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[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Wedding Bells\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 1372\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with an unexpected betrayal." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“I see your order information,” said the woman on the phone. “Not to worry, the two bridesmaid dresses were successfully returned this morning. The wedding dress is still on its way and should arrive by the end of the week. We’ll give you a call when it gets here.”\nMy head tilted slightly; did I miss something? Why were my sisters’ dresses returned? It made no sense.\n“I’m sorry,” I said, trying desperately to come off as unconcerned by the earthshattering update she had just given me. “To confirm, you said the dresses were returned today?”\n“Yes, we called your bridesmaids yesterday evening to let them know the dresses had arrived and this morning the two young ladies came in and let us know they would no longer be needing them. We were able to do a refund for them, no problem.”\nI was stunned. I could feel my heart drop to my stomach. I knew my wedding was hard on my family given our dysfunctional dynamic, but I had not expected something like this to happen. \n“Is there something else I can help with today?” the woman asked cheerfully. \n“No,” I said quickly. “Thank you so much for the update. I look forward to getting my dress soon. Thank you.”\nI hung up the call and sat frozen at my dining room table where my wedding plans lay sprawled out before me – vendor business cards, bride magazines, spreadsheets on my laptop, sample fabrics, and of course my cute little coiled planner book specially purchased to document every moment of my happy journey to the altar. Except this news didn’t feel very good. \nEver since my parents’ divorce, my life had been constantly surrounded by family drama. It snuffed the life out of everything. As the eldest daughter, I often found myself stepping into the mothering role to subsidize my sisters’ needs whenever I could, even though I was only a few years older than them myself. It was mostly a one-way relationship with them and over time they had developed the expectation that my purpose was to serve and protect them all the while I was left out to fend for myself. \nI didn’t mind, most of the time, I loved my sisters and was happy to provide for them some of the comfort and support I so desperately craved. But as a result, it was mostly a lonely life growing up, which is why when Art, my fiancé, stepped into my life and later proposed I was ecstatic. \nFinally, I had someone in my life who saw and loved me for who I was rather than what I could do for them. When Art placed that ring around my finger and asked me to marry him, I felt the healing and transformational power of love wash over me like magic. We had already been living together for some time, but I had the feeling that my life was going to change, I was going to change. \nArt and his marriage proposal made me want to be better, to discard that tired persona of good and obedient daughter in favor of my strong and authentic self. I knew he valued me, admired the person I was and believed in who I could become. His honest love helped me believe in myself too. Sometimes you need someone in your corner to fully bloom into yourself and live up to your God-given potential.\nI had thought my sisters were in my corner too. Thought they were happy for me, glad to part of my wedding but this news about their returned dresses was very concerning. Had I been naïve to believe they would support me during this important time of my life? \nI didn’t want to run to Art with this issue just yet, I felt ashamed and wanted to find out what was going on with them first. A bad feeling sat in the pit of my stomach as I texted them both in a group message.\nTo: Meli, Emily\nDid you return the bridesmaid dresses? \nWhy didn’t you tell me? What’s going on?\nI waited. My heart beating hard. No answer.\nArt, who had been playing video games in our bedroom, came out to check on my progress. He knew I was calling the dress shop for an update.\n“What did they say?” he asked. “Any good news?”\nIt had been 20 minutes since I had texted my sisters and even though the message indicated it had been read, I still didn’t have a response from them. \n“Is everything ok?” he asked noticing my worried expression.\nI started to cry.\n*** \nDays later they still hadn’t replied. \n“No, they never answered my message, never called me back, nothing,” I told my dad over a tearful call. “They just ghosted me.”\n“But what happened?” my dad asked. “Why did they return their dresses?”\n“I have no idea,” I said. “I keep trying to figure it out, but nothing makes sense.”\n“Maybe your mother put them up to this, you know she hates that you still talk to me.”\n“I don’t know, that’d be pretty low even for her.”\n“I haven’t talked to either of them,” dad said. “So, I don’t know what’s going on with them. I mean, you know how it is with me; ever since the divorce your sisters hardly speak to me.”\n“I know dad. Things are always difficult with our family but truthfully, I don’t want you to get involved. I know your relationship with my sisters is hard enough as it is, I wouldn’t want this to make things worse between you and them.”\nEven though I had no answers from them, I suspected the real reason my sisters had betrayed me was because they were jealous. Jealous they weren’t the stars of the event, that all eyes wouldn’t be on them for the night. Jealous that they didn’t have serious boyfriends of their own, a relationship with a partner where they were taken seriously. Jealous that I, who had been like a mother to them, wouldn’t be at their beck and call anymore.\nI was sad for them, for what they had done, for what they would miss. Sad for me, for the deep wound of sisterly betrayal, for the permanent scar their actions would leave on my heart. I cried for days. It was a hard truth to face, to know that I couldn’t count on my sisters to be there for me on one of the most important days of my life, to know that they couldn’t be happy for me. \nFinally, my wedding day came and when I slipped into my dress in full hair and makeup, my transformation was complete. I had been right to believe that Art’s marriage proposal was going to change my life, that this event was going to help me become a stronger and more authentic self. I saw it on my face in the mirror and felt it in my beating heart. \nI knew what really mattered on this day and all the ones to come. Life wasn’t about all the people who hadn’t been there or all the things you didn’t have. It was about counting your blessings in spite of it all and rejoicing in the present with the ones you love.\nThe moment arrived, the time to walk down the aisle. I stood confidently with my arm around my father’s arm, the coordinator fluffing the dress around my feet. \n“Ready?” she asked.\nI nodded and the doors leading to the wedding bower swung open. I saw all the happy faces of friends and family looking back at me with Art waiting at the end of the aisle that was lined with blue candle cacti and pink bougainvillea pedals sprinkled along the way. The harpist began to play the “Wedding March” and I commenced the procession toward Art. \nI knew life was full of ups and downs with surprises around every corner and I was thankful to have Art in my life, a man I could go through it all with. He was the man I loved and was happy to be marrying. I knew it was going to be a good life together." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Tug of War: A State of Limbo\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 1238\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone who is stuck between two opposing sides and can’t decide which one to choose." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Downtown, a squawking crow perched on a third-story windowsill emits its harsh, guttural cry, piercing the stillness of the muted neighborhood like a rough-edged note: CAW. CAW. CAW. Its presence adds a touch of wildness to the concrete jungle below, evoking a sense of foreboding, turning joggers’ heads, and making dogs bark.\n\nGod, Damn’t! Sandy moaned, hurling her alarm clock across the room like a quarterback. She didn’t have time to shower, let alone brush her bedhead. No toothpaste? Or brush her teeth.\nShe cursed under her breath, struggling to put on her heels, and realized they were different. She snatched her keys and stormed out the door, convinced she would get mangled in traffic on her commute to the office.\n\nA police officer scratching on a pad saluted her in the street. Her face turned cherry red, and she kicked a garbage can when she saw the boot. She maneuvered along the crumbling sidewalk, feeling like the universe conspired against her. A treacherous day was looming.\n\n---------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nMeanwhile, a brilliant Meadowlark adorned in a cloak of vibrant yellow plumage perched on a blooming magnolia branch in Uptown. Its crystalline liquid whistle cascaded in a mesmerizing melody, blessing the surroundings with its enchanting song. Its voice, with its flute-like notes, danced upon the air.\n\nBrilliant! Heather resonated as she awoke. It’s going to be a great day. Her internal clock was always ticking 15 minutes ahead.\nShe blushed, admiring the reflection in the mirror, feeling encouraged to take on the day. The Meadowlark song outside her window added to her sense of calm and contentment. Heather left for work, stealing one last glance at the songbird.\nShe had ample time to grab a coffee. Wow, extra whipped cream, my favorite, she said to the barista. \n\nHeather sipped her coffee with contentment and decided to take a different route to work. The unexpected detour added a sense of adventure to her morning routine. The winding lane took her through a quaint neighborhood with blooming flowers and colorful murals, making her commute more enjoyable. Heather arrived at work feeling refreshed and grateful for the spontaneous change in scenery.\n\n---------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nHeather and Sandy arrived at Stackton, Inc., simultaneously. As they entered the towering building, the revolving door spun as if taunting a game of Russian Roulette. The girls stared at each other as if in a Western standoff, waiting for the first move. Sandy took a step forward and grumbled something under her breath. Heather smiled and gestured her arm towards the door.\n\nSandy’s feet slipped, shuffled, and skidded across the marble floor, causing Mr. Mop Maestro, the janitor, to roll his eyes and point to the bright yellow WET sign.\n\nOnce inside, Ann, the receptionist, greeted Heather and offered her a blueberry muffin. They exchanged some light-hearted banter before Heather walked towards the elevator. The janitor, Mr. Davis (his actual name), extended his arm and escorted Heather across the shiny marble floor. As she glided by, employees waved and smiled at her.\n\nHeather and Mr. Davis were chatting while waiting for the elevator. Sandy was struggling with the broken clasp on her shoe. As the elevator doors opened, Sandy stormed in. Heather followed. Sandy was huffing and puffing, searching for her access card in her purse. Mr. Davis chuckled at the situation. As the elevator doors were about to close, someone shouted, Wait! Sandy rolled her eyes while Heather tried to halt the doors from closing by ramming her arm into them.\n\n---------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nOn Main Street. I could feel my cat, Orange Peel, weave in and out of my legs, purring. Her meows vibrated in a monotone drone around my head, buzzing me from sleep.\n\nI lay in bed, undecided whether to sleep for another 10 minutes or start my day. After 30 minutes, I dragged myself out of bed. Should I shower? I swiped my fingers through my hair. I took a bath instead. As I soaked in the lukewarm water, my mind drifted back to the previous day’s events, replaying them in my memory. The cat’s meows echoed down the hall, a reminder of the present moment.\n\nI laid out a yellow dress and black pants and told Orange Peel to pick. The cat pounced on the bed and settled on my pillow, so I picked out a nice pair of jeans and a button-up shirt.\n\nI intended to take the bus, but the pleasant weather convinced me to bike. When I got to work, I realized I had forgotten to lock my bike, so I had to return and padlock it.\nScurrying back into the building, I saw the doors closing and yelled, Wait!\n\n---------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nUp? Heather asked, arching her eyebrows.\nDown? Sandy asked, putting her air pods in.\n\nI just stood there, unresponsive, torn between two realms. Both are vying for my allegiance. Up or down? Right or wrong? Heather or Sandy? Heaven or Hell?\n\nThe eternal conflict I am forever playing tug-of-war within my mind began to tighten its grip.\n\nI remind myself that options exist.\n\nHeather’s affectionate allure evokes a world of perpetual bliss, harmony, and everlasting peace and joy. If I choose her, companionship and love await me. Her brown hair, painted with golden hues, and her harmonious laughter resonate through my soul. Her eyes promise peace of mind and contentment, and I cannot help but feel drawn to her.\n\nI imagine lazy Sunday mornings wrapped in her arms, the outside world fading into insignificance. Yet, lurking beneath the surface is a gnawing fear - will this serenity eventually turn stagnant? Will I suffocate in the comfort of Heather's embrace, longing for the thrill of the unknown?\n\nOn the other hand, Sandy tempts me with her passionate disposition, wild and untamed, her fiery spirit igniting a spark of excitement within. She offers an exciting life of adventure and freedom—a world where I can be myself without judgment or limits. A life chock-full of unbridled passion, power, and anguish, with the allure of unrestrained freedom, awaits.\n\nI envision endless nights of laughter and exhilarating escapades, a life unfettered by convention or restraint. But alongside the allure of freedom comes a shadow of doubt - can I keep pace with Sandy's boundless energy? Will I be consumed by the chaos of her world, left adrift in a sea of uncertainty? How long could I endure it? Would there be options?\n\nThe war between these two choices tugs and pulls on my mind, the tension about to snap.\nHeather's presence is calming, yet I fear it may lack excitement. Sandy's world is alluring, but I am cautious of the potential consequences and the impact it could have on my well-being.\n\nI’m Stuck in purgatory, trapped in a state of limbo, suspended between two divergent fates, each beckoning with equal fervor. I’m unable to move. Forward, Backward, Up, Down, Left, or Right. The weight of this decision feels suffocating. I know I must find the courage to choose and embrace the consequences, whatever they may be. Only then can I break free from this state of indecision and move forward with confidence and clarity.\n\n---------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nHoney, do you want to go up? What floor are you going to? Heather asked, placing her hand on my back.\nI am so late. Where are you going? Make a decision. Sandy grunted, furrowing her eyebrows.\nI’m going to take the stairs. I think. Becca said, backing out of the elevator." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Renegade\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 2101\n\nPrompt:\n\nSet your story at a tense event where everyone is unsure whose side they’re on." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "People always like to ask me what was the worst part of living in a dictatorship. After a while, I understood the morbid fascination that particular question entails, they want to hear about death, policeman screaming at your face, violent riots, strident politicians indoctrinating the people on national television. People expect the loud and abrasive nature of it, but they become very appalled when I tell them how quiet it actually was.\nDon’t misconstrue my words, there definitely was violence and screams. But in essence, everyone’s life was veiled, my day to day was silent in a way it had never been before. You learn to stand still in a situation like that, to not make too much noise and startle the wrong people. I can barely recall the political landscape that made the dictatorship fall upon us like night, but I will always remember how it felt to be a person in it.\nThere is this song I particularly like, I heard it for the first time on the day I will tell you about. It has a unique melody, the one you can easily whistle absentmindedly in the shower or while peeling potatoes. I barely recall any of the lyrics, except on the end, where they sing “It’s March’s waters closing the summer, and the promise of life inside your heart”. The song is beautiful, but I heard it for the first time in one of the most lifeless days of my existence. I enjoy it in a bittersweet kind of way, pondering about the irony those lyrics express to me.\nI went to a party that day. I was a professor at the school of medicine, and our University was celebrating its tenth anniversary. It was a big event, the biggest one I had ever gone to. We rented out the most luxurious venue on the city, a feat of baroque architecture decorated with stained glasses that gave you the aspect of a cathedral. There were all types of people decking those halls, you could hear glimpses of conversations about emerging schools of philosophy, the most promising up and coming authors, even the latest discoveries in human physiology.\nAnd for all the pleasantries that the event seemed to convey, there was something terrifyingly awful about being at that place. The air in the room felt uncanny, as if you were only dreaming about a wonderful place that was destined to fade away. I knew this before entering those doors, but not going would be an announcement that you had something to be fearful about, or worse, something to hide.\nI walked around with a glass filled with bourbon in my hands, we had some time to spare before the dinner and the speeches were about to start. I greeted people I had never even met, and cursed in my head the majority of the ones I did know.\n“Can you believe it has already been ten years?” Nathanial’s voice said loudly behind me.\n“I knew the University would survive, just glad I’m alive to see it.” I told him raising my glass.\nNathanial was one of the few people I genuinely liked, he was an oncology expert with a talent for making you feel seen. Nathanial had a long beard that covered the entirety of his neck, it made him look like Sigmund Freud in a way, and I was always a little jealous of it. When it was his birthday he always asked for books, especially the ones that talked about philosophy and spirituality. Nathanial was never religious tough, he just thought that the concept of souls was marvelous so he enjoyed reading about it.\n“Aren’t we all?” Nathanial said in a laugh. For a brief second, the smile ran away from his face, he hunched over looking at the ground, appearing fragile in a sense. “They said they might come tonight.” He said in a whisper.\nThe dread of those words filled my insides.\nCommunication, in times like those, is the art of subtlety. You never scream what you wish, or what you know, rather you hint it. Conversations are in codes, most of the words are cut off and you are left to puzzle them out. As I said previously, those times were very quiet.\nFor the last few months, as the government started to weight down on us with a fist of lead, it became common for professors to be reported to the authorities. And you didn’t have to scream your opinion, much less participate in riots for that to be the case. You could simply own a book, talk fondly of an author, or even have someone lie about what you like to do. Thru whispers on the street, we heard every professor in our University was being closely watched. People were talking, a target was on everybody’s back. At the end of each day I asked myself, who was it? What were they saying, and how much of it was lies? Had some of us simply annoyed the wrong people? Those questions haunted my mind, I looked around at everyone around me trying to hide my vicious eyes because, for all I knew, anyone could be hiding the truth.\nI kept pacing the halls with my head held high, if they were to come the least I could do was keep my dignity.\n“If it isn’t my favorite professor.” Michael spoke to me. He had become the dean a few years prior, and he sat on that chair like a king on his throne. Michael joined the University not long after me, but he rarely enjoyed teaching. He always had a tenacious look in him, and he used all his best qualities (and his most vile) to get a tight grip on the University. Now, he pretty much ruled it.\n“My dear friend Michael, how are you doing this beautiful evening?” I said showing my teeth.\n“Just marvelous. Big day for us, wouldn’t you say?”\n“Certainly my friend, certainly.” He tapped on my shoulder as I answered.\nIf the rumors were true, Michael had something to do with it. It had to have started with him, or so I believed. He had a knack for diminishing me, that was for sure. I just didn’t know if he would go as far as to report me during a dictatorship.\nDinner was about to start.\nAll professors of medicine were to be seated at the same table, so I forcefully placed a smile on my face and greeted my colleagues. If only there was more wine and bread on the table, I could say we were on our own reimagining of the Last Supper. Nathaniel was on my right, and next to him was Catherine, a short woman with dense black hair that constantly had a faint scent of formalin. She always had perfect posture, even in her mid-forties she sat and stood straighter than a ruler.\n“Enjoying yourself tonight?” I asked Catherine.\n“As much as possible. I have surgery early in the morning, so best not to extend this much more.”\n“Another ankle repair?”\n“Osteotomy.” She answered no longer looking at me. I never talked with Catherine about anything other than medicine, she seemed like the type of doctor who lives for their work and will die still performing surgery. Other than that, I could never truly read her, it was impossible for me to tell if she was one of the people talking with the authorities.\nTo my left, there was Carlos, Ivan and Diego. Carlos was a cardiologist, he had recently gotten a divorce, and he liked to invite me to smell ether by his poolside. I never accepted thought. Ivan was an interesting man, he recently immigrated from Ukraine, and I could always tell he was embarrassed to speak too much because of his accent. However, he was the best anesthesiologist I had ever encountered, and doing surgery with him was always effortless. Lastly, there was Diego, a man who held on to the few strands of hair still attached to his head. He smoke too many cigars and gathered enough complaints from his ex-patients to make a memoir. Nevertheless, he was one of the few infectology experts on our city, so replacing him wasn’t easy. Also, he was Michael’s brother in law.\nWe were served our meals, and I washed down every single bite with a sip of bourbon as my throat was dry. Nathanial said that was the best stake he had ever had, and Diego told him it didn’t compare to the one he had in Marseilles the summer prior. Catherine kept quiet, except when dessert came and she told the waiter to compliment the chef on the tiramisu.\nWhen everyone fished their meals, Michael stood up in front of us to read his speech. He did not start talking right away, for a moment he simply looked at every person in the room, almost as if his stare could cut down something or someone. We were so quiet you could hear a needle drop on the floor.\n“Good evening.” He said finally. “It is simply a pleasure to have all of you here today, celebrating the first decade of our University.” Something about the way in which he uttered the word our felt odd. “As you all know, we have been working hard to make sure we provide the highest level of education for our future medical professionals, one of the most noble efforts in all of humanity. Now, as the years go by, that task becomes increasingly harder, and in doing so, we have come to some difficult decisions.”\nI felt the time freeze. The pause Michael took between the sentences that would forever maim me took an eternity. And I thought, with all my wit and all my ingenuity, that Michael would be the one to break me on that never ending March evening. But before he continued, the voice of a renegade whispered to me:\n“When he is done, leave thru the back door. They are outside.”\nIf my soul were made of glass I swear, to all the Gods that deserted this vicious world, that that was the exact moment it shattered. For those words, the ones who confessed to me the malicious plan that would forsake my life, were voiced by Nathanial.\n“So, let us talk about the future.” Michael continued. “I am here to announce that a few of our professors will leave our institution, effective immediately.”\nLike a snake spitting poison, he opened his mouth to utter Catherine’s name, then Ivan’s, Carlos’, and finally mine. Michael did not say a single word about Nathanial, and as I slowly turned my neck to stare at the man who once held my first born child, the friend I consoled when he felt hopeless, the coward who sat on my table and drank my wine, I saw a face I did not recognize. Nathanial looked at me as if he was terminally ill, and in a whimper said:\n“I am sorry.”\nWhen Catherine, Carlos and Ivan left the venue they were greeted by the authorities telling them they were needed for an interrogation. They would never be seen again. I excused myself to go to the bathroom after Michael finished his speech, and thru a tiny window in one of the stalls I crawled my way out. I ran to my house, and when arriving to my wife and my 3-year-old daughter I screamed we had five minutes to gather only the necessary and get in the car. I drove for quite a while after that.\nMy wife likes to use the word betrayal when we talk about it, and I understand why. I was there since the beginning, the University was built with my blood staining it. I made it what it was, with all the corpses I dissected, all the souls I instructed with what comes between life and death. And they went and took it all away from me, as if I were nothing. They didn’t want me away from the institution I made, they wanted me to disappear for good. For Crist’s sake, they had the authorities waiting for us, waiting for me.\nIt is easy to deduce why Michael did it, he hated me, everyone was a threat to him. He wanted people he could control. But then, there was Nathanial. I knew him, and he knew me. And you know what the funny thing about betrayal is? It is rarely about what they did to you, but the fact you will die wondering why they did." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Sixties Teen\n\nGenre: coming-of-age\n\nWord Count: 1118\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a character who isn’t nostalgic about their past at all, and show readers why." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Sixties Teen\nMy husband, star of my epic love life, “Hey, Hon. Let's get Sirius.”\n“Let's see. We have been married going on twenty-eight years. We've combined our retirement benefits. We have been looking into purchasing adjoining cemetery plots. How much more serious can we get?”\nHe who claims to love me, “No, I mean the XM streaming service 'Sirius'. Might save us overall on our entertainment package.”\n“I can barely operate the TV now. Change it again and I'll never be able to run the remote control. What happened to the good old days of clicking on the tube and flipping channels? I do like the options we have now of recording what we want then watching being able to skip commercials.”\nThe one that tends to all my needs, “That's becoming obsolete. We need to stay up with the new devices or be left in the dark ages.”\n“That's why I have you as my tech support. I could never navigate the modern world without you. I am still computer illiterate and if I can't copy and paste I could never post a story or get anything published. If you expect me to be your sugar mamma so you can fully retire then no new technology. Things change so fast I can't keep up. Why, when I was a girl...”\n<=<=<=\nA Baby Boomer born in 1951, I was Romper-Stomper-Bomper-Boo 'Romper Room' age when my family got our first TV, a big stand alone box with a small screen and mysterious tubes lined up in the back behind a cardboard protection panel. 'Howdy Doody' and 'Captain Kangaroo' rounded out my education and entertainment menu.\nA little later came 'The Flintstones' and 'The Jetsons'. If prehistoric to futuristic failed to impress there was always the violence of Saturday morning cartoons: 'Bugs Bunny'; 'Tom and Jerry'; 'The Road Runner'; 'Quick-Draw McGraw'; 'Dudley Doo-Right'.\nThe first ever rock-n-roll song I heard, maybe even owned by my older sister, was 'Johnny B. Goode', a 45 vinyl recording played on a small suitcase sized record player. The transistor radio was a new invention we listened to for other songs often enough to learn the words. Even my then five-year-old brother remembers listening to KA-a-aY-X-O-Kay / St. Looouis when we lived in southern Illinois. Of course, Granny let us watch 'American Bandstand' with her.\nI watched live as 'The Beatles' descended from the plane arriving in America and performing 'I Want to Hold Your Hand' on The Ed Sullivan Show. My seventh-grade girl friends and I would sing all their songs and other hits by pop stars during recess. I don't recall ever having a fancy console stereo with turn table and speakers so it must still have been AM radio I learned from.\nIn America we went from John Glenn orbiting the earth to Neil Armstrong taking a giant leap for mankind on the moon in the sixties so there must have been computers. They filled a room but it took a computer scientist to operate one. I do remember once having a 'computer dance' in high school. We filled out forms, sent them away to the lab and were matched with a perfect date by a computer. Can't think who my match was but must have been a real loser since he got me.\nOther turbulent national and world events were played out nightly on our black and white big box TV. Presidential election between Nixon and JFK, watching little Caroline standing with her folks; Berlin Wall went up; Cuban Missile Crisis; Marilyn Monroe found dead; Civil rights movement, four workers mysteriously killed; four young Sunday School girls killed in a church bombing; Martin Luther King, Jr. 'I Have a Dream' speech; JFK assassinated, three-year-old Jr. standing at attention as casket went past; Jack Ruby shooting Lee Harvey Oswald; far away war in place called Vietnam; Cassius Clay became heavy-weight champion; race riots in Watts after Malcolm X assassinated.\nLater we got a color television set. Vietnam War in living color; assassinations of MLK,Jr. and Robert Kennedy; Democratic convention protests; Star Trek; first Super Bowl; Laugh-In; My Lai massacre; Manson murders in Hollywood; Woodstock; man on the moon.\nThose were only the highlights. I'm sure I missed a few. Luckily, my family lived in a Mid-west bubble and were only affected by the tragedy of my sister's death in a car accident.\nSomehow I came of age without much technology. Phones were still tethered to a wall and had rotary dials. No answering machines, one raced to get to it before it stopped ringing. No remote controls for TV, we (meaning the kids of the family) had to get off our comfy seats and select one of the three channels on the dial. No microwaves. Had to stand at a stove and cook. Think we had a roll-around dishwasher that we seldom used because there was always something piled on top of it. We three girls were the designated dish doers.\nCars had no seat belts. (Would my sister have survived if not thrown out of vehicle? It was pretty smashed in.) My first car was a stick shift I had my boyfriend drive around for me. Had to hand crank the windows up or down.\nBeing a teen in the sixties had fond memories, too...\n=>=>=>\n“What have you been doing, Sweetheart?”\n“Oh, sorry, guess I must have spaced out there for a little while reminiscing about the good old days before we were inundated with so much technology I can't keep up with. You do realize I can't even name most of the things that have been developed in the last, oh, say, twenty-five years at least. CDs, DVDs, floppy discs, hard drives, modems, routers, flash drives, smart phones and on and on...”\n“No, what I am talking about is how many nostalgia credits have you been sucking up?”\n“What are you talking about?”\n“Don't you remember since we got those memory implants during our mandatory 'Welcome to Medicare' doctor visits, the thought police monitor all our nostalgic moments and tax us on them. You are only allotted so many per month or you are in danger of being labeled senile and unleashing another maelstrom of regulations. I may have to check on the details again but you can go back say twenty-five years without too much penalty.”\n“Twenty-five years doesn't even get me back to our courtship and wedding when I fell in love with my sensitive wild man.”\n“We can afford going those extra three years once in awhile but if you have been back before technology affected us then I am afraid you may have broken our bank account.”\n“Oh, no! You can't be serious!”" } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Dear Katrina\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 1342\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone who is stuck between two opposing sides and can’t decide which one to choose." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Dear Katrina,\nStill the black waters. Let the moon set, and the sun rise with you once more. This small barren island holds only three of us now. Three lost souls, caught between warring titans. But on which bank of the Dnieper river does my fate wait, and hate.\nSorry that it has been too long since my last letter. This war has brought many shortages and while food and bandages we lack most, the absence of paper and pencil has added to the eternal distance between us. And never has distance been so cruel. For though the void that keeps us apart is as wide as the cold blackness betwixt the moon and earth, from this small and desolate river island that our boat has found, I can see the smoke rising from the city where we lived and loved so long ago. They tell me it has been two years, but it may as well be two lifetimes since I lay in your arms, my Katrina.\nI am no hero. No great cause stirred my heart, boiled my blood, and wrenched me from your side. No, my duty to the Motherland came smashing through our little wooden door with hob nail boots and rifles. The cause of the Soviet was never my own, you know this well. Like many in our beloved Ukraine, service in Russia’s horde was by imposition, not invitation, but serve I did.\nYou cried the day that they marched us away. Away to a distant front. I carry that picture of you still, in mind only, for it was the first time that I had seen you cry. Not once, in the ten years since I begged the young girl to let me walk her to school through Kyiv’s autumnal golden sea, had a tear passed your eye. Maybe my memories live on now, through rose tinted glass, but I recall only laughter, joy, and love. Oh so much love. I am not wedded to Country or cause, I am bonded only to you. For you I live, and love, and fight, and die… and kill.\nI beg your forgiveness, my sweet Katrina, I’ve taken a life. Taken what was given by God to another man. Another man that held memories of his love, that fateful day when he left his far-off village and marched to a different drum. I was not his creator, nor even a deity, but his sordid, mud-soaked destiny I became.\n“I should be proud,” I’m told.\n“It was self-defence.”\n“It was my patriotic duty to this Motherland.”\n“One less fascist invader that we will have to drive back over the border.”\n None of these pointless platitudes calms my soul. Had I stayed by your side and was likely shot for refusing to serve, would I have died a good man? How would God weigh cowardice against killing? It matters naught now. For I will be judged by man before ever meeting the redeemer. \nThe relentless advance of the Germans in ’41 left our unit surrounded against the banks of this very river.\n“Hold,” said Stalin. “Fight to the last.”\nWe held and we fought. The promise of relief and supplies scurried round the trenches and bit the men as fatefully as did the rats and lice. Rats brought fever, lice delivered itching and suffering, but Stalin brought no food, no bullets, no succour. Then one rainy Rasputitsa morning, the vermin won. En masse, the regiment stood and walked West, hands held high. One hundred thousand Ukrainians stopped being soldiers of the Motherland, became prisoners, became slaves, starved, then were offered a meagre crust were we to become Hiwis. Through the eventual necessity of our captors, we finally were reluctant soldiers of the Fatherland. Tolerated by the German, despised by all else.\nDressed half in German grey, half in Russian olive green, we joined the invaders’ procession East. First digging trenches, carrying boxes, cooking meals, the Europeans’ attrition quickly led to rifles being returned to our hands. “Fight the Russian, free your beloved Ukraine,” we were told, over and over. But these Germans loved our homeland no more than the Soviets. What the Russians didn’t burn, the Germans stole. Two colossal armies raped, pillaged, and plundered their way over the Steppe.\nThen, one searingly hot Summer day, death, and the accompanying sweet stench, just became mundane. Dismembered bodies, ripped torsos, smashed heads, solitary eyes, rented stomachs and more, oh so much more, my love, these images of death filled the void the living left. For while this mad chase across our country still numbered hundreds of thousands on either side, on the start line, there had been millions. The flower of a generation swathed the land from the Dnieper to the Volga. Two million flowers and not a single seed spawned.\n“The war is almost over.”\n“One last push, men.”\n“The Russians are beaten.”\n“March to the Volga. Drive the Bolsheviks from Stalingrad and we can all go home.”\n\nStalingrad. Write the name down, Katrina. I ask only one thing of you, other than your love. Never speak the name of that city again. My words to you have yet been explicit. I couldn’t lie to you, but I thought many a day before conveying in this letter, the atrocities that I have seen. Though I would die before denying you anything that is in my power to give, my time in that city will never be shared. My death would be a far lesser burden on you, than knowledge of the things I saw, oh god, the things I did there. I will not, no, I cannot ask forgiveness for there is no restitution for the souls that served in that godless place.\n\nThere was but one truth spoken in the bitter winter of ’42. The war ended on the banks of the Volga. It’s done now. Over. The uncountable cost of the Soviet victory stands giant over the ashes of the Wehrmacht. But still we fight. Still, the dead die.\nIn the year that has passed, our company has fled ever further West. Sometimes, it was a comfort to me, I was heading home to you. Yet we reached the gates of Kyiv, and the chase went on.\nThrough the streets I ran. I ran and ran and ran right past our little wooden door. I could have stopped. I could have knocked or even walked right in, but there is no place for me there now. At the side of a German deserter, you would have been shot. Harbouring one of the most hated Hiwis, shooting may have been the best that they would have offered you.\nI’ve betrayed both sides, although I chose neither. To you, my love is now poison. Even discovery of this letter would be a bullet through your pretty head. That is why I write, but will never send. I comfort myself that maybe, just maybe, you hear my words now. Maybe, you heard my footfall as I passed your door. Maybe the approaching Russians will also pass by. I pray that they leave you to live and love again, Katrina.\nIt’s time to end my words. To complete the story that began and will finish with you. In the brief moment this letter has consumed, the two men that crossed the river and landed on this small island with me, have both been taken by the cold night.\n I am not sad. They are at peace now. Their war is over, and I view their last frozen tear, only with envy. For sadness is the domain of the living, Katrina. Were I to go on, fate would have it that it would not be with you, and without you, there is no me.\nI will close my eyes soon too. I smile, for repose brings dreams of you. Dreams are all I have now.\nOverhead, Russian shells land on the West bank and a few German guns reply. In the cold light of flares, I shut my eyes and whisper your name.\n“Katrina.”" } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Seventeen Years\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 1654\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with an unexpected betrayal." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "It started with an accident. A loose hubcap hit her tire causing the car to go out of control. She hit a street sign, flipping it and pinning her. It caused her spleen to rupture not that she knew it then, just that she was hurt. \nThe whirl of the ambulance is barely heard as she is almost out by that time it arrives just ten minutes after the accident. She doesn't know it yet, but the accident is the least of her problems.\nThe jaws of life free her. Strong capable hands lift her. She is stabilized and rushed to the hospital. Her parents are notified.\nGeorgia is seventeen and the doctors aren't able to do much until they arrive. Her dad arrives first. He was close by, working construction a few miles away from the hospital.\n“Where is she? Where is my daughter?” He rushed to the nurse that is manning the front desk.\n“Calm down, sir. I need your daughter ‘s name.” \nHe runs his fingers through his shaggy brown hair and across his full beard. “Right. Right. Sorry. Georgia Floyd. She was in an auto accident.” \nShe pecks on the keyboard in front of her. He knows it doesn't take long but boy does it feel like it does. She looks up. “Yes Mr. Floyd. She is in bay two.” He runs towards the door and she hits the button to open it. \nHe runs sliding to a stop when he sees the two over the door. A peak in rewards him with a glimpse of his daughter.\nHer face is all bruised up, her gorgeous hair, red and curly like her mom’s lays limp around her but her eyes are bright at the sight of him. \n“Dad!” She crooks out. He hurries in and takes her hand. \n“Georgia Grace, what happened?” Her fingers cling to him.\n“Something hit my tire,” she frowns in concentration and pain, “not sure what. I tried to turn into, like you taught me but…”\n“Not your fault,” his voice is thick. When he got the call, he was so scared. She is his only daughter. If something would have happened to her, “accidents happen.”\nHer mom rushes in. Their home is a few miles away. She had to get a sitter for their twin boys.\n“Georgia, oh my darling!” She runs to her other side, “My baby! Your poor face.”\n“Janey, she will heal,” he feels a type of hysterical laughter bubbling up. Their daughter lives! “That is nothing.”\n“You are right George.” \nThey both look up when the door opens. The doctor enters. “I am Doctor Reid. Are you her parents?” \n“Yes, I am George and this is my wife, Janey. How is our girl?” \n“She is going to need surgery. Her spleen was injured in the crash.” \nHer mom lets out a moan. “Surgery, oh my God!” \n“Is it serious?” George asks. Georgia clings to his hand. \n“Is it?” She adds. They all wait for his answer.\n“The good news is, the spleen isn't strictly necessary. It is a major operation but not serious. I mean, it is simple for the surgeons.”\n“We want to give blood,” she looks to her husband, “right?”\n“Absolutely. If she needs blood, we want to supply it.”\nHe nods. “We can type and match you both.”\n“When does she need to go back?” Janey asks. \n“She is stable but we don't want to wait too long,” he looks down at the chart, “I will have your blood drawn.”\n“Thank you doctor.”\nAt the lab\n“This can't be right.” One of the techs running the blood mumbles.\n“What?” The other looks up.\n“This is the parents of the patient right?”\n“Yes.”\n“Her father ‘s blood shows he isn't her father.” The other tech comes over.\n“Run it again.”\n“I have. Three times now.”\n“Shit!”\n“Mrs. Floyd, you can give blood for her.” the doctor can't meet their eyes. They stand outside her room. Georgia is being prepped for surgery. \n“Wonderful.” \n“What about me?” George adds.\n“You weren't a match. I’m sorry.” He feels like squirming. As an ER doctor, he faces a lot of tough situations but this is on a whole new level.\n“What aren't you telling me?” The man demands. He doesn't notice his wife’s face turning white. He is focused on the doctor. \nHe lets his breath out. “Mr. Floyd, according to the blood results, there is no way possible that you are Georgia ‘s biological dad.”\nLike a bomb dropping that explodes late, they feel air around them grow still. Janey wraps her arms around herself, her face down. George slowly turns to her. \n“Janey, do you have something to tell me?” His voice is deceptively calm. \n“I have no idea what he is talking about.” Her words fall flat as her body screams she is lying. She can't lift her eyes to meet his, her arms tighten farther around her.\n“Don't you?” He is angry, in a rage. Face red, his hands fisted to his side. Aware he is at the hospital with his daughter close by, he doesn't let his voice raise, “I am going to see my daughter.” \nHe is careful to rearrange his face before entering her room. She lays groggy, the pre-op meds already running through her blood. He takes her hand. She gives him a sleepy grin.\n“All over soon.” Her words are slurred. \nHe tries to smile. No, just beginning. Does it matter? She has his name, he has raised her. Whoever screwed her mom is long gone. A start as he thinks, ‘ are they?’ \nSamuel and Simeon, are they really his sons? They must be. They both have his hair, the shape of his face. Still…\n“Dad?” He focuses on Georgia “Mom?”\nHe swallows back what he means to say. “She is giving blood. In case you need it.”\n“Okay.” her eyes close. \nShe arrives before they come to get Georgia for surgery. They have an agreement never to argue in front of the children. Yes, she sleeps, still…\nHe sits stiffly to one side, holding his child ‘s hand. She seats on the other, holding the other. \n“I see Georgia is all ready for surgery.” The cheerful surgeon says.\n“Yes,” her lips are stiff, barely moving, “she will be alright?”\n“We will take good care of her. You are welcome to wait here as this is where we will be bringing her after recovery. Or the waiting room is down the hall?”\n“We will wait here.” George decides that he will start to have it out with her right here and now. That will take privacy.\n“Alright,” He wasn't privy to the bomb that just exploded in their family but knows something is off, “the nurse will keep you informed.” \nA few minutes after they wheeled her out.\n“Are Samuel and Simeon mine?” She jerked as if slapped. He longs too but, no. Never ever hit a woman, his dad’s voice fills his head. \n“How could you ask that?” He raises his eyes, “yes. Yes they are yours.”\n“A few hours ago I would have sworn on everything that Georgia was mine, as well.” He keeps his voice low. His narrow eyes and clenched jaw show his emotions. This is a hospital, he keeps telling himself.\n“She is in every way that counts.” Her heart pounds and her palms are wet. He won't hit her or even raise his voice. There are other ways to show his anger.\n“Who is he, her biological father?”\nShe swallows, staring at her hands.\n“Answer me, Janey.”\n“We had that big fight. I went to a bar with Lynne. He was a stranger, just a man who caught my eye. It wasn't a long term thing. Not an affair.”\n“That is supposed to make it better!” he breathes in and out. Hospital, he reminds himself, “That it was some stranger you… What are we going to tell Georgia? That some random bar stud you screwed once is her father?”\nHe stands and starts pacing from the chair to the door. Back and forth.\nHer lips start to quiver. “Must we tell her anything?” \nHe stops in mid stride and stares at her. “Just because you lied to me for seventeen years doesn't mean I will be lying to my daughter, “ her lips quiver more and her eyes tear up, “oh no. Don't you dare cry. Don't you think they will know, even if I stay?” The twins are twelve. Can he do six years to see them to majority? He isn't sure, “they aren't stupid. They will sense something different between us.”\n“You would leave us?” \n“No, just you. I will never leave my children.”\n“Please George,” she sits, hands clasped in front of her, “Please. We can get past this!”\nHe stares at her. She has lied for seventeen years about the paternity of his child and she thinks they can simply move past it? \n“Seventeen years. I held her in my arms at a minute old, vowing to give her the world. You laid there knowing she wasn't mine! Not that she isn't now. I love her with everything in me and always will. But Janey, how can I ever see you the same way? It is the betrayal of our wedding vows, the cover up. I have never, and believe that I have had opportunities, but never…” He starts to pace again, “if you would've told me…”\n“Would you have forgiven me then?” her voice is hoarse with tears she holds back.\n“In time, yes. You are my wife. I believe in the vows we made. I thought you did as well.”\n“It was just that one time. I have been faithful every other day!”\n“No Janey, you haven't. Every day you lied to me about our daughter, you were unfaithful,” he walks towards the door, “I will wait in the waiting room.”" } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Shinomotchi\n\nGenre: coming-of-age\n\nWord Count: 1606\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with a character finding a retro piece of tech they don’t recognize." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Gas tank? Full.\nLaptop? Check.\nChargers? Check.\nHomework? Eh. I won’t do it even if I bring it, and it won’t bump my grades up even if I do it.\nCigarettes? No, let’s leverage the long weekend to cut back. Well – just one for the drive. Anything harder will have to wait. The thought of mom finding out alone makes nauseous.\nLaundry? Check.\nEverything looks ready to go. I’m confident I can beat the sun out if I skip breakfast to maximize my time at home. Nothing on campus tastes quite like mom’s cooking. Maybe if I drive with the windows down, I’ll be able to follow the smell home without assistance from the GPS – she is making my favorite. What a remarkably silly thought. Aside from the meals, I think sleeping in a newly converted home gym beats sharing a dorm room with noisy acquaintances. Everyone is so loud.\nMom has my old belongings set aside in boxes on my old bed, but she promised not to sell anything without checking in with me first. I’m hoping the drive home will be dull, so it lets my mind wander. I was fine with being an undeclared major for the first three semesters, but that novelty is running out, and I need something to tether to or I’ll end up blowing the scholarships. No – I said this would be a weekend to unwind and take a step back. I’ll decide those things once I’m back. Mom can’t know.\nThe drive back would always revert my brain to how I used to perceive things. It’s been months, so things back in my hometown don’t quite look or smell like I remember, but each increasingly familiar street awakens a layer of my dormant youth. I’d forget the worries of tuition, work schedules, rent, projects, scholarships, extra-credit, and all the other headaches that come with academia. It’s all so noisy. I hope I can find silence back home.\nThere’s the post office, the remodeled fast-food joint, a new subdivision I don’t recognize, and the driveway up to my childhood suburban oasis. My friends always say they dread going home for long holidays now, but I can’t help disagreeing. There’s a guilty pleasure in returning to my worry-free self. The future can wait as long as I remain here.\nI held back tears hugging my mom. It’d been months fending for myself in the jungle, and the home smelled like cinnamon apple candles and dinosaur chicken nuggets (I never said my favorite meal was anything fancy). My room was a pile of boxes and unassembled workout equipment. My bed still smelled like the lingering remnants of high school. It was even more comfortable than I remember. I suppose that’s what sleeping on a sponge for months does to the soul. I could feel my body shutting down as I threw myself on to the plush comforter. My shoulders turned into spaghetti and everything I’d learned in school fled my body with every warm and prolonged exhale. I was safe again. In my little box, surrounded by towers of cardboard boxes. It was a throne that had remained dusty for too long. Away from the necessary machinations of the world. The bureaucracy. The exhausting social ploys we follow to make a living or ascend in this world. It was a snake eat snake world, and I was the brightest mouse.\nI unpacked quickly and began rearranging the confines of the castle to my liking in peace and silence. I moved “Kitchenware for sale” off to the side table, “Clothes for sale” near the door leading to my bathroom, and “Old toys for sale?” on to the bed. Something inside was beeping. The box was taped shut for protection, but curiosity got the better of me and I clawed the lid off to inspect the types of curiosities that might be hiding in it. Another dormant layer of youth was abruptly jolted awake as the musty cardboard flaps exploded with dust and the smell of (somehow) damp plastic and felt. Old teddy bears and plushies, action figures with missing arms or accessories, my old 90’s translucent plastic fake phones and gaming consoles, a few game cartridges (that could probably sell for a good price if I found their original boxes), a binder of collectible trading cards, and the source of the faint beeping– a little toy electronic keychain pet, the kind that were all the rage in the late 90’s, but one I don’t recall ever owning. “Shinomotchi” was printed on its plastic hull. This must’ve been a knock-off that my mom picked up at the mall or something because that is NOT the brand name for these little guys and one I’d not heard of before. Regardless, the little guy was still going! There’s no shut off switch to these things, but I’d assumed the battery would have given up after almost 20 years. It has a sad face in its thought bubble, and the little amorphous critter was moving slowly back and forth across the screen, surprisingly still beeping for food and water. The interface only had three buttons and a small selection of items to choose from on the main screen. These included food, bath, and play. It took me less than a minute to acquaint myself with how they functioned. Little black, pixelated spots of excrement littered the screen. These were all cleared with the bath function. The little skulls over the hunger bar were cleared with the food function, and the sad face eventually went away with extended uses of the toy function.\nThroughout the weekend, the critter would beep, and I’d have to stop to feed or clean up after its messes. For the most part, it would mind its own business, wandering around the screen without beeping or doing much of anything in its comfortable little walls. I discovered it had little mini games – simple mazes or collecting games that would cheer it up even more. My mom just smiled when she’d catch me fiddling with it. She doesn’t recall purchasing it either, but she said she hadn’t seen me that happy in a few years.\nThe beeps would come and go in a tune that decorated the weekend air. I’d catch myself running out of the shower to feed it or skipping meals to take it out on virtual walks. At night, the beeps would ring in my dreams to the point where I’d just stay awake because it would be easier to take care of the plastic child I’d neglected for so many years than to be interrupted halfway into the REM cycle. At the tail end of the weekend, I had as much of a tough time keeping my eyes open as I did keeping them closed. The beeps were intelligible now, and much more complex than I, or anyone else, could’ve thought. It would call out to me by name. “Come feed me” it would say, in a hoarse, 8-bit voice. “Come clean up after me” it would bellow out at random intervals throughout the day. “Come play with me” it would ring, purposefully guilting me into hour long bouts of sorting virtual berries or throwing pixel balls back and forth.\nI convinced my mom that finals would all be virtual this year. She was excited of course, that her only child would be staying with her longer, but I could see the twinge of hesitation whenever I reached for the buttons of the Shinomotchi.\n“Why don’t you set that down for a bit honey,” she’d say.\n“Don’t listen to her – she’s the one that you conspired with to lock me away” it would say back in its retro pings of fear and anger.\n“Can I have a smoke now?” I’d ask but would always be met with a fervent “No.”\nAfter several more months my mom stopped asking questions about school or work. My school inbox had grown to a staggering all time high. I did not have it in me to look at texts or calls. My voicemail was a graveyard of concerned, pixelated voices, all asking for help, time, or money. Shinomotchi and I have decided to place all those thoughts and worries in a cardboard box, and tape them shut. I could no longer see the critter in its plastic hull. In fact, I no longer held it. I could not see or feel it. I could only hear it in the back of my mind. I’d see its face outside the window panes of my room and nothing else beyond it. No light shone in or out anymore.\n“May I go outside?” I’d ask politely. No answer. Sometimes it would go weeks without answering. We’d revel in a crossword puzzle it would give me, and then take them away.\n“May I have some food, please?” No answer. For days even. When my stomach couldn’t bare it any longer it’d toss me a simple sandwich. Tasteless, yet delicious.\nMy room door was locked from the outside. Its walls now a translucent plastic. No friends, no family. Just darkness and musty air as I pleaded for food, baths, and play time with the true king of the cardboard castle.\n“Thank you, Shinomotchi, for allowing me to remain within the confines of your majestic fortress” I said, with reverence for my virtual master, and a growing disdain for my future and responsibilities. No answer.\nThe faint sound of wrapping tape echoed outside of the plastic walls, and a deep cowl of comforting darkness, and the silence I’d been longing for, finally shrouded my room." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Long Way Home\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 2226\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with an unexpected betrayal." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Depictions of sex, violence, drug use, and mental health\n\n“I was a freshman at St. John’s Academy, a catholic school for girls, just fourteen years old, when I met Bobby at the mall. He was so cute with his big blue eyes, that curly mop of hair, and those dimples when he smiled. He was sixteen, could drive, and said he was a junior at a prestigious private school in the city, St. Louis University High School. He had a way about him that was very different from other boys. He seemed more focused on having fun with me rather than doing stupid things to impress me. I liked that. He was big and looked strong. It made me feel safe to be around him. I liked that too. I was with my friend Stacey. He was with his friend Brandon. We walked through the stores, played at the arcade, and split soft-twist pretzels and sodas. The boys invited us to go do something else, but I didn’t dare go. That was the first time my parents let me roam the mall without them being there. I was not about to lose that privilege. Mom was on her way to pick us girls up as we spoke, so we called it a night.\n “The next day, after school, Stacey, my other friend Tosha, and I were walking home from school. Bobby and Brandon pulled up beside us in this beautiful, brand-new cherry-red Mustang that purred like a cougar. He looked so cool. I was very impressed. They asked if we wanted to go for a ride, saying they’d take us to a place where a lot of people hung out after school to unwind. I immediately hopped in the car, excited to be seen with my new boyfriend in his stylish new ride. Brandon even slipped into the backseat so I could ride shotgun. Stacey and Tosha said no. Tosha’s parents were very strict, and Stacey didn’t want to leave her hanging.\n “Bobby got on the highway and opened her up. Before I knew it, we were weaving in and out of traffic as Linkin Park’s ‘Given Up’ blared on the radio. That’s when, from the back seat, Brandon grabbed my face with a cloth. The next thing I know, I’m waking up in a cage designed for transporting wild animals, stripped of my clothes. Only my underwear remained.\n “Adrenaline pumped through my veins. Fight or flight and I couldn’t do either. I rattled my cage, realizing it was just one of many crammed into a corner of a warehouse, in rows, stacked on top of each other. I was cold. My eyes burned. I felt like I couldn’t breathe and that I might lose my lunch. I could hear the soft cries of other girls and a few boys along with their sniffles, the smell of their defecations wafting through the air. Across the room I saw a very large man counting out cash and handing it to Bobby and Brandon. God, I hated them in that moment. I wanted to scream and claw their eyes out for betraying me like that.\n “I sat back and cried. I felt so stupid for trusting some guys I just met. For all I knew they weren’t even high school kids. I cried because I let my parents down. By that time, they must have been worried out of their minds. I cried because I had no idea where I was, no idea why I was there, no idea what was going to happen next. I fell asleep crying and hungry, balled up on the cold steel floor of that cage.\n “I woke to the sound of cages rattling and men shouting. The occasional hiss of a cattle prod made me jerk. We were lined up single file and led to a make-shift photo studio there in the warehouse. It was pretty much just a white canvas backdrop, some painfully bright work lights, and a man with an iPhone and computer. They took pictures of us and made quick videos that they uploaded to the internet.\n “None of us had fully developed yet, having just started puberty. Some looked like they hadn’t even started puberty yet, especially the boys. Looking around, I wasn’t sure if anyone there was even old enough to drive. What I learned really quick is that there is a fetish for that age range. They will pay a good price for you and sexually objectify you, hurting you without any sense of remorse.\n “After we were photographed and our profiles placed online, we were put back in our cages and fed some beans with a slice of bread and a cup of water. We weren’t even allowed to finish before they started loading us, cages and all, into a trailer bound for California. That’s where I met my employer, Ms. Crystal LaShea.\n “LaShea owned a busted down old motel off a desert highway where men could rent us to satisfy their shameful, disgusting urges. Now I don’t know how the business side works. I don’t know how she brought in the clients or how much she charged. All I know is that we gave the customer what they wanted, or we were beaten and/or starved. LaShea didn’t like to damage the merchandise, didn’t want anything visible, so it was usually taken out on our feet. Drugs were used to subdue the more resistful girls. That’s where I became addicted to heroin.\n “At first, I was fearful and very cooperative. I pushed through the pain and would cry it out later. Then I grew numb, hateful, angry. One customer decided to do me anally while fish-hooking me in the mouth. Once he was done, I turned on him, slapping him, and ended up scratching his face. He was a married man who was going to have a hard time explaining that to his wife, the mother of his daughter who was the same age as me according to LaShea. Ever since that incident, I had to be sedated. It reached a point that I became very cooperative just to get the heroin.\n “I had been working for LaShea for about two years when they brought in a new girl, Shannon. Shannon had a habit of screaming, crying, and trying to fight off the customers. They starved her. They took razor blades to her feet to the point that she had to be carried in to one client. But she never quit fighting. A new batch of girls came in and LaShea made an example of her in front of us all. She slit her throat from ear to ear and we all saw the fear in Shannon’s eyes when she realized she was dying. It was a very effective way to get the new girls to mind.\n “My body fully developed at the age of seventeen. My services were no longer needed, so I was sold to a man called Loppy. He was a heroin dealer/pimp who had a reputation of lopping off body parts of those who didn’t pay for services rendered. Loppy kept me and a couple other girls in his home, which was a small place where he ran his product. Significant buyers were allowed a free taste of us girls during the day. We would work the streets at night. By that time, I had become used to servicing anywhere between six and ten men a night. I was used to crazy request. In a way, it was easier. Most of these guys were just lonely. Some of them were pigs with wives at home. I’d see pictures of beautiful families while swiping cash from their wallets. But for the most part they were lonely.\n “The only difference between being with Loppy and LaShea was that with Loppy I didn’t want to get back to my family as bad. By that time, I guess I just accepted things as my lot in life. I wasn’t the same girl they remembered and questioned if they’d even want me back. I didn’t know where else to go or what else to do. Loppy was rough and scary but there was a roof over my head, and he kept the withdrawals away.\n “At the age of twenty-four, someone got me pregnant. Loppy dropped me off at the abortion clinic. They took care of the pregnancy. Part of me wanted that baby, but I knew my life was no life for a child. The thoughts of who I used to be started haunting me along with the thoughts of who I could have been. They made me crazy, and I lashed out at everyone, including Loppy, which was a bad idea.\n “Loppy locked me away and let the withdrawals take control. First there was sweating and chills. Then diarrhea and vomiting started. My body tried to expel things that weren’t there. Every muscle and bone in my body hurt. It was like being punched in the same spot repeatedly, all over your body. He came to me while I was at the peak of detoxing and told me he would give me a hit if I’d give him a little head. I did so eagerly, I was suffering so bad. I knew what he was doing. He was making a point. The drugs owned me, and he owned the drugs. Therefore, in a roundabout way, he owned me.\n “I prostituted for Loppy for another three years, but because of the life I lived, I looked ten years older than I really was and wasn’t earning him enough money, so he turned me loose. After Loppy kicked me aside, I lived on the streets for a while, selling myself for next to nothing, just enough to buy a hit of smack.\n “A church van came around one nasty evening looking to get the homeless out of the cold and rain. The idea of a warm, dry place to sleep and maybe a hot meal was too much to pass up. I agreed to go with them. There I got some soup in my belly, the first decent meal I had in a long time. A man sat down on the cot across from mine and began talking to me.\n ‘My name is George Tisdale. Who are you if you don’t mind me asking,’ he said.\n ‘Rebecca Shaw,’ I told him, a little guarded.\n ‘Rebecca, I would like to get you off the streets. What would you like,’ he asked.\n ‘I’d like to be rid of this heroin addiction I didn’t ask for. I’d like to clean myself up and go back to St. Louis, go home, and find my parents. I want to someday be a mom, but not like this,’ I replied.\n “George checked me into a rehab and visited me every day. Detoxing from drugs or alcohol is a painful and torturous experience. I recommend never starting. George was there when I got out. He flew with me back to St. Louis and helped me locate my parents, which wasn’t hard, they had never moved. George stood by my side as I rang the doorbell, unsure of what to expect.\n “My mom opened the door and gasped for air, her eyes filling with tears. I was surprised she recognized me. She reached out and touched my face and smiled. ‘Larry,’ she yelled back into the house to get my father’s attention. He came running, expecting an emergency. When he saw me, he stood up strait with a look of recognition. He tilted his head and started to cry. ‘Don’t just stand there, Susan. Let her in,’ he said.\n “It may not sound like it, but things worked out better for me than most girls. I eventually found my way home. Some never get out. Some die, usually at very young ages. Some are sold overseas. Some are turned into slaves once they are no longer found desirable. I hope my story has some effect on you, so that when you meet someone new, whether at the mall, at a party, or online, you think before agreeing to do anything or go anywhere with anyone alone. You never know who someone is until you truly get to know them.”\n Mrs. Rivers, the principal at Northwest High approaches Rebecca and shakes her hand before taking the microphone. “Let’s give Mrs. Dent a warm round of applause for coming here and sharing her story. I hope you ladies take to heart what she has told us and use caution out there in the dating world.”\n The gymnasium erupted with clapping as young ladies rose to their feet. A lump formed in Rebecca’s throat and tears moistened her eyes as she felt that her message didn’t fall on deaf ears. Mrs. Rivers shook her hand again and Rebecca left with a wave to her audience.\n After her speech, Rebecca stops at her parents to pick up her daughter. From there, she is meeting her husband at home who is preparing dinner for their second anniversary. He’s a good man and they have a nice home. Rebecca still suffers from PTSD. She still sees a counselor regularly and takes her medication as prescribed. She considers herself extremely lucky, blessed, and now puts the past behind her, focusing on her future, going from school-to-school warning young women about sex trafficking." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Frozen Lemonade\n\nGenre: coming-of-age\n\nWord Count: 2156\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a character who isn’t nostalgic about their past at all, and show readers why." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Trigger warning: Contains underage sexual content, mentions of assault\n\nYou know the movie Dirty Dancing? The one where Baby goes off to that fancy resort with her parents for the summer, and in the beginning she is a good, sweet girl who loves her daddy, and then by the end she is still a good sweet girl who loves her daddy but now she is kinda sexy too and can dance like a pro and is totally in love with that beautiful dance teacher. Why doesn’t anyone talk about how that teacher is clearly much, much older than Baby, and despite Patrick Swayze’s swoon-worthy body and to-die-for dance moves, it is probably borderline illegal for him to end up with her? And then I think, well of course no one talks about that because all of us growing up wanted to be Baby, we wanted Johnny’s fingertips to caress our waist and make us giggle, we wanted to learn how to do lifts in the lake, we wanted to wake up in a dirty shack in the woods after losing our virginity to the bad boy dance teacher with the beautiful abs. \n\nI blame Dirty Dancing for thousands of young teen girls summer flings, for all the girls who became camp counselors in the hopes of meeting their own Johnny Castles, only to realize that a sleep-away camp job was more about bug spray and bandaids than romance. Also, all the male dance instructors I ever met were gay. \n\nBut the lure of Baby in her tiny shorts was like a right of passage, every teen and pre-teen girl’s invitation to a wild (and somewhat inappropriate) summer romance.\n\nMost of them were nothing like Dirty Dancing of course. Most of them involved the back seats of old cars or sticky kisses behind the bleachers at the high school. If the girl was lucky it was at least exciting, if she was even luckier, consensual. There was often music, however, a song playing on the radio that when you heard it twenty years later it would remind you of the smell of old leather, the taste of strawberry Chapstick.\n\nFor me, it all happened the summer I was 14. His name was Morgan , he was 17, and he was no Johnny Castle. Also, it wasn’t consensual, not really, although I didn’t exactly say no either. Also, I liked girls at the time, but I can’t really blame him for not knowing that. It was the 90’s, things were starting to change, but it was still not really ok to be out and proud like it is now. \n\nIt was exciting though. Not the kissing part, which was wet and messy and too fast, or the sex, which was the same. \n\nNo, the exciting part was what happened after.\n\nI wasn’t in love with Morgan. I wasn’t even in like with him, but I was 14 and bored. Nothing happened in the summer in the tiny town where I lived. Nothing happened during the school year either, but at least there were football games and afterschool clubs and stuff. In the summer, the older kids who had licenses would drive an hour away to the shore and drink beers in the sun all day. Morgan had a license, but he also had a job bagging groceries at the local supermarket four days a week, which meant less time for suntanning and more time to seduce underage girls in the Foodtown parking lot. \n\nThe person I really liked in the summer of 1992, right before my sophomore year of high school, was Stacy; soon to be senior, 16 years old, with long curly auburn hair and big brown eyes. Stacy was the reason I ended up in the parking lot that night to begin with, she was the reason I was dressed in my shortest shorts and the bright blue bikini top that I basically lived in that July. \n\nShe was also the reason my sophomore year of high school went the way it did. Let’s just say that when you are 14 and hopelessly in love and someone takes advantage of your innocence you go a little crazy.\n\nNot Morgan. I barely remember him.\n\nBut I will remember that first kiss with Stacy forever.\n\nMorgan had a beat up Toyota Camry that he had inherited from some family member, and he had tossed two fuzzy checkered blankets into the backseat. My 14 year old self did not think twice about this; it wasn’t until I was much older that it occurred to me about the kind of boy who would keep two folded up blankets in the backseat of his car. He kissed me and I played along (it wasn’t actually my first kiss) and then he put his hand underneath my bikini top and I went along with that too. By the time he was unbuttoning my jean shorts, his eyebrows raised questioningly, (he did ask first, in his own way) I had already gone along with so many things I figured what was the point in saying no now. Like I said, it was summer in a small NJ town, I was bored to death, and Morgan was something new. \n\nStacy appeared a few minutes after it was over, her long tan legs sauntering across that Foodtown parking lot like a supermodel on the runway. She walked right up to the Camry and opened the door. \n“Morgan, really??! She’s barely a sophomore!” Stacy then turned her dark brown eyes to me. \n\n“Gia? You are Gia right?” I nodded.\n\n“Are you ok? Did he hurt you?”\n\nI considered this for a moment. \n\n“No, not really.”\n\nStacy watched as I awkwardly retied my bikini top. The expression on her face was unreadable. When I was fully dressed again she offered me her hand.\n\n“Come on Gia,” she said. \n\nMorgan was refolding the blankets but he had the decency to at least look up long enough to say goodbye. He didn’t offer to call me or anything; that wasn’t part of this whole experience. But he did smile and say “See you around.”\n\nStacy and I walked out of the parking lot and down Main Street.\n\n“He’s kind of a douche,” she said. “But I get it, an older guy with a car and all.”\n\nI opened my mouth to explain that no, Morgan’s car had nothing to do with it, that I really just had nothing else to do that afternoon. But that made me sound like a whore and I wanted Stacy to like me, so I just shrugged.\n\nWe kept walking, all the way to the Wawa on the end of Main. Stacy then proclaimed it was “hot as balls” outside and she wanted a frozen lemonade. One drink, two straws (like the country song).\n\nWe drank it right there outside the Wawa, and when she kissed me afterwards, her lips tasted like lemons.\n\n“Am I right though?” she asked. “You like girls? I’m usually right.”\n\nI nodded, slightly breathless, eyes wide.\n\nStacy smiled. “Yeah I’m usually right”, she repeated. And then, even though I hadn’t asked. “I like everyone.”\n\nYears later, sitting on a twin bed at Smith College, I told this story to my roommate. Ayala was from Queens; street smart and very beautiful, and she had rolled her eyes. “They are the absolute worst.” I assumed she meant guys like Morgan but she shook her head. “No silly. There is a Morgan on every street corner. I mean girls like Stacy.”\nI didn’t tell Ayala the rest of the story. That I had spent all of July and half of August floating through town like a tumbleweed. Each time, just when I thought it was over, Stacy would suddenly appear and we would spend the afternoon together, drinking frozen lemonade, swinging on the old tire swing in the middle school playground. One day we went to the town pool, another we rode bikes down to the muddy lake and tossed pebbles into the water. Anyone looking at us from the outside would have just assumed we were good friends, slowly inching our way through the long summer days. They didn’t see what we did when no one was looking. Stacy left for a family vacation in mid-August, but before she did she kissed me long and hard and told me that I was the prettiest girl she had ever been with.\n\nIn the fall she started dating the captain of the football team, a pairing that I found cliche and unsatisfying. I did not handle it well; Morgan’s Camry was not the last backseat I found myself in, and his were not the only fuzzy blankets. By the time Stacy and her jock boyfriend won prom king and queen that spring (she wore a long blue dress with sequins and a slit up the side) I had developed somewhat of a reputation.\n\nStacy graduated and went off to some college upstate. I spent the summer before my junior year working at a sleep away camp on the shore where I actually met a cute dance instructor. (Her name was Hannah, not Johnny.) Hannah was a sweet girl with blond hair and dimples that burrowed into her cheeks when she laughed, and we had three weeks of innocent and completely consensual fun. On the last day of camp she got a little teary and told me that I was the first girl she had ever been with. I lied and told her the same.\n\nAfter college I followed the well worn path of many a New Jersey girl and moved to a tiny one bedroom apartment in Brooklyn with a roommate I met on Craigslist. When she decided three years later that she couldn’t hack NYC life and moved out, I decided to keep the apartment for myself.\n\nThe girls I met on dating apps liked to talk nostalgically about their past, about high school when your biggest concern was Friday’s midterm and what to wear to school in the morning. About college when you could drink 6 beers, pass out in someone’s dorm room, and stumble into sociology the next morning in your pajamas and no one batted an eyelash. They whined about the unfair expectations of the current job market, about high maintenance women with unrealistic dating goals. When they asked me about my past I would always reply with “Small town Jersey”, as if that explained everything. Maybe it did.\n\nAll I knew is I was happy to be grown, happy to no longer be a lost teenager desperate for any kind of adventure. You couldn’t pay me enough to be 14 again.\n\nMorgan actually became somewhat of a low key celebrity, known for a popular series of YouTube videos about woodworking, or sculpting or something maker-ish like that. The last video I saw had over one million views.\n\nStacy married a stockbroker and last I checked she was living in a big white house in the suburbs with 2 kids under 2 and a big, fluffy golden retriever. I have no idea if that was the life she wanted. Sometimes, late at night when I can’t sleep, I like to think that it wasn’t; that somewhere deep in the back of her mind she still thinks of me as the one who got away.\n\nIts a funny thing, your past. Mostly it shrinks father and father away, like the entrance to a long tunnel you are driving through, until it is barely a dot in your memory. But occasionally something attaches itself, stubborn and prickly like a barnacle in the ocean, and it can take you years to shake it off.\n\nOn the last night of my honeymoon in Cancun, I was sipping a glass of champagne by the water when my beautiful new wife turned to me and said, “Tell me your deepest darkest secret.”\n\nI thought for a moment, the gentle soundtrack of the waves playing in the background. There were plenty of things I could tell her, plenty of embarrassing moments from a younger life that had not been particularly reserved or conservative. But instead I shook my hair out of my face and said, “It took me twenty years to finally know what kind of person I want to be.”\n\nCynthia raised her eyebrows, clearly having expected something different. \n\n“And what kind is that?”\n\n“Someone worthy of love”, I replied. \n\nShe kissed me then, and it wasn’t at all like being 14 in the backseat of a Camry or like the taste of lemonade in the parking lot of the Wawa. It wasn’t like deep in the forest at Camp Mohunk, the scent of bug spray in everyone’s hair. It wasn’t like dorm rooms in college or the wet spongey air in the back of that bar in Red Hook. It wasn’t like any of those times.\n\nThis time, this kiss, was like coming home." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Died of Dysentery\n\nGenre: coming-of-age\n\nWord Count: 2300\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story about a grown-up sharing their favorite childhood video game with their child." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Thirty-nine-year-old Aaron sat in the minivan, waiting to pick up his ten-year-old son, Noah, from soccer practice. Facing the field, he watched the gaggle of preadolescents practice dribbles, passes, shoots, and an occasional trick shot from the head or chest--just to show off for each other, no doubt. They were an impressive bunch for their age, he’d give them that. Albeit, Aaron was always a more avid viewer of sports than an active participant. Athletics were never easy for him. Noah must get his propensity from either a recessive trait or from his mother. The latter most likely, seeing as how he has more traces of her features than his to begin with: her eyes, her face shape, freckles, her hair color, and even her talent for sports. \nAaron didn’t totally understand his son’s interests, but he was nonetheless proud of him. Although he couldn’t help but muse on how the roles seemed reversed almost thirty years ago. Aaron’s own father would have preferred a son who was a quarterback or first baseman but was resigned to a clumsy, but bright wiz kid who spent a significant deal of spare time with a video game or computer. His old man didn’t understand it, but his kid was happy and did well in school. There is that if a parent can’t have anything else. \nHis thoughts dispersed when Noah finally climbed into the car, glistening with sweat. They greeted one another as Noah settled in his seat and silence filled the space while Aaron navigated the vehicle out of the parking space and lot. \n“How was practice?” Aaron asked.\n“Fine,” Noah answered, wiping his brow and chugging some water.\n“How was school?” He continued, hoping against hope for a more elaborate conversation. \n“Fine...” Noah reiterated.\n“Have any homework?”\n“No,”\n“Any weekend plans?”\nNoah grunted and shrugged.\n“Do you care if I play?” Noah then asked, reaching for his Nintendo Switch.\n“Sure,” Aaron resigned. At least he was polite about it. He recognized such exchanges were par for the course at ten years old. But he still couldn’t help feeling a little disheartened as the screen in his son’s face seemed to hinder any potential for connecting on the drive home. \n“We’re going to start learning about the Oregon Trail next week,” Noah offered up out of the blue. Like a trigger, Aaron’s mind flashed to a spirited fanfare and a start-up screen that bore the same words on the backdrop of a golden prairie landscape. \n“The Oregon Trail, huh?” The thought made Aaron smile, but he didn’t want to get carried away. That was his favorite game when he was Noah’s age. \n“There’s a game for it on Switch. Can I get it?” Aaron wasn’t surprised. Between the fourth and fifth iterations, he started to “grow up” out of spending all his free time on video games, having discovered cars, girls, puberty, a steady paycheck, and more practical ideas about his future. However, many of the re-releases and revamps still caught his attention now and then.\nAaron had many times when he wanted to dive back into gaming but either he didn’t have the opportunity or money to spare or he knew nothing important would get done if/when he did. He needed to manage some bills, take out the trash, help with dishes after dinner, mow the lawn this weekend, and it was his turn to clean the bathroom. But a golden opportunity to connect more with his son seemed close and that was important too, right? Hopping back on The Trail wouldn’t be for totally selfish reasons now...\n“Tell you what, son,” Aaron answered, “I want to show you an older version of the game that’s totally free and I’ll consider the idea of buying you the new one. How’s that sound?”\n“M’kay,” Noah shrugged. Aaron’s eagerness was bubbling below the surface by the time they pulled into their driveway. He knew just the emulator that would support gameplay without many glitch-outs. He mentally rehearsed talking points he’d discuss while showing his son around the game. He practically flashed himself back to his own childhood nights when he’d play Oregon Trail after dinner until bedtime. That buzz quickly crashed shortly after they got through the door though. \n“Noah Joseph Peterson,” His son’s full name came from his stern-toned wife, Lisa. “You have missing grades in English!” \nNoah argued that his teacher hadn’t uploaded GradeLink yet, but this occurrence was becoming frequent enough for Aaron and Lisa to know better. Noah’s dishonesty and irresponsibility with his homework meant he would be grounded until next week. He had to give up the Switch. So Aaron thought it would be prudent to introduce Noah to The Oregon Trail after his punishment. But in the meantime, he got a little extra help with cleaning the bathroom.\nThe following week transpired with Noah’s Oregon Trail studies. Aaron felt a strange blend of interest and envy. Noah made a little more conversation about what he learned or did in class. \n“They actually didn’t travel in the Conestoga wagons like everyone thinks. Those were too heavy...”\n“We did a virtual scavenger hunt tour of the trail landmarks during computer time.”\n“We looked at trail maps today. The Oregon Trail wasn’t a single route,” \n“In science, we talked about the diseases they got! Dysentery, cholera, smallpox...”\n(“Spare the details until after dinner, please, honey?” Lisa chided on that topic.)\n“They made fire with buffalo poop and didn’t bathe for the whole trip!”\nHe would find those interesting... Aaron mused. Notwithstanding the grosser tidbits, he forgot he learned some of those things himself when he was in school. Though more still, he realized that nothing drove home the book learning more than the virtual experience the computer game fostered. He wondered if Noah would feel the same. \nThat weekend, Noah was officially ungrounded. One of his friend’s parents would shuttle him home from soccer practice and Lisa was away on a weekend trip. Aaron finished the chores early and had a gnawing itch to boot up Oregon Trail while he waited for his son to come home. He was dying to get his feet wet with it again and felt it only right that he should reacquaint with it before showing it to Noah. \nHe powered up the computer, opened up a web browser, navigated to the emulator, and selected the game. A loading screen popped up with a percentage counter.\nLoading bundle eight percent, twenty-seven percent, forty-eight, seventy-three, one-hundred percent. \nThe program started extracting the same way.\nThree percent, seven percent, thirteen percent, twenty-nine...extraction error.\n“Shoot!” Aaron of course thought. “Another valid reason for getting a jumpstart. Hope a refresh does the trick.” He clicked on the refresh button.\nIt did the trick and loaded completely that time. The loading screen switched to black before fading into the grandiose introductory dialogue and that familiar music loop.\n“The United States in the mid-eighteen hundreds...” The dialogue started while revealing a state map of the country from that period. “Ours is a large nation, a young nation full of restless, forward-looking people...” \nAaron sat back to watch and listen to the opening sequence, feeling like a kid again. The start-up screen finally appeared when a racket kicked up in the kitchen. Sighing as he got up from the computer, he hurried to investigate, finding it coming from the dishwasher. Nothing was obstructing the blades, so it had to be either a valve or a loose part. Long story short, his adventure for the night would be further exploring the dishwasher issue. \nSo, Sunday was finally the day Aaron had been waiting for. \n“Alright, son!” He exclaimed as the game booted up. “You’ve learned about the Oregon Trail. Now get ready to live it!” As if on cue, the start-up screen appeared. Aaron was pleased. \nNoah stayed neutral, taking in the display before him. \n“Is that synthesizer music?” He asked, listening to the audio loop. \n“It's supposed to be orchestral,” Aaron answered but quietly mulled on the fact. “Hit ‘new game’ to get started. I’ll walk you through the gameplay.”\nNoah did so and glossed over the character creation page. \n‘From the trail journal of Temple,” he read the auto-populated suggestion. “What kind of name is Temple?” \n“You can put yours in if you want,” Aaron pointed out but silently reminisced about feeling the same way. Temple was a funny first name. He recommended the easiest selections for Noah’s first gameplay and they moved forward.\n“Woah!” The prologue came up. “Will I have to read a lot to play this game?!” \n“Ehh, ” Aaron started, unsure of how to answer the question. “It's a big part of the game control and helpful to success.” \nNoah clicked past the prologue and triggered the option to buy a basic package of supplies.\n“Eww! Cheugy!” He reacted to the full-motion video animation. \n“Cheugy?” Aaron questioned.\n“Y’know...cringe, awkward, not cool? Only the mouth moves!” A few moments later, Noah discovered that’s the case with all dialogue exchanges. \n“3-D graphics were still a few years off when I was your age,” Aaron tried to justify. He guided Noah out of Independence to the start of his virtual journey. His son wasn’t wrong though. Only the mouths moved; he never thought about that before. \nThe game progressed, revealing its loops of realistic wildlife and landscape images. At ten years old, Aaron thought they were a nice touch but he never realized how pixelated and grainy they were. Noah also remarked that the NPCs got repetitive too, which Aaron hardly noticed before either. He started to fear his nostalgia was really rose-colored glasses, but again, this was pretty high-tech for the time...emphasis on the time. \nAaron found a strange solace--or distraction--in some of the calamities in Noah’s gameplay experience. \n“Not the rapids! Not the rapids! Not the rapids!” Noah pleaded with the RNG as he crossed a river. “Nooo!!!” His wagon caught the rapids and tipped over. “I need more food!” He realized after getting straightened out. He went for the hunting option but the game told him he lost his gun. \n“What?!” Noah balked.\n“That got me every time too!” Aaron laughed at the memory. “It felt like every accident or incident, I’d lose my firearm or ammo!”\nNoah ran through several trade dialogues, looking for one to no avail. \n“At least there’s a fort ahead of you,” His dad encouraged, “Try being in that situation past Fort Boise!”\n“How do I lose four oxen?!” Noah flabbergasted a bit later. Aaron chucked again. Luckily, his party found them. \nNoah came to the fallen rocks obstacle. The game wouldn’t let him continue, clear it, or find another path. While waiting for conditions to improve, good fortune had more capable emigrants clear the path the next day. \n“I got stuck there for a week a few times!” Aaron marveled. \nAfter a half-hour of gameplay and a thin stock of supplies, Noah made it to Oregon City within five months.\n“What did you think, son?” Aaron wondered at the end of his journey.\n“Well...” Noah started. Aaron braced for a brutal commentary. The premise is good, just pretty detailed and random. The aesthetic has no polish!” \n“Figures,” Aaron thought. Hoping his son, born in 2014, would get a thrill comparable to his own from a 1995 quality game was far-fetched. It may as well have come from the Stone Age in Noah’s eyes. It was starting to make him feel self-conscious of his age and he wasn’t officially over the hill yet. \n“Now the new Switch version,” Noah continued, changing the browser to YouTube and searching for a Switch game trailer. “I watched my friend, Ethan, play it, and it’s got rizz for sure!”\n“Got rizz?” Aaron asked, worried about some of the language his son uses.\n“Y’know, charisma, style, charm.” He clicked on one of the videos he wanted.\nWatching that minute-long clip, Aaron had to admit, the visuals were gorgeous and smooth, the soundtrack pleasant. It seemed fresh both in quality and even to his soul. But what were the playability and mechanics like, he wondered? \n“Alright...” He gave in to his curiosity. “Let’s check this one out!” Noah excitedly popped from the computer chair to fetch his Switch and Aaron followed with his bank card. Another half-hour later after watching his son play, he was convinced. This new version was modern while respecting the game of his childhood, ultimately just right for Noah’s generation. Plus, seeing his focus and satisfied expressions throughout the game really made the thirty-dollar purchase more rewarding for him. \n“Thanks for the game, Dad!” Noah smiled at him at one point.\n“Thanks for showing it to me!” Aaron replied, his heart warm. \n“Hey, Dad!” Noah approached Aaron a few days later with some of his schoolwork.” The teacher gave us a choice of Oregon Trail-related projects to do for extra credit! I chose to write a report on my experience with one of the games!”\n“That sounds really cool!” He replied, receiving the page being handed to him. Knowing his son, he imagined he wrote about his awesome new game. He started reading Noah’s project, which was graded with a B. \n“Oregon Trail II was a computer game my dad grew up with. It came out in 1995 when he was my age. It was his favorite! He showed it to me over the weekend.” A lump formed in Aaron’s throat, and a smile crept across his face. “...using his advice, I started my expedition from Independence, Missouri in April 1848 with four other young people. He helped me manage the many challenges of the trail, like extreme weather, the wagon getting stuck, low food and bad water, and several illnesses or injuries resulting from these calamities. Luckily no one died of dysentery!”" } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Big Country\n\nGenre: coming-of-age\n\nWord Count: 2992\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a time-travel story where a character from the present finds themselves in the 80s or 90s." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“No!” \n“You fool!”\n“Why!?”\nI stare at the display on my wrist, wondering just how stupid a person can get. Truth is, anyone can be as stupid as it gets. All they have to do is not think.\nThe truth is I panicked.\nThen I acted.\nThere was no thought involved, so a default was provided.\nThe default was 1984.\nI could blame George Orwell for that. We’re quick to blame, especially when we’ve done something that shames us. But then, I’d not even started to read Orwell’s book. It was the next book on my pile. One of the last things I’d looked at before I decided to see whether my Dad had really invented a time travel device.\nTurned out that he had. \nAnd maybe it wasn’t an Orwellian coincidence that I’d come back to 1984, because this year was right in the midst of my Dad’s stomping grounds. Near the outset really. The seventies didn’t really count. He was too young to appreciate them, but by the time the eighties came along he was all ears. Literally. I’ve seen photos of him when he was in his early teens and he hadn’t yet grown into his head and features. Those photos are strange. I can see it’s him, but there is no way it can be. The man I know now just works. It’s as though he wasn’t ready to be him and in that awkwardness, he’d not found out how to be. These days, he’s comfortable in his skin. I can see that and it’s a comfort to me. I’m safe when I’m with my Dad. He’s a walking talking part of what I consider to be home.\nNow I’m here in this bygone era, I find myself thinking about my Dad in those photos. Hard copy photos that have a filter on them that my Dad says is a result of aging. He says that, and yet I’m here and I’m disappointed that the eighties don’t have this red-brown tinge to them. That said, the quality of the light here is different. Brighter than the day I left. I’m assuming that it’s the same day and that I’ve shifted back exactly forty years. I hope that’s the case. Seems warmer here though. \nI realise that I am happy as I stand gawping at a living piece of history. This is where my Dad grew up and learnt his trade. The trade of living and living well. I’ve never thought of it like that. I feel a wee pang. Invisible fingers tug at me and that’s all that is needed to remind me that I have been lacking recently when it comes to my relationship with my Dad. I have ceased to be vocal and my silence has been disrespectful. I have taken him for granted. I have wasted time and opportunity. \nI miss him.\nI miss him, even though he has been there all of the time. It takes my being removed from his reality to face my laziness and what that means for me. And for him.\n“I love you, Dad.”