Inheritance by Libertas Magazine

LIBERTAS inheritance

v ol . 23, n o. 4

SATREBIL EDITORIAL EDITORS IN CHIEF Alyssa Glover Samantha Gowing WRITING EDITORS Quinn Massengill Thomas Waddill DESIGN EDITORS Elisabeth Anthony Hannah Fuller Caroline New Maddy Page

L E T T E R F RO M T H E E D I T O R S Regardless of ideology or positionality, we can all agree that 2016 has been a rough year. Even though many of us will be glad to leave it behind, we will carry lessons – good and bad – from this past year. With 2017 just around the corner, Libertas wanted to take on the idea of “inheritance” as a way to explore the histories that we carry with us and the ways those inescapable narratives impact how we navigate our world. Eleanor gives us insights into the contradictions of ‘excellence’ at Davidson, while Gabriel’s “Don’t Catch Yourself” analyzes what happens when we fail to reach that excellence. Further, Nicholas’s “The Vice Grip” acknowledges that we are so rarely aware of the choices we are making and their impacts. This issue, in its totality, explores legacies that intertwine with the past and our anxieties on how they’ll impact our and other’s futures. Some of you are just finishing your first semester at Davidson and some of you are preparing to leave campus, possibly for good. Our hope is that while reading these pieces, you will reflect on what you have inherited and what legacy you’ll leave behind.

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LIBERTAS December 2016 Judson Womack

cover A Sow and a Runt Art

Matt Bell Judson Womack

Yellow Punk Down South Art

Evan Yi Alison Fuehrer

Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t Catch Yourself Art Art

Gabriel Hansen Gram Davis Alison Fuehrer

The Vice Grip Art

Nicholas L. Johnson Caroline New

Interview with Eleanor Yarboro In Conclusion

Samantha Gowing, Eleanor Yarboro Eleanor Yarboro

Talking to Myself Art

Leah Mell Judson Womack

Drift Near-far

Samantha Gowing Courtney Moore

Memories of Momma Art

Kate Joss Judson Womack

Daddy and the Ducklings

Mary Scott Manning

YouthMAP Art

Quinn Massengill YouthMAP students

A Finals Playlist Arrival Movie Review

Alyssa Glover Thomas Waddill

Last Word

libertas staff

special thanks to... Faculty Advisors: Zoran Kuzmanovich, Paul Miller (emeritus), Scott Denham (emeritus), Ann Fox (emeritus) Previous Editors: Meg Mendenhall, Michael DeSimone, Jordan Luebkemann, Will Reese, Emily Romeyn, Vincent Weir, Mike Scarbo, Vic Brand, Ann Culp, Erin Smith, Scott Geiger, James Everett, Catherine Walker, Elizabeth Burkhead, Chris Cantanese, Kate Wiseman, Lila Allen, Jessica Malordy, Nina Hawley, Kate Kelly, Zoe Balaconis, Rebecca Hawk, and Hannah Wright Founder: Zac Lacy

Poem by Matt Bell Art by Judson Womack

Black round reservoir untenable a gainst the bli tz of small brown ish-black bo d ies. Frenzied gre ed, they tug at the flank. Squeals foll owed by scre ams followed by grunts occasionally pained. The younge st circles the mass Of flesh pre ssed against the sowâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s plu mp belly. With each fr antic round Of the wall, the runt underfed yells louder and exhaust s more. The mother pays no atte ntion, mud crusted over her eye lids. Jumping, lea ping, trying the piggy go es for the backs of the others to no avail. 3

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so w

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yellow punk down south in this corner of the mosh pit there is a gourd of a boy, bag of golden skin and water, who only bangs his head when he closes his eyes. see how the dancing progresses through his body like a groovy tumor ending at his feet, swaying between whatever part of the concrete earth is willing to hold him in the moment. and this is how he worships his ancestors, limbs prostrated against walls of sound, kowtowing with each riff. and what is more holy than the punk who makes a mosh pit of jim crowâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ribcage? gyrating a home into the mississippi delta?

