No Politics at the Dinner Table
Speculative fiction: Could you pass me the cognitive dissonance, please?
Five people sit around a dinner table, eating silently. A child, hollow-eyed and listless, plays on the floor, lining up colored tiles and stacking them in a particular order before spreading them out again. The child goes to brush the hair from their face but remembers their long hair has been cut short.
A man, pale and tall, pushes his food around his plate. His mother, sitting across from him, notices.
“Hey, Eric, you feeling okay?”
Eric puts his fork down and glances at the child. He runs his hands over his face and says, “Yeah. Just tired.”
“Getting enough sleep?”
Tears form in his eyes as he thinks about sleeping alone.
“Not really.” He picks his fork back up.
Everyone keeps eating.
“Mommy,” the child on the floor blurts out.
Eric looks over at them. Then he looks away.
Feeling it is her duty as the matriarch of the family, Eric’s mother turns in her chair, smiles broadly, and addresses the child, "Everything is okay, honey. Keep playing with your toys.”
She faces the table set with various comfort foods again. When she sees Eric is still visibly upset, she points to his plate.
“Eric. Eat.”
“I just want her back,” he says as he breaks down into sobs.
“We know,” his mother says gently, “What happened was very sad. But we are not going to talk politics at the dinner table.”
The child begins to rock back and forth. Eric nods. Everyone finishes their meal.
Except for me. Because I am dead.
It took me a while to think of what to comment but I just want you to know that this old story structure that starts broad and objective like “a man and a family” (I think it was popular in the New Yorker for awhile? Idk I read that somewhere on Substack) usually falls flat for me but I really liked this. I was happy I stuck with it. It was an eloquent way to make your point.
I am broken.