All Harriet’s Pieces: After Dinner Conversation, #19

By A. Katherine Black

Synopsis: A young girl faces the death of her mother and the loss of her closest companion.

After Dinner Conversation is a growing series of short stories across genres to draw out deeper discussions with friends and family. Each story is an accessible example of an abstract ethical or philosophical idea and is accompanied by suggested discussion questions.

Podcast discussion of this short story, and others, is available on iTunes, Stitcher, and Youtube.

• Language: English
• Publisher: After Dinner Conversation
• Release date: Dec 23, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393422389

Book preview

All Harriet’s Pieces

After Dinner Conversation Series

JANIE DROPPED THE BOOK into her lap and leaned her head against the outside of the translucent pig chamber.  Warmth seeped from the chamber, a stark contrast to the cold atrium floor, covered with tiles Mama had found in some faraway place on one of her trips.  Janie’s wish to sink through the chamber wall, to find a way inside, was so familiar, it was almost comforting.

Harriet stirred.  Standing on her four short legs, she side-stepped until her pig body leaned lengthwise against the inside of the wall, facing Janie.  Harriet used her eyes, eyes exactly like Mama’s, to look at Janie in a way that Mama never did.  Never would. Her pig face tilted toward the book on Janie’s lap. The one Janie had been reading aloud until a minute ago.  The one about the pig and the spider who become friends.  Janie was nearing the end of it.

I don’t— Janie said.  She held back the rest of her words. As much as she loved that book, she couldn’t bear to face the end.  Not this time.  Because the pig