Challenge 689

Mollusc Mail

In Channie Greenberg’s “Shredded Pages”:
1. What details in the correspondence between Owmapow and De Silva date the story to the early years of the Internet? Would you expect such a thing to happen today?
2. As a couple, do Owmapow and Carolyn deserve each other? Is their budding relationship spoiled by an accident or by something either or both of them do?
In Shola Balogun’s “Martyr’s Day”:
1. Where, primarily, and by whom is Martyr’s Day observed?
2. Where is Alipore Jail, and what was its special function?
In Richard Stevenson’s “Batsquatch,” please send us a vocal and musical accompaniment.
In Bill Kowaleski’s “A Visit to a Doctor”:
1. What does Jiri’s experience in the office-building lobby tell us about the buildings Jiri is familiar with, even among the wealthies?
2. Jiri’s parents now live on the top floor of an apartment building. Why might quarters on a top floor be less desirable than ones on a lower floor in their neighborhood?
3. What kind of injection might Bain want the doctor to give Jiri? Might it be timely or, in view of Bain’s relationship with Jiri, might it be coming a little late?
4. Both the doctor and Jiri make dangerously unguarded comments: the doctor lets slip one to Bain and Jiri, to DeShaun. What do they say that might foreshadow very serious trouble for both the doctor and Jiri?