After Dinner Conversation: After Dinner Conversation Magazine, #8

By Chad Baker, Peter Beaumont, Zeph Auerbach and 4 more

"After Dinner Conversation" Magazine - February 2021

• People Used To Die Every Day: A young man is caught in a lie to his partner; he has been illegally "sleeping" at night.
• Pandora's Dreams: A new technology allows the recording, playback, and sale of dreams.
• The Library Of Gromma: A young boy must protect the machine that preserves the memories of his grandmother and his community.
• The Human Experience: A married couple negotiates the genetic future of their unborn child.
• Simon: A man is on trial because he killed the devil.
• Father Dale's Drive-Thru Exorcisms:  A semi-retired couple living out of their RV decides to follow a traveling tent revival and offer drive-thru exorcisms for extra cash.
• Community Of Peers: A foreigner wanders into a remote village just before a convicted criminal is about to be punished and is asked to throw the first stone.

 

After Dinner Conversation believes humanity is improved by ethics and morals grounded in philosophical truth.  Philosophical truth is discovered through intentional reflection and respectful debate. In order to facilitate that process, we have created a growing series of short stories, audio and video podcast discussions, across genres, as accessible examples of abstract ethical and philosophical ideas intended to draw out deeper discussions with friends and family.

• Language: English
• Publisher: After Dinner Conversation
• Release date: Nov 2, 2020
• ISBN: 9798201289911

Book preview

After Dinner Conversation Magazine – February 2021

This magazine publishes fictional stories that explore ethical and philosophical questions in an informal manner. The purpose of these stories is to generate thoughtful discussion in an open and easily accessible manner.

Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The magazine is published monthly in electronic format.

All rights reserved. After Dinner Conversation Magazine is published by After Dinner Conversation in the United States of America. No part of this magazine may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from the publisher. Abstracts and brief quotations may be used without permission for citations, critical articles, or reviews. Contact the publisher for more information at [e-mail]

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ISSN# 2693-8359      Vol. 2, No. 2  

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Copyright © 2021 After Dinner Conversation

Editor-In-Chief:  Kolby Granville | Acquisitions Editor:  Viggy Parr Hampton

Design, layout, and discussion questions by After Dinner Conversation Magazine.

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https://www.afterdinnerconversation.com

Table Of Contents

From the Publisher

People Used To Die Every Day

Pandora’s Dreams

The Library Of Gromma

The Human Experience

Simon

Father Dale’s Drive-Thru Exorcisms

Community Of Peers

Additional Information

From The Editor

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From the Publisher

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION believes humanity is improved by ethics and morals grounded in philosophical truth. Philosophical truth is discovered through intentional reflection and respectful debate. In order to facilitate that process, we have created a growing series of short stories, audio and video podcast discussions, across genres, as accessible examples of abstract ethical and philosophical ideas intended to draw out deeper discussions with friends, family, and students.

ENJOY THESE SHORT STORIES? Purchase our print anthologies, After Dinner Conversation Season One, Season Two, or Season Three. They are collections of our best short stories published in the After Dinner Conversation series complete with discussion questions.

SUBSCRIBE TO THIS MONTHLY magazine for $1.95/month or $19.95/year and receive it every month!

People Used To Die Every Day

Chad Baker

OKAY, SO TELL ME THE truth: why couldn’t I get a hold of you last night?

Samir folds his arms and stares at Peter across the little round table in the bar. I know you have class on Tuesday nights, but you get breaks. And it’s not like you couldn’t answer a text from class, Samir says. He has not yet taken one sip of his martini. So. Where were you really?

Peter feels a red rush of shame. He never meant to lie to Samir. At first, he rationalized not telling his boyfriend on the basis that he was just trying it out, experimenting, curious. Maybe he wouldn’t even like it. Maybe he’d only do it once—in which case, it would hardly be worth mentioning, right? But he had done it eight times. Eight wasn’t experimenting. He did like it. And he didn’t want to stop. So now it was time to come clean.

