A Spotlight on Student Creativity - Writings and Visual Art

Submit your creative endeavors to spectator@stuart-hall.org to be featured in next month's edition!

There is a liger in my Backyard: A Short Story by Jennifer Simpson

There is a liger in my backyard. I first noticed this creature while I was boiling water for my morning coffee. I paused and watched it wander around, sniff at a weathered garden gnome, then disappeared into the woods that border my backyard. 

I continued to stare out the window, now at an empty yard, as I sipped my coffee. I wondered, how did that liger get in my backyard? Well, neither lions or tigers are native to Missoula Montana, so it must have been brought here. Racking my brain I could not come up with a reason someone would bring a big cat to Missoula. There are no zoos, wildlife parks, or places that would even have the facilities to care for such a large animal here. Well then, It must have escaped from transit. But who, or even why, would someone bring a liger to the northwestern United States?

After I finished my coffee I set the empty cup in the sink and continued to look into the rectangular patch of grass that had briefly held a liger. Was that even a liger? Could that just have been a deer, or a large dog?

I left my kitchen, and slowly wandered through my backyard. Standing in front of the wood’s edge I looked at the place where the liger had disappeared into. The hole in the dense shrubbery was about the size I imagined that a liger would be. Crawling through the hole I entered the forest. 

I had been back here a few times before, but I had never gone too far. I lived on the edge of a forest that merged into several large national forests. As I began to walk, I started thinking again. What would I do if I found this liger, if it’s even out here at all?  Then I began to contemplate the existence of ligers. I don’t know much about them, but surely a mix between a lion and a tiger could not have existed before the industrial revolution. The first liger was probably born in a European zoo. Most likely in France, that seems like something the French would do. Are ligers sterile like mules or are they like dogs? No, not dogs, maybe something like coyotes and wolves. Coyotes and wolves are a pretty good analogy for ligers. 

I paused. Standing in a semi-clearing, I realized that I had forgotten to eat breakfast.  As I was walking back to my house I came to the realization that there has probably never been, or never would be a liger in Missoula Montana. What I had thought was a liger was almost certainly a weird bear, or a deformed wolf. Most likely a large dog. 

Later that morning I looked out my kitchen window as I ate an omelet and thought,  But what if that was a liger?

Doorstep: A Writing Sample by an Anonymous Student

A cold winter night, befitting of the event transpiring. A tall man, covered in coats and fur approached the door, however, he did not knock. Instead, he began to rummage through the trunk that lay outside the window to his left. Several minutes passed, and another man approached, this one of equal coverage. 

“Interesting seeing you here tonight,” The second man began. “We all thought you wouldn’t come.” The first man did not seem to notice the second man, only continued to search the trunk. The second man made his way up the steps towards the first man. 

“Nice to see you too, Andreyev,” The first man said sharply as he held up a key, closing the trunk. The two of them approached the door and unlocked it. Warm yellow light bathed the two men as they set foot in the house.

Coordinated by Ingrid Anderson