The Talon Spring 2020 by Woodberry Forest School

THE TALON WOODBERRY FOREST SCHOOL

VOLUME 71, NO. 2

THE TALON WOODBERRY FOREST SCHOOL

SPRING 2020

A Boy Rejected From a Village Will Burn It For Its Warmth | Jimmy Kweon | acrylic | 16 x 22 in.

TO THE READER Fitting the spring of 2020 into a brief letter, a quick snapshot, would be impossible. This edition of The Talon was created in the time of COVID-19 and a conversion to online learning. Our artistic and operational processes were dramatically changed by the tension, frustration, and isolation of this time. We are different people—different writers, artists, photographers—than we were at the end of 2019. Logistically, we had no idea how we were going to finish the school year, let alone the magazine. Somehow, surprising everyone (including ourselves) along the way, we pulled together pairing and order on Adobe Bridge and Google Sheets and met with our authors on Zoom. We texted, called, and snapped our artists and photographers to confirm dimensions, mediums, and locations. I sometimes spent nearly four hours a day on Zoom as we shared our screens for design walkthroughs or squabbled over text cuts “face-to-face.” In the fall, Rhew and I asked you to pay attention to your own artistic process and notice the stories within yourself. We compared The Talon to a mirror; oh boy, is it reflecting now. The pieces in this magazine show what we thought our spring would look like and tell stories from our “normal” lives; they capture the nostalgia that comes with change and highlight just how much we love our families. They illustrate our isolation and our fear, revealing a high schooler’s view of the world before, after, and during unprecedented world events. And the fact that this edition exists at all is proof of something even larger and less tangible: our determination to keep creating. We will adapt and grow and become even more creative. The world needs inspired, reflective, artistic thinkers now more than ever.

blythe brewster

PROSE

FICTION

Kyata | Aiush Basnet | acrylic | 24 x 18 in.

NONFICTION

POETRY FREE VERSE

METRICAL 10 | Walking the Desert Rhew Deigl 67 | The Outlaws of Irvington Ben Antonio 78 | Brick Walkways (feat. Fountains) Ryan Kauffman

Daughter of Esun | Aiush Basnet | acrylic | 24 x 18 in.

Red Valley | Aiush Basnet | acrylic | 24 x 18 in.

ART

Tia Dalma | Aiush Basnet | acrylic | 24 x 18 in.

Faces | Ben Antonio | acrylic | 24 x 18 in.

ANARCHY IN THE FIRST WORLD

vignette by luke stone

Despite the CDC’s warnings, all 250 strangers line the limestone brick with no regard for the six-foot rule. A woman talking on her cell phone coughs into open air. A white-haired man scratches his wrinkly nose before sneezing straight into his hand. Another man rubs his eyes, yawns, and checks his watch. It’s 7:58 a.m. The line stretches past the pizza place that’s begging for delivery orders but not quite to the hot yoga studio that’s still charging for classes online. Everything in this shopping center besides Publix is doomed to fail. Finally, some teenaged bagboy who won’t get a dime of the two trillion dollar stimulus package unlocks the automatic door to let the wealthy flood in. It’s Black Friday meets Brooks Brothers and Bentley. The man in needlepoint loafers has to buy his “own damn wine” without the help of a sommelier. The botoxed sixty-something asks the Yorkie in her Gucci purse which gluten free dog food it wants. Before quarantine, this elderly population with dozens of underlying health conditions only left their houses for dinner parties and the Gulfstream hangar at Palm Beach International. They are without the underpaid “help” on whose backs their estates were built, having to buy their own food and cook their own meals like their parents did during the Depression. For the first time in their lives they’re kind of like the rest of us, just with more square footage and superior healthcare.

WALKING THE DESERT villanelle by rhew deigl

Pretend the dunes could roll you to the sea. For once, you thought theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d calm your spinning head. The desert haze may form your fantasy. The weeks have blown away since Galilee, and still you smell the shore that waits ahead. Pretend the dunes could roll you to the sea. Hope sang for eighty days that youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d be free. Today, a grimmer hope sings in its stead. The desert haze may heed your fantasy. With every crested dune, you think you see a rolling tide, but know you are misled. Pretend the dunes could roll you to the sea. You pray this sun will be the last you see. The distant shore erupts in scalding red. The desert haze will form your fantasy. To think that knowing, seeing this would be a gift! Lie down and rest your spinning head. Pretend the dunes could roll you to the sea; the desert haze may form your fantasy.

Yumu | Jimmy Kweon | acrylic | 24 x 18 in.

UBER MAN fiction by henry dworkin

he smells like expensive perfume and champagne, which stains her grey blouse black. She is smart to take an Uber. Her and her friend’s short, sequined dresses—stretched on silicone and flabby stomachs—are caught in a war between the intake of alcoholic carbohydrates and the volcanic expulsion of those liquid calories. She had unbuttoned the top buttons of her thin shirt. A reactive electrical signal travels from my brain to my salivary glands. But my non-reptilian mind, out of learned respect for a woman and her station, sends another signal to the muscles at the corners of my mouth; I clench downwards in a frown so that not a drop of spittle can drip out of the edges of my thin chapped lips. She catches me staring and looks away with a thin veil of disgust meant to hide the obvious lust for the power she has over me. I love her. I pull out a cigarette and offer her one, but she refuses, and I put it back in the pack to use later, fondly, as the cigarette refused by her.

Lamplight | Reid Hood | graphite and marker | 8.5 x 11 in.

he term is now unicorn, which is cool. We rose from the recession, sparkling and winged. The assumed IPO price of around $100 per share is substantially higher than the net tangible book value per share of our outstanding common stock, and purchasing shares of the common stock in this offering will result in substantial and immediate dilution. Ignore the old school thinking of investing in stocks with low price-to-book ratios and hail the ratio infinity, because in the new age, intellectual property and technology and relationships reign supreme.

like to play little games with them. They’re stuck in this car with me, vulnerable without realizing it, undeservedly confident. I destroy their confidence. I like for them to be right on the verge of asking me to pull over so that they can get out and call another Uber. “Hey,” I say, looking back through the mirror. Everything I see is just shifting glass. She raises her drawn-on eyebrows to indicate she has heard, but her face stays illuminated by her phone like a kid holding a flashlight telling a ghost story. Her friend crunches potato chips in the back. For the first time I see her as more than a sidekick. Stereotypically loud and overweight, she overcompensates for her unhealthy obsessions with body positive garments that scream, “Don’t talk about my blubber!” She rubs the grime off her oily hands and picks the food dust underneath her fake nails. She is beautiful. How can I keep my eyes on the road with angels behind me? I turn my lights on and try to trace one crack in the asphalt for miles to keep focused.

riving the taxi workers out of business sounds unsavory, but this is society progressing. Take the higher share of a marked up price while oversaturating the market and drive down wages for the lowliest independent contractors, thus taking advantage of, or skirting altogether, the Wage and Hour Division of the Department of Labor’s economic realities test under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. Who works faster, municipal socialism or people downloading an app? In this new age, the gig economy, they are not employees, not really. Through algorithmic management, surge pricing, push notifications, and the rating system, the drivers will work as long as we want, where we want. And they’ll never escape. 13

The funny thing is, they will never even realize we’re screwing them. It’s just us and them, and we went and got educated, and they sure didn’t, and so we will know the terms, the vernacular, but also the terms and conditions, and we will have written the terms and conditions, and they will have agreed without having been given the opportunity to read. Their station of birth is all the signature, printed and scrawled, we need.

ou know what the pope’s up to, right? Up there in Belgium (they’re all up there, the elites and the president of this and that), they’re plotting to control us all—not just the money, but the social order of things. Our very minds they will implant with computer chips to control us remotely under one world government." “What?” she says dismissively, continuing to stare at her phone, although I can tell she is interested. She has stopped typing and scrolling. Her friend guffaws. “Yes, and all of them are there: the president of the United States of America and the Jews of course, and the usual billionaires, but also the ones most people wouldn’t expect like Poseidon and also Walt Disney and Adolf, who now speaks Spanish and goes by a different name.” “Okay, right here is fine,” she says. “This is nowhere near your place!” blurts out her friend before quickly being silenced by a death stare. “Right here is fine,” she repeats. But I keep driving and smirking. Do I truly believe it? It doesn’t matter. “And yes, they will all cover it up, they and the lizards and the aliens who come down to do DMT with the Clintons and the Saudis and ISIS (which can be found in the immigrant groups, of course). It’s all connected, funded by George Soros and the World Bank and the IMF, and it was all on this documentary I saw. I forget the name.” 14

The friend crunches her potato chips and crunches again. And finally the girl puts down her phone and says she wants to be let out, and I say that I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think you will be let out, and the car starts accelerating, going quicker and quicker around turns, and I have no plan, but I want to scare them, and then the car spins out, and the tires screech on old, cracked pavement, and we come to a halt, and I tell them to get out, and they do. Because it is late, I go home and turn on the TV and eat snacks and do things around the house until my next shift, which will be early in the morning. I do not sleep because I will not waste my free time with that, and in my sleepless delirium the line between prankster and psychosis blurs and dissolves, but it does not matter. I will still work tomorrow. v

Laughter | Reid Hood graphite and marker | 11 x 8.5 in.

