Challenge 350

The Fat Is in the Freezer

In Catfish Russ’s “A Morsel Off the Spit”:
1. Three soldiers converse briefly in German. Does it make any difference whether the reader understands them or not?
  Editor’s note: the author reports from a first-hand witness — a survivor of Auschwitz — that the language is authentic: the guards often used the formal “Sie” ironically in talking among themselves.
2. Yelena speculates, years later, about the origin of the mysterious visitor. What is the irony in the words “or from America”?
3. The conclusion implies a “larger story,” which is left for the reader to imagine. What might that story be?
In Bill Bowler’s The Bohemian, what impressions have you formed so far of Wally, Cynthia, and Mrak?
What is the subtext implied by the conclusion of Ron Van Sweringen’s “Big Shoes for a Big Girl”?
Who intends what to happen to Nadia in Diana Pollin’s “The Princess of Brighton Beach”? As a stylistic device, what does the story’s deformed spelling convey? Why does the spelling become regular toward the end?
Channie Greenberg’s “That Thermochromic Element” is a fable and apparently a children’s story. But not all fables are intended for children. Why might this one be limited in its appeal to a young audience?
What is Marta T. Coppola’s poem “Because My Mouth” all about?
Can someone please send us a point-form outline of the plot of Gabriel Timar’s The Hades Connection from chapter 1 to date?
Some of the language in D. A. Madigan’s excerpt from Time Watch had to be changed to meet Bewildering Stories’ publication guidelines. Can you tell where the changes were made?

Responses welcome!