing where it was colder than anywhere else. There was a pile of chopped firewood and a small log cabin that had moss growth on the door and windows. I took out the knife the blacksmiths had given me. I slowly approached the front door. The wind blew at an incredible speed and the holes in my scarf made my neck blister. I reminded myself of all the terrible things February had done to me and the town. I calculated in my head that it was the 859th day of February, and enough is enough, and God save me I will slit the throat of February if it leads to warmer seasons.

At the front door, I felt a wave of heat enter my body. I smelled honey and smoke. I thought of Bianca and her empty bedroom, the mound of snow with teeth. I heard a woman’s voice. I waited to hear the voice of February. I imagined the depth of his voice, the endless dark, lush layers.

Thaddeus, come in from out there, it’s freezing, said the woman’s voice through the door. Don’t you know it’s the middle of February. I have a pot of tea on the stove and a fire going. It’s like June 17th in here.

In the distance I heard wolves and saw priests running behind birch trees, and I think I heard the War Scream of Caldor Clemens. I lost control of myself. I took my shirt off and pulled my pants down. I let my entire body collapse against the front door, letting the warmth settle into my bones, the moss scratch at my eyes.

Years ago when we experienced the season known as spring, my father woke me late in the night to show me the sun. He carried me to the top of the hill and told me to look toward the horizon where the pine trees stood. My father wiped the snow from my lashes, and there it was, a little marble of light behind the treetops.

That’s the sun, my father said, and with any luck it will melt this snow so we can have summer.

I imagined that the birds flew and carried a lantern and placed it there in the treetops, because that’s exactly what it looked like to me.

It looks like a lantern, I said.

My father smiled, then kissed me on the forehead. He promised it wouldn’t be far away like that forever but would grow massive in the sky and warm my face.

Will it really do that.

Yes, Bianca, really, he said.

After seeing the sun, he carried me home and tucked me back in my bed and told me to sleep. But I couldn’t. I spent the rest of the night and morning staring out the window, trying to see the lantern in the treetops carried there by birds. What everyone else called the sun.

War Effort Member Number One (Blue Bird Mask)

Caldor Clemens was hanged by his neck inside a hollow oak tree. His flesh had been torn open, and birds had made nests inside his stomach, chest, and neck. Other animals — bears, deer, a fox — had also been hanged, draped from tree branches by neon-blue string coiled around their necks. The mouth of Clemens had been ripped open. His bottom lip was at his chin and his top lip where his hair started. His mouth was filled with snow. A few teeth poked through.

We found the body of Caldor Clemens shortly after following him into the woods. We had completed the first steps of the children’s War Plan, which was to put piles of dry brush throughout the town, and then we followed the trail of dead bees, just as Caldor had instructed. The War Effort has survived floods and moss and endless snowfall culminating in endless sadness. But the death of Clemens twisted our hearts in a different direction.

We found the spot where his body was, the tall, skinny trees bent in the middle and the ground rippled — the way I remembered waves looked breaking on the shore. War Effort Member Number Seventeen gripped my hand. The other members scanned the sky for two holes. When we came upon the death scene, two War Effort members sped off in opposite directions. Those who remained started to jog, smiling and complimenting each other.