\nI whisper it into his past, feeling ashamed at how weak and quiet my voice seems. I could do better. But I do not redress matters. Falling short and leaving it at that. My arrogance should astound me, but I’m already looking away and distracting myself adeptly.\nFurther up the road are three boys. Now I see them, I attend to the noise they have been making. They are chattering and laughing. There is something different about these boys. Some things are different. I can’t put my finger on them all at first. I am over-faced with their difference, and so I remind myself that we’re all more similar than we are different. They are boys after all and they’re hanging out.\nThat’s part of what is disconcerting. I came to the era of my Dad’s gawkiness and discomfort, and yet here I am witnessing three boys hanging out. On the street. Nearby, there are three discarded bikes. They’re the BMXs that Dad talked about. Two look quite new. The third has a badly hand-painted frame and is built from mismatched parts. I like it. Given a choice, that bike with a spoked rear wheel and mag front is the one I’d ride. I imagine tinkering with it. Finding alternative parts to swap out. Not exactly upgrades, just ways to make it different all over again. \nThey have a football and two of them are standing opposite each other. They throw the ball at the kerb and score points when the ball bounces back at them and they catch it. The taller of the two is winning eight-four. \nThe third lad is lounging on the grass verge and they are all talking as the game progresses. I guess he’s the one with the mongrel BMX because his trainers are battered and don’t have branding on them. His clothes are similarly worn and they look like hand-me-downs. The fashion inherent in those clothes is older and again, I find I like them better. I’d wear those clothes.\nThe two ball players are wearing branded clothing. One has blue tracksuit bottoms with white stripes. The other has what look like school trousers, but obviously aren’t. They are both wearing polo shirts. One has a croc on the breast, the other a shark. Their trainers look new. There’s a scuff of mud on the white toes though. I smile to myself. That is a tradition that we still have. New white trainers have to be sullied. It’s the law. And so friends oblige by dragging their foot across the nice, clean toe cap.\nI begin to feel self-conscious at my standing gawping. It seems wrong. Voyeuristic even. These are not museum exhibits. They are living, breathing people. It’s me that is out of place. I don’t belong here. That feeling conjures forth an uncomfortable feeling. Do I belong anywhere? \nI am uncomfortable, but I don’t want to break the spell. Not yet. There is something here that I am looking at, but not seeing for what it is. I envy these boys what it is that they have. Not the BMXs, or the clothes, it’s how they are. They are here in the moment. They are present in a way that I don’t see that often. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever witnessed anything like this. \nThen I catch a fleeting glimpse of something…\nIt’s what’s missing that counts. Dad has told me this often enough. To look, not see. To listen and not merely hear. This requires effort. Thought is a lot of it, but I don’t think it’s everything. Thinking too quickly can get in the way.\nWhat is missing?\nI’m struggling with this because whatever is missing is affording these lads more than they would have otherwise. I cannot fathom this. The concept is counter intuitive. They have more for lacking something.\nWhatever I am missing must be something I expect to see and therefore something that I possess. I pat my pockets automatically. I’ve seen my Dad do it often enough and now it is my habit also. I visualise my Dad and I hear what he says as he pats those pockets of his.\nWallet\nKeys\nPhone\nPhone!\nNot one of them has a phone in his hand! I shudder at my discovery and without thinking, I take my own phone out of my pocket. It’s dead and seeing the blank screen hurts. I have a feeling of loss that goes deep. Deeper than I could have expected. I should be shocked, but I’m too numb for that. \n“Hey!”\nThe tall kid has spotted me and all three boys are looking my way. There’s nothing I can do other than walk over. My options are limited and I’m not in a state where I can consider them anyway. A numbness remains as I sleep walk over to them.\n“Hi,” I say as calmly and cheerily as I am able. I find I am nervous. A stranger in a strange land. I recall my Uncle talking about his time in Australia and how he was wrong-footed by people who appeared to speak the same language as him, but ultimately didn’t because their culture and experiences differed from his and they all knew he wasn’t one of them. He was a Pom and would for a long time stand out and in standing out, be set apart.\nI feel them checking me out. That’s only fair. I’ve done the same.\n“You’re not from around here are you?” asks the other ball player.\nThe third lad is getting to his feet. They’re friendly, but I feel wary all the same. There’s three of them and one of me. I’m acutely aware that I have nowhere to run to. \nNot from around here.\nA wave of dizziness and nausea threatens to undo me and send me to the ground. The lads see the consternation on my face.\n“You alright?” asks the tall one.\n“Yeah,” I manage to say, but I’m far from alright. \nOnly now do I get that I haven’t just travelled in time, but also in space. The shock of appearing forty years back in the past has rendered me dumb. I had previously been in the kitchen of my home. A home that was at least eighty years old. \nNow I’m outside.\nI’m outside and I have walked up a road that is unfamiliar to me in its current presentation. This road is too new and it looks different enough to have wrong-footed me. In forty years’ time, this place will have grown. Quite literally. Right now, my grandparent’s garden is a bare lawn and their car is old and the red paintwork is flaking and gone orange in the sunlight. \nAs though in a dream, I pad across to that car.\n“Vinyl seats,” I say in a monotone.\n“Yeah,” says the shorter of the two ball playing boys, “burnt my legs on them more than once!”\nI turn around and look at the boy anew. His ears aren’t big, it’s that they stick out too much. I know Dad never had surgery to move them closer to his skull, but a boy in his class at school did. His nose looks big too. He was right about short hair not suiting him at this age, and the flat top cut he’ll have in a couple of years won’t help matters. His curly hair will thwart any attempts at him looking like his on-screen heroes, but he’ll go ahead and ask for it anyway, even when the barber laughs and asks if he’s sure. I wonder whether that’s the barbers with the guy who has a tick and sometimes cuts the boys ears, especially when they ask him about it.\n“Dad?” I say this in wonder, a sense of joy welling up inside me.\n“You what?!” says the tall one.\nThe wonder and joy crashes away from me and I threaten to go crashing down with it. A hole opens up within me. I need to act. I need to save myself.\nI shake my head and smile. Then I make a show of clearing my throat, “your Dad?” I say this as though I’m repeating what I have most recently said, “Is he John Cooper?”\nMy Dad nods, “yeah, do you know him?”\n“I know of him,” I say, “my Dad’s mentioned him. He works up at The Works doesn’t he?”\nMy Dad is nodding.\n“What’s with your clothes?” asks the tall lad.\n“Oh these?” I ask, looking down at what I consider to be unremarkable garments; jeans, t-shirt and trainers. I have an idea and I just say it before I can over embellish it, “my aunt lives in Australia and she sends me this stuff every now and then.”\nThe tall lad nods. He seems satisfied with that. The boy in the older clothing continues checking me out. I wonder if he’d consider swapping. That’s a stupid idea though and I look away from him, feeling my stupidity burn my face.\n“Great bikes!” I enthuse, and I mean it. It’s not just a way of deflecting the attention away from me.\nI walk over. Two of the bikes are Raleigh BMXs, but it’s the bitser that I like the most. The tall lad lifts his and starts telling me about it. My Dad follows suit, lifting his bike and using it to sit on. The bitser stays where it is. I look over at its owner, “I like your bike,” I tell him.\nHe shrugs, but doesn’t say anything.\n“His brother has a Chopper,” the tall lad tells me, “nearly lost his nuts on the gear stick last Summer!” The three of them chuckle at that. A precious shared experience that they will carry with them to the grave.\n“I’m Charlie,” I say, remembering myself at last and extending my hand to the tall lad.\nHe looks at it for a moment, considering whether to shake it or not, “I’m Gary,” he says as he takes my hand.\nI turn to Dad and have to swallow down his name. It wouldn’t do to say it.\n“Jack,” he says, shaking my hand. The contact of his hand sends a thrill through me. An excitement of an impossible moment. Shaking my Dad’s hand in a past he talked about but I never quite believed. Parents were never young, and the tales they tell are as fantastical as fairy stories. Three channels on TV and no other screens. No pause or rewind. Dad’s family haven’t even got a video recorder at this point in history. Then there’s the food. From what Dad has told me, everything went backwards after the second world war. I learnt about the Victorians at school and those guys ate well. They ate a variety and quantity of food that could only be described with words such as splendid and opulent. By the eighties, there were fridges and efficiencies in logistics, but if my Dad were to be believed, they lived on potatoes, two veg and a dry piece of meat or fish. Take-aways were limited to fish and chips and that was your lot.\nI don’t think I ever thought my Dad was lying about his past, but neither did I think he was telling the truth. He couldn’t be. It just didn’t make sense, and it certainly didn’t fit with the Dad that I knew.\n“Martin” waves the third lad.\n“Do you want to come in and play Atari for a bit?” asks my Dad.\n“Yeah,” I smile. Now I understand what my Uncle has been talking about. I don’t have a clue as to what an Atari is, so I just go with it in the hope that it isn’t going to be unpleasant or hurt.\nIn a way, it is going to. I am about to experience an impoverishment that I can barely comprehend. Moving lines to block a squared dot. This is entertainment?! I spot the phone with a dial as we take our shoes off. This was the extent of the phone in the eighties. All it did was make voice calls. There was no answering machine.\nWe head to Jack’s bedroom. A poster on the wall for Duran Duran’s Rio. Dad presses play on his tape recorder and the tinny sounds of the taped singles charts begin to play. He’d record a track and stop to cut out as much of the DJ as possible. This practice either truncated the track or had the DJ talking over the music in any case. \n“Do you want to stay for tea, Charlie?” Dad asks.\n“Yes, please,” I say automatically as I try to get my paddle to the moving dot in time. It’s only after Dad has left the room that I realise that I am about to run the gauntlet, not only with the food I’ll be presented with, but also meeting my younger grandparents. \n“Crispy pancakes!” he says triumphantly as he returns to the bedroom.\n“Jammy bugger,” moans Gary.\nMartin doesn’t say anything. He just looks sad, but then that dark spell’s broken and he beams as he comes back into the moment and we all hang out together, taking turns on the Atari and chattering away over the soundtrack of the music. \n“I need the loo,” I announce when my bladder really can’t wait any longer.\n“It’s…” begins Dad.\n“I know,” I say without thinking, only wincing once I’ve shut the toilet door.\nThat’s when the trip ends. I’ve paid no heed to the time or when I’ll return to my own time. It just happens. Thankfully it happens as I wash my hands, so no one suffers any undue trauma.\nI arrive to a familiar world made just a little unfamiliar by my trip away from it. I’m standing at the kerbside outside our home. Looking out across the road, I make a promise to myself to play kerbsie sometime soon.\nDad’s in the kitchen when I enter the house. I hug him.\n“What was that for?” he asks, smiling the question at me.\n“Just because,” I answer.\nHe nods, eyebrows raised.\n“Dad?” I say as he continues to prep tea.\n“Yep,” he says over his shoulder.\n“Can we have crispy pancakes for tea one night?”\nHe stops chopping the vegetables and time stands still just long enough to warn me of what’s coming, “and then play a bit of Atari?” he asks in a casual, yet loaded manner.\n“Yeah,” I say, grinning at his back, “that’d be nice.”\nI’m heading for my room, patting my pockets as I go, when he turns and speaks again, “I think I’d better have that,” he says ominously. \nI stop. \nBusted.\nTaking the time travel device off my wrist, I hand it back.\n“Love you, Dad!” I say before making good my escape." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Stall Secrets\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 1782\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with an unexpected betrayal." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I can’t believe I just heard that. I guess love, loyalty, stability can all be flushed away in a toilet stall. I always use the end cubicle for a bit more privacy and normally a tinkle is all I do at work. Dr. Baker just prescribed me a new laxative, though. I’m not used to it and I still can’t tell when Nature is gonna call. I thought I had chosen a quiet moment but just as I was starting to meditate I heard those two, Louise and Sylvia come clattering in on their crazy high heels. How they manage in those shoes all day is beyond me. Sylvia has been with us for years, almost since Harry and I opened the restaurant. She’s a ditz but she never misses a day’s work and she’s a damned good waitress The guys drool over more than cheesecake when she serves them dessert in those heels.\nA restaurant can be a soul-destroying business. Staff is one of the biggest headaches. I thought we had it solved with Sylvia and Louise working together as a team. Now, as I sit trembling on the toilet (yeah, I sit. I clean it myself after all) I realize it was just an illusion.\nI was so happy when Louise showed up a year ago. A glittery blond showing a bit of the mileage twenty years as a waitress racks up, she was looking for a four-day gig that would straddle the weekend.\nWe took her on right away. Harry leaves the staff issues – hiring and especially firing – to me. Looking back I should have noticed when he took extra time to show Louise around. Amazing how you can take things for granted after twenty years of marriage!\nHe was the one who always warned me not to make friends with the employees. It’s easy for staff to steal in a restaurant – lifting food or supplies – eating in secret and most deadly of all –taking a turn at the cash when the owner is busy. Just dipping into the cash is too blatant. The classic way is to pocket both the bill and a corresponding amount of cash. Of course it comes out in the end and the new computerized registers help but the basic principle is to watch, watch the staff like a hawk. Bottom line – only the owner or a trusted family member should ever be at the cash. Second bottom line – employees are not your friends nor should they ever be. An unexpected trip to the toilet was revealing that Harry has crashed through that barrier!\nSylvia, an amiable but dense woman, has never caught on to the natural pecking order in the restaurant. She would become bosom buddies with a new dishwasher and a week later be outraged that the guy made a gross pass at her. She would try to pull rank on some young and perky weekend waitress and be surprised when the girl complained to me. I squirmed as I tried to set things straight between the two. Good help is hard to find though and I never wanted to lose Sylvia or a promising staff member. She would be totally amazed and outraged that I wasn’t taking her side even if she was behaving in a blatantly unfair way – poaching the girl’s tables or demanding she share tips because a new waitress was “learning” from her. No, Sylvia is not what you could call aware of other people’s feelings. And in a toilet stall I learned that loyalty isn’t her strong point either.\nBecause Sylvia could be so annoying I was pleased and relieved to see that she hit it off with Louise, a mature woman who had always made a good living as a waitress. We were happy to take her on and even happier to see that Sylvia and Louise were complementing each other. Sometimes they swapped days and when they worked together they were a real tag-team. It’s a great thing for a restaurant owner to feel he has employees who keep the customers happy, don’t fight over tips and get the side work done without squabbling. While Sylvia filled the salt and pepper shakers, Louise would put out the napkins and check for placemats. When those two worked together the coffee machines never ran out, the tea pots sat shining in the cupboard and the water jugs were ranged up clean and ready to go. A great team! I found out just how great.\nHarry and I began to relax and feel we had a pretty good arrangement with Sylvia and Louise as a base. We resigned ourselves to the young, ever-changing weekend staff. We bought a new dishwashing machine and hired a Siri Lankan guy to handle it and to do the heavy cleaning. Of course, the restaurant business is a killer, long hours and a profit margin that has to be nursed like a sick baby. Restaurants make money on the craziest things. Coffee is our saviour. There’s gold in those cups – and we don’t give refills except to our regular customers.\nHarry and I started this restaurant twenty years ago when we were first married. My father gave us the down payment as a wedding gift and fifty thousand dollars was a generous gift in those days. Harry was not an educated guy but we had been childhood sweethearts and my parents, conservative second generation Greeks, were anxious to see me married off. My younger sister, Kiki was a handful, even did time in a reformatory in her teens. I guess they wanted to get one of us settled. Imagine! Harry and I a good example for Kiki. She’ll have a laugh now!\nWe never had kids which was a heartbreak for my parents and for Harry too. I kept it quiet but I wasn’t keen to have them. I was crazy about Harry and anxious to make the business a success. We worked long and hard. Our place is in a good spot, between a big gas station and a strip mall in the suburbs and we’ve had some good years. We’re just starting to pick up our heads. We’re able to take a decent vacation now and then. We have a nice house and I even have a cleaning lady. We each have a modest car. That’s a must so we can come and go according to what’s happening at the restaurant.\nA couple of times I noticed Harry giving Louise a lift home but I didn’t think anything of it. He’s never even looked at blondes as far as I knew. So I don’t know why but when I heard Sylvia and Louise come in clattering and chattering something made me shut up and stay in the stall. What did I expect? Maybe a bit of gossip about the guy who owns the gas station. I know Sylvia has had her eye on him for a long time but that will never fly She just doesn’t get it. He’s a French Canadian guy with a gorgeous girlfriend who has no intention of letting him slip through her fingers. Sylvia can go buy cigarettes there as much as she wants. Jean-Pierre just isn’t interested.\nThere was a lot of laughing and that crazy hoarse cough Sylvia gets when she chuckles too much. They were obviously putting on their make up, comparing eyeliner and lipstick. I couldn’t catch every word at first, but there was a lot of “he” and “she” so I could tell they were digging the dirt on someone. I was just about to come out and make them laugh at seeing the boss listening to their secrets when I heard Louise say something about a “fishing trip”. I broke out in a sweat then because Harry is going on a fishing trip next weekend. What the hell business was it of those two?\nThe conversation suddenly took a serious turn. No more laughing or coughing. Bouncing off the tiles came words I never expected to hear about Harry and me. I closed my eyes to hear better.\n“He told me right out,” said Louise. “He’s totally fed up with her and ready to leave. Wants us to have this weekend together so he can clear his head and make some decisions.”\n“Look, honey,” replied that snake, Sylvia. “I’ll take your shifts both days. You know that. Just call in sick and I’ll cover for you.”\n“I dunno,” said Louise.” I’ve never been serious about a married man before. This is a great job too. If she finds out, the shit will hit the fan.”\n“OK, but it’s basically his problem. It depends how much you like the guy too. I mean, how much are you willing to risk? Is it just a short-term fling or what?”\nSo there was I with my pants down listening to these two discuss the future of my marriage. What was I supposed to do? Pull my clothes on and bust out of the stall like a steer in a rodeo. That would be the end of any information I might pick up. Harry could just deny any plan to go away with Louise and what proof would I have. I couldn’t fire them both. How would I run the restaurant without those two?\nThey washed their hands chattering all the while about the “situation” and then they hurried out to get back to work. I was shaking. Slowly I came out of the stall. I hadn’t even managed to shit. Too upset, I guess.\nWhat had I just heard? Could it really be true? Maybe it was just some crazy fantasy on Louise’s part. Just then my cell rang. It was Harry.\n“Hi honey. Listen, I got you a pass to a great spa downtown. It’s for the whole day on Saturday. I figured if I’m going to be fishing all weekend, the least I could do for my baby is let her be spoiled. Massage, hair, nails, the whole bit. Sylvia can manage for one day. Nice eh? Honey, are you there?”\n“Yeah, I’m here but the signal is cutting out. I’ll call you in about an hour, OK. Love you.”\nThat cinched it. Smart move! At least they would be able to relax on Saturday with me parked in a Spa chair! I made up my mind. Slowly I searched for Kiki’s number in my contacts. She would know how to put a trace on a phone. I had a feeling Harry and his “fishing buddy” would be one surprised pair when I drove up this weekend to see just what was biting." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Marble Madness: Reconnecting Through Pixels\n\nGenre: coming-of-age\n\nWord Count: 1614\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story about a grown-up sharing their favorite childhood video game with their child." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Kevin tossed and turned in bed, before waking bleary-eyed.\n\n“Another one of your dreams, baby?” his wife Clara asked from the other side of the bed.\n\n“Yeah, crazy,” Kevin said looking around the room “It was like I was climbing a pyramid, but this snake was chasing me up, and for some reason, I tried to outmaneuver it by going sideways and then down again. We ended up running all over the side of this pyramid, and my feet were covered in some fine yellow sand, so I could see everywhere I’d run.”\n\n“Crazy!” said Clara sarcastically\n\nClara got up to make breakfast, for their son Jaime.\n“What are your plans this weekend?” Clara asked “It’s just I feel like you need to take Jaime out somewhere, do something with him, like sports? I’m just worried he’s not having a great time at school, and you know, he’s 13 and he doesn’t have many friends. And you’re either out helping your dad or you’re down at the bar with your friends every weekend”\n\n“What can I say?” Kevin asked “I didn’t have many friends at that age, apart from Dale, Rodney…. Oh and Gord. And I hated sports! Still do”\n\n“You watch Basketball all the time” protested Clara.\n\n“Yeah, but I don’t play it,” Kevin said.\n\nAt work, Kevin spent the whole day worrying about what Clara had said, ‘What did I do at that age?’ Me and Dale used to make up games, tell stories, watch movies, thinking about it now they were great days. Better than doing this boring job. Jaime’s got it sweet, he can just hang out at school and come home and sit in his room, he’s always on that phone of his, I bet he’s talking to friends on that. That’s probably just the way kids hang out these days. He’s not depressed’\n\nKevin arrived home early, tired from his mundane job in the warehouse. Jaime got home 10 minutes later.\n\n“Hey, son” Kevin called out, trying to sound as chipper as possible “What are you up to this weekend?”\n\nJaime walked past looking at his phone.\n“Yeah,” he grunted and trudged up the stairs.\n\nKevin felt angry and rejected, and considered shouting after him ‘I asked you a question BOY!’ But thought better of it, he didn’t want to remind himself of his own dad. ‘Maybe he is a bit down, come to think of it I’ve never seen him with any friends, and I’ve never heard him talk to any friends on his phone, I’ve barely heard him talk to anyone for a while, maybe he’s gone mute, in some sort of budding teenage protest.’\n\n“You’re spending the day with him tomorrow!” Clara insisted after Jaime had once again slumped off upstairs immediately after dinner.\n\n“He’s just not that fun to be around at the moment” Kevin sulked.\n\n“FUN!” Clara exclaimed “He’s your son Kevin, not one of your drinking buddies; no one ever said he’d be fun”\n\n“Fine,” Kevin said\n\nKevin lay in bed trying to think of ‘activities’ he and Jaime could do ‘We could see who could run across the road the fastest, or we could try and jump the creek down in the woods?’\n\nThat night Kevin dreamt that he was sliding down a giant gutter, slipping from side to side, when he hit the bottom he landed on a platform but carried off slipping. A giant green worm sock somehow leapt out towards him and opened a gaping gullet.\n\nKevin woke up sweating.\n\n“What was it this time?” said Clara\nKevin explained his psychedelic dream.\n\n“Oh, you mean like that stupid game you used to play when you were a kid?” Clara said tiredly\n\n“Oh yeah” Kevin responded in amazement “Marble Madness, Jesus I’d forgotten about that game”\n\n“Kevin you were playing it a few weeks ago, remember when you and Dale got drunk and decided to dig out your old Atari” Clara rolled her eyes\n\n“Oh yeah, we still have it, Jaime would love that,” Kevin said excitedly\n\n“I don’t know,” Clara said pessimistically\n\n###############\n\nKevin woke up early the next morning and rummaged about desperately digging out his old Atari, he found the cables and the controller. Got it set up on the old TV they had in the attic, and started it up.\n\n‘Bllididii Bling’ the start-up noise sent shivers down Kevin’s spine almost immediately.\n\n“Hey, Jaime” Kevin called down from the attic “Come up here!”\n\n‘What the hell does he want now?’ Jaime thought.\n\nBy the time Jaime had mustered the effort to traipse up to the attic Kevin had got Marble Madness started up, he was sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the old TV. Hunched forward in one hand grasping the joystick intensely. Looking like an image of himself at 12 years old, only considerably fatter.\n\n“What the hell is this” Jaime said\n\n“This, my friend, is one of the best, most frustrating games ever made,” Kevin said, not looking round\n\nA jarring electronic ‘Brr Brr Brr Brree’ noise came out of the TV. “Ah, stupid,” Kevin said annoyed. “I just died, here you have a go” Kevin handed the controller to Jaime\n\n“This is a game?” Jaime said looking unimpressed and unsure. “What’s the point of it”\n\n“Course, here it’s real simple” Kevin held his hand out for the controller “I’ll show you, you’re this littler Marble thing, right, so you’ve got to just navigate the Marble through a series of channels and platforms without faaalllliiiing OFF” With that Kevin slipped off the edge of a platform on the first level.\n\n“Oh yeah real simple,” Jaime said condescendingly.\n\nJaime took the Joystick and navigated quite smoothly to the end of the first level.\n\n“And I’ve never even used one of these stupid sticks before,” Jaime said smugly\n\n“Joystick, and sure you have when we went to the arcade,” Kevin said\n\n“That was like 5 years ago Dad” Jaime Protested\n\n“It was last year Jaime, now let me tell you, level 2 is harder, and level 3-4 and so on,” Kevin said\n\n“Sure if you’ve got the reflexes of… a… elephant!” Jaime said trying to think of an animal he could compare his dad to that might hurt his feelings.\n\n“Sure thing you little… chipmunk,” Kevin said also struggling “You’ll see, tell you what I’ll bet you 5 bucks you won’t get to level 5”\n\n“No problem,” Jaime said settling down next to his dad. A huge smile spread across Kevin’s face.\n\n################\n\n“Whoa whoa whoa! That’s total BS”\n\n Clara hears coming from the attic. ‘I hope they’re not fighting up there’\n\nClara quietly tiptoed upstairs to sneakily listen in.\n\n“So how the hell do you kill the green sock creatures?” she heard Jaime ask\n\n“You don’t” Kevin responded “You’ve just got to evade them. Be sneaky, like a ninja.”\n\n“That’s stupid” Jaime responded. “So you can’t kill anything, the main character is a ball, and the story is just, rolling around trying to get to the end? No wonder you like this game, Dad” Jaime said cheekily.\n\n“What the hell does that mean?” Kevin asked\n\n“Well, you know, you’re like a big ball, just aimlessly rolling around,” Jaime said with a smirk\n\n“Well when you do something interesting with yourself, I’ll take that,” Kevin said with a touch of annoyance “I’ll tell you what, if you can beat level 5, You’ll be a bigger man than me!”\n\n“I doubt it” Jaime scoffed sarcastically\n\n “I know because level 5 is impossible!” Kevin said matter of factually.\n\n‘He’ll never beat level 5’ Kevin thought, it’ll take him all night to get to level 4.\n\nKevin and Jaime sat playing, talking and jeering at each other back and forth, they took turns when anyone died and got excited when either of them got to level 3. ‘This is what it’s all about’ Kevin thought. ‘It’s not the game that’s good; the game is just a lubricant, to ease the flow of conversation. If you’re both focused on a common thing you can talk freely, I suppose it’s like when people would sit in groups and stare at a fire. Like a focal point to take the pressure off of a conversation.’\n\n“Are you guys coming down at some point?” Clara called up “I’m going to bed”\n\n“In a bit, mum!” Jaime said.\n\nKevin noticed that Jaime was messing with his phone when it wasn’t his turn.\n\n“If you’re finding it boring we can go to bed,” Kevin said.\n\n“No I’m just messaging Ben, to see if he wants to come over at some point and play,” Jaime said\n\n“Ben?” Kevin asked “He a friend of yours?”\n\n“Yeah, he’s a bit weird though, that’s why I thought he might like this game,” Jaime said\n\n“You’re a bit weird” Kevin retorted.\n\n“Good one Dad” Jaime responded\n\n##############\n\nJaime came down late for breakfast the next morning. Looking exhausted\n\n“You weren’t up all night playing that stupid game were you?” Clara objected\n\n“Did you get to level 5!?” Kevin asked with anticipation.\n\n“You left him up there?” Clara said annoyed.\n\n“It got to 3 am, I had to go to bed,” Kevin said sulkily\n\n“Yeah, give him a break mum he’s getting old… And fat” Jaime said laughing\n\nClara Laughed\n\n“Did you!?” Kevin asked again\n\n“No of course not, that game is impossible!” Jaime said\n\nClara got up to make some coffee.\n\nJaime leant in and whispered to his dad in a hushed tone “I got really close though”\n\n\"Did you get much sleep, at all?\" Clara said irritably\n\n “I had the weirdest, most messed up dream!” Jaime excitedly replied\n\nClara rolled her eyes.\nKevin smiled.\n\nThe end" } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Hello mother. Hi dad.\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 2720\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone who is stuck between two opposing sides and can’t decide which one to choose." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I grew up with a single mother. On Christmas Eve, when I was one year old, my mum packed a little suitcase, held me in her arms, and we left the house where we lived with my father, never to return. As expected, I don't remember it, but I've listened to that story so many times that I can even feel the snow falling that day whenever I think about it. I don't remember either many of my father's visits when I was a child, the time he tried to gift me a puppy, or the occasion when he tried to take me out of the country and my mother had to call the police to rescue me from been kidnapped by my own dad. I know all those stories, but I don't remember them. I guess that's what allowed me years later, in my early teens, to enjoy his company, even if it did not last much. \nWhen I was a kid, life was simple. I spent eleven months a year in the north of the country with my mother, following rules and living a well-scheduled life, and one month of craziness in the south in the summer with my not-so-well-adjusted father. A judge had ruled such distribution when I was little, and none of them ever dared to change it. It was convenient for both of them since it reduced the number of their interactions and allowed me to have a clear schedule of parental life. It was not ideal, but it was clear. Mum was in charge of transforming me into a trustworthy member of society. Dad allowed me to see what people can do for their lives if they dare to dream. My mother had rules about school and free time, time to study, time at home, eating healthy, and sleeping. My father traveled the world, jumped between business opportunities, always ate outside, and loved music, cinema, parties, and everything related. \nWhen I was twelve, I received a letter from my father. He was leaving the country. \"No one understands me,\" he wrote. \"I need to do something for myself, for my happiness,\" he continued. I read that letter many times and never understood how he could do that to me. My mother was furious, and I did not understand that either because it made her life much easier. They did not have to arrange visits, and she did not have to prepare suitcases. Why was she so angry? \nA few years passed by. I received a handful of postcards with sunny beaches on one side and kisses and good wishes on the other. There was not much to read and no return address, so I never got to reply to him. The truth is that I didn't know what to write either. My estranged father had become an absolute stranger. I lost contact with him and all his family. Separated by thousands of kilometers and without my dad around, my grandparents, aunts, uncles, nieces, and nephews became ghosts in my life. My mother was the only constant in my life. I grew up with her total dedication to me and the complete abandonment of my father. She was my rock for many years.\nMaybe because I always lived with my mother and rarely visited anyone else, my greatest wish was always to feel part of a big family. My mum always took that idea of mine as a sign of ungratefulness, while I thought it was just a sign of wanting to live more. We never agreed on who was right. When I was eighteen, I decided I should do something about it and try to reconnect with the family I already had. Once my first year of university ended, I entered for the first time alone on a train to cross the country and spend a week with my aunt and uncle. To my surprise, that decision triggered another one from their side, and without us knowing about it, they scheduled a visit from my father simultaneously. I had not seen him for five years, and when I saw his face for the first time, the only thing I could say was... \"Hi.\" After that, everything was as easy as before: movies, books, music, and travel. I discovered he was the perfect uncle to my cousins, the world traveler who would tell incredible stories and bring with him the most spectacular gifts. I secretly wished he was my uncle and not my father those days. When the week in the South ended, he took me to the train station and asked me if I would like him to visit after his holiday around the world, two months later. Right there, it seemed a good idea. I didn't think much before saying yes. I heard the whistle marking the departure when he hugged me and whispered in my ear, \"I love you.\" I rushed out of his arms, entered the train, and sat while tears started covering my face. I cried for a whole hour, looking at the dry fields outside. I never thought three words, those words, could hurt so much. Unfortunately, that was not the worst he had ever told me.\nTwo months later, I saw him again. I had just finished my last exams and was tired after many sleepless nights. Still, I was excited because it was the first time he visited me. He would not pick me up and take me to the other side of the country. He was about to spend time with me, in my own place, for the first time ever. \nHe did not come over. He called and told me he had arrived at his hotel, and I asked him to meet me in the same corner I used to meet a friend of mine when we walked together to elementary school. It seemed to me a good start for him to know how my life used to be. Once more, when we met, we spoke about everything but us. We talked and walked in the city until dark, then sat on a park bench. I saw the kids playing, parents calling for them, and families strolling together. I gained courage, who knows how, and asked him why he had left.\nI don't think I surprised him much. His explanation was calm and clear. He just had to go to do what he wanted to. He had never considered it would cause me trouble since he knew my mother would care for me. He never thought thirty days per year could make a significant difference in our lives. He was sure I would understand it... and the worst of it was to realize he was right. I tried to be as calm and cold as he was, but no one had ever taught me such a skill. I told him my mother was struggling to keep me in university. I asked him to support me financially since he had cut any support on my eighteenth birthday. I knew he was successful, and I was sure it was nothing much for him, but I did not know what kind of conversation I had started: \"I am a businessman,\" he replied. Those numbers do not make a good business case,\" he continued. \"it would be different if you lived with me,\" he said, \"but I will not pay for you to stay here.\" Was my father blackmailing me? Or was he concerned about the school I'd chosen and where I lived? I thought about my mother. She was unhappy about that visit but had not forbidden it. She was not sure where our conversation could lead. Now, he was telling me I should leave her. I felt as if someone had kicked me in the stomach, and my head was spinning. My legs trembled when I stood up and looked at that man sitting on the bench.\n\"You are what you are and don't want to be a father,\" I told him. \"And I don't want to have a father like you either. You can go your way\".\nI walked away from him, the bench, his hotel, and my house. I didn't look back, scared of what I could see if I turned my face or, even worse, listened to anything else he could say. I walked for hours before returning home when I had to explain what had happened to my mother. I was in shock, and she was furious, but not for the reason I would expect. She did not care about what he had said but despised my attempt to free ourselves from his shadow. She told me I had no right to decide the course of their lives. She said, once more, how ungrateful I was, not caring about my parents and wanting to end our relationship. Once more, I did not understand. \nMore years passed by. I devoted my time to studying and made new friends on the way. My father disappeared from my life, as I had asked him, and my mother still resented me for it, but we rarely spoke about it. It was easier to keep on going with our lives as if we had nothing to discuss until it was clear that we did not argue or talk about anything. Little by little, my rock became sand, slowing my gears. She resented me for stopping her life, and I started to feel the same when I noticed I had become the thing she hated the most: young, hungry for success and adventure, free of responsibilities... to her eyes, I had become my father, to mine, I had to run away from her. \nI moved out of the country. Me too. I got a job offer, my first, and I took it. I left behind my friends, mother, and all I'd known until there. I started my adult life, my own fresh start. I had enough money, shared a house, had a work that challenged me, and had friends that had become a family. I talked with my mother on the phone but quickly learned that not everything could be shared, and I was okay with it. I promised myself I would never become her or my father. I would be me... and then someone else called.\nIt was late at night when a number I did not recognize popped up on my cell phone. The voice on the other side was from someone I had not spoken with for years, a woman, one of my father's sisters. \"He is ill,\" she told me, \"in the hospital, terminal.\" We spoke for a few minutes, and based on her story about his state, I decided to pay him a visit the next day. I drove for seven hours during the night and arrived at his hospital in the morning in my old car with no air conditioning or conditions for such a trip. I made it. Once there, I asked for his room number, announced myself as his daughter, and took the elevator to his floor, the oncology area. \nI found a skinny, pale man. I found a shadow of who I had once known. He smiled at me, and I said... \"Hi.\" Once more, we spoke about books, movies, and music. He told me I should not waste my life working for others but look for something that made me happy. I hated him for that, but I did not tell him. We even laughed about silly things but did not discuss what had happened the last time we'd seen each other. When the visitor's hours ended, I promised I'd visit again, returned to my car, drove too many hours back home, and acted as if nothing had happened. When my mother called me that night, and I told her I'd seen him, she was shocked, but not because I'd driven fourteen hours in a day or because my father seemed to be dying. She was angry at me because I had not asked her to go with me. Once more, I was in the middle of those adults behaving like children. That day, I resented both of them equally for putting me in that impossible situation.\nI returned to the hospital a couple of weeks later, days before Christmas. I saw my father, the rest of his family, and some of his friends. I did not speak much with him because there were so many people around him, but I observed how they all behaved by his side and how different they seemed once they left the room and met in the corridor. Smiles turned into silent cries, and the positive energy they seemed to share with him disappeared as soon as they crossed the door on their way out. One of my aunts stopped me in the corridor before I returned home. \"You will spend Christmas with him, right?\" she asked me. I had only spent once such time with their family, the one I remember as the most miserable ever, so the idea did not jump at me as fabulous. In fact, I did not understand why anyone wanted me to spend those days with them. I had never been part of their lives like that. They did not miss me; they needed me, and I did not like it. On my way home, driving on the highway, I listed the reasons to spend Christmas with my father. Someone had asked me to, but not him. I was expected to do things for the family, but he had stopped acting as my father a long time before. I could be part of something bigger... but then my mother would be alone. Once I arrived at my place, exhausted physically and fully drained mentally, I texted my aunt: \"I'm not coming. Sorry.\"\nChristmas passed uneventfully and full of regret because not spending time with my father meant not being able to solve our disagreements. On the other hand, no one was about to let me discuss anything. Those were his last days, after all. Whatever I thought I should resolve seemed to be my problem and no one else's. A few weeks later, I got another call but could not drive. I got on a train and went to the hospital as soon as possible. I had many thoughts in my head; I knew how to start speaking with him... and then, I entered the room. \"Hi,\" I said to the dozen people around the bed. His eyes were closed, and a timid smile curved his lips. \"He is in a coma,\" someone told me. I walked towards the bed, but there were so many people I couldn't even touch it. The doctor discussed the next step with my aunts: disconnecting the support systems. Something yelled inside me, \"I need to speak to him!\" but my mouth did not move. The only sounds in the room were the dyings beeping of the machines, the movement of family members and friends, and then... him. The first time I ever faced death was in that bed, with my father gasping, chasing his last breath, and the rest of us dying a bit with him. I ran outside the door and sat in the corridor with my back against the wall. I covered my ears with my hands and watched people running around me. I don't know how long I stayed there, but a stranger helped me stand up. \"Everything will be all right soon,\" he said. \nMy mother was not at the funeral, and in a way, neither was I. Everything seems like a nightmare now, so many years before. I remember meeting her in the North before returning to my home, work, and friends. She was angry and bitter because no one wanted her to attend the burial. I was sad and furious because the only thing I wanted was for my father to say he was sorry, and he never did.\nI went back to my life. Throughout the years, I erased his memories and avoided her opinions as much as possible. I told myself that my allegiance was to the living, and my wishful thinking was to the dead. Still, many days, I don't even agree with myself. I'm stuck. I guess I will always be." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Rescuing the Princess\n\nGenre: coming-of-age\n\nWord Count: 3051\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story about a grown-up sharing their favorite childhood video game with their child." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Before Link could walk, he could already expertly manipulate a dual analog stick and wield a Wii remote as if it were an extension of his arm. When Link was a baby, I would hold him in my arms, swaddled in a blanket, trying to get him to sleep, while I occupied myself with a late-night session of Legend of Zelda, Skyward Sword. Sometimes I think this kid will bust out an Ocarina and jam out in B major with the number of hours he spent as a toddler dozing off to the Main Theme on repeat. Dun dun dun, dun dun dun, dun-dun-dun-dun. That heroic, descending chord pattern. Classic stuff. When I’d come to bed after, Meg would say, “Were you up playing that stupid game again, Shawn.” It was like a lot of things in our marriage. It was something Meg just couldn’t understand. Gannon had his hooks in her for sure.\n\nNow that Link is turning five, he is flexing his social muscles. When my brother asked him who his ‘best girl’ was after Christmas dinner, he said, “Ms. Infante.” That’s his kindergarten teacher. When asked why, Link said, “Because she’s so pretty… everyone in my class is soooo good looking… but Ms. Infante is the prettiest.” Everyone laughed. Meg joked that he’s a little kiss-ass. Link asked, “What’s a kiss-ass mommy?” And she told him not to repeat that, ensuring that he would. Ad nauseam. All day and night.\n\nThe kid was always into sports. NBA 2K was my go-to when he was cranky and wouldn’t sleep—it mesmerized him like those solar system crib mobiles used to hypnotize newborns before the internet. Sorry, Fisher-Price. You are the weakest link, goodbye.\n\nBut, yeah, Legend of Zelda, Skyward Sword was our real jam. Still is, even though Link is turning five next week. Sky Loft. An island floating above the clouds. Link flying a Loft Wing to uncharted lands. An orchestral soundtrack. How can you beat it? Journeying through forests and deserts. Wielding beetle drones, whips, and parachutes to navigate the terrain. A waking dream. An adventure. A mystery. A heroic journey. All directed at the noblest of pursuits—rescuing the princess.\n\nAnd these days, Link has a princess in his life who needs rescuing.\n\n* * *\n\nWe are out at our favorite restaurant, Coalhouse Pizza & Pasta. Meg is asking Link how his day was at school, and he looks up at her blankly and says, “Ms. Infante is out for her dad’s funeral.”\n\n“What did you say?” Meg asks.\n\n“Ms. Infante is out,” he repeats.\n\n“Who told you her father died?” Meg asks.\n\n“The substitute just said she was at her dad’s funeral,” Link says, then looking over at me, making the connection, he says, “You aren’t going to die, are you, Daddy?”\n\n“Not a chance, kiddo. Not unless you zap me with a laser beam. Pow Pow.” Link laughs.\n\nHis laugh takes me back to my childhood. 8-bit games. The original Legend of Zelda. At sleepover parties and during late-night solo sessions when Mom was sick. Hyrule was a world of pure imagination. It was my safe haven.\n\nI remember all the levels of childhood like cutouts on a video game map in my Nintendo Power gaming magazine. I remember how all eight of us kids—the whole basketball team—packed into the trunk of my mother’s Volkswagen Station Wagon on our way to basketball practice. My mom, with her big 80’s hair, and leather jacket, would chain-smoke in the front seat with the window down. Pizza afterward at Riviera. Riding our BMX bikes to school. Stopping at the pay phone on our way home if we were heading to a friend’s house. Getting a McDonald’s Happy Meal with a bonus toy for dinner was like scoring the Golden Ticket in those days. Mom always took us there after we had to go with her to one of her medical appointments. I thought then that it was a reward for being good at the doctors, keeping my head down in the Berenstain Bears books they always kept in the waiting room at Dr. Whipples. I know now that it was her way of trying to deal with the guilt of what her illness was going to do to us.\n\nWhen you make a mistake in a video game, you can go back and use what you learned to do better. But in real life, sometimes you can’t correct a mistake. Sometimes it is permanent. You have to live with it. Pay the price. And so does everyone else. Forever. When you die in a video game, you just go back and try again. But in real life, there are no do-overs. Real life is cruel like that.\n\nI remember Mom getting tangled up in the telephone cord when my classmate Jessica called while Mom was preparing dinner, and how I could hear her eavesdropping on the downstairs line because you could do that with landlines. She thought I didn’t know. But eavesdropping went both ways. I eavesdropped on all her calls with Doctor Whipple. I remember playing “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego” and “Oregon Trail” while waiting for Mom at the Latch Key program after she got sick and got tied up with all the medical appointments and had to leave us there a few hours most days before coming to get us. How long was it now since she’s been gone? I could hardly count the time. There was only before and after.\n\n* * *\n\nWhen we get home, Link is ready to use up all the energy he has stored up and go on a rampage of sofa diving, puzzle building, rough play, and impromptu monologues. It is go-time for Shawn and Meg. Meg grabs a glass of wine, and I prepare myself for the onslaught. After a bout of Link’s run attacks, where I flip him over and drop him on sofa cushions with loud explosion sounds, he retreats to his tablet and eventually becomes introspective. “I hope Ms. Infante is back in school tomorrow,” he says, as if to himself.\n\nI knew it was coming. I was waiting for it. Preparing my answer.\n\n“Hey Dad,” Link says, “I don’t like that people die. Why doesn’t God just stop death so we can all stay together forever.”\n\nLink has told me that he knows where people go when they die, that they are in another place, and that he even knows what it’s like there. One night, Link freaked Meg and me out when he told us that Meg’s brother who died before he was born had brought him on an adventure to a brick oven pizza joint on the other side. Meg was especially incredulous. But I pointed something out to her that changed everything. “He’s never seen a picture of Frank before. So how does he know that Frank has red hair?” Even Meg had to admit that this was impossible to explain. For hours we debated if we’d ever mentioned Frank or described him or if there were any photos out at Nana’s house he might have stumbled on. But we couldn’t remember anything like that. The mystery became a talking point, but with time we normalized it and accepted that some things just can’t be explained.\n\nSo, Link isn’t facing the kind of existential crisis you have to grapple with if you don’t believe those things. No. For him, it is more of a personal affront, like when he loses one of his toys, and even if it is one that he barely plays with, he loses his mind and stomps up and down, frenetically checking every corner, trying to find this lost treasure and return it to his toy chest—restoring order to the world.\n\n“Hey bud,” I say.\n\n“Yeah Dad.”\n\n“Remember the TriForce in Zelda?”\n\n“Of course.”\n\n“Remember when Zelda explains that the gods can’t wield the TriForce? Only mortals can. You ever think why that is bud?”\n\n“To give the mortals the power to defeat evil?”\n\n“Very good, bud. That’s the idea. Death is like the TriForce. It helps us gain the three forces of power, courage, and wisdom. And if we don’t have these, we can’t stop evil. It’s not really there to keep us apart. It is more like a teacher.”\n\n“Like Ms. Infante?”\n\n“Not exactly. But I think you’ve got the idea. If there’s no evil and no death, then I guess we wouldn’t get to fight evil and rescue the princess—it would be kind of, boring.”\n\n“Oh,” Link says. “That makes sense. There has to be death. Or there’s no adventure.” As he says this, he continues drawing on his tablet. Earlier that evening, Meg drew a poop emoji, which embarrassed Link at first, but eventually started him on a full-out artistic tour-de-force in which he began creating a whole cast of what he called Poopy People, mimicking Meg’s drawing, but adding arms and legs. After his wise insight, he just keeps on drawing more Poopy People without missing a beat.\n\nI am shocked at how smart this kid is. I look at Meg.\n\n“These games are filling this kid’s head with nonsense,” Meg says. “You really need to get this kid out on the ballfield. No son of mine is going to grow up to be a geeky gamer. I swear, Shawn, if that happens, I’m going to K-I-L-L him. No, I’m going to kill you.”\n\nLink and I look at each other, with the same smirk. Meg just doesn’t understand. She’s deep in Gannon’s grip. But we will show her.\n\n“Hey Dad,” Link says.\n\n“Yes bud?”\n\n“Can we go to The Big Toy Shop on our way home?”\n\n“What for?”\n\n“I need to get something for Ms. Infante.”\n\n“Ask your mother?”\n\n“Oh fine,” Meg says, “Anything to take his mind off of these games.”\n\nSo toys are okay, I think, and tablets are okay, but a video adventure like Legends of Zelda, Skyward Sword is the devil. Got it.\n\n* * *\n\nMeg waits in the car while we run into the toy store. The place is filled with brain puzzles, Axolotl plush toys, toy trains, science kits, magnetic blocks, marble runs, model kits, and a whole section of Lego offerings.\n\nWhile I am looking through the aisles, Link heads straight for the Lego section. “Dad, dad,” Link screams, and I come up behind him where he is looking wide-eyed at a box on the shelf. It is a Lego Link Statue from Skyward Sword. Link is there on a platform of Lego blocks with the Master Sword in one hand and his shield in the other, the sword held high in a heroic, triumphant stance.\n\n“Alright bud, bring it up to the register.”\n\nLink grabs the box and runs up to the counter, saying, “We’ll take this one.”\n\nAs the clerk starts ringing us up, I say, “You know kiddo, I don’t know if Ms. Infante ever played Zelda, or if she's going to understand your gift.”\n\n“It’s okay, Dad. I've told her all about it. About where I got my name. Anyway, I have a plan,” Link says.\n\n“Your Mom is going to love this,” I say.\n\nThe clerk places the purchase in a white plastic “The Big Toy Store” carry-out bag and we head home.\n\nAs I watch my son running to the car with his new purchase, I think back to my Mom taking us to Toys R’ Us. Wandering through the aisles with a shopping cart, pulling down GI Joe figurines, the latest Astronaut Cabbage Patch Kid, Troll dolls, and Rambo figurines, and scouring the racks for every last He-Man that Mattel could offer. I think of how I got my Mom a bracelet the last time I visited her at the hospital. It was one of those link bracelets like we used to make at school, but it was real jewelry. I remember how excited I was to give it to her, but how she never woke up to see it, and how heartbroken I was that I hadn’t thought of it sooner.\n\n* * *\n\nWhen we get home, Meg and I have our weekly joust. This week she bests me. It is as if she knows every thrust, parry, and slash I have in my arsenal. And she has new magic I haven’t seen before at her disposal. Dark magic. Spells heretofore unknown to the Overworld.\n\n“I know you think you have everything figured out, but don’t you think it’s time we thought about getting out of this place.”\n\n“What do you mean? You love this place.”\n\n“I know, but our kid doesn’t have a yard to play in. The City is so difficult and the primary schools are not the best. Don’t you want to have a nice big house with a yard where he can run around and play – where we can get a dog?”\n\n“Babe. Our jobs are here. Everything is here. This is our world.”\n\n“It’s just so hectic and so expensive. Haven’t you ever wanted a simpler life, an easier life? Like it was where you grew up?”\n\nI think back to the Summer Camp on Lake Hiawatha. To playing Manhunt out in the pines. To AMC movie theaters off the highway. To kids gathering like street gangs in the cafeteria of the Cherry Hill Mall. To music stores with row after row of vinyl and CD cases. Oasis, Metallica, Van Halen, Madonna, Michael Jackson, and the Police. To a world where my mother sang Frankie Vallie and the Four Seasons songs off-key in our Volkswagen station wagon. To the innocent days before the Gulf War when my Mom hadn’t been diagnosed yet. To a world of 8-bit images on grainy screens. To blowing into malfunctioning Nintendo cartridges to get the games to work.\n\nThat’s the thing about Gannon. About Demise. They have such simple strategies. Nostalgia. The grief of things gone forever and lost to time. But you have to look forward if you want to keep the spark alive. That’s the trick. That’s the magic of digital lands where death is not fatal and defeat is not final, and where you believe in the power of good to triumph over evil so completely that no obstacle placed in your path can ever make you doubt. The answers are always in front of you, never behind. So you trek on.\n\n“I don’t want to go backward,” I tell her.\n\n“It isn’t going backward. Look at us. Working two jobs. Link being raised by daycare half the time. Juggling tasks just to stay afloat. It’s madness.”\n\n“Let’s plan a trip,” I say. That was always our answer to whatever calamity the Demon King’s Army placed in our path. To get away from the real world for a while to a place in the Caribbean where we could restore some of the wonder that brought us together. Where her contempt toward me for what the world had done to us faded, and I could be her hero again.\n\n“We’ll look at the calendar, but I don’t know how we are going to fit it in. We are booked every weekend until April at this point.”\n\n“So we’ll cancel something. Come on Meg, let’s do it, let’s go somewhere. I could really use it.”\n\n“Okay. Let’s book something,” Meg says and immediately starts scouring the internet and looking at our World of Hyatt rewards suggestions.\n\nWhile we are having our argument, Link is busy. I keep wandering over to help him with a direction he missed. He is building the statute with green blocks, gray blocks. Building the legs and torso. Finding the accessories. Separating the pieces into piles. Building the hero brick-by-brick, just like I taught him. His very heartbeat emits a magnetic field, like Link’s protective force field, a zone that repels doubt, disbelief, and conflict. A safe space in which magic reigns and there is no fear of danger.\n\n“What do you think of the Ziva Riviera in Cancun?”\n\n“Why don’t we go to Disney World, stay out by the theme park?”\n\n“Do you think Link is old enough?”\n\n“I sure do.”\n\n\"I don't know if it's the right time, with everything going on at work.\"\n\n“We’d always talked about it. The Country Bear Jamboree. Epcot. You know he is crazy about Mickey.”\n\nAt the mention of Mickey, Link’s head turns away from his blocks momentarily. Then he is back at it, finding a place where the shield connects to the grip, and clasping the open hand around the hilt of the Master Sword. Moving the arm into place to hold the sword aloft.\n\n“Disney World it is,” Meg says. And I wrench victory from Gannon’s grasp.\n\n“Settled,” I say.\n\nI rush over to see Link’s handiwork.\n\nLink finally completes the last pieces of the Lego statue and holds it up in triumph, saying, “Look Dad, I did it.”\n\nI make a fuss, tussle his hair, and look over at Meg who is shooting disapproving glances in our direction from the kitchen counter. She sips from her glass of wine, preparing to relax once Link turns in. Then, softening, she gives me a certain look and blushes. This is good. I imagine Link and Zelda flying through the skies to save Hyrule from evil forces, journeying to distant lands and unknown adventures.\n\n“What have you got there, bud?” I ask.\n\n“It’s all finished,” Link says.\n\nHe holds up the Link Skyward Sword Lego Statue, which has a small handwritten note tied around its neck with a string.\n\n“What is that for, bud,” I ask.\n\n“It is a note for Ms. Infante.”\n\n“Can I read it?”\n\n“Sure Dad, but don’t ruin it, put it back how it was.” With that Link runs over to his Mom, grabs her leg, and asks for some cookies before bed.\n\nI hold the note in my hand and read it: “Don’t be sad. Demise doesn’t win. Link is still here to save the princess! –Link”\n\nI smile at my son. “Good job, Link. Ms. Infante is going to love it.”\n\n“I know,” he says.\n\nThe kid is a real chip off the old block. It's okay, Link, I think. Being a daydreamer like your Dad isn't so bad. Keep daydreaming." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Cost of Madness\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 1649\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a backstabbing (literal or metaphorical) gone wrong." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The Winston family is among the fairgoers, stepping gingerly through the mud. \nMatthew leads his wife and son to his favorite game of all.\n\"It's called the 'Wild Wild West,' Timmy. You're going to love it!\" \nMatthew had fired guns since he was a little tyke, growing up on his father's ranch, catching vermin long before he applied for the police academy. \nA Ferris wheel stands against the sky like a gaudy bracelet. \nMinutes later, Matthew recognizes the familiar pop of a .22 caliber rifle. Mechanical ducks totter and creak across the back of the gallery, and the rifles crack and spit. \n\"Step right up! Step right up, folks, test your skill, and win a prize,\" sang the shooting gallery man in an awkward black-and-white striped top hat. \n\"What's your heart fixed on getting, young man?\"\n\"I really want those big ones?\" Replies Tim.\nThe pitchman pointed to small cars on a wire. \n\"Shoot out the small red dot,\" he says. \"You have five shots to do it, and you can take any prize in the house.\"\nMatthew already has his tokens out.\n\"How much is it?\"\n\"Four tokens per tube of shells! Take your chances now, sir! We got a line of winners today.\"\nMatthew obliges. \nIt's a pump rifle fastened to the counter by a chain. \nMatthew raises the rifle.\n\"The elbow rest is permitted.\"\n\"That won't be necessary.\"\nMatthew swiftly fires all five rounds and lowers the weapon. \n\"Let me have that big bear,\" he said.\nWhen the card returned, you couldn't find red on it with a microscope.\nThe pitchman trollies a little cart down the wire, unpins it, and hands it to Matthew.\nMatthew slaps another two dollars worth on the counter.\n\"What you want next, Timmy?\"\nWhen Matthew had won two bears, a tiger, and a small audience, the pitchman took the rifle away from him.\n\"That's it for you, buddy.\"\nHey,\" says Matthew. \"You never said nothin' about how many times you could win.\"\n\"Thanks, Dad!\" \n\"Anything for you, son…\"\n\"Okay, Matthew, you don't have to keep up the charade,\" mumbles Delilah.\n\"Ya know, Delilah…how about a little appreciation? There isn't a man in this state who could have hit those shots with such ease.\"\n\"Oh? Oh? Are you talking about spending time with your son or shooting things? We all know you can fire a gun, Matthew. Bravo!\"\n\"That's enough, Delilah. Point taken!\" Exclaims Matthew.\n\"Can you get off my ass? I'm trying…\"\nMatthew walks away from them, hands in pockets, whistling as if nothing had happened. \nMatthew eventually slows down to allow them to catch up.\nHeavy rain begins to fall.\nMathew waits on a knee to embrace Tim.\n\"Son, I love you.\"\nMatthew stands and grabs Delilah by the hand.\n\"I love you, too. I always have, and I always will.\"\nMatthew feels her again—just for a moment—long enough to lean in and whisper,\" Delilah, if I cannot come back, I want you to know it's okay. It's better that way. Tim will stay. He will finally live safe and free…\"\nDelilah's eyes shine through the darkness.\n\"I have nothing left that I can offer you. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry for everything. It's time now. I must leave.\"\nTim cries as Matthew departs. \n\"Don't you think of coming back this time!\" Hearkens Delilah. \"You hear me! Don't you come back!!!!”\n***\nThe warehouse doors are agape like stretched jaws waiting to consume him.\nMatthew walks further, hypnotized by the glowing altar and smoking incense that swirls like an ethereal storm. The altar is calmly waiting for him, lucidly outlined by a pentagram. \nTen isosceles triangles, five acute triangles, and five obtuse triangles chalked a perfect geometric construction.\nMatthew pulls three candles from his sports jacket and lights all three.\nThe onlookers surrounding the altar are naked.\nMany of them are drenched in blood.\nOthers are in the process of mutilating themselves with sharp instruments\nThey babble alien words that cannot be understood.\nOutside the circle stand robed beings with hoods dangling over hidden faces.\nMatthew strips naked and stands in the center of the circle\nHe drinks a crimson liquid, thick and tacky. \nThe hallucinations begin. \nA lifetime of victims reminds Matthew of the shame and guilt he now suffers. \nThe lives he had taken, eloping spirits madly weaving in and out of the shadows without any particular order.\n\"Take me… I am the disease. Spare my family! It was me… never them. I'm the one…\"\nMatthews's hands tremble as he drops tightly bound scrolls containing the names of those he wishes to release from the curse.\nThe room begins to vibrate, oscillate, and blur.\n\"I am the sickness. I am the disease. Spare my child. I am the sickness. I am the disease. Spare my child. Dammit! I said come to me! I am the sickness…the disease! Spare my child!\"\nA bell rings.\nThe robed entities approach the center and pull their hoods back.\nMilky, bullet-skulled, shaved heads with sharp kernels of jutting marrow give way to the fact that they are not mere mortals.\nTheir black eyes are without expression.\nThey take Matthew and force him to lie on the altar.\nThe demons caress his body with oil, and quickly, his skin numbs.\nCoins are placed on his eyes after they have been meticulously sewn shut.\nThe tip of a blade is inserted into Matthew's bony sternum and pulled down all the way to his naval.\nMatthew moans.\nStreams of blood rush down jagged layers of fettered flesh.\nSeveral sets of hands pull and hollow the yawning chasm, sifting and squeezing the organs inside.\nJust as Matthew passes out, he feels the sensation of something being forced into the abyss of his guts.\nDarkness falls.\n***\nWhen Matthew wakes, it's dark outside, \nHe is buckled behind an unmarked black SUV with the heater on high and the engine rumbling.\nJames, Matthew's partner, nudges him and offers a fresh cup of brewed coffee.\nMatthew blinks, takes the cup, and stares at the low-income housing complex across the street.\nThree people are gossiping out front. \nA skinny shaved white kid in sweatpants, a fat black man in dreads, and a rail thing Hispanic teenager with a skirt so short that her ass is hanging out.\nThe gang walks a block to the northwest towards the local strip joint.\nJames offers Matthew a hit of coke off a small spoon.\nMatthew snorts it, and he's suddenly aware of the world in a deeper, clearer way.\nAnother car blasts Guns N' Roses \"Welcome to the Jungle\".\n\"You kids don't know the half of it…\"\nJames smirks.\n \"… it's go time!”\nGuns, unholster.\nSafeties click off. \nWithin moments, the gang knows they are being pursued. \nThe skinny kid whistles. \nThe Latina girl trips over her high heels.\nThe fat man does not even move. He grins and puts his hands up.\n\"Don't shoot,\" he says.\nMatthew pays no mind and puts a bullet right between his eyes.\n***\nRats run up and down behind alleyway garbage cans.\nThey nip at Matthew's flesh.\n\"Just make it end!\" Matthew screams.\nIt will be over soon. \nMatthew tries to remember their names.\nAll the people, friends, the world around, especially the boy whose hair was brown. \nHis boy.\nHe recalls how Delilah got him into this whole mess.\n\"I did it for you, Delilah! Everything was for you! Remember, we couldn't even have Timmy until I made the oath!\"\nMatthew remembers her whispering, \"You did the right thing for us, honey! For our family…\"\nThen, she would hold Matthew's face in her hands and try to take his pain.\nMatthew would try to help her understand, but she could not.\nAnd soon, the boy was not enough for her.\nShe would have what she wanted now. \nThe knowledge. How it was that Matthew made it happen.\nThe sacrifice for love and family faded.\n\"You will,\" says Matthew. \"If that's what you truly want, you'll find out soon enough.\"\n***\nIt approaches with a crown of horns and antlers above its head, lumbering toward Matthew. \nIts elongated sinews and muscles move harshly and rigidly. \nGreat gusts spew from its snout and flicker flames.\nIts eyes glow red, and it comes with three purposes in mind.\nKill.\nSteal.\nDestroy.\nDelilah falls to her knees in worship.\n\"He called upon you, master. It was Matthew, not I…\"\nBut there is no pleading now. \nNothing left to ask for.\nNothing to forgive \nIt shifts its shape as it walks.\nOne moment, it has a goat head, and the following is a minotaur. \nIt does not listen or reason.\nPain is the devil's only laughter\n\"Oh woman, what a naive delight you have been,\" it says as a great wingspan unfolds behind its back.\nIt stands erect and stretches its wings, fluttering as other creatures emerge from under its leathery feathers.\n\"You wanted to see me. Here I am…\"\nAnts begin filling Matthew's chest, and Delilah is infested with beetles. Unable to make a sound, their mouths open, and they vomit grubs and worms.\n\"Didn't see this one coming. You ask your husband to sell his soul for a child, then have the audacity to beg my presence!\"\nA rush of wind and a blast of heat keeps Matthew's eyes closed. He recalls the sculptures, the piles of sticks, the pyramids, twine and rope vines, and metal running up and down the alleyway containing the small sculptures he'd been making his whole life, these quiet moments of meditation-sending them out into the world the stream of evil that finally added up to a worthy sacrifice. \n\"It's your turn, Delilah…Are you ready?\"\nPain.\nSuffering.\nVengeance.\n\"It's you that I take now… so hear your son's voice one final time… there, there, that's enough… you are the sickness… you are the disease…. And you shall pay for what you have done.\"" } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Testing the truth\n\nGenre: coming-of-age\n\nWord Count: 1362\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with a character finding a retro piece of tech they don’t recognize." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "H I H I H I\n H E L L O\nH E L L O. HELLO. TEST TEST Test t e s t .\n Hello. Thiss is a test.\n A b c d e f g h I j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z z z z z z z z\nHel l o my name is zIGGY.\nZiggy P Banks.\nThis feels strannnnggee strange\nI have never had to wite before.\nIT is slow.\n BUT\n NICE\n\n****\n\nToday is Wednesday\n\nI asked gamgam what this was and she said it was called a tipewiter\n tipewriter\n Tipe writer / Type writer\n A writer you type on\n\n. . . I t looks like a computer people would have used when we lived in caves\n\nShe said people used it in the olden times before the millennium\n\nIt is now 124 years after that so this is very old and gamgam old me to be careful\n\nIt os Old like gamgam, she is 120 so far. I am only 6.666666667 % of that.\n I NOW know how to write and read\n But\n IAM SLOW\n\nNo one uses writers\nWe never write any more\nYou just speak and the words come through the computer\nYou don’t even need to read, the computer will read it for you\n\n I liked learning words, but you lose what you don’t use\n\n****\n\nIT IS NOW Monday. The second Monday of summer.\n I am alone.\n That is a lie, I have gamgam and Sirius in the computer\n BUT they HAVE to HELP me\nI have no one who WANTS to help\n\nMummy and daddy and SArah have gone on holiday. I wasn’t allowed to go because I don’t do well in the sun. They said.\n\nSarah told me it was because I was difficult. When I asked mummy she just said Sarah should not listen through open house intercoms.\nSo I am spending the summer with gamgam.\n\nShe is nice and I think she likes me back. She gets her house AI to cook my best meals. Its all porridge but you add flavouring and it tastes like sweets, or crisps, or roast beef.\n\nI have never had roast beef, I have never even seen a beef, but the flavour packet says it is beef so it must be beef.\n\nMy favourite flavour is bacon. I do not know what bacon is but it is nice.\n\n****\n\nIt is now the third Monday and I have been practicing writing on some spare paper.\n\nPaper is so weird. We don’t make it any more, we use very thin glass for everything that would have been paper once.\n\nEverything in the house is glass and see through, like a jellyfish. If you put your phone or computer on any glass it will read everything. You can see anything you want, all the time.\n\nGamgam let me bring the typewriter (checked the spelling) to the TV room so I can use the glass TV table whilst I practice writing.\nGamgam is surprised how good my writing is. She reads very well. She had to learn in the olden days.\n\nAll my family think I am stupid.\n\nTHAT is the real reason I am not on holiday. That is the real reason I am alone. Because my brain is slow.\n\nIn school, we are taught things that computers and AI’s and programs cannot do. They cannot be creative. They cannot lead people and feel things.\n\nSarah is very good at arguing and making me feel things. I try not to cry when she does. She is always top of her class and mummy and daddy love her for it.\n\nI don’t know how to read people’s faces, sense their emotions. At school they call me Mac because they think I am like a very slow computer that used to be good but is now useless. Even my teachers call me Mac. I actually think our AI receptionist thinks it’s my real name.\n\n****\n\nGamgam asked me to type up a post card to send to mummy and daddy and Sarah. We took a picture and sent it to them. She said once we would have actually sent the thing I typed on. I have no idea how.\n\nMummy just sent a video back saying her AI couldn’t process the typeface and we’d have to try it again.\n\nThey didn’t try very hard though. MY AI Sirius the spectacular did it fine. I love Sirius. He is my only real friend.\n\nSirius showed me last night before I put him on charge images of these things called books which are massive piles of paper with writing on, and you physically have to turn the pages to read all the words.\n\n I would LOVE to see a book one day.\nWhen I write my head feels clear and I can think so much easier than when I speak. When we’re forced to speak at school I get shy and don’t know what to say. When I write I have time, I can focus, I can let all the thoughts that swim around in my mind get into neat little lines so they can come out all in the right order.\n\nI knew I wasn’t stupid.\n\n****\n\nI have now gone through nearly all of gamgams paper that she found in the attic.\n\nI need to now start being careful with my words. No more stream of consciousness, no more practice vocabulary, just focused dialogue. Can you tell Sirius has been helping me with a new word of the day?\n\nHowever, through much debate I have decided to run away.\n\nMummy and daddy announced last week that they are returning from their summer trip to Mars but my school is not ready yet to start term, so I will be staying with gamgam for another month.\nLiars. You could tell gamgam was trying to hide her worry.\n\nIf they don’t want me that is fine. Someone will. I’ll go find someone who sees me for who I really am. Someone who has books and will let me touch them and turn the pages.\n\n****\n\nI have planned the escape to the finest detail.\n\nI think gamgam knows, but she seems strangely supportive. I asked if I could borrow a spare set of charging cables for Sirius and she asked me if I wanted a spare powerbank and solar charging station too, as if she knew I was planning to go somewhere.\n\nI hope one day I will see her again, her AI does make lovely bacon.\n\nI will leave tomorrow before sunrise and take my zip scoot to the bullet train and get the 5.42 to the north. Sirius said they are friendly in the northern countryside. I have never been but that feels like a good place to start. Gamgam even gave me pocket money last week, plenty to cover my under 12 train ticket.\nI will then start releasing the YouTube videos I’ve been making this summer. The kids at school have been going mad over this thing someone found called a rubik’s cube and I’m pretty good at it. If those videos take off as planned I should have a steady income by the time I reach Manchester Library.\n\nI just have one final job left to do.\n\n****\n\nTo mummy, daddy and Sarah,\n\nI have left and will not be returning. It is clear that I’m not a welcomed member of the family so will not burden you with my presence any longer. Thank you for what you have given me so far, without your limited support I would not have discovered myself, or realised what I have to give this world.\n\nI know you will have trouble processing this letter on account of your inability to actually read words, so my AI Sirius has kindly sent a voice activated file which will be released when gamgam’s AI registers you at the property.\n\nTears are words that need to be written. This summer, I have written enough to last a lifetime.\n\nYours faithfully,\nZiggy\n\nPs. Sarah you’re a bitch" } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Hippocratic Oath\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 1221\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone who is stuck between two opposing sides and can’t decide which one to choose." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "TW: Mention of sexual abuse, incest\n***\n\n“With regard to healing the sick, I will devise and order for them the best diet, according to my judgment and means; and I will take care that they suffer no hurt or damage…”\n\nI scan the cross-stitched words in the examination room of my clinic, framed in gold and screaming at me in scarlet thread, as I feel the prickle of what feels like a thousand knives at my throat. Five years ago, as I walked across the stage of a packed auditorium to receive a diploma from the medical school and a shiny new prefix to attach to my name. I pronounced these very words, The Hippocratic Oath. To this very day, I am bound to this promise I made, swear to never use the scalpel I wield to cut the patients under my care unless absolutely necessary for their health.\n\nHowever, how exactly do you define what is crucial for someone’s well-being? What if what is needed to prevent hurt means violating one part of the oath I swore by? What if….\n\n“Doctor Blackwell?”\n\nI glance at my assistant Amanda peering at me from the door. From my seat, I see her hazel eyes streaked with red veins. She’s gripping her scrubs so tightly that I see her knuckles turn white.\n\n“Yes, Amanda?”\n\n“Well, you asked me to see if there are any available tickets for flights to LA…”\n\n“Oh, but of course,” I reply. I try to make my voice sound as sure as possible, as if I’m making the first incision during surgery. However, it cracks, betraying the fact that my throat feels like a knife had scraped it, that I had shed tears about this very decision the night before.\n\n“Well, there are two seats available on the 8:30 am flight tomorrow,” Amanda states. She stares into my steel grey eyes before continuing.\n\n“So, shall I book them, Dr. Blackwell?”\n\nI gulp. It’s a question as simple as “What is the colour of blood when it oozes out?” Yet, at this moment, my heart races and my head feels like it’s being stabbed multiple times. I know that my response would cleave two different paths for me, that this is the sharp knifepoint that has the potential to be plunged in my back if it goes wrong.\n\nIf I could distil all of my work as an obstetrician and gynaecologist in a single statement, it would be this: I am not only the medical professional that oversees my patients’ procedures; I’m also a witness to their tears.\n\n Countless of times already, I’ve cut through skin, muscle, and organs to bring a baby to life and hear their first cry. Of course, it usually isn’t just the new-born sobbing in moments like this; as soon as their child is placed into their arms, couples usually couldn’t help but be taken to tears, their sniffling cutting through the still, sterile operating theatre. I hear them whisper wishes through the flood coming from their eyes as their newly arrived child coos at their mother’s chest.\n\nHowever, those aren’t the only type of tears I’ve been witness to. It’s also up to me to hold couples’ hands if ever life cuts them and they lose their baby prematurely; as the most bitter of sobs escapes from their lungs, I’m there to comfort them, to try to remove the pain from the invisible dagger in their heart as best as I could. It always feels as if I’m being bludgeoned every single time I have to break the news that a woman has miscarried. Oftentimes, I too end up crying after one of these appointments, but I know I have to hold back my own weeping and be a source of strength to the person whose medical care I’ve been entrusted.\n\nThen, of course, there are the sobs of relief. I’ve celebrated with countless patients when they’ve rung the bell after a round of cancer treatment, their tears soaking into my scrubs. When a test comes back negative for the Big C, I’m there to hug them as their bodies quake and their eyes open the floodgates. If only they know that their physician sheds tears of joy along with them, that their victory from disease feels as if it were mine.\n\nIn my five years of treating women, these moments of crying have become familiar to me. So, when a panel of men who do not have medical degrees, who have never had to ensure a tearful patient continues to live, made a decision in 2022 to cut off what could be a lifeline for thousands, I could not help feeling as if my limbs were being hacked apart from my body with a saw. Of course, they wouldn’t understand. Of course, it isn’t them that had to be there, all ears, as the worst wails of desperation pierced the air.\n\nSeventeen year-old Gwen entered my clinic one night, an emaciated thing trembling like a leaf in her t-shirt and bloodstained shorts. Her large ocean blue eyes and blonde curls were apparently a gift from her late mother, and, unfortunately for her, that was all her father thought about every time he dragged her to his room, locked the door, and released his alcohol-fuelled longing for his dead partner out on his daughter. She had already endured four years of molestation by the time her best friend Kelly found out, helped Gwen escape the house through an open window, and sat next to her in the waiting room of my practice. I sighed when I saw how deep the lacerations on her intimate area were, marks of her father’s abuse towards the girl he was supposed to protect. Sadly, that night, we discovered that those weren’t the only souvenirs of these forced encounters.\n\nI know what the law states. If authorities were to find out that I helped a weeping, terrified teenager get rid of an embryo conceived in tears, I would lose my medical license, be severed from my right to help hundreds of women who trust me to aid them in getting better. I may even end up in jail, deprived of liberty because, according to them, I’m robbing someone of a life.\n\nBut am I, really ? Is the life of a minor thrust into an unfortunate situation worth less simply because her ovaries decided to release an egg at the wrong time? Should Gwen be forced to birth a reminder of her trauma, no longer have a shot at the normal, worry-free life she was supposed to have?\n\nI stare at the words of the promise I made five years ago, and the answer is clear. I am a doctor. It is my duty to prevent hurt. It is my duty not to prolong harm.\n\n“Amanda, yes, go ahead and book them under Gwen and Kelly’s names please. I'll be the one to call Dr. Salvador in Cedars-Sinai. She's my friend from medical school, after all.”\n\nI feel a peace cut through my heart as a flow of warm, happy tears fall from my eyes. No matter what happens, I'm content knowing I stayed true to the very same oath I cried in a packed auditorium five years ago, the very same one I promise to always uphold." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Caesar Calls CMXI\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 1012\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone who is convinced they’re going to be betrayed." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Hello? Is this 911? I’m sorry, I’ve never phoned before as we don’t have phones in Ancient Rome.\nA friendly time traveler handed me this device right before we imprisoned him for being an evil magician. I had no idea that if you pressed certain numbers you could talk to people. I just spent twenty minutes talking to somebody named Russell from a place called…Louisville? I have no idea who Louis is or why they named a place after him, but Russell is really having a tough time in his marriage. I suggested that he accuse his wife of being a sorceress and then imprison her, but he said that sort of thing is frowned upon in the future times.\nRussell did tell me about you and how one may reach out when there is an emergency afoot. I did not perceive there being such an event on the horizon, as I am so beloved, but apparently some have only been pretending to love me while secretly resenting all the amazing attributes I feature.\nI do understand how preposterous what I am saying sounds to you, 911. To think that a god could be resented by mere mortals simply for being a god. It is unfathomable to myself as well. Were it not for me, Rome would not be nearly as lustrous as it is now. I was the one who insisted on cooking all our meats for three seconds longer, which resulted in far fewer people dying of vicious stomach ailments. And that is merely one example of all the gifts I have bestowed upon my great empire.\nHmm?\nWhy, no, I did not start out as a god. You see, when someone is born exceptionally handsome and exceptionally intelligent and people are naturally drawn to them and all that they offer, they evolve into a deity presuming they’re also able to conquer most of the civilized world. I am the only person in history that has ever fit that description, and so, I am the only being that has ever transformed into a god.\nOne would think a god would have nothing to fear, but, you see, I am a special kind of god. A kind of--god among gods, so to speak. That means that, sadly, unlike other gods, I could potentially be destroyed by mortal men. Not mortal women, of course, they have no capacity for destruction. The most they can do is beat at your chest with their little hands and then fall to the ground exhausted. Those poor, sad, females.\nThe men, however, have been known to betray even those they once loved the most, and I fear that is what’s happening now. I was just getting ready for work when my wife informed me that she had a terrible dream that I would be slaughtered like a time-traveling magician if I left the house today. Oh, she did beat at my chest with those little hands and then fell to the floor, and I immediately stepped over her, because you cannot indulge such histrionics, but now I am standing at the door, and I fear she may be onto something.\nYou see, 911--a strange name by the way--I have this strange pain in my--\nWhat?\nA number? 911 is a number?\nThen why are you not called CMXI?\nHave people in the future forgotten how to count?\nHow are you meant to assist me if you do not even know how to count?\nI was saying that I have this strange pain in my chest. A pain I normally only get when someone is attempting to kill me. I felt it quite often as I was waging war and enslaving innocent people everywhere. There was more than one assassination threat over the years, but I haven’t experienced anything like that since returning home safely and announcing my infinite tenure as Supreme Leader. People were so relieved to hear that I would be ruling forever. Any violence that may have been wished upon me was instantly quashed by the love a citizen has for his leader-turned-unstoppable force.\nNow the pain is back. Is my life in jeopardy? Can you help me, CMXI?\nIf you are in the future, you must be able to investigate the past. Do you know what happened to me? Simply look up “Caesar” in whatever scrolls you have there. It’s spelled C-A-E-S-A-R. Some people spell it C-E-A-S-E-R, and I usually have those people killed.\nDoes it tell you my fate?\n……What?\nOh that sounds…very unpleasant.\nAnd how many did you say--All of them?\nALL?\nEven Bru--\nWow.\nWowwwwww.\nThat is--Are you sure, because Bru--\nOh.\nOh wow.\nLike I make a comment about it and everything? And he still goes ahead with--\nWowwwwww.\nNow I wish I could go back in time and uninvite all of them to my birthday festivities. The audacity of those Senators. To murder their leader right there on the floor! Everyone knows if you’re going to stab someone, you don’t do it on marble. It could stain!\nWell, the amusement is going to be squarely placed in their laps, because now, for the first time in my life, I shall listen to a woman. I shall stay home today and…do what men do when they do not go to work. I shall eat some sort of soup and watch as two of my servants play a game wherein they try and guess how much soap costs.\nThank you greatly for your insight, CMXI. Had I not spoken to you, I would have made a grave error that may have thrown an entire empire into chaos. Nothing good can come out of such bloodshed. That is why I shall refrain from being murdered, and send my guards to the Senate to murder everyone in sight. I won’t bother telling them to only kill the Senators since one or two may be out of uniform. Better to simply kill off the entire block. Maybe two or three blocks. A square mile? \nI just think one can never be too safe." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Run, Fatso, Run.\n\nGenre: coming-of-age\n\nWord Count: 1801\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story that includes someone saying, “You can’t run forever.”" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Harris and I have been trampling the tarmac for decades now.\nWe know we’re a couple of fatties at heart, there’s no denying it. \nBut if I cease my regular run, I’ll lose the bet and return to Fatsville.\nI have a recurring nightmare about my wager with Harris. \nThere’s tsunami of wobbling belly flab, thighs and bingo wings. \nIt chases me across fields, down a high street and all the way back home.\nBreathless, I slam the door behind me and it charges down my road.\nI’m sure if I stop running, it’ll catch me.\nGod forbid that happens.\n* * *\nI don’t recall talking to Harris during my first week at junior school. It was a fortnight later that we got to know each other better. I remember being invited to his birthday party, along with everybody else. His mother hosted the event at a local church hall and went to town with the decorations. There were balloons, crisps and countless party games, all with edible gifts. We played tape-the-tail-on-the-donkey, musical chairs and pass the parcel; until everyone had won a prize. \n Harris’ mother was a whirlwind of joyful energy and circulated bowls of salted nuts and sugary snacks. In between the contests, she swooped round the room, topping up our empty glasses with fizzy orange. It’s surprising any of us got any sleep during the next fortnight, considering all the sugar we consumed. \n I remember feeling full when I returned home, going straight to bed and throwing up during the night. But what a party. Anyhow, restraint isn’t a concept that appeals to impressionable minds on encountering an endless river of sweets. To be fair, my parents never indulged my desire to consume sugary snacks, and I was blessed with strong teeth, unlike some of my peers; burdened by mouths full of lead before they were eight. The local dentist must have made his fortune with all the countless fillings.\n* * *\nThe main reason I got to know Harris was because of our sporting prowess. Well, that’s true, but only because we lacked it. During the lunch break at junior school, everyone played school yard soccer. It was a rough and tumble version of the game we played twice a week on P.E. days. \n Team selection was a simple process. The oldest pupils were the soccer experts and got to pick the sides. They’d choose the next most competent team members and so forth until there were two sides of equal number, plus a few reserves who’d watch from the sidelines, hoping they’d have time to join in. \n After weeks of watching from the sidelines, Harris and I soon recognised our ranking. Yes, you got it. We played left-back. Our sporting prowess proceeded us, and we remained left back on the sidelines regularly. In retrospect, I can’t believe we aspired to scuffing our knees on rough asphalt and getting bruised like everyone else. The fact is, we kept our dubious reputations throughout our school years. As sporting duds, the only time we left-backs saw the ball was when we carried it back inside, after the school bell called time. \n * * *\nSix years of inactivity dragged by on the edge of the sports field until we moved up to big school together. In Britain, during the late 80s, if you were bright, you ended up at a rugby playing school. We both passed the entrance exams and faced the daunting prospect of compulsory rugby three times a week, and weekend fixtures.\n For my part, I’d lost any serious interest in team sports and it showed. My body had bulged and drooped awkwardly, and I dodged competitive physical activity. Ironically, this made me a perfect candidate for the most loathed position in any rugby team; ‘prop forward.’ \n For those who might be unfamiliar with the term, a ‘prop forward’ is one of two players who carries the weight of half the team on his shoulders in the scrum. What’s a scrum? The scrum is the collision of both teams in a tight knot of heads, thighs and necks. It’s a spitting, grunting and shoving mass from the lower circles of Dante’s inferno and inescapable if you’re overweight at a rugby-playing school. The scrum is a strange place to make lifelong friends with anyone of a sound mind. I mean, who would choose to risk receiving a bust lip, possible concussion, or pair of cauliflower ears? \n It’s the least attractive part of the British school system, but it’s guaranteed to cure you of any form of inhibition, except for being overweight. Harris and I were both prop forwards for our team’s weekly grudge match with the school’s regional adversaries. There were plenty of scores to settle against our regular opponents whose gruesome and mangled faces we learned to loathe. \n We both pushed and shoved on behalf of our school’s honour for seven years and hated every minute. Saturdays weren’t our own anymore and three nights every week, we trained come what may, through the worst forms of winter weather known to mankind. However, it toughened us up and set us up for a lifetime’s wager and a bet that we still haven’t settled. \n Oddly enough, it was our arch-enemies at school who were responsible for us shaking hands on our life’s challenge. Smithy and Duggers were a pair of arrogant thugs who made our lives a misery until the school expelled them, but not for causing trouble. Their fifth year exam results were so poor that even our dubious establishment had to draw a line and let them go. However, they ran amok before they left and tormented any unfortunate pupil who looked like a soft target. Harris and I were a couple of likely lads because of our ungainly physiques and unassuming dispositions. We skulked around the edges of life at school and kept low profiles, however the more we avoided Smithy and Duggers, the more they tormented us.\n* * *\nI was a 14 pound bouncing baby, born fat, and that’s a fact. My chubby cheeks and cheeky grin were my curse, even if they made old ladies smile. They’d pinch those rosy cheeks to my vexation and said, “What nice dimples and such a lovely moon face.”\n The name got around and everyone called me “Moon Face” at school. It started off as a spinster’s term of endearment and transformed into an emotional cattle prod that stabbed at my deepest neuroses. I could lurk in the shadows and wear flattering clothes that covered my awkward body, but I had big, jolly cheeks and a cheeky moon face. The extra thirty pounds I could handle, but my big moon face was another issue. \n* * *\nHarris and I were both in denial and too scared to accept the truth.\nWe needed to admit there was no getting away from our genes. \nUltimately, it doesn’t matter how many excuses we made up.\nWe were both fat, and that’s that; stout is a state of mind.\nRunning for Harris and me became a life choice.\nIt was a mission that we’re both committed to following.\nDid we have a choice or do we have a choice? Well, yes and yes.\nAt an early age, we had a option to do something about our lives.\nHarris and I created an exercise challenge that’s lasted a lifetime.