Challenge 774

Those Projects, Hear Them Roar

In Gary Clifton’s A Lion in Summer: Not to spoil anybody‘s fun or anything, but how likely is it that anyone would be allowed to keep a lion as a pet in a city?
In Channie Greenberg’s Interdiction:
1. Aren’t wildebeest herbivores and prey animals?
2. Horses are herbivores, as well. Do the semi-horse, semi-human centaurs have a reputation for eating people?
In Mike Acker’s Memory in Bronze and Marble:
1. “I pretend to see a flicker in your eye / but not the pool of pain at your feet.” — Whose pain is it: the bronze statue’s or the marble statue’s?
2. Does the “pool” metaphor constitute inadvertent humor?
In EK Cutting’s Let Frank Handle It:
1. Is Jordan’s counselor remiss in not asking Jordan what his “project” is?
2. Why might Jordan’s “project” be named “Frank,” judging by the title?
3. What diagnosis might be made of Jordan’s condition?
In Ljubo Popovich’s What They Found in the Forest:
1. What is the function of Vaslav in the story? Would anything change substantially if the character were omitted? Why does he continue to talk even though no one understands him? Why is no attempt made to establish communication?
2. How does Eric alone escape being immobilized and rendered unconscious by the space alien?
3. What does the space alien appear to be doing with Liam’s corpse? Why might one surmise that the space aliens, technologically advanced though they seem to be, may be near extinction?
4. How does Cliff “decipher” Eric’s drawings on the cave wall? Why does Eric not simply write an account of what he has witnessed? Why does he not tell everybody what he has seen?
5. How does Cliff know that the dots and lines on the metal shard constitute a map of human settlements?
6. Is the story complete as it stands or is it an initial set of chapters in a larger story?

Responses welcome!