E19. "Survival Kit" by Christine Seifert

Philosophy | Ethics Short Story Audiobooks

This audiobook features "Survival Kit" by Christine Seifert. Published in the March 2021 issue of After Dinner Conversation: Philosophy | Ethics Short Story Magazine.

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STORY SUMMARY (Spoilers): Can doing nothing ever be a wrong or immoral choice? Do you have a duty to keep your word even if doing so is the cause of your own unhappiness in your life? In this work of philosophical short fiction, the narrator and her husband Andy, are stuck in their car on the side of the rode waiting for a snowstorm to blow over. While in the car we learn, through flashbacks, about all the reasons the narrator is unhappy in her marriage. Her wedding was a failure. She dislikes her in-laws, and finds them to be fat, loud, vulgar, and incapable of taking on responsibility. She does not like her husband, however, as an unemployed woman with two small children, and a sense of duty to her vows, she feels an obligation to stay with him. She finds his lack of intelligence, and his lack of agency, frustrating. She feels she is the only adult in the relationship. At the end of the story she leaves the car in the snowstorm to head to the next car to see if they have extra blankets. Before she leaves, she notices that Andy has turned on the car and the tailpipe is buried in snow.

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