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| (visual by bill barber via this license) |
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dispatch seventeen
Thaddeus Lowe and
the Secret Meeting with
Blue Bird Mask by Shane Jones
debuted 1 January 2010 | kept 366 times | click to keep
MP3·OGG·ZIP·7Z·WWW + SPACE + LYRICS
Blue Bird Mask sat down on the floor, reached inside his coat pocket, and pulled out a stack of cards. He laid them out in a single line on the floor. Each card had the name of a month written on it, and Blue Bird Mask told Thaddeus to pick them in whatever order he wished and read what was written on the back.
Thaddeus sat down opposite Blue Bird Mask and picked up the July card. July = the sunniest of days, warm springs, girls dancing in orange skirts. Thaddeus smiled. The next card was November. November = rustling leaves, desperate squirrels, the unpacking of sweaters. Thaddeus flipped the cards until the last remaining card was February. February = lazy bastard, depression, the kidnapper of small children. Thaddeus looked at Blue Bird Mask, who was smiling, and Thaddeus couldn’t tell if he was truly mad or if he had some kind of answer as to the disappearance of his daughter. Nevertheless he was interested and told Blue Bird Mask he would make some mint tea while he divulged everything.
Blue Bird Mask and Thaddeus Lowe met at Thaddeus’s home on a weekly basis to discuss theories on February. As each month passed, Blue Bird Mask had Thaddeus read that month’s card again until they were a few days away from another February.
From their weekly meetings, Thaddeus began to believe Blue Bird Mask, or at least wanted to believe that somehow the month of February was an evil being worth fighting. The thirtieth of January, Blue Bird Mask told Thaddeus to spend the entire next day walking around town and taking notes of things he saw that he either liked, made him smile, or just found interesting. Thaddeus agreed, and that night slept on a stack of parchment paper to remind him of his task the next day.
Thaddeus woke early the next morning and immediately gathered his papers and pencil and headed to town to begin his cataloging. His first entry was difficult. He kept looking to the sky for signs of flight and joy, and every time he did he saw the No Fly Zone poles which reminded him of the End of Flight and eventually the disappearance of Bianca. When the sadness reached a certain height his body gave off the smell of mint water. A woman carrying a sack of lemons stopped to tell him it was a lovely smell that reminded her of having tea with her grandfather when she was a little girl. Thaddeus made this his first entry. As he continued through town he made various entries and by the end of the day he had filled over thirty sheets with observations he found worth noting. That evening Thaddeus boiled the water for the mint tea as Blue Bird Mask read through his entries.
I like this one, he said, and read aloud a group of red sparrows picking at the blades of a woman’s freshly cut hair. And this one too, he said, and read aloud the fog being burned off the Cocio River by the bright sun.