I don’t remember if any questions of mine provoked my mother’s literary selection; but I do remember the sperm in top hats and tuxedos swimming a race in an Olympic size pool. When submerged, their hats become the dark fins of sharks; and the eggs, waiting patiently in veils on the far decks, did not seem startled by this. I don’t remember if my mother commented on this subliminal message of abstinence before marriage, or on the irony of using reproductive cells to do so; but I do contemplate the current fear of technology’s varied and debated influence on youth when there might possibly be a book still circulating that links men, their sperm, and marriage to sharks. Funny the messages we worry about sending and receiving and the others that swim beneath the radar. In this I learned that a book doesn’t need a murder to be a mystery; and at least an attempt at solving life’s mysteries is made in most books.