The Battle of Our Minds: Flesh and Blood

Arrival

As their vintage, blue Ford truck edged up to the New City visitor's parking lot, she was not quite sure if she wanted to bolt out of the vehicle, or bolt her way back to Middle of Nowhere, Georgia. The whole way there, Ben and Rachel lovingly "educated" Everly on the dangers of alcohol, drugs, and as expected, unprotected sex. While none of those topics were remotely enticing to Everly, she displayed respectful interest even though some of her favorite novels had educated her on those same topics years prior. She may have been homeschooled, but she did not live under a rock. She could not wait to get out of this extremely uncomfortable conversation. Plus, this place was gorgeous.

The first thing Everly noticed was the gothic building with towering, pointed steeple at the front of the campus. You'd think that tower would take you right upstairs to heaven. It was made out of brick and stone, and completely and utterly breathtaking. If you went inside, you could admire stained glass windows with pictures so vivid, you'd believe they come to life at night. The windows definitely told a story, but she didn't have time to go read into it at the moment. Rumor had it, elite students lived in this building. Within its walls, there were hidden rooms where secret societies would gather. This school was already top notch. Only students with near perfect GPAs and test scores were admitted. On top of that, students had to have an array of accomplishments. Some had even cured diseases. To think that you could distinguish an elite group of students from a population such as this school's was inconceivable. Everly still wasn't sure how she got in. She did score high on the SAT, but she had done practically nothing besides work for her dad her whole life. She hadn't cured a disease. She hadn't been president of any high school organizations. She'd barely ever volunteered besides helping in the nursery at church. Yes, she was smart. Brilliant even. But half the kids here were brilliant and had incredible accomplishments on top of that. What made Everly so special?

As she peered through the truck window, Everly began to notice the other buildings around campus. Most of them matched the gothic building, but they were much less impressive. It's not that they weren't beautiful, but for the most part, they weren't nearly as large. Like the gothic building, these other buildings were also made out of brick and stone. There was a total of seven. They were all a little different in form, but they matched like a perfect set and formed a circle, all facing a bright green patch of grass situated in the center of campus. Everly's eyes were drawn to the only other structure almost as expansive as the gothic building. Rather than ascending with a giant steeple at the top, this building was like a giant cube. Everly knew this place to be the library, and likely, her soon to be favorite place on campus. From her hours of research on New City University, the selling point was its library. Its archives held dozens of books that are hundreds of years old, some of which are the only known, copies. It is commonly known that the head librarian here has an objective eye, and she seeks to preserve history and truth in its purest form. She's one of the many faculty members that makes this university go round.

New City University is known to be one of the most competitive in the nation – and for good reason. The faculty here are composed of near-famous intellectuals – people who have wrote novels, solved supposedly unsolvable equations, worked for NASA, and worked with the president himself. None of these people are household names, but instead, they are gifted individuals who preferred to live a simpler scholarly life of working for one of the oldest and most elite universities in the nation. The original president of New City University sought to create an institution that was unlike any other. He wanted to cultivate minds and knew that it took a mind to make a mind.

The story goes that Matthew Newman was a prominent businessman and small-town figure in Covington, Georgia. He created New City University, a play on his last name, in order to put his small town on the map and create a university that would provide his two daughters with an educational pathway during a time where educating females was frowned upon. His town was going to be a new kind of city: one of intellectual strength and opportunity for everyone. After attending a university, himself, he knew that formal education provides knowledge and knowledge provides power. He began to seek out gifted minds in each of the four main subject areas, and one mind for the library and its soon-to-be archives. This University was built on these five minds and the dream of Matthew Newman to give his girls a shot at formal education and power of their own. The two girls went on to get their PhD's in educational leadership and ran the college as co-presidents for the duration of their life, building their father's legacy to honor the gift he gave them. Those girls passed the school down to their children, and so on, and so forth.