After Dinner Conversation: Philosophy | Ethics Short Story Magazine

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DECEMBER 2020

ABRA STAFFIN-WIEBE

Vol. 1, No. 6

After Dinner Conversation Magazine – December 2020 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 info@afterdinnerconversation.com .

ISSN# 2693-8359

Vol. 1, No. 6 .

Copyright © 2020 After Dinner Conversation Editor-In-Chief: Kolby Granville | Acquisitions Editor: Viggy Parr Hampton Design, layout, and discussion questions by After Dinner Conversation Magazine. .

https://www.afterdinnerconversation.com

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

Table Of Contents FROM THE PUBLISHER .................................................................................... - 4 IN THEIR IMAGE ............................................................................................. - 5 METAPHORS ................................................................................................ - 26 THE CRATE .................................................................................................... - 35 AND JOY SHALL OVERTAKE US AS A FLOOD .................................................. - 54 BUNNY RACING (CHILDREN’S STORY) ........................................................... - 78 RAINBOW PEOPLE OF THE GLITTERING GLADE ............................................. - 84 ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ...................................................................... - 108 FROM THE EDITOR ..................................................................................... - 109 -

***

DECEMBER 2020

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

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” or “Season Two.” They are both 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!

DECEMBER 2020

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

ABRA STAFFIN-WIEBE

In Their Image Abra Staffin-Wiebe *** When I stepped off the shuttle and breathed in the dry grass scent of Trade City, I was still confident I could launch the first human church on Landry’s World. My fellow passengers had been politely non-interested when I explained the mission my church had sent me on. A few had shaken their heads as they glided away. I thought maybe they objected to a female preacher. Or maybe it was because I’m an ex-marine. I’m an “ex-” a lot of things: ex-marine, ex-atheist, ex-drunk, ex-wife, and ex-mother--that last because I was a poor enough mother that when my kids grew up, they washed their hands of me.

The heavier gravity made my normal stride more of a shuffle, but my spirits were high as I walked to meet the young woman waiting for me.

After all, I was here at the request of Amber Sands Mining, the major human employer on the planet. The indigenous government had approved; they even volunteered the labor to build my church. My denomination’s elders were delighted to have finally found a mission suitable for an ex-marine with other-world experience.

DECEMBER 2020

-5-

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

ABRA STAFFIN-WIEBE

My guide held a sign saying, “Preacher.” She bestowed a chipper smile on me when I approached. “Welcome to Landry’s World! I’ll take you directly to the church so that you can get started.”

As I fell into step beside her, I said, “It seems odd that a planet with indigenous life is named after the captain who discovered it. Discovered isn’t quite the right term, either, is it?”

“Landry’s purpose in life was to find and name this world, and the Teddies honor that.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Teddies?”

“Oh, dear. I hope you didn’t memorize their long-form name! You don’t need to worry about that. We need to say that in the welcome packet.”

I remembered the images that had come with my briefing. The locals of Landry’s World were seven feet tall, ursine, and covered in bright pink fur. “Wait. You’re telling me that this place is populated by pink teddy bears?” I asked incredulously.

She grinned. “Yup. Here’s the road. Watch your step. I thought we could walk instead of taking the transit tube.”

The golden sand between the borders of the road appeared identical to the sand that stretched into the distance on either side.

“What’s the difference?”

“Everything in its place.”

“And what’s your place? When you’re not shepherding green recruits, I mean?”

“This is my place.”

“Of course, but this can’t take up all your time. I meant, what else do you do? What are your plans for the future?”

“This is what I do,” she answered stiffly.

A few failed attempts at conversation later, I let silence fall between us until she stopped in front of a crystalline three-story castle.

DECEMBER 2020

-6-

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

ABRA STAFFIN-WIEBE

Sunlight danced across jutting, sharp-edged planes of glass. A Teddy the color of raspberry sherbet rose from the shadow of the building. I’d been so dazzled that I hadn’t even noticed him.

“Greetings,” he said. “I am Soloulsoquebalso.”

“Hello,” I said.

“I am a Helper,” he said, his fur emanating a neutral lemony scent.

“Before taking up our Purpose, the youth of our church go out into the world and help others. I am to help you.”

“But what are you doing-- Oh. This is the church your people built for us, isn’t it?”

“It is suiting your purpose?”

“It’s beautiful.” He still waited for my answer. “Yes, it will do very well. Would you like to attend my first service, this Sunday morning?”

He cocked his head. “You preach to us as well as to humans? This is part of your purpose?”

“Well, yes.”

A cotton candy scent rose from his fur. “I will help.” *** I expected to see him that Sunday, but there was only one Teddy in my congregation, and he was much too large to be Soloulsoquebalso.

The Teddy sat in the front pew, beside five humans. They were the only ones in the whole church. I had expected a full house, from curiosity if nothing else. I gave the sermon my best, but as soon as I was done, they left without a word. They did not return the next Sunday. Instead, a different group of five humans--and one Teddy--sat in the front row.

That set the pattern. Humans from other stars occasionally attended my services when they passed through Trade City. Sometimes a drunk would stagger into the church and fall asleep in the pews. But mostly I preached to the front row. I sweated bullets over my sermons, but I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a world-class orator.

DECEMBER 2020

-7-

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

ABRA STAFFIN-WIEBE

I tried going out and inviting individual Teddies to attend. All I got was polite refusals. I tried asking humans. All they’d say is that they didn’t need my church. When I asked why, they all said that I didn’t need to know, that I was already doing what I was meant to. It sure didn’t feel that way to me.

I was not totally surprised when I got a message saying that the Church Council had sent a delegation to discuss my mission’s future. *** I met them at Tamir’s Cafe, the most Earthly--and expensive-restaurant on Landry’s World. Instead of the omnipresent glass, Tamir had built the restaurant from blocks of a local rock that resembled the golden sandstone of his native Morocco. He pressed and varnished layers of lichen to achieve a homelike wood grain for his furniture. He filtered the air to remove the prevalent dry grass scent. Even the windows didn’t reveal an alien landscape: synchronized holos showed a bustling Moroccan marketplace.

Under other circumstances, I would have eaten heartily. Today, I only ordered a bowl of harira. A fragrant cloud of ginger, pepper, and cinnamon rose from the soup, but I had to force myself to swallow even a few spoonfuls. The cause of my indigestion was the pair of elders sitting across the lovely false-wood table.

If they thought I had failed here on Landry’s World, where would they send me? The Church was my only home now. My time as a pastorin-training had already taught me that I didn’t work well with others, no matter how much earnest goodwill existed on both sides. I’d lost the knack somewhere between the end of my stint as a marine and the beginning of my new life as an ex-alcoholic.

We made desultory conversation over dinner. I wasn’t much for small talk, and dancing around the pachyderm in the room exhausted me. Elder Baldini seemed to be of like mind. Elder Velis filled our silences DECEMBER 2020

-8-

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

ABRA STAFFIN-WIEBE

by chirping about the tourist attractions on Landry’s World. When that failed, she told me all about the latest accomplishments of her grandchildren, whom I had never met.

Finally, she pushed back her plate. Her little-old-lady fluffiness vanished as the conversation got to business at last. “The Council sent us in person, in case you need spiritual counsel after hearing their decision.”

Dread tightened my throat. “Yes?” Elder Baldini hadn’t participated much in the polite over-dinner small talk, but now he spoke. “It’s not as grim as she makes it sound. It’s only a budgetary readjustment. The mining company provided the initial funding for a church here on the recommendation of their human resources and morale department, but it seems that the…lack of interest…has changed their plans. Since most of the humans prefer the Teddy church services--” “Excuse me?” I interrupted.

“Oh, didn’t you know? Odd. They weren’t at all reticent in discussing it with us. You could go to a service, see for yourself.”

Elder Velis laid her hand on top of his, silencing him. “We aren’t here to assign blame,” she said. “I’m afraid the new budget will also have to cover your stipend, should you choose to remain.” The figure she named erased my half-formed plans for a grand outreach program.

I didn’t seriously consider leaving. From her tone, I guessed that if I left because the budget wasn’t to my liking, the Church would not provide me with another pastoral post. Where else could I go?

“I may be able to assist with budgeting,” Elder Baldini offered. “I was a practicing accountant for many years.”

“Not--right now,” I said. “I need to think.” In truth, there was not much to think about. I knew my church’s expenses as well as I knew my own. There would be enough, barely. If I was not extravagant in my wardrobe or my meals, I might be able to save a little for a maintenance DECEMBER 2020

-9-

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

ABRA STAFFIN-WIEBE

fund. The cleaning service would have to go. It would hardly be the first time I’d scrubbed a floor. Some might say that was a waste of time that I should be spending writing sermons, but washing floors also served God, even if it was a bit more Martha than Mary.

Elder Baldini nodded his understanding. Elder Velis asked our waiter for the bill and two containers for her leftovers and mine.

Although I rose with the elders and held the restaurant door open for them as we left, my actions were perfunctory. I remained lost in thought until Elder Velis stopped so suddenly that I almost walked into her.

“Here you go.” She handed her leftovers to a beggar leaning against the wall.

I felt a flush of shame. I had grown too accustomed to the Teddies’ habitually callous treatment of those less fortunate. I hadn’t even seen the beggar until Elder Velis stopped. There was a sermon there, I thought, maybe even something good enough to keep people coming back.

Once I returned to my parsonage, I heated up the soup and retreated to my study. I was hyperaware of the bottom left-hand drawer of my desk, as if it radiated a heat that I could feel. That was where I kept an old bottle of Four Roses bourbon, never opened. The gesture had appealed to me when I saw it in an old 2D detective movie.

I jerked the drawer open, grabbed the bottle by the neck, and strode to the front door. Standing in the threshold, I threw the bottle out into the street. I expected the bottle to break. It bounced. I slammed the door shut on temptation and returned to my study.

As I sipped my cooling soup, I considered how I might write a sermon that would bring in the people who preferred--what?

How had Elder Baldini put it? That I could go and visit a Teddy service for myself? Very well. I might not need his accounting advice, but when it came to my failing church, I resolved that I would take all the help I could get.

DECEMBER 2020

- 10 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

ABRA STAFFIN-WIEBE

*** I went to the Teddy church service the very next day, determined to find out what they offered that I did not. I arrived early and sat in the back, watching as bubblegum-furred Teddies lumbered in. One of them paused by my pew--a shining glass thing that managed to be far more comfortable than it appeared--and stared at me. Its brow wrinkled in the way that is their equivalent of a human grimace, and its scent sharpened. I thought it would speak to me then, but another wave of Teddies poured into the church and swept it along with them. Humans came, too. I felt a pang as I recognized some of the people who had attended one--and only one--of my services.

At the front of the church, facing the congregation, sat three Teddies with the strawberry cheesecake-colored fur of the very old. I decided to think of them as the deacons.

When the church was packed with Teddies and humans, a new mother herded her tumble of pups to the front of the congregation to be welcomed. I smiled involuntarily at the sight of their big excited eyes and puffed-up hot pink fur. I saw the other humans also smiling, and a cotton candy scent of happiness and welcome rose from the congregation.

Despite the ruthless savagery they exhibit in battle, Teddy parents are some of the most devoted I’ve seen on any planet. Every child is cherished.

They even extend this across species lines. In the dry goods store, I once observed a stray child collect a gaggle of concerned Teddies who guarded her until she toddled back to her father.

After the welcome, the deacons rose to preach. They spoke in turns, seamlessly completing each other’s sentences. It was a good trick, I admitted, but hardly one I could replicate.

Once I adjusted to the deacons’ manner of speaking, I found their message--bland. There were no reminders of what God wanted, no exhortations to strive to become better, no celebrations of challenges met.

DECEMBER 2020

- 11 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

ABRA STAFFIN-WIEBE

They mouthed the same pablum I’d heard a million times from commercial mega-churches and feel-good inspirational speakers. Be the best you that you can be! Accept yourself! Be happy in who you are! Don’t change because of what others consider good! Your flaws are who you are, and God needs you to be who you are! They were speaking Teddish, so I shifted dialects on my ear-cuff translator a few times to be sure I wasn’t missing any nuances. I wasn’t.

Of course, the Teddies added their own alien twist. As I listened, I learned that they believed there was no God--yet. We were God’s attempt to create itself. The imminent God could only become real when we all became fully the thing that we were, when we achieved Purpose. God is made of many parts, the Teddies said, and only when all the parts simultaneously achieve Purpose will God arise. Those who turn aside from their Purpose, or who cannot find it, are reincarnated as another part of God, with another chance to achieve Purpose, until all the parts of God are aligned. When the deacons made this point, a low hum of affirmation rose from the audience.

“Remember,” the deacons said, “true fulfillment is in keeping constant to your Purpose until the end. Choose rather to forsake your life than your Purpose.”

As I listened, the Teddies’ sweet scent grew strong and incenselike, an odor of sanctity that soothed me against my will. The deacons’ words rolled through me. A part of me wished that I could relax into them, that I could believe God only wanted me to be a failed preacher to a tiny congregation, that I needn’t struggle to change, that it would do no harm if I found that bottle of bourbon…

I pushed myself to my feet and stumbled away from the tranquilized audience. As soon as the doors retracted to allow me into the hallway, my head began to clear. Now I understood the appeal of the Teddies’ preaching, but it was wrong. We could only be purified of our sins DECEMBER 2020

- 12 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

ABRA STAFFIN-WIEBE

if we repented. True repentance is impossible without a change of mind, of heart, and of action. Clinging to “who you are” is clinging to the grave clothes of sin.

I walked down the hall until I came to a darkened, unoccupied room with a holo of a fish tank along one wall and a long couch facing it. A painted wall screen separated the room from another shadowed chamber beyond it. If I saw a similar place in a human church, I would call it a meditation room. Perhaps it served the same function for the Teddies. I stepped inside, sank into the embrace of the couch, and let my eyes follow the flickers of color in the tank as my mind wrestled with what I’d heard.

My profession called me to love my enemies instead of shoot at them, so how could I fight the Teddies’ doctrine?

I watched the darting, iridescent fish, at first absently and then with growing wonder. They were not holos after all. I rose, walked over to the tank, and tapped it with my fingernail. A gleaming fish swam over to investigate. An incredulous smile spread across my face. Fish were one of the few Earth species allowed on Landry’s World, since they were small, portable, and easy to prevent from contaminating the ecosystem, but they were terribly expensive. One fish cost as much as a month’s bar tab. People who needed a touch of Earth mostly made do with holos.

I could have stood there for hours, but in the room on the other side of the painted wall screen, someone turned on a light. I crept over to peer around the edge of the screen.

Four Teddies entered the room. I felt an itch of guilt over my spying. Yet I did not look away. I found it difficult to tell Teddies apart, but I recognized the oldest as being one of the deacons. The smallest one I had not seen before, and the other two I was not certain about. They may have come from the church service, but the odor of sanctity had faded from their fur. I caught a whiff of an acrid burnt smell as the smallest one passed me.

He lay on a peculiar, downward-tilted glass table with sides that cupped his DECEMBER 2020

- 13 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

ABRA STAFFIN-WIEBE

body. Behind his head, the table formed a funnel that emptied into a large glass bowl, rather like a fishbowl.

What earthly--or un-Earthly--purpose could such a table serve? I was still pondering that when the deacon removed a dagger from one of his belt pouches and stabbed the smallest Teddy in the throat.

It was like seeing your childhood teddy bear sprout claws. As soon as I saw the blood, I snapped back into the heightened, battle-ready state that I thought I’d left behind forever when I went from soldier to minister.

My mind raced through my options: escape, evade, report. But report what? To whom? What alien rite was I witnessing?

The small Teddy didn’t try to defend himself. He never even raised a hand. Tremors shook his body for a minute or so. Then he lay still. A thin trickle of blackish-red blood ran down the inside of the glass table and dripped into the fishbowl whose purpose I had been wondering about. The deacon pulled the blade out with a horrible sucking sound, and more blood gurgled down the funnel.

The two remaining Teddies acted as if nothing had happened. One opened a large book whose paragraphs were etched on plates of glass, and the other took out what resembled a pair of pruning shears.

The Teddy holding the glass-plated book began to read. “True fulfillment is in keeping constant to your Purpose to the end. Choose rather to forsake your life than your Purpose. Let returning to your pieces remind you that God, too, is in pieces that only we can bring together. We can only make God in our image when we are aligned correctly. May the wheel of incarnation bring you around to the part of God that you are meant to be.

These are the Purposes that we have known and recorded: hunter, warrior, soldier, baker, mother, tactician, fisher, planter of grain, collector of wild nuts, breeder of mukta, herder, diplomat…”

The other two Teddies bent over the corpse of their brother, tools in hand. The crunch of separating cartilage and bone carried clearly to my DECEMBER 2020

- 14 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

ABRA STAFFIN-WIEBE

hiding spot behind the wall screen. My gorge rose, and I turned my head to the side. Witnessing this mutilation hit me as hard as anything I’d seen in the last war.

A patter of tiny paws drew my attention back instantly. A little pink puffball scampered in the door and froze, blinking at the horrific tableau in front of it. “What are you doing?” the pup asked.

“We are holding a funeral,” the deacon told the pup. “This poor soul was unable to find Purpose, and so we are helping him back onto the wheel.”

The pup blinked its big eyes. “Oh. Like Mother’s sister’s husband’s brother.”

“That’s right, child. Now go back to your mother. She must be looking for you.” The deacon stooped and patted the pup’s back, shepherding it out of the room.

As it bounded away, I saw that the contact had left a bloody handprint on the pup’s fur.

I don’t remember deciding that I had to leave. I don’t remember walking out of the Teddies’ church. I think I would have fought if anyone had tried to stop me, but the police never came for me, so I guess nobody did.

I was out of sight of the church when I noticed that I was being followed. When I glanced in a window, I caught a glimpse of a pink-furred Teddy trailing behind me. I turned a corner. He followed. I zigged across the street and took a shortcut through an alley. He followed. I stopped in front of a shop window and studied my pursuer while pretending interest in the array of mining respirators for sale.

Unlike a human stalker would have, the Teddy didn’t stop. He lumbered right up to me. I tensed.

“Reverend,” he rumbled, “mining equipment is not fitting to your Purpose. Why are you not at your church?”

DECEMBER 2020

- 15 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

ABRA STAFFIN-WIEBE

I pretended he hadn’t spoken. I didn’t think I could interact politely with a Teddy just then.

“Why did you go to our service, Reverend?” he persisted. “You should be in your own church.”

“That is no business of yours,” I said sharply, turning and walking away.

“It is,” he insisted, trotting after me. “I am to help you maintain Purpose.”

After seeing what their obsession with Purpose caused, I couldn’t respond to him in a way befitting a woman of God. I kept my back to the Teddy, kept walking, and tried to calm myself.

He followed me all the way across town to my church. He would have followed me into my study if I hadn’t closed the door in his face. I tried working on my sermons, but all I could think of was the alien “funeral” I’d witnessed. Poor child, I thought, and I wasn’t sure who I referred to. A real preacher would have found inspiration in those memories, but all I found was anger and frustration. After several hours, I decided to abandon my study. Perhaps I could think more clearly outside.