Rut Season | Spencer Doerr | Dilley, Texas | digital photography

THE CAGE OF DEATH

vignette by spencer doerr

The cage of death sits alone in the field. The moans of far-away cows echo through its steel bars; the mud that cakes the walls grows stale. Nothing will ever remove those cries. In this rugged South Texas landscape, life flows from every pore of the soil, filling the air. From the dancing deer and the cautious coyotes to the red angus scattered across the ranch, this land teems with animals seeking to survive. But here in this trailer, the spattered stains still ring with the spirits of those long dead cows.

ROME BURNS

vignette by freddie woltz

The water in the pot rises to a boil. I pour it over a few packaged dry leaves. Earl Grey. The sun is shining now, painting my kitchen in a golden hue. I bask in the heat, a welcome change from the dreary rain of the past few days. The tea is ready. Time to add my signature ice cube. Plop. The boiling tea attacks the lone ice cube. “Like antibodies,” I muse. The Wall Street Journal headlines catch my eye. As soon as my brain makes sense of the front page, I discard the information. “Where is the real literature?” I ask as I glance around for my serious reading. Doctor No by Ian Fleming. With my father’s well worn childhood copy in my hands, I move to the back porch to sit in the sun. “Zone of control, zone of concern,” I think. The tea touches my lips. Perfect temperature.

Fully Loaded | Spencer Doerr | Seattle, Washington | digital photography 19

Deface | Ben Antonio | acrylic and Sharpie | 20 x 16 in.

fiction by ian kim

HUMAN-READABLE

U.S.A.F.

INCIDENT REPORT

am fond of the smell of dust and fire smoke.

The desert light shines on my broad metallic back at dawn, and the playful pockets of air wave under a Baghdadi sun. Behold! I am a fivethousand-pound American drone, and I bear the glorious markings of the blue stars and red stripes, the deliverer of justice. After a lifetime of dreams, I entered Mosul like a graceful beluga surfing the currents. “The ground opens and black smoke calls to him,” they say of men who see my wrath. Every one of us goes through mandatory training for six months. During training, the

scenes— twenty-five percent in color, twenty-five percent in black and white, and fifty percent in infrared— flashed before me faster than I could comprehend. After two weeks of training, I started to make connections and recognize shapes and eventually, intent. In one scene, a man sliced the other man. You would have to see it to believe the amount of suffering a pocket knife can cause with a dose of passion. Underneath the bulletproof vest, the left clavicle lay bare with four-inch-deep slashes. The scapula, at a stable sixty percent

structural integrity, was separated from the rest of the corpse. The liters of blood spraying out of him brought my interest to its climax. Do not judge me; it was only an image, the same image I had seen so many times before. In another, a woman reached for her waistband. Tucked underneath the belt was a small pistol, ready to dispense its bullets. She screamed in panic until a stray bullet penetrated her ileum. To an untrained eye, she might have invoked a great amount of scrutiny, but to me, she was yet to be dangerous. The subtle tremors 21

in her arms and her unconfident unbounded as lightning and as posture only lowered my interest in graceful as the trident. Yet I was her. kept in a container for months. The droning of my propeller When I was opened minutes before suddenly rose; I banked right. As shipping to Mosul, all I felt was the I entered a small village north of ferocious heat of the cigarette butt Mosul, I was given full control of pressed up against the stars and my body. Twenty-thousand feet stripes. below me was the house I was The house remained empty assigned to watch. I waited around until a convoy of cars and people for hours wondering who would from all the houses in the village come out. Hours passed but no arrived. There was always a steady one came. The bright red sun was stack of smoke coming from the absorbed by the dunes, spilling its house. Some carried an entire goat colors on the carcass, festering pure blue in saffron, The girl stung my senses canvas like like a culture of Apis florea black pepper, a yolk about turmeric, and agitated by the sun. to break. parsley. Others The sand came bearing bled shades of orange and crimson, gifts, occasionally glancing up at and suddenly my vision flipped. I me out of either fear or curiosity. was no longer able to see the stretch One family caught my attention; of road leading out of the village. a small girl held her fatherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hand The vibrant sparkles of the thawbs while maintaining her vigilant eyes turned into bright voids of white. on me. Her small frame, firm and Only I and the house remained. upright, and her unrelenting stare Before I arrived at the house, I kept my focus until she was led into spent twenty days in the damp dark the house. container. Each night I wondered Hours had passed since the about the sights I would see next: insolent blaring music and the the pensive expanse of the Black blinding lights from the windows Sea, the majestic deserts of Saudi had started. I still wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t interested Arabia, or perhaps the blistering in the house, but I was hoping for tundras of Siberia. I am a gift a quiet night to myself. The slyness from the cyclops, a divine tool as in her looks, her enchanting and 22

majestical posture with which she walked, the stern yet playful skipsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; all of it made me quite uneasy. The girl stung my senses like a culture of Apis florea agitated by the sun. At 20:25 I noticed a crack in the door. The girl from earlier walked out. Her legs moved gracefully in a way I have never seen before. I followed her motion down from the entryway to the side of the house to a patch of flowers and leaves. She bent down and picked a flower from the patch. My attention only grew as the girl turned away and ran up the sand steps with a flower down her waistband. Then, a rather curious thing happened: a man who I recognized as her father days later, along with a number of other men, ran out in panicked haste. Some slipped and tripped as if their blood and oil soaked thawbs could not handle their fears. They all shouted at the arrogant girl to return from the night. It had never crossed my mind that it could be me who they had feared. But how could that be! They should find it in favor of their fortunes that I would watch over them. I am strong, and I do not compromise. The bounds of my fury will be experienced by those who stand against justice, embodied

The Sailor | Adam Chaskes | acrylic | 16 x 22 in.

by the stars and stripes printed on my side. The girl stood tall and straightened her posture. The tensions in my belly emptied. There was a sudden rush followed by a moment of weightlessness. A little part of me, now free from my grasp, playfully twirled and flew with me. Then suddenly, with a burst of light, it flew down to greet the girl. In a difference of one sixtieth of a second, she was replaced by a pulse of fierce flashing that was then enveloped by a colorless and

shapeless void. The burst of energy threw the man back and the girl was torn apart beyond recognition. The uncovered woman ran towards her daughter, trying to collect her bits and pieces which had been dispersed by one of my own. Her father, still recovering from the initial burst, looked around in disbelief. I, too, was disoriented. The light from the blast blinded me temporarily. As my vision slowly recovered, I caught sight of one of the girlâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s tiny appendages hanging

loose from her torso. Coal-black liquids flew out of it uncontrollably. Her miniature femur protruded from the middle of the leg. Despite her mangled corpse of a body, her questioning gaze stayed constant. It was all done and good. I tried to get a better look at her exposed carcass, but my attention could no longer be sustained. I could no longer bring myself to care. I banked left, and the currents greeted me as if nothing had changed. The house and its story was again enveloped by the land. v 23

24 Hand Holding Heart | Gabe Brown | acrylic and ink | 12 x 6 in.

The Bottom | Gabe Brown | acrylic and ink | 24 x 18 in.

ELEVATOR PITCH vignette by rhew deigl

I keep my eyes pasted together against the morning sun that raps on my window. “Today,” I whisper, trying to match my therapist’s assured tone, “will be even better than yesterday. First I will make breakfast.” Yes, I can practically smell the omelet. “Then I…” Then I what? My living room is jammed into twenty degrading cardboard boxes. That could use attending to. The voice of Los Angeles sits on the desk in the only livable corner. My fountain pen has sat there dormant so long it will need a full soak. Yes, a jammed fountain pen. The perfect excuse to leave my silver screenplay off the silver screen for another day. Deep breath. “I will get up and turn off the TV.” Daniel Tosh, I gather, has been riffing all night in the other room. The eyes come open. My bedside lamp beams at me smugly. Besides its honey-warm glow, the apartment is dark. I find my right arm somewhere under my pillow. It’s 2:41 a.m. and half-digested chunks of a scrambled egg are dripping from the pillow. Beneath the lamp sits the most likely culprit: an empty glass. Daniel Tosh’s studio audience laughs at me as I close my eyes again. It is 2:41 a.m. and I am listening to Los Angeles.

Alleyway | Ben Monroe | Charlotte, North Carolina | digital photography 27

B UE

free verse by walker simmons

Floating near the bottom, I look up to discover what is seen through the eyes of those below. The fading sunlight sparkles, and beams pour through the steady ripples. But then the drops of sun vanish and are replaced by gentle shards that deepen with the swell. The boundless rain begins to let go, and the surface becomes broken. The water gives way to every drop. I shatter the moment, compelled to resurface. How preposterous, this need for air.

