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 dispatch litareview
ISSN #1948-1217

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“Thaddeus Lowe and the Secret

Meeting with Blue Bird Mask”
©2010 Shane Jones
a missing piece of Light Boxes
published in 2009 by Publishing Genius Press
reprinted in 2010 by Penguin Group

permanently archived:
http://frsh.in/26

typefaces: Magellan, Accolade, & Friz Quadrata

—Christy Call
 THADDEUS LOWE AND THE SECRET
MEETING WITH BLUE BIRD MASK
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.

Thaddeus walked in with the tea and sat opposite

Blue Bird Mask, the last remaining February card between
them. He told Thaddeus that tomorrow, the first of
February, he should do the same as he had today. He 6
 dispatch
litareview
should wake at the same time, bring the same amount of
paper, and write throughout the day. Thaddeus agreed
once again, and before they finished their tea Blue Bird
Mask flipped the February card over and had Thaddeus
read the inscription aloud.

You’ll see, said Blue Bird Mask. I’ll be here

tomorrow evening. It is then that we can truly discuss the
inevitable war.

The next morning, Thaddeus woke at the same

exact time as the day before. He grabbed thirty sheets of
paper, which had been his pillow for the night, and found
his pencil and headed to town to begin another day of
cataloging joy. Once again he found himself lost in the
empty sky. He tried to imagine birds darting over his
head, balloons crowding the sky, and the bizarre patterns
of butterflies. And once again an overwhelming sadness
filled him and he gave off the smell of mint. The same
woman, this time carrying a sack of limes, happened to be
passing Thaddeus at that precise moment and this time
she told him that he smelled awful, and that the smell
reminded her of the way her grandfather use to strike her
with unusable firewood.

Thaddeus apologized to the woman and offered to

help her carry the sack of limes. She refused and told him
that if he wanted to do her a favor then he should clean
himself.

By morning's end, Thaddeus hadn’t made one entry.

He thought for sure he could see the Cocio River again
and find something interesting, but instead, all he saw
was how polluted the water had become, the beavers
struggling through the thick mud, and how it smelled like
burning trash. He walked around town for hours, noticing
nothing but angry faces, depressed bodies. At one point, a
fat man vomited his lunch into the middle of the street
whereupon a shop owner beat him over the head with a
rake.

When Blue Bird Mask came over that evening, he

politely asked to see what had been written. Thaddeus
responded by dropping the cups of tea and saying,
Nothing at all.

So you’ll agree something was different today.

Yes. It didn’t feel like the same town.

And this, said Blue Bird Mask, is why we must

declare war on February.

8
 shane
jones
NOTES:
Putting the book together had a collage like feel to it. I
had probably 120 or so of these small sections and just
started to piece them together. Some things had to be
expanded, there was some re­writing, but for the most
part, I was able to move the pieces around to form the
story. Of course, I had a bunch of sections I couldn’t use,
one of these being this chapter here (the longest cut
scene) where Thaddeus meets with Blue Bird Mask.

The style of this section is a little off compared to

what is in the book. Maybe I was rushing that day. I had
this idea that there would be some kind of card game that
would be a running theme throughout the book. I liked
the idea of a card game, the playfulness of it, but it came
out differently. It feels stiff and drawn out with little pay­
off. So much of the book is this really dense visual
experience and this section doesn’t offer that.
Shane Jones wrote Light Boxes
(Publishing Genius, 2009 /
Penguin, 2010), The Nightmare Filled
You With Scary (Cannibal, 2009),
and The Failure Six (Fugue State
Press, 2009).
He lives in New York.
dispatch is currently seeking a paid culture editor.
applicants should be generally on top of current events,
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“Nothing survives an autopsy.”
—Darran Anderson

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