When I opened my study door, I almost walked into a wall of pink fur. The Teddy had been sitting against the door, waiting, all this time. I stepped around him. His claws scrabbled against the floor as he pushed himself up to follow me.

I sat on a bench in the area that the landscaper had turned into a meditation garden. He had transformed a bare patch of alien land into something humans could find restful. Spindly shrubs, explosions of toadstools, and ruffled patches of lichen created patterns that pleased the eye. Purple grass grew in hummocks that rustled even when there was no breeze. Curving paths of sand soothed the soul. Since I had canceled the service that handled the church’s cleaning and yard work, I supposed I would be the one who kept the paths swept and the grass trimmed from DECEMBER 2020

- 16 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

ABRA STAFFIN-WIEBE

now on.

The Teddy sat beside me on the bench. His fur emanated a neutral lemony scent.

I could ignore him no longer. “Why are you following me?” I demanded.

“We were concerned when you left your church to attend ours.

Then you went to a shop selling mining equipment. Those actions are not in line with your Purpose.”

“You presume to know my purpose?”

“You are a woman of God, a preacher.”

Well, he had me there. I switched tactics. “My actions are no business of yours!”

“I am a Helper,” he said. “I am to help you. Why did you go to our church service?”

“Why do you care?”

“All thinking beings are parts of God, and all must achieve Purpose to create God.” The thought of humans accepting this idea of purpose made me sick. Would the Teddies kill us if we failed in our purpose? What could I do about it?

“If I answer you, will you leave me alone?” I snapped.

“If you no longer need help.”

“I went to observe the competition.”

“Why did you walk through the town instead of taking a transit tube back to your church? Why were you studying objects belonging to other Purposes?”

“I walked because I needed to clear my head. I witnessed your church forcing one of its own to the slaughter. You call it a funeral, I believe.”

“Force--no! When he realized he had no Purpose, he went to our DECEMBER 2020

- 17 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

ABRA STAFFIN-WIEBE

elders and asked for his funeral. Reincarnation and a new Purpose was his only hope of salvation.”

“You say that like you think it was a good decision.”

“It is the only possible one.”

“You would do the same if you had no Purpose?”

“Of course.”

“So what is your Purpose, then?” I demanded.

He took some time to answer me, and I decided that the bitterorange scent suddenly in the air must indicate embarrassment. “I have not found it yet. Many youth have not.”

“Many?” I asked.

He curved his body away from me. “A few.”

I took his response as a victory and settled back to enjoy the peace.

Eventually, I sighed. “You’re not leaving, are you?”

“No.” “Did you meet me at my church when I first arrived? Was that you?”

“Yes.” “I can’t remember your name. Sol-something? If you’re going to stick around, tell me what it is, so I know who to curse at,” I said wryly.

A faint smell of burnt toast floated into the air. “Cursing is not fitting to your--” I hurried to interrupt him. “I was joking! A sense of humor is a necessary thing for a preacher to have, I assure you.”

The burnt smell faded. “I am Soloulsoquebalso.”

“Right, then. I’ll call you Saul.”

Saul became my constant companion. If I shut him out of a room, he knocked politely on the door until I opened it. If I tried to slip away, he found me and asked urgently why I was leaving the church and abandoning my Purpose. Eventually, I gave up trying to escape. I grew accustomed to DECEMBER 2020

- 18 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

ABRA STAFFIN-WIEBE

him, much as a soldier might grow accustomed to a large, furry, bright pink armchair if it were standard issue on base.

A few days after our first conversation, I returned to the meditation garden to make notes for my sermon. I was trying to figure out a way to say, “Stay away from the Teddies’ church because they’re murderous monsters,” while still following the Bible’s orders. It was uphill work. I’d signed up to love my enemies, to be kind and compassionate, and to minister to all races and peoples. Sure, nobody mentioned aliens, but I wasn’t going to act like a barracks lawyer when it came to God’s word.

I sighed as I set my notes on the bench beside me. I leaned back and closed my eyes. A soft swishing noise made me open them again. A strange Teddy was in my garden--sweeping. I watched, my mouth hanging open, as she carefully swept the path free of the small debris that I had been ignoring. She circled through the meditation garden. Behind her, the sand was swept clean, leaving the illusion of a perfect, changeless path.

“Do you like the new cleaner?” Saul asked. “Does she fulfill her Purpose?”

I jumped. I’d learned to ignore him too well.

“I didn’t hire a new cleaner! We can’t afford her.” Reluctantly, I admitted, “She’s doing a great job, though.”

A happy cotton candy scent drifted to my nose. “We saw that the loss of the cleaning service might force you to act outside your Purpose. I am happy that she will prevent this. Our church elders will pay for her labor. “ “Wait--she was sent by the Teddy church?”

“Yes.” “Why would you…? What do you see as my purpose?”

“Being a minister,” Saul answered. His ear tufts swiveled forward.

“Preaching.”

Something clicked into place. “Are you the reason that five humans DECEMBER 2020

- 19 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

ABRA STAFFIN-WIEBE

and one Teddy always attend my sermons? But never the same individuals twice?”

“Yes.” “Hmph.” I stared at that perfect, unmarred path in front of me. “I swore I’d serve God, and there’s a lot more to that than preaching or going to church, though many humans forget it.”

Saul’s ear tufts flicked back and forth. “Your Purpose is to be a preacher. One who preaches.”

Preaching to a church that might as well be as empty and perfect as the sand in front of me, I thought.

“There are a few other things I should tend to.” I rose and stalked across the path, kicking up sand with every step. I left my scribbled, incomplete sermon notes behind. Saul followed in my footsteps, trailed by a distressed odor of burnt toast.

When I walked through the door of Tamir’s Cafe, I noticed the dread that had burdened me on my last visit was gone. The smells of ginger and garlic seemed more intense, the golden stone walls more solid, and the view of a bustling Moroccan marketplace more vivid.

There were other outlooks that the windows didn’t show, things that I thought the prosperous people dining at Tamir’s should be made aware of.

When the maître d’ asked if I had a reservation, I told him that I was here to pick up a delivery for the Lowertown district. He didn’t even bother to check his book. Nobody from Lowertown would ever be able to afford a meal at Tamir’s, he informed me.

“We’ll see about that.” I strode into the dining room, sat beside a particularly well-dressed couple, and began to tell them some of the things that I’d seen in the poorest section of town.

A few anecdotes offered tableside, a solemn and sorrowful stare, and suddenly diners were volunteering their leftovers--or even their whole DECEMBER 2020

- 20 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

ABRA STAFFIN-WIEBE

dinner, in a couple of cases. I think they must have had guilty consciences.

Tamir himself quickly overruled his maître d’ and magically came up with a “delivery” of not-quite-perfect food for Lowertown. I smiled, accepted it graciously, and left, trailed by my furry pink shadow.

After I set up a free food stand, it took a while for the poor folk to believe I was genuine, and they still tried to find the catch.

“Why are you doing this?” asked one man, a sand miner who’d lost his legs and his livelihood in the same sinkhole collapse. Either he was one of the unfortunates whose immune systems rejected factory-flesh, or miners didn’t have the same deluxe healthcare package that us military grunts did.

I set a bowl of lamb tagine in front of him. “God ordered those who believe in Him to feed the hungry.”

“I don’t see any other preachers out here.”

“I’m not preaching, am I? You asked why I’m doing this. I’m here not as a preacher, but as a woman who takes her marching orders from God.” The unhappy burnt toast smell strengthened. Saul didn’t like me doing things he didn’t consider preacher-work. The sand miner didn’t seem convinced either, but he took the food and rolled away in his primitive wheelchair. I watched him until his wheelchair slinky-stepped down the stairs to the transit tube and out of sight.

I felt more relaxed than I had in weeks. I didn’t have to worry about whether I was succeeding or failing as a preacher, or about whether the Teddies were boxing me into a corner of my own making. All I had to do was feed the hungry.

A roiling stench of burnt rubber wiped the smile right off my face. I turned, intending to tell Saul that if me feeding the hungry bothered him that much, he should stick to following members of his own church.

Saul wasn’t even looking at me. Another Teddy stood in the DECEMBER 2020

- 21 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

ABRA STAFFIN-WIEBE

shadows, watching us. Unlike healthy, plump Teddies, this one’s limbs were stick-thin and insectile. His skin hung in loose folds. His fur was thin and patchy.

“Come on,” I called, gesturing encouragingly. He edged nearer.

“He should not be this close to us,” Saul said.

“What’s wrong with him? Is he sick?”

“He is starving.” Saul turned away.

My mind raced. “If he’s starving, we’d better start with something plain. Bread, maybe.”

“You do not understand,” Saul snapped. “His Purpose is to starve.”

Anger rose in me so strong and so fast that I had to freeze to keep from striking out. As if he sensed it, the starving Teddy stopped approaching. I bowed my head and fought to master myself.

Once I trusted myself to speak, I said, “Right now my purpose is to feed the hungry. Your job is to help me. He’s hungry.” My voice was flat and hard. I did not sound like myself. I handed Saul a piece of flatbread and a cup of mint tea. “Give him the food.”

I gagged as Saul’s burnt rubber stench intensified. The humans scattered, leaving just me and the two Teddies. The starving Teddy edged closer. Saul stared at me.

“Go on.” I confess I felt a certain harsh satisfaction at putting him into an uncomfortable position for a change.

“I can’t! It is not right! It is against his Purpose.”

“Choose.”

“There should not be choice! There is only one way! Every creature has only one Purpose! Without that--without that, there can be no God!” My satisfaction leaked away. He was struggling, as I had struggled once. I placed my hand on his shoulder. “We have free will so that we can choose. Every action that we make, we choose. Making a choice once doesn’t end that. Every day, you wake up and have to decide whether to DECEMBER 2020

- 22 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

ABRA STAFFIN-WIEBE

continue abiding by that choice. And every day, each decision you make leads to another choice. Without choice--without the difficulty of choice-our actions would be valueless.”

The starving Teddy stopped a foot away from our food stand. He waited passively, as if it had taken all his energy even to come this close to the forbidden food.

Saul trembled under my touch.

“You don’t have to hand it to him,” I said. “All you have to do is put it on the counter in front of him. Then you will have helped me.”

Saul shook like a dying man, but he set the food on the counter and even nudged it closer to the starving Teddy. The Teddy seized the food and fled. I don’t know if he ate it. I don’t know where he went. My attention was all on Saul.

After a few minutes, Saul stopped shaking. The stench of burned rubber dissipated, banished by a clean, green smell, like grass after the rain.

He didn’t say another word until we were back at my church, sitting in the meditation garden.

“I have found my Purpose,” he announced.

“What’s that?”

“My Purpose is to study the philosophy of this ‘free will’ you believe in, this idea that we are always making choices and that this is good.”

I let myself smile a little bit. “Well, you can change your mind at any time.”

His response was deadly serious. “Not anymore.”

My smile slipped and then came back stronger. “Not yet,” I corrected.

I still struggle with writing sermons, and I still preach to a mostly empty church. Only a few new parishioners have returned. Saul gives my DECEMBER 2020

- 23 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

ABRA STAFFIN-WIEBE

sermons only polite attention, but he follows in my footsteps everywhere I go, and I go everywhere. ***

DECEMBER 2020

- 24 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

ABRA STAFFIN-WIEBE

Discussion Questions 1. The Teddies believe, “…God could only become real when we all became fully the thing that we were, when we achieved Purpose” and that those who cannot find their purpose are reincarnated until they are able to find it. What would be the cultural ramifications of this belief system?

2. Does the Teddies’ faith have a place for the sins of Christianity: envy, pride, lust, etc? How do you think the Teddies would explain the place of “sin” in their faith?

3. In a deeper sense, what do you think the Teddies mean by the word “Purpose?” Is there a faith/philosophy on Earth that best compares to their use of the word “Purpose?”

4. What do you think would happen in the Teddy culture if a person found a new Purpose or didn’t like their Purpose? How is “Purpose” in the Teddy culture the same, or different, than a Caste System?

5. The Narrator believes the Purpose of a preacher is to both preach and to help others. Is the difference between the Narrator and Saul simply different definitions of the role of a Preacher, or is it deeper than that?

6. The Narrator tells Saul, “without the difficulty of choice--our actions would be valueless.” Do you agree with this statement? Can you think of a counterexample, where a choice is easy, but still has value? ***

DECEMBER 2020

- 25 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

MARIE ANDERSON

Metaphors Marie Anderson *** I’m knitting on my front porch when a car roars to a stop in front of my house. It’s a red Mustang convertible, top down on this warm Thursday afternoon in June. Two girls sit in the front, two in the back. They smile and wave at me. I smile back though I don’t recognize them.

“Howya doin’, Becky?” one shouts.

“Sorry?” I call out. “My name’s not Becky!”

They laugh. “She too old to know she a Becky!” one says.

“You a Becky!” another girl shouts. “You a honky, snow bunny, white old Becky!”

Everything next happens so fast. They’re suddenly standing in the car, on the seats, each holding a bucket. They reach into their buckets, lift out water balloons, aim, fire.

My arthritic knees won’t let me escape. I try to reach for my walker, but a balloon smacks my face. Some burst on the porch, burst into the basket of yarn at my feet, burst against my chest, burst in my lap, soaking the sweater I was knitting.

The sour smell of urine makes me gasp. Old urine. Acrid as a dirty DECEMBER 2020

- 26 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

MARIE ANDERSON

litter box.

They keep throwing urine-filled balloons, and now they’re snorting, over and over, then the snorts change to shrieks. “Oink! Oink!

Oink! Piggie! Piggie! Piggie!”

Suddenly they stop, smile and wave, but not at me. They are looking at the house next door.

“Zi!” they shriek. “Zi Baby, we love ya!”

They drive off.

The sweater, now urine-splashed, is a birthday present for Zion, the boy who lives next door. He’ll be 16 next week. I’ve given him a birthday present every year since he turned 1. I’ve been knitting Zion’s sweater for over 200 days. On good days, when the rheumatoid arthritis hibernates, I can knit—slowly, carefully—for about two hours. But on bad days, if I can knit at all, an hour is as long as I can go. About an hour is as long as the pills dull the pain in my fingers. I’m only 49, but the RA has aged me.

I grab my walker, struggle up. Sweater and knitting needles fall from my lap. I resist the urge to flee into my house, scrub away the attack.

I want to shout, “Look! Look what’s happened to me!” I want neighbors to open doors, flock to my side, witness and commiserate and comfort.

But instead I turn to look at the house next to mine. Sitting on the porch swing is Zion. He is looking down.

“Zion!” I call out. “Did you see what just happened? Do you know those girls?”

My voice shakes with rage. “They threw piss balloons at me! They called me all kinds of names! They called me a pig!”

My husband has been dead 17 years. He was a cop. He was black.

Does being a black cop’s white widow make me a pig?

The Kardashians have made black-white marriages cool. But Martin and I married years before the Kardashians became celebrities. Our marriage made us outcasts among my kind. So 20 years ago we bought a DECEMBER 2020

- 27 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

MARIE ANDERSON

bungalow here, on a block lined with tidy brick bungalows that are all still tidy.

I had my miscarriage, my only pregnancy, in this house two weeks after Martin died of a heart attack. It was Zion’s mom who drove me to the emergency room for a D & C. It was all my neighbors who filled the funeral parlor at Martin’s wake and brought me casseroles and pies. Afterwards, year after year, they shared their Thanksgivings and Christmases and Easters and backyard barbecues with me. They privileged me with occasional requests for babysitting. I always said yes until-early onset rheumatoid arthritis sometimes made it too hard. *** Last year, Zion picked out the yarn for the sweater—a luxurious red cotton blend from a specialty online knitting store that I favor. Red’s his favorite color.

“Makes me feel on fire, Miss Lou,” he’d said.

“And that’s a good thing?” I’d asked. I was trying to steer him to an azure blue.

“I mean it metaphorically, Miss Lou,” he’d replied. “Red fires me up.” We’d both laughed.

He loves metaphors. So do I. We like to talk metaphors to each other, ever since I introduced him to metaphors when he was in third grade needing help with homework. After school, he’d come to my house for cookies and milk and homework help, and he’d stay until a parent, usually his dad first, returned from work. His dad had regular hours at the steel mill. His mom was sometimes delayed at the emergency room, where she was head nurse.

I worked from home as a medical transcriber, so I was always around, always happily available to let neighbors’ dogs out to do their business, to accept neighbors’ package deliveries, and, best of all, to be an after-school destination for Zion.

DECEMBER 2020

- 28 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

MARIE ANDERSON

*** My nose hurts from the urine smell. My joints ache.

“Zion!” I call out again. At last, he looks up, looks at me. His face is blank “WTF?” I ask.

He smiles. He tries to stop it, I can see how he presses his lips, but the smile bursts out. He can’t stop it. He introduced me to WTF, and whenever he hears me say it, his face dazzles with a beautiful smile.

Now, like a powerful wave, he surges to his feet and strides from his bungalow to mine.

“You gotta leave, Mrs. Hillberry. This no place for you.” *** He used to call me Miss Lou from the time he could talk, when I’d explained that Mrs. Hillberry had too many syllables, and my ears didn’t have patience for all those syllables.

“Sillybulls!” he’d shrieked, racing around my yard on his chubby toddler legs, shouting “Sillybulls!” over and over, until his mom, drinking tea with me, rolled her eyes and said it was time for her sillybull to go down for his nap.

When the troubles started last month, he stopped calling me Miss Lou. He still comes over every day to give my cat his insulin shot. I pay him $5 a day. My hands can’t always do it. My symptoms sometimes vanish for days at a time, but they always recur, so it just was simpler, gave me more peace of mind, to have Zion give the shot every day.

Zion picked Taco out for me 11 years ago from the litter of kittens in a bungalow five houses over. Taco was the only black and white kitten in the litter.

“Why you stayin’ here?” Zion now asks. “And sittin’ in plain view on your front porch? You should be with your own kind. You gonna keep getting guff, you stay here.”

DECEMBER 2020

- 29 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

MARIE ANDERSON

“You’re the reason I stay here,” I say. “Not just you, Zion, but everyone in every bungalow on our block. You’re my neighbors. You are my kind.”

A shadow veils his eyes, and suspicion waffles my heart. And grief.

Did Zion “sic” those girls on me?

“My parents, they saw what you posted on NextDoor, Mrs. Hillberry. We all saw it. What you posted in response to that link about when and where the next protests would be? Alright, guys, pack it in. We tired of it already. We done here. Mission accomplished.

“Zion! I didn’t mean—” “Naw, you not mean, Mrs. Hillberry, I know that. But Mission Accomplished? You for real? Guess you just don’t get it. Guess you just can’t get it. Why you so tired anyway? Somethin’ happen to one of your kind?”