and what is more yellow than the punkâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s unborn child who will one day also smell the incense of spirit money in concert hall cigarette smoke? and what is more punk than the boy now the punk flails all fourteen years of himself before the altar-turned-stage. listen to how it swallows him whole, keeps him warm in its belly until it too must spit him out into the cold night, where he will return missed calls of an immigrant mother who is decidedly less punk, but still drives him because she only need know that he is full and warm tonight, and here is a church that will have him. Poem by Evan Yi Art by Alison Fuehrer

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don’t catch yourself Gabriel Hansen

Gram Davis

Sarah’s broken. I can see it in the way her sobs rock her frame, like she’s a rag doll being shaken by a child, limp and lifeless. Her anger is gone now, and she lets me hold her. Bits of shattered plates and glasses cover the kitchen floor, and my chest aches where she struck me, but I know she’s hurting much worse than I am. I press her head to my chest as I push the envelope into her hand, and this time she grasps it. Her legs begin to tremble and I take her in my arms just before she collapses. I walk to the bedroom, cradling her, as broken glass crunches under my work boots. I lay her in bed, and look at her one final time. She has dark circles under her closed eyes, and her bottom lip is ragged and bloody where she’s been chewing it. “I always told you that was a bad habit,” I joke, but I feel sick. I did this to her. I was hit with another pay cut last week, the worst one yet, and the stress has hit her hard. She’s been working herself to exhaustion night after night, trying to make up for the loss, and it’s killing her. The fainting is new, brought on by sleep deprivation and overwork. It scares the hell out of me. I kiss her brow one last time. “I love you, more than you’ll ever know. I’m sorry it came to this,” I whisper in her ear. I walk to the door and press a hand to my mouth to muffle my crying. I hear her stirring as I walk out of the bedroom. “Please don’t,” she says, “we can do this, things will get better, please don’t go to work, please for Christ’s sake don’t…” For a second I almost believe her. But then I look back at her, at her bloodshot eyes, at the patches of hair she’s missing, at how clearly I can see her collarbones, and I turn away. “I love you,” I say, and walk out of the bedroom. I know the next goodbye will be even harder, and I busy myself cleaning up the glass in the kitchen as I compose myself. Once I’ve stopped my crying, I force myself to walk to her bedroom. Please be sleeping, I think, don’t make this any harder for me. I pry my boots off and ease her bedroom door open, praying that it won’t creak. The room is quiet, and I pad over to her bed. She’s sleeping, snuggling her worn teddy to her chest with one arm. Her other arm lays beside her, and I place a finger inside a pudgy, halfopened fist. I look at her, and it hurts me how much younger she looks

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while sleeping. She looks much older than her six years while she’s awake, with her little eyebrows always creased in worry and her eyes always alert, ready. I kiss her forehead. “I love you, Annabelle. Be good for Mommy.” I gently slide my finger out of her fist and tiptoe back across the carpet. I almost make it the door when I hear her rousing behind me. “Daddy, please stay.” Just like that, my willpower begins to fade, and I want nothing more than to turn around and rush back to her bed, to hold her and rock her back to sleep, or to whisper jokes in her ear and hear her little ringing laugh just once more. But I pretend to not hear her as I leave the bedroom and shut the door behind me. I press my back against the wall and let my tears fall. You can’t do this much longer, I think, you need to get out of here. “Daddy, please,” she says again, and this time I can’t stop myself, and I rush through the door and to her bed. I pick her up and cover her face in kisses as she giggles. She stops giggling for a moment as she looks at me. “Daddy, why are you crying?” “Shhhh…. darling, I’m not crying.” “Did something happen at work again?” I wince and hold her a little tighter as I struggle to contain myself. She knows about work and she’s six. For God’s sake, Dan. I know that if I stay any longer I won’t be able to leave, and I set her down in the bed as she protests and grasps at my sleeves. I gently work her fingers off, and then kiss her forehead. “I’ll always love you, darling. You mean so much to Daddy. I hope you know how special you are.” “I love you, Daddy.” Her expression kills me; a six-year-old shouldn’t know how to look that serious. I take one last look at the apartment. There isn’t much to see: a small, cramped kitchen, a dingy bathroom, two tiny bedrooms, and a narrow living room. I’m still crying as I open the door with a trembling hand and leave it all behind. I descend the five flights of stairs to the street slowly, dreading what awaits me. I make my way across the parking garage to my beat-