Peter glances at the tables near them. It’s just before midnight, and the gastropub is filling up with Chicago’s young professional crowd: carefully tousled hair, sleek bodies, explosive laughs. On weekdays, this bar runs a happy hour special from 11:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. to bring in the after-work crowd just off their second shifts. Samir likes this place, but it makes Peter’s head swim. His eyes keep getting pulled away by the 12 screens affixed above the bar and on the walls, which show a football game, music videos, a series of amateur clips in which people try to do a backflip and fall down.

Peter doesn’t think anyone is near enough to hear them, but still he lowers his voice and hunches over the shiny, faux-onyx tabletop so that his nose is almost in his beer stein when he says: I was sleeping.

Samir’s stony face gives no reaction except for a hot flare behind his dark eyes—or maybe Peter imagines that. After almost a year together, he is still not very good at reading Samir.

Look, I wanted to tell you, but I—

Samir holds up a palm to stop him. I’m not going to talk about this here. Let’s just finish our drinks.

They drink in their painful bubble of silence, sealed off from the commotion of the bar. Peter has never downed a beer faster.  

WHEN THE REVOLVING door spits them out, Samir marches down the avenue of shops and restaurants with long, quick strides. Peter has to jog to catch up. His health implant pings his phone to tell him he’s reached .07 BAC and it will now release an alcohol antagonist. He had drank two swift beers before he came to the bar, trying to muster the courage to confess.

Was it the first time? Samir asks.

No.

Samir opens his mouth but closes it again when he spots the couple with a toddler approaching on the tree-lined sidewalk. The little girl picks up burnt red maple leaves that just began to fall this week, collecting them. The incandescent street lamps bathe everything in a metallic white (they redid the lamps on this street last month, upping the wattage even more). Samir turns down a less busy side street. How many times?

Eight.

Oh God, Peter. There’s pity in his voice. Peter had been prepared for anger, surprise, maybe mild concern—but this, Samir’s sad embarrassment for Peter, is much worse.

It’s not that big a deal. A lot of people do it.

A lot of losers. Fat, unemployed losers who live with their parents and— He stops, puts a thumb and forefinger to his closed eyes. Which is not you, obviously. That’s not what I mean. I just—I never expected this from you.

They pass one block of two-story homes and orange-leafed oaks in silence. Living room windows frame families and couples on couches, awash in the flicker of screens. Peter breathes in the dry, crinkly scent of autumn.

You’ve never been curious? Peter asks, once he can’t bear the quiet any longer. What it’s like?

No more than I’m curious about what’s it like to have tuberculosis or shit in an outhouse. We’ve solved those problems. Why would I want to go back?

Samir and Peter are both in their late twenties, so they were born years after the neuro-pharmacological team at China’s Tsinghua University first synthesized somnephrine and discovered that, in combination with a cocktail of other stimulants, proteins, and reuptake inhibitors, it will do everything for the human brain and body that sleep used to do. At first, the compound had to be taken daily, in pill form, but after the rise of permanent health implants, somnephrine became a mandatory ingredient in everyone’s monthly cartridge.

So your new leadership class, Samir says. These Tuesdays and Thursdays for the past month—that was all bullshit?

I’m sorry. I needed, you know, a reason. That we weren’t hanging out those nights.

"That’s what you’re doing instead of actually taking a PCC?" Samir, like most people in the couple’s circle of ambitious twentysomethings, is perpetually in a Professional Certification Course. He’s racked up five different PCs.

It’s not like I’m being irresponsible about it. I haven’t missed work or anything. It’s not affecting my life.

But it did! I got huge news that I worked really hard for and you weren’t there. Yesterday, at the end of his shift, Samir learned that he had been promoted to Account Executive at his consulting firm. Shu-chen took me out for drinks and a bunch of our friends came out to celebrate with me and you weren’t there because you were... He can’t bring himself to say the word.

I’m sorry. I really am. Obviously, if I had known you were going to get promoted—

That’s not the point.

What is the point?

God. I need another drink.

After two more blocks, they arrive at Samir’s building. When Samir approaches the front door, Peter lingers awkwardly on the sidewalk, unsure if he’s supposed to follow. Well? Samir holds the door. Are you coming up or what?

SAMIR’S APARTMENT IS