My mouth drops. “Zion, all I meant was…I’d missed my doctor appointment. The Uber couldn’t get me there because the streets were shut down. I couldn’t even get to Walgreens to pick up Taco’s insulin! And when I got home, sat down at the computer, saw that schedule about more protests and what streets would be blocked, I just lost it. It wasn’t about my neighbors! It wasn’t about you!”

“You white, Mrs. Hillberry, but in your NextDoor post you wrote black. You left out your “to be” verbs. That’s just wrong, Mrs. Hillberry.”

I blush. I can feel the blood spread to my neck. He’s right. WTF. What was I thinking? But piss balloons? Isn’t that just wrong too?

“But it was okay for those girls to throw piss balloons at me, Zion?”

He sighs. “Water balloons just supposed to have water.”

I look at him. He looks past me.

“I’m sorry,” I finally say. I wait for his reciprocal apology.

“I’ll give Taco the shot,” he says, and he does, and then he leaves. *** DECEMBER 2020

- 30 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

MARIE ANDERSON

Eventually the troubles ease, but only superficially. Hearts are still parched. It’s just a matter of time before something sparks the tinder.

I don’t sit on my front porch anymore. Would neighbors still wave and stop to chat with me? In a way, I’m relieved not to know. I stay inside.

Or in my yard. I get my groceries and meds delivered.

But Zion still comes over daily and gives Taco the insulin shot. I ask him how his parents are doing, how school is going, did he make the basketball team, and he answers in shrugs or monosyllables. We don’t talk metaphors anymore.

Once, frustrated with his shrugs and monosyllables, I shout, “WTF!”, but he doesn’t smile.

I washed the red sweater, finished knitting and seaming it, and gave it to Zion for his 16th birthday. He thanked me. His parents thanked me. His mom said someday she wants to learn how to knit, and when I said I’d be happy to teach her, she murmured, “maybe someday.”

It’s early October now, sweater weather, but I’ve never seen Zion wear the sweater I gave him. *** Halloween morning, a beautiful Saturday morning, I find Taco stretched under the coffee table in my parlor. His eyes are open but vacant.

His body is stiff and cold. A crescent of pink tongue shows. I touch it, remembering the pleasant rasp when he’d lick my hands. I cry, wet my fingers with tears, then stroke the tears into Taco’s fur.

I take pills and wait for my aches to dull.

I place him on my favorite hand-knitted sweater, blue, my favorite color. Blue is how I feel. I carry him to the weeping willow in my back yard.

I start to dig. I took extra pills, but my hands soon ache. Everything aches, but I keep digging.

A hand touches my shoulder. I look up. Zion.

“Miss Lou,” he says. “I’ll dig.”

DECEMBER 2020

- 31 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

MARIE ANDERSON

He slips a bulging backpack off his shoulders, drops it to the grass.

What’s in it, I wonder, ashamed of myself to think it might be rocks and hammers, bricks or worse.

He takes the shovel, digs. Together, we wrap Taco in the blue sweater and place him in the grave.

I invite him inside for cookies and milk, knowing he’ll refuse, but my heart soars when he nods. He lifts his backpack and follows me into the house. Again, I wonder what he carries on a Saturday Halloween morning.

In the kitchen, he opens the backpack and begins taking things out and setting them on the table.

Books—all the Captain Underpants, Tales to Chill Your Bones, Where’s Waldos. Hot Wheels. A White Sox hat. A baseball signed by Michael Jordan from his year on the White Sox that I’d won at my church raffle and given to Zion for his 10th birthday. Action figures. Three X-Box games. A chess set. Scrabble. Sorry.

All the gifts I’ve given him for his birthdays since he was little.

“You’ve saved them all!” I exclaim. “Oh, Zion, you’ve saved them all.” I touch his arm. “I’m honored.”

Did I save all the little things he gave me over the years? The drawings of dinosaurs, the dried macaroni necklace, the Christmas ornaments made from pipe cleaners? I still have the rosary he made from buttons and yarn. It’s in my jewelry box. I pray my rosary on it every night.

I’m about to tell him that when he sighs.

He removes one more item from his backpack. The red sweater.

“WTF,” I murmur.

“Givin’ them all back,” he says. “I’ve grown up. This stuff don’t fit me anymore.”

My heart is breaking His face is stony. “Zion,” I say.

He waits. Blinks. A tear rolls down his cheek. Then, “What?”

“Good metaphor,” I say.

DECEMBER 2020

- 32 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

MARIE ANDERSON

He tries to stop it. I can see how he tries to press his lips into a thin flat line, but he fails. His smile bursts forth. Fireworks that change, at least for a moment, the dark to light. ***

DECEMBER 2020

- 33 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

MARIE ANDERSON

Discussion Questions 1. What is the real cause of Zion’s anger with the narrator (Miss Lou)?

What would you want to say to Zion or Miss Lou about their recent changes in their relationship, if anything?

2. Should the narrator take Zion’s advice and move out of a neighborhood where she seems to be unwanted, and maybe not safe?

3. Is Zion racist? If he is racist, how is his racism different, or the same, than whites who don’t want blacks living in their neighborhood? What do you think Zion would say in response if you asked him about this?

4. Should the narrator have simply not commented on the fact that the protests kept her from her doctor’s appointment and from getting medicine for her cat? Should she have understood the protestors were more important than her personal needs or should the protestors have not blocked streets? What, if anything, should either side have done differently?

5. How do you think Zion and the narrator will view this period of their life and their interactions in 20 years? ***

DECEMBER 2020

- 34 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DAVID RICH

The Crate David Rich *** I cruised out of BLE’s house in my crate. A teenaged girl like myself, she was one of few people I’d ever seen in person.

I stopped my crate in no place in particular to flat-out break the law. I was so good at hacking crates that I’d reprogrammed mine to open upon command. Crazy illegal!

All crates were programmed to protect everyone’s fundamental right not to be seen. Basically, they remained closed until confirming you’re in the presence of only legally sanctioned live contacts. Then you go back in before seeing any unauthorized people.

History recounts that long ago, people judged one another by things such as gender, ethnicity, occupation, personal transportation vehicle, etc. But the modern American Political Union, our beloved A.P.U., made that intrinsically impossible.

When the door opened, I stepped out of my crate into broad daylight. Although my actions were illicit, I expected no witnesses and deemed them as harmless.

DECEMBER 2020

- 35 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DAVID RICH

I viewed a sea of crates, perfectly identical boxes on wheels, rolling to their individual destinations. Inside each, I imagined a human being enjoying physical isolation by texting, gaming, taking in media, or any number of things.

Then, I glimpsed a mother and child crossing the street. I believe they were of Asian descent (though we rarely spoke of ethnic physical traits). Certainly, they’d legally arranged to walk wherever they were headed. But we weren’t supposed to see one another.

The girl stared at me; she didn’t appear old enough to understand the law. When the mother spotted me, she made her daughter look away and hurried her along.

The moment was amazing. They were two random people I’d never seen before. Above all, I’d beaten the system. I was powerful. The mother who’d seen me couldn’t disguise her horror.

It was exhilarating. *** Of the people I’d known in person, all but BLE were family relations. BLE was my only ‘live’ friend; all my remaining friends were still virtual. It was a sore subject for me. I suspect that by my age, most had several legally sanctioned live friends.

I remembered hacking BLE’s crate profile and learning that she had six live friends and many more virtual friends than I. Knowing things like that was forbidden because comparisons can make people feel inferior.

And in this case, I was angry! It’d made no sense to me that she’d have more friends.

I knew I was much smarter than BLE and made frequent hints about it without telling her explicitly. I couldn’t risk that she’d lodge a complaint, or worse, record the conversation.

If you denigrated anyone, they caught you. If you compared and contrasted people’s merits and flaws, they caught you.

DECEMBER 2020

- 36 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DAVID RICH

I’d been accused of revealing my own accomplishments from time to time. Usually, the AI’s caught it in my text messages. Fortunately, minor correct speech violations resulted in either warnings or assignments to watch dreadful reeducation videos.

One had to be subtle. So, earlier that afternoon, I’d managed a casual comment regarding the ease of last week’s chemistry exam. Her riled glance was priceless.

Despite our complicated relationship, we were indispensable allies in solving a mutual problem.

We both wanted to flee the American Political Union.

It seemed obvious why I’d want to leave. How infuriating it had been, possessing superior intelligence, to be considered merely an equal in a sea of perfectly identical crates!

But BLE? I knew she was distinctively pleasant and engaging in person, though I had minimal data to compare. Perhaps I’d always suspected she didn’t belong hidden in a crate.

The hare came through, BLE texted. In our secret code, that meant one of her many friendship connections had provided the geographic coordinates of a gap in the electronic border fence confining the A.P.U.’s population.

About a thousand rabbit holes, she continued texting. That meant the ride to the gap was a thousand kilometers. A long way! But I’d successfully mastered how to disable our crates’ travel limiters and location transmitters without losing auto-navigation. The next steps simply were to choose a day and cover story, empty our currency accounts, and set the coordinates.

I didn’t suspect a crate would fit through the border hole.

However, according to BLE, it was only a ten kilometer walk across the neutral zone to a border checkpoint of the O.A.R., the Old American DECEMBER 2020

- 37 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DAVID RICH

Republic.

It was common knowledge that the O.A.R. accepted defectors from the American Political Union, honoring the two nations’ shared history. More importantly, the O.A.R. appreciated the A.P.U.’s strong educational system. With my advanced ability, I anticipated many advantages for myself in the O.A.R. However, I couldn’t foresee as much for BLE. *** Finally, our day of flight came. My plan was so perfect, it was anticlimactic. Our parents never questioned our lie that we were visiting one another. My ingenuity with the crates’ innards worked flawlessly. So, I spent most of our transit reading an old novel written before the Second American Civil War. When we arrived at the gap, we stepped out of our crates into the open sun. We slid right through the border gap.

The hike across the neutral zone was magnificent. Having seen drone video of A.P.U. Protected Forests hadn’t prepared me for the experience of physically walking through nature.

I felt lightheaded upon approaching the Old American Republic border checkpoint. An armed man led us to a waiting area. Quaint paper FAQ’s indicated that our petitions for defection would be reviewed upon testing and evaluation.

Another man escorted me to a room where I received a multisubject written exam. The proctor observed me carefully and took notes.

Perhaps he was wary of cheaters. But I didn’t need to cheat. I crushed the test despite the proctor’s irritating stare. Clearly, the O.A.R. badly needed bright people like me!

I paced alone for what seemed like hours. For the first time, my triumph wouldn’t remain secret. Soon, I’d have the opportunity to pursue the great life I deserved.

DECEMBER 2020

- 38 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DAVID RICH

Then, a smiley gentleman entered. From his uniform, I presumed he was important.

“Ma’am, I’m Dan Brendan, O.A.R. Immigration Agent. You’ll be pleased with the results of your exam.”

I recognized his accent, relaxed and slow, but had never heard it from a live individual. Nevertheless, I savored the praise, eager for more.

“Congratulations

JNA-9468,”

continued

Brendan

as

my

anticipation swelled. “Your O.A.R. citizenship application has been hereby granted. Welcome to the land of the free.”

I eagerly anticipated my future success in a world where people could be openly compared!

He resumed, “Your being so smart, I reckon you’ll want to attend one of our universities. But first we need to discuss your categorization results. You’ll belong to Category D, I’m afraid.”

That didn’t sound too awful. “So...?”

“At school, you’ll reside in a Category D living group. If your high achievement continues, you’ll have opportunities to work at numerous corporations. But frankly, there’ll be limits to what positions you’re eligible to hold, what neighborhoods you can live in, who you can marry, and numerous other things.”

“I don’t understand. Is this because I wasn’t born here?”

“That often affects the decision, but not here. Look, our great Old American Republic has four levels: A, B, C, and D.” “And D is the lowest? What was my test score? I killed it!”

“The fact you’ve been admitted here means you did sufficiently well... given your, umm, circumstances.”

“What circumstances?”

“You don’t know, do you? You and your ridiculous crates. No one’s ever told you, have they?”

My stomach fluttered and gurgled. “What?”

DECEMBER 2020

- 39 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DAVID RICH

“Ma’am, here in the Old American Republic, you’re... well... ugly as a dog!” He laughed. “And quite overweight.”

“Do you know how offensive that is?!”

I couldn’t believe my ears. His language went far beyond anything I’d ever heard. In the A.P.U., he’d have suffered more than reeducation videos! In fact, I’m fairly certain he could’ve been incarcerated under the Correct Speech Act of 2071.

But this wasn’t the A.P.U; it was the O.A.R. “You seem irate. But expect others to put it less gently.”

I was almost missing my crate. BLE and I quickly needed a change of plans!

“Where’s my friend BLE? We need to talk.”

“BLE-2384? Her new name’s ‘Bella.’ Her exam just missed the margin, but we gave her an extra bump. She’s Category B and headed to her new residence.”

“What? How did she-” “You have no sense of reference, do you? Bella’s hot! A piece of ass!”

I’d never heard the expression ‘piece of ass.’ I let it go.

“If she’s so wonderful, why isn’t she Category A?” “Category A? That’s for men only! But don’t worry about Bella, that sweet thing’ll become a pharmaceutical sales rep or news commentator... or anywhere we need a woman in the meeting room to gawk at. Heck, maybe she’ll be your boss one day.”

I couldn’t imagine what vile mode of thinking created a place like this. I was able to run circles around BLE. Gravely regretting having fled the A.P.U., I was stuck and needed to adjust. Borrowing from ‘JNA-9468,’ I became Janet Niner.

To my delight, several colleges accepted me. Though the odds were stacked against me, I had choices. I traveled across beautiful country DECEMBER 2020

- 40 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DAVID RICH

to the university I’d selected. My advanced level allowed me to enroll as a sophomore. The Category D living arrangements were cramped, but not as bad as I’d feared.

My roommate Alex was awesome. Her mother had taught her to retain a positive attitude in tough circumstances. I’d known that the A.P.U. had a diverse population, but since everyone hid in crates, it felt entirely theoretical. Although I’d been taught the importance of racial equality, Alex was the first person of African heritage I’d met in person. The more I got to know her, the more I appreciated being free of my crate.

Langer and Jason lived across the hall. According to Alex, they were lovers.

Regretfully, my first glance at Langer was sideways with my brows lowered and nose raised. He must have seen similar looks often, as homosexuality in the O.A.R. had an awful stigma.

I, however, had grown up in the A.P.U., where sexual orientation was like eye color, all shades thoroughly normal. I was the one perfectly comfortable with it!

There were entirely other reasons, I admit shamefully, for not taking well at first to Langer. Since arriving in the O.A.R., having seen multitudes of live people, I’d begun building comparative yardsticks and found myself brazenly judging others as human instincts dictated.

Langer was tall, but skin and bones. His top jaw jutted forward hideously. His unpleasant face and lack of muscle tone made me uneasy.

My glance of disgust must have caused hurt.

His roommate Jason was comically tiny next to Langer. At first, I couldn’t take seriously anything puny Jason had to say.

I recognized that my prejudices clashed with my upbringing. But now surrounded by real people, nature was taking over.

Two weeks into school, I’d gotten used to the nasty looks from the Category B’s and C’s. The university’s few A’s lived in a Greek-lettered DECEMBER 2020

- 41 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DAVID RICH

fraternity house. All of them were tall, sturdy, handsome men from select European heritage.

Being a D was tough. We were freely mocked and rarely shown any respect. Every day, someone demeaned me in some manner.

Near the end of my first semester, Langer was in a tough scrape.

Another student, a C to my best guess, was punching him around. I assumed this ‘Miscreant’ disliked Langer for his sexual orientation.

Regardless, Langer was on the ground about to be pummeled. A crowd had gathered to watch.

I don’t know what made me do this, but I couldn’t let him beat on my fellow D. I leapt out of the crowd and shoved Miscreant with the power of spontaneous rage. He stumbled two meters and tumbled to the ground.

I suddenly realized that I’d been a fool with a death wish for having done that. So, I disappeared among the onlookers before Miscreant could stand up. He never saw me. The crowd could have given me up, my being a D. Fortunately, they didn’t seem to care.

Langer successfully escaped. However, my luck appeared to evaporate when a man in a military uniform intercepted me as I fled. He grabbed my arm, though not forcefully. I was terrified of the punishment I’d receive for violence committed against a person of higher category level.

“Janet Niner,” he said.

“Please forgive me,” I begged contritely, having no idea how he knew my name.

“Are you Janet Niner?”

“Yes sir.”

“Someone important needs to speak with you... And your apology baffles me.”

Apparently, he was ignorant of my attack upon Miscreant and couldn’t have cared less.

DECEMBER 2020

- 42 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DAVID RICH

*** An hour later, I sat in an office in a building reserved for deans and faculty. The man across the desk from me wore a military uniform suggesting significant seniority. In addition to his decorations and rank insignia, he sported a gold pin with the Greek letters of the Category A fraternity.

“Please address me as Colonel Hayden,” he said. “And frankly Janet, we need your help.”

“My help?”

“Everything I’m about to tell you is confidential and need-to-know.

More to the point, if you violate this confidentiality, you’ll wind up in a casket.”

He had a direct way of speaking. I pondered my chances of surviving the day should I have refused to help him.

He continued, “I understand you have personal experience with crates.”

“I’m from the A.P.U.; everyone uses crates.”

“No. Specific expertise in electromechanical tampering and code manipulation.”

Wondering how he knew that, I imagined lying pointless. I replied with a stutter, “Yes sir... Colonel Hayden.”

“I also understand you’re one of the more gifted students in the Electrical Engineering Department.”

When I’d lived in the A.P.U., I’d ached to hear that type of praise.

But after all I’d been through, the comment made me barely crack a smile.

Hayden continued, “We’ve acquired some crates and require your help. We need you to reprogram them to deliver packages to several highly secure and sensitive geographic coordinates in the A.P.U. You’ll need to evade all security protocols designed to protect those locations.”

The challenge sounded close to impossible, but I was confident I DECEMBER 2020

- 43 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DAVID RICH

could ultimately succeed with enough time and additional intelligence regarding the electronic border fence. However, I didn’t like the sound of it. It smelled of assassination or terrorism.

“What type of packages?”

Hayden sighed. “Non-lethal electromagnetic impulse weapons designed to disable heavily shielded electronics.”

“What are the targets?”

He sighed again. “You have a lot of questions, don’t you? It’s needto-know.”

“To reprogram the crates, won’t I need to know?”

“Are you committing to helping us?”

I lowered my head. I had no idea what I was getting into or what consequences my actions would bring.

“If you demonstrate your patriotism by helping us,” Hayden said in a discreet and softer tone, “I can elevate your category level to C. Perhaps even B.” At that moment I should have felt elated. It was the opportunity for things to finally go my way. I was being recognized for my intellectual skills, and my efforts would elevate my social rank. These were the very things I’d hungered for from the beginning when I’d defected from the A.P.U. with BLE. I should have leapt out my seat and thanked him!

But instead, I sat still, unable to look him in the eye. After all I’d been through, his offer didn’t feel comfortable.