Into the Blue | Spencer Doerr | Valencia, Spain | digital photography

Views | Willis He | Shanghai, China | digital photography

STARS IN YOUR SMILE free verse by sebastian agasino

In the same jade-green forest clearing where we first met, our words clash like double-edged swords; articulated for pleasantry, intended for apathy. The stars listen sorrowfully above, growing weary of watching millions of people fall and fall apart— but then, slowly, we harmonize. The silences are no longer poignant and pointed but thoughtful, reflective. Our glances turn into grins and we’re side-by-side once more. The stars now sigh in relief because they didn’t cross another pair.

Whirling Dervish | William Barber | acrylic | 15 x 20 in. 32

FIBONACCI’S SPIRAL

free verse by rhew deigl

The ring, the winding grey spiral rolls with mathematical perfection. Its tail taunts me, brushing me on the cheek where a woman ought to. I count the expanding squares: one by one, two by two, And I am three times as morose as the row before, bereft in a sea of doubt, a lonely scholar who knows no difference between Fibonacci and Descartes. I close my eyes. A woman’s face. I’m dizzy. Motion sick. Spiraling. She smiles. Mathematically perfect.

SOMETHING TO TALK ABOUT

free verse by milo jacobs

Without rubber ducks sitting along the wall, without sloths decorating the dresser, without a hippo lying atop the bed, how would I start to speak to you? With nothing that strays from the standard ways, what am I to say besides “hello?” “And how are you?” “I’m fine. And you?” “I’m fine”: And nothing fills the conversation’s void. When you see the ducks along the wall, suddenly cheap words disappear, and instead I hear arrays of new words unspoken, a field of questions vast and answers new. They ask me why I try to stand apart. “It’s so much less boring if you do.”

Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Life | Aiden Stakem | Orange, Virginia | digital photography

nonfiction by reed taws

low in, fast out.”

I was given that famous cornering mantra when I was just five years old. As his way of bringing the track into the house, my dad would take any chance he got to repeat this advice along with his other life rule: “Famous last words: watch this.” Despite my upbringing, it still took me twelve years to experience the true essence of speed. My first bike was a Yamaha TTR125, a small dirt bike that suffered up steep hills and careened down the backsides as if there were no brakes at all. It was a liberating experience for a fourteen year old. When I first twisted the throttle on the bike, its nine fierce stallions seemed to roar to life, the rear 36

tire hurling dirt behind me. I felt like Ricky Carmichael. In reality, it was a miracle if I ever reached thirty miles per hour while trying to dodge the older riders on their 450cc motocross bikes whizzing past me. It didn’t matter to me though. The little bike was short lived. I managed to crash a four wheeler into a tree about four months after first feeling the freedom of two wheels, so my dad decided to sell the bike. He and I would still ride together as we had since I was two: we would suit up, I’d climb onto the back of his big BMW R1200RT sport tourer, he would mount the machine, and off we would go. But I never forgot the

feeling of being at the controls of my very own motorcycle. Seven years later, my dad knew I was ready for a bike again, so he bought a KTM 690R and an 1190 Adventure for the two of us to ride together. I loved my bike, but I drooled over his 157 horsepower beast, sitting like a fighter jet in our garage. Despite the fact that I did all his maintenance for him, my dad wouldn’t let me go anywhere near his 1190. On one of our rides nearly a year after purchasing the bikes, we made a stop at a gas station for a drink and a snack. I decided to ask him again if I could ride the 1190, knowing that the answer would be a hard no. To my surprise, he

Night Rides | Pen Oldham | digital art

threw away his Gatorade and then threw me the keys. The engine barked to life like a rabid dog. Speed is a drug. Once I got a taste of it, I thought of nothing except getting more. My addiction began at thirty miles per hour on the baby Yamaha, then at ninety on my 690, and then there I was, still in second gear but well on my way through sixty. Seventy. Redline, clutch in, upshift, clutch out. One hundred. One twenty.

Upshift. One thirty and still climbing. My vision blurred, and all that remained in focus was the apex of the next turn as I scorched along the country lane, moving too fast to look at the speedometer. I didn’t know where my dad was, and I didn’t care. I just wanted to find another gear, nail another apex. I needed more speed. It felt like at least Mach one. We made it back to the garage, and I hopped off of my father’s

rocketship. He pulled in a few minutes after me. “I like your bike,” I said, still coming down from the massive rush I had just experienced. “Yeah, I could tell. We need to get you on a track, kid.” As we walked out of the garage with our gear, I thought of that possibility. A real racetrack, with real race bikes. “Yeah, screw that ‘slow in, fast out’ nonsense. I want to go fast in, faster out.” v 37

TED BLAIN an interview by rhew deigl and walker simmons

This past winter, fellow editor Walker Simmons and I had the honor of sitting down with English teacher, director of theater, and all-around Woodberry legend Ted Blain. Mr. Blain was busy in the midst of producing his final Woodberry play, Meredith Willson’s The Music Man, so we were fortunate that he found a moment to share some of his experiences with us. A graduate of Washington & Lee, Mr. Blain will retire this spring after thirty-eight years of teaching English at Woodberry. In that time, he has directed at least one play each year. He has also published ten short stories and two mystery novels, one of which, Passion Play, was a finalist for the Edgar Award for the Best First Novel. Rhew Deigl: What got you into directing? Past theater experience? Ted Blain: That’s a good question because I had pretty much zero theater experience. I have always loved the theater. I have always loved going to plays. I have always loved reading plays. I never had the nerve when I

was in high school or college to be in a play. I was way too self-conscious. I was way too worried that my friends would think that I was some kind of theater nerd. I was too insecure to follow that interest. But it’s always been fun for me. When I started teaching at this little school in Georgia before I came to Woodberry, I just fell into it. It was such a little school; there were only 180 people in a high school, 9–12. So, tiny little school, and anytime they put on a play they would need some adult to fill in, and I would do that. And that was fun. Then I came here, and Perry Epes, who was the head of the English department, was directing Macbeth in the spring of 1983, so I asked if I could be his assistant, and that was really fun. Then I just started directing plays not really knowing what I was doing. Really learning on the job.... The first musical I directed was Big River, and I was so ignorant that I didn’t even listen to the score before I chose that to be our musical. A parent

said, “That would be a really good musical for y’all to do,” so I said, “Oh, sure, that’s what we’re doing.” I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t know how to rehearse a chorus. I didn’t know how to place people on stage for songs. I didn’t know how to block songs. It was really stressful, and this show somehow or other because of the talent of the cast all clicked on opening night. It went over, and that was maybe the reassurance I need to keep on doing it. RD: Is your approach to starting a play/creative process similar to how you write? TB: That is similar. And that is really fun because I might read a script and think, okay, I can see how this would work on a stage, but that’s sort of a general impression…I like this play, I like this dialogue, I think this would be fun to do. But then we get into the individual scenes, and suddenly there are people who aren’t visible, and I’ve got to move people around, and I can’t hear this actor, or the timing of this line is off, or we have to time this entrance. And we get all that sorted out, and then we get into the more creative stuff like “Oh, I just realized that line is a joke…that is, if we have a pause there before you say that, and if you say it this way, then it’s going to be

Ted Blain’s novels show him to be a master of intrigue and misdirection. His community e-mails sent during evening study hall demonstrate his wicked sense of humor. During the week of the bonfire and The Game, old boys were wise to his tricks, but as new boys read Blain’s email, roars of anguish engulfed the third form dorms. From: Ted Blain <ted_blain@woodberry.org> Date: Thu, Nov 8, 2018 at 6:54 PM Subject: URGENT: Bonfire rescheduled for FRIDAY MORNING To: <News@woodberry.org> We should have heard this announcement tonight at dinner: Sorry, everybody, for this last-minute change of plans, but we’ve had to reschedule the bonfire for FRIDAY MORNING rather than the customary Friday night. The reason is that we have a group of special visitors coming to the school from Washington: Senator Elizabeth Warren; her husband, Bernie Sanders; her sister, Maxine Waters; and her grandparents, George Soros and Nancy Pelosi. They are all part of the new "Lean to the Left" initiative intended to get more liberal texts into schools (perhaps you saw the segment about it on MSNBC?), but they are coming to Woodberry because they wish to protest our bonfire, which they describe in a letter to the headmaster as "an obscene demonstration of hyper-masculinity, ‘other’-ing, micro-aggressions, non-union clothing, and indifference to global warming with a massive release of carbon-based toxins into the atmosphere."

really funny.” So we’re discovering things and the whole thing is really organic. I don’t have the whole thing in my head at all. Like that scene we were working on Iowa Stubborn… that was the scene that I just hadn’t figured out, so I just kept trying stuff until I eventually tried it with props, and the props helped, and then Sarah Sydnor watched it this afternoon

and gave her seal of approval, so I think we figured it out. RD: How do you go about writing then? TB: I’m going to answer your question, but I have a question of my own. Is Walker here to make sure I don’t do anything violent? He’s here to protect you? 39

