Thaddeus moved from the body of February and leaped through the hole and back into the balloon. He heard the girl who smelled of honey and smoke crying. He looked at the blood that covered his hands and arms. He trembled. The balloon descended into the town of flowers, bumping, getting caught several times on the vine growth. When the balloon reached the ground everyone was cheering. It was a New Town. Thaddeus didn’t smile or cheer. He simply looked back up at the two holes in the sky and waited for something to happen.
He waited.
The girl who smelled of honey and smoke sat on the floor with the body of February. She kissed him on his forehead. When she rolled him over to see the two holes in the floor she saw vines and flowers and blood growing from his back. She didn’t feel anger against Thaddeus or regret. She didn’t feel anything. She wrote June on one sheet of parchment and July on the other and then colored them yellow. Then she crumpled up the two sheets of parchment and stuffed one in one hole and one in the other. Then she went upstairs and grabbed a large rug. She carried the rug downstairs, and she unfolded it and placed it over the floor and the two holes in the sky.
Thaddeus
We look at the
sky for hours.
There are two suns
in the sky. One sun
has June written
on it and the other
sun says July.
The Professor makes a calendar with these two seasons. The vines and flowers from the sky cover the ground. The flowers are the size of our heads. The children kick them around. The crop fields stretch toward the sky. It’s so hot. My feet sink into the warm mud. The idea of February becomes erased from our thoughts. The Solution begins construction on new balloons. A baby is crying. More than one baby is crying. Dozens of naked babies with flowers wrapped around their throats are walking from the horizon toward us. They scream, and huge white flowers unfold from their little mouths and float like balloons up into the sky.
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Acknowledgments
Special thanks to Blake Butler, Chris Killen, James Chapman, Joe Young, Ken Baumann, Stephanie Barber, Nicholas Hughes, Jesse Ball, Ray Tintori, Priya Swaminathan, Spike Jonze, Matthew Simmons and Kathryn Regina.
A million thanks to Adam Robinson and Publishing Genius Press for first bringing this book into readers’ hands.
To my agent, Bill Clegg, whose support, passion and diligence are humbling, thank you.
To Tom Roberge and everyone at Penguin — thank you for finding me and supporting me and being a little crazy to love my book.
The community that first supported this book was the world of online literature and independent literature, and I nod in gratitude to all the early readers and supporters.
And finally, thank you to my mother, father, sister, brother, and to my wife for showing me the love and compassion that made its way into this book and my life.