Challenge 1089

Four Are a Good Start

1. In Samuel H. Pillsbury’s Customer Service:

   1. Harrison has been kept alive by advanced technology. What is wrong with his health?
   2. Why has the corporation that produces the technology decided to abandon it? Why does Harrison think he deserves to have continued access to the mechanism?

2. In Shauna Checkley’s All Manner of Broken Things:

   1. Lexi’s father, Dave, Is an “offstage” character, but is he entirely without a function? What does the account of his status imply for the characters of Leah and, especially, Pearl?
   2. Is the character Pearl entirely necessary? What would happen to the narrative if Leah had Pearl’s problems in addition to her own? Where would Lexi go, at the end, if not to Pearl’s apartment?

3. In Amita Basu’s Mirror: Does the excretory ritual at the end of part 3b resemble any report or rumor from a contemporary source concerning Adolf Hitler?

4. In Robin Helweg-Larsen’s In the Spring:

   1. The word “glower” implies disapproval. How is it connected to the poem’s conclusion?
   2. How does the poem conclude? Does it take an explicit position concerning age and youth?

5. In In John D. Connelley’s Death of the Four Elements:

   1. What were the original four elements? By what have they been replaced as “elements”?
   2. How does the image suggest or represent the four elements?
   3. At least two of the markers have Chinese characters. What might they mean?
   4. Were the four elements unscientific in their time?
   
   

   Responses welcome!

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