RD: No, he’s learning. Walker Simmons: I’m just sorta… I’m listening. TB: He’s in training. Okay. I was just curious. I wasn’t sure if he was your bodyguard. The writing. I’ll get an idea of some sort of general scenario that I’d like to go with, and then I’ll sit down and just start writing it. My first novel I outlined. I had every chapter outlined, and I knew what was going to happen in every chapter. Then when I started writing, it immediately started to change. I had the big general picture, but you get into the world, and characters start doing what they’re doing, and it just starts to change organically. So now I pretty much skip the outline part and just start writing. Sometimes the story has a heartbeat, and I know that it’s going to work, and sometimes the story doesn’t have a heartbeat, and I just put it aside. But if it has a heartbeat, I’ll just go back to it, and I might just sit with it for an hour or so at the computer to see if anything happens. If nothing happens for a couple days, I’ll just put it aside knowing that I’m going to come back to it eventually. It’s a little bit like being on a train that’s going around a curve: you can tell that 40

From: Ted Blain <ted_blain@woodberry.org> Date: Thu, Nov 9, 2017 at 6:58 PM Subject: [NEWS] Bad news: bonfire canceled To: News <News@woodberry.org> I’m very sorry to have to report this news at the last minute, but we’re not going to be able to have the bonfire this year. It seems that we built our torches on Sunday, November 5, Guy Fawkes Day. As you know, Guy Fawkes plotted to blow up the British Parliament on Nov. 5, 1605, and the English settlers of Jamestown in 1607 decreed in a law still on the books that no "kindlinges, fyres, torches, flaming brandes, petards, Papish candles & othere werkes of ignition shal be mayde, uzed, or stored on that daye & alle dayes followinge up to the next Sabbath" [sic]. We have been in violation of the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia through an accident of the calendar. Even now the grounds crew is pulling down the bonfire, and a private group from Charlottesville has taken the torches. Sorry, everybody. If we don’t comply, we could lose our tax-free status as an educational institution. Use the time that you would have spent at the bonfire to write to our representative in the General Assembly to demand a repeal by next year. This law is ridiculous!

you’re about to see what’s around the curve though you can’t see it yet. But you can tell that it’s coming. That’s the way it feels when I have something that’s working—it’s bubbling up from down deep, and it’s on its way up to the surface. RD: I imagine that over the course of your career your perspective has changed. Is there anything particular that you’ve changed about your teaching style? TB: Yeah. Like, everything. To put it bluntly, I’m not what you’d

call a born teacher. I had to learn how to do it. I was attracted to this idea of talking with people about reading and writing for my whole life. I always enjoyed school, but I had no idea of how to be a teacher. I thought when I was really young and just getting started that I was just supposed to know everything, and I could never be caught making a mistake. I could never not know the answer to a student’s question. If someone asked me a question that I didn’t know, I would either bluster or change the subject or say, “That’s

irrelevant” or something—put the person off because I was so foolishly afraid of looking like somebody who didn’t know everything on the subject. I got my comeuppance really early. The universe has its way of straightening me out. I get these little kicks every now and then. This was at the school in Georgia where I started working. They asked me one weekend to supervise the spelling section of a forensics league. It’s sort of like debate, but you’re competing in extemporaneous speech, and one of the categories for competition was spelling. You had to write down 100 words and spell them correctly. Not a spelling bee. Just ten to twelve people in a room, and I was supposed to call out the words. I’m still embarrassed about this, but it’s a really revealing story. They gave me this sealed envelope with these words in it, and this is what I said: “I’ll be the proctor for this particular activity. I have a master’s degree in English. I am prepared for this. I will be reading the word, using it correctly in a sentence, and reading the word again. Your task is to write it down and spell it correctly.” The first word was “weigela,” a word that I didn’t know how to pronounce. I didn’t know what it meant. I didn’t know anything. The

second word was “loggia.” Ditto. The third was “frijole,” which I realized later was a bean, but at the time it just looked like “fridge-ole” so I was completely mortified. I left the room and went to see the judges, and I said, “I don’t know what these words are.” One of the judges said, “Make up a definition.” One said, “Go get a dictionary and look up the definition.” The third judge said, “Just substitute words off the tiebreaker list if you run into a word you don’t know.” And that’s what I did. It wasn’t just one. I was taken down twenty pegs. I was really knocked off my

high horse. So I can laugh at myself and realize that I really had made an ass of myself because I was being so pretentious and trying to be so impressive. And ever since then, I’ve just tried not to be impressive. RD: Fridge-ole. You mention life’s kicks. Are there any others you can think of? TB: Not off the top of my head. It just seems as though whenever I start to get a little…just the other night, for instance, I got a message from an alumnus who said, “I heard you’re retiring, and a couple of us would like to take you to NYC for a play and dinner to celebrate.” I thought, “Wow, that’s so gener-

Ted Blain with students from his English 600 class at the 2000 Woodberry Forest Formal 41

ous of you,” and then that night at dinner I got into a Catch-22 kind of argument with a senior at the table. It was a really ugly, confrontational moment, and it was so bad that he said he was never sitting at my table again. This was Wednesday night. So I thought, "This is a good reminder when you’re getting too smug about having this very generous alumnus make this very generous offer that you still haven’t figured out how to be a teacher at Woodberry. You still haven’t figured that out. You blew that. You allowed this to get way out of hand." So I was sort of Lieutenant Scheisskopf. I needed that little reminder. RD: Is there anything that gives you a sense of success with a student by the end of the year? Or failure? TB: I’ve got to say, after all those stumbles at the beginning of my career, I’m always just grateful if we make it to the end of the year and nobody’s egged my car. Hasn’t happened so far, but it’s not too late. It was really touching to me last spring when [Rhew’s] class all showed up to my house wearing bow ties. I thought that was a nice gesture. I appreciated that. That was a signal that y’all were giving me that things had gone okay. As long as I’m not making things worse or making 42

somebody who used to like English hate English or somebody who used to love to write hate to write, as long as I’m not doing that, then I just feel relieved at the end of the year that I haven’t sabotaged anybody’s progress as far as I know. WS: I’ve yet to match your level of enthusiasm for Shakespeare. When did you start really liking Shakespeare? Did you, like the rest of us, once think Shakespeare was a drag? TB: Maybe when I was in the eighth grade and we were reading Romeo and Juliet, and it just seemed hard and boring. Even in the eighth grade, I could remember a friend of mine who said, “Macbeth has these witches in it, and they make these prophecies, and they turn out to be tricks, and they mislead Macbeth into a misunderstanding,” and I thought that was so interesting...my parents had a copy of the complete works of Shakespeare. I went home and tried to read Macbeth...to find out what that was all about, I was so interested. When I was in high school we had a good anthology of British literature so we read Hamlet and Henry I, Part 1, and I can remember that and not understanding all of it but seeing that “I can get this. I can understand this plot, and I can get this.” So Walker, it’s been horribly dis-

appointing to me that even after all this time you’re still saying “I don’t like Shakespeare.” I’m hoping you’ll develop a taste for it, but frankly I’m a little worried because the cement is starting to harden, and you’ve pretty much decided that you don’t like Shakespeare. WS: I am pretty stubborn. TB: I can remember two years later as a sophomore in college, I was taking a Shakespeare class, and when we got to Hamlet, I can remember opening it up to the first page and feeling the excitement of the opening scene. Even though I’d read it in high school, I was reading with more comprehension. I could really just read it as a play, and I can remember feeling so excited about that and talking to my friends about how much fun it was going to be to be rereading Hamlet. So I think all I would say is when you’re ready, he’ll be there. He’ll be ready when you’re ready to give him a try. I hated Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire for the first forty or fifty years of my life, and then one day I realized what was going on in it and loved it. Didn’t much care for Death of a Salesman in high school or college, came back to it, and I think that might be the best American play of the twentieth century. You could argue about that

all day, but tastes change. Tastes evolve...your junior year of college, your university might be putting on Henry IV, Part 1 , and you might want to go see it and see what you think. John Milton I never care for. Milton and I never bonded. [Ben] Hale loves Milton. These are matters of taste. I respect Milton. I’ve read Paradise Lost. I admire what he does there. But I would not pick it up to read for pleasure. As Samuel Johnson said of Paradise Lost, none would dare wish it longer. But some people love it a lot more than I do. RD: Is there a piece of writing that you know was the beginning of your career? TB: I’ve always wanted to be a writer. I was seven-years-old when I created my first piece of creative work. I know that’s redundant. I’d been watching the old Red Skelton TV show. You all have no idea who Red Skelton is, but he was a comedian. And I thought that was really funny, so essentially I ripped it off. I plagiarized the script of that show and wrote it out and insisted that my father type it out. I didn’t know how to type at age seven, but I insisted he type it out exactly the way I had written it including the misspellings of the names. I had spelled these names phonetically, and he

said, “You know, this is not how you spell the name Gwendolyn.” And I said, “I don’t care; you’ve got to spell it this way.” Then in the fourth grade when I was ten years old, I was really into sci-fi, so I was going to write this novel about these kids who go to the moon. And when I was in the fourth grade, no one had been to the moon.

