Challenge 951

Fade to Red

1. In Joseph Carrabis’ Mani He:

   1. So far, which characters has Mani He called “Mother”? Why might he call them that? What other family relations are evoked, and with what characters?
   2. How many animals has Mani He met so far? What “lessons” have they taught him?

2. In Emil Draitser’s Salty Water:

   1. The readers know what Fima does not, that his stowing away in a camel caravan is a hopeless effort to go and meet his father. Despite the dramatic irony, what maintains the readers’ interest in Fima?
   2. What is the dramatic advantage in placing Fima’s narrative in parallel with that of the earlier flight from Odessa to Shurab?

3. In Martin Lochman’s Subletters: Why must the space aliens be “miniaturized,” i.e. made much smaller than humans? How might the story play out if the space aliens were, on average, the same size as humans?

4. In Philip Pak’s Arrivederci, Baby: At what point would a veteran follower of murder mysteries immediately suspect “the lemon man” as the culprit?

5. In Shauna Checkley’s Red Is the Original Colour:

   1. What does “original” seem to mean in the context of the poem?
   2. What has been the status of red — as opposed to, say, green and blue — in the social history of colors?
   3. Cain did not commit the “original sin.” Who did? What does “original sin” mean, anyway?
   4. The story of Cain and Abel prefigures the farmer-herdsman trope of American “wild west” films. In a Sumerian precedent, the two reach a peaceful accommodation. If red is the color of the Neolithic revolution, namely agriculture and urbanization, what might have been the color of the society it replaced?

Responses welcome!

Copyright © May 23, 2022 by Bewildering Stories
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