Alison Fuehrer

up Kia and get in. My car starts easily this morning; it only takes two tries before it begins to growl. “Saving the best for last, huh?” I say, laughing, as tears still course down my face. I struggle to stay on the road as I drive; my leg is jittering and the tears just won’t stop. This is for them, I think. My hands tighten around the wheel and I think back to what started it all. It’s three months earlier and it’s late. Or early, rather; it’s 4 A.M. and I’ve just gotten off work. I’m panting by the time I make it up the stairs that lead to our apartment. I unlock the door carefully, not wanting to wake Anabelle. I step inside, closing the door behind me, and walk to the kitchen, where Sarah has left a little light on by the kitchen table. She kept a bowl out for me, brimming with rice and beans, and a few spare hunks of sausage. I know she didn’t eat dinner that night to give me so much food, and for a moment I’m furious, and I want to dash the plate against the wall. I can’t even give them enough to eat, I think, this is the life I’m living. But I heat the plate up in the microwave, taking it out right before the timer goes off. I eat in silence, nodding off every now and then. I’m so tired, I think, I can’t keep this up much longer, I’m going to break. After I finish eating, I make my way to Annabelle’s bedroom and ease her door open, tiptoeing in. A nightlight paints her bed a dull orange, an island of light in the darkness. I stroke one of her hands with a finger and see something that I’ll remember until the end: there are my hands, lacerated and bandaged, covered in grime and cuts, and there are her hands, pink and unmarred, the two side by side. I won’t let this happen to you, my dear. No, not you, never you. And that’s when I began to think about how to save her. The car in front of me jerks to a stop and I hit my brakes. I almost unravel in that moment, and I drive my fist into the wheel as I scream at the driver in front of me. I yank the wheel right and speed past the car. After seeing Annabelle, I go to my own bedroom, and slip under the covers as quietly as I can. That night I think about my father. I remember his own hands, grimy and bleeding, and how he used to work night and day shifts. I would find him in the morning, sleeping in the kitchen, his head lying next to his half-finished dinner. He’d wake at the sound of me pouring myself a bowl of cereal, and smile at me

Alison Fuehrer

as he got unsteadily to his feet. Then he’d hug me and walk out the door, off to work the day shift. And I remember my mom, sobbing and gasping for breath, telling me that he’d died at work not too long after, a heart attack. But I knew it was overwork that had taken him from me. The factory’s wages and his own determination had killed him. The factory appears in the distance and I feel sick to my stomach. It grows larger and larger as I approach, and my vision begins to blur as my trembling gets worse. I park crookedly, and close my eyes and rest my head in my hands. I work in the same factory that employed my father. He was nothing if not a hard-worker, and his reputation was enough to get his teenage son a job at the place that killed him. I’m still there a decade later. Times got hard during my father’s life and stayed hard, and a job is precious even with the constant pay cuts. But I know that this job will eventually kill me. I won’t let the cycle repeat with Annabelle. The factory isn’t safe, which is part of why I know this will work. The floors are almost always wet, covered in fluid from a machine that should’ve been fixed a long time ago. Over the past three months, I’ve sent complaint after complaint to the factory manager, but I know that he doesn’t care enough to fix it. I’ve sent even more than usual the past couple of weeks. All of those complaints are photocopied in an envelope currently resting in Sarah’s hand. I force a smile as I enter the factory, and walk over to the machine where I work. The floors are wet as always, and even through the fear and grief, I feel a little bit of satisfaction. I’ve borrowed quite a bit of money for the legal fees, but I know it will be paid back easily once the trial’s over. I help to load the steel into the machine with my coworkers as I try to push down the fear that won’t let my hands stop trembling. I watch the steel as it is flattened, crushed with unbelievable pressure. At least it’ll be quick, I think. You know that one for sure. I know that I have to make it convincing, or else it will be seen as a gruesome suicide rather than an accident. I take out a picture of Annabelle and Sarah from my wallet, and gaze at it a second before whispering “I love you.” I place my wallet in my pocket, and walk calmly towards the machine. I slip.

