(urth) Short Story 13: The Changeling

[Marc Aramini]

> 
> QUESTIONS: WHERE DID THOSE MISSING THREE YEARS GO?  WAS
> ANYONE REALLY SWAPPED? OR DID THEY FRAGMENT OFF LIKE NORTH
> AND SOUTH KOREA?  Why does Paul think the rock reaches
> his shore?  How are the mother and father the narrator
> remembers who died related to Papa and Mama Palmieri? 
> What about Maria and Paul?

So in light of Peter Palmer aka Lil Abner being born in 1931 the same year as Gene Wolfe, I favor the "swapped at birth" scenario where someone has removed Peter Palmer from his original family, the Palmieri's, and erased the memory of him.  His wrestling with him is not a split but a forced re-integration for a moment, where he receives some of the impressions of the life he should have had, including taking Peter Palmieri's place in the 4th grade picture when he was actually in the 7th grade, and therefore not in the picture.  

Two families - we don't have to make the narrator's dead father and mother jive with Papa, Mama, Maria, and Paul Palmieri if that is the scenario.