After Dinner Conversation

How many times would you choose to be reborn? How many times would it take to get it right? In this work of philosophical short story fiction, the narrator lives and dies, and after death, sees the option to try living life again. In his first time he kills himself over a failed love. In his next life he chases power. In the next life, fame. The next time he tries the simple life with a spouse, a family, and an otherwise uneventful existence. Each time he lives and dies he is given the choice to try again while keeping the “instinctual memory” of the time before. How many times will he repeat the process when each time seems to give him an unsatisfactory result. Finally, he questions the being he keeps meeting in the afterlife and wonders if, perhaps, it’s not him, but the being, that has to “Play Again.”

What is your obligation to your child, when it’s your child putting your sobriety at risk? In this work of philosophical short story fiction, the narrator is at the laundry mat when her phone rings, it’s Kathleen, her estranged drug dealing daughter. The narrator was a meth addict for years, and her daughter was a meth dealer. When the narrator finally hit rock bottom, one of the things that had to happen was getting away from her drug dealing daughter. She is on the road to recovery and even has a new, relatively, supportive boyfriend. She picks up the phone and her teenage daughter makes a strange request, she wants to move in with her older boyfriend, but he won’t agree to let her move in unless they are married. The narrator reluctantly agrees, lies to her husband, and has a friend drive her to the court house the next day to meet her daughter, and her husband. The narrator has doubts about the new husband, and about their future. She questions, however, what right she has to deny her daughter her request. Things come to a head when the police arrive and the truth comes out.

What is it about imagining the future, that makes the present so difficult? When should we walk away from technology? In this work of philosophical short story fiction, Greta lives in a future where technology is pervasive in our lives. Our smart clothes track our sweat, heart rate, and other body functions. Our phone tracks our viewing habits and steers us towards our goal with the aid of our smart refrigerator and our smart home. Technology even shows Greta how each of her choices effect what her future child’s life might become. This is wonderful, but it also keeps Greta living and worried about the future and too nervous to relax, be intimate with her husband, and conceive the child she sees on her phone every day. Finally, she is able to turn off the technology, and interact with her husband one-on-one, but was the problem ever really the technology?

Should you take an attacker’s life to save an innocent person? What if the innocent person doesn’t want you to? In this work of philosophical short story fiction set in the Old West, a law man is put on a train as backup to protect a safe full of money heading west. While on the train, he meets a preacher and his wife headed to the same town. Mid-trip the local gang springs into action, starts shooting up the train, and going after the safe. One of the younger of the gang panics and grabs the preacher’s wife and puts a gun to her head as a hostage. The lawman knows he has a clean shot and can drop the man, but the preacher pleads against taking the life of another, even in defense of his wife. The young man panics, kills the wife, and spreads her blood all over the preacher’s face, before being apprehend. The lawman is disappointed, but the preacher goes to speak (unsuccessfully) at the criminal’s sentencing and asks the court to spare his life.

How do we decide what meat is acceptable to eat? In this philosophical short story fiction, a crew of over a 100 are onboard a ship, and slowly starving. The captain is worried they might all starve before finding their way to shoreline. They try fishing off the side of the boat, the but seas are uncharacteristically empty, that is, until they net a mermaid. As the unconscious mermaid hangs upside down the cook, the captain, and key members of the crew try to decide what to do with her, or “it” as the captain prefer they call her. It’s unclear if she is able to speak or understand them, as she is unconscious. A few of the crew argue against eating her, or at least telling the whole crew about her and giving them each the choice. The captain, however, is unwavering and insists that “meat is meat” and they should get to work planning dinner.

How should you treat a parent who doesn’t remember you? Is it okay to lie to make them happy? In this work of philosophical short story fiction, the narrator goes over to visit her Alzheimer’s father so her mother can take a break from looking after him. Like every trip to visit her father, the conversations revolve around him telling the same stories of things that happened 30 years earlier over, and over again. Conversely, he struggles to remember other parts of his own past, like a trip to Europe, as the names of his children. The narrator decides it’s okay to simply listen, agree, and lie in order to keep the peace. At one point, she decides to briefly leave the house and reenter to see if her father remembers she was there just minutes earlier; he does not remember. Finally, her mother comes home from her reprieve her she is able to go home to her partner and a waiting drink.

When is “reasonable discussion” no longer an option? Under what conditions are we no longer required to listen and consider the opinions of others? In this work of philosophical short story fiction, the elderly narrator has two children who are no longer speaking to each other because of the upcoming election. One child supports liberal, open immigration policies, while the other supports the populist, emotional, and charismatic leader who believes in shutting down borders. There is a rally, and a counter-rally. The two protesting groups begin to merge for a pending street conflict. To stop the conflict, the narrator walks into the street with a bag of groceries, intentionally slips, and injures herself. She is helped up by her nursing aid, Asael, and members of the two conflicting groups. The video of the groups working together goes viral, making both seem like reasonable people. The populist candidate wins the election by a narrow margin and passes his anti-immigration laws. Shortly thereafter, Asael is in a car accident, and it deported to the violent country of his birth while his legal wife and family stay in the United States. Asael is tortured and killed in his home country. The narrator regrets ever having tried to stay moderate in the discussion, and regrets her role in making the populist candidate seem reasonable.