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THE VICE GRI

The hand does not relinquish its grasp. Is it firm, or stolid, or tentative, or meager, Or even simply weak? Its only sense passing through it doesn’t Bother to inform it as the sense Rushes away. The hand cannot remember when the grip commenced or foretell its end. It doesn’t see the clock’s hands or hear the birds’ call at dawn, Nor does it smell the bouquet of life it holds. Its hold obeys the messengers ensuring it continues Clenching, while itself sends messengers of its own and The hand ceases not, senses not. It has no consciousness of the action it takes, And still it does. its bearer might look down at the messages it sends as the one who knows for the hand––knows its pain, serves as the knower for the actor. Doesn’t acknowledge its screams of pain. How can the hand not perceive the vice grip it is in?

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Poem by Nicholas L. Johnson Art by Caroline New

interview with

ELEANOR YARBORO on art, excellence, and leaving Davidson behind

I’ve known Eleanor since my fi rst semester at Davidson. As wee little freshman in Professor Parker’s Intro to Poetry class, we took part in each other’s fi rst artistic collaborations. Now that almost four years have gone by since then and we’re fi nishing up our fourth English class together, I can sincerely say that Eleanor has meant so much to my own experience at Davidson and to the Davidson community as a whole. Libertas also owes its own gratitude to Eleanor—since Alyssa and I took up the Editor-in-Chief position last year, Eleanor has contributed to every single issue. In fact, she’s often the fi rst person to send us anything. And her work does not disappoint, as I’m sure all of you readers know having had the privilege to read her work all these years. In our fi nal adieu to Eleanor, we sat down and had a conversation with her about her time at Davidson and what she’ll be taking with her as she moves on to a new stage in her life.

“I think that the ‘Commitment to Excellence’ is something that the longer I’m at Davidson, the more I get to question.” Eleanor being the prominent literary fi gure on campus that she is (whether she would accept such a title or not), Alyssa and I were interested in her take on the culture of art on Davidson’s campus. “For me, the one part about producing content at Davidson I just never got used to,” she began, was that “I have to put something out there where my name is attached to it. And this school is so small, people look at your name and they could visualize you.” I’m sure all writers published in Libertas can relate to Eleanor’s analysis—what she calls the “expectation that some people are going to judge you for what you’re writing.” Eleanor both challenges us, as students and readers of literature, while also giving her peer community some credit. “I have to tell myself that not everyone is prey to that: people can question it… they just tend not to.” Refl ecting on her own artistic production, Eleanor explained to us: “I’d say that producing art at Davidson is rewarding in the way that that producing art is always rewarding: in that you did something and have something to show for it. And that is just not always true for some of the stuff that you learn at Davidson. When you’re in a Disability Studies course, you have the theory in your head now and you’re changed internally—but you don’t always get a product to show for it. So I think, as always, the sort of immediacy of visual work or a really short poem is an advantage that posting in Libertas has taught me to appreciate.” The conversation extended further into what Eleanor thinks she’ll be carrying with her after her graduation a week and a half from now. “I want to say truth, love, the American way,” she joked. “Oh what’s the word—Leadership!” We all laughed, but were quick to somber up as Eleanor laid out sincere and insightful thoughts about the culture here at Davidson. “I think that the Commitment to Excellence is something that the longer I’m at Davidson, the more I get to question. I think the cynicism of my fellow students around the notion of being a ‘game-changer’ and that kind of branding has been really good for me. I think a lot of Davidson students truly put upon themselves this ‘commitment to excellence’ and yet they get to make fun of it and be like, this is ridiculous and stupid and we don’t take care of ourselves.” Eleanor’s words rang true for me and how I’ve internalized Davidson’s ideologies, especially her fi nal note on the subject. “I think that living in that contradiction, for good or for ill, is something that will stay with me—even though it facilitates some of our worse living habits.”

