DURHAM, NC—Arnold McCullum, a first-year student at Duke, remembers the first time he saw the Brodhead Center, colloquially and henceforth referred to as WU, at night.
“The scarlet and chartreuse hues emblazoned by the approaching rest of an eventful day were only magnified by the brutalist chef d’oeuvre that is WU. My friends and I instantly collapsed to the floor, as though felled by some great Behemoth demanding we demonstrate our unwavering reverence for the structure that has become synonymous with Duke itself.”
McCullum was one of a select handful of witnesses to watch Liam Narildea ‘24 attempt to immortalize the moment, defying the very non-permanence that gives such a sunset its resplendent beauty. Narildea opened Snapchat as though guided by the hands of God Themself and instinctively shared the beautiful snap to his seventy-four snapchat viewers, most of whom are recovering from the unimaginable beauty of the sunset in the hospital and are thus unavailable for comment. McCullum, though, has not spoken about anything other than the now legendary snap over the ensuing two days.
“I’ve just never seen anything like it. I mean, I’m a student at Duke, but I have never seen WU at night; it’s all thanks to heroes like Liam that we are able to appreciate the rareness of the sun retreating as the moon takes Her throne.”
As for Liam? Well, he has no plans to stop, commenting, “I’m just going to keep posting pictures of WU and captioning them ‘So lucky to go to my dream school.’ If it can inspire even one other person to be jealous of me, it will have been worth it.”