Would you accept a personality replacement? In this work of philosophical short story fiction, Stanley is an awkward kid growing up to be an awkward adult. He struggles with depression, ADHD, anxiety, and just generally fitting in. He struggles to make friends in high school, and has only one friend in college, although his anxiety keeps him from spending too much time with him. In short, life, at least from Stanley’s perspective, is a never-ending string of misery. Echo is a new technology marketed as a “personality replacement.” First used to reform criminals, it is now being offered to the public to correct various mental disorders. Much to the frustration of his sister and college friend, Stanley pays to be Echoed, and is reborn a happy, confident, and different, person.

Should we patch our brain for better performance? In this work of philosophical short story fiction, Peter Lonsdale is the creator of a Campaign Against Intellectual Discrimination; a worldwide effort to stop discrimination of those with lower mental abilities. As part of his pursuit, he created the company CAID, which focuses on brain patches that rewire the brain for intelligence, patience, focus, and other traits. Peter, as the founder and chief evangelist for patches, has taken more than he can count, probably 100’s. When the press gets a leaked scanned of his brain, showing just how many patches “Pincushion Pete” has taken over the year, it’s a public relations nightmare. Peter is forced to resign as head of the company he founded, and reflect on how to spin the story to allow for a comeback. Whatever course he takes to orchestrate his comeback, he’s going to do it with his patches in place. Nothing is coming out.

At what point should a child be taken away from their parents? In this work of philosophical short story fiction, Lydia Lowry has a problem, the government is going to take her child away and put her in foster care. However, they have a reason, Lydia’s trailer is a disaster; it’s practically a biohazard. Lydia goes to visit the narrator, an attorney, in the hopes that she can help her keep her child. The narrator, no fan of child protective services, gets a few friends to agree to head out to Lydia’s house to clean it and get the government off her back. When they arrive, they find a mobile home covered in cat urine and feces, no hot water, and a pile of trash four feet high in the front yard. After several hours of cleaning, the narrator and her friends get dizzy from the toxic fumes. They give up on cleaning, and leave. The narrator is able to convince Lydia the best course of action is to have her daughter move to California and live with their better-off relatives until she turns eighteen. It’s not exactly a classic success story, but the narrator tells herself, not every story is.

Should everyone be a parent, at least for a summer? In this work of philosophical short story fiction, the narrator lives in a dystopian future where climate change has made it illegal to have children without government permission. This has given rise to super realistic robot children that can be purchased or, for those that can’t afford to purchase, rented. The narrator has a strong desire to be a mother and has, for the last 10 years, rented the same seven- and five-year-old robot girls each summer to parent. It’s an expensive habit, but she loves her summers taking her “children” to the local swimming pool. She loves reading them stories at bedtime, and tucking them in. As the summer winds down, trauma hits as one of her girls shuts down. She has reached the end of her service cycle. The narrator is devastated by the loss of her child, even though her younger daughter hardly seems to notice the loss at all.

How much science does the government need to change policy? In this philosophical short story fiction, Dr. Robert Flose is a botanist studying plants. For many years now, eating meat has been banned, but Dr. Flose has concerns about plants as well. Finally, he devises a tool that is able to measure levels of thought, feeling, and sentience, in all things. Much to his surprise, he finds plants are a higher life form than both humans and animals. And, unlike animals, they continue to live when separated from their base plant. In fact, the very salad on his plate screams out when it is eaten, if only humans had the tools to hear it. Dr. Flose presents his findings to the President, and is sent to a top-secret base to continue his research. His research confirms his findings again and again as he becomes increasingly more concerned about the daily genocide happening on dinner plates across the world. In the end, the government has him killed.

How do you help an alcoholic? When, if ever, do you leave them? In this work of philosophical short story fiction, Raymond and Dorothy are married. They met in a bar after college and moved to the big city for Raymond to start a job and Dorothy to raise their children. Dorothy was never a good cook, but Raymond could always make a good martini. As time passes and the children grow up, stay-at-home Dorothy leans more and more on the bottle. Things come to a head when Raymond comes home from work and finds Dorothy passed on the floor of their bedroom. He wants to help, but doesn’t know how. He decides the best thing to do is to open a local gallery for one of their children to display and sell her art. Dorothy, he thinks, can run the shop and get out of the house. The gallery opening is a success, but Dorothy is busy sneaking a drink in the bathroom. It seems she is not yet ready to get sober.

Are the pious loved by the gods because they are pious, or are they pious because they are loved by the gods?” In this work of philosophical short story fiction, Professor Adamson and the narrator discuss Euthyphro’s dilemma. The narrator is invited by her professor to follow her into the woods and to meet a reclusive revolutionary leader. The professor, and the revolutionary group, want to overthrow the government because voting rights, and other civil rights, have been severely restricted by the government. The legal ability to change the government through voting is a “near impossibility.” On her way to meet the leader, the narrator meets an angel who informs her that the future revolution will fail, and many will be hurt in the process. The angel tells the narrator she must kill her professor to help humanity. The narrator is unsure what to do and, during their walk, discusses the dilemma she is in; a practical application of Euthyphro’s dilemma. The story ends in the final moment, knife in hand, when the narrator is about to decide what she will do.