That was pre-Neil Armstrong. This was still the work of the imagination. I wrote ten pages of this novel—that was the first chapter—and I sort of got tired of it and burned out. But for me in the fourth grade, ten pages was a humongous deal. An opus. Then I’d write a few short stories in high school. In college I sort of froze up. I

From: Ted Blain <ted_blain@woodberry.org> Date: Thu, Nov 10, 2016 at 7:04 PM Subject: [NEWS] Bonfire canceled! Don’t blame me. I’m just the messenger. To: News <News@woodberry.org> Sorry, everybody, but it looks as if we won’t be able to have the bonfire this year. I just saw this announcement buried in the New York Times website: WASHINGTON. President Barack Obama, reportedly furious over his conversation about climate change with Donald Trump today, has issued the most sweeping executive orders in history to slow the growth of global warming. "Starting immediately, I am escalating the War on Coal to include firewood, charcoal briquettes, birthday candles, and kerosene," the President read from a brief statement. "No more campfires, bonfires, fire pits, cookouts, or flaming torches. The only thing we’re going to burn in this country for the next three months is the second amendment to the Constitution." The school will be filing an appeal with the Department of the Interior, but the typical response time from that agency is four weeks. Although it is likely that President-elect Trump will reverse the order once he takes office in January, such action will come far too late to help us tomorrow night. This announcement comes as a particular disappointment for all the new boys who built the now-useless torches for a bonfire we’ll have to dismantle by hand. Sad.

kept reading all this great literature and didn’t see how I could possibly reach that level, so I just didn’t try. I studied creative writing in grad school with Ann Beattie, and she was encouraging, but she was only about three years older than I was and was already teaching at UVA and publishing in The New Yorker, so I really felt inadequate. I was trying to write all these subtle New Yorker type stories with quiet epiphanies at the end, and it just didn’t work. Then one day I just decided that what I really liked was mystery stories, so why didn’t I just try to write a mystery story? And out of that came a truly dreadful novel, a remarkably bad novel which I called Murder in the Passive Voice, which is a terrible title and really doesn’t make any sense grammatically or logically. It just was ridiculous, but it had a beginning, a middle, and an end. I had this completed work, so I understood that it is physically possible to write a novel. I just put that one aside. I don’t even think I have the manuscript anymore. Second try. I’m going to write books set in London. I’d just had this wonderful experience in London, so I’m going to have the guy directing a production of Henry IV, Part I at the Royal Shakespeare Company headquarters in London at the Barbican Theatre. This is 44

going to be my way in. This is going to be my entrée to fame and fortune. I finished this book, and I did all the things amateurs do, all the terrible stupid things that amateurs do. I went to Kinkos and I had twenty copies of this made and gave it to everybody that I know for Christmas and then waited for the praise to start coming in and just waited. It didn’t work. My sister on Christmas morning started reading this book, and I’m pretending to read a magazine, but I’m really watching her read this book, and she read the first page and said, “Oh, I forgot to call Scotty.” And she just put it down. It didn’t hook her at all. My brother picked it up, he read it and said,“Isn’t Carolina playing basketball today?” and he put it down. My mother picked it up, and I thought, "Okay. My mother. She’s going to go for this." And she read the first page, and she said, “Oh, I forgot to put the broccoli in.” So I’m devastated. I’m thinking, "What is the matter with these people? Don’t they recognize quality?" It was one of my former students who came over later that holiday, and I said, “Oh, have you seen my book,” and he looked and he said, “Nah, didn’t hook me. Boring.” How dare you say that? But okay, all right. I’m trying this again, and

this time by god I don’t care what happens. Nobody is going to put down the first chapter because they’re thinking about the broccoli. This time they’re going to read the first frigging chapter no matter what else happens. So that is the book that became Passion Play. RD: Never published the second one? TB: No. It was a good exercise. You have to do these things; you have to learn these things. I’ve written several novels since: Love Cools, which was the second one I’d published, and I haven’t gotten any others published, but it’s still fun to write. RD: Any chance you’ve got some of those [unpublished manuscripts] hanging around? TB: Well, I’ve got one that I really think works, and it really ticks me off that nobody’s published it. But I’m going to show it to my sixth form class and have them critique it. It’s going to be their reading assignment for the fifth marking period. WS: That’s dope. TB: Yeah. RD: Can I get a copy? TB: I don’t care, yeah. As long as you critique it. RD: So you teach your own writing?

Ted Blain's 2016 Christmas card photoshoot with his advisee group

TB: Maybe too often. RD: And you’re the only teacher I’ve known to do that. TB: [John] Amos does it. RD: Who is that for? [John] Reimers says he didn’t teach his own writing because there are other people who can do it better, but I don’t know if that’s true. TB: Why, if we’ve got Faulkner

writing short stories, why shouldn’t we be reading a Faulkner rather than one I wrote? It’s a good question. I think that I [teach my own writing] when I’m trying to teach people about craft, so that I can have a personal anecdote about how I got to this point in the story, and it almost dried up, but I realized this is the place I’ve got to let the characters do what the characters want to do instead of what I want them to do.

And I hope that that’s helpful. I try not to overdo it. It’s not a course on my work. RD: There’s definitely something in seeing that your own teacher is legit. TB: I don’t know about legit. Trying to keep a hand in. RD: Well, I think that went pretty well.

THOMAS THOMAS LI LI artist feature

As the son of a professional photographer, fourth former Thomas Li spent a lot of time around cameras growing up, and eventually he began taking photos of his own. He documented his adventures from his home city of Guangzhou, China to Kathmandu, Nepal to Hoi An, Vietnam. The following is a compilation of images both personal and observational, showing diversity of content but consistency in style. Thomasâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s skill certainly has not gone unnoticed; in 2020 Thomas won a Scholastic Gold Key in the Southeast Region for his picture titled Whoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Inside. The captions for these images were written by the editors after interviewing and consulting with Thomas.

Fisherman

Bagh-Chal

During his winter break five years ago, Thomas traveled with his family to Hoi An, a famous small town on the eastern coast of Vietnam, to attend the annual Lunar New Year festival. Fishermen line the river throughout the festival, offering tourists an opportunity to ride boats through the town as a way to see every part of the colorful celebration.

During a week off from school for Nationals Day, a day commemorating the establishment of the Peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Republic of China, Thomas traveled to Kathmandu, Nepal. He came across two men playing Bagh-Chal, a strategy-based board game that closely resembles chess in which two players take turns moving pieces on the board.

Mouth Shut

Whoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Inside

Thomas found these statues awaiting purchase outside of the factory in Guangzhou, China. Lion statues are commonly placed in front of homes and government buildings as protection and a symbol of good luck. The bags on the lionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s faces protect their features from erosion until the figures are purchased and installed.

Using a film camera on the streets of Guangzhou, China, Thomas took two photos on the same piece of film, meshing the two images together. The overexposed result places a photo of two girls on a narrow street on top of a photo of an elderly couple, creating an image both literally and metaphorically multi-layered. It is impossible to look at this piece only once.

Look Similar to Lunar New Year, Chinese New Year celebrates the first new moon of the lunar calendar. Lantern Festival, the final day of Chinese New Year, is observed differently throughout China, and in Guangzhou, Thomas and his family celebrate by going to the local park. Pictured is Thomasâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s father and younger sister as they watch the annual light show in the park, a colorful finale to the holiday.

fiction by rhew deigl

ERRO AND HIS STEEL DISK A

llan stoops down and fumbles with the gold-painted button, chasing it along the floor with his fingertips. He picks it up and squints at the ripped thread. Phoebe will have to sew it back on this evening. The Renwick Gallery should have a coat check where he can stash the worn-out polyester blazer. But coat checks are for overcoats, not dinner jackets, and what fool would check his polyester jacket to walk around in a wrinkled polyester shirt. With a mustard stain above the left hip, no less. It had to be mustard. The cliché stain. The mark of a greasy hotdog eater. The hotdog sits heavy in his gut. He could puke it up and save himself the extra millimeters of fat. Not here. The art gallery toilets deserve more respect. He should 54

start chewing his food into liquid nothingness and spitting it out. He got the idea in high school but could never follow through with it. It’s a requirement, swallowing; the grand finale of eating. Around him sits the major gallery debut of Jamie Erro. The hero of a generation, the crown prince of art, cutting through tradition right into your heart. So cliché. An enormous lightboard flickers in the next room, its thousands of colored LEDs swelling discordantly. The brightness of each light, Erro claims, reflects the sum of money in one of thousands of hacked online

bank accounts. Allan gives a nod to the brightest LED. Cheers, idiot. Is it art? Well, of course; this is the easy question. Allan has been over it a thousand times. Art is any expression of creative influence. To his left, Erro’s Steel Disk Suspended One-eighth Inch Above the Floor. It doesn’t have to be thoughtprovoking to be creative. You certainly didn’t think of it. Nor did Allan. He grimaces. His most abstract flights of fancy couldn’t hold a torch, couldn’t hold an LED to Erro. Clever. Allan can’t deny it: he considers himself more clever than most.

