Light Boxes Read Free Page B

bonnets.
    The War Effort claps while discussing the warm weather. They imagine beams of unfiltered sunlight striking their backs as they tend to the crops.
    Caldor Clemens pretends to pick berries. He wipes sweat from his brow before diving into a pile of snow and swimming.
    Thaddeus and Selah move away from the group to make love in the naked snow. They tell each other to concentrate on the ocean teasing their toes, the sand in their hair. Selah imagines that the melting snow between her legs is sweat. Thaddeus licks the ice from her lashes, pushes into the snow. They feel watched and excited.
    At the end of the day, the group struggles to smile. Their bones are frozen. They walk into Thaddeus and Selah’s home to have tea. Everyone is exhausted, their faces beaten red by February.
    We should continue with this tactic until we see some progress, says Thaddeus.
    They all agree by way of tipping their teacups.

Selah
    One of the strongest supporters of the war was a wild man named Caldor Clemens. Clemens was a former member of the group of balloonists known as the Solution. The Solution was a collective of nine or ten bird-masked men who refused to obey the laws of the end of flight. The Solution staged free falls off the tops of buildings and tied kites like leashes to shop doors. They were an aggressive bunch.
    I wanted my daughter back. I wanted my husband to be safe. So when I saw Caldor Clemens, all seven feet, three hundred pounds of him standing at my door with tears running down his cheeks, I pulled him into my home by the wrist and told him that the blame could be placed directly on February. That a war can only help us.
    This is Caldor Clemens, I said.
    It’s nice to meet you, said my husband.

Scraps of Parchment Found Under Selah’s Pillow
    I want my daughter back.
I want my daughter back.
I want my daughter back.
I want my daughter back.
I want my daughter back.
I want my daughter back.
I want my daughter back.
I want my daughter back.
I want my daughter back.
I want my daughter back.
I want my daughter back.
I want my daughter back.
I want my daughter back.
I want my daughter back.
I want my daughter back.
I want my daughter back.
I want my daughter back.
I want my daughter back.
I want my daughter back.
I want my daughter back.
I want my daughter back.

Thaddeus
    Today I took a trip into town with Caldor Clemens. The air was cold and smelled like apples. I saw a fox sitting on a mailbox. He had duck feathers in his mouth. People asked about the war against February. We couldn’t answer the questions fast enough. The crowd circled us ten rows deep.
    Here, said Clemens, and he knelt down. Feeling somewhat foolish, I climbed onto his shoulders, where I sat perched high above the crowd once he stood.
    I told the townsfolk that the war against February was as necessary as the air we breathed. If we refused to fight back, the cold and gray would settle like an endless blanket of rocks. I told them to remember what it was like to hold hands with May. I told them to remember what the streams sounded like outside their bedroom windows, the water pouring over August rocks, the birds calling from branches of green, dogs howling in the plains. I told them to close their eyes and ignore the snow melting on their faces but to remember what it looked and felt like when they woke in the morning to the sun draped over their beds, over their bare feet.
    Clemens reached up and grabbed me around my ribs. He lifted me from his shoulders with a strange grace and elegance and placed me back on my own two feet.
    Great speech, Thad. Really, really, really good.
    Clemens punched me in the shoulder. It left a bruise the shape of a mallet’s head.

Caldor Clemens
    Thad paused for a moment. The smell of mint leaves rose like smoke from his skin. Then he mumbled a few positive comments. LIFE IS GOOD. PEOPLE LAUGH WITH JULY. FEBRUARY IS NOTHING, BECAUSE FEBRUARY IS SHIT. He didn’t really say that last one. I said that.