“And to answer your question,” Hayden said, “the targets are the information systems governing the A.P.U.’s Right-Not-to-Be-Seen database and algorithms. Taken down, two hundred million crates will have no information or restrictions regarding ‘live’ contacts. We’ve estimated it’ll take several months to piece the system back together, and within that time, more people in the A.P.U. will have seen one another in person than over the past fifty years. Certainly, you understand the significance.”

DECEMBER 2020

- 44 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DAVID RICH

He was aiming to establish liberty for the people of the A.P.U., the liberty I’d so badly sought. But I imagined how it might upset the fragile balance of the two nations’ cold war. Also, I wondered if it might cause many others from the A.P.U. to suffer the indignities that I’d now become so familiar with.

“Swiftly after,” Hayden said, “will come Phase 2. Additional crates with EMP weapons will disable vast sections of the electronic fence keeping the A.P.U.’s citizens prisoner. They’ll be free to defect here should they choose.”

It was plainly clear to me that if I joined Hayden, I would have helped proliferate the O.A.R.’s abominable system of categorizing people, a system that had caused me so much pain.

Looking at the door, I murmured “I don’t know if I can do it.“ “Janet,” he said, lowering his head slightly, pointing his eyes straight at me. “Janet, please.”

“I need to think about it. Can I have time to think about it?”

After a period of silence, he leaned back in his seat.

“I’ll give you one week. And we’ll be watching you carefully and monitoring your communications. Remember what I said about confidentiality. My assistant will tell you how to get in touch with me. One week, Janet. One week.” *** Days later, my friend Francisca walked with me in the rain. She was explaining to me that her family, unlike BLE and I, had entered the O.A.R. through a border that rarely accepted immigrants. She’d been young at the time but believed her father had acquiesced to sexual favors with male border security forces to get his family across the otherwise impenetrable border wall.

I was wrapped in her story but suspicious that I was being followed.

I wasn’t certain who was watching me. Was it one of the Category A DECEMBER 2020

- 45 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DAVID RICH

fraternity brothers trailing me? Or was it the older man with the long hair and beard keeping pace to my right?

Suddenly, one of the Category A’s from behind me lunged forward and shoved me with his hip. I tumbled onto a soaked, muddy area of the lawn. Quickly, he had his hands on me. I was terrified.

But he only wanted to roll me around in the mud. His friends laughed and cracked jokes comparing me to a swine enjoying its own feces.

Passersby paused to relish my humiliation.

The man with the long hair and beard stopped in his tracks and made brief eye contact with me. I presumed he was the tail Hayden had put on me. Unfortunately, he did nothing but watch.

Finally, the boys left me alone. Francisca pulled me out of the muck and walked me to my dorm. I’m glad I had her there, but I needed my roommate Alex. I knew she’d find a way to make me feel better.

Was I truly supposed to help these awful people with an act of O.A.R. patriotism? How could I possibly agree to help Hayden knowing that my actions could cause many others to suffer the reprehensible humiliation that I’d experienced in Category D? At the same time, I couldn’t tolerate living like this. My desire to elevate my own category couldn’t have burned stronger. It was quite impossible for me to forget Hayden’s offer to promote my category level in exchange for my assistance.

I tried to clear my head with a long, hot shower. Disparate thoughts ran through my mind. I was steaming with anger toward Category A and their unchallenged entitlement to do as they pleased.

Yet, I think what stung most about the incident was that the fraternity boy was so damn gorgeous! He was lean and tall. His jaw and cheekbones were solid. His eyes were dark. His full and vibrant head of hair was magnificent. I’d wanted to forgive him immediately. I grasped why the men of Category A were considered our future leaders.

DECEMBER 2020

- 46 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DAVID RICH

But I stopped myself from waltzing down that path of thought.

Soon enough, I felt self-reproach for the ease with which I’d forgiven him.

Once I was clean and dressed, I was finally able to focus upon hope.

Clearly, I was in a bad situation, but I was an intelligent individual with the ability to change that.

It was imperative that I contact Hayden. In doing what he’d asked, I’d be appreciated and rewarded for applying my talents. After all, that was the very reason I’d abandoned the A.P.U. and came to the in O.A.R. in the first place! The unfortunate answer to my problem seemed obvious.

I walked out of my dorm room looking my best. I was prepared to accept Hayden’s offer and practically felt elevated to Category C already.

Then, Langer stopped me in the hall. He was tearing up. “Janet,” he cried my name.

I placed my hand on his arm to comfort him, and he hugged me gently.

“Thank you,” he whispered. “I would’ve gotten clobbered.”

It hadn’t connected until he’d said that. I’d somehow forgotten how I’d saved Langer from Miscreant. I rubbed my hand against his back and suspected then and there that we’d be good friends for a long time.

Inside though, I heaved in fear of my own potential actions. I’d been about to betray him and Alex and all of my friends in Category D by helping Colonel Hayden and the O.A.R. proliferate its appalling system of social strata.

In that special moment with Langer, I knew I couldn’t accept Hayden’s offer. If anything, Category D needed to fight back. *** My one week to consider Hayden’s offer was expiring. I hoped never to see him again so that I wouldn’t have to face the awful decision he’d placed in front me.

I’d grown more depressed, wondering how my life would’ve DECEMBER 2020

- 47 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DAVID RICH

unfolded had I stayed in the American Political Union. In my crate, no one could judge me, not by my gender, not by my face, and not by my body. I chastised myself daily for foolishly handing myself a miserable life.

I also considered the more painful prospect that I had no good options regardless of which nation I called home. Perhaps it was my destiny never to receive a fair chance at the life I deserved.

Prof. Houston, on the other hand, represented a unique ray of hope. He cared about all of his students regardless of category. Amazingly, I’d heard he himself was Category A. I found his kindness and handsome looks a pleasing combination.

And he was young for a professor, practically right out of graduate school.

One day during office hours, Prof. Houston was assisting me with a bonus challenge assignment. “Janet, can I ask you your category?” he inquired out of context.

I wanted to tell him. I wanted to explain the injustices I’d witnessed and experienced in the hopes that he’d understand. But at the same time, I was ashamed of my category level and didn’t want him to know.

Thoroughly conflicted, I couldn’t get the words out.

“No need to answer,” he continued. “I despise our caste system.”

His noble viewpoint surprised me. Whereas I had every reason to hate our abominable system of categories, Prof. Houston, as an A, was endowed with all he needed to prosper.

I remained quiet. I remembered that Hayden might somehow be monitoring the conversation. And paranoia learned from years of A.P.U. communication-policing kept me from speaking my mind. It was difficult remembering that in the O.A.R., there were, in fact, no speech laws inhibiting free expression of one’s opinion. We were free to complain about our lower status, yet most simply accepted it as the way life was meant to be.

After leaving the professor’s office and upon exiting the building, I DECEMBER 2020

- 48 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DAVID RICH

saw Hayden rapidly approaching. I considered walking the other way but knew it a lost cause. So, I stopped.

“I need an answer,” he said firmly.

I didn’t know how to reply. On one hand, there were strong reasons to refuse him. How could I let any more people, those now safely within the borders of the American Political Union, suffer from the O.A.R.’s system of categories? Would my friends in Category D ever forgive me?

Then, I remembered that there was nothing so great about living in an A.P.U. crate and having few real friends at all. And in accepting Hayden’s offer, I could be promoted to Category B or C! Furthermore, I was afraid of Hayden and of what might become of me by failing to oblige him.

“I’ll help you,” I blurted, wishing that my motives were noble.

“Thank you, Janet. Your patriotism has been noted.”

My apprehensions, however, didn’t fade, as now I had the consequences of my actions to fear. *** I traveled several hundred kilometers to a location near the Old American Republic’s capital city. Hayden dealt with the university so that it would accommodate my spending the second semester on an ‘off-campus assignment.’

I joined a team of twelve engineers coding crates. We only needed to re-task thirteen crates, but twenty in total were available to us.

“What are the extra seven crates for?” I asked Grace, our team leader.

“No idea,” she answered. “Maybe in case we botch a few.”

Working with Grace was an honor. She was immensely sharper than I could ever have hoped to be. And of course, it was unusual for a woman to lead a technical team, especially one who wasn’t a ravishing beauty.

It also occurred to me that women made up half the team. I was DECEMBER 2020

- 49 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DAVID RICH

rather astonished that they’d have allowed such a team to exist. Perhaps Hayden was full of surprises! *** One afternoon several weeks in, the “secretary,” as most referred to the administrative assistant, informed me that I had a visitor. I paused and followed.

She led me to a conference room where, to my surprise, BLE was waiting. Considering the circumstances with which we’d last departed, I didn’t know whether to hug her or scream at her.

BLE made the decision by hugging me. The fact is, I missed her. She was a piece of my old life I wanted back.

We caught up. BLE, now Bella, attended school in the capital city and got involved with weird political groups. Embarrassed of my Dcategory, I hid many details of my experiences.

I suspected that I had BLE/Bella to thank in some way. She was the only one with knowledge of my technical skills with crates, and here she was. I probed her on the subject, but she was coy about it. I suspected some link between Hayden and Bella, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. *** The date of our EMP-weaponized crate attack on the A.P.U. was approaching. Thanks to a dedicated team, we were near ready. Somehow, I’d become so immersed in the technical challenge that I’d managed to bury my ethical qualms with the project.

Then I received another visitor, Prof. Houston. For my meeting with him, they provided a swanky conference room.

“I suppose you’re wondering why I’m here,” he said.

I took the comment as rhetorical and didn’t respond. Yet, I wanted so much to stop being so quiet in his presence!

“The crate attack needs to be delayed,” he continued.

Taken by surprise, I broke out of my bashfulness and hollered, DECEMBER 2020

- 50 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DAVID RICH

“What? We’ll be ready to go!” I didn’t want the team’s efforts to meet the timeline to go in vain. Also, in the back of my mind, I was restless to complete this and rise out of Category D. “Isn’t that Hayden’s call?” I asked in an attempt to dismiss his logic.

The professor’s role in this was a mystery.

“Hayden and I are colleagues in a sense. The Colonel recruited you because Bella came forward about your crate skills at an AB-Positive meeting. I confirmed your... extraordinary talent... and tenacious spirit and-” “AB-Positive?” I asked as his kind words made me blush.

“A political organization of Category A’s and B’s seeking equality reform. Our underground element intensely opposes this one-sided destructive act planned for the A.P.U.” “That doesn’t make any sense! If you wanted to stop the attack, why bring me here in the first place?”

“Janet, you know these crates better than anyone. We need you to fabricate a technical problem that will delay the attack. Hayden will appear furious, all along knowing what you’ll really be up to.”

“Which is?”

“Reprogramming the last seven crates. The additional targets must be within our own country, not the A.P.U. When the attack commences and the A.P.U.’s electronic border fence goes down, so will our own border fence. People will be able to transit as they please.

Imagine people of the O.A.R. seeing that greater equality is possible and that they don’t need to accept the status quo.

And imagine the people of the A.P.U. given back their voices... their right of open expression.

We hope that the newfound freedom and cross-fertilization between the two nations will breed greater unity and a climate that can truly sustain human progress.”

DECEMBER 2020

- 51 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DAVID RICH

*** Ten years have passed since our simultaneous attacks on the American Political Union and Old American Republic. I live with my husband, the noble professor, down the street from where I grew up. It’s an easy stroll to Bella’s house. Today, the neighborhood has sidewalks, which in summer, are busy with joggers, bicycles, and baby carriages.

Crates are now called “cars,” and they all have windows.

I haven’t seen Langer and Jason since their wedding a few years ago. It’s about time I visited them. They still live near the university, a long way across the country. Fortunately, travel has become easier since the reunification of the United States of America. And it’s important to keep reminding myself how precious ‘live’ friends can be. ***

DECEMBER 2020

- 52 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DAVID RICH

Discussion Questions 1. Which country would you want to live in, the one with crates (the American Political Union, where it was taboo to lift yourself up or put others down, but promotes equality) or the one with the rating system (the Old American Republic, that judge’s people for looks, ability, and success, but encourages discrimination)? What does it say about the personality of someone based on the community they choose?

2. When the gates opened in both directions, which country do you think had more people leave? Who do you think left from each country?

What were the cultural ramifications of the bilateral exodus on each community?

3. Would the narrator have been offended by the community she migrated to (the O.A.R.) if she had been attractive? Didn’t she change locations so she could be judged against others, or was it for another reason?

4. It seems like the narrator’s main frustration was she was being judged for her looks, and not her intelligence. However, to some degree, aren’t both of these traits (attractiveness and intelligence) determined by a combination of genetics and personal effort? How do you know which traits are okay to judge a person by, and which are not? Or, are all traits not suitable for judgment?

5. Could you change one of the communities to make it more acceptable, while still keeping the fundamental nature of the community? If so, which one is fixable, and what would you change? ***

DECEMBER 2020

- 53 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DANIEL JAMES PETERSON

And Joy Shall Overtake Us As A Flood Daniel James Peterson *** A few days after the accident, a nurse removes the bandages from my face and hands me a mirror. A troll stares back at me while the nurse says something about cosmetic surgery. When I don’t respond, he leaves me alone to stare at myself. My face aches in the places where shards of rock or glass worked their way under my skin, the pain doubling as I poke and prod the tiny mounds of flesh. I trace my index finger from one intersection where fresh scars meet age lines to the next. My face is misshapen, unrecognizable; yet, inexplicably, I know this monster. I run a hand across my clean-shaven head and watch the creature do the same, never breaking eye contact.

“It was me,” I think. “All along, it was me.”

I reach for a cigarette to calm my racing heart. *** When the call comes, I’m in the shower. It’s been several weeks DECEMBER 2020

- 54 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DANIEL JAMES PETERSON

since the accident, long enough for the mechanic to fix my car better than the doctors fixed my body, but not so long that my showers aren’t punctuated with plinks as pieces of gravel and translucent plastic work their way free from my skin and fall with the water to the tiled floor. I haven’t left my house since I got home from the hospital. My days have been a steady stream of reality TV and painkillers. But I force myself to shower daily, even though twisting to wash my body leaves me sore. I know something important is coming, something I need to be ready for when it comes, even if it means ten minutes a day of coughing from shower steam hitting my recuperating lungs.

I notice the voicemail once I’m back in my weathered recliner. My phone blinks an angry red, like it blames me for missing the call. I sigh and tell it to play the message, expecting another diatribe from Brianna. I didn’t tell her about the accident until I’d been home from the hospital for a week. She was furious, screaming at me while choking back tears.

“Reza, why did you wait so long to call me? Why didn’t you call me in the hospital?” she asked, none of the characteristic bitterness staining her voice, and for the first time in over a decade I wondered if there was something there I could salvage, if there was some response to her question I could give that would pull us back into each other’s orbit.

“It didn’t really occur to me,” I lied.

When the bitterness returned to her voice, its edge was keen.

“What if you had died? Was I supposed to learn about the accident from your obituary?”

“When I die, there won’t be an obituary. Not in any paper you’d read, anyway.” She yelled, and we fought, and finally she hung up the phone in anger only to call back the next day and tell me, her voice carefully restrained, that she was here for me if I needed anything. I thanked her, hoping that was all. But she continued, emphasizing that it was healthy for people who’d experienced traumatic events to talk through their feelings DECEMBER 2020

- 55 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DANIEL JAMES PETERSON

and that different people dealt with trauma in different ways, and...

And I knew, as the restraint drained from her tone, that her phone call wasn’t about me. It was about her.

It was always about her.

That conversation didn’t resolve anything, but that didn’t stop her from calling. After over a week of listening to her play therapist over my protestations that I didn’t care about my own death, I just stopped answering my phone, letting my inbox bloat with message after message from her. But this voicemail isn’t from Brianna.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Hilbert.” The woman’s voice is authoritative, takes compliance for granted. “My name is Perez, with the Southereastern Division of the U.S. Time Travel Department in Atlanta. We have important business to discuss. When you can, please contact me at—” Her message cuts off as I tell my phone to dial her callback number. Perez picks up on the second ring. *** After arriving at USTTD the next day, I’m put through several hours of physical and mental evaluations I’m sure I just barely pass. I listen to an endless set of rules and sign half a dozen non-disclosure and compliance agreements.

Finally, I’m ushered into the office of Perez—the only first name she ever offers me is “Agent” —a tall, tan woman with a gray suit and painfully tight black ponytail.

“Thank you for coming,” Perez begins, giving me a wide, warm smile that clashes with her perfunctory tone. She’s trying to put me at ease, but her mission is doomed from the start; there’s too much at stake for me to let my guard down around her. I focus on my breathing, my heartbeat, willing them into something resembling normalcy.

“I’m sure you’re wondering why you’re here,” she says.

I choose my words carefully. “Years and years ago, I met someone DECEMBER 2020

- 56 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DANIEL JAMES PETERSON

who looked just like I do now. I imagine your call has something to do with that.”

Perez nods calmly, as if what I just said was perfectly normal. “That would explain your TAA several weeks ago.”

“T-A-A?” “Temporal anomaly alert. Our agency’s priority is searching for kinked, self-intersecting four-dimensional worldtubes that could pose a problem for our universe’s spatiotemporal integrity. When our monitors find such a worldtube, they issue a TAA.” My eyes glaze over at her jargon. “I don’t understand. Are you calling me kinky?”

Perez rolls her eyes. “Cute,” she deadpans. “Let’s start by establishing your frame of reference. Tell me what you know about time travel.”

I shrug. “Just what’s been on the news, I guess. The tech was invented ten years ago, and chrononauts have been visiting the past ever since. I’ve read a few articles about scientific breakthroughs and policy changes resulting from discoveries uncovered by these trips, though only those with the right security clearance would know the truth, I guess. I also know that, like any big military secret, it’s the kind of thing the general public can’t know too much about.”

“That’s close enough to accurate,” Perez says. “And it’s worth mentioning that there’s a lot about time travel even we don’t yet understand. But given what we’re preparing you to do, you have a right to have some of your questions answered, and I have a pretty good guess as to what the first question you’ll ask is.”

“Can the past be changed?”

“Bingo. Now, I could give you a long, sophisticated, nuanced answer to this question. If you want, I can bring in one of our scientists to explain why Lewisian coherentism beats paradox and parallel theory. But DECEMBER 2020

- 57 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DANIEL JAMES PETERSON

the bottom line is, we’re absolutely certain that it’s impossible to change the past in any meaningful way.”

My chest burns. “You can’t know that.”

“I can, and I do. Every new chrononaut believes the same thing, that he’ll be the one to change history. It’s a thought that excites some and paralyzes others in fear. But we’ve been doing this for a while, and I can confidently tell you that no one’s ever successfully managed it.

Unfortunately, some folks who’ve tried have gotten hurt very badly in the process.”

“What do you mean?”

“Let’s say you go back in time to stop Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. You head toward his box at the theater to warn him about Booth. But you won’t succeed, because Lincoln was assassinated. So we know you’ll fail, but we don’t know how. Maybe the theater’s locked and you can’t get in. Maybe you’re arrested before you get close to him. Or maybe you have a heart attack and die right before he does. There are a million different ways you could fail to change the past. The harder you try to change it, the more likely you are to be stuck with one of the nasty, painful outcomes for yourself.”