Harbor Outlook | Spencer Doerr | Seattle, Washington | digital photography

People used to laugh at his jokes, that is, when he spent time around people. Phoebe still affords him a chuckle once in a while. They’ve been married for nine years, since she was twenty-six. He knows her less today than he did then. She makes breakfast, he eats it, kisses her forehead. She looks him in the eyes, and he can still see something there, not attraction but maybe

cool embers. His are ash. Allan is ugly but so is she. He is past his prime, but she is thirtyfive. Oh, the horror. When he was nineteen, he figured he’d be practically dead by forty. Now he’s…now he’s by himself in an art gallery with a mustard stain on his shirt on a Wednesday. He doesn’t want that. He wants her. Yes, she is lovely. Tight grey dress,

high cheekbones, attractive figure. This is an art gallery; he can be polite for once. She could stand to lose the bangs, though. He would marry that woman right now, given the chance. Sanctify his lust under the state. She walks into the next room. He shuffles along with his face to the wall until he joins her in front of a black screen the size of a television. 55

They make exquisitely brief eye contact before she moves to the side, revealing a raised, black pad with two painted yellow footprints in the center on the floor in front of them. She has already turned her attention to the next piece down the line. He steps forward onto the pad and places his feet on the marks. The screen lights up, shines completely white. Slowly the light forms into individual chunks that drift off-screen, leaving only the number 43 in the center. His reflection winces at him. How does it know? He shifts his weight, eyes stuck to the number, then to the reflection. His stubble. The looseness under his chin. His eyes. That face—it follows him everywhere. He is more cliché than a car wreck, less amusing and more horrifying. He is the man in a generic police sketch, with the patches and the jowls and the neat hair—one redeeming quality, always. Why does he still hold on to his hair? One redeeming quality and nothing else. Mustard-stained clothes. He smells like mustard. That’s to be expected, though. That is the smell of middle age. He cannot be fortythree. Forty-three-year-olds look good in three-piece suits, they walk with confidence and even a little 56

wisdom. They love their young, the toilet seat. buoyant, beautiful wives. Allan still Allan swings over to the sink and trips on his own shoelaces. He is picks out the bigger chunks of glass, a steel disk suspended one-eighth tosses them in the trash can. Sorry. inch above losing his shit, and he is The cold water reveals two flaps forty-three years old. of skin dangling from his middle The woman stands fifteen feet knuckles. He takes a deep breath away, just about as close as she’d and splashes some bloody water on ever care to his face. No. be. She is His reflection winces at him. It will be fine. beautiful; he He is washing How does it know? is not. His his hands in breath burns all of this. like mustard gas. He could hit Cliché, clever bastard. something, put a hole in this damn Allan slurps from the running art gallery and stick his head in it. faucet and looks up to the mirror. And that would draw every stare in It is just a frame against wood. Very the building and every gasp, and artful, this Punched Mirror. Maybe they would look at him and know. he could suspend it one-eighth inch Every young, beautiful woman above the floor and maybe then would see him and every other these people would appreciate him. miserable forty-three-year-old and He leaves the bathroom with his would know that Allan gave in, hand buried in his pocket. that he failed. That’s right. He has A steward glances at him and already failed. quickly looks back to the gallery. Erro did not fail. Nobody fails. Yes, boy, this is the forty-threeAllan’s face must be screaming red year-old who was just shrieking in now. He stumbles into a hallway the bathroom. Keep your eyes on and throws open the bathroom the LEDs; this art is too real, too door. His fist goes through the mir- savage. ror, and he wails in shock. The door Allan breathes evenly. His time of closes, and he keels over the toilet, unrememberable being evaporates. heaving and weeping. He will stay Some excitement for the day; he here. His necktie soaks up toilet just got carried away. His art will water, but he doesn’t move until the never hang on these walls, but that, blood from his fist has covered half for now, is fine. v

Many Faces | Jimmy Kweon | acrylic | 18 x 12 in.

FIRECRACKERS vignette by mac holman

“Jamie, are you ready to throw your first firecracker?” my dad asks me on this joyous occasion. For fun, my dad sometimes throws firecrackers at cars that drive by. I have no idea why he does this, but he looks so excited to teach me. We wait for it to turn completely dark. The first car approaches our house. It looks like a normal van, so my dad lights the cracker up, and I toss it. A series of pops ensue, followed by the sound of screeching tires. Then, red and blue flashing lights. I look around, and my dad is nowhere to be seen. I’m bawling because as a seven-year-old, a policeman walking up to you can be very scary. The cop escorts me to the door, and my father opens it as if he has no idea what is going on. He’d snuck around the house, put on his robe, messed up his hair, and pulled out the newspaper. The officer explains what happened, and my dad says, “Officer, I am so sorry for my son’s behavior. This will never happen again.” As I come through the door, he whispers in my ear, “Do not tell your mom.” A childhood story from the author’s father, retold and dramatized by Mac.

Fireworks | Weston Wharton | Valley Mills, Texas | digital photography 58

MAGGIE nonfiction by fully bossong

y dad told the young girl at the desk that we were there to pick up Maggie.

We had just come back from the beach in my mom’s old Chevy Tahoe, and my dad and I had headed over to pick up our sweet Maggie from the kennel. The receptionist’s face was pale as she told us that someone had broken in the night before and unlocked all of the dogs’ cages. Only one of the dogs had not escaped. My stomach dropped. I knew there was no chance our Maggie hadn’t seized her freedom. Several years earlier, while my brother and I were at school and my parents away at work, men had come to our house to fix our air conditioning. One of the mechanics had accidentally knocked our backyard gate open. Maggie nosed her way out and took off, running all over our neighborhood and even into some very busy streets. It seemed 60

like a miracle when we found her next to the road near my Grandma’s house, and I was shocked that she had survived. I always knew Maggie was looking out for me. My parents had gotten her before they had me, so I didn’t know life without her. Whenever Maggie and I would head to my grandparent’s house just down the road, she would sit under the dining room table while the rest of us ate dinner. My grandfather always gave Maggie little scraps from his plate, which infuriated my dad. He said that this was going to teach her to eat from the table. He was right; sitting at dinner at home one night, my brother and I watched our broccoli and pork go cold. My mom was starting to get angry when Maggie came to our rescue. She walked over to my

chair, propped her two front legs on the dinner table, and cleared my whole plate in a matter of seconds. My little brother and I cheered. My mom yelled at Maggie and put her outside. She was the sweetest dog ever, so it was tough to see all the pain she went through. The world came down on her hard. Constantly bumping into things, Maggie clearly had problems. My dad eventually took her to the vet where we were told Maggie had gone blind due to a very rare condition affecting only one out of every tenthousand dogs. Standing in the kennel that day with my eyes on my feet, I waited to see what the receptionist had to say. My dad and I were dumbfounded when she told us that it was Maggie who was safe inside the kennel. Poor, blind old Maggie had decided to stay. v

Perplexed | Julian Beaujeu-Dufour | North Carolina | digital photography

Wheat | Mac Holman | Woodberry Forest, Virginia | digital photography

FRAGILE

vignette by freddie woltz

The glass stands impenetrable and impregnable. I grew up, and the glass was everything: transparent and clear, overflowing with a personality that could not be contained. Every tennis match was a drop of crystal clear water, every Wrightsville Beach vacation, every trip to the Pancake House. But just as the water was reaching the brim, the fog began to descend. Soon things became slower, facts harder to recall, but still all was goodâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;life went on. But the fog got thicker, and like the once clean air over the Rust Belt as the rust arrived, the glass darkened. I spent a year with my head in the sand, but the March diagnosis smoked me out to look the fog dead in the face. The glass was beginning to crack; we were helpless. Seeping out from the growing cracks was the clear water, and along with it memory, then personality, and finally the essence of life. We did what we could to pour our own water back in the glass, but this water is not the same. Our hands reach to capture the fleeting element, but to no avail. The glass is still there, so we reach out to grab it, but our hands come back with a lipstick-red cut along the palm. She and her water are gone, replaced by a foggy imitation.

Circle Landscape With Geometry | Julian Beaujeu-Dufour | pencil and marker | 11.5 x 8 in. 64

THE SAPLING vignette by ethan weber

I stand by a window in the sun, brushing against its glass. My twisted trunk holds sickly branches. Too small and knotted to grow tall and strong, I only block the windowâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s view, standing lonely and without purpose and rotting away with disease. A green sapling walks my way, ready to prove himself. He is followed by an elder tree with a grandfatherly smile. In the palms of his calloused hands, this old tree holds the wise lessons of a working man. The time has come to pass them down, and he looks at me with gratitude. He steps to a cracked brick wall where a sharp axe rests and grips the wooden handle. With an experienced motion, he splinters my bark like a crack of lightning. He nods to the sapling. Your turn. Dragging roots and drooping branches, the sapling hears the unspoken command, but the axe swings him more than he swings it. A chuckle escapes from the elder tree, and he steps back to watch without a word. Drawing a deep breath, the sapling lifts the axe higher and lets it fall to my trunk. Although glancing cuts and dull blows are all that strike me, I am slowly eaten away. The sun creeps down as his little breaths grow heavier. White knuckles grip the wood shaft. Red blood mixes with salty sweat as his blisters begin to open and sting. The axe bites and bites, and finally I begin to bow to the earth. As my rotting body falls to the ground, his small green chest rises a little higher, swelling with pride. Now I know my purpose; I was a lesson well taught. 65

