Challenge 153

Around the Merry Magic-Go-Round

Every single one of the stories and essays in this issue deals in some way with serious emotional problems. In most cases they’re obvious; in others, a little less so. In euhal allen’s The Bridge, Me’Avi despises Earthlings in reaction to her parents’ deserting her for them when she was a child. In Roberto Sanhueza’s “For Your Eyes Only,” Flaco and Macarena are blinded, both in their own ways, by lust for power.

Emotional issues can be dealt with by magic, whether it calls itself that or not. How might that happen?

First, let’s bid farewell to two long-running serials that conclude in this issue:

In “Nameless in a Faceless City,” Prakash Kona talks about “orgasms” partly in a literal sense and partly as a metaphor for the creative impulse. What stifles that impulse? Does narration perform a kind of magical cure for the repression?
Michael J A Tyzuk’s “Tangled Threads, Tangled Strings” raises some questions that fit with the theme of this issue’s Challenge:
1. Are Tamara Thomson’s feelings of guilt at Alan’s death earned or unearned? Or is she tormented by having to kill — in self-defense — someone who was no longer the person she loved?
2. Tamara’s psychological problems are discussed at length in “Tangled Threads.” What would happen to the story if Jeremy and Tamara talked and acted more like policemen and less like psychotherapists moonlighting as cops?
3. Is there any similarity between the roles of Jeremy and Tamara, in “Tangled,” and those of Mr. Santos and Dr. Anderson, respectively, in “Iwayu”?

Other stories in this issue have magic playing a central or at least a crucial auxiliary role:

Pedro Blas González’ “Iwayu”
Gillian Marshall’s “Bed Bugs”
Gracie Motley’s “The Back Yard”
Rachel Parson’s “I Still Wake From My Nightmares”

In “Nightmares,” magic is seen mostly by its effects, such as Rhiannon’s unclothed state. Does magic play any other part in the story so far? You’ll have to go back to part 1 for the answer. In the other stories, the visual aspect of magic plays a larger role: ominous shadows, deadly insects, a shaman with his totems and night-time ritual.

The Challenge is:

Rationalize all four stories. How might they be told without the use of magic? What other means might you use? Psychiatry? A pistol? A can of barbecue starter and a cigarette lighter? A skin allergy?
How would rationalizing the stories change the characters?
1. How would Dr. Anderson’s life be changed, in “Iwayu”?
2. Might Derek and Cynthia, in “Bed Bugs,” be revealed as having deadly serious marital problems?
3. Might Jubal and Lola, in “The Back Yard,” be transformed from victims saved by magic into rebels who save themselves by fire?
4. Would Rhiannon become a comic or tragic character rather than a heroic victim?

Please send us your ideas!