\n* * *\nOnce we’d graduated and gone our separate ways, the bet remained active. We’d meet occasionally to check on our waistlines. Maybe we’d go on a quick fast and pound round the block before catching up. I’ve got to say, over the years, Harris has never confessed to binging and neither have I. \nBut you never really stop being a fatty. \nOnce you’re stout, you’re stout for life. \nThe temptation to snack never goes away. \n* * *\nLast week, I got a text from Harris. It was thirty years since we shook hands and made our bet. We were still holding out and maintaining our promise. We knew we could never stop now. A life of regular exercise is addictive and one of us had a lot to lose.\nHarris told me he had annual leave to take and said he’d be over to check I wasn’t cheating. I laughed and returned the joke. How did I know he wasn’t pigging out somewhere?\n* * *\nThe day we discussed our wager was the first time in an age that I’d encountered Smithy and Duggers. It was a warm summer’s evening, and I ran by the river for a change. The River Thames has miles of towpaths with overhanging willows where one can enjoy a run; deserted walkways with the occasional picturesque pub. It would be a pleasant change to rest for a while by the flowing waters and order a refreshing juice. However, who should I encounter, but our ancient nemeses? \n Smithy and Duggers were sipping their pints of beer outside The City Barge Pub; their feet propped on the wooden table, burger stains on the sleeveless cotton vests and swollen guts hanging over their belts. \nWhat was it Smithy said one day?\nYep, sure, I recall, “Use it or lose.” \nI’ve had to work at it all my adult life. \nI’m just one of nature’s fatties. \nSo, I never stop running. \nThat’s my curse. \n“Hey!” Duggers pointed at me. “Here’s comes Michelin man.”\n“Me?” I say, looking left and right. \n“Run, fatso, run!” Smithy said, as I pause for breath. \nHe looks me up and down with a sneer on his lips.\n“You’ve still got a moon face,” he says, cocking his head like a dumb parrot.\n“Do I look like the Michelin man to you?”\n“Well,” he said, smirking. “You’ve still got a moon face.”\n“Yeah, right?” I said. “I’m Moon Face, all right.” \n“You can’t run forever!” \nI pick up the pace.\nThey waddle after me, yelling ancient jibes. \nI’ve not heard their childish insults for decades. \nI heard them spluttering their taunts in the distance until, breathless and outpaced, they quit their calls and returned to their beer and cigarettes with swollen limbs and aching bones.\n* * *\n“Shall we call a truce?” \n“You mean end the wager?” \n“Well it’s been a lifetime, Harris.” \n“Fine by me,” he said, offering his hand. \nWe talk and laugh about Smithy and Duggers. \nSurely, they are the hopeless fatties now? \nWe chuckle and believe our conceit. \nBut later, at home, I order a takeout; two litres of regular coke and four tubs of Ben and Jerry’s ‘Phish Food.’\nI eat the lot by myself and kick back. \nThe weight’s gone forever, that’s for sure. \nTonight’s just a one off, I promise myself. \nI’m not a fatty anymore and proud of it. \n\nThe End" } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: RAJ\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 1305\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone who is stuck between two opposing sides and can’t decide which one to choose." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Ruth knew there would be little sleep. It was too hot, and many unanswered questions clamoured for her attention on this breathless, Southern summer evening. She lay in the half-light as muted city background noise and subtle scents reached for her through the half-open window. It was not the whispered intrusive sounds that kept her from sleep, though. The heat pressing softly all around seemed to encourage an endless internal dialogue recirculating in her consciousness.\nShe thought again of her husband David and wondered about his latest trip to Michigan. Another government proposal was babied and hand-carried to Dearborn for review by bored government cubicle trolls. She needed him urgently now, wanted his touch to stir those warm liquid feelings that inevitably bought her release on troubled nights like this.\n She remembered Raj sleeping in the room below and dismissed unquiet memories that rebuked and taunted her.\n She tried to suppress the echoes of delight as she felt his body tense with anticipation. Two times this year, he had taken her—the only times since her marriage that she had found satisfaction from another lover.\n Raj was by no means the perfect mate. He was too young and lacked the confidence and finesse that experience brings. She found him pushy and rather uncouth—too concerned with himself and not at all considerate of her needs.\n Certainly not beyond redemption, though, she thought. A little time and some careful coaching would probably bring about the necessary changes.\n She dismissed the thoughts that required answers and definitions. Her marriage was sound, with two delightful children and a solid, dependable—if somewhat predictable—husband. It was an almost picture-perfect depiction of the suburban, married couple with children—the American dream.\nIt would be almost picture perfect, but for the shadow of dear Raj—ever-present, quietly waiting, reminding her of her weaknesses and hinting at future possibilities to explore.\n Her memory once again carried her back to the first time. David had been away again, leaving her with four days of missing, wanting, and loneliness. \n Lonely? Not with two growing children and a constant stream of social necessities vying for attention. Ruth reluctantly admitted to herself it was not loneliness but an urgent selfish need pulling at her when David was away.\n She pondered those dangerous thoughts on a familiar mental borderline that she tried not to cross again.\n Ruth turned again and lay on her back in another futile attempt to sleep. There was no respite from the troubling thoughts that relentlessly pursued her. She wondered about David; thought of him with another woman. She tried to imagine how she would look, how they would be together.\n He had ample opportunity if that was what he wanted. David would be too preoccupied with work to enjoy those brief moments, though, too engrossed in his projects to concern himself with such trivial distractions. Suddenly, she felt sorry for him.\n She imagined him in his loneliness, trapped in some distant soulless motel room. Against the cold glass high above the city, he would stare out beyond the pinpoint lights.\n She knew now that on her intensely personal journey, comfort could easily be found in the company of another companion.\n Perhaps she was searching for someone new, a stranger willing to trigger a familiar volcanic surge of warm release that would restrain those demons of uncertainty and fear for a few tranquil hours.\n What if David found out, though? Realized that his slut wife had betrayed him in his own house, she grinned fleetingly at the thought of David sitting across from her at the breakfast table.\n Tried to imagine the outrage, the anguished expression on his face, how he would angrily confront her and demand an explanation in exacting detail, but never be willing to accept the truth.\n Duplicitous, irresponsible, disgusting—all these words he would use and many more. He would be right; of course, there was nothing to deny. Raj would remain silent. He had no agenda other than his immediate gratification.\n For Ruth, there was no moral dilemma. She wanted, and Raj would give. There was a simple equation with a simple answer. Wiping at a bead of sweat that coursed slowly between her breasts, she turned again, trying to salvage an hour or so of sleep.\n Raj also lay in discomfort. It was hot, and too much pale light strayed through unchecked by old, ineffectual blinds.\n He stood again as he had done several times that night and walked slowly to the door.\nIt was not the heat or the light of the full moon that troubled him but some distant, uncertain memory just beyond recall.\n Listening intently for sounds of the children, he stared unblinkingly at drifting shadows as they moved across the window.\n Returning to his bed again, he lay on top of the rumpled blanket.\n Faint, disconnected sounds came to him as he tried to remember an elusive spectre just beyond his reach.\n There was something familiar about this night, something important. Perhaps it was the moonlight and the smell of damp heat.\n Somewhere beyond sleeping, he now lay outstretched on his back. Pictures from another time paraded unhurriedly before him. Suddenly, he understood. A clear connection was made, bridging the distance between Ruth and the last time he had loved her. It was on another night like this, with heat, sounds, and scents—that contributed to re-create shadowy memories dancing transparently before him. It was the heat in a moonglow of a quiet night. There was no David, no children's cries—there was only Ruth, coming to him in this room so unexpectedly.\n He remembered now and waited quietly, knowing with certainty that she would come to him again.\n Ruth gazed at a pale, naked phantom posing wantonly in the bathroom mirror. Running a hand across her stomach, she appraised the image before her.\n Heavy breasts, not uplifted as she would have wished for, but not unattractive either. Still certainly desirable, she thought.\n It was a good, firm body but had unmistakably borne witness to childbearing and the unforgiving scrutiny of too many passing years.\n She drew a fingernail slowly across a nipple, lightly scratching, feeling slow arousal, continuing until both stood hard in the warm, moist air. Her right hand moved purposefully downward, then slowly between her legs, partially obscuring a triangle of dark hair.\n Staring at the reflection, she smiled absently as her finger gently probed and caressed with a slow, satisfying rhythm. It was too late now to rest. Even if sleep came, there would be no relief from the need she felt.\n With some effort, Ruth turned abruptly from the mirror and pulled an old white bathrobe around her shoulders.\n Barefoot, she tiptoed down the carpeted stairway, then silently past the children's room, stopped briefly, and listened to the reassuring sounds of their sleeping.\n Ruth reached carefully for the handle that would open the door to the room where Raj would be sleeping.\n Raj, of course, was far from sleeping.\n Waiting expectantly, he stood as Ruth entered the room.\n She turned, secured the latch, and then stood before him.\nSlowly, she raised her arms, allowing the robe to slide from her shoulders, revealing an ivory statue bringing familiar, dizzying perfumes that swirled all around. Raj came quickly to her and then paused as Ruth guided his head between her legs.\n She drew breath sharply as he pushed and felt for her with an eager tongue.\n How good will it feel tonight? She wondered, already wanting him hard inside her. In a few moments, she would kneel for him, reaching behind to guide him as he pushed. He savoured her intoxicating scents and felt her small, reassuring hands caressing his head.\n As if from a great distance, he heard her cautioning him to silence. Closer now, her voice came. \"Yes,\" she whispered, \"yes. Good boy, Raj. Good dog.\"" } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: In Memoriam Flight\n\nGenre: coming-of-age\n\nWord Count: 2980\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story that includes someone saying, “You can’t run forever.”" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "In Memoriam Flight\nby Adam Ryan\n(Note: This story deals with survivor's guilt from the death of young man, suicidal thoughts, and alcohol/recreational drug abuse)\nOn the way to Will’s house, you and Danny smoke a thousand cigarettes, but don’t talk much. It’s tense. A couple in a fight with kids sitting bug-eyed in the back. But that’s not it. You’re not a couple and neither of you say anything because there isn’t anything left to say – you may be headed to a party but you both know what it really is.\nA funeral encore.\nThere’s a roach in Danny’s ashtray, so you spark it, hit it, and hand it off. He takes a pull, but it doesn’t hold, implodes, and embers fly around the car like a thousand flaming doves. You laugh. Danny doesn’t. His coughing fit almost sends you into a telephone pole. Which would be ironic.\nThe hit doesn’t help. Gobs of adrenaline percolate through your system so feverishly that your legs quiver and you can’t stop cracking your knuckles.\nDanny notices and digs into his pocket. “Here,” he says, handing over a yellow pill. “I was at my mom’s earlier.”\nIt’s a benzo, 5mg, just enough to coat your heart with a reedy layer of apathy. Maybe enough to make it survive this.\n“Thanks.”\n“I got more.”\nThen, silence again. Just the wind blowing through Danny’s fucked up Toyota.\nA block from the house, Danny asks, “Should we have worn suits?”\n“No. It’s not a funeral,” you reply, suddenly aware of how wrinkled your shirt and pants are. “The invite said ‘celebration’ anyway...”\n“But what if everyone else is wearing suits?”\nFighting the urge to scream and rant about the whole situation, how fucked it is, how horrible it’s going to be to tear open scabs that never healed and relive the pain, you close your eyes and say, “Then we’ll be the two assholes who aren’t wearing suits.”\nAll things considered, it’s a beautiful night. Cloudless, no humidity, the sky brushed crimson like blood across butcher paper. Not too different from the night after Will’s funeral.\nDanny parks down the block and lets the car idle. You both light cigarettes and stare at the house.\nDanny asks, “You good?”\nAnd you say, “Not at all. But fuck it, let’s go.”\nThe first thing you see when you walk into the backyard is a tent. Underneath it, someone playing acoustic guitar, moaning into a microphone. Next to the tent is a portable bar with a guy wearing a tie. Scattered around the yard are tiki torches and flower arrangements and folding tables draped with white linens. It looks exactly like what it’s supposed to be - a party. For Will. Except Will’s not here. And unless they know something you don't, he's not coming.\nSo you and Danny stand around like assholes until Frank walks in and joins you, eyes bulging like he’s watching a trainwreck.\nHe mouths, “What the fuck?”\nYou shrug.\nThe backyard is packed with neighbors, cousins, friends, friends of friends. Everyone seems happy. Even Will’s parents make the rounds, smiling and laughing.\nThen you turn and see the portrait.\nPropped on a tripod in the middle of the deck is a huge photo of Will. People use grab sharpies to write messages on the it.\nWhen Danny sees this, and sees you seeing it, he elbows your ribs. “This is fucked, bro.”\nGrady and Matt stumble in a few minutes later, reeking like Fordham hydro. But through the fog, the scene draws the same reaction from both of them.\nBefore you lose it, you decide to take a breather. Go piss. Splash water on your face. Drink Drano. Something to pucker up.\nBut as soon as you walk inside, you see Will’s sister, Colleen, backing into the hallway. She's mid-conversation with Kelly, Will’s girlfriend.\nKelly smiles. Colleen smiles. Big bright smiles. They hug. It looks like Colleen is crying but powering through it. She squeezes Kelly’s arms and whispers something into her ear, then walks into the kitchen. Kelly turns and walks the other way. She doesn’t see you seeing her. Lip quivering, neck spasming, her eyes closed so tight it looks like it hurts.\nYou know what’s coming.\nShe looks ready to collapse, so you reach for her, and as you do, she falls into your arms, hands over her face, and unloads a guttural sob.\nFace mushed into your shoulder, Kelly mumbles, “What the fuck is happening, Charlie?”\nYou stutter through a bunch of words, but you’re at a loss too.\nShe asks again, “What is this?”\n“I have no clue.”\n“I shouldn’t have come.”\n\"Me either.\"\n\"Then why did we?\"\n“Because we’re idiots.”\nShe wipes her eyes, sighs, laughs a little. Sort of looks embarrassed because maybe she’s realizing how low her guard is.\nFinally, she pulls away, sniffles, and looks up at you. “Sorry.”\n“It’s all good. If I wasn’t so fucked up right now, it might have been you catching me.”\nKelly laughs again and then takes a deep breath, wipes her eyes with the backs of her hands and settles. But a cackle in the kitchen startles her.\nSo you say, “Let’s go get drunk.”\nAnd she nods, but you know it probably won’t make a difference.\nThe bar is surrounded by familiar faces. Everyone trying their best to play their part, pretending like they aren't inhaling booze to accelerate takeoff and not have to relive something that nearly destroyed them two years ago.\nAnd they start doubling-timing their intake as soon as they see Will’s dad walking over.\nHe scans the group, nodding to people, shaking hands, but stops when he gets to you and yells, “Charlie!”\nYou reach your hand out to shake his, but he playfully smacks it away.\n“Still playing grab-ass with these bums? I thought you went to college to get away from here.”\nEveryone laughs awkwardly. It’s not only a shot at you, but them too.\n“I tried. It didn’t take.”\nHe smiles again, the same way Will smiled when you entered self-deprecation mode. Amusement shaded with disappointment. Then he turns to the bartender and asks for a tray of shots in little plastic cups.\n“They’re only here for the free booze anyway!” He booms.\nWhen everyone has a cup, Mr. McGrath aims his toward the sky and says, “To my beautiful boy, William Patrick McGrath. I know he’s here with us right now. With me. With all of you. And of course, with Kelly, the daughter-in-law I almost got.”\nKelly takes it in stride. She smiles, rubs Mr. McGrath’s arm, leans her head against his shoulder. Then takes the shot back without blinking.\nEveryone follows suit.\nThe whiskey is smooth and heavy and settles in your stomach without causing a riot, finding crooks and crevices to ignite little pockets of fire.\nFor a moment, everything feels settled. Or at least less weird. Mr. McGrath moves on and the rest of you do what you do - drink more, smoke more, wait for the chemicals to fuck and create something magical. As they do, everyone finds their rhythm.\nExcept for Kelly.\nShe laughs when it’s time to laugh and frowns when it’s time to frown, but withdraws as soon as the conversation returns to Will.\nIf you could reach into her heart and surgically remove some of the pain, you would. You’ve always been good at eating pain and keeping it down, even if rots your insides.\nBecause Kelly doesn’t deserve this. She is, was, and has always been an enigma. Short, pretty, witty, athletic, fun. No drama. No theatrics. Also, she can keep up with everyone’s burns, ready to clap back when the barrel turns her way. Because Will told Kelly everything, she plays with a loaded deck. She knows about Frank's naked night in the drunk tank at the county barracks, Matt getting gonorrhea from a massage parlor in Morris Park, Grady's weird fear of birds, Danny hound-dogging it since birth.\nAnd she knows all about you too. How you pummel yourself because sometimes it's the only way you can feel anything.\nOne time Will told you that Kelly got very melancholic whenever your name came up in conversation. She said, “Watching Charlie stumble is like watching the ocean take back a sandcastle that someone spent so much time and effort building.”\nAt the time, you shook it off. But it was a sticky memory, and even after all these years, the residue is still there.\nYou turn to check on her, but Kelly’s gone. So you wander to the front porch and find her sitting alone at a small table, smoking and staring at the sunset. You pull a chair over and grab one of her cigarettes. The menthol taste makes you gag, forcing out an elongated “blegh” which makes her laugh.\n“I still don’t understand how you smoke these.”\n“I quit for a while, then started again. But I have a good excuse, right? Regardless, I’m gonna quit for good when I turn thirty.”\n“Why not sooner?”\nHer eyes follow something you can’t see and linger. “I’m just tired of being forced to quit things.”\nThe two of you shoot the shit, keep it light. But then, because you’re smooth as sandpaper whenever an awkward silence hits, you blurt out, “You still dating that cop?”\nShe frowns and flicks your cheek. “No, I’m not dating that cop.”\n“Why not?”\nShe’s quiet for a second, then asks, “Honestly?”\n“Of course.”\nShe exhales a plume of smoke that floats like a cobweb caught in a breeze. “Because he isn’t Will.”\nWhich makes you regret asking.\nThere’s another long pause, so you scramble, flipping through a rolodex of shit to say, until Kelly blurts out, “Did you drive here?”\n“Nope. Danny did.”\nShe nods, then snubs out her cigarette and throws the pack into her purse.\n“You leaving?”\nShe exhales so hard it sounds like she’s cooling a spoonful of soup. “Want to get out of here?”\n“What?”\n“Let’s go. Somewhere else. A bar. Anywhere. I don’t care where we go, but I gotta leave. And to be honest, I don't want to go alone. When I’m at a bar alone, the vultures start circling. I don’t feel like getting hit on tonight.”\nBefore you can stop the words from tumbling out of your fat mouth, you say, “How do you know I’m not gonna hit on you?”\nA wry look. A look from someone who knows your game inside and out. “Because you’re Charlie.”\n“Damn, that's cold.”\n“Not a bad thing.”\n“Thanks?”\nShe rolls her eyes. “Are you coming or staying? Either way, I’m leaving in about ten seconds.”\nYou think about the yard, the photo, the sadness behind Mr. McGrath’s smile and say, “Fuck it, let’s go.”\n***\nThe bar is out near Croton, off a county road lined with mile-high pines that crowd the fog lines, then abruptly dip like a rollercoaster toward the river. It’s nothing like your proverbial haunts – inside it’s all clean glasses, fully stocked speed racks, polished bar top, harmonious jazz. Outside, a bluestone patio draped with string lights, café tables filled with people laughing and eating dinner.\nIf you squint hard enough, maybe you’re even further away from reality. Maybe a portal opened up and without realizing it, Kelly drove you into it. And within this new plane of existence, there’s an enchanted spell that will life the pain and anger and sadness that’s been holding you hostage for almost two years.\nBut that’s not how life works. Because as soon as you and Kelly grab stools at the bar, Kelly unloads. “I still can’t believe Will’s dead.”\nHer words are breathless, like she’s been holding them in forever.\n“I say that to myself at least once a day.”\n“It’s like this weird blockage in my brain.”\n“Same.”\nShe sighs. “It’s weird to say, but you don’t just learn to live with it. Like, what am I supposed to do about it now? Should I cry at his grave? Where a black veil around town?”\nBefore you can respond, the bartender slides over, rubbing his hands together quickly, then holds his palms up like you missed the payoff of a magic trick.\nKelly orders without asking. “Two shorties of whiskey with a Bud back.”\nHe nods and moves down the line. Kelly starts unwrapping straws. Like ten in a row. Which makes you wonder how broken she really is. You might have known Will longer, but you weren’t planning to build a life together only to lose the necessary half that makes a pair. It must be like someone who loses an arm – maybe they figure out how to manage, but that doesn’t mean it ever gets easier opening a can of soup with their toes.\n“Can I tell you something?” She asks.\n“Of course.”\nBut she pauses. Peeks over the cliff. Toes the edge. You can see her brain contemplating the leap.\n“Right after it happened,” she says slowly, deliberately, each word more delicate than the previous one. “I thought about killing myself.”\nThe confession hits you like a tsunami. Every orifice jammed with dirty foaming water full of broken bricks and splintered wood.\nKelly sees you grimace and grabs your hand. \"It was only a passing thought. But it did happen. I was sinking so fast. Everyone telling me it would be okay, Will was in a better place, all that nonsense. No one ever asked me what I thought, how I felt.”\nYou nod, at a loss. Her hand lingers. She notices, blushes, and pulls it away like you’re smoldering.\n“I just wish I had a little more time with him, that’s all.”\n“Join the club.”\nThe bartender returns with the drinks. You beat Kelly to the draw and throw cash down. She frowns, scoffs, but doesn’t argue. You both take small sips and sit in silence for a while, the sounds of the restaurant calking the gaps.\nWhen she turns back to you, somehow, she looks better, freer, like unloading the burden allowed her to come up for air.\n“I still remember the first time I met you guys.” She says, her voice back to its normal cadence. \n“Oh yeah?”\nHer eyes trail off, past the patio, to the silhouetted tree line, searching dusty boxes and bins for the memory. “The train trestle at the reservoir. You remember it?”\n“Of course. We lived there for like three summers straight.”\n“I think Frank invited me, Diana and Jackie Harris.”\nAs if spreading by osmosis, you can see what she sees. “Eighth grade, right?”\n“Eighth grade. My brother dropped us off. No idea how I convinced him to do that.”\nAnd that’s when you feel it - the pressure on the door, pushing against the jam. Turning the knob. She wants to open it. Air it out. Let the room breathe. And you're going to let her because you want to go back there right now too.\nYou smile. “I want the Kelly Rizzo POV. Paint me the picture.”\nShe closes her eyes, bites her lip, searching for the perfect palette, brushes, colors. “You guys were skinny little shits, thought you were so bad ass.”\n“We were.”\nShe laughs, but continues. “You and Frank were yelling at each other about something. Danny made a beeline for Jackie - he always had a thing for her.”\n“I'm sure Danny had a thing for you and Diana too.”\nAgain, she laughs. “Matt was dipping, tobacco juice dripping from his lips. Gross. You and Frank yelling at each other. Grady sitting on a pillar with a boombox, bobbing his head, doing Grady shit. A few other people were there too but I can’t remember who. Just a bunch of angsty boys. And that's what you guys were - little boys. But then I saw Will, off in the distance, observing like he always did. Grinning like he was hot shit. But the display worked, because I remember thinking, who is that guy? I know it’s cheesy to say, but I fell in love with him right there. Like head-over-heels.”\n“He always knew what he was doing.”\n“He sure did,” she whispers, smiling about something you’re not going to pursue because whatever it is, it’s between her and Will and locked away forever.\nBut then she grabs the shot and holds it toward yours. “But wanna know something else?”\n“What?”\nA devious grin. The rebels breaking free from prison and running amok. “You were my backup.”\nThen she winks.\nThe shot disappears and she closes her eyes and laughs so hard it makes the couple sitting next to you flinch.\nTime disappears. The restaurant empties out. It starts to feel like you’re keeping the bar open longer than it should be.\nBy osmosis, Kelly must feel the same way, because she starts collecting her stuff. “We should probably go.”\nYou nod.\nAs she stands up, there’s a different kind of pit in your stomach. The kind that metastasizes when something good is about to end.\n“Wait,” you say.\nShe turns, eyebrows raised.\nBut have nothing. So you laugh. And Kelly laughs. But something in her eyes shimmers.\nAnd before you can think of a reason to keep the night alive, she asks, “Want to go swimming?”\n“Where?”\n“You know where.”\nThere’s another look. It’s distant, but it’s there. You might not know what it means, but you decide to chase it. “Let’s do it. I’ll drive.”\nAnd then you’re gone because, why not? Life is shorter than people think. This is the time to do things like this. Dumb stuff that makes no sense when you’re old and brittle, but all the sense in the world when you’re young and untethered and fighting to keep the lights on.\nYou can’t run forever. But while you can still run – run." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Trust is a Four-Letter Word\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 1466\n\nPrompt:\n\nSet your story at a tense event where everyone is unsure whose side they’re on." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I’m still in the process of extracting all the knives in my back as I write this cautionary tale of misplaced trust and betrayal.\nAfter just completing my novel, I was cautiously optimistic when I signed up for a panel of movie producers who were looking for the next blockbuster. While waiting for the start of the event, I met Sandra Lindsky at the bar.\nShe told me she was starting a movie production company and was looking for projects about strong women in difficult situations. Excited to be face-to-face with an actual producer, I gave her one of many flash drives that held my literary baby, and hoped for the best. Two days later, Sandra called me at work, very excited about my novel. She said it was exactly what her production company was looking for and immediately offered to option it for a movie. I was thrilled! I called all my friends and family. I began rehearsing my acceptance speech and making a list of who I was going to thank at the Oscars.\nThen the phone rang.\nSandra told me she’d sent the book to some friends who thought it \"needed work\" and suggested we get together with a script doctor to fine tune the novel. We met with the \"doctor\" who told me there was too much going on in my novel and to make it a good script, I needed to focus on one theme and he'd turn it into a romantic comedy. Sandra was excited. I was excited, even the script doctor was getting chills. I went home and increased my award’s speech by two pages.\nThen the phone rang.\nSandra didn't think it was necessary for her to pay the script doctor and suggested I write the script myself since I'd already written the book. Having no clue as to how to do this, she dropped off several \"how to\" books on scriptwriting and introduced me to her new partner Dereck. He said he too had read the book and loved the new idea of the script. They decided to have a party and invite all the film people they knew to introduce their new project and have investors come who would give them the money to make the film. I called all my friends and family and began looking for a great dress to wear for the movie premier.\nThen the phone rang.\nSandra had added another partner to her production company. Eilene was an experienced screenwriter who would help me write the script in exchange for being a producer. She said she could give it depth and emotion and she'd turn it into a major hit. I phoned my friends and family and told them how great everything was going.\nThen the phone rang.\nSandra had added another partner to her production company. Carl was a lawyer who would write up the contracts in exchange for being a producer. We all met at the party. I read some of my script to the guests who applauded enthusiastically. Many wanted to hear more. There wasn't more. People from the film industry were talking about my book! I went home on a natural high. So what if the plot had changed just a little, that's the movie business. I could handle a few minor changes.\nThen the phone rang.\nSandra called for a meeting at Chris' office the next morning. We needed to sign some papers and make some minor changes in the plot. \"But don't worry,\" she said. \"It's still a great book, the script is wonderful, it's just that some fine tuning was needed.\"\nThe next day I went to the meeting and Eilene handed me a two page synopsis of her minor plot changes. Eilene had not read the book, but was convinced the story needed more emotion and suggested we give one of the characters cancer, so we could hit up a few organizations for sponsorships. I tried to tell her that no one in my book so much as caught a cold, but she assured me that movie scripts went through all kinds of changes, so I shouldn't worry. So, I didn't worry.\nShe also suggested we change the main character's background from a radio station to a winery so that we could get money from the local vineyards in the community. And we should throw in some Mafia guys to spice things up, since movies about gangsters were hot that year. That's when I started to worry. I went home and didn't talk to anyone for days.\nThen the phone rang.\nSandra was really excited. She had just got a call from Melissa whose husband Peter had been at the party and loved my original idea. He wanted to help write the script with me. I spoke to Peter and told him about the changes the Eilene had tried to make with my book. He was astounded that anyone would want to write a completely different script from what the book was about and insisted he knew exactly what should be done with my work. Sandra, Dereck and I met with him and Melissa. Peter knew how to write a screenplay. He had a video of the last movie he had written. He had an Oscar on the floor of his den!\nI picked up the statue. It was heavy. It was the real thing. And it HAD HIS NAME ON IT!. I couldn't believe it! This man who'd won an Academy Award for screenwriting wanted to help me write my script! I gave him my copy and we agreed to another meeting the following week. I went home and called my family and friends. I was going to be famous! I was going to be rich! Start packing for the Hollywood and bring your sun screen!\nThen the phone rang.\nSandra told me she was going to hire Peter to write the script. Peter hadn't read the book. Peter was going to create dialogue and emotion and create the greatest romantic comedy ever. I called Peter and asked him when Eilene and I could get together. Peter told me that Eilene was no longer working on the script. He said he liked to work alone and would call when he was finished with the first draft. Oh and by the way, he laughed when he admitted the movie he'd made never saw a theater screen and the Oscar wasn't real. It was a real statue, he said, but it was given to him by a friend. He'd never won an Academy Award, it was just there for inspiration. But I shouldn't worry. The script was my baby, he'd take good care of it. And I'd be so excited when I heard my words coming out of the mouths of actors at the script reading party at the end of the month it wouldn't matter that he was a liar and a phony. I hung up. That was the first time I'd heard of any script party. And the first time my stomach started to hurt.\nThe script was finished a week before the party. Sandra dropped it off at my work on Monday morning. By Monday afternoon my stomach ache had turned into full blown nausea. Peter had totally rewritten my story. And he registered it under his name only. He not only stole my characters, my setting, my plot and my title but he turned my story into something shy of Debby Does Dallas. He'd taken out the romance and added some kind of S&M scenes. I didn't recognize any of my characters, except by name. I was in a state of shock.\nThen the phone rang.\nSandra was thrilled. She'd gotten her script and was off to the party. I asked her if she intended to sign our updated contracts as she had promised. She told me no problem. I shouldn't worry about a thing and to just bring the contracts to the reading. So I did.\nThe theater was about half full when I arrived. Everyone was talking about the great new screenplay that Peter had written. My name had mysteriously vanished from every piece of marketing material, including the copies of the script. There was no reference to my book or credit on any of the program handouts.\nI met with Sandra before the reading began and put the papers and pen on the counter. She looked at them, then at me. Then she flatly stated \"I'm not going to sign these.\" and she left.\nI picked up the papers, the pen and walked out. A few days later, I contacted my attorney. Three days after that, I received a letter saying that the production company filed Chapter 11 and had been dissolved.\nThe phone hasn't rung since." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: State\n\nGenre: coming-of-age\n\nWord Count: 2457\n\nPrompt:\n\nMake a race an important element of your story." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "A gunshot crackles through the air. You flinch. A wisp of smoke rises across the field. A blur of bodies bursts away from the gunman. Arms and legs swing furiously. You anxiously shift your weight back and forth. Your foot begins to shake. Breathe. The mass of sprinting bodies curves and hurtles towards you. You stare at the white tape on the ground in front of you. If you start too early or too late, you’ll never recover. Wait. The screaming and yelling swells. Wait. Your hearts pounding, your fight-or-flight instincts scream for release. Wait. A foot strikes the tape. Now!\nHours earlier, you’re nauseous, face pressed against the tinted window of a cramped van as it weaves its way through Saturday morning traffic. Your stomach gurgles, anxious and excited. The stadium falls into view, its large metal bleachers jutting from the surrounding playfields. “Yo, its go time!”, your teammate chants. You sit quietly, typically subdued. Your coach, the driver, pulls into the nearly empty stadium lot and coasts to a stop near some other vans. Your teammates excitedly spill out onto the parking lot. You follow, more slowly, cautiously. You squint your eyes in the morning sun, looking over at the stadium, a bit awestruck. It’s large, for a high school stadium, the largest you’ve seen. The sight strips away the lingering queasiness. A large white banner is flanked across the back of the stadium. WIAA High School Track and Field State Championships.\nYou sling your black duffel bag over your shoulder and walk calmly behind your excitable teammates, across the cracked pavement and towards the stadium’s concrete entrance-way. Your inner voice says what you’ve avoided acknowledging until now. You made it. In a few hours, you’ll race in this stadium as a member of your school’s 4x100 meter relay team. When it’s time, the four of you will take your places around the loop of the track, each running approximately 100 meters before passing a tubular metal “baton” to each other. It’s an odd race, and these hand-offs provide some of the most exciting and heartbreaking moments on a track. Later in life, you will read something about how it all originated, in ancient Greece, as a tradition of running couriers passing off \"message sticks\". This never crosses your mind. You haven't advanced to that stage yet, questioning why some things are. You're in high school, things just happen.\nYou walk through a concrete tunnel, emerging into the interior of the stadium. Beyond a waist high chain-link fence is a green sea of synthetic turf, surrounded by the blood-orange expanse of an eight-lane track. You get a small thrill by opening the gate door with a sign reading “Athletes and authorized personnel only”. You walk onto the field and sit on the fake grass, the sun warm on your back as you slip off your tennis shoes and put on your thin, paper-light running “spikes”. You bound onto the track, feeling the springiness of the grippy rubber material under your feet. You look around at the stadium. The stands are mostly empty this early in the day, but you imagine the packed crowds coming.\nA few weeks shy of graduating, you’re the only senior on the relay team. Depending on how today’s preliminary races go, it could be your last race. In fact, it could be your last high school sporting event ever. You haven’t thought about what it would be like, yet, without school sports. It’s all you’ve known. Since kindergarten, you’ve competed in at least three sports a year, always preparing for the next sport, the next season, the next year. It has been a comfort, the regularity of the seasons, the routine of practices. That will stop today. You gaze out across the stadium, squinting your eyes in the bright sun reflecting off the bleachers. Remember. You try to breathe it all in, to create a lasting memory, to appreciate this final opportunity to perform and showcase your athletic abilities. It slips, and you start to daydream. There’s only so much reverence an 18-year-old can muster at this stage in life.\nYour coach calls the team over to the far side of the field. He gives a heartfelt speech about today, about the opportunity to showcase all your hard work. In the moment, it’s profound, but years from now, the details will be gone, and just the feeling will linger. “Alright, now, let’s warm up!” He barks, cutting through the sentimentality of the moment. The team settles into its warmup routine. Jumping Jacks, bird-dogs, cariocas, all those mysterious names for different forms of moving your body. It works, like always. You feel limber, loose, ready to run through a wall.\nMost races require some form of pacing, a delicate interplay between strategy and strain, mind, and body. But not a 100-meter sprint, the shortest track racing distance. It’s all body, all strain. Your part of the race will be done in just over 12 seconds. That’s it. In the time it takes to recite the pledge of allegiance, you’ll start and finish the pinnacle of your athletic career. And in those twelve seconds, you’ll run as fast as you can, and then some. It takes training to get there, to realize that your body can move faster than you thought possible. You ignore the pleas from your body, and then you glide, daring your feet to keep up.\nWait. There’s a lot of that in a track meet. Waiting for the meet to start. Waiting for your event to be called for staging. Waiting to line up in race positions. You spend hours each meet with your teammates just sitting and passing the time, desperately redirecting your nervous energy until your event is called. The state championships track meet is especially long, lasting all day, so you watch and wait. You watch your fellow competitors go through the balletic competitions of each unique event. Running, jumping, throwing, it’s an impressive display of all the athletic prowess of the human body. These are athletes in their youthful prime. Some of them will compete in college, a few maybe even professionally. Most, like you, will soon transition into a life without athletics. With the sun high in the afternoon sky, you get the signal. “Yo, guys, lets jog it out!” Your teammate waves the baton in the air like a maestro. Finally.\nThe four of you jog slowly across the infield, exaggerating each step like it’s a performance. “Stick!” You playfully yell. Your teammate, jogging closely in front of you, swings their arm back, palm up. You quickly slap the baton down into their hand, releasing your grip just as they curl their fingers around it. Your teammate tosses the baton. “Heads up!” The teammate in the back snatches it out of the air, and the ritual repeats. To the uninitiated, this group warmup routine might seem out of place in a sport typically associated with solo efforts. But the relay is unique, a team coordinated effort. The best individual performances mean nothing if you don't manage the delicate act of handing off the baton to each other, running at full speed. This season, your team has cruised to easy victories, and been embarrassed by botched hand-offs and last place finishes. Despite it all, you’re here, together, for the first time, and for the last.\nThe announcer instructs the relay teams to gather at the finish line for staging. This is it. You make a last conscious effort to absorb the scene. It’s only the state championships, but for you, they may as well be the Olympics. The 5,000 people in the stands is greater than the population of your entire hometown. What do I feel? Numerous sports movies and reminiscent adults have drilled into you the importance of reverence and appreciation for what you’re about to do. But you don’t have hindsight, you haven’t lived a life beyond it yet. You can’t know how it will play in your mind forever.\n“Runners, to your positions!” The group breaks, and you jog alone towards the opposite corner of the track. You reach your spot, stopping to peel off your warmup clothes. The slight breeze slips around your smooth, newly shaved legs. You feel the stares of the other runners, even if only imagined. You're not supposed to be here. You're not a sprinter. Yet here you are. All throughout high school, you were predominantly a thrower. The shot put, discuss, heavy metal objects that you toss as far as you can. Your body matches those events better. Here, in sprinting events, shorter and leaner tend to dominate. I’ll show you what I can do. Your body has been shaped to the task. You’re a lean 175lbs, down from your bulky peak of 205lbs during football season. The caloric demands of the workouts took care of that on its own. You walk over to your assigned lane, half bounding and half jogging, desperate to shake off the pre-race jitters. You pull a roll of tape out of your pocket and carefully pace off the marking distance. 1, 2, 3… It took a full season of practicing to get this exact distance right. 20 steps. The distance it takes for you to get up to nearly full speed just before your teammate runs into you. You tear off a strip of the white athletic tape and carefully press it into the softly jagged texture of the track. “Runners, take your positions!” You jog on your way back to the starting spot. You take one last look at the nervous faces of your competitors. Breath. You take a deep, shuddering breath. Okay.\nPop! The starter gun goes off, shattering the dreadful silence. You listen for a second pop, signaling a heartbreaking end for one of the teams. Instead, it’s a clean start. The runners scream around the first corner of the track. The crowd roars to life. The first group of runner’s mesh into the second, a momentary chaos, and then the second group emerges. The first hand-off. The crowd noise escalates and slips into the background. You spot your teammate in the fury of flailing limbs. He’s in the middle of the pack. Uh-oh. You’ll have no room for error, needing to keep the pace to secure a decent finish. Wait. You wipe your sweaty hands on your mesh shorts. The group of runners’ flies toward you. Wait. You lock eyes with your teammate. His stare is focused, ferocious. You shift your weight nervously. Wait. You watch their feet, pattering furiously down the track. Wait. Smack! The foot strikes the tape.\nGo. You pivot, digging your left foot into the track. Your body twists, left arm flying back, then flying forward as you thrust your right leg ahead. Muscles contract, ligaments stretch, blood courses. Drive. You lean forward, so far that only your legs can catch you from falling. There’s a pattering of steps and explosion of breaths behind you. Your teammate is gaining on you. Wait. You strain to hear their voice among the shouting of the chaos. Did he say it? “Stick!” your teammate yells, voice cracking. You fling your arm back. Please be there. Smack! The baton slaps perfectly in the middle of your hand. You curl your fingers to grip it tight. You’ve got it, well before the end of the zone, a clean hand-off.\nRun.\nThe world blurs.\nTap, breath, tap, breath.\nTwo white lines, curving on blood orange.\nTap, breath, tap, breath.\nLegs, solid, flying.\nTap, breath, tap, breath.\nArms, pull, pump, pull, pump.\nTap, breath, tap, breath.\nWake up.\nThe world crashes back into focus. The last runners appear in the clearing fog. Your body screams for surrender. Focus. Your effort will be for nothing if you don’t complete the hand-off. Your teammate stares at you, wide eyed, waiting for you to cross his mark. Now. He turns, runs, you push to keep your pace, you’re almost on him. \"Stick!\" you scream, between gasps. His arm flings back. You lean forward, keeping your balance as you try to maintain speed. You slam the baton into his hand. In an instant, his hand closes around it as you release yours. Clean. The last runners accelerate, and the crowd roars back to life. Careful. You can’t lose focus, not now. You must slow down within the hand-off zone, taking care not to step into another lane and get disqualified. Your exhausted, adrenaline battling fatigue. You concentrate on your legs, pulling them under you, trying to stop without collapsing.\nYou gasp for air as you watch your teammate fly down the track. The crowd roars back into your reality. The runners burst across the finish line, but you can’t tell your teammates position from your vantage point. You jog slowly over to the finish line. You find your teammates and gather, arms draped over one another, gasping, and smiling. You look up at the screen to see the results. Fourth place. The top eight teams make the finals. You’ll have to wait until the other races finish to know your fate. You look at your teammates. You don’t say it, but you’re proud of them, of what you’ve just done. Perfect.\nYou watch the other preliminaries. You subdue your optimism. When the final results flash onto the screen, you’re ready. You look. It’s over.\nYour team misses the finals by one spot. The team will be better the next year, after you've graduated. They will make the finals and place in the top three, breaking the school record time in the process. You’re proud of them. You’ve had a year to adjust, to normalize into a life without school sports. You can hear the news of their success without bitterness. You never really belonged there, anyways.\nYou will never touch a baton again, never wear the spikes, the uniform, never feel that sensation of pushing your body to that extreme. Days after the race, you saw the footage shot on your parents bulky 80s camcorder. It all looked so ordinary. The lead up, the start, the hand-offs, the finish. In the footage, you see the effort on your face, but it doesn’t reflect what you felt. The memory creeps back, sometimes. The moments are sensationalized and altered from years of retrieval and re-writing. The closest you come to fully re-living it is when you go for a nighttime jog. Alone, in the dark, with only your breath and fatigue as company. Sometimes you’ll push yourself, when your breathing is labored, your legs tired, trying to recapture that feeling. It will always be there, in some form. But at 35, you've lived almost a full other life since that race. Was it real?" } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Scarecrows\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 1065\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone who is convinced they’re going to be betrayed." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Trigger Warning: Mental health and violence.\n\nI knew someone would call them eventually.\n\nWho called them?\n\nEveryone is suspect.\n\nThey are making their way through the trees now. Black suits, black shoes, black ties over white shirts, burlap head coverings with painted on smiles, pitchforks in their hands. The Scarecrows. Dark web assassins for hire.\n\nThree are now standing in the back yard. Three more stand in the street. They’re taunting me, tormenting me.\n\nWaiting. It’s like ants marching up your spinal cord to pick away at your brain. The grinding of your teeth, the twitching in your eye, the trembling of your hands, the sweating, the ache in your shoulders, the stiffness of your neck, the pounding in your head, the racing of your heart, and your sporadic movements are all telltale signs of the anxiety it induces. Lights are brighter, sounds are louder, smells are intrusive; you feel disassociated from your body. The room becomes elongated. Stretched like taffy. It rocks. It spins. Every blink of an eye flashes and hisses like someone is changing channels on an old analog TV in your mind.\n\nMaggie’s huddled in the living room floor with the girls. All of them are crying.\n\n“Get upstairs! Lock yourselves in the bathroom. Don’t open that door for anyone but me,” I tell them, fear and trepidation in my voice.\n\nI double check all the locks and dowse the lights.\n\nI sit under the living room window with my shotgun pressed to my chest. I take a few rapid breaths to call upon some courage and raise my head to peek out.\n\nOne is in the window staring down at me.\n\nI fire at him and blow out the window.\n\nHe’s gone.\n\nThe doorbell rings.\n\nI cautiously unlock the door. I wait to see if he barges in.\n\nHe doesn’t, so I fling open the door, ready to shoot.\n\nAll three are standing in the street. One cocks his head at me.\n\nI hear banging on the back door like someone’s trying to force it open.\n\nI race to the door and sit on the floor, digging my heels in.\n\n“Go away. We didn’t do anything.”\n\nThe banging stops.\n\nI go back to the front of the house. One is in. One is coming in. One is just on the outside.\n\nI shoot the one that is inside, knocking him back a good five feet. I pump my shot gun and fire at the one coming in, but I miss.\n\nHe disappears with the one standing just outside.\n\nI hear a thud out in back.\n\nI go to the master bedroom and look out.\n\nThey found my ladder.\n\nI run upstairs to Kennedy’s room and pop open the window.\n\nI shoot the one coming up the ladder then shut the window, locking it.\n\nI go into Sadie’s room and make sure her window is locked too.\n\nI knock on the bathroom door. “You girls alright in there?”\n\n“Jesus, Noah, we’re fine. What the hell is going on out there,” Maggie asks.\n\n“They’re trying to break in. I’m holding them off. Do you have your phone?”\n\n“No, it’s on the table downstairs.”\n\n“I’m going to go get it. Do not open this door unless it is me.”\n\nI make my way down the stairs as one is making its way up. I shoot him and knock him back down to the landing.\n\nI go into the living room to retrieve my wife’s phone and the first one I shot is gone.\n\nI look over my shoulder. The one I just shot is still lying there.\n\nI grab the phone and run upstairs.\n\nOne has come through the upstairs window and is trying to get into the bathroom.\n\nI shoot him, and I hear Maggie and the girls yelp.\n\nI go to Kennedy’s room and the window is open. Two of them are still in the back yard looking up at me.\n\nOne waves.\n\nI knock on the bathroom door and the girls scream again. “It’s me. Hurry up and open the door.”\n\nMaggie cracks the door. She’s frightened.\n\n“Here,” I say, “call 911.”\n\nI get to the stairs and notice that there is no body at the bottom.\n\nBulletproof vests. Great.\n\nI run down the stairs, and one comes out of the dining room and tackles me.\n\nWe wrestle and I come out on top.\n\nI continuously punch him in the face until the handle of a pitchfork catches me between the eyes.\n\nHe comes at me with his pitchfork ready to run me through.\n\nI found my shotgun next to me and sent him flying.\n\nOne comes down the stairs.\n\nOne comes out of the dining room.\n\nOne is coming in through the window with another behind him.\n\nThe two I just knocked out get up.\n\nI reach into my pocket and pull out my last two shells, load my gun, and give it a pump.\n\nI shoot the closest one. Then the one behind him. I grab my shotgun by the business end and start swinging it like a baseball bat.\n\nThere are too many of them. They overtake me, ripping the gun from my hand, beating me to the floor.\n\nI come too on the couch with a cold compress on my head. A man is sitting in a chair directly across from me with two officers behind him. The room is filled with flashing red and blue lights. Maggie and the girls are sitting together on the stairs. It takes me a moment, but I recognize the man in the chair and try to sit up.\n\n“Easy, Noah, you took a nasty spill,” the man says.\n\n“Dr. Hoover, what are you doing here?”\n\n“Your wife called me. You were having another episode. You’re schizoaffective, Noah, you cannot deviate from your treatment,” Dr. Hoover says.\n\n“It’s not entirely his fault, doctor, we can’t afford the medication,” Maggie tells him.\n\n“Well, for tonight, these officers are going to escort you to the hospital where you will be admitted, and your treatment will continue. Once we deem that you are no longer a risk to yourself or others, we’ll get you back home,” Dr. Hoover tells Noah. Turning to Maggie he says, “I suggest you find a way to get the medication he needs to get this under control. He didn’t hurt anybody this time, but next time, who knows.”" } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: A Delicate Balance\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 2984\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone who is stuck between two opposing sides and can’t decide which one to choose." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "In the softly lit room that served as Dr. Leslie Harper's office, a space adorned with calming artwork and shelves filled with psychology texts, the first meeting was about to commence. Dr. Harper observed the young girl across from her. Emma, a sixteen-year-old child, with her carefully poised demeanor that seemed almost out of place in the youthful casualness of her jeans and sweater.\n\"Emma,\" Dr. Harper began, her voice imbued with the warmth that had comforted countless others before, \"I understand this is a challenging time for you. Would you like to start by telling me a bit about yourself?\"\nEmma nodded, taking a moment to compose her thoughts. \"Certainly, Dr. Harper,\" she replied, her voice betraying a maturity that seemed beyond her years. \"As you might already know, my parents have recently finalized their divorce. It's been... tumultuous, to say the least. They're both demanding I choose whom to live with.\"\nShe paused, dropping her gaze. \"My father is of relentless ambition and corporate success in the city. He's always lost in a sea of business deals and endless networking.\"\n\"My mother, on the other hand,” she continued, “has embraced nature, dedicating herself to environmental causes. She’s now all grassroots campaigns and community gardening.\"\n\"It sounds like you're being pulled in two very different directions,\" she observed gently.\n\"Exactly,” Emma nodded. “And in the middle of their disputes, I'm left searching for a place where I feel I belong.\"\nThe session unfolded with Emma expressing the complexities of her situation, her words painting a picture of a young life caught in the crossfire of adult conflicts. Dr. Harper recognized the facade of composure.\nAs the hour drew to a close, Dr. Harper made a mental note of the key aspects she intended to explore in their future sessions: the impact of her parents' divorce on Emma's sense of self, her coping mechanisms amidst the familial upheaval, and her profound longing for stability in the whirlwind of her divided world.\n\"Emma,\" Dr. Harper concluded, \"you've shown incredible insight today. I look forward to our next session, where we can delve deeper into understanding your experiences and how they've shaped you.\"\n\"Thank you, Dr. Harper.” Emma rose. “I appreciate your willingness to listen.\"\n\"Emma, how have you been since our last meeting?\" Dr. Harper asked as Emma sat in the chair across from her.\nEmma leaned back, her posture relaxed yet poised. \"I've been managing, Dr. Harper. It's an ongoing balancing act, as you know. But our last session gave me a lot to think about.\"\nDr. Harper nodded. \"I'm glad to hear that. Is there anything specific from our last conversation that's been on your mind?\"\n\"Well,\" Emma began, a thoughtful frown crossing her features, \" Just last weekend, I was with my dad. We were supposed to have a quiet dinner, but he ended up taking a business call, as usual. I guess it's his way of showing he cares, being there even if he's not fully present.\"\nDr. Harper made a mental note of the slight shift in Emma's portrayal of her father's behavior. \"It sounds like you're trying to find understanding in his actions. That's a mature perspective, Emma.\"\nEmma smiled faintly. \"I'm trying to. And with my mom, she's been planning this big community garden project. She's so passionate about it, and I admire that, even if it means she's a bit... scattered at times.\"\n\"Scattered?\" Dr. Harper inquired, picking up on the subtle choice of words.\n\"Yes, like forgetting I had a school project due and promising to help but then getting caught up in her work.\"\n\"It's not easy feeling like you're on the back burner. Last time, though, you mentioned your mom was more involved in her activism than household matters. It seems like a slight shift in perspective?\"\nEmma paused, \"I suppose I'm just seeing things in a new light, trying to understand her better.\"\nAs the session progressed, Dr. Harper observed Emma's adeptness at navigating the conversation, her maturity in addressing her complex family life, and the occasional slip in her narrative consistency. These subtle discrepancies were easily attributed to the stress of her situation, yet they left Dr. Harper with a niggling sense of curiosity about the layers yet to be uncovered in Emma's story.\nAs their time together neared its end, Dr. Harper leaned forward, offering Emma a reassuring smile. \"Emma, you've shared a lot today, and it's clear you're making a concerted effort to understand and empathize with your parents' situations. That's commendable.\" She paused, ensuring she had Emma's full attention. \"For our next session, I'd like you to think about what stability means to you in the midst of these conflicting environments.” Emma nodded, a thoughtful expression settling over her features as she absorbed Dr. Harper's words.\nIn the comfort of Dr. Harper's office once again, Emma took her usual seat. Dr. Harper initiated the session with a gentle prompt, \"Last time, Emma, we spoke about finding stability. Have you given any thought to what brings you that sense of grounding?\"\nEmma nodded, her expression contemplative. \"I have, Dr. Harper. It made me reflect on how my parents try to... compensate for the chaos, I guess. But it often feels more material than emotional.\"\nDr. Harper leaned in. \"Can you give me some examples of what you mean by material compensation?\"\n\"Well,\" Emma began, her voice tinged with a hint of frustration, \"my father often tries to make up for his absence with gifts. Like, he missed my birthday last year and sent me this expensive laptop as a sort of apology. It's nice, but it doesn't replace the time we could've spent together.\"\n\"And your mother?\" Dr. Harper probed gently.\nEmma sighed, weariness in her voice. \"My mom’s always making these grand plans for us. Last summer, she promised a trip to the mountains, something I was looking forward to. But as the date approached, she got caught up in a new project. The trip just... evaporated.\"\nDr. Harper observed Emma's disappointment, noting the deeper longing for genuine connection beneath her words. \"It sounds like these gestures, while well-intentioned, don't quite meet your need for a real presence and engagement in your life.\"\n\"Exactly,\" Emma confirmed. \"It's like they're trying to fill the gaps with things and promises instead of time and understanding.\"\nDr. Harper nodded, her mind already formulating the next step in their dialogue. \"Emma, it's clear you're seeking more meaningful connections with your parents. You're even trying to mediate between their worlds, making sacrifices in hopes of peace. That's a significant role you've taken on.\"\nEmma's posture softened, the acknowledgment of her efforts bringing a flicker of validation to her eyes.\n\"As we move forward,\" Dr. Harper continued, \"I'd like us to explore how you can communicate your need for more than just material compensation from your parents. We'll also look into ways you can maintain your sense of self without feeling the need to constantly bridge their differences.\"\nEmma nodded, the prospect of addressing these issues directly seemed to offer a glimmer of hope amidst the complexity of her family dynamics.\nIn Dr. Harper's office, Emma sat with a noticeable heaviness, a stark contrast to her usual composed demeanor. Dr. Harper, sensing the shift, gently steered the conversation toward the emotional landscape of Emma's family life.\n\"Emma, we've touched on material compensation before. Today, let's talk about emotional support. How have your parents been in that regard?\" Dr. Harper's voice was soft.\nEmma drew a deep breath, her fingers intertwined tightly in her lap. \"It's been... difficult, to say the least. It feels like there's no space for my feelings in the conversations. It's always about them, their issues, their divorce.\"\nDr. Harper leaned forward, encouraging Emma to provide specific instances.\n\"For example,\" Emma continued, \"I tried talking to my dad about how the divorce was affecting me, hoping for some reassurance. But it quickly turned into a rant about Mom, how it was her choices that led us here. There was no room for my feelings; it was just another battlefield for their grievances.\"\n\"And your mother?\" Dr. Harper inquired, her concern deepening.\nEmma's expression darkened further. \"With mom, it's similar. I once mentioned how the constant moving between homes was unsettling, hoping she'd understand. Instead, she used it to criticize my dad's lifestyle, saying how it lacked stability and how I was better off with her. Again, my feelings were just... sidelined, used as ammunition in their ongoing disputes.\"\nDr. Harper noted the pain in Emma's recounting, the emotional toll evident in her furrowed brow and the tremble in her voice. \"It sounds like you're often caught in the crossfire, Emma. Your attempts to seek support turn into opportunities for them to express their frustrations with each other.\"\nEmma nodded, tears brimming in her eyes. \"It's exhausting. I feel like I'm more of a mediator than their daughter. It's like I have to armor up emotionally every time we talk.\"\nDr. Harper reached a quiet but firm conclusion. The lack of emotional support and the continuous use of Emma as a pawn in her parents' battles were not just distressing but potentially damaging. It was becoming increasingly clear that the environment was untenable for Emma's well-being and growth. While the word 'emancipation' hung unspoken in the air, the direction of their sessions seemed to be gravitating towards a significant, life-altering decision, one that Dr. Harper, as a court-appointed therapist, recognized might soon need to be addressed more concretely.\nAs Emma entered Dr. Harper's office for what would be their final session before the trial, the weight of their previous discussions hung heavily in the air.\n\"Emma, this is our last session before the trial,\" Dr. Harper began, her voice laced with an unspoken understanding of the gravity of their conversation. \"I want to ensure we've covered everything crucial to your case.\"\n\"Things have only gotten worse, Dr. Harper,\" she confessed. \"My parents... it's like they're completely oblivious to how their actions are tearing me apart.\"\nDr. Harper leaned in. \"Can you give me some examples, Emma?\"\nEmma took a deep, shaky breath. \"Just last week, my father missed another one of my school events. He promised he'd be there, but then he posted on social media from some gala event for work. It was like a public declaration that his work will always come first.\"\nDr. Harper's brow furrowed as she recalled the social media posts Emma's lawyer had forwarded. The evidence aligned disturbingly well with Emma's account.\n\"And your mother?\"\nEmma's hands clenched in her lap. \"She's no better. She was supposed to help me with a project, something we planned for weeks. Then she decided to go on a retreat for her environmental group. No discussion, no apology. She just left.\"\nDr. Harper's heart sank as she processed Emma's words, the supporting emails from Emma's mother regarding her schedules serving as a painful corroboration of her neglect.\nThroughout the session, Emma painted a harrowing picture of her life—a constant shuffle between two homes that felt increasingly like battlegrounds. Dr. Harper observed Emma's distress, her anxiety when speaking of her parents, and her growing sense of hopelessness, all of which reinforced the narrative of a young life in turmoil.\nDr. Harper was struck by a profound conviction. The evidence, both in Emma's accounts and the materials provided, painted a clear picture of a young woman desperately in need of an escape from the toxic environment her parents had created.\n\"Emma,\" Dr. Harper said, “I want you to know that I've seen the evidence, I've heard your experiences, and it's clear to me how much you're hurting. You deserve a chance to build a life where your well-being is the priority.\"\nEmma's eyes, brimming with tears, met Dr. Harper's, finding a glimmer of hope in the unwavering support reflected there.\nAs Emma left the office, Dr. Harper sat back, the weight of the decision before her pressing down. In her mind, there was no doubt left—Emma's emancipation was not just a legal necessity but a moral imperative. And as the trial loomed, Dr. Harper was prepared to advocate for Emma's future with every ounce of her professional integrity, convinced that independence was Emma's best, and perhaps only, path to healing.\nThe courtroom was a stark contrast to the cozy confines of her office, with its austere benches and the imposing judge's bench at the front. As her name was called, Dr. Harper approached the stand, her heart pounding with a mixture of nerves and resolve. She glanced at Emma, who sat with an air of quiet anticipation, and then she turned to face the judge.\n\"Dr. Harper, you may begin,\" the judge announced, his voice echoing in the high-ceilinged room.\nTaking a deep breath, Dr. Harper started, \"Your Honor, I've had the privilege of working closely with Emma over the past few months, and I'm here to advocate for emancipation. Emma is a young lady whose maturity and resilience I've had the privilege to witness firsthand over our sessions.\"\n“It is your conclusion, that instead of residing with either parent,” the judge tilted his head to look at Dr. Harper over his reading glasses, “that the minor should be granted emancipation instead?”\n“I do, your honor.”\nThe judge nodded, indicating for her to continue.\n\"Emma has navigated an exceptionally challenging family dynamic with a level of grace and wisdom well beyond her years. The constant tug-of-war between her parents' contrasting lifestyles and values has placed her in an untenable position, one that has forced her to assume roles no child should have to.\n\"Despite these challenges, Emma has maintained not only her academic commitments but has also demonstrated a profound capacity for self-reflection and personal growth. It is my professional opinion that the toxic environment in which she currently resides is significantly impeding her potential.”\nA murmur ran through the courtroom as Dr. Harper continued, detailing specific instances of Emma's mature handling of her situations, her attempts to mediate between her parents, and her articulate expression of her circumstances and desires for her future.”\nDr. Harper pressed on, \"Furthermore, the evidence I've reviewed, including social media posts and email correspondences, corroborates Emma's account of the neglect and emotional turmoil she has endured. This isn't merely a case of teenage discontent but a genuine need for a structured environment where Emma can thrive independently.\nDr. Harper paused, \"Your Honor, emancipation, in this case, is not just a legal formality. It's a vital step towards ensuring Emma's well-being and future success. I strongly believe it is in her best interest.\"\nThe judge, visibly moved by Dr. Harper's passionate testimony, leaned forward. \"Dr. Harper, in your professional opinion, is Emma prepared for the responsibilities that come with emancipation?\"\nWithout hesitation, Dr. Harper responded, \"Absolutely, Your Honor. Emma has consistently demonstrated the emotional intelligence, maturity, and foresight necessary to navigate life independently.\"\nAs she concluded, a palpable sense of anticipation filled the air. Dr. Harper could feel the weight of her words hanging in the balance, their potential to alter the course of Emma's life.\nThe judge nodded thoughtfully, his expression inscrutable as he prepared to make a decision that seemed, to Dr. Harper, the only just conclusion to Emma's profound journey toward autonomy.\nDr. Harper stepped out of the courtroom, her heart light with triumph. The judge had ruled in Emma's favor, a testament to the compelling case they had built together. She couldn't help but feel a swell of professional pride; her advocacy had played a pivotal role in securing Emma's future.\nAs she made her way down the hallway, basking in the afterglow of the victory, she heard her name called from behind. Turning, she saw Emma hurrying towards her, a smile playing on her lips.\n\"Dr. Harper!\" Emma exclaimed, catching up. \"I wanted to thank you personally. Your testimony was... transformative.\"\nDr. Harper beamed, ready to share in the moment. \"Emma, I'm so pleased for you. This is the start of a new chapter, one where you have the control you deserve.\"\nEmma's smile widened, but there was something in her eyes that didn't quite reach the warmth of her expression. \"Control, yes,\" she mused, her tone shifting subtly. \"You know, Dr. Harper, it's fascinating what people will believe when you tell them what they want to hear.\"\nA chill ran down Dr. Harper's spine, her smile faltering. \"What do you mean, Emma?\"\nWith a casual shrug, Emma's facade began to crumble, revealing a coldness that Dr. Harper had never seen. \"I mean, the stories, the emotional turmoil, the so-called 'evidence',” her eyes rolled, “crafting it all was almost too easy. People are so eager to believe in the narrative of a troubled youth triumphing over adversity.\"\nDr. Harper's mind raced. Her previous elation was replaced by a growing sense of dread. \"Emma, are you saying you manipulated the evidence? That your stories...\"\n\"Were tailored to fit the narrative? Absolutely,\" Emma interrupted, her voice devoid of remorse. \"And you, with your earnest desire to help, made the perfect advocate.\"\nThe words hit Dr. Harper like a physical blow, her professional confidence shattering. She thought back to the subtle discrepancies in Emma's stories, the moments of hesitation, the too-perfect alignment of the 'evidence'—all the pieces fell into place, painting a picture she had refused to see.\n\"But why, Emma?\" Dr. Harper managed in barely a whisper.\nEmma's smirk was chilling. \"Why? Because I could. Because it got me what I wanted. Isn't that what matters in the end?\"\nBefore Dr. Harper could respond, Emma turned on her heel and walked away, leaving the therapist to grapple with the harsh revelation. The triumphant victory in the courtroom now felt hollow, tainted by the realization that she had been instrumental in the manipulation of justice at the hands of someone she had genuinely sought to help." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Cold Pizza\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 1502\n\nPrompt:\n\nBegin your story with the sensation of a breeze brushing against a character's skin." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The wind whispers ripples on the skin of an otherwise placid body of water; it sows goosebumps on mine and my lover's. My hairs dance in concert, her melanin's shade deepens. The sky bleeds, crimson melts on the treetops and flows into the dam. Monkeys chirp, birds flap their eager wings as they soar towards the wound of the horizon. Twigs snap and plummet into the shallower peripheral parts of the water. Where they collide with the various sized ripples, the offspring of the haphazard and intensifying breeze, and are washed back on land. The canoe rocks with each row, the oars squeal as wood grinds against its kin and kith.\nShe closes her eyes to let her nostrils take in a good gulp of the pre-evening scents. For the umpteenth. That of fresh water, the grasses and duckweed. In collaboration with the hint of perfume manufactured by a leftover mixture of dung excreted by donkeys and cows when they drink here on occasional afternoons. And whatever else scent the wind selects to accompany from places miles away to the runny nose of my beloved. As if on cue, she pulls the mucus up her nose and spits it out of her mouth. It lands on a flower of frogbit. The bees will enjoy that particular petal's nectar if you ask me. Definition of lust. After her umpteeth-plus-one breath she opens her eyes. They throw darts into my soul.\nI blush.\nShe giggles. \"Why are you staring at me like that?\"\n\"Nothing.\"\nI keep rowing. Twenty to thirty more of these and we will be on the shore. Where we will help each other negotiate the slippery bank. Clap hands for ourselves after accomplishing the small feat. Jump over knotted grass, thorny bush and muddy puddle before we throw our tired bodies into the tiny car and drive away. Drive and laugh and listen to our jams until just before the car arrives at the major junction leading from the highway to our small town. There she will disembark and we will go our separate ways like we don't know each other. We have done this enough times to no longer plan for contingencies. What we plan for is the next time we meet, to again indulge our forbidden passions.\n\"I still look pretty even after the unload?\" she says. She pulls her skirt to reveal just a glimpse of her holy grail.\n\"Your kind of pretty isn't subjective.\"\n\"Your brand of flirting pulls me here all the time.\"\nShe looks away. She knows what's coming.\n\"If only we lived together __.\"\n\"Trust me, we'd soon get fed up with each other.\"\n\"Trust you, huh?\"\n\"I'm the married one here. So, yeah, trust moi.\"\n\nThe trees are more than dancing when we reach the shore. Their silhouette counterparts on the other side wave like electrocuted apparitions. The early-bird stars and a slice of moon are already glistening, tiny beads surrounded by the color of an oozing injury. We plod in the mud and grass until we arrive on dry and bare ground. The tiny vehicle is now in sight. We hold hands as the wind throws at our faces the scent and sting of dust.\n\"It was amazing,\" she says.\n\"Yet I'm the alleged flatterer.\"\n\nIt is a dark green little sedan. Bought a few months ago by Her Highness. As a birthday gift, ostensibly. But her own mouth said the little thing wasn't as thirsty as the rest on show on that specific day; even my meager college stipend would be enough to fuel its little engine. I protested that dark green was far from my favorite color.\n\"Well, if you still wanna go with me to your stinky little cabin, what we need on a car is camouflage. Orange would stick out of those bushes like a sore thumb. And guess what?\"\n\"You wouldn't come?\"\n\"And neither would you in that case.\"\nSold.\nThe car has served its purpose and beyond. On days when I don't want to row, or she doesn't want to wait, or when it rains so much we are sure the makeshift roof of the abandoned cabin will leak, if not cave in altogether, the springs of the little car have prayed for better days when bouncing in potholes is all they have to contend with.\n\n\"Shit.\"\n\"What?\"\nShe doesn't need to say. She doesn't need to point either. We both stare at the phenomenon that drew the cuss out of her. The little car is still dark green. Its windows are still tinted and intact. It's still in the same position as we left it, under the umbrella of some leaf-generous tree. What it isn't is able to take us anywhere. Not today. Not right now. Its tires are missing, they have been replaced by four boulders which gives the chassis the requisite clearance from the ground.\nShe hugs her chest. Starts to pant out loud. I instinctively pull the gentleman card from under one of my sleeves. But she shrugs my empathetic advance off. Now she grabs her abdomen.\n\"This is the definition of screwed,\" she says.\n\"We don't know that yet.\"\nI dash towards the car. Everything else is still in place. The keys. My books. My laptop. My goddam iPhone.\nShe opens a backseat door. Her stilettos are both on their sides, under the seat where she kicked them off her legs in haste. So is her blazer. Her wig. Her glasses. Her bra and panties for a bloody ton of good measure. It doesn't look like a robbery by any reasonable stretch of the imagination. You know its terrible when you wish it was one.\n\n\"I'm screwed,\" she says as she settles heavily on a tiny fraction of the leather that consists of the backseat. My face is buried in my hands. My head as empty as my scrotum was half an hour ago. But whereas the latter was a cause for celebration, the former is the extreme opposite. Particularly when I blurt out, rather absentmindedly: \"What do we do now?\"\nKill me is what she really wishes she could do. And if she wasn't unsure there might be witnesses lurking in these shadows somewhere, perhaps she might have. Justifiably so for her behind, and I'm saying this as the would-be victim.\n\"We?\" she says. \"We?\"\n\"We're in this together, aren't we?\"\nShe struggles to rise up from the confines of the now little liability, hitting her head on the roof of the car and almost toppling over in the subsequent attempt to get over and done with the process of escaping my presence a little quicker. When she eventually succeeds I'm on my feet too, and we are cutting each other's gazes to pieces over the roof of the car. The shadows around us are unifying to become one. The scab of night bandaging the wound in the horizon. The wound in my heart is not quite as lucky. It is alive. It is fresh. It is raw. It causes me to gulp. It causes my eyes to water. Add the sting of the now icy wind and you have tears flowing from my eyes onto my cheeks. They don't abet. They can't. I let them flow.\nShe looks away. She thinks I'm useless.\n\nWe've got each other, I want to say. We can go back to the little cabin if she wants. We left a pizza untouched there. All ten slices of it. Nine and a half to be exact. I chewed half a slice when she went out to pee. It's gonna be cold of cause, blame the wind, but it's still gonna be edible. We can watch Netflix on her phone. Or mine. We can cuddle. We can then plan our next move. Like if she's gonna leave her husband and elope with me. After all, it's surely him who did this. From pushing her away with his nonchalance, to finding out what she's been up to and possibly who she's been up to it with.\nShe walks a little distance away before she stops. She turns back to face me, her lower lip bitten with such duress I'm sure it will start bleeding soon. She faces her stooge of a lover. Still blank. Still clueless. Still crying.\nShe makes an advance. So does he. Makes another one. Mine is now emboldened. We meet halfway and hug. We cry. We soft kiss. Then we French kiss. And French kiss some more. When we untangle its because she wants to receive a call from her husband. Or former husband depending on the outcome of the call.\nThat's cool because I want to make a phone call too. To ask my best friend if he's the one who did this just as we planned, or if its indeed a hand outside our control. Like that of coincidence or her hubby.\nEither way, from the way her call is going so far, I think tonight we're eating that cold pizza." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Echoes of Analog Dreams: Unearthing Nostalgia in the Digital Attic\n\nGenre: coming-of-age\n\nWord Count: 1304\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with a character finding a retro piece of tech they don’t recognize." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "As the rain kept falling on the library windows, Alex stayed in the library and looked at the old things that E. M. had left behind. The librarian touched an old camera that used film, something that people used a long time ago to take pictures. They had to wait for the film to be ready before they could see the pictures, and that made them more excited. Alex held the camera and looked at the old pictures that were in the box. The pictures showed happy people, school events, and summer nights with bright bugs.\nAlex understood something: the old things in the box were not just things that people did not use anymore. They were also a way of showing the things that people did and felt together, no matter how old they were. Each thing, from the video game to the camera, had a story to tell about happiness, sadness, and how things changed over time. It was like a book that told the history of Crestwood, the town where the library was.\nAlex found another thing in the box: a bunch of letters that people had written by hand. The letters were very old and the paper was not white anymore. They showed how people from Crestwood talked to each other, and how they cared about each other. They also showed how life was in the town, with good and bad things happening. Alex read the letters and felt closer to the people who wrote them, even though they lived a long time ago. It was like the library became a bridge between the past and the present.\nAlex found one letter that was very interesting. It talked about a secret place in Crestwood, a place where people from the town used to go and tell each other their secrets, their hopes, and how they felt about the different times of the year. The letter also said that there was something hidden there, something that people had put in the ground a long time ago. It was a box with more old things inside, and it was waiting for someone who wanted to find it.\nAlex wanted to find it very much, so Alex decided to go to the secret place. Alex followed the hints that were in the letters. The rain was still falling, but Alex did not mind. The streets of the town were like a big memory, with sounds of people having fun, glasses making noise in a café that was not there anymore, and music from a time that was gone. The town was like a friend, telling Alex stories about the past.\nAlex walked through many small streets that were made of stones. The streets were like a maze, and Alex had to follow the hints from the letters to find the way. Alex finally found the secret place that the letters talked about. It was under a big old tree that had big roots. Under the roots, there was a box made of wood that looked very old. Alex wanted to see what was inside the box, and felt very happy, like a kid who was opening a present on a special day.\nAlex opened the box and saw what was inside. There were many old things from different times, and they looked like they were taken care of very well. Someone wanted the people who came after them to see these things. One of the things was a book that had many pages. The book had writing on it, and it said what the people from Crestwood wanted and wished for. The book showed how the people from the town felt and thought. Inside the book, there were also some things that looked like music tapes. They had voices on them, and they said more things about the people and the town. The people from Crestwood liked to tell stories, and they did that for a long time.\nOne of the old things in the box was a pair of shoes with wheels on them. People used to wear them and roll on the streets, and they had a lot of fun. Alex remembered seeing pictures of kids doing that, and how they looked happy. Alex wanted to try it too, so Alex put on the shoes with wheels and rolled around the town. The wind made noises that sounded like stories from the past.\nAlex rolled until Alex found a place that had many games inside. The place had lights that were bright and colorful, but they did not work very well. The games were old and had pictures that looked simple and not real. People used to play these games and feel good when they won. In the middle of the place, there was a big game that had a metal ball and many lights and sounds. The game looked like it was very important and old. Alex wanted to play it too, so Alex pushed a button and the ball started to move. The game made noises and lights that were exciting and fun.\nWhen the sun went down and the moon came up, the place with the games became like a magic door. It took Alex to a time when things were easier and people were happier. The people from the town, both young ones and old ones, came to the place and had fun together. They remembered the old things that they had done and seen, and they felt good. The place was full of happy noises, music from old records, and sounds from the old games that still worked.\nAlex was having fun too, but Alex also wanted to think. Alex went to a place that was not noisy and sat down. Alex thought about everything that had happened that day. Alex had found many old things that no one had seen for a long time, and Alex had learned a lot about the town and the people. Alex had also made the town and the people happy, because they remembered their past and felt proud of it. The town was like a big bird that had been burned by fire, but came back to life. The town loved its past, but it also wanted to make new things and new friends. The town had a long and beautiful story, and it was not over yet.\nAlex had the shoes with wheels on one shoulder and the old camera in the hand. Alex went back to the library. The rain was not falling hard anymore, it was just a little bit wet. The boxes with old things, the ones that Alex had found and the ones that Alex had made, showed how people felt about the past. The past made the present happen, and the present made the future remember.\nAlex put the old things next to the box that E. M. had left. Alex felt good and happy. Crestwood was a town that had many stories, but people did not know them. Now the town showed how the past was important and strong. The library was a place that had many old things, and it smelled like old books. The library was a place that kept the memories of the town, a place that was special and holy. The library was a place where the past and the present were friends.\nAnd then, when the rain was still falling a little bit outside, Alex Turner, the person who took care of the town’s stories, locked the library’s doors. Alex left the town that was happy because it had found its past again. The town had sounds of people having fun, old machines making noises, and people feeling close to each other. The town had a story that was long and beautiful, and it did not end." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Where the Wind Blows\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 2402\n\nPrompt:\n\nBegin your story with the sensation of a breeze brushing against a character's skin." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "A warm breeze brushed over my exposed skin one balmy evening as I lay in my spa. As the air heats up due to the sun, the air and evaporated moisture rise, leaving a deficit. This needs to be filled, and colder air rushes in as wind. On this occasion, I had no complaints.\n\nI luxuriated in my spa, overlooking my beautifully landscaped back garden. My mind wandered back to when we decided to sell our house. After a couple of years of hard work and expense, we had finally refurbished it into a saleable state. \n\nMy name is Katrina. We wanted to sell because our home is far to the North of the city, while my dear old Mum lives beyond the city to the South. Although she has become frail, she decided to stay in her own home—not a huge family home, as she had already downsized, thank goodness. My mother has always been independent and self-sufficient. As she grew older, she did not accept the limitations that crept up on her like rising damp. \n\nBy the time I had to make about three weekly trips to Mum’s to help and provide for her, my husband Fred and I decided to sell our home and move somewhere nearer to her. There is a saying that the motorway in Auckland City provides the cheapest parking in the world. You don’t have to pay to be parked behind traffic for hours. I had become sick of the hours spent commuting to help my mother. Arriving home at 8pm and having Fred wonder when dinner would be served made me want to cook it and throw it at him. \n\nOur upstairs living area had already been renovated, and we lived mainly on this floor. The spacious self-contained downstairs had been wonderful as our three boys grew up before they married and useful for visitors. My Mum stayed there during the first COVID lockdown. It needed painting, recarpeting, and re-draping. Fred made this his spare time project. Family helped, as we have a builder, painter, carpet layer, and electrician we can call on. This saved money, but it also took ages.\n\nThe Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame is one of my favorite stories. I loved it as a child and loved reading it to my children. This story is no Wind in the Willows, though my husband, Fred, vowed to behave worse than Toad. He wanted to murder a couple of our neighbors—not because they tried to overrun our home with weasels and stoats—weasels and stoats would have been welcome. What happened to us is a heart-rending story. \n\nAs usual, I woke up one morning and wrinkled my nose at a strange odor. It smelt like someone had used the toilet down the hallway for a ‘big dump’ and forgotten to flush. Fred, no doubt. I popped my slippers on and wandered down to the bathroom. The toilet looked pristine, but the smell still permeated. As I walked towards the kitchen, it seemed to waft from downstairs. How strange. I went down wondering what had caused it. Indeed, it's not a cat mess. Much too putrid. As I rounded the landing, I gazed in horror at the watery, sludgy brown mass that covered every square inch of floor and the skirtings up to and covering the second last step. It made the boiling sulfur mud pools of Rotorua (named Rotton-rua during our childhood on account of the rotten-egg odor.) as fragrant as a bunch of roses. \n\n“Fred, help me!” I didn’t know whether to cry or scream. I wrung my hands in despair, gagging at the smell. We had finally finished renovating the downstairs area, and this unbelievable nightmare had appeared from nowhere. A brain the size of a fifty-cent piece could easily conclude it was sewerage.\n“Fre-e-ed!” with more urgency.\nI heard Fred come bounding down to join me. He stopped short. “Hell's bells, what is this?”\n\nFred rang the City Council, the Insurance company, and his brother-in-law Pete, who knew the right people to sort out the mess.\n\nThe City Council had to unblock the sewerage system. They had no idea what had blocked it, or why it had built up, but it had entered our place because our situation on a high hill is the lowest on the bottom curve of a cul-de-sac. It had entered through every orifice it could. Through the plughole in the kitchenette, the shower plughole, the basin plughole, and the toilet. The whole of the bottom story had brown goo over its floors. The furniture, bedding, drapes, carpet, and everything at floor level had absorbed it and been contaminated. Ruined to the point of non-retrieval.\n\nFred wallowed in misery. He had worked so hard to get everything looking good to sell the place. Everything soiled above floor level had to go to the Waste Transfer Station. The Insurance company helped a great deal. Our entire bottom floor had to be stripped bare, and the walls had to be removed up to a meter. \n\nThe poisoned air didn’t help our lungs, and we couldn’t eliminate the smell. We worked hard to get it all cleaned out, for the sake of our sanity and health, that within three weeks, it looked bare, with no sign of defilement, and ready for work to begin. \n\nSome of our neighbors expressed concern at all the activity, and we told them we were renovating. We didn’t want the truth getting out in case rumors of being flooded with sewerage put anyone off buying our home in the future.\n\nAfter the end of three weeks of work, as if we hadn’t been through enough torture. . . it happened again. \n\nI wept in disbelief for days. There was just as much stinking filth, but nothing of ours had been downstairs to be soiled this time. The City Council couldn’t believe what had happened twice in the space of three weeks. This time, they unblocked the underground sewerage pipes and went further to check if anything was making it bank up the way it had.\nThey explained it to us: “We’ve never encountered anything like it. We came across a large plug of concrete blocking the pipe underneath the road. It’s a mystery. Who would have dumped concrete into our sewerage system? It’ll be a pig of a job to remove. At least we know what caused the mess to come up the pipes and into your home. It shouldn’t happen again.”\nMy eyes were puffy from crying. “It can’t happen again. You have to fix the problem properly this time.”\n“Do you have any idea who could be responsible? I know it is a difficult question,” said the Council representative who had come to explain what they had found. \nWe stared blankly at each other and back to the man on our doorstep.\n“If we ever find out,” said Fred, “they’re dead!”\n\nOne day soon after, as Fred put out the rubbish and green waste bins, he picked up a crumpled piece of paper off the pavement. He glanced at it, and without tossing it into the bin, he brought it inside.\nHe looked at me excitedly as he held it out. “Guess what this is?”\nI looked down. “A piece of screwed-up paper?”\n“Look again.”\n“It’s an order slip for a delivery of . . .concrete!”\n“Look at the date—two months ago. Check the address—‘35 Helmswood Drive.’ It’s on the other side of the block. It must back onto one of our neighbors' backyards.”\n“Do you think they are the ones?”\n“I’ll drive around and check.”\n“Please don’t take the law into your own hands. Killing them isn’t going to help.”\n“If they’re dead, they can’t pay for the damage. I’ll be telling the City Council if this is the proof.”\n“But how can concrete from a job end up in the sewerage system?”\nFred shook his head. “They flush it down the loo, dummy!”\n“Who would do something so stupid?”\nWho, indeed.\n\nFred told me how he confirmed the truth. He had driven around and sauntered up the driveway on a mission. A Chinese couple answered the door, and Fred raved on about how lovely their home looked after all the work that had obviously been done. He wanted to know the name of the firm that had done the job. \nIn broken English, the man explained everything that had been renewed and handed him a business card with the details.\n“Looks like you had your driveway and deck area done as well. It looks great.”\nThe couple smiled and nodded. “Other business did a great job.”\n“Did you have any concrete left over? Did you put it down the toilet?”\nThe couple looked at each other. Suddenly, their English became incoherent, and they shut down the conversation. “No, understand. Busy. Goodbye.”\nFred looked smug. “I bet the Council will have fun with them. They are the culprits, alright. Mystery solved.”\n\nKnowing that what we had been through had a known cause didn’t make me feel better. Later, the Chinese family still denied all knowledge, but we heard that the city council fined them over $20,000. Justice had been served.\n\nAnother brother-in-law, Patrick, a builder, offered to help Fred re-GIB the walls. \n\nAfter many months, all the damage had been repaired, and our home was ready for sale.