On the fl ipside, we asked her what she’s relieved to leave behind here. “I think I’m really excited to go into the adult world and have a job, and 5 o’clock rolls around and I get to go home and it’s done. I’m not waiting for my fi nal project to be done, or I don’t get out of class and tell myself I have to go study. There’s a clear defi nition of when I’m working and when I’m not, and I think that delineation is going to be really nice. I’m just looking forward to truly, madly, deeply having down time that doesn’t belong to anyone or anything else.” Eleanor will be taking her precious downtime in Asheville, North Carolina, only ten minutes by car from the heart of the city. She’s already picked out an apartment all her own: “It’s this tiny-ass, one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment. But it’s got no roommate, good plumbing, and there’s a laundry center that’s coin operated that’s a fi ve-minute walk from my place.” What more could you ask for? And there’s more: “Also there’s this trampoline emporium around the corner! I’m very excited about that.” Eleanor, we wish you the very best of luck as you move forward into the next part of your life. It’s been a privilege to get to know you and your art during our years at Davidson. Libertas will miss you! Samantha Gowing

In Conclusion by Eleanor Yarboro

Here is what I’ve learned: your sins have already been paid for so no, you can’t return them. Take the blue pill, honey, and if you’ve got the money, catch the next train to the coast. Wander the foothills of your homeland, eat the sea foam you came from, and stop apologizing for things that aren’t your fault. Remember: your life is everything you never wrote down and giving up is a pleasure in a league of its own.

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myself talking to Leah Mell

i. Do you remember finding Saturn through your telescope & seeing the rings for the first time & how I couldn’t stop crying?   Do you remember fucking me on your driveway that same night?   ii. You can’t barricade yourself behind a blocked number & 128 miles of highway & shards of memory strategically stored in boxes where they will gather dust. I matter to you. I mattered to you.   iii. Fuck off. coward.   iv. I’m lying in the dark at noon. My violent tears are blistering disparate patterns in the corners of your mid-afternoon dreams.   Well, the thought comforts me, at least.   v. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be so spiteful.   Give me the chance to re-know you, to learn again the way your forehead creases when you laugh, but without all the residual meaning & how your lips feel against my throat under a heat-lightening sky & to forget how this has happened before.   vi. I hope you are sad tonight, remembering your telescope & our favorite crater on the moon & the way our lips tasted like the summer rain we forgot we needed.   I am & have been & will be & maybe at some particular bend in space or time you will finally hear the words that I speak to the vacancies where I imagine you still.

