After Dinner Conversation

How should adults help children who are being bullied? How is childhood trauma adapted into adult relationships? In this work of philosophical short story fiction, Celia has been married six years to Jason, an ex-military man 20 years her senior. Celia’s child, Theo, is the result of Celia’s abusive father raping her as a teen. Theo is a short, overweight, awkward child who is teased at school. Jason continues to try to tease him and create experiences to “make a man out of him.” One day, when Jason and Theo go fishing, Theo is laughed at once too often and pushes Jason off the bridge, to his death. Now Celia is left to decide if she tells the truth about what happened, or tries to frame the death as a slip and fall accident.

How do you know if the government-imposed limits on personal freedom “for your protection” have gone too far? Are there certain risks the government shouldn’t protect people from? In this work of philosophical short story fiction, Zoe gets a knock on her door from the Department of Public Health. They have detected increased biochemical signatures that lead them to believe she has been having sexual intercourse without a properly filed Intimate Partnership Agreement (IPA). The IPA’s are for her protection to ensure that any potential partners are disease free. Initially, she denies the accusations, but the evidence from her Livewell stream is overwhelming. This time, it’s just a fine, but if it happens again the punishments will get more severe, all the way up to having points deducted from her social confidence rating. The government employees leave and Zoe heads back into the bedroom to find her one-night stand has committed suicide.

Can the stakes ever be so high that genocide of a species is a reasonable option? Is this ever the kind of choice you should put to a democratic vote? In this work of philosophical short story fiction, a civilization-sized space ship has been flying to populate the surrounding solar systems. They start with a skeleton crew, use ship resources and grow their population over generations, then arrive at a new planet. They drop off the extra people, replenish their raw resources, and do it all again. All is well until a weak radio signal makes them realize they are heading towards a planet that likely already has sentient alien life. If they don’t stop, their population will burst at the seams in the ship and they will likely run out of resources before the next solar system. If they do stop, they are likely to, over time, subjugate the indigenous population. They have just weeks to decide if they plan to make a course correction.

Is there an appropriate way for those in power to blow off steam? Are teachers ever allowed to speak in a derogatory manner about students? In this work of philosophical short story fiction, Ethan is an intelligent loner high school Junior. His sister has gone off to the Air Force, and his mother recently died while driving drunk. One day he is approached by two of the popular girls in school who offer him $100 to hack into the school computer system and rig the Cotillion Queen voting results. He agrees, steals a teacher’s password, and logs into the teacher intranet to change the election results. While in the system he finds various “teacher only” discussion threads. In the threads, teaches talk candidly about which students they like and dislike. They also crack jokes about students, and generally say off-color remarks, including a few about Ethan. Ethan screen captures the conversations and emails them to the school and parents. Consequently, he is serving the remainder of the school year in In-School-Suspension.

Are we just the sum of our memories? Is erasing all the memories of a person more, or less humane, than the death penalty? In this work of philosophical short story fiction, a member of the diplomatic corps recounts the history of Etescanate people and the evolution of their implantation of the death penalty over the centuries. Initially, the death penalty was a drawn out, painful and public affair. As time progressed, it remained public, but became more humane. With the advent of new technologies, it was moved indoors as a private affair where electrical shocks or injections were used. Now, the Etescanate people believe they have found the most humane form of capital punishment, complete memory erasure. Those that are found guilty of the most serious crimes are given a chemical cocktail that completely erases their minds of their entire past. There is one caveat to this punishment, while the government has outlawed killing by the state, it still leaves open the possibility of killing by others and, in some cases, the convicted opt to be killed privately instead.