I start to laugh sardonically, but it mutates into a coughing fit. Once I regain my composure, I stare into Perez. “You really expect me to believe all those forms I had to sign about following your regulations were just to ensure my own safety?”

“Yes.” “And if I don’t?”

Perez shrugs. “Frankly, I don’t care what you believe, as long as you follow our rules.”

“And if I don’t?”

Perez reaches into her desk, then stands over me and hands me a pile of paper. “Mr. Hilbert, here are copies of the agreements you signed.

DECEMBER 2020

- 58 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DANIEL JAMES PETERSON

Read them over as many times as you need to get straight on this point. If it takes a few months, we can postpone your TDE...”

“No! No, I get it,” I say. “No trying to change the past.”

Perez looks at me suspiciously. “We’re clear about this?”

“Crystal,” I say.

“All right. Any other questions?”

“What’s a TDE?” “Temporally displaced encounter,” Perez says, then shoos me out of her office. *** The morning of my TDE, Atlanta traffic lives up to its reputation. I smoke half a pack while waiting for green lights. When I arrive at the lab’s parking lot, it’s 8:07 AM. Somehow, I still have nearly half an hour to kill. I pull the note from my pocket. It’s wrinkled now and the ink is fading in parts, so I put on my glasses to read the yellow paper with the instructions I wrote to myself.

“Remember!” very slightly younger me commands.

“First, Amy,” it continues, but Amy’s name is crossed out and replaced with “Nadia”. Nadia had been 43 when she started her clinic. I panic for a moment, unable to remember where she was when she died until I see that, further down the page, I’ve scrawled “Somalia” in capital letters and drawn an arrow to connect it with Nadia’s name. What year would it have been when Nadia turned 43? I should be able to do the math, but I’m nervous and my blunt knives can’t cut much these days. I used to do calculations like this so quickly.

“Second, Brianna,” comes next, but I scratched out Brianna and wrote in Amy. No matter how many years pass, that wound remains wide open. I can’t read reminders like “August 11” and “Buy better baby monitor!” if I want to get to the rest of the list, so I skip them and keep reading.

DECEMBER 2020

- 59 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DANIEL JAMES PETERSON

To my chagrin, I realize that I never did figure out what I should tell myself to do about Brianna. Perhaps it would have been best if we’d never met, or if we’d never dated, or if we hadn’t stayed out late together that November evening where she drank too much wine and I said things I couldn’t take back and she kissed me with tears running down her cheeks like she had just discovered that everything she’d ever wanted out of life had been distilled onto my lips. But when I start to ask what we could have done to make things work, whether we could have come back from Amy’s death if I hadn’t been such an ass or if she hadn’t been so stubborn and cold, my many failures interweave into a jumbled knot and there’s no single cut that will let me pull the whole thing apart. So maybe it’s better that I just wrote “Brianna.” I instinctively reach for another cigarette.

I’m jarred by a knock on my window. It’s Perez. I panic as my eyes dart back to the note.

She opens the car door. “Good morning, Mr. Hilbert. You’re here early.”

I give what I hope is a nonchalant shrug as I shove the note back into my pocket. “Well, I left home early. You know how bad Atlanta traffic can be.”

“I do. We’re ready whenever you are.” I look at the clock. It’s already 8:21. I had thought it was earlier. I thought I had more time.

But I have Nadia’s and Amy’s and Brianna’s names and faces and smiles bouncing around in my head, and correcting those failures would be enough. *** The preparation for my TDE at the lab is strange enough that I begin to wonder if this is all just some elaborate practical joke the government likes to play on elderly car crash victims. Techs fit me with a black harness covered in blinking LEDs and too many straps. It makes me feel like I’m in someone’s Christmas-themed sex dungeon. After the techs DECEMBER 2020

- 60 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DANIEL JAMES PETERSON

help me get my suit on over the harness, I discreetly triple-check to make sure the note is still in my front pocket.

Once I’m dressed, they put me in a giant glass box they call an ionization chamber. When I ask what it’s for, they say it tells the harness what to send through time so that I don’t end up 60 years in the past bucknaked or missing my left ear. Then they change the ambient light to some frequency that makes my body vibrate. The joke about dismemberment leaves me nervous, and I’m thinking about all the things that could go wrong as I’m loaded into a van with a bunch of expensive equipment and driven halfway across town because, as the techs remind me, “time travel isn’t space travel.”

Cherokee Avenue Methodist Church hasn’t aged well. The wooded area behind it is dense and untamed, as if the church gave up fighting a battle against nature it knew it couldn’t win. The lot is crawling with blacksuited government agents who have secured the area for my TDE. The van pulls into a parking space next to an old dirt footpath into the brush. The techs hop out and begin setting up silvery devices whose function I can only guess at. I see Perez step out of a blue sedan that followed us to the lot, and we lock eyes briefly before one of her underlings swoops in, talking low and fast. I dust myself off and straighten my tie, hoping I look less rumpled than I feel.

One of the black-suited agents ushers me down the path into the trees, placing me in a spot equally hidden from both the park and the church. “This should do,” he says, then disappears before his words have finished registering.

I glance around. I expected everything to look smaller. I haven’t been back here in decades, even though I live only a few miles away. This wooded area always felt so big to me when I was a child, a magical forest in the middle of Atlanta’s urban sprawl. I’m bigger now, but the trees didn’t stop growing just because I wasn’t visiting them. I guess we both grew up, DECEMBER 2020

- 61 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DANIEL JAMES PETERSON

leaving behind well-manicured childhoods for the wild neglect of adulthood.

“Are you ready?” Perez startles me out of my reverie, and I wonder how long she’s been standing there. A nearby agent staring at his phone is giving her a thumbs up.

I wish I had time for one more cigarette. Instead, I just nod.

“Good,” she says, and hands me what looks like a vintage hearing aid. “This is the last piece of your outfit. It allows us to communicate with you in real time so we can let you know if there’s a problem or help you correct course if you’re close to violating our protocols. We’ll also send you reminders at the ten-, five-, and one-minute mark before your TDE ends.”

I stare back in confusion. “How can you know how long I’ll be?”

“All TAAs are of a known, fixed duration. What you’re about to do will take place in the past, Mr. Hilbert. It’s already happened.”

I pause, clearing a dozen thoughts from my head at once, then just nod and wedge the hearing aid in my ear. “Can I respond to you?”

“The harness you’re wearing is embedded with sensitive surveillance equipment. If you say something, we’ll hear you. Just don’t be too obvious talking to us around other people.”

“Okay,” I say. “I’m ready.”

Perez smiles. “Remember what we covered in orientation. If you need anything, just ask. We can pull you back at any time.”

I can’t tell if her final words are meant to be reassuring or threatening. Regardless of her intent, they ring hollow. There’s no way they’d risk changing the past by letting an old man disappear right before a child’s eyes, right? But I just reply “Noted.”

Perez gives her agent a thumbs up. He removes what looks like a remote control from his pocket and presses a button. The harness begins to hum, and my torso vibrates softly. Then there’s pain, the harness constricting and pulling and yanking until I feel like a rag doll tossed about DECEMBER 2020

- 62 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DANIEL JAMES PETERSON

a raging sea. My face goes hot, then cold, and my head starts to swim as the world around me fades in and out of focus. I fall to my knees, head in my hands.

Suddenly, the harness’s scream dies down to a gentle purr, and my body feels like it’s mine again. *** Sweating profusely, I pull myself slowly to my feet to take in a shorter and tidier group of the trees than the one I was just standing in. My heart jumps up into my throat. I hear Perez’s voice come in through my earpiece.

“Your trip was a success, Mr. Hilbert. How are you feeling?”

“Fine,” I mutter, dizzily pushing myself forward toward the parking lot. There’s an ocean of parked cars, and, on the far shore, the back entrance to the church’s Fellowship Hall. Sitting on the steps, looking bored, is a boy in a black suit and tie. His suit and shoes look brand new, I think, and then catch myself because I remember they are brand new. My mother and father bought me that suit for my grandfather’s memorial service when I was six years old. That service’s reception is happening right now, behind the closed doors that tower above little Reza. Beyond those doors are my mother and father and sister and grandmother, all meeting with friends and family, consoling each other and eating finger sandwiches while Reza, who can’t stand being hugged by another old person he’s never met, has snuck away to sit on the steps behind the church, alone and bored.

It’d be so easy to push past him, to enter the church and see my dead family one last time. But there’s something in the kid’s eyes, like a fish suffocating on the deck of a boat, that makes it hard to focus on anything else.

He sees me approaching the church when I’m about halfway across the parking lot, then shifts his eyes back to the cars. I’m just another old DECEMBER 2020

- 63 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DANIEL JAMES PETERSON

man to him. I walk up the steps to the Fellowship Hall and stop next to him.

“You’re...” I start, and my voice cracks. My chest feels tight, and I start over. “You’re Reza Hilbert, right?”

“Yeah,” he tells me, looking up and really seeing me for the first time. “What happened to your face?”

“Car crash.”

“You look kinda like Grandpa. Are you his brother?”

My mind flails for a bit before I recall my resolution: no trying to remember our conversation from his side, no saying things just to match those memories. I owe more to myself than to a bunch of government agents, and I’ll say what I feel like saying as long as it doesn’t blow my shot to make things right.

“Yeah,” I answer. “I’m his brother. Sorry I didn’t make it for the service. How was it?”

Reza shrugs. “Sad. Mom and Dad were sad. And boring. They’re talking with a lot of old people.”

“Want to get out of here?” I ask him, and he looks up in confusion.

“Where would you like to go, Reza? There’s a nice park on the other side of those trees, maybe we can...”

“I’m not supposed to go anywhere with strangers.”

“But I’m not a stranger,” I point out. “I’m your grandfather’s brother. Your parents will be busy with the reception for a while. They won’t mind if your great-uncle takes you to the park for a bit.”

Reza ponders my argument for a moment. “Okay,” he says, and leaps to his feet. The kid loves the park.

We take off across the parking lot. After a few awkward, silent seconds, I ask, “What do you want to talk about while we’re walking?”

“Tell me a story,” he says, more request than command, and I frown. It’s too soon for me to tell him about anything that matters—my head’s still reeling from the weirdness of talking to my kindergartener self DECEMBER 2020

- 64 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DANIEL JAMES PETERSON

about my long-dead family.

“Here’s the deal,” I say. “I’ll tell you a story at the end of our trip if you tell me three stories first.”

Reza considers, and I can’t help but smile at him even as my heart pounds in my chest. “Okay,” he says. “What kind of story do you want?”

“Maybe something about your grandpa?” I suggest, and Reza nods.

“Once upon a time, there was a man who was smarter than everyone else. Even Dad says so. His name was Grandpa Farzin, and everybody loved him so much and was really sad when he died.”

Flashes of the past burst in my head, fragmented memories of my grandfather and of the twist I know Reza’s story is about to take, and I have to steady myself against a parked car to catch myself from stumbling as the world spins around me in a moment of lightheaded deja vu.

“But he had an enemy stronger than any enemy ever, and that enemy was Emperor Glorstugg, leader of the Slugrians, and he hated Farzin because when Farzin was a boy he flew up to the Slugrian home world on golden wings and killed Glorstugg’s dad to free all the Slugrian slaves.”

I smile, and almost laugh. This must be what going crazy feels like, because I remember now, I remember, and I want to interrupt Reza, but I know better, because he’s just getting warmed up.

“So Glorstugg sent his three strongest warriors to Earth to kill Farzin. One was—” Reza pauses for a moment, sizing me up—“a giant cockroach named Cora-Cora. He shoots fire out of his eyes. And one is a giant scorpion named Scorpo. He shoots ice out of his eyes. And the last one...”

I can see the mischievous glint in Reza’s eyes, and sigh inwardly.

“He’s a giant wasp named Waspy-Wasp, and he shoots poison out of his butt!” Reza titters, very proud of himself. I purse my lips and nod.

“Then what?” I ask.

“Oh, Farzin kills them all with a hammer made of light,” Reza DECEMBER 2020

- 65 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DANIEL JAMES PETERSON

replies, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “And he goes to the Slugrian home world and smashes all the bad guys there with his hammer, and then he comes home and marries my grandma and lives happily ever after. The end. Did you like my story?”

“I like it very much, but I don’t think it’s quite accurate.”

“Accur-rate?”

“True. It’s not true.”

“You didn’t ask for a true story,” Reza responds. “You asked for a story. I gave you a story.”

I can’t argue. “Well, it was a good one, anyway. Did your mom and dad tell you how your grandpa died?”

“They said his brain got cancer. He was sick for a long time.”

“He was. He suffered a lot, and toward the end he had trouble remembering who you and your mother and your father were, and that made him really sad.”

“How do you know that?” Reza asks, and I want to blurt out everything, tell him who he is and who I am and what’s going on, spill all the secrets he’ll need to know so that he doesn’t make all the mistakes I’ve made.

But I feel the hum of the harness, and I am stupidly afraid.

It would be so easy to throw out the earpiece and just start telling Reza everything I want to say. But I don’t. I’m weak, and scared, and not ready to make my move yet. And my head hurts.

“I just know,” I say. “Like I said, he’s my brother.”

“Did you get along with grandpa?” Reza asks.

“Not always,” I say. “It’s like with you and your sister.”

Reza crosses his arms. “We never get along,” he says. “But it’s her fault. She’s really bossy!”

“Big sisters always are,” I reply in a voice I hope sounds knowing.

“But she loves you.”

DECEMBER 2020

- 66 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DANIEL JAMES PETERSON

“Everyone always says that everyone loves you, but I don’t know,” Reza says. “That doesn’t mean they aren’t mean sometimes.”

“Are you ever mean to the people you love?” I already know the answer.

“I guess,” Reza sighs. He’s getting bored. Luckily, we’ve reached the end of the path and are standing at the edge of Grant Park. “Are there any playgrounds here?”

“Yeah,” I reply. “And a zoo.”

“A zoo!” His eyes light up. “What kind of animals do they have? Do they have tigers? They’re my favorite!”

“Yeah, they do. They’re my favorite too.”

“Let’s go there after the playground,” he says decisively, and I realize I’ve just led Reza on. We never make it to the zoo. My headache is growing worse. It’s hard to keep all of these lies straight—the lies I’ve told, and the lies I will tell. “Hey, Reza, why don’t you tell me your second story?”

“Okay,” Reza says, but then he sees a playground and nothing else matters. I can hear him begin the story as he runs ahead, but his voice is soft and I can’t keep up with him, so all I get is “Once upon a time...” before he’s scampering up a plastic climbing wall, dirtying his brand new suit.

He doesn’t notice that I can’t hear him, but even if he did, I doubt he’d care. Like most of the stories the young tell the old, I guess Reza’s second tale was never really meant for me anyway. I watch Reza travel down a long metal slide, then imitate a fighter jet as he swoops over to the monkey bars. “How am I doing?” I mutter to my invisible audience. I grit my teeth and slide my hand into my pocket, fingering the note. Maybe now, standing in front of this crowd of children and parents who’d notice if I suddenly disappeared, maybe now is the time to...

“You’re doing fine. But you should go over to that bench so that you can keep a clear line of sight on him.” Perez’s voice crackles over my earpiece. “You’ve got about fifteen minutes left in your TDE.” DECEMBER 2020

- 67 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DANIEL JAMES PETERSON

“But we just got here. Reza wants to play here longer, and then we—” “You really should go to the bench now,” Perez says, in full command voice. “Remember, we can pull you back if we have to.” I grudgingly walk to a warm metal bench and lower myself onto it, wiping sweat from my brow.

Reza’s finished his story and realizes that the person behind him who he thought was me is actually a young father watching his toddler play. Reza’s going to panic as he looks for me, so I wave to him. Sure enough, he spots me and runs over.

“Where did you go?” he asks me. “I was telling you a story!”

“You were running too fast,” I say. “You’ll have to start again.”

Reza shakes his head. “No!” he declares. “No starting over. I told the story.

It’s your fault you didn’t listen.”

I chuckle quietly. Damn, I used to be precocious. And stubborn. At least that’s stuck with me. “Well, then, how about just the short version?”

“There was a space princess,” he says, as if that explains it all. Strangely, it does, or at least it explains enough. I remember there was something about a lizard who took her captive, and she escaped, but the details don’t much matter.

“All right,” I say. “You owe me one more. Then I’ll tell you one.”

“What do you want this one to be about?” he asks me. “I don’t have an idea for one right now.”

“How about someone who does something he isn’t supposed to do?” I suggest. The story I’ve saved for him will give him hope in the days to come. The kid might as well return the favor in advance.

Reza nods assent, but he’s distracted by the other kids playing.

“Okay. Once upon a time there was a man who broke the law. He was bad, so they caught him and put him in jail. The end.”

“That’s not a very good story,” I say. “What law did he break?”

DECEMBER 2020

- 68 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DANIEL JAMES PETERSON

Reza sighs and squirms in his suit, turning his attention back to me. “He broke the law that says don’t do bad stuff.”

“Not helpful,” I say. “What bad stuff did he do?”

Reza thinks for a moment. “The man took his sister’s phone, but then the man said that he didn’t do it, but then his parents found out and he got in trouble.”

“So what did they do with him when they caught him?”

“They put him in a jail that no one can ever escape from.”

“Did he try to escape?”

“Yes. He tried every day to escape, but it never worked.”

“Never? Why not?”

Reza looks at me like I’m a moron. “Because there are guards with lasers.”

“What if he crawled on the ground to escape at night when they couldn’t see him?”

“Then he still can’t escape because there’s an ocean around the whole place.”

“But what if he swam across it?”

“Then the alligators in the ocean eat him.”

“But what if he beat up the alligators and then swam across?”

“He can’t,” Reza’s word is final. “They’re alligators, and he’s just normal.”

“But he could dig a tunnel and get out.”

“No, because he doesn’t have a shovel, and even if he gets one, robots would chase him and catch him and bring him back.”

I smile sadly at him. “It sounds like you’ve got everything figured out. There’s really no way for this guy to escape.”

“Yeah. He just stays there till he dies.”

“All because he took his sister’s phone?”

Reza nods.

DECEMBER 2020

- 69 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DANIEL JAMES PETERSON

“That seems harsh.”

“Well, he shouldn’t have took the phone.”

My vision goes temporarily wet and blurry. “I don’t like that story very much.”

Reza shrugs. “Then tell a better one.”

I smile. “Okay,” I say, and stand up, taking Reza’s hand. “I’ll try to tell you a better one.”

“After the tigers?” Reza’s eyes are alight.

My earpiece crackles again, and I hear Perez’s voice. “Ten-minute warning.” I curse under my breath.

“We don’t have time for the tigers,” I tell my past, clearing my throat. “But we do have time for my story before you go.”

“I wanna see the tigers!” Reza insists, and for a moment I worry that he’s going to throw a fit, then I remember that he won’t.

“You have to get back to the reception and your parents,” I say.