66 Wylly | Asa McManamy | Highlands, North Carolina | digital photography

THE OUTLAWS OF IRVINGTON verse by ben antonio

Autumn sun, damp with fog, escapes the tops of trees in shining shafts of light that reveal expired leaves. A moldy quilt of crimson red disturbed by teenage zeal— this battleground of make-believe is mealed by cowboys’ heels. With plastic guns strapped on their backs— or muskets all the same— in hot pursuit of beastly foes as truthful as their aim, the outlaws chase forever, another scene begun. These acres are the sketchbooks in which their minds now run.

fiction by pen oldham

PHANTASM P

artridge Road dead-ended by Buie’s Diner, the old and crumbling white-brick restaurant that had nearly been devoured by an ever-expanding mountain of kudzu. The always-changing zoning laws made the restaurant a dangerous investment. When the real estate companies couldn’t sell the property, the deed was left to gather dust under a mountain of files in the city planner’s office downtown. Blain’s cousin Joel was the one who noticed the broken lock on the side door and suggested the adventure. Not wanting to disappoint, Blain obliged, although the situation probably wouldn’t make his mother too happy if she ever found out. The neighborhood moms tended to tell their kids to stay away from Partridge Road and Buie’s Diner: something wasn’t right with that place. 68

“Joel, are you sure about this?” The uncertainty in Blain’s voice must have been apparent to Joel, who was nothing if not brave. “Stop being so soft and follow me.” Blain stepped from the sidewalk to the asphalt parking lot that was littered with broken glass and plastic bottles. It was as if no one thought cleaning up the mess was worth it. Joel was already in the restaurant. “Come on! The door is wide open. I think it leads to the kitchen.” “What… what about our bikes?” Blain pointed a finger at the two red bicycles left on the sidewalk. “Leave ’em. No one comes

around here anyway.” If Blain didn’t follow his cousin, he would never hear the end of it. Joel seemed to enjoy jabbing Blain with little insults; Blain paid no mind. Stepping through the side door, he caught a whiff of what Joel aptly described as “shit covered rats,” and an odd amount of broken glass crunched under his feet. “Why are we here?” Blain whispered to Joel, who was across the room. “Why are you whispering?” The setting seemed straight out of the Stephen King novel their uncle read to the pair over Thanksgiving break in third grade. Blain didn’t sleep that week. He shook the thought and ran to catch up to Joel,

Lost In Time | Spencer Doerr | Valencia, Spain | digital photography

who stood frozen, staring into the dark corner on the other side of the dining room. Lucifer himself had taken over Joel’s body. A horrible falsetto shriek sent Blain reeling backwards and through the crumbling drywall. His heart pounded. He wasn’t sure

what was going on, but he knew one thing for certain. The place was haunted. A smile crept across Joel’s face. “I’m fucking with you. Jeez, loosen up.” Satan hadn’t found his way into the restaurant on Partridge Road. Not yet at least.

Blain shook the thick white dust from his hair and face and tried to stand. His feet were still stuck on the other side of the wall. Joel reached out and lifted Blain up by the front of his flannel shirt, pulled him back through to the other side, and inspected the Blain69

sized hole. It was clear enough to a rough, rectangular frame. He the both of them what was inside. moved his hand slightly left, feeling A staircase. a hatch that budged with a little “You’ve got to be kidding me,” force and allowed him to push the Blain said. “I almost died, and you door up to let his cousin through. want to stay in this creepy dump?” The room looked as if it were “Relax, Blain. A fall through probably used to store company drywall isn’t the files and worst beating seasonal Blain grasped for someyou could get.” decorations. thing to hold, but nothing Taking very “Is that a was in reach. threat?” The deliberate steps, two cracked up. they found It was rather odd, a restaurant their way to the center. having a second floor. In almost “What now?” Blain asked, total darkness, the two stumbled looking around for something to their way over a couple of do. cardboard boxes to the base of “Over there.” Joel pointed at the the stairs. The scurrying of what tarped-over items in the corner. sounded like rats came from the “Let’s check ’em out.” corner of the room. The floor creaked with every step Blain would rather not have to Blain took, and the lack of light deal with rabies shots anytime soon. made it even harder for him to “How are we supposed to see? It’s navigate as he reached a hand out pitch black.” and yanked the tarp. “Just make it to the top, and it’ll Blain staggered backwards. A be okay.” pair of glassy eyes stared deep Blain wasn’t sure if he could trust into his soul. An ominous aura. A his own steps, but he followed Joel ghostly apparition. A nightmarish around the spiral staircase before phantom. Blain grasped for colliding with something warm— something to hold, but nothing was Joel. “What the hell?” in reach. “Sorry. There’s some sort of He broke through the dry rotted trapdoor up here. Help me out.” floor. With a quick swivel mid-air, Blinded in the darkness, Blain he avoided landing on his back reached forward and touched but still hit the first floor hard on 70

his hands and knees. Through the newly torn holes in his corduroy pants, he could feel the cool crossbreeze that ran from the broken windows. Blain winced from the pain in his knees but stood still for a moment, wondering what his best course of action was. He remembered how Joel, in the summer after fifth grade, carried Blain back to their mountain house after he’d broken his ankle at the lake. He remembered last Christmas when Joel bought him a new fly rod from his own pocket money after he accidentally snapped Blain’s old rod. He remembered earlier that day when Joel drove to Blain’s house after hearing that he’d broken up with his girlfriend; that’s how this whole mess started anyway. It was Blain’s turn. Blain turned back through the restaurant and went up the stairs. He could hear a horrible cackling coming from the second floor as if the specter were somehow amused by this grisly scene. Blain crested the stairs and walked into the attic. His cousin sat on the floor, laughing and pointing at the monster that had caused this disaster. A naked mannequin in a Santa hat. v

The Town | Jason Zhang | Lawrence, Massachusetts | digital photography

Double Barrel | Tripp Hood | Woodberry Forest, Virginia | digital photography

TWO MALLARDS FLEW OUT FROM THE FOG

free verse by rex hallow

Two mallards flew out from the fog dancing around each other. Their green heads and golden beaks stood out on the grey canvas. Our guide and the ducks exchanged quacks, and they foolishly came too close to the boat. Like a dreadnought in battle, we fired almost a half a box of shells on those unlucky ducks. One skipped across the water like a stone and the other flew on, one duck dancing alone.

fiction by peter moore

ou missed these two girls who came into the club last night; their bikinis were so small they were practically...” Graham stopped listening. He did not want to hear his forty-yearold boss Nick go on about girls in skimpy swimsuits. Graham hated it here in the guard shack—a humid, dilapidated room sandwiched between a maintenance closet and the men’s bathroom as a treat for the employees. Claire, another lifeguard, sunk deeper into her chair at the sound of Nick’s story. After Nick was done, he grabbed the pack of cigarettes from his desk and went out to the parking lot. The silence comforted Graham until it was 8:00 a.m. Time to get on the stand. The sun’s light was fresh, shimmering off of the baby pool in front of him. The main pool was closed until nine, so for now, the only assignment was the dimly 74

lit indoor pool. The chorus of “Party in the USA” by Miley Cyrus pumped out of a boombox for the elderly women of the water aerobics class. It was going to be a long thirty minutes. He climbed up the guard chair and signaled Wanda, the leader, to begin. Graham hated water aerobics; the women did nothing, but you had to stay alert because one could drop at any minute. Six minutes into guarding the class, Graham was bored out of his mind. He couldn’t watch the elderly jog anymore. He turned to the clock and stared as it slowly ticked, resting his head on his palm. “Hey, lifeguard! Wake up!” The woman wearing a purple onepiece with her grey hair tied in a bun was still exercising, scissoring

her legs forwards and backwards while straddling a group of pool noodles. He had never seen her with this group, but she already felt comfortable scolding the lifeguard. “I wasn’t asleep.” “What the hell are they paying you for? Someone could drown!” The other women dropped their conversations and turned to Graham. The woman scrunched her face in anger, but Graham couldn’t help but smirk as he watched her exercise. Wanda yelled over the music, “Did you really fall asleep?” “No, I was awake; I was paying attention.” “That’s not true; your eyes were closed. I saw it,” said the woman who’d yelled at him the first time. “Yeah, like you could see.”

Nothing more was said. The conflict subsided, and the participants of water aerobics turned to face the boombox. The lady who called him out was still angry; she punched the pool barbells through the water with remarkable vigor. At pools, the angry old ladies are the ones who complain to the managers. For the next twenty-three minutes on the stand, Graham thought about what would happen if she talked to Nick. Graham had a friend who had been fired for sleeping on duty at another pool, so the thought of losing his job stuck in his head. But this was different. Nick was his manager, and he was different from most bosses. And Graham hadn’t actually fallen asleep. That said, if she complained, she would tell her version of the story. By 8:30, Graham had come to a conclusion: he should tell Nick what happened. It was responsible, and that way he could tell his side of the story first, and maybe Nick would be less likely to punish him. Graham got down from the stand and walked back to the guard shack. He sat close to Nick, so when he finally worked up the courage to tell him what happened, he could just turn and say it. By 8:40, he had played the scenario out enough times in his head to feel as if it were

a good idea. “Hey, Nick, can I tell you something?” “Sure,” Nick responded. “Well, I spaced out for a second while watching the water aerobics class, and a woman thought I was asleep when I was actually awake.”

