After Dinner Conversation

Would you kill your best friend if you found out he raped someone? In this work of philosophical short story fiction, the narrator is a sophomore in college who spends time with her friend, a drug dealing college student named Nate, and his law school friend Jack. They all get together to drink, smoke pot, and have long philosophical debates. One night at a party the narrator wakes up to find Jack having sex with her. She waits until the party is over and tells Nate that Jack raped her. Nate comforts her, and supporters her, although she opts not to press charges, she tells Nate she wants Jack dead When Jack calls her to say he had a good time, and ask her out on a date, she refuses. The group grows apart until a year later, word gets back that Jack was at a party at Nate’s house when he drank to much and died of alcohol poisoning. Oddly, the police find nothing when questioning Nate because this is the one party where Nate, a drug dealer, doesn’t have drugs in the house. They never talk again, but the narrator wonders if Nate followed through and killed Jack. She hopes he did.

What does it mean to have freedom? How do you find the essence of a thing? Is it possible to ever free yourself from structure? In this work of philosophical short story fiction, Alice has long ago left Wonderland and has resigned her days to staying in from the rain and studying her books. However, each night she has a nightmare of Everything coming to chase her. She falls back through the looking-glass into Wonderland and finds a very different world where things make sense. The Red Queen is angry because the playing cards are on strike and want more freedom. The Red Queen argues the playing cards have freedom, and are equal, because they all equally inferior to her and are free from having to make choices. She asks Alice to find and kill the Jabberwocky to restore nonsense to wonderland. After meeting Foster Wallace, and his mirror twin, she thinks she is ready. Alice fights the Jabberwocky by, literally, drawing her sword, and returns to her home with an understanding that the answer to structure is play.

How would the world change if God implanted the simple phrase, “You have no enemies” into everyone living person on earth, simultaneously? In this work of philosophical short story fiction, an impossible thing happens, every living creature on earth, from people to the animals, simultaneously have a phrase from God implanted into their minds. Everyone hears it, and no one doubts it is from God. The phrase is “You have no enemies.” While the basic nature of people does not change, many other things do. Wars become less common; discrimination becomes almost non-existence. People are kinder to each other and, while they still disagree, they do so in a civil way. Atheism is non-existent overnight. The question is, if this really did happen, would this really be the result?

What are the problems of dating some older than yourself? How do you know if the differences are related to age, or something else? In this work of philosophical short story fiction, Brady is dating her former college professor, Jeff. Jeff, unlike Brandy, has been out in the “real world” and worked for a living. Their relationship is just starting and Brandy is given a simple task, “buy shampoo for the weekend trip they, and Jeff’s friends, are going on.” This starts the ball rolling on Brandy’s insecurities about what kind of shampoo to buy? What do people with money buy? When she arrives to meet his friends, things don’t go much better as Brandy feels like an outsider and makes social mistakes because she is not accustomed to living in the out of college world. In the end, Jeff falls asleep on the couch and leaves Brandy to sleep on the floor, due to lack of space. Did he do this on purpose, or is Brandy simply reading too much into the entire experience?

Is sin inherent in choice? Is sin simply a social construct or a function of limited resources? In this work of philosophical short fiction, there are 89 species in the Galactic Confederation of Intelligences and earth, as a way to protect its culture from being overrun by outside influence, has shut itself off from them. However a Jesuit Priest has decided to lock himself away with a copy of Encyclopedia of Sentient Species to try and better understand other species and to determine if there are other species that lack the ability to sin. In this pursuit, he painstakingly goes through and finds examples of species without the sin of Wrath, another without the sin of Lust, and so on. He is, however, unable to find any species without the sin of Pride.

How do societies shift away from being a nation of gods and omens to one of rules and law? Is this the natural evolution of civil society? In this work of philosophical short fiction, a woman traveling along the river comes across an older man, the “Lord Keeper” with a tied-up boy he is about to kill after three days. The boy, it seems, learned the secrets of the community as part of his duties to become the new “Lord Keeper.” The secret of the community is that, in times long past, the society decided to, literally, brick their stone god up to be kept away from the community and to, instead, become a nation of laws, rather than a nation of seeking god’s favor. However, the “Lord Keeper” is designated, each day, to visit the caged god. This is why the new, “Lord Keeper” was scheduled for death, he learned the secret of the community as part of his training and was planning to tell the community of the long forgotten god they had caged away.

How much would “walking in another person’s shoes” create greater understanding? How much would it be a punishment for the wrongs done to others? In this work of criminal ethics short story fiction, Christine works at the Virtual Rehabilitation Project (“VRP”). The VRP is a tool that allows criminals to live the experiences they caused from the perspective of their victims. But it doesn’t stop there. Not only do they live the experience of the crime, but they also live the years, or decades, that follow the experience as well, such as the depression and loneliness that follows losing a loved one. Christine uses the VRP to have a white supremacist live the experience of being a black man whose family he killed. She later tricks an influential elected official into experiencing the rape and murder he perpetrated against Christine’s wife.

