Challenge 856

Hamster Wheels

In Marjorie Sadin’s An Apology, what do you think of the narrator? Is there a reconciliation or does the apology seem to be one-sided? Is the narrator sincere or cynical?
In Richard Fleming’s Red Umbrella, what kind of imagery does the poem use to express love, loss and the passage of time: visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, some other?
In Jeremiah Minihan’s To Darkness and to Me:
1. How old is Sam relative to Barry Hadley? How does Barry feel about her?
2. Does Barry have a tragic flaw? List the challenges in his life and his missed opportunities.
In Gordon Sun’s Repetitive Motion Injury:
1. Why does Derek wear a wrist brace?
2. If Project 6012 succeeded as Derek describes it, of what use would it be to a “business strategy”? How would the device ultimately be used?
3. Has the project already begun to succeed in an unexpected way? What does the project’s concept imply about the practical efficiency of human memory?
In Bill Kowaleski’s In Gaborone, Elka discovers a newspaper reporting that fusion power stations are in widespread use in Gaborone. Aside from their fuel and source of manufacture, do they differ much from Diesel or gasoline-powered generators? Would a single generator need to be much larger to power the entire city?
In Thomas Dylan Daniel’s The Price of Bliss Eternal, an experiment tests the “many worlds” hypothesis.
1. In what way does the “many worlds” hypothesis itself confirm a long-standing Bewildering Stories motto: “Something that can mean anything means nothing”?
2. The “experiment” in “The Price of Bliss Eternal” reuses, after a fashion, the “crossroads” premise, where a character returns to a crucial point in his or her life and makes a different decision. Usually, three or four scenarios, at most, are sufficient. Can you cite such a story or one that uses a similar premise?

Responses welcome!