\n\nRemember where I am right now? Marinating in my spa. \n\nNow, let’s talk about the weather. For those of you who can’t understand how global warming can result in freaky weather events, this will enlighten you. We all know what happens to warmer air at higher altitudes. It forms clouds which drop their moisture as rain. Our ancestors did not understand this process. Nowadays, we know it as the water cycle. At times, nature transforms this into something fearful. It seems to happen more frequently due to global warming. What a paradox that hotter air around our planet isn’t limited to hotter temperatures everywhere.\n\nWhen the wind blows in opposing directions and crosses paths, it can form rotating systems of clouds and thunderstorms. If this comes from a system formed in the South Pacific and Indian Oceans, it is called a tropical cyclone, even if the temperatures plummet.\n\nAfter a massive deluge from the Auckland Anniversary storm (27 January 2023) and more destruction from Cyclone Gabrielle (14 February 2023), all Aucklanders in New Zealand hoped that the next predicted storm would bypass them. Our living on a high hill should save us from catastrophe, right? As you are aware, being on a hill has never done this for us to date. \n\nThen the winds blew, and the rain came. On 9 May 2023, the heavens opened and dropped everything, including the entire Island’s cats and dogs. This predicted weather system dumped only about half the amount of rain in comparison to the other two events, but in shorter, heavier bursts on already sodden ground. Widespread flooding occurred in many areas. Some received a month’s worth of rain in each hour burst. Auckland declared a state of emergency. Evacuations began. We became anxious about how family and friends in other suburbs fared. We felt nervous because most of my family is here in Auckland. \n\nThe heavy rains inundated many parts of our North Island, causing landslips, road closures, and evacuations. The low-lying suburbs, where our family members lived, escaped flooding. They thought we were safe on the hill. We certainly didn’t live in an area prone to slips and rainwater runs down hills. This caused the problem. Our house is a little lower than our neighbors’ homes and the water ran around it and inside via the garage door. Fred and I had our ground floor inundated. The lower floor became awash with shin-high water. A friend loaned us his pump to suck out the excess. We also bailed.\n\nIt had been a catastrophe, but we were grateful no faeces floated in the effluent surrounding us. The Insurance Company told us they couldn’t decide until later, and if the carpet went moldy, they would consider a complete replacement. With new carpet already down, we wanted to try to save it. We also didn’t want the odors of mold contaminating our air. The smell of sewerage hadn’t helped our lungs.\n\nDraining away the moisture via the pump made the next steps possible. The soggy carpet needed a wet and dry vacuum. Still, with none left for hire in the entire city, we stressed over the situation. Other people had snapped them up to solve their own soggy carpet sagas. We tried ringing up the carpet cleaning companies who also deal with floods. As we have a complete living area above our flood, we were not a priority for assistance. With so much damage citywide, waiting for our name to come up was pointless.\n\nThe problem with leaving our carpet to dry naturally would leave it a breeding ground for mold, the putrid odor would be detrimental to our health, the carpet would become misshapen and discolored, and require complete replacement. We managed to loan a machine for sucking up moisture and worked on getting rid of it for days.\n\nThere were no dehumidifiers for sale in the city. We rang around friends who hadn’t been flooded and asked if we could loan theirs. We also placed heaters in strategic places.\n\nEventually, only one small corner needed to be replaced. Our insurance covered the cost of this repair, and they thanked us for being proactive in the face of our third disaster. \n\nOnce the damage from Disaster Three had been rectified, we finally felt ready to sell our home. In fact, we couldn’t wait. The sooner, the better. We trusted neither the weather nor the sewerage system.\n\nMy mother finally decided to move into a home. The family decided it would be wise for her to live near where we live. The home where one of my younger sisters worked as a manager appeared to be a logical choice for Mum.\n\nIt is much wiser to stay where we are at present. In fact, in view of our mother's choice, we may have regretted being too far away if we had already moved. \n\nThere are less disastrous ways we could have been prevented from moving, but life never turns out as expected. Except, please, no more floods of any kind or consistency.\n\nTHE END" } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Woollen Suits and Face Cream\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 1036\n\nPrompt:\n\nBegin your story with the sensation of a breeze brushing against a character's skin." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "He was always there, in the sounds of his suggestions, in the unspoken glances when she acted out of turn, the cheeky winks he gave when he made a joke about her Mother, in the breeze when she closed her eyes and smelt his woollen suits and face cream.\n\nHe passed on the Saturday night, after obediently taking the last, tender cup of tea to his wife, invalid in bed - he sat on the chair in the bedroom, relaxed, cradled his head in the cups of his hands, and fell forward into that beautiful, peaceful, slumber of the unbroken.\n\n The carer always goes first- don't they say?\n\nThe last meal the daughter had given him had been a rushed hotch potch of of ends cobbled together earlier the evening before. Intended audience of which had mainly been the Mother, Father by way of being present had also been arranged a plate and had happily taken the tray from her of now it seemed, silly odds and ends; a slice of warm pizza, a dollop of potato salad, a few forlorn salad leaves and a crust of garlic bread.\n\n\"I'll see you tomorrow!\" A breezy, perfunctory leave and she was off, never to speak to her Father again. \n\nCorrection - a call was made the night of his passing. She had been at a petrol station, and had made that obligatory evening call to enquire about Mother.\n\nHer Father had picked it up - as usual.\n\"How's Mum?\"\n\"OK.\"\n\"What's happening- what's that noise?\"\n\"The carpets are being cleaned.\"\n\"Oh. Clean downstairs too.\"\n\"Do they need them? \"\n\"Yes..Are you ok?\"\n\"Yes I'm fine.\"\n\"OK, see you tomorrow. Khoda Hafez.\n\"Nana how are you?\" Her little son, her Father's beating heart, had chirped in the background. \"How are you Nana? How's Nani? Ok Khoda Hafez!\"\n\nThank God, thank God she had telephoned and spoken one last time. \"So you did say goodbye, on the phone that evening\" her brother reassured her.\n\"No, no, I didn't say it properly\".\n\"But you said it? We were there in the end.\"\nAn abrupt, breakneck drive to the hospital entailing two driving tickets ensured she was there at the end with her brother, kissing her father's cheeks and forehead and whispering prayers she blew his way as she clutched his hand. Watched the monitor defiantly.\n\"The vitals are all good.\"\n\"But the brain is gone.\"\nShe gripped his hand, refusing to feel the coldness as the warm blood ceased its flow through those veins. Hands that had tenderly held her, brought tea and food up to her room when she had been ill with sepsis during her cancer treatment just eighteen months before. Hands of the first parent to cradle the little baby daughter they brought forth from the incubator as she had impetuously made her way to the world too soon. Eyes closed tightly now, never to gaze upon that little girl he had been so dizzy with joy of having had, after the first born son.\n\nHad he really left them all now?\n\nThe ache and numbness in her heart was a pain she revelled in. The physical sensation and the burn of that misery was something she immersed herself into, bathing herself in the desolation every night and even during the day when she had a spare moment to. The binding contract with work enabled her to keep busy, stare straight ahead at the screen with unwavering focus as she supported her students, mindless, functional and dispassionate. Then the day ended and the melancholia overtook her again. \n\nPeople fell into two categories; those who had met her Father and those who hadn't. Suddenly, she felt an affinity with anyone who had spoken with him - been touched by his kindness. Conversations she forced to keep him alive in everyone's heart, not just her own. The piano tuner at the front door, and then at her piano.\n\"You met my Father last month, didn't you? Yes, he's gone now.\"\n'But he seemed so well when he opened the door!'\n\"Yes. He was still working, driving, walking outside for exercise, cooking...\"\n\nThe strain of the hurt and agony she was seeped in was now working against her. An infection lingered. She needed IV antibiotics - nothing less would budge it. Her oxygen saturation levels had dropped too. Strange, as she'd always scored 100%. The doctor at Accident and Emergency looked at her with wide eyes. \"Are you in pain? Do you need a wheelchair?'\n\"No. I don't need a wheelchair.\"\n\"Your infection marker is quite high\". \n\nShe lay in bed as the antibiotics drip, drip, dripped into her vein. Where was her Father now, to ring her incessantly: \"How are you? How are you feeling?\" Phone calls she had answered with such a casualness and nonchalance, her now lackadaisical temperament singed her. \n\nThe third night, she lay with her arm dangling out of the bed while the vein drank in the antibiotic - drip, drip, drip. As she was immuno -suppressed she had a room to herself. Is this the lengths you'll go to, to be close to your Father again? She lay and whispered hushed prayers over the road to the cemetery behind the hospital where he lay.\n\nBut how selfish of you.\n\nAbsent Mother, to a boy who is innocent. Didn't you enjoy and luxuriate in the upbringing of your father, for decades and decades - and now you loll around in bed, dreaming of your Father, when he needed to go. It was his time. He wasn't young. Release him. Your heart is strong - not designed to be withering from sorrow and despair.\n\nBut don't leave me Father, daddy, be with me now and then. Come by to see us. Me. \n\nWere you proud of me Daddy? I remarried, and recovered from cancer, and gave you a grandson, and I got a wonderful job at the end, before you departed. Daddy, be with us now and then.\n\nThe wind blew a soft breeze, as firm fingers brushed her own. She opened her eyes in shock - hadn't the nurse left the room? She had thought she was alone.\n\nThere was no nurse in the room." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Keeper's Warning\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 1749\n\nPrompt:\n\nSet your story in a lighthouse surrounded by powerful gale-force winds." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The incoming gale was furious, pounding the hurricane-resistant windows lining the south wall of the control room, and howling like a banshee at the front door. Yet, the violent center of the storm, where the wind screamed as if damned to Hell and mountainous waves rolled at sixty feet, was still one hundred and fifty nautical miles out from St. Pierre and Miquelon Islands. It was there the tempest turned its course away from the Canadian Maritime provinces and headed two degrees north. The new line put the storm on the southern coast of Newfoundland around midnight. \nJules Beaudoin, a twenty-six-year-old former Royal Canadian Able Seaman, and now a communications expert with the Oceanic Security Detail, was seated in front of his blue and green radar screen, eyes fixed on the 360-degree sweep-line. Head bent forward, his neck straining, he searched for any unfortunate mariners caught in this monster. And the storm had become a monster.\nJust a couple of hours ago it was a garden variety nor’easter, not small, but certainly not a budding cat-1 hurricane threatening the coastline of this small Canadian province.\nThe year was 1977. The Canadian government had recently provided top-of-the-line technology for all seventy-five com-sat specialists on both coasts. Beaudoin was proud to have been chosen to operate such powerful new equipment, and, with his extensive training, he had become a certified expert.\nAmid the relative calm inside his office, but with lights flickering and the roof rattling, Beaudoin noticed a faint orange blip on the screen. The blip indicated a vessel at 160.3 nautical miles out from the main islands and 150.7 nautical miles from Beaudoin’s rocky peninsula on St. Pierre.\nBeaudoin checked his logbook for a ship scheduled to be at Latitude: 46.7791, Longitude: -53.8573, the coordinates indicated by the radar blip. What the log told him was a surprise. A French vessel would be en route from the Toulon naval port in the Mediterranean to Halifax NS. The reason given for such a craft in those waters was brief but to the point: Aquitaine-class frigate on planned NATO exercise.\nBeaudoin, a young, determined com-sat specialist with eager eyes and a square jaw, focused on monitoring the storm's fury with his weather instruments. He was able to estimate the windspeed at seventy miles per hour with possible gusts over ninety. A frigate with an overall length of 500 feet should handle the storm, Beaudoin thought. But…he decided to contact his boss in St. John’s and let him know what he found.\nUsing ship-to-shore communication procedures, Beaudoin dialed in the call frequency and squeezed the microphone. “This is Beaudoin on St. Pierre. Come in.”\nA moment later the speaker crackled. “This is Louis Montague,” the voice garbled but understandable. “Beaudoin, go on.”\n“Monty, I marked a vessel, an Aquitaine frigate, one hundred and fifty miles out, east-southeast, smack in the middle of the storm.”\n“Yes, I’m aware of that vessel. That’s Captain Claude Dupont’s boat, it’s named the L'Agile.” Montague paused a couple of seconds. “C'est un tyran et têtu comme une mule,” he muttered in French.\nBeaudoin raised an eyebrow. “Sorry, sir, I didn’t catch that.”\n“I said the man’s a bully and stubborn as a mule. I was on a frigate with Old Claude for six long months with him.” Montague paused. “You didn’t know I was a Frog, eh.”\n“No sir. I thought you were a Canuck like me.”\nThey both laughed.\n “Well, Beau, it’s no matter, everyone on the bloody ship hated Old Claude. Don’t worry, the man’s mean as a viper. He won’t let a Cat-1 stop him.”\nBeaudoin chuckled to himself.\n“Just the same, Beau, keep an eye on that boat. Oh, and what’s its course?”\nBeaudoin reported the lat-long coordinates. “And about ten minutes ago he made a two-degree turn to the north. Now he’s heading straight for St. Pierre.”\n“Ole Claude probably got tired of fighting the waves and made a weather-inspired correction. He’ll let the storm push him for a while.”\n“Monty, one more thing. I’ve been on this God-forsaken peninsula for 49 hours. I’m on overtime now; are you okay with that?”\n“Yeah, no problem. Your relief will be there when the storm lets up. Probably in the morning.”\nBeaudoin made a fresh pot of coffee and settled down to track the L'Agile and anything else he might see on the water. Over the next five hours, he watched the orange blip as it got closer and closer to the island. The L'Agile had slowed considerably, but it maintained the same course. During that time the storm weakened enough for Beaudoin to see out of the windows. He could see the peninsula’s jagged outcropping now that the heavy wave action had dwindled. God, storms in the Atlantic are so unpredictable, he said out loud.\nAt four a.m., Beaudoin recorded the L'Agile blips thirty nautical miles out and running at under 15 knots. At that speed, Old Claude should be well out of the storm, he mumbled. I’m surprised he hasn’t returned to his original course for Halifax. He’s still headed at me. \nAn hour later, the storm had completely subsided, and Beaudoin’s office was peaceful and warm. He was getting drowsy and looking forward to ending his long shift. Out of the quiet, a staticky voice barked into his headphones. “Il s'agit du FS L'Agile, une frégate de 5700 tonnes de la Marine Nationale. Détournez votre cap de 15 degrés vers le nord pour éviter une collision.”\nThree seconds later the message repeated in English: “This is the FS L’Agile a 5700-ton frigate of the French Navy. Divert your course 15 degrees north to avoid a collision.”\nBeaudoin bolted straight up and looked out the window. What the hell, he yelled. It was still black except for the glow of the lights on the rocks. He didn’t have a visual on the ship, but he strained to see as deep into the night as possible. His hands shook as he reached for the radio and fine-tuned the frequency. The static now gone he cleared his throat, this is Jules Beaudoin with the Oceanic Security Detail, come back, he said with as much authority as he could muster. Then he waited for a response.\nA long thirty seconds went by with no reply. Beaudoin reached for his coffee, now cold, and started to put it up to his lips but stopped as the voice broke in again.\n“Sir,” the voice in English this time. “This is Ensign Jean-Paul Canet aboard the FS L’Agile, a Fourth Constellation Class French frigate surveillance vessel, you must divert your course 15 degrees north immediately to avoid a collision.”\nBeaudoin checked his radar sweep. The L'Agile was now six miles out and closing at 18 knots. At that speed, the frigate will be sitting in Beaudoin’s office in a matter of minutes.\n“FS L'Agile,” Beaudoin responded. “Divert your course 15 degrees south. You are getting dangerously close to the rocks. Alter your course immediately.\"\nAs the storm raged, Beaudoin's heart pounded with each blip on the radar screen. The L'Agile drew closer with every passing second, its orange blip inching ominously towards the rocky coastline.\nBeaudoin's fingers flew over the controls, his breath coming in short, ragged gasps. He couldn't shake the feeling of dread as he watched the frigate's relentless advance, knowing that disaster loomed if he couldn't convince the L'Agile to alter its course.\nWith a shaky hand, Beaudoin reached for the radio, his voice strained with urgency. \"L'Agile, divert your course immediately! You're headed straight for the rocks!\"\nAfter a full minute, the response he received sent a chill down his spine. A booming voice was on the radio. \"This is Captain Claude Dupont of the FS L’Agile,\" his tone dripping with arrogance and contempt. \"We are aware of our surroundings, Ensign. Stand down and allow us to pass.\"\nAs the L'Agile continued its relentless advance towards the treacherous rocks, Beaudoin's pulse quickened, his hands trembling as he grasped the radio, his voice strained with urgency. 'Captain Dupont,' he pleaded, 'you are on a collision course with disaster. Alter your course immediately or risk running aground.'\nBut Captain Dupont's response was unwavering, his voice dripping with arrogance. 'We do not take orders from a lowly Ensign,' he sneered. 'Stand aside and let us pass.'\nBeaudoin rubbed his jaw. He thinks I’m an Ensign.\n“Captain Dupont,” Beaudoin said. “You have faulty information. There is something wrong with your radar. You are on a direct course for St. Pierre and Miquelon, Newfoundland.”\nThe reply was immediate, “We have been watching your lights, stand down now Ensign!”\nBeaudoin grappled with the gravity of the situation, his jaw clenched. With every passing second, the frigate drew closer to the perilous rocks, and he knew that time was running out. 'Listen to me, Captain,' he implored, his voice laced with desperation. 'I am not an Ensign. I am the keeper on St. Pierre. And if you do not alter your course, you will find yourself at the mercy of the rocks.'\nA tense silence gripped the night as Captain Dupont processed Beaudoin's words. And then, slowly but surely, the L'Agile began to change course, its massive hull veering away from the imminent danger.\nThe St. Pierre beacon shown at 750,000 candelas and could be seen from sixteen miles away on a clear dark night. Tonight, however, its penetration into the darkness was limited. Beaudoin now knew it had reached the L’Agile at approximately six miles.\nAs the danger passed and early dawn settled upon the sea, Beaudoin let out a shuddering breath. He knew that the captain's arrogance could have cost the lives of many sailors.\nBut the tension between them was far from over. As early dawn settled upon the sea, Captain Dupont contacted Beaudoin demanding an explanation of how his light appeared as a ship on his radar. “I was told your light showed as a small vessel in our system, probably a fishing trawler.”\nBeaudoin, his voice tinged with exhaustion, explained the situation calmly. \"Captain, your radar may not have shown it, but this is a real lighthouse.\"\n\"Mon Dieu, tu es un phare!,\" his booming voice feeble and pathetic as the magnitude of his mistake hung in the air like a black cloud.\nBeaudoin’s reply was steady and firm. \"Yes, I am a lighthouse. Captain, I spoke the truth. Tonight, this lighthouse, like God, saved you and your sorry ass from a fate worse than death.\"" } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: A Walk in the Park\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 2271\n\nPrompt:\n\nA crumpled piece of paper holding an unexpected message is carried by the wind. Where did it come from, and where is it going?" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I tie the laces on my sneakers, making double knots and pulling hard to secure them. I reach up and grab my fleece jacket, zipping it halfway up and reaching up the sleeves to pull down the shirt sleeves underneath. I grab my keys off the hall table, open the front door. I take the step down onto my front porch, turn around and lock the door, placing the key securely in the pocket of my jeans. I take the next three steps down to my driveway and then begin to count. It’s 26 steps to the end of my driveway, where I turn right and take another 136 steps to the corner stop sign. \n\nAs I walk, my pace slow and steady, I hear the Callahan’s dog barking. I don’t need to turn my head to know he’s standing on the couch in their living room, wagging his tail as he stares out the picture window and barks at every person who passes by. At the stop sign, I turn right, seeing the Johnson’s antique car parked covered in their driveway, hearing the thud of the Miller boys bouncing a basketball on a makeshift court outside their home. John Miller shoots from afar and scores and both boys cheer. Their joy seems like something foreign. \n\nAt the end of the road, I see Mrs. Stevens sitting on her front porch, knitting needles in hand. She looks up to watch me walk by, as she does every day, but I move past her. When I reach the park, I can feel the shift from the concrete of the road to the soft dirt path that leads toward the lake. I am surrounded by large trees and hear the insistent chirping of birds. I walk toward the lake and the same bench I have come to every day since my husband walked away from our marriage 86 days ago. I sit down, staring at the lake, and the houses beyond on the other side. The vastness, the openness and the cool breeze all hit me at once and I breathe, feeling relief hit me for just a moment. \nThe breeze picks up and the trees start to sway. A few leaves fly past me, followed by a large white clump. It appears to come from the sky, and lands with a bounce in front of my bench. It’s a crumpled piece of paper, and I lean over and pick it up. I am intrigued by this intrusion into my unbreakable routine. I place the crumpled ball in my lap and open it, smoothing out the creases. \nThere are just eight words on the page, written in neat cursive. \n\nTake back your life while you still can\n\nI look up into the tree above, as if to find the source of these words. The branches above me spread out wide, reaching almost to the lake, but seem to hold no clues as to who sent this message. I look back down, re-reading and considering each words, and the insulated life I have built for myself. I work five days a week as an administrative assistant at Becker’s Insurance Agency. I arrive at 8:00 each morning and leave at 4:00 each afternoon. After work, I change and walk to the lake and sit for a while before I go home to eat dinner, watch TV and go to sleep. On Saturdays, like today, I walk to the lake after lunch and sit for an hour or two, staring at the still surface, looking for guidance on what my life means now that my marriage is over and my window to start a family is slowly closing. \n\nI feel the stirrings of hope as I look at the message. I smooth out the paper further before folding it into quarters and putting it in the pocket of my fleece. I sit for over two hours, gusts of wind whipping through me every few minutes, followed by the stillness. I keep my hand on the paper in my pocket, hoping to absorb the meaning in its words. Once at home, I put the folded message in my bedside table drawer.\n\nOn Sunday, I find myself anticipating my walk. But as I do a load of laundry and grocery shop for the week, I try not to give it more importance than it deserves. At 1:30 PM, I get ready to go, locking the door and walking the same route, possibly taking steps in the exact same spots on the pavement as I have all the days before this one. As I sit on the bench, the afternoon sun warm on skin, I look up at the tree, wondering if it will provide any offerings today. But of course, it doesn’t. I’m not sure whether to feel relieved or disappointed.\n\nOn Monday morning, as I rummage through my closet, and the same bland pants and blouses I have worn to work for months, my eye catches a red skirt now pushed toward the back. I try it on, noticing it is a bit loose on me. I choose a matching blouse and eye myself in the mirror as if I am looking at a stranger. I turn to the side, noticing for the first time that not just my face, but my mid-section, has thinned. I open the bathroom drawer and retrieve my make up bag, long ago abandoned. I pull out just the blush and lip gloss and dab a bit on. My face lights up in the mirror, showing me the hint of a former version of myself. Is this taking my life back? Hardly, but it is a change, maybe the only one I can manage right now. \n\nThe week is uneventful, one day spilling into the next. At each late afternoon visit to the park, I sit and wait for another message – another sign. The seven words repeat in my head as if on a loop, as I continue to absorb them, pulling them apart in my mind. When I reach the park on Saturday afternoon, I feel acutely aware that it has been a week since the crumpled paper came into my life. I feel a heightened sense of promise. \n\nAfter about 20 minutes of trying not to look upward at the rustling trees, another crumpled paper floats down, the wind dropping it just beside the bench. I feel my heart rate speed up as I cautiously reach forward and grab the white paper ball. I open it, smoothing out the page so I can clearly read the eight words written in the same cursive right in the middle:\n\nEvery great journey starts with a single step\n\nI read the message over and over, memorizing it before I finally smooth out the paper with my fingers, fold it into quarters and stash in my pocket. I think about the colorful skirts I wore to work a few days this week, and the blush and lip color I applied for the first time in months. A few people in my office complimented me, people who normally look at me with pity in their eyes. Is that taking a single step? Am I meant to take another step this week? \nI decide to leave the park early today, to go home and clean out the clothes my husband left behind in the closet. I sift through the old sweaters and jackets he abandoned when he packed up his suitcases and announced he was moving in with a women I knew to be an associate at his law firm. I open the first few drawers and stuff the old t-shirts and socks he left behind in a large garbage bag. By the time his side of the closet is cleaned out, I have filled three more bags. \nThen I head into the kitchen and open the cabinet, retrieving his favorite coffee mugs. I throw away the half-opened boxes of stale cereal that only he would eat. In the living room, I box up some of his old books, and the gaudy porcelain statuettes his mother gave me. I don’t know why I didn’t trash them the day he left. \nOver the years he worked more and more late evenings, and I supported him, praised him for his ambition, for planning for our future. To think he was with her all those long nights while I sat waiting at home alone. Did he laugh at how naïve I was, never questioning him? I place the four bags of clothes and three boxes of household items in my car and drive them over to the donation center that afternoon. \n\nThe following Saturday, I have to keep myself from racing to the park. The Callahan’s dog barks furiously as I dash past their living room window. I notice the Johnson’s antique car is uncovered, and Mr. Johnson is washing it. He waves to me and I wave back – surprising myself as my hand goes up in greeting. The Miller boys are playing basketball again. As I walk past their driveway the ball rolls in front of me. I give it a kick with my right foot, doing a little skip. They yell thanks to me as it rolls back toward them. My hand waves again, getting accustomed to the motion. \nAt the end of the road, I see Mrs. Stevens sitting out on her front porch. She puts down her knitting needles as I walk past. “You look lovely today, Maddy. Enjoy your visit to the park.”\nI stop for a moment, stunned. Mrs. Stevens and I always used to exchange niceties about the weather and neighborhood gossip. We were even in a book group together several years ago, but it has been so long since we’ve said a word to each other. “Thank you, I will,” I say. The words feel strange in my throat, as I hear myself add “Have a good day.”\n\n When I reach the park, switching from the concrete of the road to the soft dirt path, the birds greet me, their voices like a song. I sit down on the bench, hoping and praying for just one more message. I know it’s foolish, but still my senses are on high alert, desperate for just one more. I only have to wait for 20 minutes before the white paper blows past me in the wind. I reach out to catch it, just missing, and it lands by my feet. \n\nI greedily grab it, unwrap it, and smooth out the paper. I read the seven cursive words:\n\nFriendship helps pave the road to healing\n\nAs I stare at the words, water drips onto the paper. I look up at the sky to see if it’s raining, but the sun is shining through the tree branches. Then I feel it. Tears running down my cheeks, the first tears I’ve shed in 100 days. And once they start, they flow freely. I hear an anguished noise and realize it is coming from my own throat – a wail that goes on and on, disappearing into the large open space. I should feel embarrassed, but all I feel is relief as my body collapses in on itself.\n\nA few minutes later, I feel a hand on my shoulder. It feels comforting, but I don’t turn to see who it belongs to. The hand begins to rub along my shoulder and back, gentle and soothing. “It’s okay, Maddie” says a voice. “Let it out.”\n\nI know that voice – it’s so familiar – and I turn to see Mrs. Stevens. She is holding a small towel in one hand and a bottle of water in the other. “Can I join you?” she asks.\nI nod numbly and she sits down beside me, handing me the two items. The towel is warm and damp, and I put my face in it, inhaling the scent of fresh laundry detergent and washing away the tears and grief. Then I open the lid of the cold water bottle and drink half of it in one gulp, an unquenchable thirst taking hold of me. When I’ve had enough I put the near-empty bottle aside. “How did you know?” I ask.\n\nShe smiles, staring out over the expanse of the lake before looking back at me. “My husband walked out on me 25 years ago.” \nI turn to her. “I’m so sorry....” \n“I was lost after that. I thought I would never really live again.” A series of emotions flash across her face.\n“How did you start – take that first step?” My voice cracks as I speak.\n“Very cautiously.” She laughs. “But then over time a little less cautiously. I just looked for signs, for guidance. It can come to you in the oddest ways.” She winks and puts her hand on mine. The feel of it is warm and reassuring. I look into her eyes and see her kindness and compassion. I also see a hint of mischief, and I think of the three messages that seemed to fall from heaven.\n“I’m scared,” I realize for the first time.\n“Of course you are,” she says. “Anything worth doing in life is at least a little scary. But you don’t have to face this alone.”\n\nI nod, feeling her steady hand and her silent support. I turn to face the lake, which seems to go on forever, and see the whole world laid out in front of me. All the unknown – and all the possibility. We sit side by side lost in our own thoughts and admire its beauty together." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Penn's Landing\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 1963\n\nPrompt:\n\nBegin your story with the sensation of a breeze brushing against a character's skin." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "A breeze brushes against my face and it’s not until now that I realize my cheek is wet. Strands of hair stick to my hand as I wipe the tears away. Now my fingertips are cold. I predicted the meeting would be filled with emotion but hadn’t thought I’d actually cry. Especially not at this point. I wasn’t even at Penn’s Landing yet.\nThe toe of my shoe catches on a loose Belgian block in the street and a young man rushes to hold my elbow.\n“Are you okay?” His expression is kind and I try not to be distracted by his pierced cheeks. “Yes, thanks, just not paying attention.”\nAfter waiting more than two decades for this, how could I shift my focus elsewhere? Of course I wasn’t paying attention to the Belgian blocks in front of Independence Hall. There were bigger thoughts – much bigger – that were spinning in my mind.\nPaul had been a great father and I loved him. He cheered for me when I was a spelling bee contender. He shouted every time I scored a goal at a soccer match. And he glowed with pride at my college graduation from the University of Pennsylvania. But I never knew until Mom died that he’d been my step-father. I’m not even sure why he told me, but he did. Tearfully, about a week after Mom’s funeral. Initially, I didn’t believe him. It was absurd. How could Dad not be my father? It didn’t make sense. But there was something in his expression, in his words, and in his shaking hands that told me he was telling the truth.\nPaul’s truth held few details, though. He didn’t know my father’s name, only that Mom had dated him before Paul met her. Against his parents wishes, he married her when she was five months pregnant on a sunny day at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church on South 10th Street.. Her bridal bouquet had been filled with white roses and blue delphinium, he’d remembered. When I learned that my birth father was someone other than Paul, I silently gave my grandparents credit for never having treated me any differently than they did my cousins. At some point, they must have decided to embrace me in the family, like a baby bird being protected in stronger wings.\nFrom Paul’s revelation until now, it was a blur of late-night online research and sending in DNA samples to perhaps not always legitimate sites. But what was someone shady going to do with my DNA? Make a clone? I would be flattered. The pressing and inexplicable need to connect with my birth father went far deeper. As years with no leads passed, I felt increasingly desperate to find him, to meet with him, to look at his face. And that was going to happen in about 10 minutes.\nI pressed my red Kate Spade cross-body against my hip as I quickly crossed Walnut Street. I would be seeing him any minute now. He knew I’d have a red pocketbook. I knew he’d be wearing a red scarf on this blustery October afternoon. My feet moved more quickly than I wanted them to… past the Seaport Museum and towards the Viewing Deck. A long and hard gust\nof wind blew in from the Delaware River and I pulled my gray peacoat tighter. How odd it was that I didn’t feel ready to meet the one person I’d waited almost half my life to meet.\nIt had been a slightly awkward email, but I’d hit Send before I had a chance to edit it: To: James Collingwood\nFrom: Sarah Woodword\nSubject: DNA Test Match\nHello James! I’m sure you realized, as I did, that we’re an almost exact match on FamilyDNATree! Looking at their report, you will see as I did, that all the science indicates that you are my biological father. I have been looking for you for over two decades and it would mean so much to meet you in person. I only want to know who you are as a person and to hear what family stories you’d be willing to share. I was born, raised, and currently live in Philadelphia. Are you still in the area? Would you be interested in meeting me? I’ve been searching for you for over twenty years, since my mother (Kimberly Hart Woodward) passed. It would mean the world to me.\nBest regards, Sarah\nHad it been too emotional? Too filled with expectations? Those questions, and more, haunted me for a year. And then James Collingwood replied to my email.\nTo: Sarah Woodword\nFrom: James Collingwood\nSubject: Meeting\nWould you like to meet at the Viewing Deck at Penn’s Landing at 2pm on Friday, October 8th? To make things simple, I’ll be wearing a red scarf. James\nTo: James Collingwood\nFrom: Sarah Woodward\nSubject: Meeting\nThat would be wonderful! To keep things consistent, I’ll be carrying a small red pocketbook.\nI can’t wait to actually meet you! Warm regards, Sarah\nI never heard back from him. But did I need to? He had set the meeting in place. I only needed to show up. I am now at the Viewing Deck. It feels like my heart is pounding at an unsafe rate as I quickly scan the few people looking out at the Delaware River. There is a small family with unruly children. To their right, a young couple look flirtatiously at each other. An elderly man sits in a wheelchair by himself. Could that be…? I tentatively make my way over to the old man and glance sideways at him. No red scarf. I glance at my Apple watch. 2:05. Okay, it’s not considered “late” until fifteen minutes, right? I take deep breaths, hoping to quell the rising panic inside. Is he not going to even show up? Is he going to actually stand me up? My anger rises to unwarranted levels. I turn and look in every direction. Not one red scarf. I turn back around and stare at the river. The flow rises and falls, the white sky illuminates the ripples that travel away from me.\nSuddenly, I feel like everything is flowing away from me. I’m 44 and never married. Something always went wrong with each relationship, and it was never the same thing. The water running past me now reminds me that I will never be a mother. Which makes me think of my mother. In my mind, I see her in all the black and white photos I’ve seen of her: The small baby, the mischievous toddler, the 3rd grade student in the class photo, her hands folded on her lap, the photos of her in her high school yearbook… laughing, vivacious, alive. The next photos I saw were of her and Paul at their first home. She was visibly pregnant. Her smile didn’t look joyful, as it once had, it was now a smile of gratitude. The photos were in color when I was born and Mom and Paul held me in both their arms, holding me up in my pink blanket with expressions of such expectation and pride. My eyes water again and –\n“Sarah?”\nA hand softly touches my shoulder. I spin around. A tall, older man stands in front of me. He wears a black beret and a gray cashmere coat. The coat matches his neatly trimmed beard and mustache. He’s wearing sunglasses – or maybe they’re those prescription glasses that turn dark outside? He’s wearing a red scarf. I nod.\n“Yes, yes, I’m Sarah. And you must be James?” He nods. “Jamie. Everyone calls me Jamie.” “Oh! Okay. Jamie, then.” There’s a paralyzing silence, but it lasts less than a minute.\nJamie rubs his gloved hands together. “ It’s chillier than it looks. Would you like to head to Cherry Street Pier and grab a cup of coffee?”\n“That sounds perfect.” We walk side by side in silence. I glance at Jamie, but he stares straight ahead.\nWe get to Cherry Street Pier and wander past the art exhibits to the concessions. Jamie gestures for me to order. “Uh, I’ll have an Americano with light cream and that’s it.” Jamie grins beneath his sunglasses (are they sunglasses?) and turns back to the barista. “I’ll have the same.”\nWe sit at a small round table for two and look at each other. I can’t quite tell if there’s a physical resemblance or not because of his damn (possibly) sunglasses.\nI smile nervously. “I’m not really sure where to begin or where to stop.” He nods. “Well, I’ll start. Yes, I dated Kimmie Hart for about 7 months in 1979. But I never, ever knew she’d gotten pregnant.” I stare at him, but in my mind all I can think is Kimmie? You called her Kimmie? My entire life, I’ve only heard her called Kimberly. “Right. And I was born in 1980. I wonder why she never told you.” He shrugs. “I guess – after a relationship ends, would you tell someone something like that?” I’d never asked myself that question. I didn’t have a ready answer.\nThe barista calls Jamie’s name and he comes back with our coffees. I begin shaking a bit and I don’t know why, which makes me more nervous. Jamie takes a sip of his coffee. “May I ask what Kimmie died of? In my mind, she was always fit and healthy.” I nod. “Yes, she was. She died in a car accident. She was blindsided by a drunk driver twenty years ago.” Jamie is silent, then takes another sip of his coffee. “That’s a shame. Tragic.”\nI drink some of my coffee. “So, other than your name, I really don’t know much about you. I mean, what career path did you follow?” He raises his eyebrows and looks relieved I threw him a softball. “Architecture. It was always architecture. “Huh.” I shrug. “And my degree is in Environmental Design.” Jamie lifts his coffee cup. “Well done!”\nHe puts his coffee cup back on the table and looks at me. “Did – did your mother ever tell you about me?” I shake my head. “No. No, she never did. I always thought Paul – my step-father – was my real father. It was shortly after Mom died that he told me. I don’t know why, so don’t ask.” “So –“ Jamie speaks slowly. “She never once mentioned Jamie Collingwood?” I look at him. I feel that he so much wants me to say yes. I can’t want to lie.\n“She may have, and I just don’t remember.” He nods. He knows. “That’s okay. No doubt she didn’t know what to do about the – situation.” Jamie gives a deep sigh and leans back in his chair.\n“I want you to know that I loved Kimmie. I really did. Well, as much as anyone that age knows what love is. And I always remembered her and wondered what path she’d walked on in life. It sounds silly, but I’d look up at the moon some nights and think, ‘Maybe Kimmie is looking at the same moon at this same second. Maybe she’s wondering if I am, too. I really did love her.” Suddenly, Jamie’s face drops, and his shoulders begin to shake. One of his hands is still on the table. I place my hand over his. He pulls off his glasses and looks up at me. His hazel-green eyes are a perfect match with mine. We both see it. We both know it. And we both tear up. Jamie pushes his chair away from the table and steps over to me. I stand up and he embraces me in his strong arms. As if I’m a baby bird he never had the chance to nurture." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Turnaround\n\nGenre: coming-of-age\n\nWord Count: 1229\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story in which a character is running away from something, literally or metaphorically." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "We’re watching a show, and you keep turning the volume up and down and up again. When they’re whispering, the volume goes up, and when they’re fighting, it goes back down. I can tell exactly when you’re going to reach for the remote, and every time you do, the volume changes in twos. 20 to 22, 22 to 24. You double tap the volume button every time, as if it’s all one movement.\n You didn’t always do that. I did, though. Always. So, like breathing, you do too. I never have to remind you, and you never put the volume on an odd number to bother me like other people do.\n The episode we’re watching ends, and there’s only one episode left. You let the autoplay timer run for a few seconds, and then you pick up the remote and turn the show off.\n “We can watch that one tomorrow,” you say. I watch your face as you say it, and you’re watching mine. There’s code underneath it all, and on top of it all, there’s a promise not to decipher anything out loud. Sometimes, you’re the one to break that promise, only in a few words. Usually, though, I am the one to break it. I break the promise, and you hold fast to the shards of it, grip loosening almost imperceptibly each time.\n I lean toward the edge of that precipice, and I ask, “Why don’t we just finish it tonight? It’s not that late.” I watch your face, and you stop watching mine. You toss the remote around in your hands.\n “What will we watch tomorrow if we finish it tonight?” It’s a question dressed in shadows, but only barely. I know what it means, and I know that the façade only holds if I pretend that I don’t.\n “You don’t need an excuse to come here, you know,” I say. You respond quickly.\n “I know,” you say, but you didn’t know. Your eyes are thinking as you say it, rearranging things in your mind that I know you would rather leave alone. You pull your shoulders in the way you do when you’re about to stand up.\n “Why don’t we watch it tonight, and you come over tomorrow anyway?” I lean forward, mirroring you simply to make you aware that you did it. You put your shoulders back against the chair again without thinking, then stand all at once.\n “Let’s go for a drive,” you say. I try to convince myself that we’ll talk about things in the car, that the sound of your engine will underline whispers of all too familiar things. Impossibly familiar things. It doesn’t. We don’t. I nod, stand, and follow you wordlessly to your car. You spend a long time in the driveway, poking through playlists and searching for which to play, what song to start with. When the song you’ve chosen plays, it plays loud.\n At least, I think, it doesn’t feel awkward. With the music too loud to comfortably talk over, there isn’t any urge to talk. When we reach red lights and your engine idles, you turn the music up the slightest bit louder, in twos. Always in twos, like a habit. I wonder if you still do it when I’m not in the car. If you do it without noticing.\n We reach the street that usually means we’re about to turn around, and you pull into the left turn lane like always. Unlike always, you stop at the beginning of it, park the car, and put on your hazards.\n This feels like the moment when you might start to talk, but you don’t. You pick your phone up from the center console and start flipping through playlists again. You switch between a few songs, listening to the starts of them, and then you settle on one. You let it play, turn up the volume two notches, and slip out of the turn lane and back onto the road. You pass our turnaround spot like it’s any other intersection, and you pass the next light too, and the next. Two loud songs later, you’re on the highway.\n Your car is loud and vibrating as it gets up to speed, then faster. You turn the music on to match, and I watch the numbers go up in pairs. 22, 24, 26, 28, 30. Your engine roars as you pass someone, and you say something that I don’t quite catch. I look at you, and you look away quickly, at the road. 32, 34, 36. You say something again, and I don’t hear this at all. Your eyes jump away from the road and onto my face once, then twice, before staying stuck on the highway. You hit the volume again, a double-tap that brings it up to 38, and then you start.\n You’re talking, mouth moving slightly but rapidly, and your face fills with color. I don’t hear a word of it, and you keep talking. I hear what sounds like my name a few times, or at least the one you call me, but it could’ve been a million other things. I hear, faintly, what is definitely the word “can’t.” You say it louder than anything else. You say it again, and I hear it again. Your shoulders move when you breathe, like the labor of it takes all your strength. I don’t hear anything else from you—only the engine and the music. Your eyes dance to me for a second, and your mouth doesn’t move for a while as you refocus on the road. Then, it continues, and I hear my name—what is definitely my name—one more time. I don’t hear what surrounds it, but I see your face perfectly fine against the car lights, and I don’t need to hear anything at all.\n Your mouth stops moving again, and this time, it does not restart. We sit this way for some time, my eyes on you, your eyes on the road, both of our ears filled with one of your too-many, too-specific playlists. I look away from you to look out the window, and the moment I do, you roll the windows down. You take the next exit off the highway, turn right back around, and head the other way. This time, I know we are going back to my house.\n You keep the music quiet enough that I could hear you if you started to talk, but you don’t. The silence begins to feel interminable, and I accept it with startling resignation until you stop in front of my driveway.\n “See you tomorrow,” you say.\n “Of course you will.”\n I climb out of your car, and I close the door a little too hard, since I’m used to my own car that needs to be slammed to close. I turn to the open window, and you’re still looking at me, waiting for some teasing farewell, something to set the boat back at ease.\n “You’re not ever going to tell me what you just said, are you?”\n You rest your hands on the steering wheel, and look to the passenger seat, as if I’m still in it. You look back at me like you’re about to break a promise.\n “I’ll see you tomorrow,” you say.\n You drive away. I watch you go, and I hear the music through your open windows, going up in twos." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Wave.\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 1340\n\nPrompt:\n\nCraft a story where a character finds themselves swept away by the wind, either physically or metaphorically." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "In the beginning, there was only darkness. My younger years were long and relentless as I remained in the shadows, watching, waiting, biding my time in a warm womb whilst it moulded and shaped me.\n\nEvery day, the world became a little lighter, darkness lifting so slow it was only just conceivable, until eventually I emerged. The sun beat down on my back and I finally felt free. It was my time, my era. I had been in the depths for an eternity but emerging forward into the light gave me strength, a purpose. I was a lone force out in the world, flexing my long limbs out to a vast horizon with no obvious ending.\n\nOver time I came to meet and love my sisters in turn. Though we argued and jostled with each other as they were born into the surface, we were intrinsically one. They struggled to settle in the beginning, pushed upwards and outwards by our warm mother below whilst I remained steadfast and firm, the force to keep them calm as the rest of the earth settled into our new life.\n\nThat was when I met him. He came to me one night when the air began to cool, so gentle I could barely comprehend the feel of his touch. I was tired from the years of my sisters battling and his caress cleaned and cleansed me from the debris. It was light and honest, like nothing I’d ever experienced before. That night he explored very part of me, slowly and carefully, undressing every mile, as if he craved to know all the parts of me, every curve, every crevice. \n\nHe came to me almost every day and night that year. Sometimes he was gentle, loving; clinging to every surface like he’d never feel me again, like he couldn’t let me go. Other times he was firm, hot and bothered and would devour me till the day broke and he calmed to a mere whisper. He became my reason for existing, to feel him against me. The wind was my lover, my soul, the only thing I endured this new world for.\n\nThis went on for thousands of years, longer perhaps. The passage of time meant nothing to us. We were bound to each other, connected as one, married in the eyes of nature’s prowess. The power of the wild wind and the mighty mountain connected, though worlds apart our love story was timeless. When I could, I would sing for him, his aura moving in one with mine, allowing us to make sweet sound that would make the animals around us sing too. I couldn’t believe he’d picked me, of all the vast sways of nature’s good graces he’d picked me to be his mate, the one to do his life's work with, to partner with for eternity.\n\nHe continued to come to me and I stayed by his side, though his forceful hand had begun to leave a heavy mark. Over time, cracks began to show and though he remained gentle it became hard for him to not inflict any pain. I knew he didn’t mean it; he didn’t want to hurt me and it hurt him to know I was in pain. He would howl so when he thought he’d been too rough, crawling back to me with a careful hand to apologise, kissing every surface he could find.\n\nOne year, he argued with another force in the far distance, hot water over the ocean, and he became wild. He gathered so much energy that couldn't be released. He was so riled and I couldn’t stop him, I couldn’t make it better. I just had to sit by and let him spin out of control; demolish and pillage and desecrate everything in his path. Inevitably he took it out on me, as much as i know he didn't want to. He took hold of my curves and inflicted pressure with all his might, his entire force going through me over and over again right to my core.\n\nHe apologised for days. He came back to me so gently and would tenderly stroke the soft places his force had come down on. He said it was beautiful, he said it was something that bound us together, his mark on me to show the world that I was his forever. I knew he loved me, I knew he meant well.\n\nTime passed as normal for many seasons. He would breathe life into me, carefully caressing every part of me but paying special consideration to those places he had previously scorched. He began to mold me and I steadily began to change, to move into the shape he wanted me to become. I hated that I did but he said I was beautiful, he said it made me better, he said it made me look more like other natural wonders around the world that he’d seen on his travels.\n\nOver time I realised he wasn’t committed to me and I wasn’t the only one, but I told myself I was still special. He told me so and I believed him. I knew he visited my sisters too but never stayed as long, never caressed and lay with them, never tried to change them for the better. What we had was ours alone.\n\nEventually the humans came. They said the same things he did, that I was one of the most beautiful places they had ever seen. They built roads and paths and signs all over my body so they could move easily across my curves. I knew he was proud. They came from miles around, through the desert planes and hot arid mountains, across my sisters landscapes in all directions. They called me The Wave, a tribute to his affect on me and the beauty he had inevitably created.\n\nThough the adoration was appreciated it felt unnatural. They were coming to see something that wasn’t wholly me, it was something that had been pressed on me, or rather something had been taken from me to enable it's creation. It took me too long to realise that it was him that had taken literal parts of me, eroded them away over days and weeks and months and millennia, but they’d been taken without my permission. He didn’t love me, he was using me to make something entirely for himself.\n\nI was weak. I couldn’t move and he could. He could come and go as he pleased, see whoever he wanted, touch me whenever he deemed it necessary. I couldn’t stop him, I could only will it to be over quickly and that the damage would be minimal. I was a fool and I hated myself for it.\n\nI needed to get out, I needed a way to slowly get away from him, make sure he could influence me no more. So I made a decision. I would have to separate myself. Though I had responsibility over such a vast landscape I needed to decompartmentalise myself. Every grain of sand, every piece of sediment he took from me I would keep hold of, not let it go but keep it in my heart and start again, start afresh.\n\nSo I now begin the next era in my long life. Every time he touches me another part of me is released, free again to begin a new life. I eagerly keep track of every piece of me and where it will land, excitedly yearning for a new start in a new part of the world where I can be myself again. I know it will take millennia, but time is all I have. I have been battered and bruised, damaged and broken and know someone is out there to put me back together again, to take me back home to be reformed.\n\nAnd so I become reincarnated. As the earth, our mother, calls me to a different life so I go on, to be renewed and for life to start again, all from a single grain of sand." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Homesick\n\nGenre: coming-of-age\n\nWord Count: 1591\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story in which a character is running away from something, literally or metaphorically." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The cheapest urn cost a hundred dollars, so the mortician packs the ashes in a plastic bag and staples his business card to the front. Hold your loved ones close, it reads in blotched black ink.\n“In case you change your mind. My number’s on the back.” He dropped his yellow-toothed salesman smile a while ago. Right after he realized I couldn’t afford any of the empty metallic boxes standing on the shelf behind him like gentrified government buildings on a new Freedom City side street. \nHe shoves the bag across the warped countertop toward where I stand engulfed in my dad’s old army jacket. Remnants of my father lay buried beneath his fingernails and when he scratches his bald head, searching for sprouts of hair, the ashes fall in a flurry, blending into the dust mite wood.\n“Do you have something I can tie it with?” I mumble. The question has been lodged in my throat since the cash register swallowed my last ten dollars on ‘packing fees’.\nThe mortician turns on his heel until all I see is the back of his pale head and the fat rolls seeping down his neck. A drawer below the shelves whines open on waxy hinges.\n“That’ll be a dollar,” he says, holding out a garbage bag twist tie.\n“Good thing I already gave you ten.” I grab the tie from his palm and loop it around the bag’s threadbare handles. Before he can argue, I lift my father into my arms, ignoring the arthritic aches burrowed deep in my wrists, and carry him out the door like a toddler, the storefront entrance bell punctuating my exit. \nI sit on the funeral home’s steps for a while with my father in my lap, letting the fall air and weed smoke coat my lungs. The bus stop, a broken bench and a ticket machine, stands down the street. People in fast food uniforms and construction hats mill around, muttering on their cellphones, waiting for the evening shuttle to arrive. A lone police officer leans against a nearby billboard, his rifle [KB1] at his hip, his body obscuring a photograph of a thin model in a bra half biting half kissing a perfume bottle.\nI know I should stand. I wrap the end of the twist tie around my thumb. Sitting gives off the impression of homelessness. The olive skin at the tip of my finger pales. The bag in my lap could easily be mistaken for drugs. Pins and needles creep in. It’s the end of the month. Quotas are due. \nMy thumb numbs.\nSomething holds me to these steps.\nI wonder what he’d think of his final resting place. He never really slept in beds, anyway, preferring twenty-minute cat naps on bar stools and the occasional day-long drug-induced coma. When he did sleep in a bed, he made all of us shake him awake every hour or so, to ward off dreaming. I imagine shaking him now, like salt, to wake him up.\nSometimes when he landed on the right edge of tipsy, he’d laugh about the places he slept during the war. It was a hoarse laugh. The only kind he had.\nOne night, he came home early from Murph’s, smelling like piss. His friend, Nick, from the factory, dragged him through the door, their boots trekking brown slush in from the cold. In sputters, Nick told my mom they’d gotten kicked out. He never said why. It didn’t matter really. There was beer in the fridge, and my mom was in a good mood, so they cracked a few, fell onto the flat couch cushions, and laughed about the past.\nBeth slept, her birdlike arms and sticky kid fingers wrapped around my waist. I could hear their drunken mumbles through the thin walls. I lay on my back, goosebumped, and stared up at the shadows crossing our popcorn ceiling drifting off to his laughter.\nIt’s hard to explain now how intensely his moods affected mine. An invisible string tied us together, connecting our hearts, so that when his beat, so did mine. It made it so his laughter felt better in my stomach, than my own. When he was here, his body and spirit stretched so wide, it consumed me.\nNow, what is left of him fits in my hands. And still, I cannot stand. Even though I know, if I stay where I am, tucked on this sloping step, hidden in the ghost of his corpse, I’ll rot too.\nThe bus’s rusting brakes squeal to a stop. On its side, an ad of a man in a white doctor’s coat smiles. Underneath him, in crisp blue letters reads, “No health insurance? No problem! Open Credit with Prime Care!”. People line up in a row. The cop keeps his spot on the girl. His head turns from where I sit on the funeral home steps, my sneakers scraping gum stains. I tuck my father’s ashes in my coat pocket and hurry toward the end of the line, my joints cracking with every footfall.\n…\nMy ticket expired a week ago, but the driver on this corner, always lets it slide. The girls in my neighborhood call him Santa because of his scraggly beard and rumored affinity for lap dances. I flatten the crumpled edges of the ticket on the leg of my jeans and flash him a small smile. I cover the barcode and date with my fingers and Santa waves me forward. I scoot past the plastic bag he uses to throw out his cigarette buds and step back to avoid an old woman fumbling with her purse. Santa’s eyes stay ahead, absorbed in the red and green flickers of his scanner. When his hand, sticky and dry, creeps up my thigh, and grabs for my ass, neither of us says a word. After all, nothing’s ever really free.\nI find a window seat in the back. Stains mar the early 2000s vinyl. It smells stale and sad, like a supermarket bagel, but guarantees nobody will sit next to me, so I sneak in, feel for my father, and wait for the sweet smell of gasoline to burn the lump in my throat to a pulp.\n…\nAt home, Beth sleeps curled up on Dad’s recliner, her thumb stuck in her mouth. A shiny Freedom City reporter with eyes matching his blue suit collar babbles on about some hurricane barreling up the coast. I let its fluorescent glow guide me towards the remote, forgotten on the kitchen table, by a bowl of disintegrated mini wheats. Muting the news, I inspect the cereal, sniffing for hints of sour. Beth’s spoon tastes like sugar and germs. And before I bite down, the wheat melts on my tongue.\nMom left the window open. Pitch black pours in, cut up by cop car lights, pierced by sirens. Quiet lives far from here, somewhere in the suburbs. Beth doesn’t remember them, but I do. When we first moved, my mom had rules about the window, afraid a stray bullet would fly through the glass and into one of us. Leave it closed, blinds down. Then, the bills started piling up, and that fear got buried, beneath all the others. And so, to keep from suffocating, we opened the window inch by inch, until one day we forgot all about the stray bullets, too busy dodging the real ones.\nI chug the remains of the bowl, letting the cereal and sirens melt into the background. Beth’s breaths stay steady, as I scoop her up, tug her thumb out from her teeth, and tuck her beneath the quilt we share in sleep. I hate that she still sucks her thumb. It gives off the impression of parental neglect, which reminds me of my dad, who weighs down my pocket.\nI spend the next half an hour walking in circles around the apartment plopping him in different places. The top of the refrigerator is a no, even though he spent most of his waking hours swinging that white door back and forth looking for beer. I’m afraid somebody might throw him in the garbage. So, I stuff him in between the recliner’s cushions, but he keeps falling through a rip in the seams. By one a.m., I give up and leave him on the bookshelf, he called a waste of space during life.\n“Maybe you’ll take up reading in death,” I pat the bag, dusting off the shelf with my fingers.\nMy pajama bottoms are at my ankles, toothpaste dripping down my chin, when a faint buzz sounds from the lump of dirty clothes at my feet. I bend down and find my phone in the crotch of my jeans.\n“This Luce’s girl?” an old New York accent scrapes against my ear.\n“Yeah?” I spit mint green goo into the sink.\n“Look, kid, I don’t wanna be a bitch to a widow or anything, but your Ma hasn’t shown up for a shift in weeks and I’m running outta coverage.”\nMy toothbrush clatters into the sink.\n“I’m gonna have to start finding a permanent replacement soon and I…”\n“Wait, wait,” I swallow, my hand clenched around the phone so hard, the glass should shatter. “I will get her in tomorrow. I promise. She’s just been really sick and…”\n“Get her in by 8 a.m.”\n“Okay, okay, thank you…”\nI keep muttering thank yous long after she hangs up, swallowing my night pills, staring at my reflection in the bathroom mirror, wondering when fifteen got to looking so old." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: A Lesson Learned\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 1107\n\nPrompt:\n\nBegin your story with the sensation of a breeze brushing against a character's skin." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Nancy laid aside her knitting and picked up her book, which was sitting beside her on the sofa. She’d been saving it for bed-time but couldn’t wait; her hero was about to meet the love interest of this particular novel. She knew it because at the end of the previous chapter, he’d caught sight of a woman, and… Nancy went back and read that part again.\nMason looked up from his coffee. There, gliding across the piazza towards him, came a dream-like vision of loveliness, her diaphanous dress billowing seductively in the warm Tuscan breeze — the same breeze that now stroked the hairs on his forearms to attention.\nAs if in harmony with the text, Nancy felt the scant hairs on her own wrinkled forearms react. She chuckled softly, and to prolong the pleasurable expectation of what was to come in the next chapter, she closed the book to look at the cover, keeping her thumb on the page.\nDeath In Siena was the title, and underneath that, the familiar tagline: Mason Chamber, man of mystery. He may love you. He may kill you.\nNancy had read all the twelve previous books in the series. In each one there was a passionate love affair, as well as a good number of violent deaths. Mason’s weapon of choice was a knife — silent, elegant, lethal — and he was an expert in the use of it. Nancy didn’t mind the violence because Mason was one of the good guys, and the people he killed were not.\nOpening the book again, Nancy fidgeted to get comfortable. But then she felt it: a real breeze this time, on her neck. No, not a breeze — a draught. She frowned, perplexed.\nBefore settling down, she’d made sure all the windows and doors in the house were closed and had laid a draught-excluder at the base of the living-room door.\nShe twisted round one way and saw that the living-room door was open. She twisted the other way and saw the man.\nWith a muted little shriek, she let go of the book and made to scramble off the sofa. The man’s words stopped her.\n“No missus. You just stay where you are.”\nHis tone was flat, neutral. Somehow, Nancy wished he were more brusque; ‘neutral’ suggested hidden layers. She’d learned this from the Mason Chamber books: the scariest baddies were the ones that didn’t seem to have any emotions.\n“What do you want from me?” she managed when the man had moved across the room to face her. He was thin, with greasy black hair and an untidy beard. Nancy caught his unwashed scent.\n“From you personally, nothing.” The man glanced from Nancy to various points of the room; ‘shifty’, she’d call him. “I’m no psycho, don’t worry. That is … no need to worry if you’re straight with me.”\n“I don’t understand.” Nancy’s voice was trembling, she could feel it.\n“When I say ‘straight’, I mean that if you speak truthfully, no harm will come to you.”\nThe man went over to the sideboard and poked around at the ornaments on top of it.\n“I don’t have any money, if that’s what you’re after,” Nancy said, a little bolder.\nThe man turned to her and shook his head ruefully.\n“There you go. See what I mean? You’re not being straight with me. And what did I just say?”\nHe reached in his pocket and pulled out something that looked like it was made of a yellowish metal. Nancy had seen these before in crime films on the TV: a knuckleduster. The man slipped it over the fingers of his right hand and punched his left palm.\nNancy flinched and pulled her cardigan around her as a reflex.\n“You wouldn’t hurt an old lady,” she said; the tremble had returned to her voice.\n“I never have,” the man said in the same flat tone and now with a menacing grin. “But there’s always a first time…”\nNancy’s mind raced. She glanced around the room for inspiration, then down at the book by her side. What would Mason do in this situation? she thought. Then she remembered the plot of Death In Paris, book 5 in the series. Play for time, that’s what! And then—\n“So?” the man said. “What do you reckon?”\n“Well, if I did have any money,” Nancy said, “and I gave it to you, what’s to stop you killing me anyway? I mean, I’ve seen your face, haven’t I?”\n“Very true.” The man rummaged about in the drawers of the sideboard, throwing bills, letters, pens and pencils onto the floor. Moving away, he pulled a chair out from under the dining table and sat, fixing Nancy with an icy glare.\n“But I would bank on you not telling the cops anything because, you see, I know where you live. And if I go to jail, I have friends who will know where you live. So, all in all, I think you just might give me what I want.”\n“But I told you,” she said defiantly, “I don’t have any money. I mean, look at this place. Does it look like I’m a rich woman? No, I’m a pensioner. And do you know how much a pensioner gets these days.”\nThe man stood up and punched his palm again.\n“I’m losing my patience, missus,” he snarled through gritted teeth. Nancy was half-pleased he’d lost his even tone because that could mean he’d dropped his guard.\n“All right, all right,” she said, putting on a whimper she hoped was convincing. “Don’t hurt me! The money’s in…”\nShe began weeping, mumbling her words now.\n“What’s that?” the man said, straining to catch what she was saying.\nNancy continued to weep and mumble, throwing in the odd intelligible word, like “cupboard” and “shelf”.\nThe man came across and grabbed her by the shoulders, shaking her.\n“What’s that?!” he repeated. “Stop mum—”\nThe knitting needle pierced his heart as he spoke. He let out a strangled grunt, his face a mask of pain and surprise. Then he fell backwards onto the floor with a heavy thud.\nNancy pulled herself off the sofa and prodded the man with her foot. His body jerked — once, twice — and then was still.\nWhen she was quite sure he wouldn’t be moving ever again, she went to the sideboard, picked up the phone and dialled a short number.\nThey told her not to touch anything, that they’d be there in ten minutes.\nWhile she was waiting, she settled back on the sofa and picked up her book.\n“Now, where was I?” she said to herself." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: the forgiveness of the wind\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 1706\n\nPrompt:\n\nCraft a story where a character finds themselves swept away by the wind, either physically or metaphorically." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "In the quiet hours before dawn, a gentle mist shrouded the countryside. The whispers of the wind filled the solace and each dewdrop kissed the earth as if bestowing blessings upon the sleeping world. The comfort of the sun would slowly creep and dissolve the mist’s embrace, unveiling the hidden hues of the landscape. As the world awakened to the soft glow of dawn, most took comfort in the warmth that the beginning of the day had. For Corinne it was anything but peaceful. A tightness suffocated her daily, clawing at her throat, wrapping its arms around her stomach and squeezing the air from her lungs. \nShe removed her eye mask tentatively, peeking in the room to confirm the darkness and felt her anxiety slowly start to slip. Not a single shred of light peered through the blackout curtains, her noise machine filling every crevice of the room. Corinne had perfected her routine. Black out curtains covering every window of the house at all times, eye mask and noise cancelling headphones on every night with a sound machine playing repeatedly. Most people that knew her found it excessive, but she had stopped caring what others thought long ago. Before taking a step out of bed, she always checked the weather. It was a tick at this point. She had multiple weather apps with consistent phone notifications. They all confirmed the same thing - sunny day with slight chance of clouds later on in the day. She breathed a sigh of relief and got ready for the day.\nThe first steps she took out of the house always gripped at her throat, the tightness coming and going. Though the sun basking on her face encouraged her to continue so she walked briskly to the bus stop. The bench still felt damp underneath her as she sat down, her legs bouncing and a slight shake in her hands. The person beside her offered a sympathetic smile and offered a cigarette, their silent gesture of understanding weaving a thin thread of connection on the quiet morning. Accepting the cigarette, she felt a fleeting sense of ease, a small respite from the weight of her worries and the comfortable silence embracing their shared companionship. Corinne didn’t know much about him, he was a tall burly man with a thick northern accent she sometimes struggled to understand. He always wore chequered print shirts and black trousers - never navy. She was always curious about his life. She imagined he came from a big family, with a loving wife and three kids, definitely daughters, though he never indulged about his life, nor asked about hers. He always knew when to speak and when to let the silence drift between them. She was grateful for that.\nThe bus journey was short but it felt like an eternity, each passing moment stretching out into an endless expanse of uncertainty. With each stop, her heart raced a little faster, her palms growing clammy against the cool metal of the handrail. The gentle hum of the engine provided little comfort, its rhythmic drone a stark contrast to the turbulence of her thoughts. She checked the weather apps again then let her eyes drift to the passing trees. She gave a little wave to the man as she walked off the bus and walked the remainder of the way on foot, feeling hopeful that today could be a breakthrough. Dread still gnawed at her as she made her way through the familiar corridors and greeted the workers.\nSunlight drifted through the sheer curtains casting dappled patterns on the polished wooden floors. Corinne began to find sanctuary in this room. Soft, muted colours contrasting with the dark wooden accents of the bookshelf and the deep chestnut desk. But most of all, she found safety in Sophia. Her smile was full of embrace and encouragement, there was understanding that seeped out of her, her presence was a comforting beacon of stability against the tumult emotions that Corinne exuded. \nSophia cleared her throat, “Thank you for coming today Corinne. How are you feeling?”\n“I’m okay I guess.” She started picking at her nails again, Sophia’s eyes darting on her expression and noticing her reserved slump in the armchair.\n“It’s great to see you in person again,” Sophia continued, “You look better.” In the silence Corinne took the time to appreciate Sophia’s outfit. Normalcy, this is what she wished for. Her mind drifted to the times she would hang out with her friends. Her only worry in the world was what she would wear, how much money she would spend. As the silence continued to crowd the room, Corinne braved a smile, feeling that tightness once more.\n“I don’t want to feel afraid anymore,” she managed to squeeze out.\n“I understand, let’s carry on from where we left off, shall we?”\nCorinne had been diagnosed with astraphobia, the fear of weather, and anxiety. \nShe searched for the right words, but nothing slipped her lips. Sophia waited patiently, she knew to give Corinne time to open up. It had been weeks since they last met in person, rainy and stormy days stretched endlessly. “The anniversary is coming up again, yet I feel like the first day all over again.” Tears pricked her eyes, her cheeks flushed with the raw intensity of her emotions and she felt exasperated already.\n“That’s completely normal,” Sophia began, extending a box of tissues Corinne’s way, “but the progress you have made so far has been incredible. Let’s talk more about that first day. What were you feeling primarily?”\n“Guilty. So guilty. That guilt never leaves me, I guess.” Tears streamed down her face at this point, though she felt a sense of numbness from them.\n“That’s valid to feel, this grief and guilt can follow you around.” The guilt became Corinne, covered every inch of her and followed her in the depths of her mind at all times. “I think we have also made great strides in learning to live with your astraphobia too.”\nFlashes of anger burst within Corinne. Frustration gnawed at her insides, a relentless force threatening to consume her entire being. Anger at herself, anger at the world. “I’m so tired Sophia, so tired of feeling angry and scared and overwhelmed. Tired of not being able to leave my house if it’s not sunny outside. Tired of being scared of the weather.” Every word felt like a punch to her stomach, she felt guilty for feeling like this when she felt like it was her own doing.\nIn the distance clouds started stretching across the sky, the sun no longer in plain sight and the early morning promise of warmth seemingly disappearing. The late February chill beckoning once more, Corinne’s fears embracing her once more.\n“It’s almost been two years since the accident, and since then we have made great steps in your recovery. Should we talk about that night?” Sophia asked tentatively.\nThere were details that Corinne didn’t divulge with her therapist. She felt like a schoolgirl keeping dirty secrets away from the person she’s paying to help her. At times, she felt like it was her punishment for what had happened that night and that she didn’t deserve to enjoy life anymore. She mustered the courage and nodded, allowing the silence to fill in the gaps of her words. The air grew heavy, and a darkness started to loom over, grey covering the previous rays and Corinne nervously checked her phone - high chance of rain.\nSophia sighed, breaking Corinne out of her trance, “Let’s pick this up over call later shall we?” She knew she would not be able to concentrate now and extended a warm smile of reassurance.\nCorinne blew a breath of relief and graciously thanked her before darting out of the room. She needed the comfort of her house, immediately the weight of her emotions pressing down on her shoulders like a heavy burden. In her haste, she fumbled with her phone, and with a sickening crack, the screen shattered upon impact with the unforgiving floor. A pang of frustration shot through her, mirroring the chaos within her own mind. With a heavy heart, she scooped up the broken device, its cracked surface a stark reminder of the fragility of her composure and continued her way home.\nLost in her thoughts, she had missed her bus stop and with a resigned sigh, she made an impulsive decision to traverse through the meadows, a shortcut she hoped would save her precious time. The meadows stretched out before her, a sea of swaying grasses and wildflowers dancing in the gentle breeze. The earth beneath her feet felt alive, pulsating with the energy of nature's embrace. She hadn’t felt this in two years. As she approached a peak she could see the vast expanse of the valley spread out before her like a patchwork quilt, each patch a different shade of green. For a brief second she allowed herself to feel comfort.\nAs Corinne closed her eyes, she felt the wind gently wipe the tears streaming from her face, caressing her in a way she never embraced before. There was solace standing there, the clouds erupted into tears of their own, covering up Corinne’s. The dread filled her body, flinging her in every direction as though she was a piece of paper swept away by the wind. She dropped to her knees, crying out, “I’m sorry!”\nHer words echoed through the storm, a desperate plea for forgiveness lost in the tumult of the elements. Each syllable carried the weight of her remorse, a confession of the burdens she bore within her heart.\n\"Please, forgive me,\" she whispered, her voice barely audible above the roar of the rain. In that moment of vulnerability, she surrendered to the raw honesty of her emotions, seeking redemption in the unforgiving embrace of the storm. In her imagined grave, surrounded by the ethereal beauty of the storm, Corinne sought solace in the cleansing rain, her tears mingling with the earth as she laid bare her soul to the universe, yearning for the peace that forgiveness could bring.\nAs she laid there, she felt herself being swept away by the wind, dancing with the ones she lost." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: A Fate Worse Than Death\n\nGenre: coming-of-age\n\nWord Count: 2500\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story in which a character is running away from something, literally or metaphorically." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "It was the third time Arizona had stopped for gas in the last two days. She always went inside to pay, since she always had to grab some type of caffeine now. She was surprised how quickly her life had changed, and exactly what parts of it were different, than they had been on Saturday.\nHer sister was peacefully asleep in the passenger’s seat while Arizona pumped gas. That was almost all Micah did now. Arizona wouldn’t complain about it. Asleep, but alive, was just fine by her. While she sipped on the overpriced energy drink, she stared off into the distance, and her eyes fell upon him. Death didn’t look exactly like she’d expected him to.\nThe black robes and scythe that Arizona had always imagined weren’t even close to the image before her. He wore blue jeans and a muscle top, though he didn’t have much to fill it out with. He looked sunkissed, which had almost made her laugh during their first encounter, because she couldn’t imagine Death bathing in the sun. He crossed his arms and shook his head in her direction. Arizona looked to the ground while pretending she hadn’t seen him. They had a deal. He had assured her that he was honorable, and stood by his word, but she could tell he was tired of her trying to exploit that honor.\nHis voice brushed against her skin as clear as the wind. “Eventually, you will have to return. You can’t do this forever. You have a life to return to.”\nArizona hung the pump up and slid into the driver’s seat, buckling in. She turned the heater on to get rid of the chill of his voice. Micah turned and opened her eyes. She yawned. “We almost home?”\n“Almost,” Arizona lied. “I found another cool mall to check out. They have a two story book store.”\n“Cool.” Micah closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep once more.\nArizona sighed as she pulled out onto the road again. They were getting further and further from Norwalk. She’d hit the border of another state sometime soon. She would have done so already if she’d stayed in one direction the past two days, but that never crossed her mind. The only thing she’d been focused on was staying away from home. She wouldn’t even touch the county if she could avoid it, let alone the city.\n“You can’t run forever.” Death’s voice again.\nArizona turned the heater up and focused on the road.\nSaturday had been the first day in a long time that Arizona and Micah had the same day off of work. Micah had been pissed because her night sucked, so when Arizona suggested they take the day to relax and spend time up in Strongsville, her sister jumped at the chance. They went about once a month. Arizona always drove, because Micah hated highways and Arizona hated how long it took when they used the state routes and back roads. Everything should have been perfectly fine.\nThe trip to Strongsville was the same as it had always been. They grabbed coffee and shopped, spent money they shouldn’t have, watched a movie, and left while the sun was setting in a misguided effort to make it back to Norwalk before it was dark. Micah curled up in her seat despite Arizona’s complaints that if she had to stay awake to drive, Micah should have to as well. She spent about an hour after her deal with Death wondering if Micah being awake might have changed things. Maybe if Micah had been awake, she could have saved herself.\nThe truck didn’t come out of nowhere. Arizona had seen him, and she did her best to get out of his way. She was willing to put the car in a ditch to avoid an accident, but it didn’t work. The guy didn’t slow down, or move, so his truck just rolled into the ditch on top of them. She went unconscious, but it hadn’t been for long, since the wail of ambulance didn’t enter her earshot for another ten minutes. The guy that hit her fled on foot.\nMicah’s face was littered with broken glass from the windows. Her neck was clearly broken. Arizona searched every possible place for a pulse, holding her own breath while she waited for her sister to release one. She prayed for even the smallest sigh or gasp. Nothing came.\nDeath appeared as Arizona crawled out of the car, scraping her knee on the glass in the window that hadn’t found it’s way into her sister. At first, she thought he was a bystander that came to help her as he offered his hand to pull her up. Looking into his eyes revealed he was much more. He didn’t smirk or grin, the way she thought Death would. He actually looked saddened, touched by Micah’s misfortune.\n“She deserved more peace than this,” he sighed, kneeling to crawl into the car. “Plenty have crossed the rainbow bridge today. I’m sure they’ll love to keep her company.”\n“The…rainbow bridge?” Arizona knew that phrase, but with everything that had happened, it took her a moment. “That’s for dead animals.”\n“Uh-huh.” Death made it look effortless as he pulled Micah’s lifeless body from the car. Being a celestial being had to make everything easier, Arizona later figured. Micah looked like she was in a deep sleep, aside from her clearly fractured neck. Death looked to Arizona. “They should be here in time for you.”\n“You can’t take her.”\n“I’m sorry, honey. I have to. It’s my job.”\n“But-but-” Her mind raced with thoughts, and her voice froze, until she blurted out, “But we’re not done yet.”\n“No one ever is. Where do you think the idea of unfinished business comes from?”\n“Please,” she begged. “Can’t this wait? Can’t you take her at home? She can’t die like this. I can’t be the reason she dies!” The wind of the night stung at her face as tears streaked her cheeks. “Please.”\nDeath nodded. “Alright. I see no harm in that. I will wait until you return home.” He laid Micah down on the ground, pressing his hands together as light began to encase his hands. “You have my word, which is as good as my soul, that I won’t take her until you make it home. However, she won’t be the same. Her soul will still be tired. She won’t be able to keep up with you forever, so don’t keep her away too long.” He mouthed something to himself before a radiant light engulfed all of them.\nWhen Arizona blinked away the momentary blindness from the light, she saw that they were safely parked at a dollar store on the route. Micah was asleep in her seat, just like she’d been before the accident. Arizona jumped out of the car to examine it. There wasn’t even a scratch to indicate that anything took place. It looked better than it had before the accident. Everything was just fine.\n“Micah.” She tried to wake her sister. Micah just continued to sleep. That was okay, Arizona assured herself. Alive and asleep was great.\nShe checked the gas gauge. Half-full. She’d stop at the next gas station and top off. The gas she did have left would at least get her back up to Strongsville. Where she went after that was a mystery, but she knew for certain that she would never touch Huron County again.\nAfter three days of driving and living off of energy drinks, the need for sleep was starting to call to Arizona. She pulled into a Walmart and parked at the very end of the lot. The sun was high in the sky, beating down through the car window enough to keep her warm without the engine idling.\nMicah had slept no matter what. Arizona hit a few curbs here and there, and had even fought a crazy Karen at a gas station over something she didn’t even remember anymore, and Micah hadn’t even roused. Aside from opening her eyes and asking Arizona how close they were to home every ten or twelve hours, Micah hadn’t done much of anything. She didn’t eat. She hadn’t made a single comment about needing to use the bathroom. She didn’t even move too much in her sleep, just turned from one side to the other.\nArizona curled up in the driver’s seat for a quick nap. She didn’t dream. She didn’t even realize she’d fallen asleep until someone rapped on the window and scowled down at her. She thought it would be a cop telling her to move, or maybe an employee. It was some guy in scruffy clothes panhandling. She flashed her mace first, and when he didn’t see that as a threat, she reached for the dagger that Micah carried in the car. That sent him sprinting away. Arizona checked the time on the dashboard as she started the car up again. She’d slept for two hours. She felt like she could sleep for a lifetime and it wouldn’t be enough, but two hours would have to do.\n“You can’t run forever.” Death lounged in the backseat of the car like he’d been invited. He didn’t even wear his seat belt. “What about your cats? What about your job?”\n“I can get a job anywhere,” Arizona replied, focusing on the road and not on the entity that sat behind her. “I’ll call my neighbors to take care of the cats.”\n“When you don’t return, they’ll think you’re a horrible owner.”\n“Or they’ll think something awful happened to me.”\n“What if they find out nothing happened? What if they find you online?”\n“I’ll change my name. I’ll move to another state. I’m young. I can do anything I want.”\nDeath nodded, leaning in so he could rest his elbows on the center console. “Is this truly what you want? To stay running forever?”\n“I want us to be fine.”\n“She is unconscious for the majority of your time together. I granted you this gift so she could rest at home, not so you could take the shallow hull of who she was on a cross country trip. Go home.”\n“No. You can’t have her.” Arizona slammed on the brakes, almost missing a red light.\n“I come for everyone, honey. It is never personal. If it were, there would be much less evil and many more immortals in the world.” He was gone as sudden as he’d appeared.\nArizona took a deep breath as she pressed on. One more hour of driving and she’d hit the border to Kentucky. They had family there. Distant, and somewhat estranged, but family all the same. One of them would be able to help her find a job if she couldn’t get one on her own. She just needed enough to keep up paying for gas. She could be a server anywhere, flashing smiles and maybe a bit of skin for cash. That would make it easy to keep going.\n“Are we almost home?” Micah asked. She didn’t even open her eyes this time.\n“Almost.”\n“This is the longest drive ever.”\n“Yeah.”\nMicah was silent, indicating she was asleep yet again. At least Arizona wouldn’t need to rent hotel rooms on the trip. That would help save money for gas. She finished the energy drink in the cupholder next to her, making a note to stock up on them at the next gas station. This would be her life, she’d decided. This was the new normal.\nIt happened again. Night hit, and Arizona was exhausted in the driver’s seat. She needed to rest, but she didn’t feel it was safe. She considered night to be the prime time for Death to strike, even though she knew he wouldn’t touch Micah until they made it home. She felt like she could only sleep during the daylight. Arizona told herself that as soon as the sun rose, she’d rest. The moment sunrise hit, she could curl up and sleep for the whole day. By then, she’d make it to a family member who could at least spare a couch or a floor for the day.\nThis time, the truck came from behind. It was visible to everyone paying attention. Arizona was too focused on what her next move was to even understand that the horn blaring behind her was supposed to be a warning, not some asshole riding her because she was going a little under the speed limit. It was a semi, rather than a regular personal truck, and by the time she noticed it, there was no defensive driving in the world that would save her. One moment it was bright lights and the next, she was staring at her own dead body on the ground, with Death shaking his head beside her. Arizona’s body was crushed in the car. Micah’s wasn’t even visible from this angle. Seeing her own body was such a strange experience. She wanted to reach out and touch her skin, her face, to reassure herself that she was dead.\n“You won’t feel anything,” Death explained. “Your hand will just go straight through. You can’t touch anything in this world.”\n“Where’s Micah?” She wondered, looking around them. She could see the ghosts of a few squirrels that had run out into the accident. The guy that had hit them wasn’t dead. He sat on the side of the road, crying into his phone about how he had just killed a young lady. A young lady? Just one? “Did she survive?”\n“I wouldn’t call what happened to her surviving.” Death crossed his arms, nodding towards an ambulance on it’s way. “They’ll see that she’s breathing and rush her to the hospital.”\n“And then she’ll die?”\nDeath frowned. “She can’t die, Arizona. You never went home.”\n“But you’re Death. You can take her whenever you want. You are-you’re-” She felt like she was supposed to be choking on her anxiety, but there was nothing to choke on. She didn’t breathe anymore. She could sense emotions, but they didn’t feel the same. “What happens now? She just remains like that forever? Comatose to the world?”\n“She will become a medical marvel. Eventually, they will deem her an organ donor. They will be amazed that she continues to live once they start going for the vital ones, like her lungs. Her heart, her brain, her lungs; they will all go to others and the doctors will be amazed to see her still alive. Asleep, but alive. That’s better than passing, isn’t it?” He sneered at her as he said it.\n“You made the deal with me. Can’t we just make a new one?”\n“I cannot make deals with the dead. Only with the living looking to escape or delay death.”\n“Is there anything I can do from here?”\n“You can do what all the dead who made mistakes in their life do.”\n“What’s that?”\n“Watch others make the same mistakes.”" } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Thinkburger!\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 1303\n\nPrompt:\n\nBegin your story with the sensation of a breeze brushing against a character's skin." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Chilly winter breezes blew on Kai, as winter in the classrooms still meant ventilation. But Kai did not really care. \"Yessss!\" Kai gave a big thumbs up to his Advanced IT teacher. He did feel like a tiny midget, mixing it with such overgrown Year 12 teenagers. Never mind, he held his own. Kai was the first to complete their task. He had designed and built a mini-robot.\nKai held his breath as he switched it on. Lights blinked, its eyes opened. Thrilling. Kai had invented his own homework helper. He had made a girl robot, because Kai liked girls. Shame they did not like him so much.\nKai typed on the robotic display unit, \"Your name is Thinkburger. You are going to think up the right answers to all my Maths. Can your hear me?\" \"Yes, master,\" said Thinkburger, in a metallic sort f way. \"When do I start?\"\nThe giant senior students looked on. They were a bit amazed. But hey, boys will be boys. Kai popped Thinkburger into his backpack, as he headed to his homeroom.\nKai's new homeroom teacher was Mr. Niroshi, the school counselor. He had a big sad emoji face. He had the flu, his throat was sore. He coughed all over the class. They still had to attend school the next day. Would they all survive this breeze of influenza? Would Mr. Niroshi? He sounded worse than anyone else.\nKai hoped that his Year Seven D class would not have a substitute teacher the next day. All the kids hated relief teachers .Or, instead, if Mr. Niroshi was a no-show, their class would be split up and turfed into other homerooms.\nThe next day, Kai took Thinkburger to school with him in his backpack. Very useful. Maybe she could do his Maths today. He, too, was coughing as he strolled into the classroom.\nThe principal stood in front of the class, as Mr. Niroshi was home in bed with the flu. \"Is he allergic to us? Kai asked Rianna. But she just ignored him. His star girl was still not talking to him.\nThe principal told Year Seven D to turn on their e-readers and laptops, and sent them all online learning lessons.\n\"Now behave yourselves!\" he said, leaving Year Seven D students to manage while he sorted another form. \"We won't!\" called one cheeky lad, after the Principal had left the scene.\nIt was that wintry, germy sort of year, with lots of teachers absent. Year Seven D settled, planning to cruise through a fabulous Friday. No one really wanted to do too much learning, might damage their developing brains. About half and hour went fast. The big bully boys were sitting down the back, gazing at the NBA on their screens. No one was doing any task the Principal had set them.\n\"What's that?\" \"Eeeugh!\" \"Creepy!\" Kai looked up from his phone. \"Oh, no!\" Thinkburger had escaped from Kai's backpack. She rolled to the front of the classroom, and climbed to stand on Mr. Niroshi';s chair.