“They might be looking for you.” Reza pouts all the way back to the path.

Meanwhile, I call on every last memory cell to help me conjure what I’m about to say. Finally, I begin. “There’s a story that the people of...”

“That’s not how stories start,” Reza corrects me. “They start ‘Once upon a time’.”

I shove my hands into my pockets. “It’s my story, so I’ll start it how I want.”

“No, you can’t! There are rules,” Reza insists. I wonder how many times in the last half hour I’ve sighed.

“Fine,” I relent. I hesitate before continuing, considering telling Reza a very different tale, one about a man full of regrets who’s lost everyone he cares about. But what I’m beginning to tell, while ridiculous, will stick with Reza through the years before it fades into his worn, patchy memory. It’ll help him get to sleep at night when he worries that what came for his grandpa will come for him. And as I look at the boy, so very DECEMBER 2020

- 70 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DANIEL JAMES PETERSON

small, I realize that I can’t be the one who takes that story away from him and leaves him with a tragedy about pain and loss to worry over instead.

“Once upon a time there was a tribe of people who lived on a small island far away. And they talked about what happens when you die. A lot of other people had different ideas about death. Some people said that, when you die, you’re taken to a special place far away. Some people said that, when you die, that’s just it—there’s nothing. But the people on this island knew that those things weren’t true. When you die, they said, you come back to the world, but you come back as a different person in a different place in a different time. Every single person who ever lived, they said, was really the same person. And every time they died, they forgot everything. And the people on the island refused to fight wars with each other or be mean to each other because they realized that they were all the same person, just at different places and points in time, so if they hurt someone, they’d just be hurting themselves.”

“That’s not real,” Reza says. “We aren’t all the same person.”

“We could be,” I start, and Perez growls a warning “Hilbert” in my ear.

“Maybe,” I continue, “you’re really the same person as everyone else, the same as your grandpa and your mom and your dad. And every time you die, you get to go back in time and start over as someone else.

Like a video game, but you get to play as everyone who’s ever lived and who will ever live.”

Reza thinks for a second. “So when grandpa died, he went back in time and became someone new?”

“Yeah,” I say. “But he forgot being grandpa.”

“I think I like that,” Reza says. “It makes dying not scary. All the stories Mom and Dad and everyone at the funeral told about dying are scary, but that one’s not scary.”

“I like it too,” I say. “But even if you don’t like that story, there’s no DECEMBER 2020

- 71 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DANIEL JAMES PETERSON

reason to be scared of death. It’s better to only be scared about the things you have control over.”

“Like snakes,” Reza says gravely, and I remember the constrictor I saw in a nature documentary when I was six, and how terrible those coiled muscles all bunched in a pile had looked.

“Yes,” I say. “Like snakes.”

Suddenly we’re on the steps in front of the church again, and it makes no sense to me, because it feels like we just left the park a moment ago. Perez’s voice crackles over my earpiece with my one-minute warning, and I’m frantically trying to remember when it was that I missed her fiveminute warning. As I realize where I am, and how close my TDE is to ending, my pulse races and my stomach clenches.

It can’t end now. I just need a little more time.

“Reza,” I say, turning quickly to him, and I think Perez may be saying something over the earpiece, but I have no time left for my fear to trick me into wasting. “There are things I need to tell you—” Abruptly I feel the harness warming up, its purr growing louder. Our time is up, and somehow I got too scattered, too afraid of missing my chance, too caught up in little Reza’s world to do what I needed to do.

I clutch at the note in my pocket, and one last desperate ray of hope cuts through the fog of my brain. As Reza turns to sit back down on the top step, I pull out my note and stuff it into the back pocket of Reza’s pants. He may not be able to make any sense of my scribbles, but maybe a word or two will stick. Maybe it will be enough to change things. It has to be better than nothing. After what I’ve given him, it’s the least he can do for me.

As I step back from him, Reza looks up at me.

“Thanks for taking me to the park,” he says with the mechanical politeness his father drilled into him. “And I liked your story.”

“I liked your stories too,” I say, smiling at him as tears well up in my DECEMBER 2020

- 72 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DANIEL JAMES PETERSON

eyes once more. “Live a good life, Reza, and make better choices than I did.”

“Aren’t you going inside?” Reza, asks, and I know he doesn’t understand what I’ve just told him to do, but I’m moving as quickly as I can through the parking lot and to the privacy of the wooded path.

“I can’t,” I shout back. “Please just tell them that I love them all, and that you love them, and...” But I’m out of earshot and into the trees.

My harness roars, and I collapse in a sweaty, convulsing heap. Then the world comes back into focus, and with it, a kind of lightness. I’ve done all I can do. The note will have to be enough. *** The trip back to the USTTD building and my subsequent evaluations pass as a blur. I don’t give the techs even half of my attention as I force myself from memory to memory, searching for any indication that I received and read that note as a child. But I can’t remember finding or reading any note from myself, and my memories of Nadia’s death and Amy’s are clear as ever.

“Maybe time travel interacts with memories strangely,” I think.

“Time paradoxes create all sorts of strange effects in movies. Maybe I’ll go home and discover Brianna and Amy waiting for me. Maybe I’ll get a letter or text from Nadia.”

Perez clears her throat to pull me back into the present, and I’m not sure how long she’s been standing there. “We’re nearly done here, Mr. Hilbert,” she says. “Just one last detail.” She nods to the techs to let them know they can leave, and we’re suddenly alone in her office.

I feel a lump in my throat but put on a smile. “What’s that?”

“This.” Perez draws a crumpled yellow note—my crumpled yellow note—from her pocket and tosses it on the desk in front of me.

My mouth tastes like ash. “Where did you—” “Church steps,” she replies, shaking her head. “After your TDE. DECEMBER 2020

- 73 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DANIEL JAMES PETERSON

That note was in your pocket when you entered the ionization chamber?”

“How...why is it here?”

“Anything you carried into the ionization chamber was keyed to your harness, just like your clothes. The note was still in the harness’s transit radius when we pulled you back, so it came with you.”

I lean back in my chair, eyes floating to the off-white ceiling. “I should’ve thought of that.”

“So you knowingly violated our directives and tried to leave a future artifact with your past self?”

I throw up my hands. “Yeah, I left the note to change the past. I violated your rules. Go ahead and arrest me.”

“What did it say?” Perez asks, and I’m confused.

“Didn’t you read it?”

“It was illegible. The ink was smeared.”

I look at my hand and see trails of black ink etched in its cracks, staining my sweat.

“So what did it say?”

My heart sinks down, down, down. “Nothing. Just...nothing important.” My plan, my actions, were futile, frustrated in a myriad of ways, some of which I would probably never even know about.

“Then why did you give it to him?”

“You know my history,” I tell her. “After the loss of every person I’ve ever cared about, why wouldn’t I risk prison for the chance to have my daughter back, or my sister back, or to actually make something of myself?”

Perez is silent for a moment. “I get it. It was a deeply stupid thing to do, but I get it.”

I lean back, resigning myself. “So are you going to arrest me?”

“No.” “No?” I take a ragged breath. “So...you’re going to do something DECEMBER 2020

- 74 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DANIEL JAMES PETERSON

worse, then?”

She exhales a clipped laugh. “You watch too much television. Your TDE was a success; the TAA was resolved, and here you sit looking no worse than you did before we sent you half a century into the past. The government is happy, the universe is happy. Just stick to the agreements you signed from here on out, and I’ll be happy.”

“No!” I shout, slamming my fist on her desk and rising from the chair as fast as my still recovering legs let me. “You can’t just ignore what I did, just act like what I did didn’t count! I broke your rules, and actions have to have consequences, and I...” I trail off as my body starts to shake and my eyes brim with tears.

Perez raises her eyebrows, and for a moment I think I see something resembling human pity in those brown pits. “And you don’t think your TDE had any consequences?”

“Nothing’s changed. Amy and Nadia are still dead. Nothing that happened in that TDE mattered, not really, which means that whole trip, all of it, was for nothing.”

Perez looks at me like I’m still six. “Hilbert, I’ve spent most of my professional life thinking about time, so believe me when I say that you’re thinking about this the wrong way. It’s like you said during your TDE: it’s better to only be scared of the things you have control over. You’re so hung up on your inability to change the past that you’re ignoring the fact that, in a sense, you succeeded in changing the past.”

“What?”

“You told little Reza that story. You acted autonomously and authentically, and you gave a little boy hope. No, your potentially suicidal plan didn’t work out like you hoped. But that doesn’t change the importance of what you succeeded in doing.”

I shake my head. “But that’s not a change! I remember being told that story. It had to happen.”

DECEMBER 2020

- 75 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DANIEL JAMES PETERSON

“It only had to happen because you chose to make it happen. If you had chosen differently, you would have remembered it differently. This past event may have been fixed, but it was your actions, your choice that fixed it.”

It’s not the first time Perez has made this point, but for some reason, standing in her office with sweat pouring down my face, eyes watery and hands shaking, her words finally penetrate my thick skull. It’s a moment of ecstasy, and of panic. For just a moment I see an ocean of eternity filled with immutable fixed points, Amy’s death and Nadia’s, Brianna and my ink-stained palms and my story to little Reza. But I am the wave that connects all of these points, and that makes my story to Reza, sitting right on my crest, both perfectly free and perfectly predetermined.

The contradiction exhausts me, and as the wave crashes, my spinning head dumps me back into Perez’s office unceremoniously.

Perez’s expression verges on genuine concern. “You okay, Hilbert?”

I nod and smile, then make my way towards the door. “Yeah, I’m good. I think I’m starting to get this time stuff. Not, you know, fully, but kind of. Focus on the things you have control over, and all that.”

She smiles and leans back in her chair. “Sounds about right. Now go live the rest of your life.”

I walk out the door and into the hallway. I feel the rough edges of the wadded-up note in my hand. There’s a garbage can to my left, right next to the exit. I walk to it and place the note in my back pocket.

Then I pull out my pack of cigarettes and toss them in the trash. ***

DECEMBER 2020

- 76 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DANIEL JAMES PETERSON

Discussion Questions 1. According to Perez (the scientist), regardless of what you do, the past cannot be changed. This means whatever did happen, will happen.

Lincoln will die. Assuming this is true, does this mean there is no free will or real choice?

2. Do you personally believe you have free will? How could you prove your answer one way or the other?

3. What are the key things that the narrator seems to be trying to change by the items written on his list? If you could slip your younger self a piece of paper with just a few words written on it, would you? If so, what would be the things you would want to change, and why those things?

4. What are you saying about your current self, and about your past choices, when you attempt to provide information to your younger self so you make different choices?

5. According to the story the narrator tells, we are all just one person “at different places and points in time.� What do you think of this idea? Is there a story you would want to go back and tell your child self? If so, what story, and for what reason? ***

DECEMBER 2020

- 77 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

TYLER W. KURT

Bunny Racing (Children’s Story) Tyler W. Kurt *** In the land of rabbits, there were two young bunny rabbits, Hopper and Bounce, and they were the very best of friends. Hopper and Bounce played together almost every day and did the usual things that bunnies did, like scrunch their noses, and scratch their ears, but their favorite thing to do was RUN. They ran everywhere they went together and because they ran all time, they got faster and faster. Sometimes they would race each other, but they were almost exactly the same speed, so it was almost always a tie.

One day they were running in a field when an older rabbit saw them and said, “Dang, you two are the fastest bunnies I have ever seen, maybe the fastest bunnies in the world. You two should enter the Rabbit Racing Championships!” Hopper and Bounce’s eyes immediately lit up with excitement.

“I’m going to be the fastest rabbit in the race!” said Hopper.

DECEMBER 2020

- 78 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

TYLER W. KURT

“You mean the second fastest rabbit,” Bounce said jokingly, “because you are going to be right behind me!”

Well, they did go to the race, and it was a huge race! There were more rabbits there to watch the race than Hopper or Bounce had ever seen in one place in their entire lives. And there were rabbits there to race, too! Tall rabbits, short rabbits, brown rabbits, white rabbits. Rabbits with big ears, and rabbits with small ears. Rabbits of every shape and size.

Well, pretty soon it was time to start, so Hopper and Bounce lined up with the other rabbits. Then the announcer yelled “Go!” Hopper and Bounce were fast, and within just a few strides they were already leading the race.

They ran through a field of tall brown grass where they could hardly see, then through a dried-out riverbed. Then over a beautiful field of short green grass that felt soft on their rabbit feet.

“We are … going to … win!” Hopper said to Bounce, through heavy breathing. But just as he said that he saw three other rabbits, led by a rabbit with a bent ear, coming up behind them, gaining ground. Thump, thump. Thump, thump.

“We … have to … run … faster!” yelled Bounce. But there was no hope. Bent Ear and his two friends ran past Hopper and Bounce. Bent Ear went on to win the race, and Hopper and Bounce came in fourth and fifth place.

“They were … so fast,” Hopper said, still out of breath. “They must run all the time. I’m going to hop over to them, and talk to them, and learn everything they have to teach me.” And that’s exactly what he did.

A year later, Hopper and Bounce were back at the race ready to try to win again. This time, however, just as they were heading to the starting line, Hopper pulled Bounce by the ear into a near-by bush.

“What are you doing!” screamed Bounce, “that’s my ear you’re pulling on!”

DECEMBER 2020

- 79 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

TYLER W. KURT

Hopper looked around to make sure no other rabbits were looking, and then pulled out a very strange carrot. “This,” said Hopper, “is what Bent Ear and his friends were eating before the race last year that made them so fast.”

“What is it?” asked Bounce.

“It’s a special carrot from the forbidden forest — “ “ — the forbidden forest!” shouted Bounce, “But no bunny is allowed in the forbidden forest, because it’s so dangerous!”

“I know,” said Hopper, “But they went there, so I went there. I know I broke the rules, but it made me really mad that they beat us last year. So, when they told me what they did, I did it, too.”

“But that’s cheating,” said Bounce.

“Look,” said Hopper. “We both know we are the fastest rabbits out here. The only reason Bent Ear and his friends beat us is because they ate these special carrots from the forbidden forest before the race. So, if we eat them too, we aren’t getting a SPECIAL ADVANTAGE, we are just making everything equal again. So, it’s not really cheating.” Hopper started eating his special carrot and handed Bounce the other special carrot for him to eat.

What Hopper said made sense. If EVERYONE was eating the special carrots, then maybe it wasn’t really cheating? Bounce looked at the special carrot Hopper was holding out for him and he was thinking about eating it, but then his stomach started to feel like two butterflies were dancing in it. Something inside made Bounce feel like eating the special carrot was wrong.

“No,” Bounce said, “I think I’d rather just run on my own.”

“Okay,” Hopper said, “suit yourself.”

Not too much later, the race started and, just like the year before, Hopper and Bounce started off faster than all the other rabbits. “See,” Bounce said to Hopper, “I told you I didn’t need the special carrot!”

DECEMBER 2020

- 80 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

TYLER W. KURT

And, just like last year, they ran through a field of tall brown grass, then through a dried-out riverbed, and then over a beautiful field of short green grass that felt soft on their rabbit feet.

But, just like the year before, when Bounce looked back, he saw Bent Ear and his friends gaining ground on them. Thump, thump. Thump, thump. Bounce turned to Hopper to yell “Run Faster!” but when he looked around, Hopper was already far out in front of him. The special carrot was working.

Bounce ran as fast as his rabbit feet could carry him, but Hopper was even faster. Just like the year before, Bent Ear and his friends ran past Bounce. But not only that, the other rabbits passed Bounce, too. “The secret is out,” thought Bounce, “EVERYONE is eating the special carrots but me!”

In the end, Hopper won the race, and Bounce finished dead last.

This went on for five years, which is a very long time in rabbit years. And in all five years Hopper and the other rabbits would eat their special carrots before the race. And in all five years Hopper came in first place, and Bounce came in dead last.

Well, no bunny had ever won the race FIVE YEARS IN A ROW, so Hopper became very famous. At least, famous for a rabbit. All the other rabbits knew him by name, and they all admired him. Nobody admired Bounce.

In fact, Hopper was so important, and so famous, that he had lots of new rabbit friends. He had so many new friends that Hopper hardly ever had time to spend with Bounce anymore. And this made Bounce sad, and maybe just a little bit jealous.

Hopper used his new rabbit fame to help other rabbits that needed help too. Like, one time, when a rabbit lost his bushy tail to a coyote, Hopper used his fame to get all the other rabbits to collect cotton from the fields. He then gave the cotton to the tail-less rabbit so he could put the DECEMBER 2020

- 81 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

TYLER W. KURT

cotton on its behind where its tail used to be. Of course, a cotton tail isn’t as good as a real tail, but it’s better than no tail at all.

Finally, in the sixth year, after coming in last place again, Bounce just couldn’t take it anymore and he yelled out at the finish line, as loud as he could, “They are all cheating, every bunny is cheating. They are all eating special carrots from the forbidden forest!”

The crowd went quiet. The old rabbit who was in charge of the race, whose fur had turned gray with age, came up to Hopper and the other rabbits and asked, “Is that true?” But he could tell by the guilty look on Hopper’s face that it was.

“Yes, it’s true,” said Hopper. “But I wanted so badly to win, and everybody else was eating the special carrots, so doesn’t that make us all equal?”

“I’m not eating the special carrots!” said Bounce.

“Well maybe you should!” snapped Hopper. “I tried to tell you to eat them, but your pride wouldn’t let you! Look at the all the good I’ve done by being famous! I have helped so many other bunnies that needed help! If you take this all away, I won’t be famous, and I won’t be able to help other rabbits that need help. Also,” said Hopper, “I won’t be able to win the race anymore.”

The old rabbit thought a long time. Both Bounce and Hopper had made good points. But finally, the old rabbit decided what to do … ***

DECEMBER 2020

- 82 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

TYLER W. KURT

Discussion Questions 1. Is Hopper right? If everyone is eating the special carrots, is it really cheating?

2. Does it matter that the only way to get the special carrots is by breaking the rules and going into the forbidden forest?

3. Does Hopper doing good things with his fame make up for the fact that he was eating the special carrots from the forbidden forest?

4. Did Bounce really tell on Hopper and the others because he was angry they were cheating, or because he was angry he was losing?

5. Should Hopper and Bounce remain friends after all this over?

6. What do you think the old rabbit should do? ***

DECEMBER 2020

- 83 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DAVID SHULTZ

Rainbow People Of The Glittering Glade David Shultz *** From Ardwan Abasan of House Edwin, to Lord Sovereign, King Rancor Canri XIII, and His Holiness, High Priest Jeronim Zerom, This correspondence will give a full accounting of my excursion to the rumored land of the Glittering Glade, in my capacity as emissary to the people presumed to reside there, who fall within the jurisdiction of the Empire, and are therefore accountable to the Laws of Universal Justice. As your Lordship and His Holiness know, the land of the Glittering Glade, as we have called it in our ignorance of its true name, was rumored to have violated these most fundamental laws through the acts of slavery, human sacrifice, and the worship of a corrupting god. Before proceeding I affirm in most unequivocal terms my continuing commitment to equality, justice, and compassion, and my equivalent abhorrence and opposition to those particular, grotesque violations aforementioned. Relying on those values DECEMBER 2020

- 84 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DAVID SHULTZ

as my compass, after proceeding through that strange land, I have concluded that these rumors are entirely without merit or substantiation.

