Challenge 979

To Put a Face on It

In Amita Basu’s The Revolutionaries: According to the reverse-history scenario, what personal and cultural flaws supposedly ascribed to Indians might be transferred to the British?
In Kjetil Jansen’s Days of Paint and Roses: Does Ramona kill little Willy with the rake, or does the child die by accident? What do Wilhelm and Ellen plan to tell the police?
In Shauna Checkley’s Shauna Had No Choice: Taking Shauna’s rental conditions as realistic, what stands in the way of homelessness for all renters in Shauna’s predicament?
In Harrison Kim’s The Squirrel-Faced Man: Would a squirrel-faced man be any more or less lonely as a man-faced squirrel?
In Sultana Raza’s A Vulnerable Feast for Cameras: Who — or, more exactly, what — is “she”? And where is her home now?
In Gary Clifton’s Due South of Nowhere: In part 3, Officer John Bob seems to take pleasure in using his shotgun to dismember systematically a threatening criminal. The explanation is: “This was not a confused kid in a bank lobby.” The bank lobby incident, recounted in part 1, has haunted John Bob for years. Why did he plead with the gunman “for over an hour” to put down his gun while four people lay dying on the floor? Did John Bob call for backup? Did anyone else? Does John Bob distinguish between threats simply by age? Is there more to the story than meets the eye?