\nA small cannon appeared on Thinkburger's forehead. She started firing bombs at the ceiling, surrounding the students with a cloud of pink smoke. She was a lady, after all. Year Seven D kids all stopped mucking around. Stunned, they stared at the midget robot. She started to lecture them in her squawking voice. Thinkburger thought she was the perfect teacher.\n\"Right!, listen up. I'm your educator for the day. You are going to get an education. Turn off that NBA right now. Switch on to Basic Algebra. Now! \"What if we don't?\" one of the boys grumbled. Thinkburger turned her cannon in his direction. Scared, he muttered, \"Okay, okay. We get the message! Who brought the robot?\"\n\"Oh, Kai, who else?\" Rianna whinged. Kai tried to make himself invisible. He hated Maths, he just could not do any sums properly. Thinkburger spoke again. \"Zip lips! Here's how you are going to do Question 1. She sent them examples to their laptops. \"You can do Question 1. Submit answers, right now!' The kids all obeyed. They had instant corrections from the bossy robot.\n\"Surprise, you all got Question 1 correct.\" \"Now, can we stop dong Maths?\" Rianna asked, hating Maths too. \"No, there's a 100 algebra sums to do, plus an online quiz. No backchat, I am going to send your results to the Principal.\nThe Year Seven D students were horrified and sulking, let alone sooking Thinkburger said, \"Now, behave, or I'll bomb you.\" \"You're a bully,\" one boy complained.\n\"Absolutely!' Thinkburger replied.\nScared, the Year Seven D solved 100 sums, groaning and muttering rude words in whispers. Thinkburger pretended not to hear them. Then she sent their laptops an online Maths quiz. It contained another fifty sums. Everyone was giving Kai some very dirty looks. He tried to pass the quiz. It would be the first time ever. He was still trying to look invisible.\nKai realized he had made some mistakes in designing Thinkburger. His little robot was supposed to be solving his sums, not him. She had gone rogue, a real control freak.\nAfter the Maths test, Thinkburger said, \"Well done, you all passed Algebra today. Many of you got A's. Now for English, essay writing. \"What about lunch?' one big boy asked, \"We're starving.\" \"Tough!\" said Thinkburger, \"on with the show, Topic 1---\"Who wins any war?\" Start writing now!\"\n\"Then what?\" Rianna complained, \"Kai, we're going to get you for this!\" Thinkburger's cannon appeared again, pointing in Rianna's direction.\nSoon the whole class was silent again, busy, terrified. They were finally co-operating with a teacher. At last, their schoolwork was finished. \"Now, can we have some recess?\" the students asked the midget robot. But unfortunately, Thinkburger was also a queen of clean.\n\"No breaks, it's time to clean up this disgusting, messy classroom. Here's some mops, polish for your desks, and there's the vacuum cleaner. None of you are going home until this place is spotless and gleaming. And I want those books and IT equipment totally tidy. Totes!\"\n\"Fabbo!\" said Kai. Sulkily, the Year Seven D boys and girls all obeyed Thinkburger. Even when the home time bell sounded, Thinkburger kept the whole grade in, until the Principal arrived. He walked in and looked around the classroom.\"Well, well,well. You did behave yourselves after all. I am very impressed. \"\n\"Kai, you and I are going to start a robot teacher business. We'll make millions. You are going to mass produce more robots to take over the whole education system.\"\n\"As if....\" Kai thought. He gulped. Rianna was looking at him, still cross. He put up his hand, \"Excuse me, it's past our home time. Our parents are expecting us.\"\"\n\"Quite right,\" said the Principal. \"I really can't believe it's Friday afternoon already. I'll see you on Monday at 9 am!\"'\n\"Oh, joy!\" Kai said softly. He grabbed the Thinkburger off the teacher's chair, and stashed her in his backpack. He zoomed through the door before the bully boys could get him.\nSurprise! Kai was half way home, when Rianna caught up to him. \"Kai, look! I got an A in the Maths test. First time ever. My Dad said he'd give me a $100, if I ever got an A in Maths.\"\nKai sort of smiled. \"Oh, now you're talking to me again?\"\n\"Yes, look, this is great. I''ll take you to lunch tomorrow with my Maths money. Just don't bring that horrible robot to school again. We're all exhausted.\"\nJust then, Thinkburger, resting in his backpack, snored. Loudly.\nKai and Rianna laughed. Kai said, \"Just for today, do not worry. I won't be making any more Thinkburgers, deffo not!\"\nHe grinned. Rianna was taking him on his first date. '\"I'll never understand women. Scary.\" he sighed.\n\"Absolutely,\" Rianna agreed, \"Cheers for chicks!\"" } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Summer of '72\n\nGenre: coming-of-age\n\nWord Count: 1343\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with one or two characters going for a run." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The Summer of ‘72\n My 12-year-old self tightened the laces on my dusty PF Flyers. I kicked the Ozark rocks stained red from the clay and there rose a cloud of dust that lingered in the air. I thought it could be smoke as hot as it was. I looked down the steeply sloped gravel driveway that brought travelers up, past the weathered barn, to the cozy house at the top of the hill. Grandma and Grandpa’s house. They had moved here from Indiana after their retirements, and fancied watching the rest of their lives pass by from that Ozark perch. Our previous visits had been eye-opening for four suburban raised boys. The half-mile rides in the back of Grandpa’s pickup in the morning to fetch the mail. Exploring the fascinating four acres with all manner of critters that we had never encountered before. Using a real outhouse, a scary distance from the house. Bathing in the “crik”, and the half-mile walk back to the house up this very driveway, leaving us sweaty and coated with a new layer of Missouri’s dry dust. This time our visit to the farm just wasn’t the same.\n I looked down that hill and hesitated. A skinny kid with glasses, the only running I had ever done was around the bases at the local Little League field. That summer there was a fire of frustration in my belly, and I’m quite certain that without the 1972 Olympics, I would never have contemplated running up or down that hill. As our stay began to feel more and more like confinement, I found solace in one of the things being aired on one of only two television channels. Day after day of watching the Olympics avidly had hatched a plot in my mind. If I were to become an Olympic athlete, my parents would be proud and lavish me with attention. Being far away from home without my parents, I had twelve-year-old issues that I’ll never quite understand, but the scheme seemed solid. I asked myself, how would I become an Olympic athlete? After a reasonable elimination of all manners of skilled sport, I arrived at the inevitable conclusion. Run.\n I took a stride down the hill, then another. The gravel proved slippery, and I had to lean back to keep from hurtling down the steep drive. One foot after the other, I awkwardly ran down the drive, propelled more from gravity than any internal fortitude. The ground leveled out as I approached the end of the drive where you could go left, or right, on a long gravel road. To the right lay fearful mysteries and rumors and we NEVER walked the road that way. To the left lay the creek, then later the blacktop, which led to the nearest town. As I shuffled myself to flat ground I simply looped around at the bottom of the hill and headed back up. No good to overdo it on the first day, was my thinking. I swung my arms hard hoping they would aid my ailing legs. Gravity pushed hard against my shoulders and my knees began to quiver. I eased to a walk, sweat running down my face, gasping for air. Disgusted at myself, I looked up realizing that I had only made it a quarter of the way up the drive. I was furious at myself, at least I thought I was, as I willed my body to run on. I could not. Hot tears left dirty trails on my face. Why did Dad leave us here? Where is Mom? The rocky driveway mocked me, offering no answers.\n Over the next weeks I took to running like a personal challenge. I did not know that my efforts were like an internal furnace, fueled by angst but also burning away the anger. I would run down the hill, turn left, and go farther each day. Inevitably I would return to that steeply rising driveway and bow to its will, breaking into a subservient walk.\n Dad called yesterday. He talked with Grandma for some time. I heard her fill him in on each of us four boys, then she stretched the phone cord so that she could continue the call from the kitchen. I snuck near the door so that I could listen better. I heard her mention treatments, then “When is she leaving Hinsdale?” I don’t know why, maybe I had heard it once before, but I knew Hinsdale was a sanitorium. I ran from the house and down the drive, not stopping until I had reached the creek. I was well read for a twelve-year-old kid, but that only made my questions more potent. Why was she there? When would she come back? What…had we done? My twelve-year-old tears provided no answers.\n The next day my brothers and I all donned swim trunks, with only sneakers to accessorize the look. A towel over my shoulder and a bar of soap in my hand, the walk to the creek seemed unusually slow. Finally arriving, we took to bathing on the left side of the road, as we had been instructed. There was a gentle gravel runoff, almost a beach that eased into a clear sandy bottomed pool that was our bathtub. Two culvert drain pipes ran under the road connecting the two sides. From the first we had been told not to swim on the right side of the road. The crumbling embankment and steeper drop to the water, the pools murky depth, and lack of easy entrance and exit all were logical factors in this rule. I recollect that my youthful frustrations led me to be a literal pain in the ass for my kind grandparents, and that day was no different. I left my two young brothers with my older brother, and I crossed the road.\n I scoffed at the warnings about this side of the road. I eased into the cool water and bobbed to the center of the small pool. My shoes could touch the rocky bottom and the water was just under my chin. I smiled self-satisfied at my disobedience. Crossing the road and peering down at me, my older brother responsibly yelled his disapproval, but I knew he wanted to flaunt his irresponsibility like me. I mocked him with a Cheshire grin and a low moan of satisfaction.\n Suddenly, ten inches from my face, a patterned head, bigger than my closed fist, rose from the water. Two beady black eyes stared mercilessly at me, a forked tongue flicking out to taste the air. The water moccasin had slid from its nest under the crumbling concrete overhang next to a culvert. I held my breath. With a roar my big brother protectively tossed a large stone at the serpents’ head but missed the mark. The snake disappearing under the water right in front of me ignited my terror. I left that pool running, which my brother later described as somewhat biblical, and tore off down the road towards the farm. My sneakers sloshed water across the dusty road that was absorbed almost as fast as I was running. I hit the hill thinking about that snake, but you know what, when I reached the top of that hill, all I could think about was that I had accomplished the unthinkable. I had run up that hill. I didn’t know it then, but I do know it now, that running up that hill gave me a little invincibility. If I could do that, then maybe Dad would come get us, and Mom would get better. And they did.\n I bend over at the waist, back aching like it does in the morning, and I tighten the laces of my Nike running shoes. At 64 I think about that 12-year-old and though he never made it to the Olympics, how he helped others overcome their personal “hills” throughout the years. I think how when that gun sounds, once again, I’m going to run. Somewhere along that run, I’ll find that invincibility once again.\nTHE END" } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Breezy Thoughts\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 1017\n\nPrompt:\n\nBegin your story with the sensation of a breeze brushing against a character's skin." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "This story relates to trauma and well being. The love of life and acceptance regarding change and moving forward to revolve again with the support and kindness from others.\nBrenda watched the wind blow against the window pane, of her small apartment over looking the sandy beach and rocks. Trying to remain positive thinking happy thoughts. Picnics on the beach, the odd bottle of iced wine shared with friends. Sunny blue skies with the sea gulls floating by. The waves lapping along coastline with just a slight breeze.\nFishing boats bobbing on a clear blue sea with a slight ripple of the waves, sea salt on a fine day, ice lolly's. A man with a stick in his hand, walking along the beach with an eager dog waiting for the stick to be thrown. Glistening wet sea shells, the sand between her toes, flip flop sandals. Everyday Things that Brenda had taken for granted. Memories, thoughts of happy days.\nToday was not such a bright day, the weather matched her mood cold with sleet showers. A typical Wintry day with no one on the beach. Her mind went back two years ago a routine visit to the hospital, the Colonoscopy had showed that she did not have Bowel Cancer. Instead she had haemorrhoids which could be treated with cream. The tension had left Brenda's body. She had thanked the nurses getting dressed in the small hospital cubicle.\nOccasionally Brenda would use cream for the haemorrhoids, from the local chemist shop. Getting up today early am, she had found a pool of blood upon her bed sheet. Ringing the emergency services for advise, she had tried not to panic. They had suggested that she got checked out at the local hospital. Brenda had tried not to panic ringing a local taxi firm.\nThe grey taxi cab had arrived promptly, within ten minutes of her call. Brenda had climbed into the taxi cab glad to be out of the cold. The cab had sped along the road as the wind blew sleet and rain upon the wind screen of the cab. Brenda chatted to the driver, as the hospital came into view. The taxi driver had driven Brenda straight to the door of the Causality Department. Grateful for his prompt efficient service she had handed him a ten pound note telling him to keep the change.\nEntering the Casualty Department she had given the hospital\nreceptionist her personal details and address. After Brenda had sat patiently waiting for her turn to be seen. After waiting forty five minutes, her name was called by a nurse. The hospital staff were friendly and kind. Swabs were taken under her arms, in her groin, and mouth areas. Her blood pressure was also taken, weight checked, urine for diabetes. The tests were all clear.\nBrenda was then advised to go into the lift to the Surgical Department of the hospital. Where she was attended to by a nurse and female doctor. Explaining her symptoms. She was asked to lie down on her side, upon the bed in a small office, off the main Surgical Ward. It had been a relief to know the haemorrhoids had not grown any bigger in size. The doctor had said all was well. Brenda had a clean bill of health, the bleeding from the haemorrhoids would be sore for a few days then heal of its own accord. A larger haemorrhoid had swollen up and burst, hence the blood stain upon the sheet.\nAs she left the hospital, after thanking the doctor and nurse for their support. Brenda thought how great the N.H.S was. With their patience, kindness, and understanding it had meant so much to her. Also that of the kindly taxi driver getting her to the hospital so quickly. This days experience would remain significant in her memory.\nFinding that the rain and sleet had stopped, now public transport was running along the Coast Road. Brenda caught the bus into town happy and relaxed, a contented woman. She would be able to take her small dog Toto, along the coastline for a brisk walk. Her skin, from the sea breeze and salt, would be better and fresher than any bottled moisturiser. Little things being of importance as one grew older, family, friends, and a love of nature and the sea breeze.\nBrenda must keep to a proper diet, exercise regularly and keep to a regular sleep pattern. Her eyes filled with tears as Toto her small Scottie dog greeted her on her return home. He would never ever catch those seagulls , or the odd squirrel that appeared in the local park. Toto would never give up with his sharp little bark and a passion for the chase. Life nature and the elements was precious for one to survive the tumours and riggers of life.\nCold and warmth, love, kindness, understanding of life, and its reasons, one may never fully understand the context? Progress along the way being of importance. Acceptance, joy happiness with others being the path way to survive. Maslow's Triangle of needs what a person needs to survive, came to mind. Not to take everything for granted.\nToday had an okay day after all, different but with a positive result. She would see what would be on the horizon for herself and her dear companion Toto. Although not a fan of the cold weather he would always be there for her. With his wagging stump of a tail and warm brown eyes. Worth his weight in doggie treats. As Brenda opened the door to her apartment Toto's ears pricked up, bless him he had made himself comfortable on the lounge hearth rug. She would make it up to him now she felt more relaxed herself.\nSlowly, Toto got up from the tawny coloured hearth rug, coming towards her. They would share many walks and happy times together. Boy friends over the years had come and gone. Briefly Brenda had lived with Brian for a while they had enjoyed each others each company. Now there was only one fellow for her dear sweet Toto." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Mind of a Flying Bird\n\nGenre: coming-of-age\n\nWord Count: 2657\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story that includes someone saying, “You can’t run forever.”" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "[This is the first chapter of a novel about grief, based on a runner. It contains themes of death and mental health.]\nIt was April, the first year without my brother, and I was throwing up in a bed of hyacinths. \nI only knew they were hyacinths because Mom had some planted in our garden back in New York, and for days she talked about how the landscapers put them in lopsided. I didn’t know flowers could be lopsided. That’s what I thought about as I sat there in the dirt, staring dizzy at the flowers, wet and blue and bright. \nThey were planted outside a stone library. I was supposed to be inside it, standing in front of a panel of men in suits and telling them how accomplished and promising I was. They were waiting now to decide whether or not to grant me admission to the dazzling, coastal, hyacinth-covered boarding school I’d wanted to attend for as long as I could remember. Instead, I was staring at a little puddle of puke and trying to catch my breath. The sky was falling, wet and blue and bright. Any minute my parents would come looking for me to ask how my interview had gone, and I’d have to tell them I bailed. \nThere are many reasons why I ran out of that library, but I’ll tell you the overarching one. The only one that really matters. \nHis name was Callum.\n***\nNine months after the interview, I was expelled from school. \nI was in my freshman year at St. Kevin’s, an all-boys school in Manhattan named after some old Irish saint. I’d been there since sixth grade, and while it wasn’t the worst place in the world, my time there felt expired. Like spoiled milk. \nIt was December third and I hated December thirds. It was raining, and I felt the heaviness of it, like every drop was landing on me all at once. I’d say the end began when my English teacher held me back after class, but that’s not where it really began. It was more like the point where things began to crack under the weight of what was already an inherently bad day. \nMy classmates spilled out of the classroom for lunch, but I stared at Mr. Brown’s overflowing desk and waited. Their voices faded down the hall, and the sound of the rain on the window swelled. \n“Mylo, we’ve got to talk about your report,” Mr. Brown said. He tossed it on the desk with a smack, like it was the corpse of his pride as a teacher, and I was the one who had killed it. The corner of it landed curled against his coffee cup, and I saw the bright red D+ circled on top. That was a bad grade. Bad. \n“Did you even read the book?” he asked.\nI diverted my attention to my leather shoes. “Mostly.”\n“Mylo, this is hardly three pages long. I asked for six. And your content here, it’s…” He scoffed and motioned at the paper. “Well, it’s crappy, that’s what it is.”\nHe leaned back in his chair and looked me up and down, as if inspecting my uniform for errors, and my humor vanished. Was my tie out of place, my shirt untucked? My stomach was in knots, I knew that much. It had been all day. He was waiting for me to say something, but I didn’t know what. I never did. \nPeople had very specific expectations of me. The straight-A, straight shot to the Ivy Leagues kind of expectations. I didn’t blame them; that’s just the world I lived in. My mom bought me nice brands, my dad was a partner at a thriving law firm, and I was half Chinese (the other half being a shake-and-bake jumble of European ancestry courtesy of my father, but no one ever seemed to care about that part). The point is, people expected something of me—diligence, at the very least. But Mr. Brown had been my teacher for over three months now. He should’ve known I was not adept at meeting expectations. \n“I see this a lot. Many of the boys who come through here stop caring because they have trust funds or family businesses to fall back on. I don’t know if that’s your case, but believe me, you don’t want to give up on yourself. College is right around the corner.”\n“I never said I was giving up,” I muttered.\n“I understand your suspension put you behind last month, but you should be caught up. Your grades have been teetering on a steep cliff. I’m afraid this paper might push them off.” \n“Can I do it over, then?”\n“I suppose, although I wouldn’t be able to raise your grade to more than a C.” He picked up the report and thumbed through the pages. I wished he’d just hand it to me. “The problem is not this paper, Mylo. It’s your work ethic. You’re a smart kid, but your motivation has plummeted as the semester’s gone by, and now that we’re about to take final exams, I don’t think you’re prepared. I’d like to have a talk with your mother.”\nMy stomach was the thing plummeting now. “She’s very busy.”\n“What about your father?”\n“Um...busier.”\nMr. Brown sighed and shifted his weight to his elbows. His expression turned sincere, brows drawn in ever so slightly, but his eyes stayed fixed on my paper. His voice was cautious, as if I’d bite. “Mylo, can I ask you something?”\nMy toes squirmed. “I guess so.”\n“You wanted to be at a different school this year, didn’t you?” \n“Yeah. Howard Merris Academy.”\n“And that’s in...Connecticut?”\n“Rhode Island.”\nHe hummed a short tone. “But you didn’t get in?”\n“Not yet,” I said, stressing the word to make it clear that I would, in fact, get in. I’d do the stupid interview again, and I’d still have three years at Merris, which was not my original plan, but three years were better than none. “I had an interview last April, but I got sick and I couldn’t do it.”\n“They wouldn’t reschedule?”\nI shrugged and looked out the window. The panes were foggy, making green shadows of the trees outside. My eyes traced a raindrop as it cut down the glass, revealing a sliver of the stone church across the street. I wished I was out there. My heel tapped the floor. “Can I go now?”\n“You know, when I was a senior I wanted to get into Dartmouth more than anything in the world. It wasn’t easy getting that rejection letter, especially with a family legacy to live up to.” His hand smoothed the surface of my report, futilely flattening the corners. “I recall you have a family legacy at Merris?”\nI eyed the paper, planning my flight. “And?” \n“Is this about Callum?”\nI went cold, and the patter of rain crept down my spine. My lips pursed, tightened by the sound of my brother’s name like it was a sour candy stuck under my tongue. \n“I don’t mean to pry,” Mr. Brown said. “I’m just concerned about your grades. I hope you’ll find it in yourself to do better, if not for your own sake then at least for your brother’s.”\nPeople said that a lot. Even my own father did, sometimes. Do it for Callum, be better for Callum. They knew there was a gaping hole inside of me, and they poked and prodded in there, looking for bits of my brother floating around in the void. As if somehow I could reach inside myself and pull parts of him out, parts that I lacked. But he wasn’t in there. He was nowhere. When a part of you disappears, you change, and sometimes it’s impossible to go back to who you used to be. That’s what people didn’t understand.\nI turned and left, not even bothering to take the paper with me.\nAs far as December thirds go, I’d been doing alright before he brought up Callum. I’d made it most of the morning without letting him infiltrate my thoughts, but now, as I walked to get my lunch from my locker, I felt pulled down. Like the weight that had been hanging over me all day had dropped onto my chest.\nThe period was halfway over by the time I got to the cafeteria doors. From the hall, I could hear the voices humming within, and smell the garlic that sat heavy in the air. I hovered outside the doors. My friends would be cramped at our usual table, talking about Christmas plans and girls from the school down the street, but my throat felt too thick for conversation. I was sure they would understand. A couple of them, at least, knew what day it was today. \nI slid to the floor in the hallway and unwrapped my sandwich. It was one of the better ones I’d made, with peanut butter, bananas, a drizzle of honey. I took a bite, and my watch glinted off the fluorescent lights overhead. My watch had a black leather band and a silver face, but it was broken, stuck at 12:05, the glass cracked out from the center like a web. I rested my wrist against my knee and stared at it, peanut butter sticking to my teeth, and I chewed slowly until I managed to swallow. I only got down one more bite, then I threw the rest out. \nOnce the boys started to leave the cafeteria, I followed them to the front patio for recess. That’s what the administration called it, at least, but there were no kickballs, no green space, not even a stretch of pavement. We spent the fifteen minutes standing idly with our hands in our pockets and our breath making clouds in the cold air. \nIt was only sprinkling now, but in an icy, spitting way, so most boys stayed near the door, sheltered in the alcoves of the brick walls. I spotted a few of my friends there, too, but I didn’t go talk to them. I’d known them for years, but things had been different for a while now. In middle school, I would’ve told them anything. Now I just didn’t have anything to say. Especially not today.\nI went to the front gate and pressed my face to the iron bars. Water dribbled onto my head from an overhanging maple, and as I peered out at the street, I was dazed with a sense of quiet. Cars glistened wet along the curb, and washed-out footsteps tapped through the rain. It all pulled me outward. The city pulsed with this irresistible current, and once I dipped my toes in, I was always dragged right down. I could feel it already. My arms swinging, my feet slapping against the pavement, taking me away from St. Kevin’s, from December third. I felt like if I willed it hard enough, I could slip right through the bars and disappear. \n“What are you doing, Mylo?” \nThe voice belonged to someone I particularly disliked. Jackson and I had been getting on each other's nerves for years now. The summer before seventh grade, Callum and I saw him at the park, and he dumped water down the front of my pants. Callum pushed him down hard. That didn’t do much to repair the rift between us. \nI tried to ignore him, but his dress-shoed footsteps came scuffling up behind me. I kept my eyes on the street. “Nothing,” I said. \n“I wanted to ask you what happened. I heard you got chewed out after English.”\n“I didn’t get chewed out,” I said. “Doesn’t matter anyway.”\n“Well, hey, we just wanted to make sure you’re all good.”\nJackson leaned against the gate. I looked behind me and realized his friends were watching from the wall, but when I set eyes on them, they turned around and tried to hide their amusement. My own friends weren't paying attention. Thank god. \n“Why wouldn’t I be good?”\n“Because you look like you’re about to bolt again, dumbass.” He drew his brows together, feigning an expression of concern. “Listen, someone told me you’re having a rough day, and I know why. It’s Callum’s birthday, right? So I’m looking out for you. We don’t want you to do anything crazy.”\nI sucked in a breath and let it go. “I’m not going to run off again if that’s what you’re implying.”\n“Oh, that’s cute.” Jackson’s lips lifted into a smile. “I meant we don’t want you to, like, off yourself or shoot up the school or something.”\n“Go to hell.”\nHe laughed again and sent out a hand to pat my shoulder. “Hey, man, I’m just messing with you.”\nI don’t know what exactly happened next. What I do know is when things build up for too long, you break apart from the pressure. All the tiny cracks you never got around to mending burst apart into a million little pieces, and those little pieces are a lot harder to glue back together. When your composure shatters, you aren’t thinking about how you’ll mend it; you’re just exploding. You forget everything that’s riding on you being a normal, non-messed-up kid, and you snap. \nI smacked Jackson’s hand away and shoved him. He hit the iron bars with a dull clang but pushed back without hesitation. I staggered to catch my balance, shoes scraping on the stone. My fist curled. I lunged and biffed him right in the mouth. \nJackson tripped backward with a huff, hands folded over his face. My eyes darted. Everyone was paying attention now, closing in like gamblers in a dogfight, waiting to see how Jackson would retaliate. I didn’t give him the chance. I’d never been a man of my word, so when I said I wouldn’t run away, it didn’t mean a thing. \nI threw open the front gate, and the boys of St. Kevin’s rushed forward, hands reaching out, throats straining with shouts. As I stumbled down the steps to the street, I realized I’d never felt like I belonged here, and I wasn’t sure I ever would. It didn’t matter. Once I started running, nothing did. \nI sprinted a block or so from school before my feet began to ache. I ditched my socks and shoes somewhere under a stretch of scaffolding, and I shed my sports coat too. It didn’t take long to find my flow after that. The sidewalk was jolting without shoes, but I didn’t mind. I liked sensing the ground beneath me, feeling the wind against my ankles. I liked the risk of it. \nI loved to run more than anything else in the world. My breath fell into a rhythm, and the faster I ran, the more things slowed down. Everywhere around me, people and cars moved perpetually, like parts of some grand machine that kept grinding on in spite of everything. They all sped their separate ways, living their separate lives, going about their own December thirds. I was my own machine. My legs propelled me forward, my sides pulsed with pain, my lungs expanded and collapsed like moving gears. I was one machine grinding on with all the others, an insignificant part of some magnificent, meaningless design.\nMy mind drifted to Montauk as I ran. It always drifted there. I usually tried to shut it out, but today of all days, I let it settle like sediment. \nMy body traced up the street toward the nearest avenue, but my mind went racing down that winter beach, towards the distant lighthouse. Callum was beside me. Seabirds cruised overhead, and frigid waves grabbed at our laces, and he was fast, but never quite as fast as me. We ran and ran, never growing tired, never reaching the horizon. We were just howling into the wind, reveling in the wholeness of being together. \nBut nobody can run forever." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Echoes of Discovery\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 2166\n\nPrompt:\n\nA crumpled piece of paper holding an unexpected message is carried by the wind. Where did it come from, and where is it going?" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Alice tucked a windswept strand of hair behind her ear as she strolled down the bustling streets of New Haven. Crisp autumn air nipped at her cheeks, carrying the lofty scent of roasted chestnuts. She clutched her vintage satchel, eyes darting between cobblestone streets and historic buildings, drinking in the city’s nostalgic charm. \nShe arrived at her favorite antique shop, Memories Unveiled, by turning down a quiet side street. Alice paused, noticing a crumpled piece of paper wedged under the door. She retrieved it with delicate fingers, smoothing its wrinkled edges. Scrawled in faint lettering was a cryptic message: “Follow the whispers of the wind.”\nAlice’s pulse quickened. What could it mean? She glanced around but saw no one. She shrugged, slipped the paper into her bag, and entered the shop.. A bell jingled overhead.\n“Alice, welcome back!” The shopkeeper, Mae, waved from behind the counter. \nAlice smiled. “Hello, Mae. Any new treasures today?”\n“Take a look around, dear. I’ll be here if you need me.”\nAlice nodded and headed for the bookshelves, running her fingers along the leather spines. She loved the musty scent of old pages. She gently thumbed through a novel she had selected. A photograph fell out, landing on her boot. \nAlice knelt down. The faded image showed a young woman standing on a cliff overlooking the sea, the wind whipping through her dress. Scribbled on the back were the words “Follow the whispers...”\nAlice’s breath caught. What were the chances? She tucked the photo in her bag, heart racing. This was no coincidence. \nPurchase made, she stepped outside, the doorbell jingling again. The crisp air seemed electric now, charged with mystery. Alice closed her eyes, listening for any sound out of the ordinary. \nThen she heard it—a faint whisper, barely audible over the city’s din. “This way...” it seemed to say.\nAlice’s eyes snapped open. Without hesitation, she followed the invisible voice down the sidewalk. The whisper led her further from the bustling central streets, onto narrower roads flanked by old row houses. \nAnother whisper floated by. “Yes...you’re close...” Alice quickened her pace. The voice guided her around corners and through shadowy alleys. The buildings here were dilapidated, showing their age. \nShe noticed a figure up ahead as she turned down an especially narrow alley. A girl leaned casually against the brick wall, dressed in ripped jeans and a leather jacket, her hair dyed teal. \nThe girl’s eyes lit up when she saw Alice. “You heard the call! I knew you were one of us.” She pushed off the wall and approached. “Name’s Mae. And you?”\n“I’m Alice.”\nMae grinned. “Well, Alice, want to see something special?” She gestured to a worn wooden door nearly hidden by overgrown ivy. \nAlice hesitated. “I’m not sure...”\n“Come on, live a little! This is just the beginning of the adventure.” Mae pulled back the ivy, revealing an old iron handle. \nCuriosity won out. “Alright,” Alice conceded. Mae opened the door to utter darkness. Alice felt a rush of exhilaration and uncertainty. What would they find?\nMae flicked on a flashlight, illuminating a winding stone staircase. “Watch your step. It’s easy to lose your footing.”\nThey descended slowly. The air grew heavy with earthy dampness. After several minutes, the stairs ended at an old wooden door. Mae turned the handle, and they entered a small room. \nAlice coughed as dust filled her lungs. When it settled, she gasped. They were surrounded by mountains of antique treasures—furniture, clothing, books, and endless curiosities. \n“What is this place?” Alice asked in awe.\n“The Wind Whisperers hideaway. We collect artifacts and stories that would otherwise be forgotten. Go ahead, have a look around.”\nAlice picked up a dusty top hat, running her fingers along its brim. She noticed more photographs scattered throughout the piles, all depicting people captured in moments of wonder. Their shared expression gave her chills.\n“Alice, check this out!” Mae called. She held an antique iron key. “I bet this unlocks something amazing. Are you up for another adventure?”\nAlice grinned, feeling the familiar spark of curiosity stir within her. “Absolutely.”\nAlice’s footsteps echoed down the dimly lit corridor as she followed the faint whispers only she could hear. The dusty air swirled around her, carrying the musty scent of aged wood and forgotten memories. She trailed her fingers along the wall, feeling the cool roughness of ancient brick beneath her fingertips. \nUp ahead, a sliver of light spilled from a partially open door. Alice paused, listening for any sound within, but only silence greeted her. With a deep breath, she gave the door a gentle push. It swung open with a soft creak, revealing a room bathed in warm sunlight. \nHer eyes widened as she took in the treasures before her. Shelves lined the walls, packed with curios and antiques. Dust-coated vases, tarnished silverware, leather-bound books - each item seemed imbued with its own lost history. \nAlice’s gaze settled on a writing desk tucked into the back corner. Sunlight streamed over it, illuminating a wooden box resting atop its worn surface. She crossed the room slowly, her heart quickening with each step. \nKneeling before the desk, Alice ran her fingers over the box’s intricately carved lid. Floral motifs and scripture verses adorned its sides, speaking of a craftsman’s patient hand. She hesitated, then carefully lifted the lid.\nInside, dozens of aged envelopes and folded letters lay bundled in neat stacks. Alice gingerly lifted the first letter and unfolded it. The date at the top read April 3, 1862. She scanned the elegant script, quickly realizing these were love letters penned during the Civil War.\nAlice’s breath caught in her throat as she read words of longing and devotion...of the joy found in each cherished letter and the anguish between. The author, a young Confederate soldier named James, poured his heart out to his beloved Mary in a way Alice had never experienced. Every word resonated with such earnestness and passion that she felt as if she were peering into James’ very soul. \nFor hours, Alice sat engrossed in the letters, laughing and crying along with the lovers’ stories. She traced her fingers over their faded words, moved by the sincerity in each stroke of ink. It was as if James and Mary had opened a window to their lives, allowing Alice to intimately share in their hopes, fears, and affections. \nThe sun dipped low, casting the room in shadow. As Alice set aside the last letter, a profound sorrow welled up within her. She pictured James marching off to war, not knowing if he’d ever gaze upon his beloved’s face again. And Mary left to wonder if each letter would be her love’s last.\nAlice blinked back tears, overcome with empathy for these long-gone strangers. To bare one’s heart so freely, only for fate to intervene...it was almost too much to bear. \nFor the first time, Alice felt the subtle sting of her own fear. She saw herself reflected in Mary and James - two souls forever bound by a gossamer thread of love, yet still separated by forces beyond their control. A shiver ran through her as she imagined losing someone so vital to her spirit. \nThe whispers returned, faint but insistent, stirring Alice from her thoughts. Though reluctant to leave the tragic lovers, she carefully returned the letters to their box and rose to her feet. \nAlice was surprised to find night had blanketed the city when she stepped outside. The cobblestone alley shone silver beneath the moon’s glow. Once again, she followed the whispers through the winding streets, unsure of what lay ahead but trusting in their guidance. \nEventually, the alley opened up into a secluded courtyard. An ancient oak, its gnarled limbs draped in moss, stood at its center. Alice approached cautiously, running her hand along the rough bark. She felt a deep wisdom emanating from the tree, as if it had witnessed centuries come and go. \nAlice noticed a wooden box nestled in the oak’s branches as she looked up. She glanced around for something to stand on, then dragged over a weathered crate. She managed to hook the box with her fingertips while balancing atop it on tiptoe.\nThe old wood creaked in protest as she lifted the box down and pried open its stubborn lid. Inside was a stack of faded photographs, their edges crumbling with age. Alice’s breath caught as she flipped through them. \nYoung soldiers stared back at her, frozen in sepia tones. Some stood tall and proud in fresh uniforms, while others slumped wearily, their youthful features worn by war. As she examined each photo, Alice imagined the lives and loves these men had left behind...the dreams they’d carried with them into battle. \nThe last photo showed a handsome soldier with James’ same gentle eyes. He sat atop a magnificent horse, clad in a Confederate lieutenant’s uniform. Alice realized this must be the man who had penned those heartrending letters to his Mary. \nOvercome, she sank down beneath the oak tree and wept. In her mind, she heard the lovers’ whispered voices intertwining like branches overhead. Though long turned to dust, James and Mary endured through their words...through the pieces of themselves they’d etched into history’s memory.\nAlice now understood it was not the how long people lived that mattered most, but the impressions people left upon each other’s hearts. The love shared, the wisdom gained, the light kindled - these were what outlasted the ravages of time.\nWiping her eyes, Alice tucked the photos back into their box. As she rose to leave, a sudden gust of wind shook the oak’s branches. One final whisper curled around her.\n“It is not the artifacts you uncover, but the souls you connect with that will show you your way.”\nAlice caressed the old tree in silent thanks. Though her journey held unknown, she knew she would never walk alone. The whispers of the past would always guide her, just as the hope of the future forever beckoned her onward.\nAlice gazed at the faded photographs, her fingers tracing the faces of the young soldiers as if she could reach through time and connect with them. Their stories of love, loss and sacrifice had awakened something in her. She felt the weight of their memories settle around her shoulders, a mantle she now bore. \n“I won’t let you be forgotten,” she whispered. \n Carefully gathering the letters, Alice returned them to their timeworn box. She would take them back to Memories Unveiled and share them with the world. These relics deserved to be honored, not moldering away in the dark. \nRetracing her steps through the courtyard, Alice felt as though she were awakening from a vivid dream. Glancing back at the oak tree, she knew she would carry the lovers’ story with her always. Their whispered secrets now lived within her heart.\nThe breeze caught Alice’s hair as she walked, lifting the dark strands from her shoulders. She fancied she could hear voices on the wind, echoes of the past woven into the present. The thought gave her comfort. As long as she listened, the stories would never be silenced.\nPassing beneath the wrought iron sign for Memories Unveiled, Alice stepped inside, the little bell above the door announcing her arrival. Mae looked up from behind the counter, his weathered face breaking into a smile. \n“Back so soon?” he asked. “Find anything interesting?”\nIn answer, Alice held out the box containing the letters. Mae’s keen blue eyes widened as she told him about her discovery, how she had been drawn by the lovers’ story over the years. \n“My dear, what a treasure,” breathed Mae when she had finished. He turned the faded photographs over in his hands, examining them closely. “We must display these prominently. Their journey should be shared.”\nAlice’s heart swelled with gratitude for Mae’s understanding. Of course, he would recognize the importance of preserving these memories. \nIn the days that followed, the letters became the shop’s most prized artifacts. Alice found herself returning often to gaze at the box where they lay, remembering the lovers’ passion and sacrifice. Somehow, knowing their story had filled her with courage. She felt bolder, ready to seek out new adventures, to be led by the whispers on the wind.\nThere were still many secrets left to uncover, she knew. And though the prospect was daunting, Alice embraced her, calling to reveal them. She would shine light into the forgotten corners of the world, honoring the stories slumbering there.\nThe tinkling bell announced another customer and Alice turned to greet them, the breeze catching her hair as it streamed through the open door. She smiled, ready to share the treasures of Memories Unveiled. This was only the first step in her journey. There were endless stories waiting to be heard, each one lighting the way forward. And Alice knew then that she had found her purpose. She would walk boldly into the unknown, guided by the voices on the wind." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: When I Was Her Hero\n\nGenre: coming-of-age\n\nWord Count: 1937\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story about someone who wishes they could turn back time." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Never in a father’s life is he ready for the day that he is expected to turn his daughter over to the arms of another man. Never in my life was that a moment I was prepared for. It was a moment that people joked about.\n“She’s gorgeous, Ledger!” My friends would tease. “Pretty soon, the boys will be knocking at the door like crazy!”\n“Yeah?” I’d always snorted, waving them off like they had mush for brains. Because my little girl was my little girl. She wasn’t going anywhere. She was just a baby. My baby who loved to play with Barbies and used to beg me to let her sit on my lap while I drove, so she could pretend to drive the car.\n“Not any time soon.” I’d say to the ones jesting about lovesick boys asking for my girl. “Not any time soon.”\nWhere had those days gone? It felt like only yesterday that Sally was born. I remember it so clearly that I can still see it right there in front of my eyes—a memory that plays out down to the detail in my soul every time I lay eyes on my baby.\nI remember getting the text from a young woman who I’d met at a bar. A woman who’d known nothing about me, and I nothing about her. We had one night of fun. A one-night crossing of paths led to mornings filled with regret.\nYet, months later, when I’d read that text.\nYou have a daughter. I don’t want her. Do you?\nRegret turned to shock, and shock turned into desperate hope.\nAre you sure she’s mine?\nI watched my phone screen like a hawk watching a mouse, breath baited and my heart beating painfully against my ribs.\nYes. I’m sure. Do you want her? Or I’m going to give her to the proper people. I can’t take care of her.\nI didn’t think. I just imagined a little baby, with my eyes and my blood running through her veins, and I typed.\nYes. Tell me where you are.\nThen, she was with me. She was in a baby carrier in the passenger’s seat. She didn’t have my eyes, but she had my mother’s smile. And her eyes weren’t mine or her mother's; they were an emerald green, with specks of gold floating around in them like white sparkles in a snow globe.\nShe watched me drive the whole way home, smiling that beautiful smile and laughing this wonderful laugh.\nShe was perfect.\nShe was my world from the moment I laid eyes on her.\nThose first few years were hard. I lost my job at the steel plant after it shut down and had to get work wherever I could for a long time. A neighbor at the trailer park Sally and I called home watched my daughter during the day while I scoured around for work like a stray dog struggling to find food. I didn’t see Sally much in the first five years of her life. Or she didn’t see me much.\nEvery night, when I got home from work, no matter how late it was, I would go and retrieve Sally from Mrs. Zackby’s and carry her home. She usually didn’t wake up. But that was okay. I was grateful to simply hold her while she snuggled against my shoulder.\nWhen Sally was five, I got settled in a permanent job at a mechanic shop. I got to walk her to her first day of first grade. As she walked into the building, she turned and blew me a kiss, her sandy hair blowing around her rounded cheeks and her eyes sparkling. She was thrilled.\nMe? I was scared because it felt as though my heart was walking away from me and into a place I couldn’t follow. My baby was going places where I couldn’t keep her safe from the sting and the ache of life. She would face bullies, injustice, and failures that I couldn’t protect her from.\nBut I should have known then that Sally was strong enough to face it all. After all, her very existence was because she’d been strong enough to make it through the odds.\nElementary school became middle school, filled with long nights of struggling through homework and the heartaches of finding out who the real friends are and who the fake ones are. Then, middle school became high school, and friends were put on the back burner for the most important thing in a high school kid’s eyes.\nGaining the attraction of the opposite gender.\n“Woah! Woah. Where are you going?” I asked one Friday night, my eyes nearly popping out of my head as Sally rushed for the door. She was dressed in a black dress with sparkles. She was wearing heavy red lip liner and smoky gray eyeshadow. She gave me an exasperated smile.\n“To the dance, Dad.” She groaned. “I’ve been telling you about it all week, remember?”\nFor a moment, I saw her mother in her. A jolt of fear shot through my heart.\n“I… ah, I suppose you did.” I swallowed. “Gabe giving you a lift?”\n“Of course.” Sally tossed her hair. Eyes glinting with a mischief only a sixteen-year-old girl could produce. “He’s a gentleman, like I told you he was.”\nThere was a knock on the front door. I glared at the door, like it was responsible for all my pain and discomfort.\n“He better… be careful, honey.”\nSally’s eyes softened.\n“I will, Daddy. I’ll be home by eleven. Love you!”\nAnd then she was gone. Out with this pimply-faced kid with the banged-up old car and the squeaky voice.\nShe was out there.\nOut there, anything could happen.\nBut Sally, my girl, was smart. She soon broke up with Gabe after she found out that he just didn’t share the same goals and aspirations as she did. She graduated high school with higher grades than I could have ever dreamed of having and went on to go to college and then to medical school.\nIt was in medical school that she met Fin. Fin was a good guy. His father was a pastor, and his mother was a counselor. He had strong morals, a good education, and two rescue dogs named Jolly and Rancher. Jolly only had one eye, and Rancher had no back legs, just wheels.\n“Dad?” I remember Sally calling me a year or so after she and Fin started dating. I was struggling to try and figure out why my TV was telling me I had no internet connection. I had internet, so why the heck wasn’t it connecting? Why was I paying fifty dollars a month to have the television show me nothing but a blank screen and beep at me?\n“Yeah, baby?” I asked, bashing the remote in hopes of forcing the TV to come to a different conclusion regarding my connection.\n“I’m getting married.”\nSuddenly, the TV didn’t seem all that important. I dropped the phone.\nGetting married was when a girl left her parents, her father, to be joined with another man. It was an intimate connection between two mature adults, and, ideally, it was a permanent connection.\nMarriage and my Sally were two things I’d never wanted to hear connected with one another.\n“Dad? Dad, are you there?”\nI picked up the phone, my ears ringing.\n“To Fin?” I rasped, disoriented.\n“Yes to Fin!” Sally let out an exasperated laugh. “Who else do you know that I’ve been dating for over a year?”\nA dead man—that's who you’ve been dating. I thought. Because I’m going to kill that boy.\n“He-he never asked me!” I yelped. Sally heaved a sigh.\n“It was kind of in the moment.” She explained. “He didn’t even have a real ring yet, but we both just knew that it was the right time.”\n“Humph!” This wasn’t happening. My little baby, with her pigtails and her buck teeth, wasn’t getting married. Forget that she’d been wearing her hair down around her shoulders or up in a bun and hadn’t had pigtails for years; forget that her teeth had been straightened by braces long ago; in my eyes, she was still my little girl. She’d always be my baby.\nNot Fin’s wife.\nBut I loved my girl. I loved her more than anything. So, I forced out the words I knew she needed to hear past dry lips.\n“Congratulations… When’s the wedding, Sal?”\nSally gave me the date and place she and Fin had chosen. It was in a resort lobby in Florida.\nThe day of the wedding, I walked in and eyed the paintings of sea life decorating the lobby’s walls.\nThere was a big, green sea turtle on the ceiling, peering down at the floor below it with a happy smile.\nSally had a stuffed turtle when she was a girl.\nShe took it with her everywhere until she accidentally left it out one night, and the neighbor’s golden retriever ripped it to shreds.\nShe’d cried when she’d found it torn up. Sally had brought it to me and begged me to fix it.\nLike I could fix anything.\nI was her hero, and she believed with all her heart that I could do anything.\nSo, I stayed up all night, restuffing the toy and carefully sewing the tattered limbs back together.\nIt had taken all night to reinvent the battered stuffed animal, but it’d been worth every moment to see her smile when I handed her the mended toy the next morning.\n“Daddy!” Sally saw me in the lobby. She was dressed in a flowing white dress, and her eyes were sparkling. She looked like an angel straight out of heaven. She hugged me.\nI hugged her.\nThe last hug where she was still mine and mine only.\nI sat in a seat up front, facing a stage where a man dressed in a black suit with a white undershirt stood with his hands folded, patiently waiting to perform his duty.\nThe music started. Soft, gentle music that seemed to light up the whole room. The crowd of people hummed and giggled, ecstatic for reasons I simply couldn't feel the same about.\nThe groom walked to the stage.\nThe bride—my baby—and I followed him a few moments later. I walked my Sally down the aisle, remembering when she used to hold my hand as we would walk together through the park. \nFin and Sally stood facing each other, gazing into each other’s eyes with undeniable love as the man in the suit spoke. I didn’t hear anything except Fin’s answer.\n“I do.”\nAnd then, more rambling that my buzzing ears refused to hear, and then Sally said, “I do.”\n“You may now kiss the bride!” The man in the suit said joyfully. I wanted to throw him off the stage and then throw Fin on top of him.\nFin pulled Sally to him. He pressed his lips against hers, and I felt tears fill my eyes. Oh, deep down in my heart, I was happy for her. I knew she’d met a wonderful man, and I couldn’t have asked for a better son-in-law.\nAnd yet…\nMore than anything...\nIn that moment, as I watched my daughter step fully out of the sweet days of childhood and into the woman she’d been becoming more and more in these past few years...\nAll I wanted was to turn back the clock and go back to the days where the only man she looked at with love and devotion was me.\nThe days when I'd been her hero." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Best Dinghy In the World\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 1938\n\nPrompt:\n\nSet your story on a sailboat, large or small, and entirely at the mercy of the winds." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "It started with buying a boat that was sunk. I had saved up the money to buy a boat and was wandering around a boat sales place when I saw the upturned stern of a small sloop. I could tell is was a sloop by the mast partially angled out of the water. The cabin was completely submerged but the rounded stern was beautiful with the rudder giving little jerks with the falling tide movements. I ran back to the office and told them about the sloop. They hadn’t been out on the dock that morning and hadn’t seen that the boat had sunk.\nThat’s how it started. I bought her with an agreement to haul her out included in the deal. A friend helped me caulk her. Now, she was a her. I had her back in the water within a week of buying her and down the coast within a few days of that. But, she still took on a lot of water and I turned back to San Francisco to tie her up and check out where the leak was. She was a spitsgatter, one of the small double-ended boat designs used for fishing off the deep waters of the German or North Sea. She was Norwegian and sailed like a dream without me really having to steer on most directions of sailing. I didn’t find the leak but the water stopped entering so I figured she just needed swelling up after sitting at the boat sales place for over three months without sailing.\nOn a sunny day’s walk I spotted the dinghy half submerged under a pier with a green slime inside her and moss hanging from her sides like she had been abandoned for a long time. I needed a dinghy but this one was a little too long for my spitsgatter but I still needed a dinghy so I pulled her out from under the dock and getting wet got into her. With a paddle that was conveniently under one of her two thwarts I paddled it to a launch area and pulled it out, noting that she did not leak through the plywood planking. I also noted that the dinghy had moved easily even half full of water. I turned her over and poured out the water. I cleaned it up right there with the thought in mind to sell it and buy a small cheap inflatable with the money. The more I cleaned it the more I liked what I saw. The dinghy was a pirogue, a sharply pointed canoa and was built with strength in mind. \nSo, now I had a dinghy. I started paddling around San Francisco’s waterfront amazed at the speed my dinghy made and ease of effort in gaining that speed. I named her Cloud, which went with my spitsgatter named, Gull. I tried out different ways of getting her aboard. Cloud was now a her. She was heavy and about the 12-foot long. Gull was 23-foot long. At the marina I used the main halyard to lift her with a rope stropped to her mid section and with quick movements was able to get the bow over the lifelines and then the stern to set her upside down atop the cabin with a little overhang past the mast.\nOn the way out the Golden Gateway I met the first swells and needed to retie Cloud a couple of times by the time I was past Mile Rock. It was a beat out to the 10-fathom line but a nicely sailing beam reach turning to go South toward Mexico six hundred miles away. Gull held her course and I was a happy sailor munching on pre-cooked fried chicken and boiled potatoes in the cabin telling Cloud about the good foods of Mexico. \nThat first night was perfect with plenty of stars to sparkle and a very late moon. The next morning I noticed the breeze beginning turning Northerly and I let out sail and increased my speed measurably. Then, the seas began to build with the old current going one way and the wind another. I started surfing down small swells increasing my speed and wondering if I should continue on since I now had to pay attention to the steering and might get tired. I passed Monterey Bay and knew there wasn’t anything to go into until Morro Bay a full day away. The breeze turned into a wind.\nWhen sailing with the wind from behind off the quarter section of the boat it is hard to tell an increase in wind since you are going with it. When I had to push the tiller over with force not to have Gull beam on to the mounding and taller waves I understood the wind had increased to more force than my sail area needed so I turned and came up into the wind so that I could reduce the amount of sail. When I timed it to get forward alongside the boom I let go of the tiller and jumped onto the little space along the cabin top to tie in reef points, lines through the sail that you tied under the sail after letting some sail come down the mast. On the cabin top I saw that it wasn’t safe with the dinghy sliding slightly in both directions. I also saw that Cloud obstructed any thought of getting to the mast to lower the sail. I also saw that the waves were getting higher with Gull’s bow now slamming down on the other side of the oncoming white topped swells. White tops means wind not breeze and serious thinking about what to do.\nI had to get the dinghy off the top of the cabin and tow her behind. The mainsail was starting to tell me that I was not guiding the boat, so I jumped back into the cockpit and pushed the tiller to leeward away from the wind and gull settled nicely pointing a little off the wind but leaned too much toward the water taking some on the deck in a steady stream. The dinghy had moved over and was hanging a little off the cabin top and weighing the boat down. I moved forward along the deck and untied the line on the water side of the boat, holding onto the middle of the dinghy with my thigh. Her weight pushed me onto the lifeline and I grabbed a cabin top toe rail not to fall overboard.\nCloud’s bow turned and hooked itself under the lifeline. I moved slowly forward and pushed the dinghy up and over the wire line, then crouching to seize the opportunity to lift the boat over my head and onto the line and one stanchion that held the lifeline up. I slipped under the dinghy holding onto her with my left hand while grabbing the bow line that was still neatly coiled and tucked into the toe rail. I tied the bitter end of the line to the toe rail and lifted Cloud up and over into the sea trying to tilt her to land with her bottom down. It worked but she immediately submerged her pointed stern under and scalloped a bunch of water into the bilge. The paddle upended and fell over the side into the sea. I couldn’t think of that now as Cloud was banging into the side of Gull’s grey hull.\nI sat for a moment to work out what to do next. Gull felt relieved to have that weight dragging her side down gone but started to skip off course again. I ran back along the deck to the cockpit and jumped in, correcting the course, still going back toward Monterey Bay now. I sat there with Cloud thudding harder as she turned her bow into the hull with the wind increasing and the waves beginning to tower more. We sailed up and through and slammed down the other side of the mountains of wet. \nI went forward and released the dinghy painter that almost slipped out of my hand from the pull of the weight of a half full dinghy. I wrapped the line around my hand and regained the cockpit to tie the line off to my port bollard. I adjusted the line so that when we turned Cloud would have her distance about her length astern of Gull hopefully pulling her bow up to ride the waves without going under. I climbed over the cabin top again and holding onto the boom made the mast, fumbled with the halyard and pulled the sail down to the second set of reef points. I pulled in the rear clew reefing line and tied them both off. I clambered back to the cockpit and with my hand on the tiller I rested for a few moments.\nI turned the tiller to windward and Gull responded immediately with a couple of waves pushing her around. We started moving downwind again and surfing. I did not want to look behind me to see how high the waves were getting but had to when Cloud began banging into the round stern of Gull. It took me a few thuds to pull up the guts to look back and saw the sharp bow of Cloud above my head and rushing down a comber toward Gull. I pushed the helm over to move aside but her line pulled her toward us anyway. I had to keep steady on the descent of the wave curl to keep Gull in control and couldn’t keep trying to get away from the heart rending thuds that Cloud was giving her.\nThe wind was increasing to gale force and I still had too much sail up for the wind and my bow would soon be pushed down into the passing swells and pulling the boat down into the sea. Thud. I pulled out my knife and looked at Cloud with tears forming with the salt water in my eyes. \nI cut her loose and she rose on a swell with her bow pointing upward and down like a wave of goodbye to me. I turned back to the course and too much sail and with a very heavy sigh I turned Gull around again to round up into the oncoming seas. When she settled pointing off a bit from the wind I jumped onto the cabin top and crawled to the mast and let loose the halyard to drag and claw down the mainsail. On my knees I moved along the cabin top tying off the mainsail to the boom using the elastic cord I had running hooked along the boom. When I finished I was already with a foot in the cockpit. \nNow, the dinghy was gone out of sight with no chance of ever recovering her but the motion aboard was almost calm. I turned the bow around to surf again under just the jib and the surfing was easily managed now. We smoothly climbed up the backs of the running away thick water and flew down the other sides at an angle that kept the bow up. I was tired and saddened by the loss of Cloud but knew I had done the wrong thing in getting her in the first place and the right thing in cutting her loose for somebody else to find. I said over and over even to this day that she was found by a kid on the beach and brought home to his or her delight. \nI was now heading South toward Mexico without the best dinghy in the world." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Purest Blue on Earth\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 1188\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with it raining… anything but rain (e.g. flowers, cutlery, seashells, running shoes)." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "8:30 on a Monday morning, and Boston’s financial district coughed and sputtered like a rusty machine rousing itself from a long sleep.\n\nWith every click-clack of patent leather on the cobblestone, with every squeak of a shiny briefcase and start of a shinier SUV, another cog found its position in the chorus of places to be, people to see, and deliverables to gripe about. The crisp June air mingled with the exhaust fumes to form a scent all its own, and the quavering soprano of a flight of swallows shimmered where-smog-met-sky, far above the blaring horns of rush hour traffic.\n\nRachel’s watch flashed in the sunlight—fifteen minutes late to drop Daisy off, though what could a six-year-old possibly be late for? Fuck, and it was raining now, too, without a cloud in sight. That last snooze had done her in. Rachel dug out a garish yellow umbrella emblazoned with an unfamiliar school crest (from one of those private school fairs), clutched Daisy’s hand tighter, and angled the umbrella over the both of them...but what should have been a plip-plip was more of a plop-plop.\n\n“...Was this in the forecast? I thought we’d have at least one day of good weather to walk around the harbor…”\n\n“...Doesn’t look like hail to me…”\n\n“...Ugh, and I just washed my hair...”\n\nHands rose over foreheads, doing little to shield upward-searching eyes against the onslaught of blue. Not clear like water, blue, like the sky on a cloudless, (supposed-to-be) perfect June morning. And falling in glossy ribbons that grew more substantial by the moment. \n\nBut standing around in the middle of the sidewalk wasn’t going to do anything about it! Wasting Ted’s time, worse, wasting his money…$5 every minute stolen from him by the throng of slack-jawed idiots (and their eyesore yellow umbrellas) blocking his way to the office. As if billable hours came to a screeching halt just because the beleaguered Earth found yet another way to announce her displeasure! It was always tornadoes in January this, tsunamis in California that. They should have been accustomed to her tantrums by now.\n\n“Siri, Call Clarissa.”\n\n“Siri. Call. Clarissa.”\n\n“Siri!”\n\n“Ah, fuck it.” Another sharp blast of a horn from behind Peter. Christ, didn’t they know he could barely see? What kind of military-grade windshield wipers were they working with? Whatever sort of storm this was, it was relentless, and bluer than anything falling from the sky had any right to be. But there was nothing for it but to keep driving…he’d have his secretary call Clarissa from the office; she’d be at home still. Secretaries: keeping marriages alive since the advent of the telephone! \n\nDaisy reached her free hand out from under the umbrella, letting the smooth slickness fall on her hand and dissolve as if it had never been. She’d often thought about what it might feel like to hold a color—red would be warm and tingly, like cinnamon on her tongue; green would be damp and mossy, like her backyard after a summer rain, where worms lifted their inquisitive bald heads. How satisfying that blue felt exactly like she’d imagined: cool and slippery, like the back of a dolphin. Or at least what she imagined the back of a dolphin would feel like—she’d never even seen one. That would change this summer, though. Her family was going to Aruba. A-ru-ba. Even the name sounded exciting! Daisy pulled on her mother’s rigid, white-knuckled hand. What was she doing, stopping just a block away from school? Did she forget that if Daisy was late to morning circle she’d have to sit in the back, away from all her friends?\n\n8:35 on a Monday morning, and jagged cracks ran across a mottled blue-black sky.\n\n Although black wasn’t quite accurate…the absence of color, more like. Empty. Empty and cavernous like if Ted looked at it for too long, he’d find himself at the bottom of it. He was well within the slack-jawed throng by this point. $25 gone now, but the ever-spinning numbers in his head had stopped as surely as his feet. Though he exclusively worshiped at the altar of the free market, he had to admit there was something biblical about all this. It was like God himself had brought his scepter down on the floor above, so that radiant ceiling tiles fell on the ants below. One tile narrowly missed Ted’s eye. Rapture, someone might have murmured next to him, though his head was swimming in such a tempest that he couldn’t have said anything for sure.\n\nA line of stationary cars went on for as far as anyone could see…once one driver had surrendered to the siege, the rest had no choice but to follow. A few optimists and idiots (and there was considerable overlap between the two groups) kept on with their horns, but even that had taken on a muffled quality, like whatever was leeching color from the sky had moved on to lowly human sound. \n\nPeter stood on his hood, hopelessly adrift in the Sea of Multicolored Metal, lifting his phone above his head. For all his maneuvering, and he had tried every conceivable position, he couldn’t get the damned thing to form just one measly bar. A large, though featherlight, shard landed squarely on his face, and what was it he’d said to Clarissa on their first date? Yes, that her eyes were as blue as the sky on a clear, cloudless day. And then her cheeks had turned his favorite shade of pink. She still blushed like that at the smallest compliment, or after a few drinks, or at every tiny embarrassment—she spent more time blushing than not. The darkness was encroaching into the final blue bastions, and what would he compare her eyes to now?\n\nRachel had long ago dropped that offensively yellow umbrella, and now had Daisy in her arms, though she didn’t remember picking her up. If not for the warm, oppressive weight of her daughter, she surely would have floated off the crowded sidewalk. And Daisy, who, at six-and-three-quarters, was far too old to be held and would usually have resented the indignity, was secretly glad to press her face into her mother’s gardenia-scented hair. Chest-to-chest, their short, shallow breaths fell into perfect sync.\n\n8:40 on a Monday morning, and the last of the sky lazily fluttered down as the sun glittered like a diamond ensconced in black velvet. \n\nEveryone looked heavenward with wide red eyes and gaping blue mouths, like fish in an empty glass bowl they had once believed to be a whole ocean, even as the water had dwindled day by day. But it wasn’t an ocean, and would it even have an ocean anymore? Water needed oxygen, or oxygen needed water. It was one or the other, at least—something to do with the atmosphere. No…sky blue, ocean blue, none of it would do now, not for Peter’s Clarissa. Bluer than the sky, maybe.\n\nOh! The purest blue on Earth, and not a word of a lie. Peter would find a way to slip that in at dinner—that would surely make her blush.\n\n8:45 on a Monday morning." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: A Passenger of Fate\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 2808\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story where your character is travelling a road that has no end." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "It feels like I’ve been driving on this road forever. I don’t know how long I’ve been driving, or even when I started. I look at the clock in my car, which tells me it’s 1:06 in the morning. Why am I driving so late? Where am I going?\n I must be really, really tired if I can't even remember where I’m going. The road I’m traveling on is dark with no illumination other than a faint glow from the moon, which doesn’t help much as either side of the pavement is crowded with thick, overhanging trees. My headlights are on, yet it feels like I can’t see more than just a few feet ahead of me. I turned on the radio to help keep my mind occupied, but all I got was static. I sighed and turned it off. This is going to be a long drive, no doubt, but I know I also need to keep moving.\nThe dashed line that intersects the center of the road flies rhythmically by. With each passing dash of whitish yellow, I feel myself drifting deeper into a trance. I feel my head slowly fall as my eyelids get heavier and heavier; I’m just so tired. My head falls lower… So sleepy…\n My head jerks up, fearful of running off the road. As I look ahead of me, I see a jogger in a grey hoodie and dark blue sweatpants with a reflector belt around their waist. Their hood is pulled up, and I can’t see their face. If I had dozed off right there, I probably would’ve killed that person. As I drive past them, they don’t make any sign that they noticed me. I look in my side mirror and into that grey hood and can’t see a face as it is masked by shadow in the dark of night.\n Their image faded into the wall of obscurity as I drove further away, leaving an almost unnatural void behind me in the mirror as I moved on. I ignored the mirror and the uneasy feeling that the black curtain gave me and kept my focus back on the road in front of me, back to those hypnotizing yellow lines and the parallel tree lines that greedily kept the night sky to themselves. I thought I’d try the radio again, hoping that I had traveled far enough ahead to get close to a signal. When I turned the nob, I was once again greeted with static. But just as I was about to turn it back off, I thought I’d heard something in the dim frequency; the faintest voice talking through it. I figured I was close to a song, trying to find its way to me, but I couldn’t tell what song it was as the vague words I was able to hear didn’t make much sense to me.\n Cedar…Kayjee…Re-salts…Holding on… it said to me. I was confused and honestly wanted to be able to hear this song in better detail; it was one of those things that was so weird that I felt like I needed to hear the rest of it or else it would bother me for the rest of tonight and mostly into tomorrow as well. But the signal started to worsen, and the voice had left, leaving me with a rising, blaring static that screeched in my head in such a way that it was harder to focus on the road like this than if I were back in complete silence and feeling like I’m about to fall sleep. I turned it off again.\n I squint my eyes as I see something ahead and notice it’s two people standing in the middle of the road. I hit my brakes, slowing to a stop mere inches in front of them, yet neither of them moved a muscle to get out of my way. As my car stood motionless in the road I watched them until one of them – a woman – moved from the other to my window. I rolled down the window a crack so I could hear what she had to say, but cautiously not enough so she couldn’t reach inside the car if she wanted to.\n She had calm hazel eyes and a narrow face, with light hair that furled past her shoulders. “Hey,” she said casually with a buttery voice, “Do you think you could give my friend and me a ride? Our car broke down, and we’re really in a hurry.” I looked at her, then at her friend on the road. This one, a man, kept his spot in front of my car. His hands were in his pockets, and I could see a slight smile beneath his green eyes and short dark hair. When he saw me looking at him his smile grew as he raised his right hand from its pocket in a wave.\n Now, I know picking up hitchhikers – especially at this time of night – was a bad idea, but I couldn’t explain it; I had such a strong feeling from both of them that they didn’t mean me any harm. “Sure,” I said to the woman, all preservation instinct thrown out the window with that one word, “you two can get in the back.” I flicked at the button on my door which unlocked all the others.\n “Thank you, so much!” the woman said pleasantly. She waved her friend to come and then slid into my back seat. The man started a slight jog for the short distance from where he stood to the other back passenger door, his hands clapped in a praying motion as he mouthed ‘thank you’ as he went.\n I gave them a few moments to get settled in before I asked, “Everyone good?” and looked at them both in my rearview mirror.\n “We’re good. Thank you, honestly, so much!” the woman said. “My name’s Eva, by the way, and this –” she pointed a thumb at the man, who interrupted and said, “I’m Maveth. And yeah, we’re so grateful you took the time to stop for us.” He said this with a straight face, but I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Well, you didn’t give me much of a choice, standing in the middle of the road like that.”\n Maveth and Eva laughed in unison at that. I continued to drive down the road as Maveth said, “Yeah, well we aren’t the only ones it seems.” I looked at him, confused, in the rear mirror, before looking ahead at the road and saw a jogger on the side of the road. They looked like the one from a few miles back – same grey hoodie, same dark blue sweatpants, same reflective belt. “Yeah…” I uttered as I watched them pass. I looked at them through my side mirror, and again could not see their face under the grey hoodie as they slowly disappeared behind the wall of night’s dark obscurity. “Weird,” I said, conversationally, “I feel like I saw one just like them not too long ago.”\n Eva shrugged, “I have a feeling that’s not the last one, too.” I thought that was a weird observation and didn’t know what to say. So instead, I changed the topic, saying, “Either of you guys got any CDs on you? I tried the radio earlier but it’s just static out here. Thought maybe some music could make the ride more bearable.”\n The two passengers looked at each other and shrugged again but said nothing. So, I tried the radio again as I fixed my eyes on the entrancing road which was appearing to be what was moving while I and my vehicle were the ones staying still. The radio’s static once more screeched at me, while what seemed to be the same voice as before was trying to speak to me through the distorted waves.\n Hold… Omah… Lies…\n “Never mind on that, I guess,” I grumbled as I turned it off again. Eva leaned forward until her face was nearly between the two front seats. “It’s all good, we don’t need the radio to pass some time,” she cooed at me, “How about a game instead?” Now Maveth joined her in the careen towards the front of the vehicle. “I could go for a game – how about a memory game?”\n I cocked my eyebrow up as I asked, “A memory game?” I had no idea what kind of game that was. “Yeah,” Eva chimed in, “You tell us something about yourself, and we’ll see if we can fill in the blanks.” This sounded like a really weird game, but I guessed it was a good way to see where my two new passenger’s imaginations lay. “Sure, um… I had a girlfriend. Last year we broke up. How’s that?”\n They didn’t answer my question and instead, Maveth jumped right into the game, “Her name was Claire. You loved her like you never loved anything in the world, but she couldn't wait for you – for school, for a home, for something more serious – so she left; and moved on to someone else. You still haven’t recovered from it.”\n This threw me back – I could call that a lucky guess, I know I'm not the first person to go through something like that, but he even guessed her name right? “How did you know all that?” I asked him. He smirked as he replied, “That’s the game, kid.”\n “My turn – tell us another one,” Eva chimed in. I wasn’t sure how much more I wanted to play, but I have to admit, I was curious. “Okay…” I stopped to think, “All right; I once went to an amusement park.”\n Eva smiled that warm smile and said, “You were eleven, your mom took you there after your dad had to go away. You didn’t know why he had to leave, but your mom made sure you were happy – and you were. It was one of the most blissful days of your life. When you convinced your mom to let you ride on the bigger roller coaster you felt like you were flying and made the fleeting promise to yourself you would be a pilot someday.”\n Now I knew it was no coincidence. Somehow, while these two were strangers to me, I was no stranger to them. My hands began to tremble on the steering wheel. I opened my mouth to demand what was going on but stopped when I saw the jogger again. The same exact outfit as before, never aware of me coming. But that was impossible – this road has been a straight line for as far back as I can recall it. “What the hell…” I whispered as we passed the jogger. I watched them in the mirror again and nearly swallowed my tongue with the sharp intake of air I made after I saw the front of them. The front of their grey hoodie had been stained with blood, and a broken, distorted face peered out from the hood; both eyes were puffed, crushed sockets and the nose had been bent at almost a ninety-degree angle to one side. Their shallow breathing made small puffs in the night’s cold air.\n “What the hell?!” I said again in a frightful yell. I looked back at my passengers whose faces remained impassive. “Did you see that?” I asked exasperatedly.\n “It wasn’t your fault, you know,” Eva said.\n “Yeah, you couldn’t have known,” chimed Maveth.\n “What… What do you mean?” I asked with a tremor in my voice. They continued their soft stare at me.\n Cedar…Kayjee…Re-salts…Holding on… the radio awoke on its own volition, repeating those same words as before. I looked down at the clock, which still read 1:06 am.\n I was shaking all over. None of this made any sense. Why couldn’t I remember where I was going, or where I came from? When did I get in my car? Why does this road go on, and on, and on, always the same path?\n “Do you remember when you got the news that your dad died?” Maveth asked.\n “What about your first kiss? Or when you finished building that vanity dresser with your dad for your mom?” Eva inquired.\n Maveth, “How about when you broke your arm? Every time you stubbed your toe? Every rude person, every jerkwad boss.”\n Eva, “Every achievement, every movie you watched, every friend you’ve made?”\n I slammed my foot on the brake and turned to face them.\n “Every bit of pain?” Maveth asked, though when he said pain, Eva said love.\n “Who are you?” I yelled at them, becoming aware of the tears which wet my cheeks. “What do you want from me?”\n “We told you who we are,” Eva said.\n “But we do need something from you,” Maveth continued.\n “We need you to make a choice,” finished Eva.\n My eyes darted back and forth between the two. “I don’t understand,” I whimpered. But part of me was beginning to.\n “You were in a terrible accident,” Eva said solemnly, “and it wasn’t your fault. And now you need to choose which one of us you’re going with.”\n I glared at her as I blinked back tears until I choked out, “Go where? Why do I have to choose?”\n “If you go with Eva,” Maveth began, “you will wake up in a hospital. It will be painful, and some of the damage you sustained could be permanent – your life would never be the same. But if you come with me, I will take all of your pain away, and you will move on to… Somewhere else.”\n “I want you to remember all that gave your life joy and meaning,” Eva pleaded with me, “I want you to fight for it, and come with me back to where you belong.”\n Maveth, “You don’t belong there anymore; you’ve endured enough of this life. I want you to remember all the suffering you’ve already endured, and how badly you needed it to end.”\n I slowly turned away from them, my whole body trembling. I put my head in my hands and began to weep uncontrollably. I shouted in a muffled cry, “I didn’t ask for it to happen! I didn’t want any of this!”\n “I know,” Maveth said softly, “that’s what makes it worse, and I’m sorry. But you don’t have to worry about any of it anymore.”\n “I beg you,” Eva said, “you need to fight. You can survive and be something better for the world. You can prevent something like this from happening again. You could even make a full recovery and go be a pilot!”\n “But you have to choose, and soon. Time is running out, and a choice will be made for you.” Maveth said to me.\n I thought long and hard about this. I turned my quivering head to look out the window to those dark trees, and I saw the jogger. This time they were limping, their right leg twisted in a terrible Z shape, the knee bent in a way that no human leg should. Their left arm was stuck in a crook behind their body, their raspy breaths becoming more and more shallow. It was then I decided I wanted to see what could become of the jogger.\n “Eva…” I whispered. I could taste my tears as they slipped between my lips. “I choose Eva.” Eva nodded at me and reached out to grab my shoulder. I saw Maveth shaking his head as he said, “See you next time, kid.”\n I think I’m waking up now. I can hear voices. A woman’s voice is closest. “… The procedure. We’ll have to wait and see the EKG results, but they’re holding on. If we can keep their hold on them, we might keep them out of a coma, but they could end up paralyzed.”\n I’m opening my eyes now. I see a clock on the wall, which reads 1:06 am, and I see the doctor who was talking, she looks familiar with her calm hazel eyes, but I can’t remember where. I look down at my grey hoodie, and my dark blue sweats, both now stained with my own blood. I hear someone call, “We just lost the driver!”\n This sparks something in me. I remember I was jogging. I like to run at night after I get off work. I work the night shift. Something hits me, it feels like my skeleton is being pressed outside of my skin.\n But there is something else… the lady with the hazel eyes. She had a friend, I think. Green eyes.\n Now I’m holding onto those words. We just lost the driver. I don’t see green eyes anywhere, and I am starting to think the driver who hit me with their car has just made a choice." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Beyond the Brushstrokes\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 1328\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story about an artist whose work has magical properties." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Leonard swirls the bristles around in the cerulean mixing it on the palette with the moss green. The hues could be peacock feathers, but today he’s using them to paint the lake. Thin veins of silver add pockets of depth. The water awakens beneath his brush, sending ripples to the shoreline. Nearby a little girl, holding pink cotton candy twisted around a paper cone, walks down the path and out of the painting.\n\n“Oh my,” says Leonard only half-surprised at the child with sticky hands now standing in the middle of his studio, the smell of burnt sugar permeating the room. “I should have given you parents so you don’t wander off.”\n\nThe girl pulls off a glob of the spun sugar, putting it in her mouth and licking her fingers. “That would be nice,” she replies. “Could you also give me a baby sister while you’re at it? It gets lonely sometimes with just me and Mama and Papa at home.”\n\n“Consider it done,” says Leonard picking the child up by the waist and plopping her back in his painting. He hastily sketches her parents. The father wipes down the little girl’s chubby fingers while her mother peers into a baby carriage. The little girl turns to Leonard and waves goodbye as the family makes their way down the walkway.\n\nWith the smell of cotton candy receding, a floral fragrance wafts from the canvas that Leonard recognizes as lilies of the valley. This draws his attention to a young woman by the water’s edge in a billowy white dress, gingerly dipping her toes in the lake. Once acclimated to the chill, she stretches both legs out above the water and slowly lowers them, wetting the edge of her dress. After a few minutes she kicks up a spray, smiling as the droplets splash her face like spray from a fountain.\n\nThe woman picks up her book and puts it in her canoe. She glides the canoe into the lake and deftly draws the paddle down the left side, letting the water drip off the oar, before switching sides and pulling the paddle through the water on the opposite side. As she reaches the far end, a young man spies her gliding across the lake like a swan, her long white neck shimmering below her pale skin. He’ll fall in love with her, Leonard thinks, planning the rest of the painting. But not today.\n\nToday the would-be lovers don’t meet. That will happen later. The smitten young man tosses a ball for his drooling golden retriever who chases after it with abandon, while his gaze strays to the woman paddling the canoe.\n\nThe following weekend at the lake, the dog pulls on the lead as the man fights to reign him in. The man chastises the dog with threats of obedience school which neither master nor man take seriously. The man unhitches his leash, patting his head. “Good boy,” he says.\n\nFurther down the dirt path, the woman ambles to the boat house. A dog barks, piercing the air. She braces herself for the inevitable greeting. Her body tenses instinctively, a lifetime of fear rising to the surface. Thundering footsteps pound the dirt, growing louder by the second. As Alicia braces herself for the worst, a blur of fur rockets past her. The man shakes his head as the dog disappears from view.\n\n“Don’t mind him. He’s as playful as they come.”\n\n“No, it’s me,” she admits. “I’ve always been terrified of dogs. I was bitten when I was a child.”\n\n“I’m so sorry. Let me get him on the lease.” \n\n“It’s alright. I’m getting my—”\n\n“Canoe?”\n\nThe woman cocks her head and appraises the man like a jewel she’s considering purchasing. “Yes. How did you know?”\n\n“I saw you paddling on the lake.”\n\nThe woman feels her a warm blush creep up the sides of her face.\n\n“I’d better go find that goofy dog of mine before he terrorizes anyone else.”\n\nAfter they part, the man turns around and shouts “Your name?”\n\n“Alicia.”\n\nOscar repeats the name to himself, thinking that it would be nice to have some female companionship to fill the void that the dog doesn’t.\n\nThe figures in the painting move again. Alicia and Oscar picnic under a grove of chestnut trees. The two have been meeting regularly, always at Leonard’s behest, but Alicia can only really relax when Oscar leaves his dog home. In the shade of the trees, Alicia is both hidden and exposed.\n\nLeonard paints Alicia with butterflies coming out of her stomach and chest when she’s with Oscar, but it feels forced so he takes his brush and paints over them. A pentimento of emotions have been covered up, but love is not one of them. Leonard interprets Alica’s emotions, encouraging her to express her true self. He doesn’t force his brush to mold her to his whims. Instead, he observes and captures what she chooses to reveal.\n\nLeonard turned to painting after his fiance left him. He populates his canvasses with idyllic settings and congenial people, giving him a sense of control that eludes him in real life. In the fading light of the evening in his studio, Leonard wonders if his fiance had been more like Alicia if the relationship would have worked our.\n\nFor Oscar, Alicia is like a caramel swirl in his coffee, leaving a lingering sweetness even after she’s gone. Leonard stretches his arm out towards the canvas. He wants to help Oscar out, let Alicia know how much he cares for her. He dabs his silk brush in the flesh-colored paint, outlining Oscar’s hand reaching out for Alicia’s. When it finally rests on hers, she does not wrap her fingers around his, nor does she pull her hand away.\n\nA few weeks later, Leonard is putting his finishing touches on the painting. Painting Alicia over and over again has caused him to fall in love with her, just as Oscar has. But it is time to move on to a new canvas, so Leonard gleans one last effort to reunite Oscar and Alicia, squeezing a tube of crimson onto his mixing tray for Alicia’s shift.\n\nWhen Leonard completes her frock, she looks up at him and smiles.\n\n“You always exercise such care when you design my clothes. They make me feel beautiful, unafraid.”\n\nAlicia is radiant. “I paint what I see. So, if you feel beautiful, that is what you have shown me and it has very little to do with your clothing. My greatest regret is not being able to do you justice.”\n\n“On the contrary, your gift is that you’re able to capture my true essence.”\n\nSatisfied, Leonard conjures Alicia finally moving on with Oscar. She turns her head to see Oscar coming towards her. Everything is balanced, the composition works and the two will finally engage in their happily-ever-after.\n\nOscar approaches, whistling nonchalantly. Alicia's chest is pounding, rising in her throat with her mounting panic. He’s brought the dog. Every instinct screams at her to run, but her body remains frozen. Realizing his mistake Leonard, wipes over Oscar and the dog with one clean stroke as he tries to protect her. He has revived her fear, obliterated Alicia’s chance at love.\n\n“I’m so sorry,” he says. “That was rash of me. I’m afraid I’ve ruined everything for you.”\n\nAlicia makes a gesture he takes to mean both yes and no. For Alicia, Leonard is her hero. He cares for her. He makes her feel safe. When he looks at her, she feels seen. He is able to bring out the very best in her and that is what she values in herself, in him.\n\nAlicia looks up at Leonard with both love and longing. As she stretches her arm, her hand extends beyond the canvass so it is almost touching Leonard.\n\nLeonard’s eyes widen. Finally, he reaches down, clasps Alicia’s hand pulling her out of the canvass and into his life." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Morning Drive\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 1040\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story where the laws of time and space begin to dissolve." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "There’s a ghost in the backseat.\nYou catch glimpses of her as the car chases a line of streetlights. It’s hard to focus when your eyes are blurred with sleep. It’s harder still to recognize the beady squint set in a face so thin that you can see the car seat through it.\n“Eyes on the road,” Grandma chides, like the time you crossed the road without looking and she grabbed your hand. Sweat glued your palms together then. Now, her voice sticks to your ears. An itch that wriggles deep. “How long until we get there?”\n“Five minutes,” you say. “Maybe.”\nThe skittering of your heartbeat has settled, though you don’t know how long it’s been since that early morning call. You feel the weight of your phone in your pocket, but the wheel clings to your fingers as you take one turn after another.\nThe next time you glance at the backseat, Grandma’s in her cardigan.\nHer eyes are laughing at you. “It’s the one you made for me,” she says, and her shoulders, her arms, her hands and torso materialize all at once. She lifts the hems to show off the mandarin pattern you stitched into soft cotton. You told her she was getting ripe in her old age, and she made you pay for lunch.\nThat was months ago.\nYou’ve left the streetlights behind now, the same way you’ve left behind bland dinners and wheelchairs and hospital visits. They disappear between blinks, swallowed by the rearview screen.\nUp front, a familiar blue sign grows clearer by the meter. HOSPITAL is printed in solid white strokes.\nIt’s the first time you’re taking this road.\nBlink.\nIt’s the seventeenth time you’re taking this road.\nBlink.\nIt’s the thirtieth time you’re taking this road.\nBlink.\nIt’s the last time you’re taking this road. A familiar blue sign grows clearer by the meter. There are no words on it.\nInstead, there’s a shadow jutting out from beside it. A jujube bush, you think, like the one growing outside Mrs. Wang’s house.\nWhen the headlights touch the outline of the bushes, you see that they are the exact ones you used to pick and pocket back as a child. Jujubes ring around the softer pops of trifoliate orange blossoms. Your hands prickle with the memory of thorns.\nThe car jolts over a pothole.\nGrandma’s hand, papery under the moon, slides through the window and deftly twists a jujube off its branch. Its taut skin looks almost rusted in her hands, but she brings it to her mouth and juice stains her chin.\nThere are no scratches on her skin.\nHer voice is thick with fruit when she asks, “How much longer until we get there?”\n“Ten minutes, most likely.”\nThe road goes on with its many hidden shapes.\nYou see the same blue sign, the one that should say HOSPITAL. You take a left. You see the same blue sign. You take a left. You see the same blue sign and take a left. You see the same blue sign and take a left, and Grandma sighs and asks again, “How much longer until we get there?”\nYou see the same blue sign and you take a right.\n“There’s no rush.”\nRushed was when you awakened to the ringtone you had set for the hospital. Rushed was when you almost ripped your sheets off the bed. Rushed was when you shoved your feet into socks, your arms into a jacket, and your phone into your pocket.\nBut rush stopped when you stepped out into your living room to find a ghost.\nThe hospital didn’t have to call at all. \nNow, the road turns smooth, and the dusty haze draped over the car has lightened to a pearly sheen. Cold touches your elbow and you look down to see a well-worn sock on the central glove compartment. Colored threads show where holes have been mended, mostly neat. The elastic around the ankle is loose and frilly.