Nick’s face immediately turned sour, and he leaned in closer. “Is she going to tell the GM?” “I don’t know, but I didn’t do anything wrong, did I?” “What do you mean? You have to pay attention when the old ladies

Corrections | Ben Antonio | acrylic | 24 x 18 in. 75

are swimming. You never know and poked his head out of the guard when one’s gonna go under. Do shack to double check that she had you realize how this makes the club left. He sighed with relief and then look? Your one job is to watch a disappointment. He had gotten pool. Is that too hard for you?” himself in trouble for no reason. He “No,” Graham answered blankstill had about six hours left in his faced. He had shift, and he never seen He tucked the tube under was determined Nick react to to be a great his arm and brought his anything this lifeguard so he whistle to his mouth. much before. would not get “You better fired. At 9:30, hope to God I don’t catch you Graham rotated to the outdoor doing it again.” pool, which was empty, but he felt Graham didn’t respond—for the need to be attentive anyway. once he had nothing to say. Nick At 10:00, following thirty walked out of the shack. As much minutes of watching nothing, as Graham regretted telling Nick he was pushed in the rotation to in the moment, he knew that when the indoor pool. For the first five the lady complained to Nick, it minutes, the pool was empty, yet would all be worth it. Graham remained focused. Then, At 9:00, the aerobics class ended, a frail man who looked to be in his and the participants shuffled out late seventies waded slowly down onto the pool deck. Leading them the ramp and entered the shallow was none other than the one who end. The old man made his way yelled at him. Nick had returned beyond six feet and began treading from his break and sat in the guard water. Graham wondered why shack next to Graham. someone in his condition would go The woman was slow with her to the deep end. movements, which only built up the Graham watched him like a hawk. suspense. She walked up to the door Every time the old man looked over, and leaned her head in. “Thank he saw Graham staring back, and you, guys. Have a nice rest of your the man continued treading water day.” And that was it. uncomfortably. He watched the old Graham got up from his spot man’s every movement; Graham’s

heart even skipped a beat every time the man bobbed up and down. Graham turned to check the time, but when he faced back to the pool, the old man was underwater. Graham quickly stood up. The ripples blurred the water, and he lost sight of the man completely. His chest tightened, and he grabbed the red tube next to him. Graham swept his head side to side, searching for any sign of the man resurfacing. He tucked the tube under his arm and brought his whistle to his mouth. Tweet, tweet, tweet! Graham threw down his whistle and javelined his red tube toward the old man. He cannonballed into the cold water, but the man had resurfaced by the time he reached him. Pushing the tube between the man’s back and his own stomach, Graham wrapped both arms around him. “What the hell are you doing?” the man cried, grasping Graham’s cheek and forcing his face to the water. Graham could not make out what else the man said, but it sounded urgent. “Don’t worry sir, you’re safe now; you can relax.” The man was struggling and continued yelling, but Graham just held him tighter. The other guards

were now at the ramp, reacting to the call Graham sent out before jumping into the water. When they got to the shallow end, the man wriggled his way out of Graham’s arms and stood up. Graham wondered if a drowning victim usually recovered this quickly, but he was a little fuzzy on the details of his training. “Are you serious?” the man scoffed before turning away. He walked up the ramp past the lifeguards, who were giggling now that nobody was drowning. “Sir, you need to fill out an incident report,” Graham said. The old man stopped walking and turned around. “Why, because you couldn’t pay attention?” The surrounding people waited for a response, but Graham stared at the water. Nick took the opportunity to break the silence. “Well, at least nobody drowned.” People turned away. The sun flooded through the panels of the window above him, but the air remained silent. Graham didn’t move. He was just glad he didn’t have to do CPR. v

Pelican | Liam King | acrylic | 24 x 18 in.

BRICK WALKWAYS (feat. Fountains)

verse by ryan kauffman

I looked up your tuition rates, your majors, your alums. I checked my chance of getting in and post-grad net incomes. I read your glossy pamphlet and I saw your glitzy show. I looked right through your PowerPoint and nodded, so youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d know. With any luck, it seemed as if Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d always wanted you, judging from the things I said during the interview. Brick Walkways (feat. Fountains): The song comes with the tour. Does anyone know for sure?

The Lonely Tower | Jassiem Konrad | Tuscany, Italy | digital photography

Thats Life | Aiden Stakem | Orange, Virginia | digital photography

Stopped in Time | Colin Kovacs | Monteverde, Costa Rica | digital photography

HOMETOWN

vignette by blythe brewster

I ran away to the river the other day. The ground was heaving and rocking, so I ran for a place where the trees and rocks and trails never change. The road was lined by something bright; goldenrod, I think. The old hay fields smelled like being eight years old again, like running ahead of my parents to the bend in the road where I always stopped. I knew better than to slip out of their sight. The air was heavy with a painful déjà vu. I walked around the bend on my own. I climbed up the hill at the end of the road, out of the tree cover. Blazing yellow and baby green spread in every direction, encircled by Blue Ridge foothills in the crook of the Rapidan. It was as if I could see for miles—back down the road, around the bend, and out of sight. Up the hill to my house. Up the hill to my school. In between the trees I climbed, and along the brick pathways I walked. Across the lawn where I hunted Easter eggs and rode my bike. I could see a Saturday in May in front of the Residence, across the path from the playground, white chairs and green bleachers and diplomas and happy tears. But I couldn’t see past that; everything beyond was fuzzy. I turned, breathed in the sunshine, and made my way home.

EDITORS Karen Broaddus

Blythe Brewster

Rich Broaddus

Peter Moore

Pen Oldham

Asa McManamy

Walker Simmons

Spence Whitman

editor-in-chief

senior editor

photography & design

art & design

blythe brewster

rhew deigl

walker simmons

spence whitman

junior editors

peter moore faculty advisors

asa mcmanamy

karen and rich broaddus 82

pen oldham

REVIEW BOARDS PROSE

Emmett Aydin Stephen Brice Henry Dworkin Ryan Kauffman Reed Taws Robert Triplett Cuatro Welder Freddie Woltz Fully Bossong Dawson Chitwood Chase Commander Milo Jacobs Clark Warren

POETRY

Stephen Brice Rex Hallow Ryan Kauffman Jassiem Konrad Luke McNabb Robert Triplett Freddie Woltz Sebastian Agasino Chase Commander Sam Long Hale Roberts Taeho Cha

PHOTOGRAPHY Benton Copeland Spencer Doerr Alex Forward Tripp Hood Jack Malone Jack Sloan Ben Antonio Willis He Hale Roberts Julian Beaujeu-Dufour Jun Kim Ben Monroe

Brothers Series | Miles Miller | acrylic | 24 x 18 in.

ART

Aiush Basnet Gabe Brown Liam King Hugh Monsted Carter Nicoletti Cuatro Welder Ben Antonio Jimmy Kweon Tyler Mills Miles Miller Hale Roberts Julian Beaujeu-Dufour Jun Kim

The Journey Begins | Asa McManamy | Seattle, Washington | digital photography

COLOPHON The word which you see on the cover is the product of the creative genius of the staff, and, with the exception of identical spelling and pronunciation, has no connection with any word in the English or any other language. In plain Woodberrian it has one meaning onlyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the literary magazine of your school.

This is the second edition of the 71st volume of The Talon, the semiannual literary arts publication of Woodberry Forest School. First published in 1949, the magazine was originally issued quarterly and cost 35 cents a copy. Publication of The Talon is now funded by Woodberry Forest School. The Talon editors encourage submissions from members of the Woodberry Forest community. All opinions expressed within this magazine are the intellectual property of the authors and artists and do not represent the views of Woodberry Forest School. Works are

Frank Davenport, Jr. 1949 Editor-in-chief

selected through blind review by student boards with expertise in the fields of art, prose, poetry, and photography. New editors are selected from the review boards and the student body by the current editors and the faculty advisors. Authors and artists can apply for review board membership at the end of each academic year. The editors of The Talon create the magazine in the course Design and Editing for Literary Arts Publications and during their free time. Blythe Brewster, Spence Whitman, and Walker Simmons designed the magazine with the

assistance of Peter Moore and Pen Oldham. This issue of The Talon was produced on iMacs using Adobe Creative Cloud. Titles and pull quotes are set in Avenir; body text and credits are set in Adobe Garamond Pro. McClung Companies in Waynesboro, Virginia prints from 700 to 1,000 perfect-bound copies. The magazines are distributed to the community by the editorial staff in December and June. The Talon is a member of the Columbia Scholastic Press Association and the National Scholastic Press Association.

THE TALON

SPRING 2020

VOL. 71, NO. 2

THE TALON SPRING 2020 WOODBERRY FOREST, VA 22989 WWW.WOODBERRY.ORG/TALON