Art by Judson Womack

LIBERTAS, Vol. 23, No. 4

The lake began running out of water a few years back. Before that, the water lapped healthily above the tree line, and the last dozen of our old, wooden stairs leading down to the dock submerged under the warm, rippling surface. When a boat drove past, the dock would knock happily into the stairs and I would squeal at the tender rocking, the water and dock dancing with me, limbless, free. I would never call it nice: the surface of Prose Samantha Gowing the dock felt rough to the touch, unable to help scratching you every time you laid down to doze in the sun. Mud Art by Courtney Moore and lake water had run over and across the dock’s surface for summers and summers and had sat there all winter, leaving a permanent stain, so that I always knew it to be a certain brown. Even as a child, my tiny self needed only three or so excited bounds to make it across end to end, even diagonally corner to corner; there wasn’t room to run around. No, our dock was never nice. But, of course, it was mine. We gathered around it: brother and cousins splashing in the water, parents drinking beer on the motor boat we had to sell not too long ago. Grandpa would come down occasionally to fish, and even grandma would join us back when her knees could carry her down the long, winding steps. The dock gave me a place to jump from into the murky water, to splash and swim and sneak under the water’s surface. I liked to pretend I was a lake monster, my tickling fingers like tentacles sucking onto my brothers toes. My little game lasted until he kicked me in the side of the head, from surprise or anger, maybe fear. Even before the lake began to dry up, the stairs started losing their structure. Perhaps I should have known, then, what was coming. But it was so gradual, at first only cobwebs and the occasional broken step, that I didn’t notice. If you followed those stairs away from the dock, up and up, you’d pass our overgrown shrubs and blueberry bushes, the small gazebo halfway there on whose slatted bench I had to sit and take a break when I was small, sweaty and out of breath. Eventually you would pass the little fish pond, kept carefully in the crook of the stairway’s curve, and perhaps you’d cling to the thick, wooden railing of the stairs to keep going, thighs burning. When you passed that little pond you knew you were almost at the top; then, you were there. The house (maybe I would dream it a cottage back then, but no, definitely more of a house) all dark, all old wood and stone. I liked to stand on that topmost step and look out over the stairs crawling slowly, steeply down and back into the water. And in the morning, just before the sun came out and my aunts started cooking biscuits in the kitchen, I would try to search through the fog for the horizon, lake and sky the exact same rusty blue, one fading into the other, forever. So despite their best efforts, the stairs couldn’t warn me of what was coming. Nor could the creaking floors growing louder and louder, nor my grandmother’s failing bones, nor the leak in the downstairs bathroom, nor my brother’s refusal to come with us the summer after I turned thirteen, nor the fish slowly disappearing from the little pond. No, it wasn’t until I went back two years ago, ready to run down to the dock and drift, and I saw the bright, mud-brown rim around the lake where the water level had fallen, that realized what I’d lost. We could have fixed it all: mended broken steps, cleaned off the muck, pulled out weeds, replaced creaking floorboards. But with the lake so low and uninviting and outside anyone’s control, who would bother to save our lazy summer afternoons and packed sandwiches for lunch and miniature water guns and oversized towels and that blonde, shrieking girl I once was, running wild on this home by the lake? I turned and headed back to the house, alone but for an old dock, a bathing suit that was too small anyway with straps digging into my skin, and gray clouds toward which I climbed as I made my way up the sagging stairs.

Drift

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Memories of Momma My thoughts of you arrive in pieces

But mostly I am 8.

frantic fragments

and the sky is the color of smoke,

and pools of tears

covered in coal-colored clouds beating like black hearts,

as the shattered parts of me struggle

punctured and oozing with rain.

to craft a mosaic of our memories.

The machines have stopped beeping. The lights glare off the white washed walls.

Sometimes I glimpse your sun streaked hair

Your hand is cold.

clasped loosely at the nape of your neck. I see you speckled with white detergent, balancing

Nurses pat my back, trace my shoulder with pity,

loads of laundry at the crook of your hip.

trickle in and out of swooshing doors.

I hear your voice crooning

I long to climb the rope of clouds

lazy lullabies in the dim light of dusk.

crying outside of the window and crawl into the yellow hole of sun.