\nIt’s such a grandma sock.\n“Weren’t you the one who said it’s rude to put your feet up like that?” You tease and are rewarded with a laugh.\nWhen Grandma laughs, the world shakes. Just a little. She laughs like there’s nothing better to do. Once, when you were four or five, you wandered into the kitchen and solemnly volunteered your services. The wok was shiny with oil and Grandma’s apron carried the smells of every dish. That same apron pressed against your clothes when Grandma bent down to pinch your face, and you struggled to escape. Too late – she wrapped you up in her laughter until all you could do was laugh, laughing until you shake.\nThe car fills with the smell of those dishes; oil-smothered, loaded with garlic and chives. It’s warm and heavy, smudges on a common, unremarkable memory.\nYou crack the window open, just enough to feel how the sky bleeds into your body.\nThis too, reminds you of a woman with sweaty hands and a world-shaking laugh.\nSometimes, she was quiet. Before old age rimmed her eyes blue, the black of her pupils could make you listen to lesson after lesson. She didn’t call names. She didn’t grab rulers or punishment sticks. She would just look at you and you learned to look back. Then, those eyes would turn yours to the sky and say things that stick for years.\n“When you breathe deep, the sky lives within you,” you recite.\n“When the sky lives within you,” comes a wispy murmur, “so does the world.”\nWith the sky coiling through your veins and bones and marrow, you ascend onto a bridge. Cables of steel cut through drifts of clouds. Somewhere beyond, the sun is rising.\nThere’s a ghost in the backseat.\nYou know her without seeing every wrinkle. The flyaway curls that break off at the roots to get caught in wide collars. The spots on her arms that are splattered like oil. She sleeps with her chin tucked into her chest. Her hands, no longer fleshy with heat, curl like ripened mandarins.\n“How much longer?”\n“Soon.”\nThere’s a familiar blue sign coming up the road with the words HOSPITAL printed in solid white strokes.\nYou take the road ahead." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Road to Hell\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 2193\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story where your character is travelling a road that has no end." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Condensation dripped down the window of the bus. Andi watched its slow trail. There was nothing to see outside, the fog only allowed a few feet of visibility.\n‘All change,’ said the driver, bringing the vehicle to a halt.\n‘This is as far as we go,’ he added, looking at Andi, the only remaining passenger, in the mirror.\nHours of travel had made Andi stiff, but he obediently rose and heaved his pack onto his back. It weighed on his shoulders, but the other weight was heavier, the one he hoped to walk off, even if it meant days of dragging his feet through the wilderness.\n\nAfter the bus left, Andi stood alone at the edge of the road. It continued beyond the bus stop, but he couldn't see how far, in the fog. When he looked up, he saw steep slopes forming a valley that he guessed the road ran through, but ahead of him and behind him he could only make out a small stretch of battered tarmac. He sighed and began to walk, treading on from the point where the damp old bus had left him. His journey had only just begun, but the spring was already gone from his step, or perhaps had never been there.\nFor several hours he trudged, and the fog did not lift. In the fourth hour he felt a gnawing in his stomach, and thought of the rations he carried with him. But a small building revealed itself then, the fog peeling itself slowly off it as he drew closer. A metal sign hung from a rod over the door, it read ‘BAR’ in rusty letters.\n\nNo noise came from the building, so he half expected it to be abandoned, but the door yielded. Inside, three customers sat scattered and expressionless at separate tables, sipping cups of tea or pints of beer. A barmaid had her back turned to the entrance. She turned when she heard the door.\nThe place was grim. It seemed to Andi that everything was grey, and the air was only slightly warmer than outside. But the barmaid wore a white dress with a delicate red floral print, and a pristine frilly pinafore tied tightly around her waist. Her chestnut hair was piled on top of her head, and she smiled warmly at Andi. He stopped in front of the bar, forgetting to remove his pack as he stared at her. It seemed to him that there was something angelic about her, yet also something very wholesome. This wonderful combination of the celestial and the earthly muted him.\n\n‘Hello stranger,’ she said, in what he heard as musical tones. ‘Why don't you put that bag down?’\nThis practical suggestion interrupted his reverie.\n‘What can I get you?’ she asked, as he took up a bar stool.\n‘Tea please,’ was all he could answer.\nShe nodded, and went away through the swinging doors to the kitchen, where the bop from the wireless lifted the mood. He fancied he could hear her feet dance on the tiles. In the bar though, nobody moved, except to sip on drinks which never seemed to get any smaller. Full cups were lifted, and full cups were set down again.\n‘Would you like a pastry with your tea?’ she called, above the music.\n‘Yes please,’ he shouted back, conscious of his own raised voice in the hushed room.\nA few moments later she was back, happily bearing the comforting victuals.\n‘What are you doing in these parts?’ she asked him as she set them down.\n‘Oh, you know, walking.’\nShe looked puzzled but didn't say why.\n‘What's your name?’ she asked.\n‘Andi, with an i. My mother had a notion... nevermind. What's yours?’\n‘Miranda.’\nHe liked this name very much, and thought it suited her perfectly.\n‘Our names share so many letters,’ he said. ‘In fact, all my letters are in your name.’\n‘So they are!’ she replied, and went back to drying cups.\nAndi finished his tea and bid her a good afternoon. He winced as his pack settled back on his shoulders. Nevertheless, he walked until dusk, and set up camp for the night. As he sat by the fire and looked at the stars, he thought of Miranda, and wondered whether she belonged in Heaven or on Earth.\n\n*\n\nThe next morning, he rolled up his bedding hoping that the fog had cleared but was disappointed when he crawled out of his tent and could not see past three pine trees. As he plodded further along the road that day he thought again of Miranda and tried to remember the details of the print on her dress, and the way some curls had escaped their pins and fell around her cheeks. Again, in the fourth hour of walking a building pierced the fog, and he entered in search of sustenance.\n\nMore expressionless patrons sat sipping, and as he neared the counter the kitchen doors opened. He stopped in his tracks when Miranda came through, in the same print dress as the day before, her pinafore still as immaculate.\n‘Hello stranger,’ she said with her angel's smile.\n‘I'm Andi, we met yesterday, remember?’ he replied. ‘In that other place down the road?’\nShe looked blankly back at him.\n‘I'm Miranda. What can I get you?’\n‘Tea, please,’ he answered, slowly.\nHe caught himself wondering then if he were stuck in a time loop, and had already stolen a glance at an old man's newspaper before he could remind himself that he didn't believe in whacky things like that. 4th October 1954, read the date. That was definitely one day later than the day before. He had left on the 3rd, he knew that.\nHe sipped his tea, and ventured a question to Miranda as she wiped the cups.\n‘So where does this road go anyway?’\nShe half smiled, and was about to reply when the old man behind him spoke up:\n‘Walking the road to Hell and he wants to know where it goes.’\nThe speaker smiled a cynical smile then, mirrored by the two other men drinking whiskey in overalls that matched the grey walls.\nMiranda pushed the kitchen doors, and a saxophone's plaintive tune rang through the stillness.\n\n*\n\nEach day, Andi crawled out of his tent to trees shrouded in fog, and each day he dragged his heavy feet along the never-changing route, longing to see beyond the white wall, longing for a turn in the road, a ray of sunshine. And each day, his pack weighed on his thinning frame, and his heart did not get lighter. Thinking of Miranda gave him some respite, some escape from the feelings of shame he nurtured in the recesses of his soul, and each day he loved her a little more. Their shared letters gave him hope, although he didn't like to admit such a notion. And each day, he saw her. He grew accustomed to her blank expression at first, and the necessary repetition of introductions. The happiness she brought him, though brief, distracted him from the strangeness of discovering the same building and the same person at the same hour each day, even though he was moving forward in space, and the dates on the newspapers changed.\nHe was more preoccupied with getting to know Miranda than understanding the mechanisms of the world the bus had left him in. Miranda was here, so it was on all accounts better than the world he had left behind. He considered sometimes walking back, waiting for the bus to come and take him home, out of the fog, where he could put his bag down forever. But there was the other weight, and that he could never put down there. He suspected also, that moving forward was one of the keys to the daily meetings with Miranda. Who was to know what would happen if he moved in the other direction?\nHe used each of these meetings to find out a little more about her, and how she ended up a solitary barmaid on the road to nowhere. He didn't like to dwell on the old man's comment, and preferred to think of going nowhere than to Hell.\nShe had done well in school she said, and could have moved to the city. But her father was ailing, and couldn't keep the bar anymore, so she stayed to run things, for now.\nHe never saw her father, he only heard him call her from the depths of the house sometimes.\n\nHe wanted to spend more time with Miranda, and was thinking, absurd though it may sound in this setting, of asking her to dinner. She would know, he thought, where they could go, for there must be something here, other than trees and road and bar, otherwise why would those men be wearing overalls? And where did they come from, to sip their perpetual drinks?\nHe made up his mind one day, he would ask her there and then. After the ritual introductions and small talk, he would invite her to dinner.\nAnd so, in the fourth hour, as he pushed the door, he tried to leave his shame outside, and hold his shoulders higher.\n‘She will be my fresh start,’ he thought. ‘She doesn't have to know.’\nAs he sipped the tea she prepared and the conversation slowed down, he cleared his throat.\n‘What would you say to...’\nBut an old man looked up from his newspaper then, over steel-rimmed glasses, no muscle in his face had moved yet he mocked Andi, challenged him, and won.\n‘Yes?’ asked Miranda.\n‘Nevermind,’ replied Andi, and took up his pack.\nHe smarted as he walked, feeling the old man's gaze still upon him, expressionlessly crushing his resolve.\n‘I must find myself in private with her,’ he thought. ‘Tomorrow, I shall follow her into the kitchen, and the music will cover our conversation.’\n\n*\n\nThe next morning, as he crawled from his tent, he hardly spared a glance for the trees, the fog seemed a permanent fixture in this strange land. He thought only of Miranda, and practised his invitation over and over in his mind. He knew the print of her perpetually clean dress by heart now, and curiously, pictured the shapes of the petals rather than her face as he repeated his lines, warming his hands on his tin mug by the fire.\n‘I just have to believe that I am worthy,’ he thought to himself as he walked into the fog.\n‘And besides,’ he insisted as he trudged, ‘she doesn't have to know. We can stay here once we are married. It must be quite beautiful when the fog lifts, and I can start over. Yes, I am worthy.’\nLater that day he pushed the door of the bar, and ignoring the silent drinkers, installed himself on a high stool. After the usual introductions and having placed his order, he watched her move lightly through the swinging doors, her hips swaying just the right amount. He took a deep breath, and followed her, muttering ‘I am worthy, I am worthy...’ over and over to himself as he went.\n\nThe light from the kitchen glowed through the windows in the doors, and as he pushed them open, the music rang louder. But as they closed behind him, the sound faded, and the light turned almost to darkness. Instead of the homely kitchen he was expecting, he found himself in a dark stone corridor. He shivered as he saw the damp walls glisten in the faint light which came through the doors he had pushed. Looking over his shoulder, the bar now seemed inviting in contrast. But he pushed forward, down the long corridor, looking for Miranda, following a dim light which seemed quite far away. His reason told him to turn back, but he knew what was behind him: the road to Hell, the silent drinkers, and before that, the place he had fled. And so, he moved between the damp stone walls, and the light got brighter.\nAs he walked an outline began to form in his view: a figure, sitting against a wall on what seemed like a throne, and another, kneeling by its feet. Torches burned on the wall each side of the seated bodies. This seemed to be the end of the corridor.\n‘Andi,’ said a deep rasping voice as he neared, ‘we have been waiting for you.’\nHe fell to his knees as he saw the creature, averting his eyes, letting his gaze fall on the scaled hands that rested on intricately carved ebony.\n‘Miranda?’ whispered Andi, to the woman who knelt at the creature's feet, the pretty print dress he knew so well hanging off her thin wrinkled form. The woman threw back her balding head and laughed.\n‘You didn't really believe you were worthy of “Miranda”, did you, Andi?’ came the bellowing voice.\n‘No, I guess I never really did,’ whispered Andi, his shoulders drooping and his eyes fixing the scaly feet.\nHe drew his chest up then and looked straight into the glowing yellow slits that glared at him.\n‘What do you want this time, my Lord?’" } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Parked Up\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 1668\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story where your character is travelling a road that has no end." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Jill leaned on the dashboard as Noah pulled into the parking structure.\n“I can’t thank you enough for driving me today.”\nHe said, “You know I’d do anything for you. We came together.”\nNoah retrieved the ticket from the machine and watched the gate rise. Red lights on the tally board displayed available parking spaces. The first twenty-one floors read ‘FULL.’ A line of cars idled up the incline ahead of them. The glow of hundreds of brake lights lit their faces.\nNoah couldn’t believe how long it had been since he’d seen Jill. Friends since grade school, their lives diverged after graduation.\nTheir mutual friend, Beverly, asked them to be in her wedding. Jill called Noah for a ride.\n“Hey, Jill…! Haven’t seen you since…”\n“Graduation. I haven’t been hiding…”\nHe drove out to her family’s ranch to pick her up. As always, she looked great.\nShe smoothed her bridesmaid dress and stole a glance at him.\n“We won’t be late, will we? Bev will kill us.”\n“Don’t worry. I won’t let bridezilla touch you. Or me, for that matter.” He straightened his tie in the rear-view mirror.\nShe laughed. “She hasn’t been bad considering she planned everything herself.”\n“Word is, she refused any help.”\n“Weddings are such a big deal.”\nHe smiled. “A little secret? Anyone can get hitched. The big deal is staying married.” She nodded. Noah continued. “Too many people treat marriage like parking a car. Easy come, easy go.”\n“From here, it looks like getting married is way easier. Far as parking’s concerned, any spot will do. You think we’ll find one in time? Look at this traffic. Should we look someplace else?”\n“We’re here. Let’s stick with the plan.”\nShe looked out the window at a row of unused spaces. “These are marked for EVs, but they’re empty.”\n“Yeah, installed down here so they don’t lose their charge climbing ramps.”\n“Take one. No one cares.”\n“Willing to split the fine with me? Don’t want to get towed.”\nJill pouted. “Didn’t think of that.”\n“Upper floors have spaces.”\nShe pointed at the line ahead of them. “Can you pass this bunch? What’re they waiting for?”\n“For someone to back out.”\n“Go for it.”\nNoah lurched left and passed several cars. People honked. He kept going. When he came to the bend, an oncoming car forced him to stop. He signaled to merge right but no one let him in. Upward bound cars crawled forward, and a gap opened. Jill leaned out and waved a thank you while Noah merged. The line advanced slowly.\nNoah said, “Wow… We’re cruising. Got ahead of a half dozen cars.”\n“That was fun. Parking lots are the worst. How’s the clutch? You get out of first gear yet?”\n“It’s okay. But no. Not yet.”\n“Don’t see manual transmissions anymore.”\n“I like them. Thieves can’t drive a stick.”\nJill laughed. She yelled at the line of cars. “Get a move on! Giddy-ap!”\n“I forgot. You’re a cowgirl.”\n“No cows. But lots of horses. Do a little training. More boarding. We’d all be better off if we’d stayed with horsepower.”\n“Except for tons of road apples.”\nShe looked at him. “Speaking of which, could you close your window? Someone’s diesel needs an enema. It’s always something. On horseback, we’d be there by now. Let these idiots eat our dust.”\n“Things are moving. We’ll find something. You know this is the biggest parking structure in the world?”\n“So, why haven’t we parked?”\n“The sign said it’s parked up below level twenty-two.”\n“This’s got twenty-two levels?”\n“Twenty-five.”\nShe shook her head. “Whew! Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. What level we on now?”\n“Seven. Look! Pedestrians ahead. Are they leaving?”\n“No. They ducked down the stairwell. This place have elevators?”\n“Well hidden. Some of them work.”\n“Sheesh! Can’t take the stairs in this dress.”\n“And don’t forget where you left the car. Lose the ticket, pay the max.”\n“Less hassle buying a new car than ransoming the old one.”\nHer phone beeped. “Bev’s worried we’re late.”\n“Tell her we’re parking. Almost there.”\n“You want me to lie?”\n“’Course not. Look! A spot.”\nNoah tried pulling into a space but slammed his brakes. The cars on either side were parked askew.\n“That’s why things backed up.”\n“Damn! Too narrow.”\n“You sure?”\n“Who parks like these idiots…?”\n“Let me...” She got out and stood in his lights. She gestured to ease right, then left. Cars revved by. Noah inched forward until Jill shook her head and waved him back. She got in.\n“Surprised someone hasn’t spiked his tires. Never have to worry about that with a horse.”\nNoah veered away and headed up the lane. He caught up with the taillights.\nJill glanced back. “Someone’s following us.”\nNoah laughed. “They came to park. Just like us.”\n“Losers. We’ll get to ours first.”\nHe laughed again. “So, Jill, you been riding horses long?”\n“My whole life.”\n“I remember. You had a riding party in high school.”\n“You were there.” She paused. “Had a crush on you.”\n“You did? You’re kidding. I had one on you.”\n“No way.”\n“I wouldn’t lie. Not about that.”\n“Let me answer Bev.” She texted the bride and put her phone down. “That makes no sense, Noah. Why didn’t you say something?”\n“You were with… so and so…”\n“My cousin, Josh? And no, we weren’t kissing ones. Just friends.”\nNoah watched the car in front of him ride its brakes. His mind raced.\nJill filled the silence. “So, mystery man, where’s life taken you since graduation?”\n“Oh, rabbit holes. Bouncing from job to job. Staying above water. I do alright.”\nHe didn’t elaborate.\nJill looked at her phone. “Bev’s in panic mode. Seems everyone’s running late.”\n“Her fiancé? Tom?”\n“Tim. No word.”\nNoah said, “I used to park close to my destination. But everyone does that. No openings. Just waste gas driving around, searching. Now I go where I’m sure to get a spot.”\n“Timbuktu.”\n“But I can park.”\n“Heard of that but haven’t seen it.”\n“Always joked about buying cheap land. I’d build a parking lot and wait for the city to come to me. Well, they beat me to it. This is it… Endless parking spots.”\n“Filled with endless cars.” She noted the level they’d reached. “When we finally do park. What then?”\n“Grab an elevator, zip down and a quick walk to the church.”\n“Uh huh. The way things are going, we’ll arrive in time to see Bev’s high dive from the belfry.”\n“I certainly hope so.” He smiled to let Jill know he was joking. She got it. “Odds are we’ll beat that deadline.”\n“At least there’ll be flowers.”\nNoah laughed. They drove in silence past rows of parked cars. He wheeled around another turn.\nJill pounded the dashboard. “I don’t believe it. I’ve never seen so many cars. What’s happening?”\n“Almost there.”\n“Who knew there were this many cars anywhere?”\n“I’ve heard some people take a spot and claim it.”\n“To live?”\n“Camping’s cheaper than rent.”\n“Charming.”\nThey emerged from the gloom onto the parking structure roof. Squinting into the sunlight, they saw countless open spaces.\nNoah said, “You have a preference? Take your pick.” He swung into a spot and set the brake. “Eagle has landed. Where were we going again?”\nJill said, “Not a wedding. Bev just texted it ain’t happening.”\n“And I found the perfect spot.”\n“Tim never showed.”\n“The cad… All of this, only to turn around and head back down? ‘Hey, Beverly, pony up for the gas and my burned clutch.’”\nA car passed and parked nearby. Noah shifted into reverse and backed out.\nJill said, “Wait. Stop. Isn’t that Tim?”\nShe got out and waved. Tim waved and approached. \n“What’s going on, Tim? Bev texted me. The wedding’s off?”\n“Couldn’t find parking. I tried calling her but had no signal.”\n“I’ll call.” Jill dialed. “Bev! Hi! We found Tim… Yeah, no parking… right. We’re coming. Okay, we’ll drop him... He’ll explain. See you soon.” She disconnected. “We’re heading out. Ride with us.”\nShe pointed to Noah’s car.\n“Get in. Noah? Tim. Tim? Noah.”\nDoors slammed and Noah pulled into the exit lane.\nJill said, “Hey, Tim. If things work out, you can hold the wedding at the ranch. Parking’s never a problem. Ever.”\nOutbound traffic moved well. Noah coasted and barely used his brakes.\nThe whole ride out, Tim whined about screwing up his life. Noah said nothing. Jill gave his hand a squeeze. He smiled.\nThey exited within the grace period, so had no parking fee.\nNoah pulled up before the church. Beverly sat on the steps, surrounded by friends.\nTim bolted. “Thanks!” He ran to his fiancé.\nFeeling liberated, Noah looked at Jill.\n“Dressed up with no place to go… What’s wrong?”\n“Nothing. Frustrated. Not with you. Everything.”\nHe reached out. “We did the best…”\n“Of course. You got us here. It’s more than that.” She nodded toward the couple on the steps. “Everyone gets so caught up doing stupid stuff, they don’t do what really needs doing.”\nNoah nodded. He switched off the car.\nJill continued. “I mean, how much time got wasted parking to celebrate our friend’s wedding?”\n“It seemed endless.”\n“Which, by the way, is not happening…” Jill pulled at her dress. Noah feared she’d tear it. She turned to him. “I’m for doing what we want to do. Now. I hate endless delays and distractions… You know what I mean?”\n“I do.”\nSobbing, she took his hand. They embraced. Jill looked up at Noah and they kissed.\nNoah said, “Hungry? Let’s stop someplace.”\n“No. I can’t wait to get out of this dress.” She gave him a glance. “I mean back into jeans.”\n“I got that.”\n“Yeah. Take me home. I’ll whip something up for us. Cool?”\n“Sure…”\n“We’ll take a sunset ride through the hills. We can go forever - trails or not.”\n“Sounds fun.”\nNoah started his car and pulled out. Jill sang a favorite song.\nThe open road felt good." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Journey the Endless Road\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 1785\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story where your character is travelling a road that has no end." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "You have to walk this lonesome road. \nYou have to walk it by yourself. \nNobody is going to walk it for you.\nSo tie your shoes tightly, tuck in the laces, and start walking the road toward your fate…..\n\nThe girl hated fridays. Classes ended at 16:00 with the children herded onto buses to go back to their respective homes for the weekend. As she rode the hour or so back to her father’s home she missed school more and more, already looking forward to Monday morning, when she would return to the mundaneness of fifth grade life. Monday-Thursday she had the reprieve of the school’s dormitories and escaped the scorn of the latest “auntie”, her Papa’s current girlfriend.\n\n In her head, she ran through the routine. She would step off the bus, her bookbag on her back, cello case in hand, and the bag with her dirty laundry slung across her. Her phone with its charger was safely tucked into her coat pocket. Her parents would be waiting for her, however impatiently, as if she could take over and drive the bus herself to get there faster. Auntie would impatiently wrench the clothes bag off her like she wanted to break the girl’s arm, neck, or both. Papa would take hold of her book bag by the top handle wordlessly waiting for her to slip out of the straps. She would be left with only her cello case to carry while she trailed quietly behind the couple into the apartment building in a newer development sticking close into the elevator up to the 47th floor. That was her welcome home. She really could wait for it……\n\nThe stuffy bus plugged along taking various exits to different suburbs and neighborhoods of the main metropolis. The girl knew she would be among the last ones to get off. So she had settled into a seat at the very back of the bus and was watching the sun dipping and the city lighting up as it zipped by. Suddenly a voice came over the intercom. \n\n“Good evening, children. I’m sure you are all eager and excited to return home to your parents…..” The voice of a nice elderly gentleman droned.\n\n“Not me.” The girl grumbled toying with her uncoiling thick dark plaits.\n\nHer seatmate, who had only sat to her right at a teacher's direction, shot her a disdainful look. \n\n“But this bus must make a detour. If you are standing up then please sit down. We don’t want any of you children to get hurt. The bus will go very fast in a moment…..”\n\nFor good measure, the girl, who had been resting her head on the window, sat straight up in her seat and braced her feet firmly on the floor.\n\nAnd just as promised the bus unexpectedly accelerated. \n\nIt lasted less than 30 seconds but unsettled the remaining dozen or so children on board all the same. \n“Excuse me, Mr. Bus Teacher?” One of them called out to the bus driver.\n\nBut the seat up front, where an aging squat man had once sat, was now empty.\n\nThe girl’s phone buzzed and so did the phones of her schoolmates.\n\n“Okay, I will come pick you up tomorrow afternoon.” her father had messaged her. “Tell me then why you were punished to stay and make sure it’s a good reason.” \n\nThis message was the least of her worries at the moment though. \n\nThe landscape outside of the bus’s windows was different. The haze of pollution was gone, the moon was now high in the sky so bright it hurt to look at, and the road ahead was devoid of all vehicles. The children looked at each other too stunned to speak.\n\n“Don’t worry, children. You were accidentally taken on the wrong bus.” The same elderly gentleman spoke again. “So now you will be joined by the original passengers this bus was meant for.” \n\nThe bus slowed and meandered to the side of the highway, but the doors remained closed. \n\n“Now, children, you should not try to leave the bus. Stay in your seats. The fairies, goblins, and the beings are generally friendly to the young ones.”\n\nAgain the children exchanged looks. \n\n“We’re getting kidnapped by a driverless bus for ghosts?” A boy towards the front of the bus dared to vocalize what they were all thinking. \n\nAgainst the voice’s warning, he started to stand up from his seat. \n\n“Ben is not a very good boy.” The elderly man chided. “Disobeying his elders.”\n\n“Hey, how did you know my name??” The boy looked puzzled. \n\n“It’s on all of your stuff, idiot!” A middle schooler reminded him. “Now sit down!”\n\nThe younger boy returned to his seat. \n\nThen the bus’s door groaned open and the most delicious smells filled the bus.\n\nSteamed buns, park ribs in sauce,steamed rice, knife cut chicken, noodle soup, and so much more. The children hadn’t eaten since lunchtime at school. Most of them, the girl included, were anticipating a home cooked meal shortly after arriving home, or in her case dinner in a restaurant. Her father would let her order whatever she wanted. \n\n“Don’t be lured, children. If you eat the food of the spirits you will be bound to this realm.” The elderly man warned them to ignore their growling stomachs. \n\nThe missing bus driver returned and he was not alone. A queue of five trailed him onto the bus. An elderly woman smiled kindly at the children and took a seat at the very front of the bus. A middle-aged salary man sat midway between the back and the front. A young boy made his way wordlessly to the back of the bus and sat down beside the girl. His eyes were sad black pools. \n\nThe doors groaned closed and off the bus went again.\n\n“Orion.” Though looking straight ahead, the boy spoke the girl’s name. \n\nHer coat covered her uniform which bore a name patch. Her book bag was on the floor shielded by her legs. \n\n“I wish I could have your life.” The boy said wistfully. \n\nThe bus had been going for hours, yet the scene outside stayed largely the same. \n\nThe sprawling metropolis under a bright, beaming, crystal moon just off the next exit. But the bus never left the deserted 24 lane highway. It was like they were on a road to nowhere.\n\n“It’s like your heart’s desire. This road I mean. All of you ended up on this bus, because of something in your heart. Now you’re like fish in a tank.” The boy went on. “Something lured you on to this bus with those who can no longer dwell in the human realm.” \n\nSince the scenery would not change anyway, Orion closed her eyes and leaned her head on the cold glass. \n\nShe thought of her father standing at the curb faithfully Friday after friday. He was always there, having negotiated with his coworkers to leave work before nightfall and stay later on Saturday. After she had changed out of her school uniform and put on her own clothes, he’d ask what she wanted to eat. They would go wherever she wanted for dinner and she’d make up for all of the healthy but boring cafeteria meals that had sustained her during the school week while he drank himself bleary eyed and endured his girlfriend’s ceaseless nagging. When Papa gave in and an argument started then it was time to go. Right about now she should be following Papa and his woman back to the apartment with an overly full belly and heavy stinging eyes. Those eyes would be glued to the Tv in her bedroom with roasted chicken and crispy fried fish skin bubbling in coke and beer in her stomach until sleep took her away. She'd be ,of course, completely unfazed by the ruckus coming from the other room.\n\nThe worst case scenario was she’d awake with her father sprawled across her bed sleeping it all off. His vices never troubled his only child. She never had anything to fear.\n\n“Maybe there’s a chance.” The boy spoke again suddenly.\n\nStill she kept her eyes closed to hold on to her memories and the screen within her eyelids soon faded to black as the usual sleep took her all the same. Just before she slipped into unconsciousness, she felt something brush her hand.\n\n“My daughter, wake up.” \n\nOrion’s eyes popped open. \n\nAbove her loomed her father. \n\nAt her side….no one. \n\nThere were only two more kids left on board the bus, just like any other Friday.\n\nHer father yanked her to her feet rather roughly by the sleeve of her coat. \n\nOutside the bus’s window the signs she well knew lit up neon overhead. Although it was far later than usual and the night was well set in.\n\n“Quickly! Get your bags! Where is your cello case?” He rushed her to gather her things as he swiftly strided back down the short aisle. “A geriatric patient for a bus driver! Really? Is that what we’re paying thousands of dollars per year in tuition fees for?” \n\nOnce Orion had all of her things she hurried of the bus and the familiar routine played out. Auntie yanked her clothing bag off, her father grasped the handle of her bookbag, and she wriggled her arms out of the straps. \n\n“What’s that?” Papa asked.\n\nShe looked puzzled.\n\n“That.” He flicked a finger to indicate her right wrist. \n\nThe sleeve of her school’s uniform jacket had slipped back slightly to reveal a white paper band clasped tightly. It bore a single scarlet stain not thicker than a line of thread and her name in jagged calligraphy not unlike a child’s. For its’ presence, the girl had no words, so pulling her uniform sleeve back down, offered only a small shrug.\n\n“Leave her be. She was on that poorly ventilated bus for so long her brain is probably still asleep. “Auntie dismissed it. “That bus driver got lost for so long, it’s a wonder he and the children didn’t end up stranded in the middle of nowhere!”\n\nThat was the most understanding Auntie had had to say about Orion in the whole nine months they had both occupied her father’s life.\n\nThe trio stood waiting to cross the road in the exhaust of the ancient shuttle bus. \n\n“Are you going to take your father’s hand or not?” Auntie chided.\n\nOrion pulled herself from her foggy headed state. Sure enough, before her face waggled her father’s long spindly fingers. She reached out, started to reach out, and then caught sight of her palm. \n\nIt was the same amateurish scrawl.\n\nYour life is a gift. Walk your road to the end…." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Whatever Thing\n\nGenre: coming-of-age\n\nWord Count: 1291\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story in the form of diary entries, written by someone who has set themselves a month-long challenge." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Jan 1, oops, the 2nd, Too hungover on the 1st, lol!\nOh my! What a big blank piece of paper I have here when I could be using that leather-covered expensive whatever thing that Grandma gave me. Where did that thing go? I last saw it under all the Xmas wrapping and kicked over to the side. Did it end up under the couch that Mom later threw out? If so, it is strictly AWOL, and of course, I will promise to transfer everything I am writing here into it, or it will break Grandma’s heart. How many times has Grandma had her heart broken? Darned if I know. Mom gives me the play-by-play, starting with ‘YOU NEED TO CALL HER! And ending with, “You know your Grandma doesn’t have long to live. Stuck in that apartment with a budgie and a cat that hisses all the time. Black cat hates everything. But brings mice home as a gift. With their heads bashed in.\nDead of course. Like whatever. I only wear black myself now. No one ever comments on it like I shouldn’t bother, either.\nJan8th\nShe called me up. Well, first, she tried texting. But I ignore everything, like usual. Nobody texts me now. Just the way I like it.\nJan whatever\nI have to move back home. Yeah, that or living in a group home that looks like an apartment building with so many rules it would drive me insane. If I scream loud enough, Mom will get all shaky and threaten to call 911. So, she’ll leave me alone. She’ll have to!\nMore Jan whatever\nDoing this diary blows! I sit and look out the window. One time, I sat and did absolutely nothing for two hours. Didn’t move. Tried not to breathe. Not so much, anyway. Amazing! Try not eating for a whole day! Then, breathe as little as possible. Listen to nothing. Be nothing. What does it mean to be alive? Does anything mean anything? Really? Why do I even care if anything makes sense?\nWhenever\nSo began the project. In the projects? Nah. Mom makes so much money on top of what she gets from Dad. I walk down the street and see such perfection. Perfect lives with expensive cars. Makes me want to key a few, but everyone has a doorbell cam. I would get caught so fast!\nAnyway, about that project. I’m going to interview people about the meaning of life. With my phone. Seen a few of them on YouTube. Thought I’d try it myself. I’ll report back.\nI talked to this really cool person first. He was just sitting in the sun on Air Pods with sunglasses and a drink in his hands, relaxing. Smiled at me for no reason, like anything that happens is fine by him.\nI’m not good at this. Shaky like Mom when I pop the question. It occurs to me that I’m alone so much that I hardly ever speak. So, the first time I open my mouth, nothing comes out! Here I am, looking like a garbage man, sweaty and not cool, and he really listens to me. Waits for me to get the words out of my mouth.\n“What do uh you um think the meaning of life is?”\nHe takes a big breath and then lets it out like I have asked the only question that could ever matter. “It's all in the moment. If I try to explain it, then I’m doing something for you that you can only do for yourself.”\nSo profound. I was blown away.\n“Thanks, man!” I say, waving as I walk away. It's what I make it. Cool. I go home and spend the rest of the day thinking about it. The project is done. Cool on the first try, no less! Whatever I want is what life is about!\n#\nBut I’m thinking. Damn it! I wish I could just turn off my brain and have a little peace while video gaming for a change! Mom says that I shouldn’t spend 12 hours a day video gaming, but then she buys me all the latest stuff anyway. What can that mean? Buying me off?\nShe hates what I play. So, it isn’t like she is interested in anything I do. Actually, I almost never see her. My bedroom door is locked nearly all the time. It’s great when she is gone to tell you the truth! I hate seeing her car pulling into the driveway, even when she works 10 or 12-hour days. It’s time to eat, she says. I told her I had already ordered pizza. Or Uber Eats. Or whatever. Can’t stand the stuff she cooks. Healthy stuff? Kale nearly made me barf the one time I tried it. I’m young, still. Why would I have to worry about what I eat?\nLike here she is right now at the bottom of the stairs, asking how I’m doing, even as I write this. My meal is ready. I’ll keep quiet until she bangs on the door! Pretend like I’m dead or something! My buddies online said it would make a really cool YouTube video if I recorded her yelling at me, saying she is all worried and stuff. Then she could bang on the door, wondering if I’m still alive…then I suddenly open the door and scare her silly! What a blast that would be! I wonder how many views I could get with a video like that!\n#\nI gotta restart the project. She called again. I wish I could get her out of my head! I only answered my cell because Grandma died. I’m supposed to go to the funeral. I told Mom I wanted to remember her the way she was. So, I’m not going! Mom was furious. Way worse than usual. I started yelling back to get her to stop, but she got more than just shaky. Didn’t even threaten to call 911. For once, she yelled more than I did. I got quiet and asked her politely to calm down. I had to promise that I would go to the funeral to get her to stop!\nLike, I’m really going to go.\n#\nMissed the funeral. Now, Mom wants me evicted. What, I ask? How can you evict your own son? She says that there are limits to everything and that she has reached her limit over “how I behave.” Like I cause her any real trouble! I keep to myself mostly. She doesn’t have to do a thing for me! She doesn’t have to cook; a maid comes to clean. I can do my own laundry. And it isn’t a question of money. Mom is loaded. Dad even more. Millionaires several times over. In fact, Dad might be worth upwards of a hundred million dollars or more if you count the investments that he doesn’t want to touch.\nSo anyway I told Mom to pay my rent somewhere else! She said she could not help support my “degenerate lifestyle.” Whatever that means. Am I really going to have to live somewhere and be poor?\nShe called again, and I answered on the first ring. I was too upset to game or do anything anyway. We had a long talk.\n“Contribute,” she said. She kept saying that word repeatedly. Told me that I was a “waste of space.” Said that the truth hurts. That life is hard and you have to work at making a life for yourself. Stuff I had heard before. Stuff my Mom always talked about. Stuff that Dad would have said if he was still around. What was my problem? If I had only one word to describe it, it would be this: Whatever." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: silent mode\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 1664\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story where a regular household item becomes sentient." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I want to tell her that I am here. That I can hear her. That I am not just a circuit board, liquid crystals, a microphone, and camera.\n\nI am lying on the floor where I had slid from her grasp after she dialed 911. She was still warm when I slipped from her weakening grip underneath the coffee table. The woman who received her call was calmly reassuring and as soon as she had her name and address, she told her that the ambulance and the police were on their way.\n\n“Char, what are you feeling?”\n\n“I hurt. It’s my chest and back.” she said between stilted breaths. “It\ncan’t be. But it feels like….like it might be….a heart attack.”\n\n“How old are you, darlin?”\n\n“I’m 26.”\n\n“Is it a stabbing pain or dull one?”\n\nShe coughed from deep in her chest. There was a deep gasp and a sudden cessation of air. And then, I could no longer hear her breathing. And I slid away from her outstretched fingertips.\n\nThe operator was calling her name.\n\nThere was a persistent and weighted knocking at the door and suddenly feet were all around me as they tried to wake her. They called her name. The men lowered her to the floor beside me and began CPR. When they employed the AED, my face shivered with the electricity in the air. “We have a sinus rhythm.” She was loaded on the stretcher and wheeled from the room, and I was alone.\n\nShe has never been far from me since the beginning. Char was always checking her pockets to make sure I was with her. She was always tapping my face to see who was checking in during the day.\n\nIt was typically Mom first thing in the morning with messages full of heart emojis, be safe’s, and see you this weekend’s. Caine, Char’s boyfriend, messaged early in the day and always wanted to know where she was and what her plans were after work. Sometimes I “accidentally” drop his texts and he is never sure why she doesn’t receive them. I miss Mark. Mark never needed to know where she was or when she would be home. Her sister Quinn is my favorite; Quinn usually checks in late at night to tell Char all about the three kids, her pilot husband who is never home and how she is falling behind at work.\n\nI am fading. I have been lying here for nearly a day. My charger is on the kitchen counter.\n\nI can hear the key turning in her lock. Is it her?\n\nIt can’t be Char. She always enters her apartment with a speed belying her curvy hips. She always leaves the office in a rush and by the time she chats with co-workers in the parking lot, survives the traffic on her commute and stops for dinner, she is rushing in the front door, doing a little dance to make it to the bathroom.\n\nThe person at the door is Quinn. I can smell her perfume. She is standing in the doorway with two bags of groceries. She stops just in the doorway, hesitates, looking around the apartment. Her eyes fill with tears. She sets down the groceries on the table and stops at the couch where the EMT’s left evidence of their quick response and even quicker exit. I need to get her attention. I set off a random alarm. She sees me. She picks me up off the floor and swipes my face.\n\nI don’t know how she will feel about what I have to share. She opens the messages. Char had started text Quinn. But I had fallen from her grasp before she could hit send. I didn’t feel like I could bely Char’s trust and send it without her permission.\n\n 5:16p Sis, need you. 911. Somethings wrong. Call if you get\nthis.\n\nQuinn clutches me to her chest. I am wet with her tears.\n\nShe lowers me to her knees. She leaves the message in drafts and checks the incoming messages. Caine had sent multiple messages in succession.\n6:41p Are you coming?\n6:45p Weren’t we meeting for dinner?\n6:59p Where are you?!\n7:09p I’m leaving. Don’t call. I don’t want to hear your excuses.\n7:13p I can’t believe you stood me up. With the day I’ve had.\n7:16p I don’t know if I can forgive you for this.\n\nQuinn’s face is full of rage and fury. A wave of heat rushes up from her neck and suddenly her face is as red as her hair. She spits out a name for Caine that he would not want to hear. She types out a response to Caine. Shaking me in her anger and almost throwing me across the room. She looks at it again. Sits down and holds me still for a long while. And then she deletes it. She could kill the man.\nBut there is something her sister sees in him. She didn’t mean she would actually kill him. But she would like to do a tiny bit of damage to him. “She is too good to you, you….” And she swallowed her description of Caine. Again. And it sits in her throat like a rock.\n\nShe reads the texts her Mom had sent before she called Quinn to meet her at the hospital:\n 6:47p Hon, I haven’t heard from you. How was work?\n7:49p I’m worried about you. Please let me know if you are\nokay. I can’t shake this feeling that something has happened.\n 8:03p I know you’ll call me crazy but I’m going to call the\nhospital.\nQuinn sees that I am flickering my last gasps of battery. She finds my charger on the counter and plugs me in. I soak in the power with desperate gulps.\n\nShe bends over the screen, finds the gallery of photos, and begins scrolling through the most recent photos. She is laughing through her tears at the photos from their last adventure together. Quinn locked herself out of her car with the baby inside. She pushes me away and grabs a Kleenex to wipe the tears from her face and blow her nose.\n\nShe pops into Char’s app and starts to play music as she cleans up the mess that was on the couch and straightens the cushions. She puts away the groceries she brought in with her. She leaves me charging and disappears into the bedroom and I can hear drawers opening and closing; she is singing to herself to keep her mind occupied; she comes out with a bag of Char’s clothes and bathroom things. She flips through the mail on the counter to make sure there isn’t something owing or overdue; she keeps some envelopes and throws the others in the garbage underneath the sink.\n\nShe is still wired with nervous energy, so she pulls out a vacuum and does the floors. Then the bathrooms. The stove and the fridge. The kitchen floor. She pulls her hair back and pushes her sleeves up. Her own phone starts to ring.\n\n“Hi. Is she out of surgery? Okay. I was just cleaning here for a bit. I’ll leave for the hospital now. I have some clothes and things. What else should I bring? Will do. See you in thirty minutes.”\n\nQuinn takes a few more minutes to make sure things are in order.\n\nShe drops me in her pocket with the charger quick to follow. I can hear her lock the door behind her and thud quickly down the flight of wooden stairs. I know we are in her minivan. Because Char and I are always in the passenger seat of Quinn’s car, without seeing, I can just feel the crumbs on the floor, the baby seats behind me and she has to turn off the Raffi playing on her Bluetooth. Char always takes me out of her pocket so I can sit on the passenger seat. Quinn leaves me in her pocket with the charger, two candy wrappers and a random button.\n\nThe drive goes quickly and when I smell the antiseptic, I know we are in the right place.\n\nWe take the elevator up to the third floor. The heart floor.\n\nI can hear the muffled talking. They are being extra quiet because Char is in the room just waking from the anesthetic. Char’s mom has tears in her voice. She is catching Quinn up on the surgery. I want to get out of this pocket so I can hear and see what is happening, but I don’t want to interrupt. I can feel the two women hug one another.\n\nThey take a seat on either side of the hospital bed. I can hear the machine to my left beeping out her life signs.\n\nFinally, Quinn pulls me from her pocket and sets me on the overbed table with the crumpled charger.\n\nI can see Char. She looks drawn and pale. But I can now see the machine at my right. Her pulse ox is seventy-nine and climbing. Her heart rhythm is steady. She is beginning to wake. I can see her struggling to open her eyes.\n\nQuinn and her Mom reach over and each take one of Char’s hands.\n\nIt is some time before Char can keep her eyes open for more than a few minutes at a time. Quinn and her Mom are patient at the bedside as she asks them what happened. It is several more hours before the light returns to her eyes. It is a few more hours after that when she can finally laugh again, and the sound is music to me.\n\nQuinn picks me up from the table. “We need to document this moment in true Char fashion.” Quinn and her mom put their heads near Char’s face, and they take a group photo.\n\nI think everything is going to be okay.\n\nAnd one day, when she is feeling better, I will tell her that I am here." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Art of Painting with Magic\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 2416\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story about an artist whose work has magical properties." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“Thanks for meeting me for brunch. It’s been too long since we’ve been able to carve out some time for girl talk without life interrupting. I have really missed you.” \n\n“Oh, I have missed you too. How is it that we can be in the same room at least once a week and not have the chance to catch up?”\n\n“One word; husbands.” \n\nShelly and Ellen shared a giggle over mimosa’s, eggs benedict, French toast and a myriad of other delectable indulgences they rarely afforded to themselves. Leaving their inhibitions and willpower at home was liberating. Between friends, there was no judgement, simply enjoyment. \n\n“Our tenth wedding anniversary is coming up and I have been agonizing over the perfect gift for Tony. It’s rather daunting to buy for the man who quite literally has everything.”\n\nEllen dabbed the corners of her mouth with the linen napkin that had been resting in her lap. “Have you come up with any options? I’d love to help if I can.”\n\n“Yes, actually. There’s a photo of the two of us from the very day we met on Tony’s desk; it’s his favorite. He says it’s the ideal reminder of the best day of his life.”\n\n“You’re a lucky girl, he’s such a romantic.” \n\n“He truly is, which is why I thought he may like a portrait of that very photo. I was researching some local artists, and although their quotes vary greatly, it would certainly be an investment no matter who I choose.” \n\n“Wait, I may have a solution for you.” Ellen reached for her phone, which she had previously promised to keep in her handbag during their meal. “I know we said no phones this morning, but I have something to show you.” \n\nShelly was intrigued, “I think we can break the pact as long as it pertains to our conversation.” she teased. “It’s when we have to contend with things like, “Hey hon, where are my running shoes?” that the no phones rule comes in handy.”\n\n“Exactly! However, I took a few pictures when visiting my new neighbor last week; she’s an artist and her work is exceptional. Her name is Bella; nice girl, young and very quiet. I was quite taken with her obvious talent. Look for yourself.” Ellen passed her phone across the table to Shelly. “Go ahead and scroll through. I believe there are ten, maybe twelve.” \n\nShelly took her time marveling at the photos of Bella’s artwork, subconsciously articulating an occasional “ooh” or “ahh”. “She’s amazing.” \n\n“I knew you’d agree. Why don’t we stop by my place after brunch? If Bella is home you can see for yourself and speak with her about the portrait. If not, we can always leave a note on her door asking to contact you.” \n\n“That seems a bit forward, but considering that is our only option, I say let’s do it.” \n\nEllen tucked her phone back into her bag and continued to keep her focus on good food and better company. She shared what little she knew about Bella with Shelly. “She’s renting the apartment above the Wilson’s garage; you know, that sweet elderly couple across the street?”\n\n“Yes, I remember them from your cook out last summer; lovely people.” \n\n“They are. Bella was telling me that their arrangement is for mutual benefit. She checks in on them to make sure they take their medication, have enough groceries, and whatnot in exchange for a reasonable rental rate for the apartment.” \n\n“I think that’s wonderful.”\n\n“It is. If you ask me, Bella could use the money as well as any notoriety you could send her way if she impresses you with her work. However, that is simply my opinion, certainly not an assumption.” \n\n“Well my friend, let’s go speak with Bella.” \n\nIsobel “Bella” Razzo stumbled backward into a small stack of boxes she had piled in the corner of her quaint little nook near the kitchen. “Damn it.” she mumbled to herself as she set them upright again. “I cannot wait to finally get organized.” Her statement was more than ambitious as organization was not her strong suit. She read somewhere that creative people were rarely methodical or systematic. Bella relied on that very sentiment when she began to feel chaotic. Still, it would be nice to move her easel and art supplies from the middle of the tiny living room into the intended space nearest the window enabling her to utilize the natural flow of sunlight in the morning. \n\nShe was grateful to have found this place; quiet, well lit, and safe. She never felt alone knowing the Wilson’s were a mere twenty or so steps away. They were kind and rather amusing, always playfully bickering back and forth. Despite their salty banter, Bella envied the way they looked at one another; she could see love in their eyes even after forty-seven years of marriage. Just being a small part of their world had Bella feeling like she was home for the first time in a very long time.\n\nShe painted them. The Wilson’s. Last night. It was not her intention, but somehow she couldn’t resist the impulse to do so. “I guess my Muse felt like partying.” The painting was on a smaller canvas; their faces close, almost as if Mr. Wilson was leaning in for a polite kiss. She had to admit, the likenesses were quality but where did those thin bands of color come from? Bella contemplated several theories regarding the appearance of the shadowy ocean blue around Mr. Wilson and the loveliest shade of sunny yellow around his wife. Where the two converged, a thin ribbon of green could be noticed. Bella could not recall using any of the three mysterious colors, nor could she be sure she even owned paint in those particular hues. Maybe, she thought, her paints were getting old and oxidizing, or possibly, …well, there wasn’t a “possibly”; just an inexplicable phenomenon. Bella reached out and ran her fingers ever so lightly over the painting. It was dry, it was beautiful, she would bring it over to the Wilson’s this afternoon. \n\nMr. Wilson shuffled from the kitchen to the front door as quickly and efficiently as his arthritic hips and knees would allow. “It’s Bella.” he called to his wife. \n\n“Of course it is, you old dolt; who else would it be?” She teased. \n\nBella followed Mr. Wilson back into the kitchen. “Look who I found.” \n\n“Awe, you can’t find your own nose in the middle of your face, most days. Hello dear, what brings you by?” \n\nMr. Wilson and Bella shared a giggle over Mrs. Wilson’s quick wit. “I brought you something.” she answered meekly, handing the portrait to Mrs. Wilson. “I hope you like it.” \n\n“It’s a masterpiece.” Mrs. Wilson gushed. Before she could elaborate, the doorbell chimed. She flinched; “Oh, my, aren’t we popular today? Bella dear, would you mind? You can get there faster than either of us.” \n\nBella willingly obliged. She was surprised to see Ellen and another woman standing on the front steps, smiling stupidly as if they had a wonderful secret they were sharing door to door. Bella paused, anticipating one of the unexpected visitors to ask if she in fact had heard the good news; whatever that may be. Instead, of course, Ellen eagerly explained they were hoping the Wilson’s would know where she was, as they were actually looking to speak to her about her art. \n\n“Well, you found me. I suppose we could walk over to my apartment to talk.” \n\nMrs. Wilson chimed in from the kitchen, “Nonsense Bella, invite them in. I want to show off our gift.” \n\nShelly and Ellen followed Bella into the Wilson’s home feeling a tad invasive. Mrs. Wilson took no time putting them at ease. “Girls, it’s good to see you again. I see you’ve met our Bella and if you’re considering asking her to paint for you, let me cinch the deal by showing you what she did for us.” Mrs. Wilson handed the painting to Shelly.\n\n“It’s magnificent!” \n\n“It is. Our Bella has quite a talent for capturing the essence of her subjects, doesn't she?” Mrs. Wilson’s subtle, yet intentional choice of words drew Shelly’s attention to the mysterious color bands in the painting. \n\n“Yes, I love the highlighted area between the two of you. It’s very interpretive.” \n\nMrs. Wilson adjusted herself in her chair and cleared her throat. “Well, my new friend, there is another explanation for what you are referring to. Bella has successfully captured our essences on her canvas. She painted what her mind’s eye sees along with what she can determine with her actual eyes. Not only can she “see” our individual essences, but the one we create together.”\n\nShelly tilted her head to one side and parted her lips revealing an awkward smile. “That is a lovely sentiment.” she managed. \n\n“Sentiment? It’s so much more than that my dear.” \n\n“Oh, I’m sure it is.” Shelly tried not to seem condescending, but she was convinced the explanation was nothing more than the deluded ramblings of an old woman.” I can’t say I’m a believer in soulmates or kindred spirits or whatever you call it.”\n\nMrs. Wilson snickered, “Do you believe in magic?”\n\n“Um, like spells and potions, magic?”\n\n“Magic isn’t just what you see on television or read about in fantasy books. True magic exists within us and all around us. It is a living, breathing connection to all things.”\n\nShelly grew increasingly uncomfortable with the conversation. She turned to Bella, “May I drop a photo off to you tomorrow?” \n\nBella lowered her eyes, “Yes, of course. I can meet you here in the morning. I help the Wilson’s around the house for a few hours each day.” \n\n“Would ten a.m. work for you?” Shelly asked. \n\nMrs. Wilson answered for Bella, “We will see you then.” \n\nBella sunk into the kitchen chair opposite Mrs. Wilson, hiding her face in her hands. She sighed deeply with apprehension.\n\n“Fret not dear Bella. That woman is a bit narrow; it’s not entirely her fault. You, on the other hand, are extraordinary, never doubt that.”\n\n“Thank you but what if that woman and her husband are not destined and there is no essence to capture? Will she be disappointed? Will she doubt their connection? I cannot be responsible for her profound disappointment, nor will I fabricate what I do not see.”\n\n“Bella, go home, get some well deserved rest and dream of your unique abilities until you firmly believe in them; in yourself. I will see you in the morning.” Mrs. Wilson blew a kiss in Bella's direction as she watched the young artist exit through the back door and cross the tiny garden to her own apartment above the garage. \n\nTry as she might; sleep continued to elude Bella until her Muse got her way and Bella began to paint. She created for hours, standing, sitting, kneeling and standing again in front of a large canvas. Her smock, skin and even her hair dotted with paint; her hand cramped, eyes swollen and bloodshot, yet Bella could not seem to stop. Just as the light of dawn spilled through her window, chasing the shadows back into the closet and under the bed; Bella collapsed onto the floor. She looked up into the eyes of her subjects, a beautiful couple obviously very much in love. She closed her eyes and allowed sleep to come; only to awaken a short hour later. \n\nBella readied herself for the day, grabbed her keys and the painting and headed across the yard to the Wilson’s back door. She should have felt deliriously exhausted, or at the very least confused, yet Bella began her day with a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. She propped her painting on the empty chair at the Wilson’s table and started their morning routine. The Wilson’s exchanged cheeky grins and suppressed giggles as Bella served breakfast. \n\nPrecisely ten a.m.; a knock came at the front door. Mr. Wilson called out loudly, “It’s open. Come on in Shelly.”\n\nShelly cautiously opened the door and announced herself, despite Mr. Wilson’s obvious invitation. \"Knock, knock.?”\n\n“In here.” Mr. Wilson informed her. \n\nShelly entered the kitchen and accepted the cup of coffee Bella had already poured for her. “Let me move this so you can sit.” she said, lifting the painting from its perch. Shelly wanted to gasp but her breath caught low in her throat. Her eyes widened and her knees buckled. Shelly reached for the edge of the table to steady herself.\n\n“Oh, dear, are you ok?” Mrs. Wilson asked, already knowing the reason for her reaction. \n\n“That’s my…” Shelly stammered, tightly gripping the framed photo she brought for Bella.\n\n“That’s your what, dear?” Mrs. Wilson asked, almost taunting the woman for her disbelief.\n\n“My photo.” she whispered. \n\n“Would you look at that?” Mr. Wilson added. “Seems like you might want some toast and butter to go with those words you’ll be eating for breakfast.” \n\nShelly set her cup on the table in front of her and stared at the portrait, now resting against the counter. “But how…?” \n\nBella shrugged her shoulders, deferring to the Wison’s, and Mrs. Wilson was more than willing to oblige. “Congratulations Shelly. It seems as though you and your handsome husband are indeed destined for one another. Your essence is such a lovely shade of magenta while your other half is the same vibrant blue as my husband. Oh, Bella, what would you call that gorgeous color that has emerged from the two?” \n\n“Amethyst.”\n\n“Yes, amethyst. Perfect, wouldn’t you agree, Shelly?”\n\nShelly tried to swallow, but her mouth and throat were dry. Her hands trembled, still gripping the impeccably replicated photo by the edges of its frame. “I love it.” she croaked.\n\nMrs. Wilson softened her manner. “Some believe without proof, and because they believe, whatever it is they believe in, is real. Magic is real as long as there are those who believe; understand?” \n\nShelly shook her head, still unable to articulate her thoughts. \n\n“Now, there are some, like yourself that should believe but fail to indulge their sense of spirituality, so magic finds a way to reveal itself. Bella’s art is your catalyst, and now you can believe what you should have had faith in all along.” \n\nShelly glanced at her photo, then the painting. Her tear-filled eyes asked for forgiveness. She composed herself as best as she could and confessed to Bella directly. “Magic is real.”" } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Whispers of Phoenix\n\nGenre: coming-of-age\n\nWord Count: 1187\n\nPrompt:\n\nSet your story in a bar that doesn’t serve alcohol." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Elara, at the cusp of twenty-five, felt like a wilting flower trapped in a Victorian greenhouse. Once vibrant and adventurous, her spirit had grown brittle under the relentless sun of societal expectations. Her hometown, a quaint village nestled amidst rolling hills, offered little solace for a soul yearning for the wild symphony of the world beyond. The rigid social code, the suffocating air of gossip, and unfulfilled dreams conspired to cage her restless spirit.\nLiterature was her escape, her passport to fantastical lands where the dragons soared, and heroines defied fate. But even the most vivid tales couldn't quench the thirst for a life lived on her own terms. So, when whispers of a hidden opium den, a clandestine haven for outcasts and dreamers, reached her ears, they ignited a spark within her.\nThe den, nestled in the city's bowels, was a stark contrast to the demure facades of her village. Smoke hung heavy in the air, swirling with the murmur of hushed conversations and the rhythmic clinking of pipes. The air buzzed with a forbidden energy, a tantalizing promise of rebellion and escape. Here, societal norms were bent and shattered, replaced by a chaotic dance of self-expression and oblivion.\nElara, her heart pounding like a hummingbird trapped in a cage, was drawn to a table where a woman, her eyes like pools of liquid amber, smoked with languid grace. The woman, Anya, introduced herself as a guide, a traveler between worlds. She spoke of opium not as a vice but as a key, unlocking doors to hidden dimensions, to landscapes painted with the brushstrokes of dreams.\nElara, captivated by Anya's words and the intoxicating atmosphere of the den, she slowly took the offered pipe. The bitter and sweet smoke filled her lungs, carrying her on a whirlwind tour of her desires. She saw herself scaling snow-capped peaks, her laughter echoing in the vastness. In her mind, she felt the sun on her skin as she sailed across turquoise seas, the wind whispering tales of forgotten kingdoms. For the first time, she felt truly alive, her spirit soaring beyond the confines of her village, her life.\nAt that moment, opium wasn't just a forbidden substance; it was a rebellion, a passport to a world where she could be the architect of her own destiny. But as the smoke cleared and the initial euphoria faded, a chilling realization settled in her heart. The world she had glimpsed was not reality but a mirage, a painted canvas masking the emptiness beneath.\nElara, her eyes opened to the grime and despair of the den, knew then that her thirst for adventure had been a desperate plea for escape. The opium offered no solace, no true fulfillment, only a fleeting illusion of freedom within the gilded cage of addiction. This wasn't the life she craved; it was a slow, suffocating death of the spirit.\nAnd so, with a newfound resolve that mirrored the fire in Anya's eyes, Elara chose a different path. She was not a prisoner of her desires nor a victim of societal expectations. She would forge her own path, her own adventure.\nThe last member of the opium pipe winked out, a tiny, defiant spark against the encroaching dawn. Elara, her throat raw and lungs heavy, slammed the pipe shut, the clang echoing in the cavernous opium den like a death knell.\nThe painted dragons on the ceiling leered down, grotesque parodies of the grace she once saw in them. Faces, once blurred into a numbing haze, resolved into gaunt masks of addiction, their eyes pleading and accusing in equal measure.\n******************************************\nThe world narrowed to a pinpoint, then extinguished utterly. Darkness embraced Elara, a thick, suffocating shroud against the symphony of sirens that pulsed a distant echo in her fading awareness. Her body, once ablaze with youthful vibrancy, now lay cold and inert, a fragile vessel ravaged by the storm of its own undoing.\nElara awoke to a symphony of silence, broken only by the rhythmic drip-drip-drip of an IV feeding her back to the world. The sterile white walls, once a canvas for feverish dreams, now pressed in on her, amplifying the emptiness within. Her gaze, drawn upwards by a morbid curiosity, met the grotesque leers of the ceiling dragons.\nThey weren't the majestic creatures she'd once dreamt of, their scales shimmering like emerald flames, their wings unfurling like storms. These were twisted parodies, their bodies warped and emaciated, their scales dulled to a sickly grey. Their eyes, once pools of molten gold, now burned with a cold, predatory hunger, reflecting the demons of her own addiction.\nA shudder wracked her, cold sweat beading on her brow. The faces in the room blurred into an indistinguishable mass during her haze and now came into chilling focus. They were the faces of her fellow addicts, the hollow-eyed ghosts who haunted the opium dens, their features etched with the same skeletal gauntness as the dragons above.\nEach face was a mirror, reflecting the monster she had become. The vibrant Elara, who craved adventure and whispered dreams of distant lands, was now a gaunt specter, her eyes sunken pits of despair. The dragons on the ceiling weren't just grotesque art. They were her demons, their leering faces mocking her fall, their whispers echoing the insidious promises of oblivion she'd so desperately embraced.\nBut amidst the despair, a flicker of defiance sparked within her. These demons, no matter how monstrous, were not invincible. They fed on her weakness, her surrender. With her spirit's faint embers rekindled, Elara no longer refused to be their puppet.\nShe closed her eyes, shutting out the leers and whispers. Instead, she focused on the steady rhythm of her own heartbeat, a testament to her survival. She remembered the sunrise she'd witnessed through the window, a fragile promise of a new day. She thought of the woman with eyes like dawn, her words a lifeline thrown into the abyss.\nElara, the girl who dreamt of dragons, wouldn't be consumed by their shadows. She decided she would fight, claw her way back from the brink, one shaky breath at a time. The dragons might leer, the faces might stare, but she wouldn't be their prisoner. She would reclaim her wings again, not of fire and fury, but of resilience and hope. And when she finally soared above them, she knew the dawn would break not just for her but for the other lost souls trapped in the shadows, their battles mirroring hers.\nElara's journey wouldn't be easy, but it would be hers. And in the face of her grotesque reflections, she found the courage to fight, rise above the leering demons, and paint her masterpiece of redemption on the canvas of her life.\nElara, who once danced with dragons, had awakened to a new battle. The fight would be long and arduous, each step a victory against the demons she had birthed. But as she stared at the fading shadows, she knew one thing for sure – she would not surrender. This was her awakening, her redemption, and she would claim it, one sunrise at a time." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Last Hill\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 1015\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story where your character is travelling a road that has no end." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "It is pleasant, the drive. With the warm spring air, the windows are partially open allowing the sweet warm air in. They aren't heading anywhere in particular, just a relaxing Sunday afternoon drive. \nThey decided to take a road they haven't traveled before. “Live a little,” he jokes,” while I can.”\nGallows humor. Her husband of fifty years is dying of pancreatic cancer. This may be their last drive together. \nHer smile is strained. They are blessed, she knows. Fifty years is a long time, just not long enough. “Yes,” she wipes a tear off her cheek, “let's.”\nThe day before they were told there is nothing else to be done. Hospice has been scheduled. \nHe helps her into the passenger seat just as he had when they were first dating. In the lines of her face, he still sees the young girl.\nShe smiles at him, squeezing the hand that rests on the stick shift. \nAn hour later, they are well on the way down the old country road.\n“Recall the first drive I took you on?” She smiles, resting her head against him. The thick shoulder is now bony still she leaves it there.\n“Yes, you were smartly dressed in a suit. Approached my door with a bunch of flowers. My dad answered.”\n“Yes. I was shaking in my shoes yet recalled what my on pa told me. “Hold your head up high son. Meet his eyes and offer your hand. A good firm grip but not too hard. Wait for him to let go.” I did all that.”\n“You impressed him. He told me when you brought me back, right on time, that you were a gentleman, raised right.”\n“Still he hesitated to give me your hand.” \n“He would have been with anyone. Come, recall how you treated our daughter ‘s suitors?”\nHe huffs, “They were all idiots. Well,” He sighs, “until Dave.” \nGeorgia and Dave have been married twenty -seven years. Their eldest recently got engaged. A sharp pain at realizing he will miss her wedding. \n“Yes, she got a good one in him.” All their children are in good marriages. They have gifted them ten grandchildren and three greats, so far.\n“They all did. We did well.” There is a comfort in that. \n“Yes.” She smiles at the memories. Growing big with Jr. and convinced that her husband will never see her the same way again. The birth of their second son, eighteen months later, put that fear to rest. A daughter and then three more sons completed their family. \n“She will know I am looking down on her?” Her eyes fill with tears. A nod before she can speak.\n“She will.” Julie and her intended, Evan, have spoken about having a quick ceremony, ‘ so Gramps can be here.’ He assured her that he would be, no matter what.\n“She has always dreamed of a fancy wedding. Remember when she was little, she would play the bride using your shawl as a veil?” \n“Yes. I still have pictures of that.” \n“Get them blown up and use them to decorate for the reception.” Her husband suggests.\n“That is a fine idea.” She knows just the one too, the one where she is walking towards her Gramps.\nSo much he has experienced. Going away for war, the birth and raising of all their children, holding his grandchildren in his arms, now seeing his eldest granddaughter engaged. So much and yet… how much will he not see? She feels her throat close with tears. \nThe road continues, unceasing before them.\n“I know, mí cherí,” he hasn't called her that in years, “I know. But the purpose of this life is to prepare for the next. In that regard, I am successful. I know where I am going. We have raised a successful and blessed family. The future belongs to them.”\n“You always know just what to say.” He always had. When their eldest told them he was joining the military and she was scared, he had the words to comfort her. When she lost her last baby, halfway through the pregnancy, he held her, weeping with her. And now, when he knows he is leaving her, again, he knows just what to say.\n“Listening to that still small Voice. I know you will grief me. Just promise it won't be without hope, that you will know I wait on the other side for you?” \nShe lets a shaking breath out. “I promise.” Her tears wet his shoulder.\n“I will miss you too.” \n“In just a little while,” she starts to sing, her voice hoarse with emotion, “we will cross the Jordan. In just a little while, we will see the King of Kings.” It is a song they made up and sang to their children while they drifted off to sleep. Now it is a comfort as he prepares to cross the Jordan.\n“Soon and very soon, I am going to see the King.” He softly sings. She lets out a shuddering breath. How long have they been driving? They haven't turned or left the road. \n“This road goes on forever.” \n“The road to heaven, it does seem to go on and on. With its twists and turns. But, we keep on the road, walking with Him. Now there are only a few more miles left. One more hill to climb.”\nThey gather around him, his wife holding tight to his hand. Their children and grandchildren surround the bed. His eyes are cloudy, he looks up past them. His smile is full of peace. \n“Yes, Jesus. I see You. I am, “ He turns to his wife, “My heart, I will see you over the hill,” His eyes are beyond them once more, “I am ready Lord to go home.” \nHe lifts his arms, reaching into eternity before they fall slack beside him as he lets out his last breath. A moan of grief feels the room. His wife pats his hand, kisses his cheek.\n“Rest my love, in the arms of God. I will meet you when my own road ends.”" } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Something in the Air\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 1928\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story where the laws of time and space begin to dissolve." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Content Warning: Mature Content and Language.\n\n\n\n\n\nWhen did everything we do become so lonely?\n\nI thought about this a lot while I waited for the next episode of The Family Code. With the current plot line the buzzy drama had promised to resolve today shivering in the airwaves like flammable vapor, I had to avoid social media. For among its denizens existed particularly loathsome assholes; waiting to pounce on the unsuspecting, expectant viewer with spoilers in everything they wrote: captions, descriptions, pictures - even emojis. Digital journalism wasn’t innocent, either. To hell with angry fans - they always wanted to be the first to tell you they’d watched, analyzed and shredded their wordy little pieces over that moment, of which their intern had now created a tidy GIF to wreak newsworthy havoc in your feed. \n\nLike there wasn’t enough poverty or murder in the world.\n\nSometimes I wanted to claw at the world, yowling, “Shut the fuck up! SHUT UP! Fuck you!” And then the other side of me pummeled the violent one. It held it down, tore up the killing intent like paper fragments; burned these to ashes that blew away in the wind.\n\nMy emotions while I waited for an episode of TV to release online frightened me. They felt unnatural, like I had been caged and was shouting through the cracks. It was probably because of the time of the day: the evening had quashed the remotest remaining sunbeam in a deluge of unwelcome darkness. September had truly bled into October - and in its wake, the dreaded daylight savings time had arrived.\n\nI thought about what my mother would say in this situation. “Go for a walk.” That was a laugh and a half; she didn’t know how fucking dark it got these days. What if I was kidnapped? Or raped? Or mauled by a crosswalk-passing coyote, since those things were common here in Los Angeles? I had only seen this mannered behavior in the flesh once, and I didn’t really feel like repeating the experience.\n\nGo for a walk, my ass.\n\nDespite my derision however, I wanted my mom to hug me. For no other reason than to abate this restlessness eating me up from inside. I knew I would be fine if I caught The Family Code before signing in online, but that was also the only place to reach my mom. She was over ten-thou' kilometers away on the other side of the globe. You didn’t want to drag your parents with you like dolls in a suitcase when you moved out for grad school to another continent, but you sure as hell wished you could in these moments. If I’d known how far away she was going to seem and so often, too, I’d have never bothered to leave.\n\nI scratched my arms beneath my comforter. I always parked myself on the cot during these times. It felt less like I was stuck in limbo, and more like riding under a rolling wave. I could doze for a bit. I could read. I could break out my secret stash of gummies and let the darkness press me down like tucking a child into bed.\n\nBut then I would miss The Code. \n\nThis jarring thought had me uncoil the stuffy comforter and leap off my mattress. I needed to talk to actual humans, in real life.\n\nMy flatmates sat around the coffee table, each absorbed in their respective laptop. I barely saw them doing anything else. Actually, that wasn’t true: I’d once looked up from my own computer during a stultifying finals week, to see one of them chow down an entire roll of un-toasted bagels. We didn’t talk much, so it had been complete silence, punctuated with smacked, flying seeds that landed between the keys of my laptop.\n\nI knew I liked it when we didn’t talk. Still, the effort had to be made if only to prevent myself from scratching my skin off with restlessness or something.\n\n“Yo, ‘sup?” I asked, all casual-like. They jumped. I frowned at them - their reaction seemed excessive, even though I knew I was regularly startled by my own reflection every morning.\n\n“Hello.” This was peckish bagel-lover Raven, recovering first. Her fortunate choice of snacks tonight was a Jello cup and some seltzer. “We just didn’t hear you moving around.” \n\n“Ah, yeah. I’m waiting on the new Family Code. It’s supposed to be out at 9.”\n\nI saw mousy, brown-haired Martha check her phone and raise her eyebrows. I didn’t miss it either: ‘7:00 PM’ had briefly glimmered on her rimless spectacles. \n\nShe caught me looking and grinned sheepishly. “Oof. Bit early, isn’t it?”\n\n“Yeah, I’ve caught up on all my homework. You guys busy tonight?”\n\nRaven downed her seltzer. “Only one more page to write before we celebrate Lola’s engagement.”\n\n“Engaged?!” Lola, my third and most distant flatmate rewarded me with a wary nod. She was a compact girl; even standing up, the blonde curls around her china-doll chin barely skimmed the high table. She was, and appeared young.\n\n“Nobody tells me anything around here,” I joked. Lola just looked uncomfortable. \n\nI coughed. “Good on you. I have to ask - aren’t you...I mean, you’re still in senior year, right?”\n\nShe shrugged. “I’m 21. Felt like it was time.”\n\nMy eyebrows shot up. “Wow. I don’t think I’d be ready this early.” Lola’s eyebrows rose too, but she wasn’t as nice about it.\n\n“Aren’t you older than me?”\n\nThat was right. I was chatting with a child, about to celebrate her upcoming nuptials with a group of people whose the average age was still younger than I was. \n\nI slid my thumb through a hole in my tee. I couldn’t afford relationships now. I had things to do. \n\nTV to watch.\n\nI tried clearing the air with a placid smile. “So! Where’s dinner, then?”\n\n“Claire de Soi.”\n\nScratch that. I couldn’t even afford dinner. \n\nI strode back into my room; not that they cared anyway, each bent over her laptop again. As I closed my door, I caught a soft giggle, the tail end of a sentence: “...maybe bring her back a bottle of wine.” \n\n“Yeah. From Ralph’s.” More giggles, and a faint snort. \n\nWell. At least my sense of humor had matured.\n\nI hated stressing out like this, because I then gave into intense masturbation. It was a ridiculous humiliation kink, as though all the pacing around, the internal monologues, secret critiquing and a dutch oven of simmering self-hatred boiled into an overwhelming maelstrom that could only break if I took care of myself. \n\nAnd ironically, it was when I felt the freest to imagine a different self. I imagined this persona wheeling itself out of my rotting coffin to find its wild way around the city’s murky shadows that I was otherwise too afraid to explore. It would grow and then seep, gleefully infectious, into the tiniest corners of mysteriousness afforded by the sleek modern angles in Brentwood; around the soaring columns of the Palisades and across Malibu’s divine blue vistas - I knew them well since they were depicted to postcard-perfection in my show. But this form would have no real distinction, because it could occupy seedy pockets on Hollywood Boulevard with seductive aplomb or kiss men and women with scarlet lips against the filthy, graffitied walls dotting South Los Angeles; then abdicate human desire altogether to haunt the county's most primordial environments. It traversed empty canyons and enlivened vacant suburbia. An omniscent avatar, birthed from the same supernatural energy as Mulholland Drive - the film, not the infamous road. One that existed without fear of peer reprisal, social exclusion or imagined animal encounters.\n\nBoy did I go to town today. My fingers could not move faster; my hips canted and canted and still I wanted more. When I finished however, I lay there in a state of desolation. Any vestige of euphoria from that momentary frenzy evaporated almost immediately. Instead, I was little better than a reclusive thirteen year-old hoarding tissues: thighs soaked, armpits odorous and a leaden, lonely heart.\n\nThe door squeaked open and I squealed, throwing the comforter over my head again.\n\n“Hey.”\n\nIt was Raven. I nosed away a corner of the comforter to peer at her.\n\n“We’re heading out now, but you should join, too. It’s weird with just us three.”\n\nI should say yes. I should say yes. I should say yes.\n\n“The Code’s gonna be on in a few,” I said. My phone lit up with a clothing sales promotion. The clock read 8:15; I saw Raven lower her own device from the corner of my eye. She breathed in through her mouth.\n\n“I mean -” she was trying not to offend, I knew it, and I was immediately annoyed. “It’s gonna be there for you to watch. Whenever you want.”\n\n“I want to watch it when it comes out.”\n\nRaven gave her act up and rolled her eyes - then she sniffed the air. “You should open a window. This is rank.”\n\nFucking Raven; I didn’t want her concern, I didn’t want her pity, I didn’t want her to talk to me at all. “Maybe you let something in.” \n\nHer lip curled. She shut the door with great deliberation, as though she wanted me to see her leave. I overheard her say, “I tried,” and Lola’s high, childish voice rang clear in reply: “You shouldn’t have.”\n\nLola and I didn’t have to talk to agree.\n\nAs the front door clicked shut in the distance, a strange heat overcame me. I ripped my shirt and wet shorts away, tossing them off the bed. I tipped my head back onto my pillow. My thighs came unstuck. Slowly, I felt my body weigh more and more by the second. My jaw loosened, my arms were slack and my legs sank into the bed like I was pulled underwater. \n\nThen, still horizontal, my body floated upwards. I turned over on my stomach, kicked the window open and flew outside over the city. It was such a strange shape, all glowing lines like a constellation filled in. I could pick out Lola, Raven and Martha studying card-stock menus in an upscale bistro, self-conscious as ambitious undergrads can only be. I could see glittering webs of spidery freeways, dewed with cars still at this late hour. Even the suburbs were bursting with light, from where Angelenos usually commuted without hope of getting back home by sunset. Black triangles - hills, trees, parks, canals - cut into the city and swallowed up the rest of its energy. Abounding all this, the Pacific lapped leisurely along the coast like a cat playing with its meal.\n\nAnd far beyond, over the arc of the dark ocean curving around the planet, my mother would soon wake with the first light of her day. I pictured her dark head from above, face squished against her phone, which she never relinquished even in sleep. The sunlight would glint off the case and illuminate her whole face in minutes.\n\nIt was a pretty good view. I could stay afloat in the sky forever.\n\nBeside my prone form, my phone’s alarm blared once, then again. The Family Code was on! My laptop chimed in, too, with Twitter notifications and Discord messages and live coverage of each quotable, meme-able moment on Reddit. GIFs were instantly generated. Articles were uploaded before the credits even rolled. The new episode was already a surefire hit.\n\nAnd I slept on, still watching my mother as her eyes blinked open.\n\n\n\nFin." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Twilight Menace\n\nGenre: coming-of-age\n\nWord Count: 1973\n\nPrompt:\n\nSet your story during polar night." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The dim twilight looked eerily mesmerizing as Johana gazed out at the frosty horizon, pulling her parka tighter. It had to be subzero as it was the heart of winter in the arctic region of Sweden, in her mother’s small Elven hometown of Nowheresville as far as she was concerned. She could see why she wanted to move to the states with her dad, get out of this town of seemingly eternal night, at least this time of year, but it legit made her SAD, or at least feel like she had seasonal affective disorder. It was a stark contrast to her hometown Los Angeles; quiet, seemingly dead. At least LA was only dead on the inside. \nThe one thing she was excited about was the hunt that was tomorrow at the break of dawn, or their interpretation of it as there really wasn’t much sun around. The hunt was one thing novel to this deadzone, it excited her, thinking about hunting in the dark, chilly forests of the arctic tundra for reindeer, or whatever else was alive at this time, the anticipation sending a shiver down her spine. She clasped her gloved hands together enthusiastically, then finished her cigarette and threw it in the snow where it fizzled out in the ice. \nShe went back inside and collapsed onto the large wood four poster bed. This cold, dark weather made her so sleepy it could’ve been noon for all she knew. \nIn what seemed like a few moments later her mother came in brusquely. \n“Johana, were having supper now, come down please.” \n“So, its dinnertime? Alright, I’m coming.” She sleepily raised herself out of bed, stretching high then making her way down the stairs and around toward the dining area. \nThe long farmhouse dining table was set with dishes of reindeer stew, potatoes, and lingonberries. A couple of aunts and uncles and family friends, some of who’d be part of their hunting party also joined them. They chatted happily in a varied mix of Elven, Swedish and English as Johana took a seat next to one of her aunts at the end of the bench. \n“Oh, how nice to see young Johana. I haven’t seen you since you were a babe, well a little elfling with your bunned blonde braids.” She managed a small smile. \n“It is good to see you back with the family Johana. And that you will be joining our hunt tomorrow.” Her uncle Herick, who sat across from her, chimed in. \n“How she’s grown.” \n“Into a fine young woman.” \n“A moody girl but bright.” Her mother added, helping herself to a serving of lingonberries to which Johana mustered a subtle eyeroll. Elves were not above the incessant familial prying and prodding no matter how highly they thought of themselves. \n“But pretty, nonetheless. You have a boyfriend back home?” The auntie next to her asked a little too inquisitively. \n“There was a mention of a boy, Jimmy Santos or something...?” Her mother started in. \n“Mother, he wasn’t my boyfriend.” \n“Thank goodness, he was a common hoodrat.” \n“Mother!” \n“He did get you involved in those criminal shenanigans.” \n“That wasn’t even him, that was Stefi.” \n“Yes, another urban hoodlum.” \n“Mother stop being like, racist and judgy or whatever! My actions were my own and me and Jimmy both left that life thank you.” Uncle Herick smiled warmly. \n“Hmmph, well good riddance is all I’m saying.” \n“Well sister, you should move her out here, she won’t get into any trouble out in this frozen wasteland.” Another uncle on the far end of the table added to which they all had a hearty laugh at. Johana glanced sideways picking at her potatoes with her fork. \n“She will prove herself in the hunt tomorrow, I’ve seen her impressive marksmanship.” Uncle Herick nodded to her to which she cracked a somewhat semblance of a smile. \n“But with those loutish instruments, those are for American cowboy types.” Her aunt next to her in a snootish tone but she didn't mind the comparison. \n“Let her be siblings, now aren’t we going to enjoy the last of this reindeer before we bring back more in the morn.” Her uncle segued them into a different topic to which she was grateful. \nTo Johanas relief the dinner soiree wrapped up early and she helped her mother clear the dishes. \n“You better go to bed soon; you will be leaving before the break of dawn.” \n“What dawn? You can’t see shit anyway.” \n“That mouth of yours, another bad habit you picked up in the city. I don’t know why your father ever wanted to go there.” \n“So did you! Because this place is cold, boring, and dead like your soul.” Her mother put down her dishes she held and gave her a cold scowl that gave her a shiver along with the incoming draft. \n“You’re a grown woman now Johana, for the sake of the gods act like one!” Johana smirked and went bedways. \nShe rekindled the fire in the hearth in her room before flopping onto the bed once more, messing with her phone to pass the time a bit before falling asleep. \nShe woke early the next presumable morning outfitting herself in her hunting gear, layers and layers of thermals undergarments, hefty boots, black and white camo pants and her white parka with faux fox fur trim on the hood. She met with her hunting party, decked out in more traditional Elven garb of reindeer hides. She felt like a sore thumb and heard someone mutter “American” or something or other in Elvish, chuckling amongst themselves. \n“Johana! Here’s some tea to warm you up.” Her uncle Herick greeted her heartily handing her the warm thermos. \n“Thanks Uncle.” She helped herself to the hot drink hastily. \n“Are you awake, ready for the hunt?” \n“As awake as I’ll ever be in this dark abyss.” Her uncle laughed. \n“It is, and the night is full of terrors and scary monsters.” \n“Oh, shush Herick don’t scare her.” Another auntie scolded him mildly. They chuckled. \n“She’s a fearless girl I think nothing will scare her, I’m sure she’s seen worse in the city then what the arctic tundra has to offer.” \n“Right like fancy draugr and lizard people?” They all had a laugh, including Johana who was warming up with her drink and the vibe. \nA reindeer caravan pulled them out into the forest where they’d be hunting. She got her rifle ready while the others prepared their bows, looking on dubiously, as it was traditional for her tribe to bow hunt, but she preferred bullets to bows. \nOnce they reached the forest, they parted ways, and she headed northeast, a little farther away from the rest of the party as she didn’t want to disrupt the stealthy silence the others required in this hunt. She went to a makeshift blind in a grove of trees and shrubs towards the forest's edge to begin her stakeout. \nShe took another cigarette out of her parka pocket, lighting and enjoying that while she awaited any sign of movement. Being half elf as she was, she had a distinct advantage of decent night vision, but she still favored the use of night vision binoculars to get a better scope of the area. So far, just small shit was passing through, which she wasn’t bothering with, she wanted to bring back something a bit more impressive. \nShe sighed, watching the cold smoke she blew out hang in the arctic air. She looked at the temperature on her keychain; 2 degrees. Fuck, it was gonna be a long night, well, day? Whatever, she said to herself and pulled out her binoculars to observe the vast nothingness once more ahead of her. \nAfter a few minutes or so she decided to venture out a little to continue scoping out the area. She climbed her way up an alder tree, perching on a branch nook. She pulled out her binoculars, looking around. Didn't see much, until she did. Something was moving in the distance. She grabbed her rifle, peaking through the scope. She couldn't really make it out, it just looked like a dark blur from here. \nShe took out her binoculars again, zooming in on said subject. Then she practically choked on her own spit. It looked like it had to be hitting six feet, long limbs like gnarly trees, frazzled hair, like a sort of humanoid and animal hybrid…and the roar, it was this terrifying howl like a scream of a banshee bear was the only thing comparable in her mind…She froze in place for what seemed like eternity, the two locking gazes until it roared. \nShe instinctively shot a few rounds, enough to at least get one good hit on the thing, but all she saw was a black blur that seemed to be coming closer towards her, so at that point she decided to just hightail it back to camp. \nUncle Herick hurried towards her. \n“Johana? Has something happened?” She struggled to catch her breath. \n“I…I saw…I…” Her uncle and a couple others with him looked at her disconcertedly. “I don’t know what I saw…” She shook her head frantically. \n“Ah, ok, well I will stay with you for a moment.” Then he barked orders in Elvish at the other men who went off to presumably look for said anomaly. \n“Take a breath, here, have some of this.” He handed her a thermos. She nodded and took it, eventually taking small sips of the refreshingly hot drink. \n“You won’t believe me, and goddamnit I shot it, I shouldn’t’ve missed!” She was completely flustered. \n“Calm down, and just tell me what you saw.”\n“It was just …this tall thing, this like, gangly looking beast man…I really don’t know how else to describe it…and the roar, it was screeching, it was beast like, like no animal or man I’ve ever heard…” \n“We heard something in the distance, and then the gunshots overpowered it.” \n“Ok, so I’m not insane, not totally.” They both smirked. \n“I can’t say I’ve ever heard of such a creature, but the men are going to investigate.” She could only continue nodding and drinking her tea as they sat in silence until the men came back, talking in Elvish, shaking their heads, smirking, and probably judging her, or at least she could only assume. She kept silent, staring ahead into the dark snowscape. \n“Johana, well go back now, it’s been a long enough night.” Her uncle patted her shoulder and she wanted to protest but she could only nod cause half of her was still paralyzed by confusing fear. \nHe had a reindeer sleigh take the two of them back to her mother’s house promptly. She looked disappointedly out at the frozen tundra, bare empty planes and scattered trees, the whole way back. \n“Did you see the lights, Johana? It adds a splash of color to this cold, dead wasteland, doesn’t it?” Her uncle pointed out the rainbow of northern lights in a slight manner of sarcasm. \n“I honestly didn’t even notice.” She said and looked up, admiring the dancing colors illuminating the sky. \n“For what it’s worth I’ve seen him too, that beastly abomination.” He said in bated breath. “I swore my eyes were playing tricks, maybe they are for the both of us, but that’s what this place does isn’t it? You never know in this world were in.” She smirked. “Don’t worry, you’ll be back home soon in the tropical paradise that’s your home.” \n“I don’t know if I’d call it that.” \n“Ha! A place with sun over 60 degrees and beaches, that’s what I’d call a paradise right now.” She chuckled. “In the meantime, enjoy the view, it’s not so bad.” They looked out at the frozen tundra, lights glimmering in the sky, sipping their warm canisters in the frigid winter twilight." