After Dinner Conversation: Philosophy

Playing God

After Jack was abducted by the alien spaceship, and after the round vessel had vanished into the Milky Way, he found himself walking down a tubular corridor with white vibrating walls, escorted by a sinuous blonde who smiled graciously and said her name was Minna. She was tall and well endowed, with sparkling blue eyes, but Jack knew she was a hologram. He also knew that he was supposed to be utterly freaked out by the abduction, but he wasn’t and attributed his calm to a narcotic administered by the aliens. Jack felt like his normal self.

Minna stopped walking and touched the vibrating walls. They parted to show an oval room glowing in soft purple. A brown armchair centered the room. The walls were covered with TV screens showing people in distress.

Jack stood in the doorway. “What’s this? I don’t like it.”

Minna smiled widely. “Please sit in the chair.”

Jack took a step back. “No way.”

Minna held his hand and purred. “No harm will come to you.”

She walked toward the chair, Jack in tow, his fingers sliding in and out of her warm palm. The TV screens vanished. The walls pulsated sensually in purple and pink.

Minna gestured to the armchair as if she was a car model at a convention. “Please sit. I promise the chair will not bite you.”

Jack sat in the chair. The soft fabric, like liquid silk, curved in a warm embrace. He placed his arms on the wide armrests; they nestled his arms in warm yet firm liquid as if he was floating in a heavily salted sea. The air smelled of roses. Ocean waves rumbled from afar; parrots chirped in a rainforest. His back and shoulders relaxed like after a thorough deep tissue massage. The chair hummed with vibrations that soothed his neck and buttocks.

“Feels nice,” Jack said.

Minna laughed. “You like the chair?”

“I do.”

“Good,” chirped the Nordic queen. “Now you can be god.”

“What?”

The multitude of TV screens showing people in distress returned to broadcast from the walls. Minna smiled and pointed to the screens. “You can help them. You can be their god.”

Jack nervously tried to sit up in the armchair, but was coddled by soft yet powerful

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Julia Meinwald is a writer of fiction and musical theatre and a gracious loser at a wide variety of board games She has stories published or forthcoming in Bayou Magazine, Vol 1. Brooklyn, West Trade Review, VIBE, and The Iowa Review, among others. H

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