Sometimes I am 6 years old

But your hand. It is so cold.

giggling at your

How could I go without you?

jagged smile. Your teeth were rows of broken homes like the one I now inhabit. Poem by Kate Joss Photograph by Judson Womack 11

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Daddy& the ducklings Bill knew it was a bad idea. A pet shop recently opened in the mall; he had read about the grand opening in the newspaper. Bill had immediately resolved to avoid it at all costs and ensure that his boys, Ned, Hooker, and Scott, never caught wind of its existence. All went smoothly until an eerily calm Thursday evening when Big Dempsey Hodges’s sons, Tilden and Little Dempsey, scrambled up his driveway, breathless and burdened with exciting news. It tumbled from their lips. “Pets! Puppies!” “Daddy said—Daddy said!” “No, let me tell them!” A fight of little fists ensued, as the Hodges boys shoved each other and Bill’s own boys egged them on, their desire to see a fight conflicting with their desire to hear the news. “Boys,” Bill reprimanded. Little Dempsey finally managed, “ Daddy took us to the new pet store in the mall, and, and, they have baby ducks, and—” “—and he said we could get one!” Tilden interjected. Bill could see the squall’s approach. He watched waves of envy and delight churn in his boys’ blue eyes, stirring and rising to the inevitable whine of— “Daddy, please!” “Please, Daddy, can we get a duckling, too?” “Absolutely not.” The waves, and the tears, crested, then crashed. Bill was a lighthouse, steady and strong. His gentle manner marked the course of practicality and prudence. A banker, he did his own taxes; a father, he scrambled eggs for his sons every morning before school. He sat on the same pew every Sunday morning and napped on the same couch that afternoon. And though lesser men succumbed to the alcoholic trends of the day, Bill always drank Dewar’s scotch. Bill was a rock. His wife, Boo, however, resembled something closer to sand, and the boys knew it. This was how Bill found himself on Saturday morning wrestling five little waists and ten scrawny arms into a station wagon to go buy ducks. Big Dempsey had kindly offered to send his own two kids along to provide emotional stability, like those horses walking next to the thoroughbreds at the Kentucky Derby, he prattled to Boo on the phone. When Bill rolled up to Dempsey’s driveway, the boys were waiting, all three of them, the Biggest one with a big smirk as he waved goodbye to the crew in the car.

Dempsey failed to inform him of the pet store’s exact location in the mall, so Bill guessed and parked outside Penney’s, unbuckling seatbelts, gathering discarded juice boxes, brushing off stray Cheerios, and holding hands, all to convey the boys safely through the mall parking lot. Once inside, Bill managed to avoid most of the snares of commercialism—the perfume samples, the ice cream shop, the stuffed animals displayed at a child’s eye level—and in less than twenty minutes found the pet store, purchased five ducklings, distributed one to each boy, and shepherded all ten tiny, beating hearts back through the parking lot and into the station wagon. There were hours of giggles and glee in their backyard, but they came to an abrupt end due to an untimely visit from a neighbor’s curious cat. Pandemonium ensued. Ned, the oldest son, picked up a stick and hurled it at the feline aggressor. Hooker and Tilden hovered over the ducklings, unsure of what to do. Little Dempsey and Scott quietly let tears roll down their cheeks. And the mangled ducks did nothing. Dead, Bill assumed. But Boo insisted he take them to the vet. “Ray will know what to do,” she urged. Ray was a family friend and veterinarian at Riverbank Animal Hospital. Ray will tell me what I already know, thought Bill. But he dutifully scooped the bleeding baby ducks into a shoebox and got back in the car, revving the engine for dramatic effect as the boys wiped tears and waved. The ducks, as Bill suspected, were dead on arrival, but Ray the veterinarian did the best he could, which was offer to dispose of them. Bill had known getting ducks was a bad idea, but Bill was a good daddy. He came home to explain to his boys how some lives end far too soon. Meanwhile, upon hearing about the ill-fated vet visit, Big Dempsey laughed until he bawled. About a week later, Dempsey pulled a slim envelope bearing Riverbank Animal Hospital’s return address from the usual stack of catalogs in the mailbox. Inside, typed onto a borrowed sheet of Riverbank Animal Hospital stationery, was an itemized bill: Duck emergency examination.......... $150 Duck resuscitation................................$250 Duck euthanasia....................................$200 TOTAL...................................................$600 Bill could hear him holler all the way down the street. Mary Scott Manning