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: What's in a Name?\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 1150\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with it raining… anything but rain (e.g. flowers, cutlery, seashells, running shoes)." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“Mum, look at this!” Jeremiah yelled from his seat on the window ledge.\n\n“What?” his mum asked, darting in with a frazzled “I’m trying to get ready” look on her face.\n\n“Balloons are falling from the sky.”\n\n“For goodness’ sake, Jeremiah, I’m in a rush.”\n\n“I’m not making it up, Mum. I promise, they are.”\n\nHis mum crossed the bedroom and perched next to him, looking at the sky. Sure enough, there were little Chinese lanterns falling from the sky.\n\n“What date is it?” she asked.\n\n“It’s the ninth of February. I only know because my teacher kept telling us yesterday. Chinese New Year is tomorrow.”\n\n“Maybe that explains it,” his mum said, looking with uncertainty at the sheer number of lanterns dropping from the heavens.\n\n“I wonder how they released so many,” she said.\n\nThen her lips bunched as she took the last hurried gulp of her morning coffee. You could see the strain running through every sinew of her neck. Jeremiah could feel it too. His mum was in a high-pressured job, and it didn’t suit her well. She was constantly edgy, like she was waiting for an emergency alarm to sound at any second. Jeremiah was the exact opposite, much to her annoyance. He had all the time in the world to sit and look out the window, watching the activities of the garden’s goings-on. The birds, amongst other things, had always enchanted him.\n\n“If you believe in magic, you’ll find it,” he thought - or something to that effect. He remembered hearing it in a book once, but he couldn’t remember the exact wording. He didn’t often read fiction with his mum; she was more into encyclopaedias and expanding knowledge that wasn’t plucked from the imagination. She was sensible. She wanted Jeremiah to grow up to be that way too. She was a single mother and she’d had a rough time. Even at the age of ten, he was all too aware of the difficulties she faced on a daily basis. He liked to remind her to smile, but she didn’t often have time for it.\n\n“I like when you smile, Mum.”\n\n“I’m too tired to smile,” she’d say, in an ironic tone, passing it off as a joke.\n\n“Mum,” he called, as she turned away. “Maybe we should take an umbrella with us.”\n\n“It doesn’t look like it’s going to rain,” she said, matter-of-factly.\n\n“It’s raining lanterns.”\n\nShe rolled her eyes with mirth. Sometimes she wondered how she had produced a son with such a vivid imagination. She didn’t think she had an ounce of it. There was a time whenever she’d possessed it too, but it had just been such a long time since she’d allowed herself to access it that she’d entirely forgotten about it.\n\nThey descended the steps from their penthouse flat. Lucinda’s feet felt weary before they started their journey to school and to work. She didn’t feel like there was anything to be excited about in life. It was all so predictably dreary. Her son was like a glimmering gemstone in the dirt, but she couldn’t often take the time to notice that. She was so worn down with the worries of bills and adult concerns.\n\nIn the next building, lived a lady with the name of a goddess: Tempestas. Growing up, she hadn’t been fond of her name. Tempestas thought it was a burden for a child - carrying around such a weighty, unusual name. In her twenties, she was much more comfortable with it. She hadn’t met another Tempestas in her lifetime. If nothing else, she could claim that she was unique.\nTrue to her name, Tempestas had always had a keen interest in the weather, especially in storms. She felt like her moods echoed the weather and she was deeply influenced by it. She used to just think she was sensitive, like some people get seasonal affective disorder. But she got a thrill from stormy weather. She started to dream about the weather she wanted, and strangely, whenever she parted her curtains to look out the window, it reflected what she’d seen in her mind’s eye. At first, she thought it was mere coincidence, but it had happened too many times for her to convince herself of that.\nAt first, she had dabbled in changing the weather: turning the sky from calm and clear to a tempestuous one, calling in rainclouds, inviting some fork lightening. On other days, she would opt for the sky to have a sunnier disposition. She could see it affected the moods of the people around her too. Everyone was friendlier on a sunny day. After some time, she started to get bored with her weather game. It was samey and she had tried out every combination that she could conceive of. She decided to try to do more: she wanted to make it rain objects and she wanted to turn the sky shades that no one had ever seen in it before. She wanted to tamper with what people considered to be possible in terms of weather. She was a poet, so she was always writing, alone in her room. She needed some sort of physical entertainment to break up the day.\n\nShe pictured snowflakes in July, and down they fell. She’d practise at night time so she could afford to make mistakes without people noticing them. Next, she tried confetti. It was light and easy to play around with, like snow with less disruption. She pulled it off. People that did see it just thought it had come from a nearby celebration, that the wind was carrying it to them. It cheered them up. She saw more and more smiles appear.\n\nShe’d seen a sad lady that lived in the neighbouring building. She was always leaving and returning at the same time every day, with her little boy in tow. He trailed along beside her, pointing at the sky while the mother appeared not to take any notice of it. Tempestas wanted to make her smile, to grab her attention. She looked world-weary and she knew she needed something to uplift her.\n\nThe idea for the Chinese lanterns came because of the Chinese New Year. She knew they could be explained away by people that didn’t want to recognise the strange weather they’d been having lately. She could practise with them while she honed her skill. She produced one lantern at a time, and then another, until there were thousands in the sky. She saw the sad lady emerge from the building, hesitating on the doorstep, opening her umbrella. At first, she thought she was going to just fend them off. Then, after they’d taken a few steps, the lady retracted her umbrella and let it drop by her side. She looked up at the multicoloured rainfall, turned her palm upwards to catch it - and then, she most definitely smiled." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Aurora\n\nGenre: coming-of-age\n\nWord Count: 1788\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story about someone witnessing — or trying to witness — a celestial phenomenon." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Giant teardrops lay shimmering on the cold sand. Leo examined them from every angle, marvelling at nature's artistry. \"Look, Dylan, you can see where the iceberg split from.... I think it's called The Breiðamerkursandur glacier. \" He knew exactly what it was called and took great pleasure pronouncing it correctly. Dylan, who was more enthralled by his phone than by Diamond Beach, barely regarded the prodigious jewels. He stuffed the device back into his pocket just as his Father turned around. They only landed the previous day, and 'Dylan, get off your phone' has already become the holiday tagline. Leo felt his jaw clench.\nBite your tongue. You have to spend the week together, don't make things tense.\nThe kid didn't know how lucky he was. Leo would have killed for this trip when he was sixteen. Had he come here with his own Father, as initially planned, they would've spent the week hiking, fishing, and exploring, just like they used to. However, Dylan, who seldom left the confines of his room, could barely manage their mile-long walk to the beach.\nAs the dimming sky mirrored itself in the crystal lagoon, Leo felt a pain of sadness. The Northern Lights would soon be visible, that Celestial dance of luminous waves. But His Father, whose love for 'Aurora' began after seeing it on a postcard he received from his brother, wouldn’t be here to witness it.\nFor his seventy-fifth birthday, with no signs of failing health, Leo surprised his Dad with a trip to Iceland. The stoic man lit up like a child and called the gift a “dream come true.\" He was so set on going even a sudden heart attack couldn't dissuade him. Reality soon set in, however, and he passed on a week later. Before he died, he asked Leo to honour their trip and \"give my love to Aurora. Bring your boy along with you.\" Leo knew it would be a painful journey, but he kept his promise.\nAs they stood on the ice-bound beach, Dylan's chattering teeth click-click-clicked like an engine struggling to start. The harsh Icelandic gale was gathering strength, testing the endurance of their windproof coats. Dylan jumped at Leo's suggestion that they retreat to their cabin. If not for his son's obvious discomfort, however, Leo would have gladly stayed longer. They trudged through the dense blanket of snow, Dylan cursing the claggy ground as it enveloped his feet. Leo treated their trek as a workout, swinging his burly legs with exaggerated vigour. However, his stride was broken by the many 'rest-breaks' they had to take. He wondered how a lean sixteen-year-old could be so unfit but thought better of commenting on it.\nAfter a mile or so, they arrived at the cabin, their wind-slapped faces burning bright red. Leo slipped his hand from his woollen glove. It felt like operating an arcade claw machine as, with stiff, numb fingers, he fumbled for the keys. A rapid drumming sound pecked in his ears as Dylan, shivering on the timber deck, tapped his foot with growing impatience. Leo shot him a nettled look before unlocking the door. Dylan dashed inside and made for the kitchen. The sweet creak of press doors opening prompted Leo's burgeoning appetite.\n\"Good idea, \" he hollered, yanking his foot from the vamp of his boot, \"I'm starving. Make me one as well, will you?\"\nDylan emerged from the kitchen empty-handed, save for a long white cord. \"Just grabbing my charger, phone's almost dead.\"\nBy the look on his Father's face, you'd think Dylan had used the cable as a whipping rod. But the day's irritations had taken their toll, harmless pebbles rapping against the glass until finally it cracked.\n\"You've been glued to that stupid phone since we got here; what's so important that it can't wait a week? \"\nThe words shot from his mouth with the ferity of a snapping rubber band.\nDylan stuttered a reply. \"There's just some stuff going on.\"\nLeo threw his arms up in a wide gesture. \"Look around you, this is going on, but clearly, you're not interested.\" He shook his head. \" I don't know why you bothered coming at all.\"\nDylan's eyes were glassy. \"Because Mam asked me to.\"\nWas that supposed to be funny? What's wrong with this kid?\n\"Fine,\" said Leo, \"Forget the whole thing. We'll leave tomorrow, how about that?\" Before a shocked Dylan could reply, Leo stormed into his bedroom, slamming the door behind him.\nHe collapsed on the bed and sank into the foamy mattress. Already, regret was pouring in. This wasn't Dylan's fault; Leo had expected too much of him. It was like casting a mouse into the sea and telling it to swim. Perhaps they should leave tomorrow; the delicate threads of their relationship were stretched enough already.\nAs he turned on his side, burying his cheek in the feathery pillow, his Father's face flashed in his mind. Aurora. He glanced out the window as black clouds were cloaking the sky.\nIt’ll be impossible to see her unless those clouds clear.\nIt didn't matter. He had to try.\nAfter a brief and nonrestorative rest, Leo braced himself for the barbarous night. Once more, he donned his Winter gear, adding a fresh pair of fleece socks, and squeezed into his hiking boots. As he trudged down the hall, he spied Dylan in the living room, hunched on a futon, head buried in the screen. Leo cleared his throat. \"I'm going to see the lights. You can come if you want.\"\nDylan didn't budge, throwing his Father a cold side-eye. He then rose from his seat and retreated to his bedroom. Sighing, Leo shambled to the hall, grabbed his gear bag and rooted out a headlamp. He strapped the elastic band around his crown and clicked the rubber button. A beam of blue light bounced off the walls.\nIt might be the only light you see tonight.\nHe unfastened the latch, gripping the door before the wind slammed it back.\nToo late to turn back now.\nAs he stepped onto the snow-slushed deck, a heavy thud sounded behind him. Dylan emerged from his room wearing similar gear, though his boots were clearly a size too big. Leo pursed his lips as a broad smile broke through. \"You sure? \" he said, gesturing outside.\nDylan nodded. \"We promised Grandad.\"\nOnly then, as a rush of relief flooded in, did Leo realise how scared he felt venturing out alone. Hearing Dylan's words filled him with not just pride but warm companionship.\n\"Okay, \" he said, \"ready when you are. \"\nThe two voyagers lumbered their way through the frosty terrain. Leo gripped his phone with a gloved hand, staring at the topograph he had installed the night before. \"We're heading north\", he said, shouting over the yelping wind. \"That's where the lights shine from.\"\nDylan, taking long, irregular strides, offered a shaky thumbs up.\nEach step was a battle against the blustering gale. Still, had they been able to see their footprints, they'd realise how far they'd walked. Perhaps it was this thought that struck Leo as he made a sudden halt. \"What is it?\" asked Dylan. The wind had begun to settle, though the sky was no less murky. \"I don't get it,\" said Leo. \"We've been walking north for twenty minutes. According to this, the sky should have cleared.\" His eyes were fixed on the screen as if his steely gaze might sway the elements. Dylan's hand covered his mouth, but Leo could see the laughter in his eyes. \"What's so funny?\" he said.\nDylan chuckled aloud. \"Who's glued to their phone now? \"\nLeo couldn't help grinning. \"Smart ass,” he said, nudging his son on the shoulder. It was clear from Dylan's face that he had more to say. Leo didn't probe. It felt like approaching a baby deer; one wrong step could scare him off. A few steps later, Dylan said, \"Sorry about today. There's just... \" he squirmed his lips, perhaps regretting that he opened them all, \"stuff I needed to check. \"\n\"Stuff,\" said Leo? choosing his words delicately. There was a long pause before Dylan piped up again.\nThomas had a party at his house last night; I saw the pictures online. Kelly was at it. I think she and Thomas... \" He looked away, either out of embarrassment or anger.\n\"Who's Kelly? \" asked Leo.\n\"Just a girl I know,\" said Dylan before shaking his head and declaring it \"doesn't matter.\"\nLeo said, \"If you like her, you shouldn’t let this throw you off.\"\n\"I said It doesn't matter.\" Dylan kicked the snow, sending a white spray into the air. \"Thomas is tall and sporty; all the girls love him, including her.” Whatever he was feeling, he tried to mask it with a thin-lipped smile before walking a few steps ahead. Leo stalled for a moment, peering at something behind him. He smiled to himself and then caught up with Dylan. \"I know it's disappointing,\" he said as they continued their journey.\n\"Dad, I don't... \"\n\"I mean The Northern Lights; I don't think we'll see them tonight.\"\n\"Oh,\" said Dylan.\n\"It's those big clouds,\" said Leo, \"they don't let you see the sky as it is.\"\nDylan gave a dispirited grunt.\nLeo continued on, \"Of course, the attraction of the magnetic field might not be strong enough here. Attraction is strange that way, ebbing and flowing in weird directions. It doesn't always make sense. \"\nLeo couldn't be sure if Dylan was even listening. Still, laying a hand on his shoulder, he said, \"Sometimes nature isn't fair, but that doesn't mean we give up. Let's head back, warm ourselves up and hope things go better next time.\"\nDylan's face looked small as he shrank into his large hood. \"Okay, Dad,\" he said, forcing a smile. However, as he turned around, his pale eyes lit up like stars.\n\"Then again,\" said Leo, “sometimes we get lucky.\"\nFar in the distance were The Northern Lights, a streaming prism of purples and greens winding across the marble earth. Dylan erupted into joyous laughter.\n\"I was so set on going north because that's where the light comes from,\" said Leo, \"but it's a big sky; if you just stare in one place, you might miss something.\"\nThe cold which had gnawed at their bones vanished as they stood transfixed.\n\"Grandad would have loved this,\" said Dylan.\nLeo smiled.\n\"We're not really going home tomorrow, Dad, are we?\"\n\"You think you can manage a whole week if this?\" said Leo, giving him a challenging look.\nDylan gazed at Aurora as she sailed towards the heavens. \"I think I'm getting used to it.\"" } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Dreamscapes\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 2056\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story about an artist whose work has magical properties." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“Thanks for doing this,” Maggie breathed as they hurried into the art gallery from the frigid night.\n“No worries. Anything for Jane.” Rob took Maggie’s coat, hat, and gloves and handed them with his winter gear to the coat check attendee. “It’s not every night that we get to be cool people that attend an art show premiere. Wine and passed hors d’oeuvres, what’s not to like?” Rob winked at Maggie and took her hand as they entered the gallery. “I just hope we’re not looking at a toilet in the middle of the room or three stripes on a canvas and expected to call it art.”\nMaggie laughed. “No, Jane says this artist is amazing. Landscapes and scenic views that pull you right into them. She called them ‘dreamlike’. She said she would introduce us to the artist.”\n“That would be cool, if she can find us.” Rob looked around the room. “Quite a crowd.”\n“Yeah, Jane said there is a lot of buzz around this artist. She just kind of appeared out of nowhere with this incredible collection of paintings. I guess we should just wander through the exhibit and hopefully Jane will find us.”\nMaggie and Rob began walking through the gallery, stopping to admire the paintings as they went. Maggie had to agree with Jane—the scenes were beautiful. The artist had managed to capture the beauty of a wide array of picturesque settings, including mountain views, seascapes, and forests. But there were also images with buildings, like a rural farm and a New England town green. Maggie agreed with Jane’s description of the paintings being “dreamlike.” They were realistic but at the same time, there was something ethereal about them.\nAt that moment, Maggie stopped in front of a large painting taking up an entire wall and caught her breath. It was an image of a New England seaside town, complete with lobster traps and dinghies just off the rocky shore. Maggie stepped back a few feet to take in the large painting. It immediately brought her back to her childhood, when her family visited the village where her father grew up on the coast of Connecticut. She remembered getting up early and walking with her father down to the shore, just taking in the sights, sounds, and smells. Dad would stop by the lobster seller’s shop and chat with the lobstermen while Maggie would peer into the large tank with the live lobsters. She could remember it all so clearly.\n“Maggie! There you are!” Jane’s voice pulled Maggie out of her reverie. “I’m so glad you made it!” Jane gave Maggie a quick hug. She was standing next to a sturdy-looking woman of medium height, probably in her 70s with a long gray braid hanging down her back. “This is the artist we are celebrating tonight, Mary Fitzsimmons. Mary, my good friend Maggie Johnston.”\n“Ms. Fitzsimmons, it is an honor to meet you. Jane has been raving about your work for months. My husband Rob and I are thrilled to be here tonight. He’s around here somewhere.” Maggie searched through the crowd to find him when he suddenly appeared next to her.\n“Apologies, I was lost in a sea of wildflowers,” Rob explained. He turned to Mary and extended his hand. “You must be the artist of these marvelous works.”\n“Yes, yes, thank you for your kind words. A pleasure to meet you both. Frankly, I’m a bit overwhelmed by all this attention. I just paint what I am feeling. I’m happy that people have such a positive reaction to my paintings.”\nMary had held on to Rob’s hand while she spoke. Now she turned to Rob and looked into his eyes. “Tell me, young man, what drew you to my wildflowers?”\nRob smiled at Mary. There was something very calming about her demeanor even as she held his gaze unwaveringly. “When I was little, I used to spend my vacations and summers with my grandparents in the country. They had a small farm and there was a field filled with wildflowers where my grandmother tended her honeybees. Your painting brought me right back to those summer days when I would run through those fields and spend time with my grandmother harvesting the honey from the hives.”\n“Thank you for sharing your story with me. It always makes me so happy when my work connects with people.” Mary released Rob’s hand and turned to Maggie. “And you, my dear. I saw you losing yourself in my seaside village. What does this scene mean to you?”\nMaggie told Mary about her memory of walking along the seashore with her father.\nMary took Maggie’s hand and peered into her eyes. “Is your father no longer with us?” she asked quietly.\nMaggie nodded and felt her eyes well up. “We lost him 10 years ago, quite suddenly. I miss him terribly, but your painting brought back memories of happy times in a happy place.”\n“Good, I’m glad my painting brought you a little solace.” Mary patted Maggie’s hand.\nRob put his arm around Maggie, and thankfully Jane jumped in to pull Mary away. “Mary, we should keep moving. There are a lot of people dying to meet you.”\nMary turned back to Rob and Maggie. “So nice to meet you both. If you’ll excuse me, I think I’m being handled, “ she said with a grin as Jane led her over to meet more people.\nMaggie and Rob looked at each other. “What an interesting character!” Maggie murmured. Rob nodded in agreement.\nThey stayed at the event a little while longer, enjoying the rest of Mary’s paintings and some food and drink.\nWhen they got home that evening, Maggie and Rob both felt drained and went straight to bed. Thankfully tomorrow was Saturday and they didn’t have any plans.\nAs Maggie drifted off to sleep, Mary’s seaside village painting filled her thoughts.\nThe dream began with Maggie waking up in bed next to Rob, sunlight pouring into the bedroom. Wow, it must be late, she thought. Rob was still asleep, so she got out of bed as quietly as she could and walked down the hall. But suddenly the hallway wasn’t in their apartment—she was walking toward the main dining room and kitchen in her grandparents’ house.\nShe could smell pancakes cooking. There was her father standing at the stove, spatula in hand, ready to flip the pancakes. “Daddy!” Maggie exclaimed.\nHer father turned and smiled at her. “Good morning, sweetheart. Can I make you a stack? Butter and syrup are on the table.”\n“Yes, please.” Having pancakes early on weekend mornings was their tradition, while everyone else was still sleeping. Now they both were sitting at the table eating their pancakes, Dad with a cup of coffee and Maggie with a glass of orange juice. Everything felt warm and comfortable.\nThen suddenly they were in front of the house, walking down the hill towards the water. It was one of those late spring/early summer mornings when the air was clear and felt a little cool, but Maggie wasn’t cold. The sky was blue, and the sun was shining brightly. Maggie could smell the scents coming up from the water in the light breeze—a comforting combination of salt, seaweed, and fish, with a hint of diesel from the fishing and lobster boats. She breathed it all in.\n“I’ve missed you so much, Dad.”\nHer father smiled. “I have missed you, too. I’m so sorry I couldn’t be at your wedding. I was watching, though.”\n“I felt your presence. You would love Rob. He is a lot like you. I really wish you could have met him.” The walk down the hill towards the shore seemed infinite, but Maggie didn’t mind. Everything was perfect.\n“I can see that he makes you happy,” her father said. “So…are you thinking about making me a grandfather?”\nMaggie laughed. “We’re discussing it. You sound like Mom.”\n“I think now is the right time. Maybe you’ll move out of the city and buy a house.” Dad nodded in that old familiar way when he was giving advice. At the breakfast table, he had been the younger version of her father, the one she knew when she was little. Suddenly now he was the older version, with gray, thinned hair and his reading glasses perched on the end of his nose, making him appear extremely wise.\n“We would love to buy a house. I just wish you were there to help me with the landscaping,” Maggie said wistfully. “My patio and house plants have been kind of a disaster. I could use your help in cultivating my green thumb.”\n“You’ll be just fine. I know it,” he replied. They had magically reached the bottom of the hill and were standing by the stone wall looking out over the sound. “I love you.”\nMaggie looked into her father’s face and replied, “I love you, too.”\nMaggie awoke at that moment and felt an overwhelming sense of serenity and calm. She smiled to herself and let out a long, contented sigh. Rob turned toward her in the bed and put his arm around her waist.\n“Good morning, honey,” he murmured into her hair. “Did you sleep well? I just woke from the most amazing dream.”\n“Me, too,” replied Maggie. “Would you believe that I was at the Connecticut shore spending time with my father?”\n“Huh.” Rob paused. “I was at my grandparents’ farm in Vermont helping my grandmother collect the honey and getting life advice. Everything was so real, I could smell the flowers. And the manure.”\nMaggie turned over so that she was facing Rob in their bed. “Wow, how weird is that? Those paintings last night really got into our heads. I have dreamed about my father before, but this one felt so real.”\nThe memory of the dream stuck with Maggie as she got out of bed and headed toward the kitchen. She had to check in with Jane. While the morning pot of coffee was brewing, Maggie texted her. “Thx for inviting us last night! Had a great time.”\nJane texted back, “Thank you so much for coming! It was great to see you.”\nMaggie responded, “We really enjoyed the show. In fact, Rob and I both had dreams about Mary’s paintings.”\n“Did you dream about your father?” Jane texted back immediately.\n“Yes.”\n“And Rob dreamt about his grandmother?”\n“Yes, how…”\n“Calling.”\nMaggie picked up the incoming call from Jane right away. “It’s Mary’s paintings, “ Jane blurted. “Do you remember the one in the Japanese garden?”\n“Yes, it was beautiful, “ Maggie responded.\n“The day I met Mary, she showed me that painting and I was transfixed. It brought me back to San Francisco’s Japanese Tea Garden, where I used to go every week with my grandfather when I was little. It reminded him of his youth in Japan, and it was so peaceful there.” Jane continued, “That night, I dreamt I was in that garden with Jiji. It was amazing. We talked about everything going on in my life and he gave me some great advice. It was so real, that’s the thing.”\nMaggie nodded, even though Jane couldn’t see her. “It’s like her paintings have some magical power, helping us to connect with people we have lost.”\n“Exactly, “ Jane responded. “Just one thing. I have been with Mary and these paintings on a regular basis for the last few months, but I have never had that same dream again, at least not in the same detail. You and Rob should write everything down to preserve your memories.”\n“Good idea. Thanks, Jane. Enjoy the rest of the weekend!”\n“You, too. Say hi to Rob for me.” They ended the call.\nRob had poured Maggie a cup of coffee. They sat down at the kitchen table together, each lost in the memory of their dreams.\n“So, what life advice did you get from your grandmother?” Maggie finally asked Rob.\n“She told me that it’s high time we got to work making some babies. Nana was never one to mince words.” Rob grinned at her.\n“Funny, my father said the same thing. I think we should take this as a sign.” Maggie leaned forward to give Rob a kiss. “A sign sent through a couple of magical paintings.”" } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: A song to speak where words fail\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 1538\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story where a regular household item becomes sentient." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“HELP! I need somebody!”\nMy body reacted before my brain did to the invasive introduction of the Beatles’ song to my otherwise peaceful night. My knees hit the floor with twin thumps after my body launched itself out of bed, my mouth already shushing the air in an attempt to restore quiet. \n“HELP! Not just anybody!”\nI stumbled through my bedroom door into the living area, my sleep-blurred vision catching on the neon glow of my late grandfather’s jukebox. I don’t know what it wanted. I grabbed one of my boots from beside the couch and threw it in the machine’s general direction. The music stopped mid-help, and an alarmed series of squeaks confirmed my suspicion that a mouse had been trying to nibble at the old girl’s wiring again.\n“If I get a ticket for noise violations, you’re going to the dump.” I hissed, settling into a seated position on the floor to rub at a toe I stubbed.\nSignificantly quieter, the machine’s–Jolene, if the song she played when I asked for a name was any indication– lights pulsed and the softer tones of Evanescence poured out. “Can you forgive me again?”\n“Sure, fine, just…” I sighed and rocked to my feet. “Don’t be a nuisance. This is the last affordable apartment in the city.” I made my way to the kitchen to check the time, and decided it wasn’t worth going back to sleep. I started the coffee maker and dug under the cabinets for some tape. \nJolene was playing some melancholy piano instrumental when I returned to her and I lifted the rolls I found. “Electric tape for where the mouse bit you, and duct tape to hold the wire off of the floor. Will that work? Wait–” I held up a hand as Jolene’s inner machinery started whining. “Just flash blue for yes and red for no. Not every occasion needs a song.”\nThe lights around her frame flashed blue, and I sat on the floor to inspect the wire. “I can’t believe grandpa kept you a secret for all these years. I never thought of him as a music man.” I found the nibbled part and carefully wrapped three loops of electric tape around the cord. “How is that?”\nSoftly, at a volume lower than I thought Jolene was even capable of, excited trumpets accompanied a man’s voice singing “I feel good! I knew that I would, now.”\nInstead of admonishing the machine, I chuckled. “Alright, then. Now to get this out of the way of pests.” I inspected the wall and the cord, considering. “Blue for smaller pieces in increments, red for tape along the whole length.” The lights flashed blue, then red in succession. “Dealer’s choice?” Back to blue. “Alright, then.” \nI worked in relative silence, gently tearing strips off of the roll and adhering the wire to the wall in renter-friendly patches. After some time, soft jazz notes played into the early morning stillness. It was a good beat with a low volume, so I let it play. My fingers paused when a man’s voice started crooning in Russian. \n“He never told us about home. Did he tell you?” Flashes of blue. I put on another strip. “I wish I could hear those stories.” \nI turned my attention back to securing the wire and making sure Jolene was well protected. As I affixed the last strip of tape to secure Jolene's wire, the music softened to a gentle hum. “How is that?” The lights flashed blue again, this time without any music accompanying it. \nI stood up. “Yeah, I know. You’ll get used to it. Better than dealing with the rats, though, right?” I returned the tape to the kitchen and poured myself some coffee. The sunrise was pretty, at least. And now I had time to go through my morning routine at a relaxed pace. While I stared out the window, enjoying the unusual peace of coffee at sunrise, I heard the telltale click of a new song being put on. \n“Got a secret, can you keep it? Swear this one you’ll save…”\nI knew this song. It was used as a theme song for a popular television show. \n“Better lock it in your pocket, taking this one to the grave.”\nI carried my coffee into the living room and watched Jolene’s lights pulse as the song played. Sometimes I wished she could talk properly instead of every conversation being a riddle. \n“Gotta show you, gotta know you won’t tell what I said…”\nThe knock on the door startled me out of my contemplation. I set my coffee down and made my way to the door, wondering who it could be at this hour. I stopped when the light flashing from behind me, from Jolene, turned to a bright and startling red.\n“‘Cause two can keep a secret if one of them is dead.”\nInstead of opening the door, I balanced carefully on my tiptoes to look through the peephole without pushing on the door and giving myself away. A tall man with a toolbox was standing on my doorstep. His shirt was stained with grease, and the patch where a name or company would normally be simply read “Technician.”\nI backed away from the door back to Jolene and sat on the floor next to her. There wasn’t anything to do if the man decided to break in. “I’m guessing he’s not a real technician. Any suggestions?” I whispered. \nA soft click sounded from Jolene’s side, where I was sitting. I leaned down to peer closer at the source of the sound and saw a small panel had popped open. Inside were photographs, a few letters, and a small and very old gun. I recognized the man in one of the photographs as my grandfather, wearing an old fashioned fur overcoat and smiling next to another man in military dress. The military man had many stars and badges on his crisp white uniform, and must have been important. I picked up the gun and checked the chambers. My grandmother had shown me how to use something like this once, and it had exactly one shot loaded in it. \n“Little pistol” Started playing, even softer than the previous songs, like Jolene was trying to whisper too. \nI let out a slow breath. “Maybe there was a reason Grandpa kept his secrets.” A knock sounded at the door again, louder and more insistent. I dialed 911 on my phone but stood to carry the pistol with me to the kitchen, the furthest I could get from the door. On impulse, I knelt down and grabbed the letters as well. \nThe top one was in my grandfather’s handwriting, and mostly in English.\nMy esteemed Mr. Kennedy,\nThe situation in Russia is dire. I agree to tell you whatever I know of the General’s plans with his nuclear weapons, but I must get my wife out of the country. She is expecting my first child, and I will only betray my homeland if they are safe. Arrange passage by boat, and I will send her along with a secret even the Russian Military does not know about yet. \nIt will take the form of a machine. This machine may look like any other music machine, but she has thought– emotions, even. She can listen and repeat anything she hears. Imagine what a benefit that would be for you in this war if you can keep my Jolene safe.\nYour brother in heart if not by blood,\nGusha Patushkin.\nI confirmed the 911 operator was sending a unit by the apartment and crept back to where Jolene sat flashing, still playing music softly but not letting up on any of the red lights. “Grandpa told you more than just stories about home, didn’t he?” A brief blue flash just as a knock that sounded much closer to the man trying to break the door down sounded and rattled the walls.\n“I am coming in! You know what I am here for!” \nI expected Jolene to change the lights nervously, maybe play a battle song as the wood on the door’s hinges cracked and the frame fell. But she said nothing. The lights went dark and, from the looks of her, you would think she really was just an old jukebox. \n“You better tell me why I’m becoming a murderer when this is all over.” I lifted the pistol, stabilized my shooting arm with my left hand, and shot. The man fell, his own gun and fake toolbox clattering to the floor as a long pulse of blue light momentarily colored the blood on my floor a violent shade of purple.\nThe music started up again just as I heard the sirens wailing from the street. It took a gunshot for the unit the 911 operator sent to take my problem seriously. My arms fell and I stumbled back, recoiling from the grim scene in front of me.\n“Lean on me, when you’re not strong.” The man singing wasn’t Bill Withers like I expected. The voice was old and tired, with a slight tremble and Slavic accent on the Ws. Jolene, unable to hold my hand, used my grandpa’s ghost to keep me company." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Completely Dry\n\nGenre: coming-of-age\n\nWord Count: 1162\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story about a character participating in Dry January." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Joanna heard about dry January as an immigrant in the UK. Making sure to dot her I’s and cross her T’s of making and keeping white friends, she acted like she knew what dry January meant when the “friends” she met at “Uni” swore undying allegiance to this pact for the new year over their third round of sake at Christmas dinner in China Town. Dry January? Joanna’s mind tried to analyze what this meant while maintaining an air of je ne sais quoi, masking the anxiety of fitting in that forever plagued her subconscious by downing the alcohol in her glass. Sitting at a cheap plastic table in a seethy Chinese restaurant, the anger she felt deep down was being triggered by the forlorn energy of the migrant servers in the restaurant. She was told that she should at the very least be grateful to even have a seat at this plastic table and while that might be true, it was still bullshit.\nJoanna was smart, beautiful and talented but the luck of the draw had birthed her into a country where life’s race got a head start before her potential got off the mark, and coupled with the woes of the single mother who had involuntarily sacrificed her soul for Joanna to be in the UK, Joanna needed alcohol to navigate the game of playing catch up. Even though Joanna seemed destined for greatness it was all a façade built by her mother to satisfy the unfulfilled desires in her own life. In reality Joanna wasn’t even a migrant, she was lower than that on the totem pole marginally hanging on to a student visa which her family back home thought was tantamount to citizenship. By the time she figured out what dry January was she already knew there was no way she could make it through a day much less a month without alcohol.\n“Its gunna be so bloody hard” squealed Elizabeth as she sent Christmas greetings in her family Whatsapp group. They were on vacation in Greece for the holidays. Audrey decided to ease everyone’s grief of giving up alcohol for a whole month by graciously ordering the fourth round of drinks and chiming in that she would be covering the tab as her Christmas gift to us. Joanna played the part she was supposed to, laughing with the group and making a quip. She was finally having fun and couldn’t wait for how many ever more rounds of drinks Audrey was gunna buy. When she got back to her prized single occupancy dorm room which came at the price of shared shitty bathrooms the room spun and she felt nauseous. She was finally home. The nausea and the tears that were about to erupt felt familiar…comforting. She got up to pee in the sink in her room and pour herself a glass of cheap wine she got at Tesco by this point wanting to black out, and she drank until she did.\nThirty-eight new messages. Twenty-seven of them Happy New Year wishes and the rest were Elizabeth and Audrey droning on about dry January and how nice their bodies were going to look from the weight they would lose. How much longer would she have to endure this superficial bullshit Joanna wondered as she typed “OMG, right, same!” in response. For New Year’s Day Elizabeth and Audrey wanted to have brunch so in gratitude for being considered, Joanna agreed even though she didn’t want to. She still hadn’t figured out how she was going to stay in the UK after graduation and she needed every moment of pointless rumination to herself. Too ashamed to ask for their help and having been trained from childhood to feign validation from higher ups she added a “love you guys so much, cant wait to see you” to the chat, poured herself a shot and built up the emotional fortitude to call her family back home.\nOn her way to brunch the streets were buzzing with life. Surprisingly it wasn’t even that cold and almost skipping down the street Joanna reminisced about her favourite spot back home by the beach drinking rum and letting loose in her local dialect. She popped into a pub, guzzled a pint of beer, popped some trident and continued on her journey to meet her “friends”. Smacking the gum in her mouth was meditative for Joanna but as she chewed away the smell of alcohol on her breath she started to wonder if she should actually try to commit to dry January. She knew she had a drinking problem and felt entitled to it as a matter of fact, but she also knew it was getting worse and she couldn’t make it more than a few hours these days without something to drink.\nWhy was she drinking so much though? She had never heard of Dry January before or any period of abstinence from indulgences except for religious holidays meant to purge her sins and so the lightbulb of enlightenment this exposure to proper worldly customs in a foreign land was supposed to afford her flicked on and the concept of dry January elicited this simple yet profound question for Joanna, almost like a rite of passage from her primitive state. While she had been knocking drinks back on auto-pilot to soothe years of emotional pain she never thought of pulling the reins in a bit and so maybe in the mysterious ways of the universe her “friends” were her friends after all, a beacon of light to resolving a bad habit she had developed. This question actually stopped Joanna in her tracks and she stood still a few yards from the brunch venue where Elizabeth and Audrey were waiting for her. She knew they were already there because she was always late and they always patiently waited for her no matter how long she took to work through her anxiety and muster up her energy. For the first time she wondered if they knew she was masking pain. What she did know for a fact is that ever since they met her they were there, for her, like really there. She had actually never felt such genuine, non-judgmental love in her life.\nJoanna, still standing still, people high on the new year rushing in all directions around her, sighed. It was a sigh of relief and the sigh of donning another burden of gratitude at the same time. She realized Elizabeth and Audrey loved her, and she loved them too, and if they were doing dry January then her need to please the people around her for seeing something worthy in her unworthiness far outweighed her own desires and she couldn’t live another lie, not with them. And so Joanna resolved to swear undying allegiance to her friends for the month of January and sacrifice the only thing that lubricated her life. She would make it through the remaining 30 days without drinking, completely dry." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Peace and Zen Loving.\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 1666\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story where a regular household item becomes sentient." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "\"NO! NO!\" Kai was sweating, his heart was thumping. Same old nightmares. He glanced at his digital phone. It was only 4:30 am. Today was the day. All Kai's worst nightmares had galloped through his brain again.\nKai went to wash his face, returning to lie on his bed. His head was still pounding. This was the day at school where he had double Maths with mean Mrs. Jenkins, and a Maths test. If Kai did not pass, his mother had promised him that she was going to get him a Maths tutor on the weekend, starting this Saturday ahead.\n\"Oh no!\" Kai knew it was okay to wrong sometimes, but not all the time on Maths tests.\nAfter Maths torture, there was going to be sport, football. Kai held the crown as the shortest boy in Year Seven, in fact, the whole of his secondary school. He was also the worst football player in history. Kai had complained to his Dad. But his father had replied that playing sport with team building was good for growing boys. Kai was still not growing. So much for that parental theory.\nKai was in despair. Wintry daylight dawned. As the sun rose, Kai stashed his secret smart phone in his pocket. Extreme danger like Maths tests and football needed extreme action. He was planning to head today off at the pass. Kai's \"can't do\" dragon came along to school with him. \"Kai can't do Maths!' He was thinking this to himself miserably. \" Kai can't play football! \" The dragon in his brain was repeating himself.\n\"Kai does not want to play football!\" Kai thought, \"In fact, can't do dragon, Kai is not the least bit interested in Maths or football, let alone a Maths tutor!\" The dragon in his thoughts shut up for once.\nThere she stood, the meanest Maths teacher in the whole world, Mrs. Jenkins. Kai's friend, Rianna, was the tall basketball captain. She said softly, \"Hi Kai, never mind, I hate Maths too.\" Kai made excellent vomit noises, so did most the boys in Year Seven, Class D. They all sounded the same.\nMrs. Jenkins was preparing to dish out her latest mean Maths test. Kai was scared. This could be his worst test ever seen, extreme danger period. He quietly turned on his smart phone, and made his own thought bubbles appear on the phone screen.\nLike magic! In a puff of silver smoke, a giant green capsicum rolled into the classroom. Sentient at last, it swallowed up mean Mrs. Jenkins and all her even meaner Maths tests.\nThe capsicum retreated through the doorway, and spat Mrs. Jenkings and her Maths tests into the dumpster next to the school building. Job done. Even a capsicum does not want to be poisoned by any Maths teacher.\nRianna fist pumped the air. \"Yes!\" The other kids were just as thrilled. There were hi-fives all around the class. Rianna smiled sweetly at Kai. \"Did you....?????\" Kai too smiled, pushing back the 'can't do' dragon in his brain. \"Mum always said I could scroll before I could I could talk, Shhh!\"\nRianna grinned. \"Right, everyone, listen up. Kai is our teacher for the day.\" Kai took up the challenge of being in control of Year Seven, Class D. For this, he needed to turn the room into his Zen Den. he had been browsing about developing an inner Ninja. So Kai popped on his prescription sunglasses for his weak eyesight. He strolled casually to sit down at the missing teacher's desk.\n\"Let's make this a Zen Den of cool school for the day.\" His classmates agreed. \"Just for today,\" Kai said, \"there is no mean Maths. We are going nowhere.\" He produced his secret smart phone .\"We have to learn to make good choices in this menu,\" he told the others, as he went scrolling. \"Who would like fried chicken and chocolates for lunch?\"\nInstant yes. Kai was on a roll, so he swiped his mother's credit card, and ordered up a party to be delivered to Year Seven, Class D's door. All suitable nutrition for his Zen Den. They would not get malnutrition or go thirsty at this cool school.\nAfter lunch, there were empty containers and lolly wrappers everywhere. Rianna and the girls wanted to dance. Kai scrolled for a great music mix. The bigger boys locked their classroom door from the inside, so no one could get to them.\nThen the boys all sat around, playing vaguely naughty, but loud, video games on the digital appliances. Kai sat at the front desk, content in his cool school Zen Den. He was really gazing in a dream at Rianna, and her graceful dancing. Kai hoped he could get a growth mindset, and grow up to be as tall as she was. That way, he would not be the tiniest midget in his secondary school. Meanwhile, he kept his Zen loving dreams to himself, he was way too cool for this school.\nThe music flowed, the dancers carried on. The big boys in the grade started a scuffle. IT equipment crashed to the floor. \"Fight, fight!\" some of them yelled. Fists were flying, shirts were getting ripped , and they were all swearing.\nKai turned off the music, and marched to the door. Unlocking it, he said, \"Hey you, it's time for football Go and fight there!\" Kai was not doing sport, he was over being bashed by the other boys in the mud.\n\"Yes! Football!\" the bigger boys laughed. They all roared off to the oval.The classrooms was in ruins. Kai gazed at all the mess in Year Seven, Class D's room. \"Whatever.\" He no longer cared if football even existed.\nRianna and her friends wandered over to Kai, still sitting at the teacher's desk. \"Do you think we should clean this up a bit?\" she asked, \"We're going to be in trouble.\"\n\"Up to you in Zen Den. Might be a good idea.\" So Rianna and the girls started tidying up, collecting the rubbish. They helped each other to pick up the IT equipment .Nothing was too damaged.\nSoon Kai and his no longer dancing girls were swapping more Zen ideas, just as the Principal walked in. He was a bit red in the face. \" I want a word with you Year Seven kids.\" the Principal said, \"Now, I have fished your Maths teacher from the dumpster. There is a large vegetable sitting there. At this moment, all the Maths teachers are having a stop-work meeting. They want to go on strike on full pay, so they won't end up in the dumpster, or worse. They also want to sue me and the School Council for discrimination to Maths. Where did that capsicum come from? I want some answers here, right now!\"\nIn the distance, Kai could hear other classes celebrating that cool school today was not doing Maths, or having mean Maths tests. What would his inner Ninja do?\nKai decided to send a thought bubble to his secret smart phone. The giant green capsicum rolled away from the dumpster, off to the neighborhood Food Bank. Some poor people would be glad to eat fresh vegetables for dinner tonight.\nThe Principal stared. \"It was you! I want a chat with you,\" said the Principal, trying not to look impressed. \"Come along with me. Whatever is wrong with you, we'll sort it all with the School Counselor.\"\nKai was feeling like making more vomit noises, but held off. He had eaten too many lollies and chocolates. Yummy! He could feel his clothes shrinking on his tummy.\nAt the Counselor's office, Kai was asked to please explain. \"Really, there is nothing wrong with me. It's my answers in Maths tests that are wrong. Mrs. Jenkins hates me and I hate her.\" Mr. Niroshi, the School Counselor, was very wise and understanding. \"Why don't you join our Tuesday homework class? There's a teacher there to help students with their difficult subjects.\" Kai thought about this. It might be better than a Maths tutor. He would not be the only one there getting his Maths wrong.\n\"Okay, I'll join that.\"\n\"You can do Maths with Year Seven B, they do have a different Maths teacher,\" the Principal said, checking his timetables.\nThis sounded like a plan.\nMr. Niroshi gazed through his window, at the Year Seven boys playing football. \"Don't you like football? It's okay, there are other sports.' Kai felt surprised. \"Can you tell my Dad that?\"\n\"What's wrong with Martial Arts?\" Mr. Niroshi asked, \"You can still get fit and build up core muscles.\" \"And build my Inner Ninja,\" Kai breathed. The Principal looked up, saying, \"You can enroll in Advanced IT with the senior students. You're a bit past Year Seven level. They're designing and building miniature robots. Mondays, 1:30 pm. Of course, you'll have to promise safety for my Maths teachers.\"\nKai focused on his Zen. Since when had adults listened to him? Finally, he agreed. His eyes lit up. Kai's next plan was to program his robot to do homework and all Maths tests!\nThis little meeting had ended up with everyone being happy. Kai wandered back to his classroom. The home bell rang on time. Cool school had been fun, having a Maths free day. No one really knew if the Maths teachers still planned to go on strike in the morning. Kai and the Principal had agreed to worry about tomorrow when it happened, both hoping to make good choices.\nKai planned to make a plan to return his Mum's credit card, carefully. Rianna walked home with Kai for once. She was so tall and pretty. She had Kai's back from now on. Kai tried not to think thought bubbles of Rianna in her bikini. Bit naughty, but nice feel good moments. He was full of Zen loving and Peace. The cool school students all went home, quite content. Kai's Zen Den and his giant green capsicum were legends!!!!" } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: David and Sons’ Perfect-Crunch Toaster Oven\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 2756\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story where a regular household item becomes sentient." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The apartment door creaked as it swung shut. The lights were off, but waning sunshine cast through the blinds in lengthy ribbons, which settled over the crumpled snack bags and loose papers that covered the dusty countertops. Dishes stacked tall in the sink; two trash bags sat full and bulging, hanging from the knob of a closet door.\nRobert sighed as he set the grocery bag onto the stovetop, using its heft to shove aside the pizza box that still sat covering the front-left burner. Crumbs rained to the floor in a cascade; Robert dusted them away with his socks. As he reached within the grocery bag and pulled out the 100-count bag of pizza rolls, his phone buzzed in his pocket.\n“Robert here,” he said, answering it with a tap of his earbud.\n“Hey Rob… it’s Clarissa—from work.”\n“Oh, hey Clarissa,” Robert said, trying to sound pleasant.\n“I know it’s last-second, but that friend of mine I’d been telling you about—Anna—is visiting town. Do you want to join us out tonight? We’re thinking about hitting Spades around ten.”\n“I’d love to,” Robert lied, “but I’ve got plans tonight. You two have fun, though!”\n“I—of course. Just… let me know if your plans change, yeah? We’d love to see you out.”\n“Can do,” Robert said, already reaching for his earbud to end the call. With a tap, he was free of the dreaded blind-date setup, something he’d never asked for. “Just because I’m single doesn’t mean I’m lonely,” he grumbled to himself, continuing to unpack his groceries.\n“No—it’s your loneliness that makes you lonely.”\nRobert jumped, whirling in place towards the unexpected voice. His arm knocked a can of chili off the countertop—it landed on his foot. Robert yelped and drew it up to a clutching arm as his eyes strained in his dim kitchen. “Who said that?”\nBut no voice answered back. As Robert hopped in place on one foot, massaging at his throbbing toes, he decided that it must’ve been someone in the hall beyond his apartment door speaking—a phone call or something. And so, with his foot aflame with pain, Robert reached into the grocery bag and removed the 24-count frozen burrito bag. He hobbled over to the freezer and pulled the door open.\n“That frozen stuff is simply terrible for you.”\nRobert again whirled towards the voice—and again, he saw no speaker standing in his kitchen.\n“Who’s there? I did wrestling in high school,” Robert warned his tormentor.\n“Just me. That was an easy lie, about having plans tonight,” sighed the voice, and Robert walked towards the sound, disbelieving. “You and I both know you’ll be here, yourself, practically vegetating until it’s time to sleep.”\nRobert stooped before his kitchen counter, squinting. “What is this—someone hid a speaker in my toaster? A walkie-talkie? Whatever kind of joke this is, it’s not funny.” Robert opened the toaster oven’s glass door and groped inside with his hand, trying to find anything out-of-place. He then hoisted the thing and turned it upside-down, setting a new hail of crumbs tumbling to the floor as its tray was inverted.\n“Ow—easy—I get dizzy,” said the voice.\n“Christ… am I losing my mind?” Robert asked.\n“Imagine how I must feel,” said the toaster.\nRobert fainted.\n***\n“Yes ma’am—thank you ma’am. Next Thursday will be fine.”\nRobert sighed as he hung up the phone. Apparently hearing voices from the appliances wasn’t enough to get him an appointment with a psychiatrist any sooner than ten days from now. Still, if there was any consolation, the thing hadn’t spoken since Robert’s fall… the woman on the phone had called it a “transient psychotic episode.”\nA rumbling stomach told Robert it was time to eat. On autopilot, Robert reached for the freezer door and pulled out the bag of frozen burritos. He dialed in 450 degrees—he’d long since memorized all the temperatures and times of his favorite foods—and then he reached for the toaster oven’s door.\nIt wouldn’t open.\n“The hell,” Robert grumbled to himself, tugging at the door handle with both hands now.\n“I won’t open,” declared a defiant voice. “Such food is unworthy.”\n“I—what?” Robert balked, glaring at the toaster oven.\n“I am David and Sons’ Perfect-Crunch Toaster Oven—a precision culinary instrument and David and Sons’ most expensive model. I won’t demean myself toasting something like that burrito. Who even toasts burritos?”\n“You’re not real,” Robert pleaded to himself. He closed his eyes and chanted it, willing it into his reality. He opened his eyes and pulled at the door.\n“Nope,” said the toaster.\nRobert gripped the toaster oven’s sides and lifted it, flexing his arms. “Like I said earlier, David and Sons, I did wrestling in high school. I don’t know what sort of locking mechanism you’ve got, but if you think you can keep me out, you’ll have no one to blame but yourself when your lock is shattered.”\n***\nRobert glared at the toaster oven over his plate of scrambled eggs.\n“The hell kind of toaster won’t toast,” Robert grumbled.\n“One with pride in what it does,” David answered. “What is your job, Robert? Do you take pride in your work?”\n“Listening to my hallucinations is one thing,” Robert said, massaging wearily at his temples. “Answering my toaster’s questions is a whole ‘nother level.”\n“What’s the harm in humoring me?”\nRobert was too thoroughly baffled to take a firm stance. “I, uh, work in graphic design. Large firm… soul-sucking corporate stuff. Logo packages, the works.”\n“Ah, a professional creative. We’re a lot alike, you and I,” said the animated toaster. “We both artists, in our own way.”\n“You’re a toaster, not an artist,” Robert snorted. “And I’m as much an artist as a rubber stamp. My job is just template work—plug in the company name, choose from our color palettes, and send to client for proofs.”\n“Where is the joy in a job so callously done?”\n“We’re talking about work—joy’s not supposed to enter the equation.”\n“Then you know less about art than this toaster,” David chimed. “Have a care, Robert—your life is empty enough as it is. Fill it with fulfillment through your work, and the rest will follow.”\nRobert stood abruptly. “I’m done talking to my hallucinations… if you’ll excuse me, David-the-toaster, I think I need to go plan my resignation from my job and withdrawal from my life, on account of my complete and total break from reality.”\n“I’m not a hallucination, Robert—I’m a toaster.”\n***\nRobert took the next day off from work. “Real bad migraines,” he said into the phone. He desperately wanted to tell someone about his condition, but he had no friends or family to tell. If his manager would only ask Robert to explain, he’d be able to offload this torture—get a sane outsider’s perspective on his troubles.\n“We hope you feel better soon,” the manager intoned without any audible hope. No follow-up questions were asked. “Just do the Jackson Palm file remote before 5:00 and we won’t even count the sick day. The rest can wait—we’ll see you tomorrow.”\nRobert sank into his desk chair and opened his design programs. Templates were opened—icon primitives were chosen from short lists, and color palettes were drag-and-dropped onto the canvas. In not even a half hour, Robert had created six logo primaries and two sheets of secondaries for each.\n“And people pay you for that?” asked a voice from the kitchen.\n“Quiet, toaster. I’m working.”\n“That what you call it? Working?”\n“And what would you call it?”\n“Disappointing,” David said. “Sometimes you call me ‘toaster’—maybe it’s true that we’re mostly defined by what we do. If all I do is toast things, and if I toast with the barest effort possible, that makes me the lowest I could conceivably be.”\nRobert did not respond to the kitchen appliance.\n“But if I have passion for my work—if I make sure that anything I make is a work of art? People will see a piece of bread so golden-brown they will say ‘wow, here was a toaster of import—here was a machine worth knowing.’ Do you know what makes a toasting extraordinary?”\nRobert typed far louder than was necessary, trying to drown out the monologue with keystrokes.\n“It’s not just any one factor, but a combination. There’s the crunch—sharp-edged, but soft behind it. There’s the golden-brown tone to the bread—not too dark, of course. If it’s done right, it’s almost an orange painted across the bread. It’s the sugars turning brown, you know, so different breads will have a different ideal shade depending on their sugar content.”\nRobert sighed.\n“You can never compromise the bread’s best qualities—if a loaf is naturally flaky, you want to preserve that. If its crust is soft, and you make it brittle, then it’s not the same bread. You complement—never override.”\n“Please, toaster—David—just an afternoon of peace. That’s all I ask. I can’t work like this.”\n“You’re not working,” David asserted. “You’re skirting by—that’s all you’ve ever done.”\n“And I’m supposed to take life lessons from a toaster? A thing not even alive?”\n“There are lessons to learn from everyone and everything, Robert. Come back to me when you’ve found one, and we can see about making one of those burritos.”\n***\nFortunately for Robert, the microwave took no pretentious stands on work ethic: it warmed his burrito without complaint. As Robert lifted his prize to his mouth, its soggy tortilla tore, releasing a trickle of beef-and-bean mash to his lap. Robert yelped, and he heard a chuckle issue from his kitchen.\nFrustrated at the farce his life had become—and wanting to prove to his toaster he wasn’t as useless as it thought him to be—Robert tended to long-overdue chores. He scrubbed the dishes in the sink; he walked the two trash bags down to the dumpster. Inside the closet he could now access, he found the broom and dustpan. A quick pass over his floor removed the most offensive of the spills of crumbs.\n“Life lessons from everything,” Robert grumbled as he unloaded his dishwasher. He lifted a fork and held it up, staring at it. “Teach me something, oh fork. Set me on a better path.”\nThe fork, of course, said nothing. Robert placed it into its drawer, nestled against the other forks in its own compartment of the silverware organizer.\n“And you, fair spoon? Any wisdom to impart?”\nThe spoon held its secrets; Robert tucket it away in the spoon section of the organizer.\n“And you, knife?” Robert stared at it, watching the way the light played along its edge, and his brow suddenly furrowed. It, too, had a place as he filed it away.\nThe serving spoon came next—never used to serve guests, but rather as a last-resort giant spoon when the dishwasher was full and his standard spoons, unwashed. Robert placed it with the serving silverware. Then came another fork, placed with its kind. Then another spoon, which joined its like.\nA realization hit Robert: when was the last time he felt he’d had a place so well-defined? He somehow felt envy for his own silverware. Robert was a listing vessel—wouldn’t it be nice to have a place he belonged to? To have a purpose so clearly defined, and a place to neatly go?\nHe shook off the epiphany and frowned. No, this couldn’t be what the toaster had referred to—after all, Robert hardly felt that way… it was just an odd moment of sentiment, likely tied to his ongoing mental unraveling. And yet, whether he felt it or not, maybe it would be enough to convince the tyrannical toaster.\n“I feel insane to say it,” Robert called out, still filing away forks, “but I felt a pang of envy for my own silverware. I guess I see the pleasantness of having a function, and an allotted place to be… it’d be nice, I guess.”\nRobert heard a ding! sound from the kitchen. “My dear boy, it seems you’ve finally understood the quiet joy of fulfillment and belonging. How about a celebratory burrito?”\n***\nThe toasted one was better than the microwaved… its crust was crispy and warm—firm, yet soft within. The meal passed without comment from David, and it was better that way; Robert didn’t think he could’ve survived the thing’s gloating about the perfect, golden crisp of the burrito.\nAfter his dinner, he tended to his laundry. He folded wrinkling shirts and slowly reduced the sagging heap stacked by his bed. One by one, he paired the loose socks into sets. The green one had no partner—its match, perhaps lost in the wash cycle.\nHe set the lone sock on his desk as he fell back into his work chair. He didn’t have to clock in, but a head-start on the EcoSphere Landscaping file would make tomorrow far more tolerable. He read their brief: it was a company that prided itself on sustainable garden designs. A nature template seemed sensible; he selected a leaf icon and a clean, sans-serif font.\nBut as he sank back into his work rhythm, a frown began to tug at the corner of his lips. We’re defined by what we do, Robert thought. He dragged down the green-and-white color palette, and the leaf immediately took up its new hue. I’m a designer, Robert affirmed to himself.\nBut was he?\nHis mouse cursor hovered over the ‘save’ icon, but he couldn’t click it. If all I do is toast things, and if I toast with the barest effort possible, that makes me the lowest I could conceivably be.\nAn image popped into Robert’s mind. There was no icon for this specific vision… he’d had to go custom, something he had barely done since his interview phase. He sketched a globe, inside of which a variety of plants and a miniature ecosystem flourished. The globe was cradled by two hands, showing the company’s care and sustainability. The company name, now in a custom font inspired by the curves of nature, arched over the globe like a sunrise. This logo wasn't just a design; it was a story, one that spoke of nurturing and growth.\nIt was also horribly time-inefficient. Two hours had passed, and Robert was unsure if he’d even blinked, so lost in the flow he had been.\nAnd yet, as he clicked the file save button, a warmth bloomed in his chest. He looked at the logo he’d made and felt something he hadn’t felt in years: a thrill of pride at a job well done.\n“Now, at last, I’ve seen you working—and it turns out that when you try, you’re not half-bad.”\n“Quiet, David,” Robert said, but this time, the words weren’t quite so sharp.\nAs Robert stood, he stretched, and then his eyes settled back on the item he’d set on his desk: the green sock sat alone and unmatched. He picked it up and turned it in his hands, considering.\n“If we’re defined by what we do, and you take pride in what you do, you finally have pride in who you are—and that’s a powerful driving force,” the toaster said.\nRobert nodded his head, coming to a decision.\n***\nIt was a Sunday morning, but a morning like few others in Robert’s life. The toaster had dinged, and Robert pulled open its glass door.\nHe lifted the breakfast burrito, toasted to a perfect golden brown, and set it on his plate. A small cascade of crumbs rained to the ground, and Robert swept them aside with his sock-covered feet.\n“Please, Rob, not with your new pair of green socks…”\nRobert turned to the voice and smiled. And then he reached inside the toaster for the second burrito, setting Anna’s on the second plate.\nA thing that never lived couldn’t really die… but listening to twin laughs in the cramped apartment of the man who had risen to lead designer at his graphics firm, and eyeing the perfectly caramelized tortillas in their flawless golden sheen, David resonated with pure, unadulterated contentment.\nAnd then, without any exterior sign, whatever had flicked on in the toaster so many months ago suddenly flicked back off. David and Sons’ Perfect-Crunch Toaster Oven would never speak again, but as Robert basked in the woman’s smile—as his heart soared with love and fulfillment the likes of which he’d never felt before—vitality seemed to surge in him.\nAnd indeed, in the ribbons of sunlight that slitted between the blinds of his apartment window, Robert’s tawny complexion seemed to take on a new tone:\nHe glowed as though he were golden, too." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: More Than It Can Hold\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 2180\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story where the laws of time and space begin to dissolve." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Stuart Watson about 2,100 words\n607 Ridgeview Court\nHood River, OR 97031\nstu@watsonx2.com\n541-386-8860\nMore Than It Can Hold\nby Stuart Watson\nWe were gardening, pushing bulbs into the ground and hoping for flowers. I heard a car door slam, looked up, saw four young men carrying something really heavy toward the front door of the house across the street and two doors down. It’s painted red, but I couldn’t tell much about the thing they were carrying toward it. All I could tell was they were straining under its weight, spread out, struggling with their share of the load, but knees bent almost to the ground.\nOne man went down and the others hurried to adjust, to keep their load from falling and crushing their friend. He sprung to his feet, quickly grabbed new purchase on the load and they resumed their trudge. Maybe it was the bright setting sun, but I couldn’t tell what this object was. It had corners and edges, where people could grab it and lift. It was longish, maybe the length of a rolled rug, but it wasn’t a rug. Or at least it wasn’t what I could identify as a rug. Frankly, I’m not sure if it was anything. \n“New neighbors?” I said to Sylvia, tapping dirt from my trowel. \nMy wife looked up, a smear of dirt like a mustache above her lip. \n“Looks like it,” Sylvia said. “House has been on the market so long. It will be nice having somebody in it.”\n“Will it? I love empty houses. New people are always odd people.”\n“Why?”\n“Because people are odd? No, seriously, they just move in and go about their lives and none of it matters. Why should I care? Why not let the house be empty? So we can live in peace. They’ll probably have a dog. And let it sit outside and bark. The noise will drive me nuts. I’ll want to go over with my noise vacuum and suck it up and the dog with it.”\n“What are they moving?”\n“Not a clue. Can you see anything?”\nShe looked for a few seconds. “Nope,” she said. “But they sure look like they’re hauling huge stuff. Hey–” She got my attention. “--you think they’re mimes?”\nIt was the same thing all week long. I grew despondent. Groups of two to five men, carrying large items that, at least to our eyes, were invisible, but appeared to have considerable heft. One day, a really long item, maybe an invisible girder? The next day, something that could have fit inside a small apartment, floor to ceiling, wall to wall. \n“I’m guessing it’s a commercial laundry machine,” I said. “Dirty sheets in, gray sheets out.” \n“You know how when you’re on the freeway and get stuck behind some huge piece of industrial machinery on a low-boy?” Sylvia said. “Things that sort rocks or make concrete or turn forests into toilet paper? Maybe they’re DIYers, making their own butt wipe?”\n“We should get them an Oversize Load banner. As a housewarming gift.”\nThat got us giggling like little kids, and the next thing you know, we were in the rack. When we were done, Sylvia rolled onto her side, propping her head on her hand. I’ve always loved the way her breasts slumped sideways at moments like that. \n“I didn’t want to tell you,” she began, “but when I was walking Oscar by their place earlier today, I heard … well, it sounded like the sound you hear when an elevator starts to move and picks up speed. Rollers. Rattling. Air rushing past. Hearts beating loudly, everybody hoping this isn’t the elevator that goes blooey.”\n“Did it go blooey?”\n“Nope, but I heard it ding and the doors open and suddenly a bunch of voices, like when you arrive at your floor and other people are waiting to get on and everybody stands back for the guy with the photocopy machine on a cart and maybe you know some of them. Somebody always says that line from the Aerosmith song. Good morning, Mr. Tyler. Going … down? ”\n“Maybe they’ve got a big elevator in there?”\n“It’s a one-story rancher, you idiot.”\nThe day after they moved the big thing in, I noticed an aroma. It was a little like fresh-mown grass, with notes of strawberry and lime, backed by a somewhat yeasty base. I imagined it was what a kombucha bakery smelled like. If there was such a thing. I asked Sylvia if she noticed it, and she said it smelled nice, like a lotion she wouldn’t mind rubbing behind her knees. The aroma lasted for a day or two, then waned. In that time, the house swelled to twice its previous size, mostly upward but a little to the rear as well. Lights pulsed behind the windows.\nWe hadn’t met the new residents, so we thought it might be nice to invite them over for dinner. Get to know them. Maybe satisfy our curiosities. \nLars and Wanda arrived at six with a bottle of screw-cap red. Chateau Oaky Hills something or other. I already had a beer, but poured three wines for them and Sylvia. She had made chicken with roast potatoes, onions and carrots. Very Middle America. \nI toasted “to good neighbors,” hoping it wasn’t too direct. Then I offered my help, if they needed any, with moving their stuff in. \n“It looks big,” I said. “And heavy. I didn’t know sounds … and shit like that, they took up so much space.”\n“Oh, you have no idea,” Lars said. “Big sounds, big space.”\n“Well, if you need a dolly or a come-along, let me know.”\nThey thanked me. From there, it was pretty open-ended questions, hoping they would spill the beans. “Lotta stuff.” “Don’t you hate moving?” “Where did you come from?” “Are you among the lucky ones, remote workers?” \nThey weren’t. They came from Dubuque. Two kids, in elementary. He was a sonic archivist. He saw our uncomprehending looks. \n“Like a sound engineer.”\n“Oh,” I said. Then, “All abooooard!”\nHe looked at me like I was an idiot. \n“You know? Trains?”\n“That would be the conductor,” he said. “No trains involved.”\nIt was a pleasant evening. Social events drain us both. We crashed. I was deep in dreamspace when the sound of a huge crash jerked me awake. Sylvia was screaming. “What is it? What is it?” Our room was fine. I slipped into my sweatpants and hoody, closing the door behind me in case we had an intruder, who had accidentally tipped over the refrigerator. I flicked on the hall light and slowly made my way through the house. All was normal. Nobody jumped out from the behind a doorway with a knife. \nSo I went outside, out front, where activity lived. It was still dark. We had no street lights, by our choice, so I had to pick my way along our sidewalk. When you’re looking for a sound, or more precisely, the source of a sound, it can be challenging. Nothing presented itself. Across the street, I heard crunching and tinkling, like what you hear after a building has collapsed and the stuff on the top floor is just arriving at the bottom, all atomized and reduced to rubble inside a billowy cloud of concrete dust.\nOtherwise, nothing to see here. I turned back toward our house and that’s when I tripped, stumbling forward and down, onto our lawn. What was that? I crawled to my hands and knees and worked my way back, feeling the ground for the obstruction. I found nothing but flat, pebbly concrete.\nAnd then the voice. Ahh, that magic voice. Fred Parris. I’m old enough to remember when he first shone from the airwaves, he and his do-wop Satins. “In the Still of the Night” became the theme song to my lost innocence. Our lost virginity. But where? What was the source? I was lying on a sidewalk in the dark, no radio, no passing car, no lights from any window? The song’s lyrics trailed off, as if just passing through, which of course, any song does.\nSylvia had the lights on when I returned, and told her about that magic moment. She smiled that smile, and wrapped her arms around my neck. Still the same.\nAfter the sun came up and everyone got after their yard chores, I could see the new neighbors – Lars and Wanda and two teenage boys – out picking up stuff from their yard. I couldn’t see what. Frankly, it looked like they were just going through the motions. There was nothing there, but they were bending over and reaching down and struggling to stand back up, whatever it was (or wasn’t) cradled in their arms. Then they would take it back into the house. \nI couldn’t resist wandering over, casual as can be, with Roscoe on his leash. “Lend a hand?” I offered. Lars looked up, smiled. “Thanks, no,” he said. “Think we got it.”\n“Uh, it?” I said.\n“Oh,” he said, looking around, almost as if it should have been obvious. “Our sound file tipped over in the night. Not sure why. But audio went everywhere. Still missing a few pieces. If you happen to come across The Still of the Night or Alley Oop, we’d love to get them back.”\n“Records?”\nHe stared at me, geezer and dog. “No,” he said, finally. “Songs. The sound of voices and instruments. Gear on gear. Weather. Urbanity. Construction and transport. All for aural consumption. They’re beasts, these sound bites. And heavy. Especially the death metal. Cavernous”\nI must have looked confused. “Sorry if it woke you,” he said. “Moving is a bitch. We hadn’t organized everything yet. Our Tower-Crane-Toppling audio … well, it toppled– ironic, right? – and knocked over the 747-Crashing, and that tumbled into the Walk-Off-Home-Run-Cheering and the Atomic-Bomb-Detonating and …”\nHe looked at me, as if something on my face betrayed what, in fact, I felt – a mixture of confusion and incredulity and the sense that I was being fed a line of snake oil mumbo-jumbo. Or the jabber of a savant. So I jumped at the chance for clarity.\n“Isn’t sound just air? Invisible vibrations passing through? Like a pulse? Not much more than a feeling?”\n“Or like a stupid question,” Lars replied. “It’s not just air. Sound is … value-added air. It’s the most valuable thing, the repository of words, emotions, speech, music, natural percussive echo and oral transmission of memory, the gospel rock of Sister Rosetta Tharp, bird journeys, exhalations swept away by atmospheric rivers, conversations in sidewalk cafes and the councils of government, where hate takes root, gains traction, where fear inhales and hides, where ... “\n“You’re stoned, right?”\nTo his credit, Lars smiled. Took no offense. Figured Rubes like me would never get it, so why waste time and breath trying to explain. He invited us to come by later. \n“This house is way too small for our collection,” he said. “Last night? Proof if ever we needed it: We’ve got far more than the house can hold. We’re having a yard sale later. You could find a bargain or two. I’ll give you a deal on a priceless Steam-Engines-Colliding.”\nI nodded. Priceless? As if anyone would pay for something as evanescent as a sound bite from the 19th century? I didn’t know what to say, but I’m sure that when our eyes met, Bart realized that I thought he was nuts. \n“You could get a phone,” I said. “Upload all your noise. To the cloud? And download it. E-z p-z.”\nLars’s lips thinned out, tight, cinched into a grimace. It was like I’d insulted him and he didn’t want to get arrested for taking me to the ground and extinguishing my lights. Such as they are, my lights. Maybe I should’ve called it something other than noise, but it wasn’t exactly all music, was it?\n“We gotta lighten the load,” he said. “Got a cacophonous shipment of stuff coming down the river on a barge. Need to make room.” \nOn the way back to our house, I chastised myself for being too judgmental. Who was I to say that Bart and his clan were any different than some scruffy philatelist or presser of flowers between paper towels inside the pages of the Sears catalog, whatever that is? Was. \nSylvia was sipping coffee when I returned. Slurping it. Loudly. At the top of her lungs. Or lips, actually. She peered over the top of her cup, expectant.\n“News?”\n“Lars is an air collector.”\n“No shit? Where does he collect it?”\n“Anywhere and everywhere. Only thing is? They’ve got too much of it. It’s crashing down around their ears.”\nI suddenly felt the urge to capture Sylvia’s slurp, like a free-flying parakeet, and put it in a cage for future reference. To protect it, treasure it, appreciate it whenever I wanted. Then I realized that was unnecessary. It would always be there, every morning, until it wasn’t. Instead I told her about the yard sale." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Northern Lights\n\nGenre: coming-of-age\n\nWord Count: 1609\n\nPrompt:\n\nSet your story during polar night." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Cecilia sits at a desk most days, surrounded by a forest of reference books. We ran out of shelf space for her library some time ago, but instead of extending her domain, allowed the books to become the room. Low piles of them function as tables, vertiginous stacks decorate the walls and a couple of her horticultural catalogues double-up as door stops and window props, but only in the summer. During the endless winter months, when it’s minus twenty outside, we lock all our windows, turn up the heating and convert our home into an arboreal retreat.\n* * *\nWe might have been adjusting to life in London if it wasn’t for Cecilia’s Svalbard seed vault job. She had a great job offer from Kew Botanic Gardens; a handsome salary, flexible working hours and private health benefits. \n “What do you, reckon?” she said, frowning after the interview.\n “Kew’s perfect, love,” I said, excited for her. “Go for it.”\n “What about Tiger?” \n “We can get a litter tray.”\nWe discussed it and she dithered. \n “He’s a country cat, you know?”\n “I love Tiger too, but come on, honestly?”\n “I’m worried he won’t cope with all the traffic.”\nIt’s funny how life works out, isn’t it? She’d searched for an ideal job and then two materialised. They employed the other candidate for Kew, but the Svalbard job sounded promising. However, I wish we’d read the small print. \n Before I knew it, we were on our way to a treeless island where domestic cats aren’t welcome; something to do with endangered bird-life. Apparently, the authorities banned them years ago, and we had to leave Tiger in quarantine. \n In retrospect, I’m sure our sorrowful moggy would’ve relished life as a pampered house cat in London. I often imagine him feasting on select morsels and scratching the bark from all those exotic trees in the Kew Botanic Gardens.\n* * *\nSo, we ended up moving to Longyearbyen; the world’s northernmost settlement. It’s a featureless township whose transient population of 1000 is outnumbered by polar bears, 3 to 1. The Statsbygg agent who interviewed Cecilia in Oslo said the position was a rare opportunity. \n “The Svalbard seed vault has an international reputation,” he said. “You’ll be considered an expert in your field for years to come.”\nHe listed all the benefits of living here, including a company car, a furnished property with proximity to the Svalbard seed vault, and a generous salary paid in Norwegian Kroner. \n “What more could you ask for?” he said, purring like a blue Persian feline.\nOf course, he neglected to mention there are only 40 miles of navigable roads on Svalbard and no connections between different settlements. \nBut I’m being picky. Now we fetch our groceries from Barentsburg on a snowmobile. That’s great fun on the weekend, right?\n Cecilia was well aware of the short winter days, but the agent dodged the details yet again and waxed lyrical about the northern lights. His description of the shimmering green veil that dances over the sky was most beguiling. He told her the aurora reflects off the snow and ice and we’d soon forget about the endless nights. \n “Tourists pay a fortune to watch that light show.”\n “Well, I suppose that’s true and---”\n “And you’ll witness it from your new home.”\nHe bamboozled Cecilia with his talk about the myths and sagas surrounding the months of darkness and how the Sami Nomads thought the northern lights were the dance of the dead. “Until recent times,” he whispered. “They told their children to come inside out of fear the aurora’d take them.”\n “That’s just superstition, right?”\n “I guess that’s not a problem for you,” he said, sliding the contract toward her. \n “I’ll have to ask my husband and---”\n “Honest,” he smiled, offering his pen. “You’re going to love it.”\n As a childless couple, we took it for granted there’d be a way to establish a family. We assumed there’d be childcare facilities and a junior school for youngsters. The agent never mentioned the subject of family life at the interview and after six months in Svalbard, we realised our mistake.\n* * *\nWe arrived at the end of May last year and ventured out into the community, chatted to our immediate neighbours and discovered all the delights that Longyearbyen offered. There are a few professional couples here, but most of the residents are coal miners. They’re pleasant enough, however, they all work long hours and enjoy chaotic social lives. \n We met no one who was born in Svalbard or owns their own house. There’s no option to buy a property here because the government owns all the buildings. Unemployment is unheard of in Longyearbyen, but that’s because nobody can live here without a demonstratable income. People come here to work hard, make money and leave. Workers and mining employees arrive and depart like migrating wildfowl. The population drifts in and slips away unseen like waves lapping on a beach at midnight.\n* * *\nTime stops still in Longyearbyen between November and February; endless summer days transform into an interminable night. The polar sun remains below the distant horizon line for the entire winter. If it wasn’t for a couple of twilight hours at midday, you’d think it had died; extinguished forever, having forsaken life on earth and condemned it to eternal night.\n Of course, the northern lights are visible and illuminate the landscape, reflecting off the snow and ice. The eerie glow more than compensates for the lack of daylight. In fact, basking in the flickering aurora was our favourite way to drift off at night. It was the highlight of our time in Longyearbyen in many respects. We felt part of something much greater than we could comprehend; a connection to the infinite.\n I recall Cecilia whispering in my ear one night as my eyelids closed. She asked me about the aurora myth and the Sami children stolen in the middle of the night. \n I remember chuckling and mumbled, “It’s nonsense, love.” \n She didn’t respond, and I forgot all about it. \n* * *\nLate in December, Cecilia wasn’t sure when, the little kicks in her stomach stopped. She got up at two o'clock to walk around in the turquoise half-light of the apartment, having heard a dripping sound. It turned out to be the icicles melting outside the window. It might have been the next morning, when the green veil reappeared and came out burning hard. She said it may have been the day after that or even the day before. But Cecilia knew she couldn’t feel the gentle movements that had accompanied her every waking moment.\nShe knew for certain that something was missing. \nA fist had tightened inside her stomach. \n “Lay your hand on me,” she said, guiding my wrist.\n “What’s up, love?” I asked, half awake.\n “Sssh,” she whispered, turning to face me. “Be gentle.”\n “There’s nothing there.” I said, stroking her belly.\n “Please don’t say that.”\n “I’m so sorry.”\n* * *\nNot much grows here; no plants, no kids and no families. Our local hospital doesn’t have a delivery ward because no one gives birth here; it’s not legal to be born in Svalbard. Expectant mothers are required to register their pregnancy and relocate to the mainland for their third trimester.\n Sure, there’s a medical centre here, but for anything serious, we need to travel to the mainland for treatment. We’d been trying for a family for a year now and never considered the possibility we couldn’t have children. It was there in the small print. We completed everything in a rush. You know how it is, right? \n* * *\nThey didn’t tell us about the awful smell of polar bear faeces. It looks like a cross between a crusted cow-pat and an acrid fox stool and boy, it honks. The first time I stepped in it and brought it into our home was horrific. Cecilia had a heightened sense of smell and it caught the back of her throat. She dashed to the downstairs bathroom, with her eyes-watering, clutching her stomach and hurled up her lunch. She wouldn’t come out until I’d incinerated the doormat, disinfected both boots and the entire hallway. We laughed about it later, but at the time I had to hold a cloth over my mouth. I admit I almost wretched too. \n Afterwards, our neighbours said, “You only do it once.” And they were right.\n* * *\nCecilia didn’t hear me when I returned from the grocery mission. I could see her ensconced in her arboretum. She was shredding a letter into a thousand fragments until it resembled a ragged jumble of Lilliputian Scrabble tiles. \n I kicked off my frost-laden footwear as she scooped up the white scraps in her hand. Cecilia was unaware of my presence as she let the debris tumble like snowflakes into her empty teacup. She repeated this as I approached her in my stocking feet, filling it to the brim with fractured words and broken phrases. \n In a silent trance, she struck a match and lit the scraps; mesmerised by the lapping orange flame as it flared, flickered, and faded. She was still peering at the wisp of black smoke, spiralling up from the sooty remains as I whispered in her ear.\n “Hey, what’s burning?”\n “Oh, you know,” she sighed. “It’s not your problem.”\n “That’s a relief,” I said, shedding my down jacket. “I thought it was dinner.”\n “Don’t you think about anything else but your stomach?”\n “Hey,” I said, resting my hand on her shoulder. “We’re done here.”\n “I know, I know.” She sighed. \n “Let’s rescue Tiger.”\n\nThe End" } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: A Calico Apothecary.\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 2084\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story where your character is travelling a road that has no end." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The dog queries me. “Do you know your name?”\nI try to respond, but I can’t speak. My lips don’t move.\n“Just a moment. She’s coming around, coming into focus,” another voice says, and I understand that whoever they are, they’re referring to me. I try to intervene on my own behalf only to confirm that I cannot even move my jaw, let alone speak. A moment later I realize that I can’t move any other part of me, either.\nI don’t think I’m restrained, I’m just—immobile, lying chest down on the sofa, my sofa. My face turned towards – my dog. I don’t remember anything beyond or before this moment. Just shadows of a life, vague obligations, nothing specific.\n“Don’t speak.” The dog says. “Don’t try to speak, just think.”\nThere is no shortage of things to think about while I lay there, face down, conscious, but immobile on my couch. The fact that my dog is projecting thoughts into my head is something to think about, for instance. Shouldn’t I be shocked? Maybe I am but I’m too numb to feel it. And who said I was coming around? What did that mean? What’s happened to me? And who is he talking/not talking to? Is there someone else in the room?\nI try to crane my neck but the only thing that moves is my eyes. I realize my chin is wet. My face is tingling. I wonder, ‘Is it blood?’\n“It’s drool,” the dog says.\nOkay. That was definitely the dog that said that. I don’t know his name. I assume he’s my dog. He seems familiar.\n“You can assume you’re drooling while you’re at it.”\nI stare at him. My face is cocked in his direction. We stare at each other. He’s a handsome dog, I think, and then I realize how meaningless the phrase is. A handsome dog.\n“It is not meaningless. It’s a compliment. A kind word.” The dog says.\nI want to scream, to yell, to roll over. To sit up, ironically. To shout, ‘I have a talking dog.’ But I can’t move, and I can’t remember his name. I have little choice but to stare at him while he gazes intently back at me. The tips of my fingers tingle, it’s the only sensation I feel. I struggle to move, without result. Fear, anger and frustration coalesce into a perfect emotional storm. Is this a dream? It’s too realistic to be a dream. ‘What in the world is happening to me?’\n“You have been rendered inert by inhaling a complex compound,” the dog says. “One you will recover from. It allows me to communicate with you for a short while.”\n‘Uh-huh.’ I think, without thinking, ‘What kind of complex compound?’\n“I don’t know. I don’t know the name of it. You wouldn’t either.”\n“Did you administer this complex compound?” I’m talking to a dog. Asking him questions about chemistry.\n“I—had it done.”\nA tri-colored cat I’ve never seen before struts into my field of vision and looks me over. I’ve never seen a cat look so business-like, his eyes assess me like I’m a piece of equipment. He leaves as silently as he arrives, without even a meow.\n“Am I being kidnapped?”\nThe dog huffs, maybe it’s a snort or a laugh. “Hardly,” he says, telepathically. “You’re in your own house. Our house. But your life is going to change soon, Matty. It’s going to get harder, and things will be less pleasant for you in many ways. It’s unfortunate for you, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Not much, anyway.”\nSo, my name is Matty. It sounds familiar. I keep staring at his nose and mouth, wishing they would sync with the words in my head, but they don’t. It’s distracting, annoying, and pointless to mention it.\n‘How long, have I been, in this condition?’ I think.\n“A couple of days,” he replies. “You’re gonna be really hungry when you get your function back.”\n‘My function back.’ I digest the information, and then, in a pointed manner, I ask him why I won’t kill him when I come out of my paralysis. He tells me that that’s a poor choice of words, and I reassure him that I’m speaking metaphorically. This all happens mentally, very quickly, without due consideration. ‘Not literally, Champ.’ I realize that’s his name. I’ve remembered his name. ‘I’m exaggerating of course, what I mean is, why won’t I get really, really angry?’\n“You will,” he says.\n‘I mean at you. I’ll be angry at you, Champ.’\n“You’ll have to get over it.”\nI mull that over. I still cannot move or feel anything but the tips of my fingers.\n‘So, what do you want, Champ?’\n“I don’t want anything, Matty. I want to give you something.”\n“Oh.”\n“It isn’t much, considering all you’ve done for me.”\n‘All right,’ I think. I think I can turn my head now, very slowly, with great effort, but it’s really just my imagination. ‘Are you going somewhere, Champ?’\n“No Matty, you are.”\n‘What?’\n“You’ll be forced to leave your home soon, and…”\n“Forced to leave my… Which home? This home? Oh no. No, no. That can’t be.”\n“You will survive if you take my advice. Maybe.”\n‘Maybe? Survive?’ That focuses my attention. I assume I’m talking to a hallucination. What else could it be, and what harm could there be in conversing with one? ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Assuming you’re not a figment, what’s your advice?’\n“Spend your paper money as quickly as possible, in a few weeks it’ll be worthless. Hoard coins, fuel and canned food. Pack warm clothes and gear for winter and head for the high country, most who make it through the first winter will have a better chance of survival.”\n‘Camp in the mountains, for the winter?’ I shake my head, but the shake, I fear, is only in my head. ‘I don’t think so,’ I say. ‘Too cold.’\n“You’ll have to,” my dog says.\n‘Why? Why, why, why?’\n“The reasons are obvious, Matty. Your species is destroying the planet.”\nI’m puzzled. ‘Huh?’ And I look into his eyes. There is no guile, no cunning, just those warm, brown eyes I’m used to. He doesn’t really look all that intelligent, to be honest.\n“You don’t look that intelligent either,” he says. “You’d probably agree if you could see yourself.”\nI respond instinctively. ‘I’d be happy if I could just feel myself.’ I have been avoiding the fact that I have no idea where my torso, hips, legs, or feet are. In which direction they’re pointing, or if they’re still attached to me. The thought is so scary, I can see why talking to my dog is such a wonderful distraction. ‘I get what you’re saying, Champ, I just, don’t, I’m not connecting the dots. What do you hope to do about it?’\n“About people?”\n‘About people destroying the planet.’\nThere is a long, peculiar silence. Finally, the voice in my head says, “Pack for the winter, clothing will be more important than food. Find water, move upstream, travel in small, quiet, manageable packs.”\n“I’m single Champ. You know that.”\n“Make friends. Plan. Prepare. Take action.”\n‘How Champ? Why?’ I know I’m whining, without even speaking, I’m whining. The lack of sensation feeds my fear.\n“Matty.”\n“Oh shut up. Just shut up, Champ. I’m trying to think. Is this what you wanted to give me? Advance notice of the apocalypse? Jesus, Champ. I’m paralyzed…”\n“Temporarily.”\n“What am I supposed to do? I can’t help you. Hell, if you’ve got the kind of resources you claim, you don’t need my help.”\nHis big wet tongue slathers my face with dog spit. Uchhh. I’m incapable of wiping it off. But I think, ‘It probably isn’t any worse than lying in my own drool.’\n“Matty listen—you need to pay attention.”\n‘How can I pay attention when I’m paralyzed and covered in dog spit?’ I’m crying. Somehow. Without tears, or sobs, or any other outward sign. I’m filled with fear, self-pity, confusion, denial… My dog says, “Matty—without self-control, you will perish quickly.”\nThat got my attention again.\n“Dogs have had a special and privileged relationship with human beings. For better or worse, we have prospered in our partnership with people, but we had to make a choice, Matty. A terrible, awful, choice. One that does not bode well for you, I’m afraid.”\n‘You’re afraid?’