Nevertheless, it would be beneficial to provide an explanation for their genesis, which the present account will provide in full.

Our party to the Glittering Glade numbered three, comprising myself, as emissary; our man-at-arms, Tangai Harvee, nephew to his Lordship, Lord Sovereign, King Rancor Canri XII, whose post is Captain of the Platinum Regiment; and Cyrena Giselle, granddaughter to His Holiness, High Priest Jeronim Zerom, whose official position is as political adviser, but whose natural inclination, as I came to understand through our travels, is in the mystical arts. I consider it my duty to explain fully and with absolute honesty the nature of the events that transpired. It is only right that Your Lordship and His Holiness should have a complete accounting of events, and in particular, as those events concern their familial relations and loyal servants serving in their official capacity for the Empire.

For my part, I undertook preparation for the excursion with some trepidation, not for fear of the rumored sacrifices, dark magic, or purported evil and alien god, but solely for the practical considerations of travel.

Information about the Glittering Glade was spare, existing only in whispered rumors and faded legend, owing to the perhaps insurmountable challenges of traveling there. If we survived the mountain trek, there was then the shifting deserts, and somewhere within them, we were to find the Glade, with no adequate map or even approximate location, save for one we had estimated by coordinating rough accounts from drunks and madmen.

Tangai, for his part, did not show any fear. His emotions vacillated between anger and a stange, passionate anxiety. I could not say whether he was more excited at the prospect of bringing a new principality to heel, or benefiting from whatever spoils would be offered if they were to resist.

And Cyrena, to my surprise, seemed hopeful and positive, notwithstanding DECEMBER 2020

- 85 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DAVID SHULTZ

the perverse and grotesque activities rumored to transpire there. She explained to me, when I noted her good mood, that it was her faith that gave her hope—that the true gods are just, and moreover, man is often fallible and prone to cynicism, and this may account for the tone of rumors surrounding the Glade. She intended to remain hopeful, buttressed by her faith. What if the rumors were true, I asked her, and she said that she would then have an opportunity to shine the light of true gods in the darkness. Both of my companions were commendable in their own way. I would like to be able to say that it was my own commitment to the principles of universal justice that compelled me in my mission, but I cannot in good conscience claim that as my primary motivation; were it not for the duties of my post, I suspect my fears of the journey ahead would have been enough to keep me in the safety of known lands. Here, then, is an example of how duty can be a strength, compelling the weak to overcome otherwise insurmountable challenges.

My travel gear consisted of the standard water skins, rations in the form of dried meat and fruits, a dust scarf, flint and steel, a blanket, a knife.

To this I added the navigational mechanism devised by his Lordship’s imperial astrologists. Tangai and Cyrena packed similarly, though his accouterments were notably more geared towards combat, consisting also of a long spear, a short-curved sword, and a handshield. Cyrena, likewise, carried additional supplies relating to her craft: small pouches containing smooth stones and various roots and flowers, and some small vials of concoctions whose purpose was not then known to me.

The mountain ascent was arduous, but fortunately without consequence. The descent on the Western side was likewise executed without serious mishap, and relatively easy riding, until, at the precipice of the shifting desert, where the sand crawled its many fingers up the mountain, a disaster struck. Tangai was traveling at the lead, and his horse was startled by some unseen thing. He fell and broke his arm on the rock.

DECEMBER 2020

- 86 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DAVID SHULTZ

A professional healer was not needed to make this judgment; the bone was visible through the skin. Cyrena applied one of her salves to the wound. I assisted with the bandage and brace. It was then that I discovered, too late, what had startled Tangai’s mount; while we tended to Tangai, a black snake with yellow rings darted from the cracks on the earth and sunk its fangs into my thigh. I do not recall the name of the species, which Cyrena knew and relayed for me then, along with the confirmation that it was indeed venomous. She did her best to suck the poison from the wound, then applied another salve and provided a bitter-tasting vial of what might serve as an antidote, but already I felt the effects taking hold.

In that one moment, hardly a few paces into the shifting sands, we had already suffered two potentially fatal wounds, and lost a horse. We considered trailing Tangai’s mount, but the mare had fled in the opposite direction, the way we had come. If we followed, we would be slower, three riders and two mounts, and two of us wounded at that, and Cyrena would not leave us in our wounded state, insisting that we needed constant care and vigilant attention. Briefly, perhaps shamefully, I considered returning the way we had come, back to safety, and suggested this option as diplomatically as I could manage. Tangai received this suggestion with what I would call distaste. He was committed to our mission, as a matter of principle and duty. Cyrena was inclined to agree with Tangai, but for more practical reasons. The return journey, back across the mountain, would perhaps be as difficult, if not moreso, than completing our journey to the Glade, and receiving whatever aid their people might offer. I assented to their judgment, I must admit, for Cyrena’s rationale.

It should be noted, for posterity, that Cyrena identified the snake as an omen, and feared death ahead, of a physical or spiritual sort, or both, and that we must remain vigilant against all threats, natural and supernatural like. Whether this omen came to pass is in some sense a question of subjective judgment, as you will come to understand based on DECEMBER 2020

- 87 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DAVID SHULTZ

the events that followed.

We traveled through the shifting desert. My muscles stiffened, my breath was slow, and I was perpetually on the verge of slipping into unconsciousness, and sometimes did. Cyrena, sharing my mount, kept me upright and aware. On occasion, Tangai would wince from pain, but for the most part bore his wound without any indication that it had perforated his psyche as the bone did his skin, and continued to wield his spear as firmly as before his fall. I suppose it is part of the mindset of a warrior to hide any signs of weakness, though I didn’t quite comprehend this at the time. I first naively assumed that the wound must not have been painful, given Tangai’s lack of reaction, until I inspected, along with Cyrena, the progression of the wound while we camped. Unwrapping the blood-soiled bandage, an infected injury seeped pus around blackened edges. My wound likewise progressed in similarly discouraging fashion, blue and green rot spreading under the skin. It was Cyrena’s judgment that our infections would continue to spread—disparate though their causes—the inevitable consequences of which did not need then to be articulated.

Rotting flesh was not the only concern. Our supply of water was running low, and with no known sources within traveling distance, our situation was increasingly dire. Our only hope was to reach the Glade. But we were lost.

Despite meticulous calculations, we had lost track of our relative position. I used the astrological mechanism to navigate by the moons. I checked these calculations multiple times, and Tangai, who had familiarity with the device from his service as a military captain, confirmed our course.

Nevertheless, we would find ourselves oriented in the wrong direction, or several dozen short marches off course. It was as though we were being moved around the desert independent of our own locomotion. I understand better now, having gained firsthand experience, why this place was called the shifting desert by the few delirious travelers who escaped DECEMBER 2020

- 88 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DAVID SHULTZ

its wandering terrain.

“There is a theory called plate tectonics,” I said to the others, “that the earth underfoot is not solid but comprised of enormous shifting plates, the movement of which accounts for the formation of mountains and chasms. Perhaps there are smaller plates here, and their movement is more quick.”

Cyrena dismissed this naturalistic theory. “It is magic,” she said.

“We are drawing nearer to the Glade. Perhaps this is their means of defense. Not anything so direct and violent as swords and spears, but rather an illusion and disorientation—rather than draw blood from invaders, they draw the invaders into the sand.”

“It would be efficient,” Tangai said, “if the bodies are to end in the sand either way, to skip the middle step of killing... But it would be dishonorable beyond redemption, and would threaten friend and foe alike.”

At that time, there was no evidence to adjudicate our competing theories. We continued, having no other option.

I can’t recall how many days it had been that we had traveled through these twisting sands, but we encountered something bright white, with sun gleaming from its surface, which we took initially to be a rock jutting from the plains. At this point through the barren desert, any landmark was a cause for hope, even if for nothing else than a means to gauge our progress through an unknown land, to confirm we hadn’t circled back on our position. The object was, on closer approach, a statue of perfectly smooth marble. I mentally assigned the human figure the role of pilgrim, though I can’t say precisely what it was that made it feel an apt description. The pilgrim walked, like us, through the desert, its hand outstretched as if to accept an offering.

“If there is a statue,” Tangai said. “Then there are people nearby.”

“Or there were,” Cyrena said. “They may have moved on.”

DECEMBER 2020

- 89 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DAVID SHULTZ

It seemed as though, if anything had moved on, it was the pilgrim, who had wandered from his society and found his way here, lost in the desert.

“I have encountered tribes who use statues to mark the far edges of their territory,” Tangai said. “Though usually in the form of stacked stone or dried mud. Never artistry so masterful as this.”

Indeed, the pilgrim was perfectly lifelike, and I was struck in particular by the eyes, and the folds of the eyelids, which could not, in my estimation, have been formed by any sculpting technique known to our people. So lifelike was the statue that I was nearly compelled to speak to it, to ask what it wanted, to offer to share the space on Tangai’s mount. Yet we left the pilgrim there, hand outstretched, no longer to us but instead to the searing sun and blistering sand, and continued towards where we imagined the Glade may lie, somewhere beyond the invisible periphery marked by the pilgrim’s presence.

Sometimes, in intense heat of desolate plains, there appears a shimmering haze on the horizon. This is what I witnessed then, not across the horizon, but as a faint bubble in the distance, like a shimmering shell of scattered light. At first I attributed it to delirium, or exhaustion, or what I had by then come to accept as my coming death. I have heard that those approaching death are sometimes called to a bright light, and I took what I beheld to perhaps be just such a light. But it was not ephemeral. At night the phenomenon was more striking, like the stars had fallen to the earth and became trapped there in a sphere.

“Do you see that also,” Cyrena said.

“Yes,” Tangai said. “We are almost there.”

We left for the dome of scattered stars in the morning. I found, as we approached, that the sparkling shell did not grow brighter as we approached, though it widened, expanding as neared its glittering umbra.

It appeared to dissipate, until, as we entered what I imagined to be its edge, DECEMBER 2020

- 90 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DAVID SHULTZ

it had become invisible to us, having traveled within. I would have dismissed it as an illusion, and lost all hope, were it not for the field of white stones standing before us.

We approached what could be roughly called a village, at a glance.

A village, though, comprised almost entirely of statues, like the pilgrim we had encountered earlier. No huts or hovels, no tents, no structures of any kind, or even implements.

Yet moving on we discovered, beyond the hardened, motionless statues at the periphery, that among those slow-moving creatures were real, living denizens, or at least facsimiles thereof. They shared in common the marble skin of the pilgrim, and ambled aimlessly about, performing repetitive, meaningless motions, or vague imitations of purposeful acts.

Here and there was a man or woman who pantomimed gardening, or shoveling, or carrying timber, or mining stone. None of them spoke or even indicated awareness of our presence as we trudged deeper into the thick of this strange, slow-moving, stone people.

We attempted to communicate with these things, who may have been some unknown species, or a cursed race, or magically animated statues. They were perfectly mute. They didn’t respond to our addresses, our pleas, our suffering. We were as much alone among them as in the desert, so we pushed on, until we found a road cutting across this statue village, which lead at its terminus to a distant walled city. I estimated the population of this statue village by assuming regular distribution in a circular area around the central city, at approximately fourteen-thousand.

Fourteen-thousand mindless beings, whatever their genesis, engaged in crude imitations of humanity.

“There is something sick in this place,” Cyrena said. “Something unnatural and unholy.”

I was gripped by a similar sentiment, and no doubt Tangai felt similarly, faced as he was upon this uncanny, dream-like vision of stone DECEMBER 2020

- 91 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DAVID SHULTZ

men, entranced in their individual stupors. Yet there was nothing to be done, and we were forced to press on.

We were approached by a woman on horseback traveling in the opposite direction, from the walled city ahead, to meet us. She introduced herself as Estar Jamayna Keerthan, emissary of the Dayvan-Azrail, who are the people of what we have called the Glittering Glade, and is in fact rightly called Kurukshtra. I likewise introduced myself and my party, and impressed immediately upon Estar—the first speaking being we had encountered since heading on our mission—the extent of our injuries and gravity of our condition. Something of Estar’s appearance must be noted.

Her skin was like those of the living statues that surrounded us, the same stony white, like marble. Yet, it was marked all around by magnificent, rainbow tattoos. Indeed, her flesh had become a canvass, the site of breathtaking beauty and dazzling design that seemed almost alive, flowers interwoven among twisting vines, and among these, creatures of various sorts, large-beaked birds, prismatic lizards, sea creatures, all of which were so vivid as to seem ready to leap from the inked foliage of her flesh into reality. I would later come to find that all of the citizens within those walls shared in common those glorious adornments, so that the citizens of Kurukshtra—those who live within its walls—can be aptly called the Rainbow People. But enough of aesthetics.

I cannot express in words the graciousness of our hosts. My life is owed to them, and Tangai’s as well. We were taken immediately into the walled city, past a towering gate that was opened without question as we approached. We followed Estar to the clinic, where we were told our wounds would be attended to, and en route, I noticed, in particular among all the noteworthy splendor of this place, the aqueducts, which fed each of the homes, and the flowers and fruiting trees that gave the buildings less a look of stones erected in desert than ancient monuments claimed by jungle. The aqueducts were the greatest mystery, an incomprehensible DECEMBER 2020

- 92 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DAVID SHULTZ

feat of engineering, looping and forking all through the city, without apparent inlets, sometimes rejoining the stream in complete circuits, yet flowing according to an apparently perfect design. The geometry escaped me, how waters could flow in such a fashion, endlessly, and I naturally assumed a technological sophistication that had surpassed our own. All I could divine about their construction was that many of the channels extended towards the direct center of the city, and I took that to be the ultimate source.

We were provided water, and our wounds were attended to.

Within an enclosed building, under the supervision of Estar, local healers applied salves, as Cyrena had done, but also muttered incantations under their breath, and made scooping motions with their arms, as though gathering up invisible energy from the air, before pressing it on to the space around our bodies. The immediate effects were a feeling of calm and release. The healing effects were somewhat slower, but already I felt my strength returning.

We were given a room fitted with three beds for the purpose of our recovery. On that first night, sleep was difficult, interrupted by the sounds of the villagers feasting for some unknown celebration, the occasion of which I was not to learn for several days. It was then that Cyrena first registered to me her change of outlook, no longer as hopeful as before our departure, but colored by the events that we had so far witnessed. “Can you not feel the sickness of this place?� she said. To which we could hardly at this time agree. The sounds were of revelers and celebration, and my own feeling was of tremendous relief and calm, having received the medicine and magic of their local healers.

Cyrena recounted the mindless stone people on the outskirts, the odd sensation we had all felt on trudging through that strange perimeter of mute semi-humans, and the dark rumors that had compelled our DECEMBER 2020

- 93 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DAVID SHULTZ

expedition here in the first place.

“And your skin is changing color,” Cyrena said. “It’s becoming like the stone people here.”

“Nonsense,” Tangai said, waving off her concern. “You are imagining things. You came here expecting darkness so that you could find glory in dispelling it. But we’ve found something altogether different, and I intend to show gratitude to our hosts.” With that he left, and joined the city folk in their night celebration. Cyrena knelt in prayer, and was so positioned until I fell asleep that night.

In my dreams that night I was one of the stone men. I took a pick and destroyed the stone that enclosed my spirit, and floated free. And in my rage, the pick swung likewise at the bodily encasements of those dull and mute denizens, turning them to rubble.

In the morning, Estar woke the three of us—Tangai, had returned at some point during the night, though I hadn’t woken for it. Estar was accompanied by one of the healers, who explained that it will take some matter of weeks before our wounds were fully healed, before it would be safe to make our return journey, should we wish to make it then. She then offered a more comprehensive tour of their splendid city.

I did not at this time broach the issue of the rumors for which our journey had been undertaken. I thought it prudent to avoid risking offense of our hosts, and to not sully our relationship with talk of slaves or sacrifice or alien gods, opting instead for a strategy of quiet observation and tactful diplomacy. Cyrena, however, was not so subtle, and took it upon herself to engage in that which was meant to be my responsibility as emissary.

“What are those masses of people outside the city?” she said, to which Estar answered, “Those are the drull.”

“But who are they? Cursed? Victims of magic? Slaves?”

Flustered in that moment, I can’t recall with clarity what I said, besides excusing my companion’s unacceptable line of interrogation, and DECEMBER 2020

- 94 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DAVID SHULTZ

shifting the subject to the colorful tattoos that adorned our present host.

To the best of my recollection, the exchange proceeded as follows: “Those symbols on your forehead, and on the others that live within these walls, they look to me like Hemedic. I would hypothesize that your language shares a similar ancestor, Old Hemedic.”

“An astute observation, Ardwan! Do you study languages?”

“I am a student of language and history.”

“That is evident. Indeed, our script shares a relationship with Hemedic. But our tongue predates Old Hemedic by a hundred generations—of course there was no way that you could have known this.

Still, I’m impressed by your scholarship and aptitude. No doubt we can learn from one another. In fact, if you are so inclined, you may have a place here as a foreign scholar.”

I was confident then that I had sufficiently put Cyrena’s conversational trespass out of our host’s mind, and perhaps also earned her respect.

We toured the city. The spiraling library, the hot springs, the gardens, and saw everywhere a notion of life freed entirely from sickness and crime and hunger. Everywhere our needs, and those of the citizens, were perfectly provided for, and in this space of heavenly comfort, they had sought to perfect not only their leisure, but artistic talent and spiritual growth. Spaces were devoted to musical performances, where we stopped to listen to a performance by a trio comprising a flutist, harpist, and bard.

Other spaces were devoted to games and sport, but nothing akin to the aggressive and violent activities with which I was familiar. I suspect this is owing to the lack of warlike mentality of our hosts. Having no war, they did not need to play games to prepare them for war, or remind them of war. I was witness, during this tour, to a way of life that could provide a model for what is possible, when one is prepared to execute the necessary democratic preconditions.

DECEMBER 2020

- 95 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DAVID SHULTZ

This night, Cyrena again raised concerns, and reminded us of our obligations to uncover the truth behind the rumors of this place.

“After all,” she pressed, “would not the emissary show us exclusively those areas that are fit for a visitor? Would not they hide the gruesome underbelly of their society, if there was one to hide? Indeed,” she continued, “they hardly had to hide it at all—we witnessed the suffering of this place outside of its walls, among those pitiful creatures that Estar called the drull, and we walked by them without a thought. Have you forgotten why we are here?”

“Why do you presume they are suffering,” Tangai said, “or that their condition is unjust?”

“Something is wrong in this place,” Estar said. “And it is infecting us. Look. Look at your skin, how it’s changing to look like theirs.”

Indeed, at this time, it could no longer be denied, or attributed to imagination or delusion. Our skin was changing, albeit subtly, taking on the color and texture of marble.

