Challenge 488

An Eye for a Glass Eye

1. In Harry Lang’s “Mr. Butterfly”;

   1. What is the significance of the title? Why is it “Mr. Buttefly” rather than, say, “Frederick and Magda”?
   2. There are two murders in the story: one literal, one figurative. What is the figurative murder?
   3. Frederick is willing to perform an act of contrition by going to confession. Why does he feel he cannot take communion?

2. In T. Fox Dunham’s “Mr. Bird Whistling in the Night”: Why is the warden unconcerned about “Mr. Bird’s” supposed disappearance from the jail cell?

3. In Louis B. Shalako’s “The Apparition of the Virgin”:

   1. The story consists of two separate stories related only by two characters’ visions of the supernatural. How do the two stories contrast with one another?
   2. Perk and Geordie are egregiously — and deliberately — unbelievable characters. What do they parody? What moral might the story imply?

4. In Kenneth C. Goldman’s “Another Day in the Park”:

   1. Who or what is Emily O’Brien? What is her function in the story?
   2. Is “Another Day...” a story or a vignette?

5. In Saurabh Bhatia’s “Wormhole Monologue”:

   1. Do the repetitions and verb tense inconsistencies indicate a time loop?
   2. Does the plot overstep Bewildering Stories’ guideline about stories that end with “But it was all a dream” or the equivalent? Are time-loop stories ipso facto self-contained “dream” stories?

Responses welcome!

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