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YOUTHMAP

Features from the Fall Gala 2016

YouthMAP (Youth Marketing and Photography) was founded in 2013 by Davidson students, Aly Dove ‘16 and Max Feinstein ‘16 in an effort to combine their passions for service and photography within the community. Since that time, YouthMAP has evolved into a mentorship program that works with the residents at Children’s Hope Alliance Barium Springs Campus, a children’s home for disadvantaged youth. Each week, Davidson students travel to Barium Springs and engage with the residents through a photography lesson, allowing the residents to develop their own artistic craft. The residents often take stunning photos (visit youthmapnation.org to see our gallery) and develop impactful relationships with the Davidson student mentors. The Fall Gala was an excellent opportunity for our participants to showcase their best photos from this semester, and it all funds benefit Children’s Hope Alliance. Keep an eye out for their next gala in the spring!

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Writing by Quinn Massengill Photographs by YouthMAP students

A FINALS PLAYLIST by Alyssa Glover <3 Mirror Maru

Turning

About You

Time Will Tell

You Are Everywhere

Animals

Kiara, Bonobo

Good Enough

Trndsttr (Lucian Remix) [feat. M. Maggie]

Far Nearer

Afterglow

Sound and Vision

Pull

Angel

Radio Silence

NY Is Killing Me

Sad Machine

Ezra

Still D.R.E. - Instrumental Version

Spooky Couch

Collorbones

Cashmere Cat

Blood Orange

xxyyxx

Baths

D/R/U/G/S, Rebecca Rivers

xxyyxx

Bonobo

Black Coast, Lucian

Jamie xx

David Bowie

Ryan Hemsworth

Massive Attack

Spooky Black

Gil Scott-Heron, Jamie xx

James Blake

Flume

Porter Robinson Dr. Dre

Albert Hammond, Jr.

see f ull pla ylist a t:

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A R R I VA L

There’s this thing popularly known as the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis that, basically, holds that the structure of a given person’s language dramatically affects how they think and what they can think about. The strongest form of this idea is called linguistic determinism: that language actually determines a broad range of cognitive processes. Arrival takes this idea to an extreme when aliens come to earth and Amy Adams, an ambiguously important linguistics professor, is tasked with somehow learning their strange, circle-centric language. The central question of the movie is this: What if there were such a language that could restructure cognition in such a way that it would unmoor the human mind from the constraints of time? If you want a mind-blowing, action-packed, “whoa-dude” sci-fi film, don’t go see Arrival. If you want the mind-blowing, smart, sweeping-yet-

Movie Review by Thomas Waddill

intimate science-fiction portrait that Interstellar almost was, definitely go see it. Sure, it has some of the narrative issues that science fiction messing with temporality tends to have – the boot-strap problem, for one – but that doesn’t detract from the power of the story. The acting is damn good, too: Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner (the latter thankfully without a bow and arrow) are comfortable and convincing in their roles as nerds that save the world. But what makes the movie as good as it is is that the real, underlying narrative conflict of Arrival isn’t necessarily universe-altering, the problem with many science-fiction movies that fall flat among audiences jaded by the world (almost) ending every time they go to the movie theater. The conflict (and eventual tragedy) of Arrival is human and personal, and that’s the best kind of science fiction.

LIBERTAS, V o l . 2 3 , N o . 4

answer key: 1. Alyssa Glover, 2. Hannah Fuller, 3. Samantha Gowing, 4. Maddy Page, 5. Quinn Massengill, 6. Thomas Waddill, 7. Caroline New, 8. Elisabeth Anthony

7. 3.

8. 5. 2.

Can you guess whoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s who in these Libertas Staff baby pics?

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