Challenge 631

Heads or Tails or What?

In Robert A. Lawler’s “The Fourth Side”:
1. John Henderson thinks of his coin as having three sides. But he is speaking figuratively, because one side changes in appearance. How might a coin be considered as literally having three sides?
2. What might happen if John Henderson did not take the coin to a laboratory but simply split it open, to see what might be inside?
In Charles C. Cole’s “Personal Investigation,” what is — or has been — the relationship between Detective Stratton and Dolan or Flynn? What clues can be found concerning it?
In Richard K. Perkins’ “A Few Pages of Elric in the Night,” might the poem refer to Michael Moorcock’s Elric of Melniboné? What might readers take from the poem even if they are unfamiliar with the allusion?
In E. B. Fischadler’s “Victor Frenchstone, Medical Student”:
1. Does Victor’s meeting the family of the person whose body he has just dissected raise questions of propriety or ethics? Might some other scenario allow for Victor’s state of mind at the end of the story?
2. What other course of study than physiology might help Victor answer his questions?
In Michael A. King’s “The Burden of the Box”:
1. The narrator discovers a box inscribed with the word “Remember.” What, exactly, does he remember, and what does it mean to him?
2. How might the plot and moral resemble those of Eleanor Lerman’s “What If There Is a Hidden World That We Can’t See?” How do they differ?