Would being able to “remember” the future be a gift or a curse? What duties would that create to the future? Could a person without uncertainly ever have hope? In this work of philosophical short story fiction, the narrator (“Author”) goes to a psychoanalyst with a unique problem, he claims he can “remember” the future and that this ability to prevented him from have a fulfilled life. He still has free will, can be purposefully make different choices, however, whenever he does this, he has new memories about the new future he has just created. Additionally, he says, every time he has changed the future, it has been to the detriment of others and made things worse. He even remembers the location and day of his death. After his final therapy session Arthur goes to the location to save another person’s life, and die in the process. However, things don’t go quite as planned and Author ends up, not dying, but losing his power to remember the future.

Are there valid reasons for a government to carry out clandestine killings of foreign civilians in the name of national security? In this work of philosophical short story fiction, Jason is five years retired from the NSA. However, a new story draws his attention, two suspicious deaths, one in China, and one in Russia, related to confused autonomous cars. Jason’s previous work at the NSA involved making “programable luminescent vegetation” that, when exposed to certain frequencies, could be made to change color. The commercial applications are benign, household plants and lawns that change emitting color as easily and as frequently as an LED. However, he believes the NSA has militarized his work and is using it to confuse self-driving cars so they can kill overseas civilians. Jason decides to publicly divulge his work and expose the NSA. However, before he is able to so his self-driving car drives off the road and into a tree, killing him.

If the point of life is to be happy, what’s wrong with creating technology to continually maximize your happiness? In this work of philosophical short story fiction, Liz and Frank have spent their life building up Hedonic, Inc, a company focused on generating happiness, as measured by “hedons.” More hedons means you are feeling more happiness. Frank’s research has culminated in Rapture, a direct neural stimulation tool that allows people to feel the highest possible levels of hedons, without drugs, and without side effects. Liz’s failed research focus has been on using brain reprogramming to solve chronic depression where hedons are a byproduct. She sees Rapture as a tool for turning humanity into hedon seeking zombies. Frank, however, believes, “hedons are hedons.” Even Liz’s depressed son has switched camps, and now screams when he is removed the Rapture machine. In a last-ditch effort, Liz argues for an alternative.

Why do some people look forward to the day of their death? What can we do to better see those people, and understand their perspective? In this work of philosophical short story fiction, Michael is dying of cancer and has refused treatment. On a fateful day a winged woman comes down and attacks him, giving him the power to completely feel and understand the emotions of anyone near death. Confused, but with his new power, Michael finally is able to understand his friend’s artwork, and uses this knowledge to get his aunt to agree to a gallery showing of his work. He also feels the pain of a boy in need of a transplant and agrees to be a donor. Finally, he talks to his estranged sister and is able to convince her he feels that same pain surrounding their parents’ death that she does. Accordingly, she is finally willing to put away her hate for him and accept his offer of a bone marrow donation. Everything comes to a head when a different friend attempts suicide and Michael finds himself in the hospital waiting to help his friend, the boy, and his sister, simultaneously, through various medical procedures.

What is the value in having only a portion of the population be exceptional? What if everyone could be exceptional, would anyone really be? In this work of philosophical short fiction, 2% of the population have a genetic makeup that allows them to be enhanced. The intelligent are very intelligent, the beautiful, like Greek gods. Because of their enhanced abilities, they run the world. An enhanced “Social” meets up with an enhanced “Rational” to tell him about a newly discovered drug that would allow the other 98% of the world to be able to be enhanced as well, but it would cause the 2% to regress to average, or worse. The Rational takes the vial and releases it into the world. The Social kills herself.

How important is the person who controls the stories of the past? What happens when that person changes community stories to meet his needs? In this work of philosophical fantasy short fiction, Acoti is shot with a poison dart while in the forest. With much effort, his friend takes him to Cuadelo, the community medicine man. Acoti is suspicious because he had previously spoken out to the elders that the community petroglyphs seemed to always agree with Cuadelo. Cuadelo confesses to Acoti that he is the one who poisoned him and says he will only cure Acoti if he goes before the elders to confess he was wrong in accusing Cuadelo. Acoti agrees, and is cured, but not before grabbing Cuadelo’s magic wand. Now cured, Acoti goes before the elders and shows that Cuadelo has been using his magic wand to change the petroglyphs (and their community stories) so they always agree with his opinions.

What is the difference between getting inspiration from, and plagiarizing, someone else? Can industry standard behavior, none-the-less, be unethical behavior? In this work of philosophical short story fiction, Evan is a graphic designer. Evan finds out he won a gold medal award at the yearly ad industry awards for one of his designs. The problem is, he lifted the exact design from an Australian ad that was 20+ years old. To be fair, the copied ad was one of three options he gave the client, and the other two were original works. Afterwards, the client so loved the copied design he insisted that Evan make no future changes. Furthermore, Evan withdrew his ad from contest consideration, but the client resubmitted it on his behalf without his knowledge. His firm acknowledges that, “everybody does it” from time-to-time and his actions were only “technically…unethical behavior.” Regardless, when the client finds out, the client insists that Evan be terminated even though he loves the ad and (because it was copied) saved money on the hourly rate. Given the choice between an employee and a profitable client, the firm terminates Evan.