“It is of no consequence,” said Tangai. “Skin changes color—in response to the sun, for example, or exercise, or diet. No doubt living in a place of magic, such as this, will change the color of the skin.”

“And then there are the drull.”

“What of them?”

I can’t recall the exact words of this exchange, but the sentiments expressed and emotions conveyed were clear. Tangai resolutely refused to acknowledge Cyrena’s concerns, about which she steadfastly insisted we take action to address. It fell to me to mediate the dispute and decide on a course of action. Naturally, my compass was duty, and therefore it was my judgment that we would broach the issues with Estar, at our earliest convenience the following day, and determine what truth lay behind those dark rumors, beginning with the drull.

Estar did not seem incensed at our inquiry. To the contrary, she DECEMBER 2020

- 96 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DAVID SHULTZ

welcome us immediately to tour the drull outskirts, and freely answered all our questions, though she expressed some surprise at our desire to spend our time in such a dreary place, and registered some disappointment that she was outside of the comfort offered by the city. Nonetheless, we learned much of the drull, and the Dayvan-Azrail people.

The drull are entirely mute, apparently without personality, and not slaves at all. Let that rumor be laid to rest. The drull are not put to work, nor do they receive orders. They amble about, silently, unproductive, and vegetative, and are much more readily considered as moving statues than persons. I repeatedly tried to engage in conversation with these strange creatures, interrupting their mock actions to inquire about their day or their present condition or their goals. I asked a drull pantomiming gardening what he had planted. I asked a drull in prayer to which god she prayed. These encounters satisfied my curiosity. They were mute and unreachable. Cyrena was not so readily put at ease. She wandered off, laying hands on these creatures, whispering to them, and returned to me convinced that they were not mindless automatons, but living beings, somehow trapped in their bodies, and that the sickness was not just physical but in their eternal soul. She brought no evidence to bear on these claims, and was rightly dismissed by Tangai and myself.

Nevertheless, at Cyrena’s persistent prodding, I raised the issue of the origin of the drull. Estar obliged. Here are the facts: There are no racial castes among their people, no system of class, no serfs or lords. Indeed, all beings are equal in law and equally entitled to citizenship within the walls—or to status as a drull, wandering mindlessly in the periphery. All children born within Kurukshtra are unmarked by those rainbow tattoos, and equally entitled to either fate. The condition that manifests as membership within the drull manifests at the onset of puberty, and it is then that degeneration occurs. The malady afflicts all equally. There is, of course, a remedy for this ailment, in the form of a DECEMBER 2020

- 97 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DAVID SHULTZ

magical seal placed on the forehead. These are the markings that I had earlier noticed, which I had mistaken for a derivative of Old Hemedic. In fact, the mark is a mystic seal, distributed to those who have proven themselves worthy through acts of bravery, or compassion, or other virtues of character sufficient to impress the citizenry, who make decisions of membership by democratic vote. Throughout their young lives, and even extending into adulthood, they have many opportunities to prove their worth and by that means earn a seal. Yet those who squander this opportunity gradually slow in their movements, and retreat of their own volition to their place among the wandering drull, turning eventually, in the furthest outskirts, to stone.

For some reason that I cannot comprehend, Cyrena was horrified to learn that these mindless beings had once been normal children. For my part, I believe it would have been worse if they were born in such a state, doomed from birth to this subhuman existence. Instead, they were all treated equally, all given the same opportunity, and the greatest among them entered the citizenry, while the unworthy among them, the lazy and cowardly and stupid, earned a fitting fate, ambling mindlessly in perfectly unheroic lives. It could not even be said to be a punishment. This is the life they chose, through their poor action, or deficiencies in character they neglected to correct, or failure to engage in any virtuous action of note.

It can be said, in favor of the Dayvan-Azrail, that they even offer a chance at redemption to the worst of the drull, to those who have become frozen through inaction. Estar took us to see one of these creatures, one of the so-called “noble drull�. We were lead to an area of the aqueduct which passed over a dark alleyway. It was plain to see that the stone had failed here, that the aqueduct, which ran not far overhead, had sagged and threatened to crumble, run through with small fractures. But it had been buttressed. Beneath the stone was a drull, positioned with hands overhead, holding the aqueduct at its lowest point, and supporting its DECEMBER 2020

- 98 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DAVID SHULTZ

weight. He had frozen solid in this position, becoming the infrastructure of the city, an ongoing act of noble sacrifice for the betterment of all. His act had been duly recognized, and the citizens had petitioned to elect him among the noble drull, and grant him citizenship. Estar then explained that the celebration that we had heard during our first night was in honor of the induction of a noble drull. And then, Estar revealed perhaps the most compelling information of all: that she, herself, had once been a drull, and had gained citizenship. So it cannot be said that slavery is practiced here.

There are those within the city and those without, of course, but their positions are determined by their actions and by their character. This is a system of justice—of just reward.

There remained the matter of our disturbingly graying flesh, which could no longer be ignored, prodding us incessantly not just with its visual aspect, but the rigidity imparted on our limbs. My movements became increasingly difficult and distances seemed longer. We were risking, it seemed, being trapped in that same fate as the drull.

Estar answered our concerns in somewhat disturbing terms: We should, were it not for the magic of the land, be dead. By this she meant all of us. Not just myself, Tangai, and Cyrena, but all of the Dayvan-Azrail. We were kept alive here by a source of magic beneath the ground, which not only healed our wounds, but also provided the water that sustained the city. But all things have their cost, and the thickening skin, the paralytic muscles, the creeping lethargy, were symptoms of that magical sustenance.

“Can it be stopped?” Tangai said.

“It can,” Estar answered. “With the same seal as those earned by the noble drull.”

I believe I may have stammered at first, coming to realize then that our fate depended on the judgment of our hosts, and whether we would be deemed worthy of the mystic seal.

DECEMBER 2020

- 99 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DAVID SHULTZ

“And have we...” I started. “Have we earned this honor?”

Estar grinned. I am happy to report that your trio of emissaries quickly gained the favor of the Dayvan-Azrail people, which Estar explained to us in detail. It was not only our arrival which impressed them—our successful journey over the mountain and through the shifting deserts— but also our individual virtues. Cyrena was recognized for her mystical arts and devotion to her own faith, though alien to our guests. Tangai was recognized for his courage and athleticism which, I came to learn, he had demonstrated amply in his interactions with the locals, in various competitive feats during their celebrations while Cyrena and I had slept— notwithstanding his injury. For my part, our hosts valued my scholarship.

“Our council has decided to grant you all the seal,” Estar said. “If you choose to take it.”

“And if we don’t?” Cyrena said suddenly, and imprudently, in my estimation.

“That is of course your choice,” Cyrena was told by Estar. And the consequences of this refusal did not truly need to be stated, but existed bodily in the form of those creatures that ambled uselessly in the outskirts, the drull.

“I will take the seal,” Tangai said. Though I was also so inclined, I must admit I was taken aback by Tangai’s forwardness. It was in keeping with his personality, and yet his duty should have compelled him to first consult with myself, being the emissary. Nevertheless, it did not give cause for chastisement. I could find no fault in his decision, and agreed to be escorted by Estar to the location where the seal would be applied, and our status as honorary citizens granted, with all the benefits that entailed.

We were taken, for the first time, to an underground tunnel, which lead towards the center of the city. I had the sense we were being brought to bear witness to a great secret, and can find no accurate analogy for the sensation that innervated my being as we drew closer. The hairs across my DECEMBER 2020

- 100 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DAVID SHULTZ

entire body stood at attention, and my soul seemed to buzz within whatever ethereal substance it was situated. Within those tunnels, we encountered the first armed guards we had yet seen, stationed at regular posts along the lengths of the passage, spears at the ready.

I cannot say with certainty whether the feelings at approaching the inmost cave were as I now imagine them, or whether my encounter with that source of power has colored my memory, so that the unspeakable majesty I beheld cannot be contained within that whole moment, and bled into the past memories—it is almost unthinkable, as I approached such a supernatural essence, that I could not have felt it before I laid my eyes upon it. There was, in the center of a domed chamber, a glowing crystal, lined along each edge with shimmering gold, and hovering above the height of a man. It was not affixed as though by a rope, but bobbed as though floating in subtle waves. And strangest of all, its fractal and many-faced surface—a construction of awe-inspiring geometric perfection—undulated and metamorphed, changing the number of faces, the location of vertices, angles. There was the inescapable sense that what we viewed was not an artifact, of natural origins or otherwise, but a living thing, perhaps even a god.

How long I stood, transfixed by the majesty of that crystalline entity, I cannot say, but when I awakened, it occurred to me at once, first, that this must be the “alien god” spoken of in rumors, and second, that the rumors of this god’s dark nature are surely borne entirely out of ignorance and human frailty. This entity was perfection made manifest. Nothing so beautiful could possibly be malevolent, and must surely be a god of light.

Perhaps there is nothing I can write to convey this conviction, which is a matter of experience, and utterly beyond logical argumentation. I can say, after beholding this higher being, which I now with certainty take it to be, that I understand truly what it means to have faith.

But enough of this digression, the essence of which cannot possibly DECEMBER 2020

- 101 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DAVID SHULTZ

be adequately communicated. We were to be afforded the seal, and to witness a sacred rite among the Dayvan-Azrail, one which indeed forms the heart of their community.

Two of the citizens entered the chamber, carrying between them the ossified body of an ancient drull, one so solidified I surmised that it must have be gathered from the furthest outskirts of the drull village, an hypothesis which Estar confirmed. Indeed, for this ritual, only the lost drull are used—those whose flaws of character have taken them far outside of the confines of the city, and who are constitutionally incapable, given profound deficiencies of character, of ever earning the honor of a seal, and who, it may still be said, have lived fully the life they have chosen for themselves, until it ended in the desert, in stone.

I have not often referred in this report to the citizens as “rainbow people�, but at this moment, it was a fitting appellation, for, drawing closer to the crystal god, their tattoos glowed, and the chamber was alive with colored light, a prismatic dance of energy between the crystal and its chosen citizens, refracted through the many faces of that glorious being, and projecting the colors across its walls.

The drull was taken to the center of the chamber, positioned directly beneath the lower point of the crystal. Here there was an aesthetic contradiction: the perfect, undoubtable majesty and beauty of the shifting and shimmering crystal god, and below it, the colorless body of a drull, mute and immobile after a life wasted.

The crystal directed its attention downwards. Here is an act, if the motions of gods can be called acts, that is best described as compassionate communion. The crystal proceeded to take the body of the drull into itself.

The body first regained its color, turning from stone to human flesh, and then, began to turn and morph as the crystal did. The angles of bones and the vertices of joints shifted in a process that was beautiful when performed by a god, but marred in this case by the imperfections of human DECEMBER 2020

- 102 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DAVID SHULTZ

anatomy, red and pink and bone white, as the drull was shaped and inverted along the crystal’s preferred geometry. Nevertheless, not a drop was spilled, and whatever matter was released from the swirling mass of the former drull was drawn into the crystal and transmuted into a brilliant shimmer.

The attendant Dayvan-Azrail went immediately to work on their craft. Tools and special inks were at the ready, and a small procession of Dayvan were attended to, marked on their naked bodies with arcana of that ancient precursor to Old Hemedic. Though it would perhaps not be welcomed by my gracious hosts, I can speak of the particulars of this sacred rite. Those artists making the marks would glance from body to crystal, copying the shapes that appeared in the shifting crystal mass, and rapidly transcribed them on the flesh of those receiving them. Once completed, the marks glowed, and a glittering river of air seemed to join them to the crystal. It was by this process that the marks received the blessing of the crystal god and its concomitant power.

Of course, I was slated among those to receive marks, as were Tangai and Cyrena. Tangai assented wordlessly, offering his forehead to the artist.

When it came my turn to receive the mark, I felt as though I was standing on an incredible precipice. It was not fear that I felt, but the monumental import of the occasion. As is my inclination, I thought first of my duties. Though my sense, in the face of this majesty, was to immediately assent, I deferred for a moment to those tasks that I had come to accomplish, for his Lordship, for His Holiness, and for the Empire. But my choice here was no choice at all, in this sense: my body was dying, and I was slowly joining the drull. If I were to continue my duties I must take the seal. And moreover, to refuse at this time may have been taken as offense, thus jeopardizing future relationships. Consequently, I received the mark.

Words cannot explain the feeling at receiving this great blessing.

DECEMBER 2020

- 103 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DAVID SHULTZ

By way of analogy, let us appreciate the difference between a child living in the womb and one that has just been born. These are the best terms by which I would describe the experience. I had entered a new world. I felt the majesty of reality anew, and the power of possibility brimmed within me.

Cyrena refused the seal. There is little that I can say of her reasons for doing so, which were expressed not in terms of logical rationales, but rather emotional aversion and visceral distaste. I attribute her attitude to the strength of her devotion to her faith. It is to her credit that she resolved, even in the face such beauty, to abstain from what had been offered. This is a rare and commendable ability, perhaps one that is honed by fasting and chastity—the regular refusal of our natural inclinations. I did not harbor ill-feelings towards Cyrena for her decision, respecting even more the strength of her faith, and did my best to ensure that her action was not taken as offense by our hosts.

Our wounds by this time had not fully healed, though our strength was returning more by day. The healers estimated no more than six nights before it was safe to travel. During this time, I urged Cyrena to accept the seal, witnessing daily her detioration and turn to the drull. She instead relied on her old methods, and in particular, prayer. Often I found her, during those days, kneeling in the sand just beyond the wall of the city, communing among the drull that wandered there. What more can be said of the strength of her faith—even as she was threatened by that creeping magical sickness, she adhered to her tradition, and chose to pray among the least fortunate denizens in their self-imposed exile. This was an act not only of compassion—ill-placed or otherwise—but humility also, refusing to take for herself the special status signified by the seal, placing herself as equal among the least among them.

It was on the last day of our recovery that Estar explained the other tattoos worn by the rainbow people. The forehead seal is for protection DECEMBER 2020

- 104 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DAVID SHULTZ

from the curse of the drull, but the various other adornments each bestowed their own benefits. She showed then a heart in chains, which endowed immunity to poisons and toxins and common sickness; a stag in a forest, which bestowed superhuman running ability; a rabbit, which endowed her with great jumping ability, which she demonstrated to the great amusement of myself and Tangai, who excitedly asked about the other powers that could be endowed in this way. I took his motivating concern to be military application, though Estar may have been oblivious, but regardless, was happy to oblige his curiosity.

This lesson, I then learned, was intended as a preamble.

Estar offered us tattoos for the journey to our homeland: a mark that would allow us to live on the rays of desert sun alone, to drink them like water; a mark that would allow us to be fed by the breath of air alone.

Others were offered to survive the harsh journey. One to run with the speed of a horse, and one for immunity to animal venom. Estar explained also that these tattoos would be more potent if we were to perform the rite ourself, to bring the ancient drull to the crystal with our own arms, and by that means receive the greater favor of that shimmering god, for whom we have directly provided the raw material of the blessing. Moreover, we were to choose the drull ourself, with our sole criterion being an instinctive pull based on the activity in which they were confined. It is this personal connection that strengthens the magic, that makes it more readily flow.

If you have received this letter, it means Tangai has survived his journey across the desert, and proven by that means the power offered by the magic of the Glittering Glade, which is better called the city of Kurukshetra. Let it be said with finality that the rumors surrounding this place—of slavery and sacrifice and the worship of an evil god—are entirely without merit. We have been accepted with open arms into a society that has elevated the recognition of merit to a principle of supreme order, that treats all people equally, that has eschewed all notion of racial disparity, DECEMBER 2020

- 105 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DAVID SHULTZ

that arranges affairs democratically and in alignment with the principles of universal justice, that richly rewards virtues of character, and that, in lieu of punishment, allows the lesser of its members to forge their own paths into the desert, where their fate, however unfortunate, is ultimately in their own hands.

To Lord Sovereign, King Rancor Canri XIII, your nephew Tangai Harvee has conducted himself with unflinching courage in service to the Empire, and I trust he will be accepted proudly back into the Imperial ranks after this excursion, bearing the great magical gifts which have been bestowed upon him, in recognition of the strength of his character.

To Holiness, High Priest Jeronim Zerom, your granddaughter Cyrena Giselle has likewise shone with great character. With unshakable faith she remained perfectly committed to the the path of righteousness, as she saw it. Perhaps she is, even now, kneeling in prayer among the drull.

For my part, I am resolved to remain here, having gained the favor of the Dayvan-Azrail, and having seen the unity and perfection of their social design. I hereby resign my post as Emissary of the Empire. —In truth, justice, and honor, Ardwan Abasan, loyal citizen of Kurukshetra. ***

DECEMBER 2020

- 106 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

AFTER DINNER CONVERSATION

DAVID SHULTZ

Discussion Questions 1. Do you believe the drull, the people who slowly turn to stone at the onset of puberty, have chosen to live as near lifeless stone people or are they simply incapable of proving themselves worthy? If it is a choice, why would anyone choose the life of a drull?

2. Why do you think the drull repeat the same action (gardening, prayer, etc) over and over again?

3. What is the significance of the drull slowly working their way outside of the city as the “disease” intensifies?

4. Why must a drull be “consumed” to create a cure for others? Is it unethical for those selected to use a drull in this way? Why should the person choosing them pick their drull based on the action they are doing?

5. If you were one of the characters in the story, would you have chosen to leave, to stay, or to refuse the ceremony and become a drull? Why? 6. If you had to rate yourself today, how much “drull” are you? ***

DECEMBER 2020

- 107 -

Vol. 1, No. 6

Additional Information Reviews If you enjoyed reading these stories, please considering doing an online review.

It’s only a few seconds of your time, but it is very important in continuing the series. Good reviews mean higher rankings. Higher rankings mean more sales.

More sales mean a greater ability to release stories. It really is that simple, and it starts with you.

Podcasts https://www.afterdinnerconversation.com/podcastlinks Listen to our podcast discussion of After Dinner short stories wherever podcasts are played. Or, if you prefer, watch the podcasts on our YouTube channel or download the .mp3 file from our website.

Patreon https://www.patreon.com/afterdinnerconversation Get early access to short stories and ad-free podcasts. New supporters also get a free copy of “After Dinner Conversation – Season One” and access to our weekly “virtual book club” discussions in our closed Facebook Group. Support us on Patreon!

Book Clubs/Classrooms https://www.afterdinnerconversation.com/book-club-downloads “After Dinner Conversation” supports book clubs! Receive free short stories for your book club to read and discuss!

Social Find us on Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, and Twitter.

From The Editor We don’t get many children story submissions. I wish we got more.

The best children’s stories tip their hand, just a bit. As if to say, “I’m keeping the kid entertained, but this story might actually be for you.” The first thing I ever read that made me realize this was “Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland.” I think of this passage often, so I thought I would share. *** “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat. “I don’t much care where—” said Alice.

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat. *** You are always getting to somewhere. Maybe make the choices that get you going to where you actually want to be when you arrive?

Best Wishes, Kolby Granville

[Page Intentionally Left Blank]