Challenge 978
Your Ship Has Sailed
In Shauna Checkley’s Lucky Clover Leaf:
- Why might Vern’s vehicle be equipped with child-safety locks? Would children of Jemma’s and Paisley’s ages be unable to escape in an emergency?
Is the story about Jemma and Paisley, or is it about Vern? Any girls of Jemma’s and Paisley’s ages would be kidnapped, raped and murdered in the story’s scenario. Does Vern have a change of heart or does he deliberately put on an act in order to scare some sense into them? In either case, why?
In Silvia E. Hines’ Kindertransport: The history of the Kindertransport and children refugees moving from Europe to Britain in 1939 is known to history. What, then, is the main theme of the story?
In A. S. Mehta’s An Encounter With a Life:
- Wozniak asks Dr. Meta to return “The Boy” to its originator. Why did he steal the painting in the first place?
Why is Dr. Meta right to conclude that Wozniak had led a life of the spirit? What kind of life does Dr. Meta’s fellow intern, Chris, seem to be leading?
In Danielle R. Morrison’s The Baker on Chambers Street: Is it necessary that Aster and her associates be fantastical spirits? Could they be human for the purposes of the story?
In Charles C. Cole»’s Moving Lips:
- What elements of the story might be autobiographical? Which are most likely fictional?
- What does the partially silent conversation between Charlie and John accomplish for the two friends?
In Thomas R.’s Ship Upon an Unending Ocean:
- Why might the ship be justified in dismissing as “pure nonsense” the message from “far away” that life is merely a “failed Dyson Sphere”? The message comes from the distant past; what might its imagery have meant?
How does the poem differ in tone from that of the majority of existential poems published in Bewildering Stories in, say, the last five years?
What is a Bewildering Stories Challenge?