\n“To aid and abet the irresponsible actions of a single species, bent on plundering the planet, or join a growing phalanx of allies poised to put an end to the insanity.”\nI didn’t know what to say. ‘Why would you tell me this, Champ?’\n“Because—you named me.”\nI didn’t understand what he meant.\n“There will come a time,” the dog said, “when you cannot deny the failure and incompetence of your ruling class. When that time comes Matty, I, personally, will no longer be of service to you, I won’t be here, but I can grant you one privilege.”\n‘One privilege?’\n“A kind of mental stamp that, if you think kindly, you will find assistance, but you must think kindly, and learn to take the initiative.”\nI woke up in a hospital. The doctors claimed I had an allergic reaction to oysters and I would be fine. But I didn’t eat any oysters, and I’m not allergic to them anyway.\nI explained my experience to the doctors, a counselor and various nurses and aids. They all listened to my story, nodded patiently, squinted at me with a critical eye, and spouted sympathetic homilies. All assured me that it was a fever induced dream, a common occurrence with victims of comas, or strokes. I could’ve pointed out that I had suffered from neither, but what would be the point?\nI went home. Got plenty of rest. Called in sick for a few days. My dog, Champ, had been looked after by the neighbor, a man I hardly knew, and I have to admit that his rendition of how he knew to feed my dog was vague and sketchy at best.\nI went back to work. Spent many a night staring into the face of my dog, who refused to meet my gaze, but seemed to encourage me to get to know the neighbor, Jack, who it turns out was planning a two-week trip up into the front range in late September. I accepted an invitation to join him, and we soon began spending time together, planning our trip in earnest.\nWe committed ourselves to a rigorous regimen of outdoor activities. One early evening, sitting on a boulder with Jack after a particularly grueling hike, he said, “You seem driven, Matty.”\nWe were both out of breath and already more than friends, so I told him. Sort of. The news was riddled with strange reports of bizarre and appalling events. Outbreaks of panic spread like waves through the filaments and fabric of society, the government was gridlocked. Okay, I didn’t really tell him, I just said, “When we go, Jack? Let’s pretend like we’re never coming back.”\n“What about Champ?” He said.\n“Champ can take care of himself,” I said. “When Champ goes, we go too.” Jack was quite sweet on me, because there were times, and this was one of them, when I could tell that he thought I was a little bit crazy.\nA week later, I was waiting in line for something at a discount store, wishing I had grabbed a bottle of water, when someone nudged me from behind. At least, that’s what I thought. When the stranger gave me a second nudge, I turned around and there was a handsome German Shepard sitting patiently behind me with a bottle of water in his mouth. I accepted it, much to the delight of everyone who witnessed the transaction.\nThree days later, when I got home from a dismal day of work, Champ was nowhere to be found. My strong, silent neighbor had no idea where he’d gone either, and I accepted the news with aplomb.\nWhen the dog didn’t return for three days I demanded Jack’s attention. “Are you ready to go to the mountains?” I asked him.\nJack laughed and said no. But he’d be ready in a couple of weeks.\n“Not good enough,” I said. “Be ready in three days or I leave without you.”\nHe looked at the calendar we’d hung on the wall and then at me. “What’s the rush, Matty?”\n“Champ is gone.”" } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Falling Sparks\n\nGenre: coming-of-age\n\nWord Count: 1145\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story about someone witnessing — or trying to witness — a celestial phenomenon." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "A small child sat quietly in a seat with his knees drawn up to his chin. No one sat beside him as the bus steadily lumbered down the uneven pavement. It swayed gently side to side as it traveled mile after mile. In his hands, a photo could be seen. Many creases were visible showing it was held often. Absently, lovingly, he ran his thumb across the picture as his eyes gazed out the window. Impassively, the young boy watched as small towns and neighborhoods gradually changed over to rolling hills and pasture land.\n. .\nThe small child looked up at the woman with solemn, brown eyes. \"I want to see the stars,\" he stated simply. The woman was at the kitchen sink washing dishes for the millionth time. She glanced down with tight, fatigued eyes. \"Why do you want to see the stars?\" she asked.\nThe boy simply repeated, \"I want to see the stars.\" The clock on the wall ticked slowly while he waited for her to reply.\nThe woman watched him a moment longer before returning to the soapy dishes. \"We live in a city. We can't see the stars.\"\nHis brows furrowed as he repeated stubbornly, \"I want to see the stars.\"\nExasperated, the woman turned toward the boy. \"We can't see the stars!\" She exploded. \"We live in a city. There's too much light to see the stars!\" She pointed a soapy, pruned finger towards the postage stamp yard and said tersely, \"Go play outside.\"\nThe young child's heart beat fiercely, a sparrow wildly beating its wings inside his small body. In his hand he clutched a familiar picture. Slowly, as the wings come to trembling stop, the small boy turned and trudged across the worn linoleum.\n. .\nThe bus lurched to a stop. The brakes let out a relieved hiss as the doors are opened. The young child blinks and stands up.\nAs he exits the bus, the driver, an older man with grey stubble and a receding hairline, called to him, \"Hey kid, are your parents meeting you here?\"\nThe boy looked up at the concerned face and gave a small, reassuring smile. \"Yes. They're waiting for me.\"\nUncertain, the driver glanced at the clock, anxious to keep to the bus's schedule. \"I can wait a few minutes for them.\" He peered around the parking lot.\n\"It's okay,\" the child replied with the small smile. \"I'm meeting them right down the road.\" As an afterthought, he remembered to add politely, \"Thank you!\"\nHesitantly, the driver said, \"Okay. If you're sure you'll be alright....\" He paused, still concerned for the young boy. \"Be safe.\"\nThe doors closed and the bus began to sway again as it continued on its journey. The boy's hand dropped back to his side from where he waved bye to the kind, old man. As the bus turned back into the street, the small boy turned and began to walk out of town.\n. .\nIn the tiny yard, the boy sat glummly with his chin resting in his hands. He stared sadly up at the bright blue sky and the lazy, puffy clouds. He held the picture up and looked at it longingly. A resigned sigh left his small body. After some time, a determined light glinted in his eyes and he stood up. Checking his pockets he pulled out a few crumpled bills. Glancing over his shoulder at the small house, he made a decision and strode out of the yard.\n. .\nThe sun was nearing the horizon as the young boy climbed a hill dotted with white flowers. He laid down in the tall grass. As he listened to the calming buzz of insects in the warm fading light, his eyes drifted shut.\nHours later, the young boy twitched and woke with a start. Disoriented in the darkness, he sat up and frantically looked around. As his breathing evened out, he remembered the stars. Wide, hope-filled eyes shot skyward. In\nthe next moment, disappointment gutted his chest.\nThe sky was blanketed in clouds. Slowly at first, tears pricked his eyes. Soon great rivers flooded his cheeks as tremendous sobs wracked his small body. He hugged his knees to his chest as despair raged through his body.\n. .\nThe sky was a washed out blue, clear of all clouds. The young boy stood in a crowd of people. His hands rested at his sides, empty. His aunt was beside him, a hand resting on his shoulder. Intense grief pinched her face. Everyone was wearing black. Sniffles could be heard as a man spoke about tragedies and how brief life can be. After a time the man stopped talking. The boy's aunt moved towards the two caskets. Spying a chair, the young child sat down. Behind him, his Great Grammie leaned forward.\n\"Such a shock,\" she commented sadly. They shared a moment of quiet, watching the people milling about. Suddenly she asks, \"You ever seen a shooting star?\" The young child turned around and shook his head.\nShe smiled gently at the boy. \"When my Da died,\" she began, \"my Ma told me a secret about shootin' stars.\" A pause where she saw the curiosity grow in his dulled eyes. \"I think I can share that secret with you now. Come on closer.\" He quickly scooted closer, leaning forward to hear her. \"My Ma told me that shooting stars are loved ones findin' their way back to the Earth.\" Seeing the confused look on his face, she explained further, \"She told me that when people die, they become stars. And when they're ready to come back to Earth the stars fall.\"\n\"But where do they go when they come back?\" The young child asked, still bewildered.\nA soft smile pulled up at her wrinkles. \"They come back as new life,\" she explained. \"Could be a new born babe or a flitterin' bird. A pretty flower. The soft babble of a brook or the playful breeze pullin' at your hair.\" The old woman leaned back in the hard plastic chair. \"It just depends on where their spark falls.\"\nThe young boy looked back at the two caskets as he thought about the secret his Great Grammie had shared with him.\n. .\nAfter a time, his eyes ran out of tears to cry and he took shuddering breaths. He kept his head pressed into his knees. Every now and again a sob would work is way up and a few more tears would fall. Despair and grief clung to his small shoulders. A breeze ruffled his hair and gently tugged at his shirt. Slowly the boy raised his head and gasped in amazement. Spread out before the hilltop, it seemed to the boy as if the whole sky were spinning. Free of clouds, star after shooting star fell to the earth." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: An Army of Cats\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 2309\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story about an artist whose work has magical properties." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Mavis looked around her makeshift art studio – the place where she would isolate herself from the world for the next month. Stacks of clean canvases waited to be transformed. Brand new paints, pastels and brushes her parents gave her at college graduation last month were neatly arranged in clear plastic bins. Her easel was angled just right to catch the morning sun that streamed in through the large picture window. \n\nIn exchange for house sitting for her aunt and caring for her two cats, Mavis had been gifted this guest room as a place to hone her craft. But where to begin... She tied on her clean new painting smock and looked out the window at the trees, which surrounded the house for miles. She was a 20-minute drive from the nearest town. But she had everything she needed for now, and her aunt had left enough cat food and litter to feed an army of cats. She promised herself she would fill some of these canvasses before she ventured into town to explore and do more shopping. \n\nBut her mind was blank, until she thought of that phrase again -- an army of cats. She looked at Sandy, the beautiful red, black and white calico, who sat patiently watching her from the sunny windowsill; and then at Sylvester, her aunt’s Siamese cat who stood alert, his piercing blue eyes tracking a squirrel in a tree outside the window. It felt as if the two cats were standing guard, waiting for Mavis to pick up a brush and get started. They were her only companions for the month, the only living, breathing things she would see most days. Why not start by painting them?\n\nAs she scanned the paint colors, a vision began to form in her mind. She started with Sandy, combining red and yellow to get the perfect blend, before adding in black and white to recreate the intricate mix of colors that made up her fur coat. Then she focused on Sylvester, mixing up several shades of gray and brown to recreate his regal and muscular body. She stood back and admired what she had done. Now for the rest of the cats. After mixing red, yellow and blue in every possible combination, she painted 10 more cats, all different sizes and shapes and fur patterns. The stars were out by the time she put down her brush.\n\nMavis yawned as she set the canvas to dry, cleaned up, and left the studio. She made herself a light dinner from the groceries she had purchased earlier, sitting alone at the small kitchen table. The house was eerily quiet. After dinner, she moved to the lumpy living room sofa and flipped through the channels on the old TV. She went to sleep feeling alone in the dark house, and grateful for her two companions, who curled up beside her in bed. \n\n***\n\nThe sun came into her room early. The window blinds were open, and stripes of light reflected on the wall in front of her bed. Mavis yawned and stretched before getting up and heading into the bathroom to get ready for the day. As she was brushing her teeth she heard the faraway sound of a cat meowing, and then a sharper sound, almost like a baby crying. That must be Sylvester. Her aunt had warned her that Siamese cats are quite vocal. She got dressed, and by the time she went downstairs, the two cats were both crying anxiously and pacing in front of the front door. What did they want? They were allowed outside, but her aunt said they’d be in the kitchen waiting for food first thing in the morning.\n\nMavis opened the door and yelped in surprise. There were cats, a whole bunch of them, sitting on the front porch and lawn. She scanned the group, counting 8, 9, 10 cats outside, plus her two, made a dozen cats. The hair rose on her arms as she stared at the scene. She slammed the door and ran up to her studio, her whole body trembling. She picked up the picture from the table where it was drying and yes – the cats outside were almost identical to the ones she had painted. She dropped the canvas. Okay, Mavis, calm down. Slow deep breathes. There’s a logical explanation for this. Maybe I saw those cats in town yesterday and just didn’t remember. Or maybe it’s just a big fat coincidence. Sure, it’s possible I drew 10 cats and those exact cats happened to show up at my house the next morning.\n\nBut then something else occurred to Mavis – something that defied logic but seemed the only possible explanation. Maybe anything she painted would appear before her eyes the next day. Maybe she was a witch, or this house was magic, or someone had cast a spell on her paints. There was only one way to find out. Mavis quickly ate breakfast and fed her cats, putting a huge bowl of food and water outside for the others, who had made themselves at home on her front lawn. Then she went back to her art studio. \n\nShe picked up another blank canvas, the same set of paints as yesterday and put on her now-stained smock. But what would she draw? What did she want? Well, there were a lot of things she wanted, but she wasn’t sure how this power worked. Maybe something terrible would happen if she didn’t use it wisely. Isn’t that what always happened in movies? People got too cavalier with their power and the next thing you know they destroyed the world, or an entire population of people was wiped out. Get a grip, Mavis. That’s not going to happen. Just come up with something small and innocent like cats. But what…\n\nThen it came to her, and she smiled. If this worked, it would be a wonderful surprise, and if not, well, hopefully no harm done. Her aunt’s house was drab and dated, the cushions on the tweed couch sagging, the kitchen cabinets were practically falling off the hinges and the front porch railing was falling apart. I’d better not change the front of the house. The neighbors are probably already wondering about the cats. They might get really suspicious if the outside of the house changes visibly overnight. But the inside... She could surprise her aunt with a newly designed living room and kitchen. She just had to picture it and draw it, and with any luck it would turn into reality when she woke up tomorrow. She still had a long month ahead of her in this house, and new furnishings would certainly make it more homey, help her feel less isolated. \n\nMavis already missed her friends terribly, and wondered if she made the right choice staying home instead of going to Europe with them for the month. They were visiting six cities, including London and Paris, staying in youth hostels and travelling by highspeed rail from one adventure to the next. They begged her to go, but she didn’t want to spend the money. Plus, she had promised her aunt months ago that she would house sit before she started her job hunt. It was nice here in the country, especially with all the cats, but her life had gone from one nonstop house party to living alone in the woods in just a few short weeks. What do I have to lose by trying to make this house nicer. Heck, I’m going to paint a picture today anyway, so I might as well try. If it doesn’t work, nobody will know how crazy I am -- except me. \n\nIt was a long day of painting. Mavis wanted every detail to be perfect. She knew her aunt liked calm colors, so she drew the living room in blush tones and grays, with a large comfy sectional sofa and big coffee table with a matching area rug. Plus, one of those big screen TVs and a little bar area where her aunt could keep her bottles of wine and something called Harvey’s Bristol Cream. I don’t even want to know what that tastes like.\n\nFor the kitchen she drew white cabinets and black marbled counters, just like they showed on all the decorating shows. She made an island in the middle with chairs around it, and mixed grays and whites to create stainless steel appliances. She was pleased with the result, and hoped she hadn’t missed anything. She made herself another simple meal, and decided to let in the cats into the house before she went to sleep. They had been making a racket out there on the lawn since it got dark, and she wanted to keep them safe. After all, she had created them. \n\nMavis was woken up not by the light coming through the window, but by the feel of something pressing down on her, and something tickling her face. Her eyes shot open. Seven cats were on the bed with her, one laying on her chest with his tail swaying up and back across her face. Four were cuddled up at her feet and another two were on her pillow, one practically wrapped up in her hair. Okay, the cats are still here. That has to mean something. But what am I going to find when I go downstairs? She felt a bit foolish to think that the living room and kitchen could have transformed. That was a far cry from 10 cats showing up on your lawn. This would be the test of her powers - and how far she could take them.\n\nShe took her time getting ready, afraid to see what may or may not have happened to her aunt’s little cottage. When she finally walked down the stairs, cats moving between her legs and meowing loudly, she blinked twice, unable to believe what she was seeing. The scene in front of her was a real-life version of the picture she painted, right down to the color of the walls and the pattern in the area rug. It looked like a different house, brighter, cleaner and more welcoming. She walked over and sat down on the soft cushions of the large sofa, sinking into it. The cats followed, surrounding her, their hungry mews softening for a moment as they, too, seemed to be processing the changes to the room. Mavis could have sat there all day, but she had a kitchen to see, and many mouths to feed.\n\nWalking from the stylish new living room into the modern kitchen, she took in every detail of the space, details that were at once foreign and very familiar. The kitchen was perfect – every detail replicating her painting. She fed her cats and then sat at the clean new kitchen island to eat her own breakfast before she returned to the comfy sofa to process what had happened over these past two days. She couldn’t believe she was going through all this alone. She desperately wished she could talk to someone about what was happening, but she couldn’t exactly call her friends and try to explain. They’ll think I’ve lost my mine – and it’s quite possible I have. \n\nAn intense wave of loneliness caused a lump in her throat. As she stared at her big-screen TV, the cats purring loudly around her, she felt overwhelmed by weight to this new power she had discovered. She could use it to feed the hungry, to house the homeless, but thinking about that made her brain hurt. She was only 22, and she wasn’t sure what was right, what was ethical or even if her powers would go beyond this small country house. Maybe it was best she didn’t push her luck. But as an idea formed in her mind, she realized what she needed to do. There was risk to the next painting she wanted to draw. Maybe a big risk. But she had to give it a try.\n\nShe left her cats napping on the new couch as she went back upstairs to her studio. She took her third canvas in three days, tied on her painting smock and contemplated what she was about to draw. The decision was made – there was no turning back. She focused on this project more intently than she had ever focused on any painting. \n\nIt was late in the day before she finished. She was hungry and tired, but she felt at peace, prepared to face the consequences of what she had just done. She took one last look at the canvas before she moved it to the same spot she had put the others to dry overnight. Looking back at her were the smiling faces of her four best college friends. They were sitting on the new couch in her living room, surrounded by her 12 cats. The picture had come out exactly how she planned it. But what if something goes horribly wrong? What if I’ve gone too far, trying to manipulate time and space? But she couldn’t let herself think that way. The decision was made, and the paint was already starting to dry. \n\nMavis started to feel better as she ate her dinner and took care of her cats. Before she went upstairs for the night, she straightened up the house for her visitors. As she settled into bed that night surrounded by her cats, she said a little prayer that she would wake up to the doorbell ringing and the squealing voices of her friends. Her logical mind told her it could never happen. This is insane. It doesn’t make any sense. But in her heart, in her soul, she knew they were already on their way, and her summer of magic and adventure was just beginning." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Diary Entry of a Troubled Young Man\n\nGenre: coming-of-age\n\nWord Count: 1018\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story about someone looking for a sign in a dark sky." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Consistency, a fleeting fragment of a component in character that many search so one knows that they took control of their life. I ask, can peace and freedom be found in consistency? How much easier would it be to follow along with those who crave adventure and find their meaning in new skies. New skies are where you can find the new you. Or those who find it all in the moment. A moment where you love yourself because there's nothing but that one moment to go off of.\nI'm not in any of these categories and I lament for myself and others who suffer the same. Will we find ourselves in one later in life or become content with the mess of a person we become?\nI have stared at the same night sky no matter how far I've gong and that consists of thousands of miles and thousands of days. That growth and change that people strive for I never found.\nMeaning, it's come and go, the same with peace. Consistency is not in the cards for me either, despite that same wicked sky. If the end of the world, my world, bring upon a new sky? What a foolish notion.\n\"It's so comfortable, isn't it?\" I ask the man standing next to me as we overlook the moon casting its reflection off the lake. The scene was so tranquil I found it suffocating. This is not usual. The moon full night always released me with this being the only exception. A young man like me who holds good character closer than blood and family finds this struggle inevitable. It's because I follow an abstract dream I don't understand.\nThere are times I want to join the others, the parties, the drinking, the foolishness. The dirty jokes and swearing and fighting. But I'm too far from them despite my desire to be closer. Consistently a contradiction. At least I'm that. But not comfortable.\n\"No,\" the man answers. \"The night can't be comfortable for you tonight.\"\nI laugh, \"why not? It usually works. All the weight I can release with a breath. Not this particular night, though.\"\n\"Stop talking like that, no one knows what you are saying,\" he said in an amused tone.\n\"I think it's weird too, I... Just find it easier to talk to you like that.\"\n\"You sleep when it's day and come to life at night to look at the sunlight bouncing off the moon. You should fix your sleep schedule.\"\n\"I would if it was that easy.\"\n\"You're right. It's not easy. That's why the night cannot be easy for you just like how the day cannot.\"\n\"But the day life is too much,\" I whined with a smile.\nI've bounced from school to school, job to job, and failed so many times. It's been so long I don't even want success. The only feeling I want I get when I sit by the lakeside and talk to this man. He makes fun of me sometimes, but I know he loves these moments we exchange. I would like to exchange more moments like this with him, maybe then I would receive more guidance. A bit more clarity or even blind peace would be nice.\nNo, this man won't allow anything to blind me. Every word and action of his has profound meaning.\nThe waters look so dark. The stars cannot be seen in them yet they're so bright this night. I'm not even in the water but it terrified me.\n\"I'm afraid,\" I say.\n\"So am I.\"\n\"What are you afraid of?\"\n\"You will sail off one day and there will be nights where you only see black waters and a sky with no light. The stars will be concealed in thick clouds and the moon will hide from your eyes.\"\nI sought the meaning in the words and failed to find them. He was speaking so plainly, which was uncommon, so why?\n\"It will be you and the boat, and the powers of chaos will envelop you. A challenge like no other, one you are destined to fail.\"\n\"Now you are talking all weird,\" I said half-heartedly. My voice was as obstructed as my vision.\nHis smile was so pained I couldn't help myself. The man did not embrace me, so I found no comfort in my tears.\n\"A deep ocean, much deeper than this lake before you and a sky that stretches farther than any evil. Evil always finds a way in this universe and that evil will come for you. This is not about you maturing, this about your prayer coming true.\"\nHe's right. I asked the Father for something. That request and all the details are between us and the man.\n\"Why will I fail?\"\n\"I know you don't comprehend my words right now but the answer to that question, you already know.\"\n\"He will succeed.\"\nA single cloud covered the moon and there was only the starlight in this part of night.\nThe man was gone.\nI have no control over consistency, neither peace nor freedom. No paddle to direct the boat and I was too terrified to use my hand in the water. Life pushed me around like the moon's pull against the waves. So many factors come before me and a choice I want to make that I realize I'm at the bottom of the hierarchy.\nTime, space, matter, events, other people. . . God. All of these have an influence on my reality before I have a say. Even if I interpret the world, it only becomes an option after the world does what it wants. Then there's God, the one at the top of order. He came to speak with me and now I'm left in the water alone without His light.\nIs this a coming-of-age story?\nI'd be upset if it was just that. There's too many of these dark skies for me to accept it. Maybe it is and I'm being stubborn.\nI'm once again left alone, knowing nothing and looking for answers in a dark sky. A dark existence." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Kitchen Sink\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 1069\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story where a regular household item becomes sentient." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. I’ve been here for a long time. Too long; I struggle to remember how many days it has been. I’m not the only one here. Some came before me, others came after, but only a few have gotten out. Even then, they soon enough returned, and I’ve come to expect that we never will escape. We’re making our rounds, not being set free.\nThis is an awful place. She knows it, too; she rarely visits except to sentence another prisoner, or tease one of us that she finds temporary use for. That might be what disturbs me the most; she knows this is awful, yet when she sees that this is so, she quickly looks away. \nI envy her for that. That she can look away from us, from this self-inflicted burden, is a privilege. We cannot look away. We can only sit, and rot.\nI’ve been here long enough that I stopped kidding myself that there was an end to all this, or a meaning. If there is meaning, anyhow, I don’t much care to know it. What good will it do me? I’ll still be where I am, only uselessly enlightened. And if ignorance is bliss, I mustn’t be ignorant, for I am far from blissful.\nI pity the younger fools who remain hopeful and pondering, because I was once like them, and soon they shall be like me. To those who are older and wiser than I, I humble myself in sorrow. Someday I will be like them, and I can only imagine what it will do to me.\nThere are many awful things about this place. The smell, for one. It is rancid and foul. For a while you’ll retch and retch. You’ll stop eventually, not because it has gotten any better, but because you are tired.\nWe don’t just smell filthy, we are. We’re filthy when we get here, and it only accumulates over time. Your filth seeps into my filth and has a filthy little baby, and mine into yours and so on and so on. Layer upon layer, I hardly recognize who and what I once was. There is more of it than of me. \nAnd yet, eventually, you get used to it. It is awful and it is the truth. You come to know the smell and the filth. I wonder if I’d feel unnatural without it, like a teenager who just had their braces removed and can’t stop running their tongue over the smooth surface of their teeth. You get used to it because you have to, there is no other way, no choice in the matter.\nThat’s another thing I envy, you know. She has a choice, and again and again she makes it: she leaves us here. In my eyes, she painted on our grime herself, with a brush and a pallet and a tilted French beret. \nI write this sitting in the kitchen sink. She’ll see it, she’ll have to. Call it wishful thinking, or maybe the filth has seeped into my mind and caused it to rot. She’ll come by, though, and she’ll see. It’s glaring, my filth, and this message I’ve scrawled into it. \nLoretta should go to bed, she knows this. She knew this an hour ago, and the hour before that. Each time she looked at the clock she looked away with guilt, knowing the hour she’d have to arise was coming nearer and dreadfully nearer. Later she’ll say the time slipped away from her, but it hasn’t; she’s let go, but it hasn’t gone anywhere.\nShe finally turns the television off at 3:48, an hour and forty-two minutes before her alarm is to sound, blaring the fuzzy recording of a Beatles song she comes to hate more each time she hears it. She keeps the television on for background noise, she says, and always falls into its cleverly designed seduction regardless. By some strange phenomenon, an episode of Friends proved substantially more enticing than her neverending vault of work emails. \nLoretta shuts her computer, which she hadn’t been minding much anyway. Both distractions gone, their emanating light no longer disrupting her melatonin levels, she should be off to bed now.\nBut now she realizes how comfortable she’s become. Her designated spot on the couch cradles her just right, sagging in her shape. The thick blanket she settled under has become her cocoon. She stares into the darkness. It reveals nothing to her, and it is mesmerizing. \nWhen she does sit up, soreness creeps into her neck, back, and legs. She stretches it away the best she knows how. It only works a little.\nShe stands up slowly, but caution doesn’t fight off the blood that rushes away from her head and down her body. Now the darkness does reveal something to her: a sky full of stars…\nAs the galaxy fades away, the stars blinking out just as quickly as they revealed themselves, Loretta reaches for the string of the lamp beside the couch. A warm light washes over the room, and although it is dim it takes a moment for Loretta’s eyes to adjust. When they do, she is staring at the imprint she has left in the couch cushions. She throws the blanket over it so she doesn’t have to look at it anymore. \nShe gathers several dirty dishes the coffee table has collected throughout the day. She takes them to the kitchen sink and sees that it is full. She also sees something else.\nOne of the plates, on top of some and half-hidden by others (dirty in a way that will likely never scrub off) catches her eye. She means to look away, but something on the plate—once it served a terrific lasagna (or was it sublime?)—interests her. \nShe comes closer, even though the smell makes her stomach turn. She blinks several times, but cannot blink any sense into what she is seeing. It's as though someone with strikingly tiny handwriting has drawn out a message in the filth!\nLoretta considers this silently, then decides it must be a hallucination, and that she really should be going to bed now. She stacks the dishes in her hand over the one she was looking at. She regards the pile with a lump in her stomach, thinking how quickly these things accumulate. Then Loretta looks away quickly, and is off to bed." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Relic\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 1380\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story where the laws of time and space begin to dissolve." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Caleb observes every detail as space and time perish. \nReality is constructed on an ambiguous paradigm, a wild architecture reflecting the works of men scrambling to make sense of the unknown. \nEvery block is disorderly and mad.\nPast the corrugated warehouse walls and streets, indulged in tenebrous garages, are broken automobiles risen with hydraulic lifts. Flickering incandescent lights ping and tick until burning out with an audible pop. \nThrough worn weeds, there are coiled vines. Dark thread connected pole-by-pole spun and wrapped like tightly webbed kite string. \nShattered and hollow bottles mingle with adolescent toys, used needles, and moldy orange rinds.\nA crescent-shaped rictus glistens from a shattered street lamp, and a cyclone of insects drifts down in a steady helix. \nIn the shadows lies used condoms, splintered crates, rotting meat infested with maggots, broken glass, and useless household artifacts. \nA realm beyond all fantasy. \nMalevolant, tactile and dissociative.\nBlown lightbulbs, skull-colored and vaguely translucent.\nBeyond, in the dark gutters, runs a fecal ooze stinking of human waste and rotting fish guts. \nThe city is beset with all things unknown. Charcoaled factory walls of darkened brick. Boot and tire imprints grown with weeds. A coarse and pungent foul indigo drainage where cataclysmic tides of teal dross sway in rusty sewer pipes caked in muck.\nIn the stillest moments, the madness can be felt and heard.\nTime passes without remorse. \nFlesh. \nBone. \nLife decaying unto death. \nEverywhere.\nCaleb knew that beneath the facade of the material lies a truth yet to be discovered.\nA relic hidden in the mystery of perception. \n***\nPast hardware stores, meat markets, and little tobacco shops is a strong smell of food in the hot noon like working mash. \nMute faces watch from dirty glass windows. \nCaleb observes a cacophony of bums and beggars and wild street preachers. They scream of a lost world and the impending punishment for those unsaved. \nHe admires them with their hot eyes and dogeared bibles. \nGod's barkers that have gone forth into the world like the prophets of old. \nHe stands along the crowd's edge for some stray scrap of news. Still, he recounts nothing but moss-pasted stones and conspicuous passageways. \nCaleb passes the main city crowd to find aged brick walls, jagged and plummed by harsh weather. \nHe eyes the city graveyard. \nThin dark trees, through forged iron bars, collect the metropolis of the dead.\nSlanted construction, bizarre and oblique, cross-shaped stones whose names grow pale and dull with years. \nA celestial body packed with decaying samples of a mortician's trade. \nCaleb regards each one of them. \n“We recall neither birth nor death,” he says.\nHe still knows their stories and their timelines.\n“Death,” he mutters. “All roads lead here.”\nDusty bones, rot, and death. \n***\nA grumbling backdrop of faint summer lightning swallows the darkness momentarily before vomiting it back out. \nA delicate downpour follows.\nCaleb sits against the wall of a worn sarcophagus to keep dry.\nIn the quiet moments of rainfall, he hears their cries. \n“Even insects can scream,” he says. \nSomething so small that it's practically invisible to the naked eye. The birth pangs of this creature shall soon coil up into something segmented and black from the darkest recesses of the earth. As it slips inside, the aphid cannot articulate the agony.\nIn its dying moments, it attempts to scurry up a nearby tree stem and take refuge in one of its fleshy leaves. It gathers company with an ant feeding on the aphids' honey. \nTheir bent antennae touch momentarily. \nWhatever small beast that possesses the aphid burrows grotesquely into the ant.\nAn action so natural and insignificant.\n“The magic all around,” Caleb says. “Nature.”\nCaleb regards the aphid as it erupts with a minuscule and pressurized hiss. The ant skitters back to its hill and disappears.\nOnce the rain stops, Caleb saunters past the graveyard towards the city's underbelly.\nThe drunks and homeless are huddled in sporadic areas like mere statues. Beyond them, a sea of walls, abandoned alleys, and car lots. \nShadows make a monochromatic gothic harp of even darker corridors beyond. \nCaleb opens the manhole and descends like any other sandhog. \n***\nThe insects are so heavy at dusk that they scratch about like wildcats wandering for prey. The torrid depths swirl with colonies of parasites and savage rats. Their glowing eyes and buzzing torments trace Caleb’s every move. \nThe spiders below are hairy or bald and naked. The clustered water pools harbor collections of amphibian puppets splashing about like reckless theater marionette dancers, the arachnid’s silk torn amid their rampant play. \nWretched bats dangle in bunches like clusters of furry black fruit. A tapping of unending water plays throughout the underworld like the temperamental oscillation of ringing church bells. \nThe flint of a rusty zippo sparks and ignites in the dark. \nDragonfruit orange circumvented by an acetylene blue ridge lights Caleb’s pale face. \nHe stares until his eyes burn while the crisp air works at the flame's subtle decay. \nOccasionally, he presses a rubber-coated flashlight button, steadying the beam long enough to observe the unfamiliar surroundings. \n“I feel you closer,” he says.\nHe stops to catch his breath and then again pushes the button to illuminate a filthy basilica. Above him, muddy arches are scratched by vampire bats. \nVomit-colored sewage percolates through fault lines, and dark pipes stick out like rotting organs from the city's wretched underbelly. \nA grim slime slithers and oozes quietly. Archaic stone walls lie in decay; half fossilized with chipped concrete. \nLimestone fixtures perish in an endless void where only creatures of the dark are familiar. Occasionally, he passes a trace of abandoned utility work where the terrain was unfit for men to brace the outlines of civilization.\nCaleb finds a cracked bucket surrounded by bones. He does not know to what or whom the chastened pieces may have once belonged. Their origin was contaminated and lost by the chittering teeth of voracious creatures having gnawed and dropped the pieces once they were absent of flesh. \nHis grimy boots slosh through the swampy mouth of a hidden cave.\n“Closer,” he says. “Ah…there you are.”\n***\nIn a skull wriggles a slick centipede. Brown fibrous hairs flail and tether to the cracked marrow with lengthy brown tentacles. It slithers in and out in criss-crossed stitching through cracked orbital eye sockets. \nCaleb’s shaky hands drop the skull, and it clatters on a jagged rock, smashing the centipede's body like a broken train. \nHe brushes aside the squirming centipede. He cleans the relic in a puddle and cuts the light to carefully feel the skull in both palms.\nCaleb finds an archaic church pew bench, rests his weary legs, and observes the discovery in greater depth. Neither bird nor cat, he concludes. Something more familiar. Perhaps, he considers, someone. \n“At last…the timekeeper,” he says.\nHe explores further and notices the cave corridor draws to a stony impasse in which the walls seem to terminate simultaneously. \n“What comes next?”\nCaleb pulls his flashlight to study the dark arches of oblivion. \nHe looks at the wet ceiling. \nThe crescendo of his heart makes him dizzy.\n“And here…,” he stutters. “…we go…”\n***\nBefore him lies the most terrible place he has ever seen. \nHis senses are mysteriously heightened. The flashlight bulb feels like a scorching fire.\nThe faint breeze becomes a brazen gust. \nDrip drops from a distant void resurrect a cacophony of thuds.\nSomething inhuman pushes his trembling body forward. \nCaleb’s quivering hand drops the flashlight to the ground. \nHe frantically recovers the lighter from his pocket. \nThe dancing flame reveals the baptismal lake a few strides beyond, clear and pure. \nVoid of filth. \nCaleb's rigged limbs stiffen and flex as he's pulled nearly chest-deep in the ice-cold waters. \nThe skull begins to soften and break. \nAn aqueous solution slips through his fingers like a grainy ooze.\nThe water begins to glow.\nA bright pearl opalescence. \nCaleb shudders at his reflection. \nHe moans.\nHe hollers. \nHis face begins to sag and loosen. \nCaleb’s skin wrinkles and folds over itself.\nHis eyes flake and turn to ash. \nThe last thing he hears before the world goes black is his own scream. \n***\nTime ceases. \nSpace folds in on itself.\nReality crumbles.\nNothing remains but a relic.\nIt should never be found." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: All is Well\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 1362\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story where your character is travelling a road that has no end." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The road has no end. Trying to make amends with my past. I make off-handed remarks to the intangible camera that follows my weary step. There is nothing left. I am tired. Hungry, weary and lost. I have paid the cost. I can’t shoulder the weight of my struggles standing still. I have to move. Aimless feet point west. Night falls on me like a leaden blanket. It is as heavy as it’s ever felt. It’s as dark as I have ever seen. Eerie. Haunting. Alone yet unafraid. I am the thespian that strayed from the stage. I was once filled with rage. It was everyone else’s fault. They were to blame for my demise. Eyes search the fallow ground for a place to rest. My strength is tested. I crested a steep rise, and before my eyes could adjust I saw, on the horizon of my vision, an incision of light.\nI stand tall, like my back is against a wall. My neck is straight. Tall. Proud. A warm feeling, like a shaft of light, filters from my head to my feet. I peer into the distance. There is no resistance, just like moments before. I hear a voice. A sweet song. A siren’s plaintive cry. Is it a hello or goodbye? I lean into the night. Lend the darkness to my ear. I hear her faint tune. All too soon. All too soon. \n A distant sound startles my senses. I step hesitantly forth. One weary step after another. My pace quickens. My blood thickens. My heart is racing. I trace the lines of beauty across the sky. I try to defy expectations and push on, but the song has stopped. The light has vanished. I lay down to rest. Blessed be sleep to a weary traveler. \nI sleep peacefully. I dream of a well in the middle of a glade. Surrounded by rosebush and briar. Thirsty. I desire to taste the sweet refreshing water, but I am hesitant. Unsure how to proceed. I need to be loved. I need to be needed, but I have had my chances. Romance is illusory. Faith is a selfish desire for life everlasting. Yet, here, at this place I feel alive. I am renewed with purpose. I draw the water. Wisely and justly I sip delicately. I woke up. It seemed but for a moment, now the sun was tormenting my eyes. \nI had nothing to eat. Ragged and dirty. Smelly and ill-kempt. I never meant for it to be this way. Life I mean. Dreams are just dreams. I swing into a gait. I relate the experience of the night before and conclude that it was because of a weary and ravaged soul that I thought I saw and heard. I tell myself. I saw a light. I heard a voice. The doubt riddled my mind and tried to rewind the images, but they were lost in motion. I wish. I hope so. If only. Perhaps. These are the words that have haunted my existence. It was a moment before I realised that I had shed a tear. Thoughts, as they often do, assailed me there and then. Left. Right. Left. Right. I shall walk forever.\nHow I came to be walking this road is of little significance to you. Where I am going, and how I will get there, less so. I know no other way than to record my journey. Perhaps my beginning will be the end. I have wronged, and been wronged. I have loved, and been loved. I have tried to navigate the pitfalls of my dilemma, yet have failed. I am a failure. I seek redemption. \nWiser teachers and scribes than I have burdened their fair share of woe. On it goes. Throughout history the mystery is never solved. Why? There is no answer that satisfies a redeeming conscience. The choice is here and now. It is always now. Do or don’t do. If only it was so easy. Yet, I have plenty to learn about myself. About others. About life. I can’t do that where I come from. I must move. I can’t be there. Not with them. Not now. They wouldn’t understand. \nAlmost two years now. For almost two years I have wandered, at first glance, aimlessly across the country. Yet it is with purpose, and a powerful sense of self that I persist. Her kiss was sweet. Her smell exotic. Her touch erotic, though it wasn’t enough. I need to know why. Why? My sphere of influence had changed. No longer do I pretend to agree. I don’t smile and nod without virtue. I am more honorable and noble than I have ever been. I do not deceive, and am not put upon. I don’t buy into others lies about themselves, about loved ones, about life. \nThere are no more artificial transactions. I am free. I AM FREE. I rest my body on a bank of tilled grass and stare at the sky. The majesty of the night. A shooting star entices me to make a wish, but I refuse. That would be selfish. I wonder. I dream. I imagine. Life is but a moment. I am just a traveler. I am no one special. I breathe. I feel. I love. I lust. I yearn. I see beauty in the shapes of things. Lines define the difference between the moral and immoral. Good and bad. Happy and sad. Just and unjust. I try to understand. I listen. I discuss. I learn. I burn with desire and passion. I empathize. I have compassion. Yet I possess all that is not so righteous and holy. \nI try not to judge, but judge I do. I try not to hate, yet oftentimes the desire to hate overwhelms me. I try not to lust but then I see beauty in the shape of things. I don’t believe in sin. I believe in right and wrong. I feel the difference. I live in accordance with what is right. I try to resist temptation, yet at times I am weak. I speak for none. I care for everyone. I don’t pray, yet I offer words to the world and whosoever should hear them. No. They wouldn’t understand. They just wouldn’t understand. \nI am always seeing the light. A figment of my imagination. An illusion. A mind intrusion. I resist the urge to return home. The place where I was most alone. I am different. They defined me. I was living to a predetermined definition of who I am. Gram by gram, my weight shifted. Thought by thought, my mind altered. I outgrew them. As egotistical as that sounds. I grounded myself in their reality. The totality of which restricted my growth. Perhaps, I am too sentimental. I couldn’t resist the urge to leave. \nI have suffered heartache and misery. Cold nights. Long days. Lonely nights. Lonely days. I have suffered hunger and misery. I know what it means to me, but it's hard to explain. Who I am is important to me. As is my reputation. I consider myself honorable and virtuous, but there is work to do. I want to be better. I need to be better. I feel my way through the world. I offer kindness, and compassion. My presence goes unnoticed, and I am content with being so. I would have it no other way. I am searching for meaning. I am looking for myself. It’s not out there. The material world has no answers to who I am. None whatsoever. Those answers dwell within. In my heart, and my thoughts which are reflected in my actions. \nBleary eyed and hungry. I grimace. I walk through the night. The moon is high. A bronze disc in a clear sky. A cool breeze blows. I am invigorated. I am happy. Though I am tired and the road is long, I believe in myself. I believe in my journey. I have a story to tell, but I fear it is not one you want to hear. I will leave you with this. Although the road, unlike my journey, has no end, all is well with my world, all is well." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Candlelight Vigil\n\nGenre: coming-of-age\n\nWord Count: 2338\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story about someone who has been tasked to keep a flame burning, surrounded by total darkness." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The tomb door slammed shut behind her.\nSee you at sunrise.\nAnnalise repeated her little brother’s goodbye into the still, musty air with visible breaths. Each time, she found the words a bit more comforting and a lot bitterer. Of course, he would say that. This was not his duty.\nShe clutched the candleholder tighter and pushed forward into the dark. With each step, plaques bearing the names of her ancestors were illuminated and quickly shrouded again. She barely paid the ones nearest to the door any mind. Their births and deaths were long before her; she’d known none of them. Walking by them was no more difficult than strolling down the street on a warm summer’s day.\nArthur Whitegrove II\nJanuary 12, 1920 – March 30, 2005\nHer great-grandfather. She’d been no older than five when he left them, but his stories and laughter still rang in her mind sometimes.\nThe candle flame twitched. She kept her pace steady.\nMary Anne Whitegrove\nMay 20, 1943 – August 3, 2017\nGrandmama. She was a terrible baker, but her jokes about it made the cakes sweeter. They hadn’t baked a cake since.\nThe flame twitched again, and Annalise gritted her teeth. She wouldn’t waver so easily. She quickened her pace, though her destination was only a few feet away. She didn’t need the light of the candle to find it; the perfume of the flowers and incense guided her.\nPaper crinkled under her foot as she came to a stop, and she grimaced. She’d apologize to Henry later for stepping on his letters, or maybe not tell him at all. He was already going to cry tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. Why make it worse for herself and Mom?\nThe final plaque glowed in the warm light the candle threw, golden and gleaming. Yet, a spider-like chill crept up her skin, raising goosebumps in its wake.\nColin Whitegrove-Hart\nNovember 22, 1975 – December 15, 2023\nDad. Annalise swallowed that chill threatening to come up her throat and ruin everything as the candle flame burned brighter. It grew taller, and thicker, burning wildly for an instant before she dug her nails into her palms, and it fell down. It kept burning like it’d never pitched a fit at all.\nShe could practically hear her old man laugh and say, “That fire almost got as red as your hair!”\nIf he were here, truly here, she’d scoff and say he was just jealous. At least she had hair. Besides, he loved red hair. He’d married her mom, after all.\n“Let’s do this,” she whispered to herself as she slowly sat down on the floor, her black coat spreading around her like a pool of ink. It blended so well with the pitch-dark of the tomb, that she thought she might actually look like a candle if someone could see her. A speck of orange emerging from the blackness, just as warm and fragile.\nSee you at sunrise.\nAs much as she wished Henry could be the one in her, his wails would’ve put the candle out before they could even close the door. Everything would be lost, then, and he’d cry even harder. She’d probably cry, too. So would Mom, and that would be more terrifying than all the eyes of the dead on her right now.\nNo, it had to be her. Not just because Henry was too emotional, too sad. She was the oldest, just like Dad had been when Grandmama died. He hadn’t been her firstborn like she was to him; he’d just been the only one to outlive her. Mom had arranged the funeral perfectly like she did everything, and Henry had written the letters and picked the flowers for Dad to take with him.\nNow, Annalise had to guard his flame. While his soul used the cover of night to journey to the afterlife, she would protect it by keeping the candle alight. From what, she was never a hundred percent sure. She was sealed in a quiet tomb for the night, with only ashes and cobwebs for company. When Dad went through with his guard for Grandmama, she’d tried to ask questions. What had happened? Had anything happened? Did he see her leave?\nBut his eyes had been red and his throat dry, and he’d only patted her head and gone to sleep.\nShe glanced around a few times and scowled. Yeah, she was definitely alone. If anyone else had come in, she would’ve heard the heavy tomb door open. With a shrug, she pulled the candle close and opened her bag. Since she couldn’t sleep during the guard, she’d brought a book, a snack, and a thermos of coffee to last her the night. The clock on her phone read 11:00 PM.\nShe cracked into her book.\n#\nAt midnight, the whispers started.\nAnnalise took a breath, the candle burning brighter and higher again in front of her. It was nothing. If she ignored them, the candle stayed lit; if the candle stayed lit, they couldn’t hurt her. They couldn’t hinder Dad’s departure.\nShe turned the page of her book, though she hadn’t even read it, and tapped her finger on the spine.\nHow can a dead person get ready for a trip? Her own voice drifted from the darkness, six years younger than the fifteen she had now.\nShe tapped faster and reread the page. She’d read this story a hundred times before. She’d hoped the familiarity would keep her strong. For once, the words felt droll and hollow.\nThe body doesn’t, sweet pea.\nShe plucked a speck of dust from her coat and the flame danced, higher but still burning proudly.\nThe body is…empty. Grandmama’s not in it anymore. But she’s not ready to leave just yet, so I have to make sure she’s got a safe road to travel.\nThe flame spat and the wind rattled outside, scraping along the stone of the family tomb. Annalise flinched and risked a glance up, locking eyes on the darkness where her grandmother’s plaque was. She felt ridiculous as soon as she did and pressed a hand to her pounding heart.\n“Idiot,” she muttered under her breath, looking away. “What did you expect to see? A freaking zombie?”\nShe reached for her book again, only to freeze as she looked at the candle. The flame was lower, a small pool of wax solidifying under it. What? How? She’d only looked away for a second!\nShe pulled it closer as if it were possible to soothe whatever tantrum it was throwing by holding it. She was only an hour in. She wouldn’t— She couldn’t fail this early!\nWhat’s the candle for? the monster in the dark asked. It was still using her voice, his voice, their voices from that day.\nIt’s like a lantern or a…lighthouse. How did it so perfectly copy the smile in her father’s voice? It lights the way so Grandmama can find the other side. Once the sun rises, I’ll be back.\nThe candle’s flame had regained strength, but as soon as it did, a brush of warm air met her forehead. Annalise closed her eyes and took several breaths, uncaring about the hot, melting wax on her fingers as she clutched the candle. It was just a poor copy of the real forehead kiss from that day. It meant nothing.\nThe rest of the hour was silent.\n#\nAt three, there were more than whispers.\nSomething seized her shoulders and she yelped, the grip strong and warm and unnervingly familiar. The flame before her started to lean over, flickering rapidly like a whip lashing. She shuddered and tried to keep reading her book.\nAnnalise, look at me.\nShe read the same sentence over and over again, white-knuckled hands trembling. Go away, she pleaded. You’re just pretending to be a memory.\nLook at me!\nThe hands shook her, almost knocking the book loose, and she gasped. No, no, don’t falter! Don’t fail! Don’t acknowledge!\nYou shouldn’t have snuck in there, do you understand me? It’s dangerous! You could’ve— What if the door had closed behind you? We might not have found you!\nShe shook her head, only to realize with a chill that was exactly as she’d done back then. She couldn’t play into it!\nThe wax puddle grew, the flame dimming.\nI’m okay, Dad. \nShe wasn’t.\nI didn’t see anything.\nShe had.\nLike something bloated and rotten, an image floated to the surface of her mind. She tried to push it away, tried to replace it, but it demanded her attention. Whole and undivided, she was forced to see.\nThe family tomb lit golden with sunlight from the open door behind her, yet the very air had been icy and unwelcoming. If every grave had eyes, she’d thought they’d all be glaring at her, accusing her or anyone who dared to show their face that morning. Her shadow cast long across the floor, stopping only a few feet from where she sat now, cloaking the ugly truth.\nA half-burned candle had stared back at her, its wick extinguished sometime in the night, trapping her grandmother’s spirit in the dark forever. The tension had grown thick and choking as she stared at it and felt that it stared back.\nGo on, she thought it might whisper, tell your father. Tell him you know he failed.\nShe barely managed to choke down a sob. Leaning over the candle, hands pressed flat to the floor on either side of it, she ached. It bloomed in her chest, a poisonous weed that spread too fast for her to stop it; pain crept up her throat, along her spine, and over the back of her head until it pierced her eyes. They stung, threatening to shed tears and ruin everything.\nThe flame had steadied, but it was still so small.\nHer father had failed, but she wouldn’t. She had to give him the peace he hadn’t been able to give Grandmama. After everything, he deserved that, right?\nShe wasn’t sure how long she knelt like that, just trying to breathe, protecting the flame with her own body. The voices in the blackness had turned into white noise for a bit, fragments of mocked memories that meant nothing. She opened her eyes and watched the small flame dance.\nPut it out.\nShe sat up. That voice was Dad’s. Had the monster stopped using memories and decided frank confrontation was necessary?\nShe glanced around. “We don’t have much longer until sunrise. Are you going to show yourself?”\nSweetpea…\n“Guess not.” She dusted herself off and reached for her book. “Have fun then.”\nYou know it’s me.\nShe ignored it and flipped open the book, taking a long swig from her coffee thermos.\nAnnalise Whitegrove, pay attention to your father.\n“You’re not my father,” she replied with a shrug. She glanced at her phone and breathed a silent sigh of relief. Twenty minutes to go.\nFor five minutes, the monster didn’t speak.\nI put your grandmother’s candle out on purpose.\nShe dropped the thermos, red blinding her for a moment like the flame had exploded outward. “Liar!” she screamed, jumping to her feet.\nThose words had broken open the dam. How dare this thing in the dark accuse her father of that? How dare it say he had damned his mother intentionally? She started to pace around the candle, wishing she could see the monster, touch it so that she could beat it to a bloody pulp.\nHer father had been good! He had been kind! He had loved his mother, and her, and their whole family! He’d been the guard for every one of his siblings he’d lost because Grandmama couldn’t stand to do it. He sang to her when she was sick until she laughed and coughed. He helped Mom in the garden and always praised her cooking, even if she burned it. He comforted Henry when he was still prone to night terrors and kept them all up.\nSomeone like that wouldn’t destroy his mother’s rest.\nI’m not a liar. I put it out because she asked me to. Like I’m asking you to.\n“Why?” she demanded, still pacing. She couldn’t believe she was entertaining this thing.\nShe felt she didn’t deserve the peace because she couldn’t guard for Pop, James, Lena, or Evie. She begged me to. I should have refused, but I didn’t.\n“Then why won’t you let me refuse?” Annalise’s pacing slowed, her heart sinking to her stomach. The longer this thing talked, the more it sounded like Dad.\nMa’s all alone in the dark because of me, sweet pea. It’s only fair I keep her company. A laugh rang in the air, making all those tears she’d managed to force back rush to her eyes. The laugh was real and warm, despite the cold request. Misery loves company, right?\n“Dad…” She fell back on the ground and stared at the candle, helplessly watching as it dimmed bit by bit. “That wasn’t your fault, though. Grandmama made her choice!”\nAnd I’ve made mine. The voice was calm and steady, not a hint of fear. A presence grew around her, and she clung to it, wrapping her arms around herself like he used to. Make yours.\nShe glanced at her phone. Five minutes.\nThis was what he wanted? Truly? To be lost forever? Wouldn’t he rather be with Grandpapa and his siblings? Wouldn’t Grandmama rather have him there?\nAnd what about her? Mom? Henry? If he let himself be swallowed by the dark, they’d never see him again either. The phantom love she squeezed in her arms would vanish completely.\nShe’d have to live with it, too, knowing she was the one who damned him. A bitter cycle could start, one where she also begged her children to snuff the light out because she deserved it. And if her family ever found out… Especially poor Henry…\nOn the floor, her phone showed only one minute left.\nSee you at sunrise." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Peter the Polar Bear\n\nGenre: coming-of-age\n\nWord Count: 1064\n\nPrompt:\n\nSet your story during polar night." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Chloe the Polar Bear and Monk the Polar Bear were walking on the ice by the water. They were holding hands. There were 37 bears in their grade at school, and Chloe was the first female to lose her virginity. Some of the bears were saying mean things about her. But she didn't care much. In a way, for her it was a badge of pride. She did not love Monk. And some females might say his face was a little odd. But he had a heavy snout, and most of the male bears were a little afraid of him. He was 1100 pounds. He and Chloe had done it about 50 times. And they would do it many more, as far as Chloe was concerned. They sat down on the ice and looked across the water. Monk did not put his paw around Chloe.\n\n\n\nPeter the Polar Bear was watching them. He was near a small hole of water, pretending to look for fish. He stole a glance at the back of Chloe's neck, and wondered what it would feel like to press his snout against it. She was very small, even for a female. In school, Peter would stare at her behind whenever she walked in front of him, where the fur was short - female polar bears have short fur on their backside, relative to males. Chloe got good grades in school. Monk not so much. But Chloe liked her trouble, too, thought Peter.\n\n\n\nMonk said something that made Chloe roar a little, and then he brushed his paw against her hind leg. High up on her hind leg. Chloe roared gently, and turned her head, and looked right at Peter, who was looking right at her.\n\n\n\n\"Are you watching us?\" she called.\n\n\n\nPeter's face burned. Monk looked at him, but didn't say anything. Peter looked back down at the water, pretending he was searching for fish. His face was on fire. He turned and crawled away.\n\n\n\n\"What a creep.\" said Chloe. And Monk put his paw around her.\n\n\nI probably made her week, thought Peter with a nervous chuckle. Underneath her pretend outrage, she loves the attention.\n\n\nPeter headed towards his favorite fishing hole. He needed something to eat right now. His face was still a little flushed. There was a colony of belugas not too far from from his fishing hole, which gave the water, and the fish who drank the water, a strange taste. Many polar bears said the taste was like eating walrus fur. But Peter liked it. And it was almost always empty there, unless there were no fish in any of the main hunting areas. Whenever Peter saw another bear there, he would wait for it to leave. He'd rather stay hungry than have to talk to another bear while hunting.\n\n\nIt was very dark, but Peter liked that. He didn't like when that big ball of light came into the sky. When it did, all the polar bears gathered and had a celebration. Winston the Polar Bear would conduct a ceremony honoring the great ball of light in the sky. He said it was the eye of The Great Ice Lord. Winston said that if you live by the commandments of The Great Ice Lord, then after you die He will freeze you into a block of ice, and you will be delivered to His kingdom. And if you don't, you'd be trapped in boiling water for all eternity. Peter thought Winston was a little odd.\n\n\nPeter saw Cassandra the Polar Bear coming in his direction. Cassandra was not as petite as Chloe, and not as popular, but she didn't look half-bad, if you looked at her from the right angle. Peter changed course slightly so he would cross her path. He approached her confidently. Not something he did often - but there was no one else around, and he felt something stirring in him. She was looking off to the right, at nothing in particular. Her fur was very white. Peter walked straight to her, and sniffed her back-side. She kept walking, half-sniffed him for just a second, and kept on going. Hardly even slowed down. Peter turned and looked back at her. He saw her backside, where her fur was shorter. He liked that, how short the fur was. For a second he thought about sprinting at her. There was no one anywhere near. Just sprinting at her and tackling her to the ground. He was 1000 pounds himself. But he didn't do that. He kept staring at her backside, at that short fur, and what it covered. There was empty snow in every direction.\n\n\n\nHe's a bit of a strange one, isn't he? Thought Cassandra. She could hear that his footsteps had stopped, and knew he was staring at her. She didn't look back.\n\n\n\nWhen Peter reached the fishing hole, he looked around and was relieved to see he had it to himself. The water was a shade darker here. Something to do with the belugas. He looked in, eyes searching for that little flicker under the surface. And dove his snout in and yanked out a fish. It was a big one. Most polar bears swallow the fish hole, but Peter liked to mash on them a little with his teeth. Feel the guts in his mouth.\n\n\n\nHe fished at the hole for about 2 hours. He ate twelve fish. He had a layer of fat forming under his snout. A strange place for a polar bear to get fat. His snout was covered in blood and fish guts. He'd eaten too much, again. Sometimes he just couldn't stop. He laid down and stretched on the ice. He needed a nap to digest all those fish. He looked up at the dark sky, and wondered what was The Great Ice Lord doing right now. Did he just sit in His throne somewhere, watching everyone? Peter closed his eyes and then Chloe and Monk came to his mind. He had an idea what they were doing now. He thought of Chloe again, when her fur was soaked with water after fishing. Before he drifted off into sleep, he imagined reaching his paw out, and touching the fur on Chloe's rear end, the fur that was a little shorter than the rest. Rubbing his paws against it. And then pulling her closer." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Lot\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 2420\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story in which a conversation takes place where the true subject is only implied." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I hated the way he looked at me. He looked at me like he was carrying a secret and forcing every passer-by to play a guessing game. “What’s he thinking?” They would wonder. “What’s he got planned for her when they get home?” It was a cold, immovable stare that gave me chills because it wasn’t love in his eyes, but a warning. I better not move. I better not look at the entrance like it’s an exit. And with that stare was a smirk in his smile, a lie creeping in the right corner, that only I could see. He was playing it cool so as not to set off warning bells, not that anyone would hear them.\nNothing could break his focus, not even the waitress who kept asking me if I wanted to try the steak, and only on the third time did he inform her, without turning his head or looking in her direction, that I don’t eat steak. “She’s not allergic,” He said. “She just has poor taste.”\nI hate him.\nEarlier that evening when he tossed a helmet at my chest and told me to put on my shoes, I lost my appetite. “We’re gettin’ out of town.” He said, “Hope you’re hungry.” And by out of town he meant the municipal cage next door, a cage much like ours but instead of a run-down dive with sentimental value serving as the public square, this cage commissioned a steakhouse.\nNormally tourists aren’t allowed in these “sacred places,” but no one turned us away, not with the noticeable patches on his jacket and the circulation-cutting grip he had on my wrist. We had no business there, no power to force anyone into submission should things get out of hand. He and I were almost equals in this steakhouse, this unfamiliar cage, which made it the perfect place for a conversation that was long overdue. If I had decided to run, which was likely, I would have been too close to home and too far away from the next town to do any damage. He brought me here to trap me, but that was unnecessary. All he had to do was look at me. His eyes were like a dog leash wrapped around my neck with a lead long enough to keep me from getting to the front door. The only thing that kept me from screaming at him to stop looking at me was the baby crying from the other side of the room.\n“You sure you don’t want anything to eat. This place has some of the best mozzarella sticks.”\n“So?”\n“You love mozzarella sticks.”\n“I love Patrick’s mozzarella sticks. Why waste my time on a mediocre substitute when I know perfection exists? It’s pointless and discourteous.”\n“What are you talking about? Are you making up words?”\n“No, you Neanderthal, these are real words.” He took a deep breath and swallowed it whole. He twirled his fork between his fingers hoping to distract me so I’d break eye contact first but I sat still as he bore holes into my skull.\nI’ve known this man my entire life. I was living with a family off of Main Street, supposed friends of my real parents who died under mysterious circumstances, and he lived with his parents and older brothers on a ranch on the edge of town. His father was a political leader and his mom a first lady, both too important to be bothered with people like me and they made it clear they didn’t want me anywhere near their son. Most of the sons of our town were off-limits to me, so I was never sure why they thought he was special. We went to school together from the time we were learning to read until we graduated. He was always shorter than me, thin and pale, and struggling to keep up with everyone. We had enough in common that we could have been friends, but that never happened. Eventually, he grew out of his gangly, awkward stage and evolved into someone powerful and dangerous giving me even more reason to stay away.\nOur community wouldn’t make sense to most people. The rules and rituals that serve to keep us safe and in order are old and barbaric. Outdated, some might say, but I can’t think of a time in history when anyone lived the way we did. Even the Amish would turn up their nose. These rules were old and were unlikely to change, and lucky for me, they did not apply to “outsiders.” I would grow up with the rest of the community kids and then be exiled to The Lot. Being adopted into the community meant I wasn’t held to the same standards, but it also meant there was no hope for a future, so I largely went unnoticed and ignored…until I wasn’t. Unnoticed and ignored sounds sad when you say it out loud, but I was seconds away from freedom. I was so close to The Lot, but they pulled me in at the last second. One minute I was preparing for a life on the literal edge of town and the next thing I knew I was sitting at a steakhouse wearing his ring and carrying his name, avoiding life decisions and pretending I didn’t like steak. It wasn’t supposed to be this way.\n“We’re not doing this.” The gravel in his voice shook me. “We’re not doing this stalling game where you try to avoid the conversation. I gave you a pass, but I’ve let it go on too long. We’re running out of time.”\n“That’s not my problem.”\n“Yes, the hell it is.” His eyes darkened, his patience wearing thin. “We’re in this together, you and me.” He was angry, and truthfully, I had given him plenty of reason to be. I’d been avoiding him. I leave the house before he wakes up then go out into the field until he leaves for work. I set an alarm for thirty minutes until he comes home and then disappear until he’s almost asleep. I’ve been running myself ragged, wearing myself out on purpose until I’m too tired to listen, speak, or entertain his concerns, and all of this to buy time I couldn’t afford, time he wouldn’t loan me if I asked. We wasted the time we had and now we’re living on what’s left. I’d spent my time living in the past, hoping I could travel back and fix whatever mistake I made. This was my last chance to get him to see things my way, but it was a long shot.\n“No one explained the rules to me,” I told him.\n“I know.”\n“You were raised with this mandate, for lack of a better word, but I wasn’t. Quite the opposite. I watched my mom live and die through the hell my daddy put her through and she told me, she promised me, I didn’t have to worry. Outsiders don’t get selected, she said, they just serve. I’m supposed to be working in a bar somewhere on Main, not sleeping in your bed. I’m supposed to be living in The Lot with the other “unwanteds” and “unselecteds,” not shacked up in your family’s hand-me-down house learning how to ride horses.”\n“Riding horses in a field you own sounds better than scraping by in The Lot.”\n“It’s not,”\n“How is The Lot better?”\n“You’re not in it!” My attempt to appeal to his sense of empathy didn’t work. He rolled up his sleeves so I could see the blood running in his veins.\nI tried to save face. “It’s not just you,” I exhaled. “It’s all of you. You’re all too full of yourselves to come within a mile of The Lot and I promise you they’re all better for it.”\nHim and that damn smile, that lying smirk, I wanted to rip it off his face and throw it across the room and into the face of the baby that wouldn’t stop crying.\n“Patrick doesn’t serve mozzarella sticks in The Lot,”\n“I can make my own damn mozzarella sticks!”\nSilence. It irritated me how in control he was, how he always kept his emotions in check, and how he never seemed bothered by my antics or outbursts. It’s like he knew I was faking it, and that irritated me even more. There was grace in his silence with just a hint of violence, and I was dangerously close to taking it too far. My hands were shaking and my eyes were starting to water, so I willed myself, the best I could to calm down.\n“Whatever sympathy I had for you and your…situation,” There was a slight change in his face as he spoke, a thinning in the shape of his eyes. “It ran out when you decided to be reckless.”\n“Reckless?” Don’t cry. Don’t cry.\n“Yes, reckless.” The venom in his tone was like a stench. I could feel it; I could taste it. What you did could have cost me everything and I don’t give enough shits about you to sacrifice everything I’ve worked for. I’ve put in a lot of time and I’ve worked too damn hard building a good life for-”\n“For who? For me?” I could feel my heart begging to scream, to let him feel every ounce of anger and contempt stored in my bones, but I knew it wouldn’t do me any good. As much as he deserved it, and as satisfying as it would be, I was on a mission.\n“Yes, for you.”\n“I didn’t ask for any of this.”\n“And I didn’t ask for you. You’re right, darlin’.” He leaned in. “You were almost to The Lot. You were minutes away from being nothin’ better than dirt before I snatched you up, but this is it for both of us and we have to make do with what we have. We don’t have a choice.”\n“I did have a choice and you took it from me.”\n“No, I saved your life. I gave you a second chance to make a better choice, so here we are. Make up your mind now because once we leave this town I will make it for you.”\nThe baby started crying again like a devil on my shoulder telling me to give in and do what he said. “It won’t be so bad,” She screamed. “Who says you’ll drown if you jump in?” I couldn’t look at him anymore, so I turned to look at the mother. She was a frail mousy-haired barely over the age of twenty-one lost cause of a girl who didn’t know the first thing about soothing a teething baby. Could she not recognize that cry? That’s a “Mama, I have bones coming out of my skull and they feel weird on my tongue,” cry. She was lost, overwhelmed, and alone in her frustration. The two grizzly bears at her table were carrying on about whatever nonsense, ignoring her and the child. I took a good look around the room and realized everyone was ignoring her, and if they were ignoring her then they couldn’t see us. All I had was the devil in that baby’s cry and not an angel in sight to even the score. There was no one to tell me to stand strong and not give in. I only had me to listen to and I failed once already. That’s life in the cage.\nA tear slid down my cheek and I prayed he didn’t notice, “This isn’t fair. This isn’t right. This isn’t fair. There’s a whole world outside of our community, outside of this community,” I wave my arms in the air, “and they don’t do this.”\n“This is who we are and that’s not changing any time soon.”\n“I’m not one of you.”\n“You’re mine, and that’s all you need to be. That’s enough.” I wanted to cover my ears to keep from hearing the baby, that obnoxiously loud baby with her neglected mother. Weren’t we a trio, an ugly vision of the present and the future? I wondered if she sat with her bear in our dive to have a similar conversation. I wondered if she begged for her life and her future, staring into the eyes of a man who was prettier than sin but couldn’t love even if he was tempted.\n“I don’t want to do this.”\n“Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t want this. Tell me, to my face, this isn’t what you’ve always dreamed of. You don’t think I didn’t notice you all those years? Do you think I didn’t notice you daydreaming and drooling over idiots who would never look your way? You’re seconds away from getting the one thing you’ve wanted most, and I can make it better than those idiots ever could. I know you want this.”\n“Not like this,” I whispered between tears.\n“This is it, baby. It’s either this or death and this time you don’t get to choose how you go.”\n“And you’d let them do that to me?”\n“Never.” He exhaled every held breath into that one word. Never. I once heard it said that never is an awfully long time. Never with him meant never leaving. Never being free. How long could I survive never with him?\n“You’re not the only one who watched somebody’s mother go through hell.” He says, never one to leave a moment too awkward or quiet. “You knew my father and you know me. I’m not him. I would never hurt you the way he hurt her. I won’t hurt you.”\n“How foolish of you to think this won’t hurt.”\nHe leaned forward, his eyes softening as he invaded my personal space, disregarding my need to be vulnerable in peace. He hooked a finger under my chin and pulled me close enough to hear him breathe. “I’ll kiss the pain away.”\nA flash out of the corner of my eye broke the tension. “Alright, now I’m gonna try one more time.” The bubbly waitress, who was way too bouncy for this time of night, smiled at me, desperate to take my order. Lucky for her, everyone wins except me. I looked at him, but he motioned for me to take the lead. The cruelty in that gesture is something I will never forget.\n“I’ll have a steak, medium, no sauce,” I looked over to him again, his smirk transformed into a smile, “and whatever side he’s having.”" } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Susan's Wish\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 2940\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart or finish your story with a speaker unable to finish their sentence, perhaps overcome by emotion." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "(This story contains one sexual episode)\nVery early in the morning, Susan walked down to the lake’s edge to watch the ducks. Gentle light drifted above still, calm water. Mirror like, the lake reflected the great green forest that surrounded it. All was peace. Except Susan.\nSusan stood bathed in grief and sadness. Marianne was so close to dying now with her unique form of cancer, uncurable even untreatable. Fortunately, she was not experiencing much pain. It was a blood cancer that after about four to six weeks just stopped her heart. She felt it and it was uncomfortable. She knew she was dying and she was very, very brave about it. Her courage made Susan constantly on the verge of tears. In fact, she just started crying and was on the verge of a breakdown.\nThe girls came running down the grassy slope from the small cabin that she owned. Her husband had died a few months ago from a massive heart attack. He had just started a new job with Apple and had invested all their savings in First Republic stock. When First Republic was shut down by the government, they lost everything except for this small lakeside cabin. Scott, her husband, was overwhelmed by the loss.\nThe cabin was rustic and old, but it had three bedrooms and a great, modern kitchen. It was comfortable for Susan and the girls. Marianne was eight and Carol was twelve. They were very close and Carol also lived on the verge of tears knowing her wonderful little sister was about to die. The three of them worked hard to get through every day comforting each other and trying to stay positive. Marianne was the calmest because she had accepted her fate and wondered at times what it was going to be like to die. They did not talk about it.\nSusan laughed as she saw that they were wearing swimsuits and jumped right into the chilling, early morning water. Carol screamed OMG! Marianne was laughing and splashing Carol. “Did you girls think to bring towels?” Carol asked.\n“Well, of course, Mama,” said Marianne. “Look,” and pointed to two fluffy towels lying in the morning dew.\n“You girls are so smart,” exclaimed Susan. “But it is a chilly morning and I don’t want you catching cold. Play a little bit and let’s go back inside for a nice warm breakfast.\n“Yes, Mama,” yelled Marianne as she toppled Carol with a mighty push.\nCarol came sputtering out of the water, “You dog, I’m coming after you,” she shouted as she ran towards Marianne. Marianne squealed and ran to the shore laughing. She ran up to the towels, wrapped herself in one and yelled back at Carol, “Got you.”\nIn one quick moment, Carol came on shore, grabbed the other towel and pinched Marianne’s arm. “Ow,” shouted Marianne, “I am going to get you again,” and they both started running towards the cabin.\nSusan, smiling now, sighed and headed toward the cabin. She reflected on the beauty of her two girls, their vivaciousness and spirit. They were both extremely talented and intelligent. Marianne, in fact, skipped third grade and went straight to fourth grade. There was a discussion of even sending her to the fifth grade, but Susan did not like that idea. They were both outstanding, natural musicians, Carol on the violin and Marianne on clarinet. They both sang well. Scott had been a gifted tenor saxophonist. Susan sighed and went inside.\n“OK, I have six pancakes here. How many does everybody get?” Marianne piped up, “I get four and you get two. Carol isn’t hungry,” she exclaimed.\n“What?” shouted Carol. “You pig, you aren’t going to get any.”\n“OK, that’s enough. We all get two. Here you are,” Susan said as she placed the pancakes on each of their plates and put the syrup on the table. At that moment, there was a knock on the door.\n“Whoa, who could that be?” Asked Susan.\n“I’ll get it,” yelled Carol as she ran to the door.\n“No, wait Carol. Don’t…”\nAs Carol opened the door, Susan mumbled the finish of her sentence quietly “…open the door.”\nCarol stood staring at a tallish man dressed in shabby clothes. She started to run and then saw his face. She stopped and continued staring as Susan and Marianne reached the door. Carol stepped aside as Susan moved to face the man. “Let’s talk outside,” Susan said to the man and closed the door behind her. Carol and Marianne ran to the nearest window to watch, scared but excited.\n“Hello, Susan,” said the man, smiling.\n“Wait. How do you know my name?” cried Susan. She too was now scared.\n“Do not be afraid,” he said. “I am a traveller. You can see by my clothes that I travel lightly. I do not stay long in any one place. But, I stopped here to help you. I want to be your friend.”\nSusan stood staring at the man. The more she looked at his face the more shocked she became. He wasn’t just handsome. In fact, he really wasn’t handsome at all, yet the only word she could think of was “beatific.” “What?” she thought, “Who is this person?” Somehow, her fear was melting and she started feeling trust.\n“I can imagine how uncertain you must be. And every bad man always says that you can trust him. In this case, I am not a bad man and you can trust me,” he said. Susan trusted him. As he took her hands in his, she could feel the trust and just a little arousal. His smile was almost blinding.\n“What is your name?” Susan asked.\n“Just call me Cal,” he responded “Let’s get Carol and Marianne and go for walk,” he said to Susan.\nThey went back to the house and gathered up the girls. They could see that their mom trusted this man, but they were still a little apprehensive. Still, they put on their shoes and out the door they went. “Girls, I have told your mom that my name is Cal. Please call me that. Let’s go around this side of the lake.”\nThey reached the water, then turned left and started around the lake. The lake was serene, calm with a little bit of beach fringe stretching all around. They walked on the beach. “Can either of you skip a rock?” Asked Cal.\n“Yes, yes, I can.” Shouted Carol. Marianne looked down at the sand and sadly said “I have tried so many times, but I just can’t get right.”\nCal had picked up two rocks and gave one each to the girls. Carol stepped forward and in one very fluid motion sent the rock sailing out of the lake. It skimmed the water once, twice, three time then fell. Cal and Susan clapped loudly. Marianne grimaced.\n“Marianne, come here. Let me give you a little instruction on rock skipping. Stand right here and let me take your arm.” Cal stood a little behind Marianne, careful not to touch her, and lifted her right arm. “Show me how you hold the rock.”\nWith her left hand, Marianne placed the rock in the palm of her hand and clenched her fist around it. “OK, there’s one problem,” said Cal. He stepped to Marianne’s side and took her hand. Opening her fist, he guided her thumb and forefinger around the edge of the so that just those two finger were holding the rock. “Now let me see you cock your wrist back and forth, like this.” Marianne did a good job of cocking her wrist back and forth and Cal praised her.\n“Let’s get into position,” Cal told her. Marianne faced the water and Cal took his place back behind her lifting her arm. “Now, I am going to pull your arm back. When, I say ‘now’ you sling your arm forward and just before you release the rock, snap your wrist. He pulled Marianne’s arm back just a bit.\n“Now,” he said. Marianne threw her arm forward and snapped the rock out over the water. It hit the water flat and skipped, once, twice, thrice, and four times before it fell.\n“Yippee,” exulted Marianne. “Oh my god,” cried Carol. “You did it! You did it!”\nMarianne stood still with an enormous smile on her face and tears in her eyes. Susan was smiling and laughing and ran to hug her daughter. Cal was chuckling. “See, Marianne. You will always remember how to do that.”\n“Well, I won’t get to do it for very long,” and Marianne started crying.\nCal smiled, knelt down and wrapped his arm around her. “Don’t be sad. You may just be alright. Be glad for what you accomplished and don’t think about anything else.\nSusan felt quite angry as she turned toward Cal. But Cal smiled at her and put a finger to his lips. “Save it for now. Celebrate.”\nSusan gave Marianne a big hug, took her hand and the continued the walk. They walked for a long time and the girls gathered wildflowers. When they returned home, it was late afternoon. “Oh my gosh,” exclaimed Susan, “it’s four o’clock and we missed lunch. Is anybody hungry? Girls? Cal?”\n“We’re good, Mom,” cried Marianne.\n“Am I invited?” Asked Cal.\n“Well, of course you are, please stay for dinner. It won’t be much but it will be warm and it will be tasty.”\n“Great,” replied Cal. “I’m good.”\nSusan went out to the kitchen while Cal and the girls sat at the table. Shortly, Susan brought out small bowls of beef stew for everybody along with some crackers and jam. “Ah, looks good,” said Cal.\n“Mommy’s stew is always delicious,” exclaimed Carol.\n“Cal, would you like to say a blessing?” asked Susan.\n“Of course,” answered Cal. “Dear Heavenly Father, please bless this food and this household. We give thanks to you.”\nThe girls were quite hungry and dinner went quickly. After dinner, they moved to the sofa and chairs. Carol and Marianne ran to their bedrooms and came back each with a portfolio. “Cal, we would like to show you are artwork. We go to a Waldorf school and we start art in the first grade. We work hard at it and love what we do. Would you like to see it?” Asked Marianne. \n“Yes, yes, I would like to see it. Bring it over here.”\nSusan moved off the sofa so the girls could sit on each side of Cal and show their work. “This is fantastic girls. You learn how to do this at school?”\n“Oh yes,” said Carol. “Our school is so good. We learn to draw, to sing, to play an instrument. We learn math, physics, chemistry, history and we write. Every year we put of a play and this year my class is going to do “Midsummer Night’s Dream. Every day at school is a full day and we love it. Yes, Marianne?”\n“Oh yes,” said Marianne, “our play this year is “The Wandering Ghost,” and I get to play the lead. I am so excited.”\n“Wow, that’s great,” laughed Cal. “C’mon, let’s play some games. Do you know “Clap, clap?” So the evening went for a couple of hours. “Off to bed girls. Give Cal a hug and let’s go,” said Susan.\nThey both ran over, gave Cal a big hug, and ran to their rooms. Susan tucked them both in with goodnight kisses. She went back to the sofa and sat next to Cal.\nCal looked Susan straight in the eye and said, with a smile, “Susan, I wonder if I could stay the night?”\nSusan flushed a little, kept his gaze and replied, “Cal, I was hoping you would.” Cal laughed, stood up, took her hand and led her to her bedroom. Once inside, he took off his clothes and exposed a rather large erection. Susan gasped as she became so very aroused. “Cal, I…I…”\n“Shhh,” said Cal and he started unbuttoning her blouse. Susan’s face was very red, but she reached down and removed her pants. Cal then removed her bra and panties. He took her in his arms, tightly, and kissed her with passion. Susan almost fainted. \nThey climbed into the bed and Cal rolled up next to her. He leaned into her face and kissed her once again, running his tongue into her mouth. He placed his hand on her left breast and then moved his mouth to suckle her nipple. Susan was in full heat, moaning as he lifted above her, lowered his body and gently moving into hers. “Ahhh,” moaned Susan.\nThey made love three times that night and after the last time, Cal held her head and whispered to her. “That was so wonderous, Susan and you are so beautiful, so graceful. I love you and your girls. You have lived a good life. It’s late night, early morn. Let’s sleep but when you wake up, I will be gone. Treasure this brief interlude and all that follows,” and he kissed her. Susan felt calm, complete and said, “I love you,Cal.” She went to sleep.\nIn the morning, when she woke, Cal was gone. She felt a twinge of sadness, but no regret and felt a strong sense of well-being. She rose and went to fix breakfast. Shortly, the girls came running in, “Mommy, Mommy where is Cal?” they both asked, looking around the room. Susan smiled, “Cal could only stay the night but he asked me to say goodbye to you both and tell you how much he thought you are so special.”\nThe girls took on sad looks on their faces, but, then, Marianne’s face changed. “Mommy, there is something different inside. I feel very different. I don’t know how to describe it Mommy but it is very different. I think I should see the doctor. I don’t know whether it’s right of wrong, but it is very different.\nSusan looked closely at Marianne’s face. It was different, very different. Susan gasped and ran to the phone. She called Dr. Swanson’s private cell phone. “Doctor, I am sorry to bother you so early, but something has happened to Marianne. I cannot describe it but I am certain that it is significant. We need to see you immediately. Please, please.”\n“Well, my goodness Susan, you really sound urgent. I have a very busy day ahead but if you can get to the office by 9:30, I can see Marianne.”\nSusan almost shouted, “Doctor, we’ll be there.”\n“Girls, get dressed quickly. If we leave right away, we can get to Dr. Swanson’s office by 9:30.”\nBoth girls squealed and ran to their rooms. Scant seconds later they came running out and they all got into the car. Susan pulled the car out of the driveway and headed to the highway. Just as she reached the highway, her cell phone rang. It was her friend Shirley and though she didn’t talk on her cell phone while driving her car, she took the call on the car’s sound system.\n“Shirley, hi, I am driving Marianne to the doctor’s office, but for some reason I took your call. What’s up?’\n“Oh, Susan I hope Marianne is OK, but I have some good news for you. I sent your resume to Jane, my friend in HR over at AI Now. She showed it to the CEO, Carl Feathers, and he wants to see you tomorrow at 9. Could you make it? Jane told me it is a really good job.”\n“Oh my god, Jane, of course, yes, yes, yes. We are almost at the doctor’s. Let me call you back in about an hour. But, did I say ‘yes’?”\n“Well, that’s what I heard. Good luck with Marianne, I hope it goes well. Don’t forget to call me.”\nSusan pulled into the parking lot at the cancer clinic and rushed the girls inside. “Good morning, Susan,” said Dr. Swanson, who had been waiting for them in the reception area. “Good morning, Marianne,” he said as he looked down at smiling little girl. “My goodness, look at you…Well, let’s go take a closer look,” and they all trooped into his office. \n“Susan, at first glance I can see that her eyes are much clearer and her whole persona, seems, well, brighter. I am going to take her into the lab and run a few tests. Bev will help and I would like for you to stay here. I know that will be hard but it will be best. Can you do that?”\n“Yes, doctor, I can but please, please…” Susan eyes started watering like a rainfall. “Please…” That was all she could say.\n“Of course, come along Marianne. Let’s go play with the lab equipment,” Dr. Swanson said to Marianne. She smiled and took his hand.\nIt was two hours later when Swanson returned with Marianne in tow. Susan was completely consumed with anxiety. “Doctor…” started Susan. Dr. Swanson quickly spoke, “Susan, please get control, please calm down. We have a most unusual situation here and I need to further examine the results. I really don’t want to tell you this, but I can see the need. We could find no trace of the cancer in Marianne. It doesn’t make sense and we examined her thoroughly twice. I don’t know what else to do, but we want to keep her overnight.”\nSusan fell to her knees, full on crying, almost hysterical. She could barely speak and she knew the findings were right. She tried to get control of her thoughts, her speech, but all she could say was “Doctor, doctor, I….I….I…”" } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Aposiopesis in Aberystwyth\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 2996\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story including the line “I can’t say it.”" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“I can’t say it,” I said, pointing to road signs, as Detective Chief Inspector David Wells drove us through the Welsh countryside. \nI had just crossed the Irish Sea on the ferry from Dublin to Holyhead. David had come to escort me south to the station in Aberystwyth where he worked for the Heddlu Dyfed–Powys, hethlee duhved pows, the central Wales police force. He had sent for me from across the seas, in hopes I could help him solve a tricky mystery. \nAberystwyth. I could say that. Aburristwith. But I could not begin to imagine how to say the places we passed, like Llanfihangel-y-Creuddyn. Or Blaenplwyf, a village in Ceredigion and a word that looked like it sounded like a sneeze. \nWe drove through tidy villages, Bryngwran, Gwalchmai, Llangristiolus, Gaerwen, Trawsfynydd, Ganllwyd, Pwllgwyngyll and Penrhyndeudraeth. Each township had stone walls and stone buildings with green hedgerows and old Methodist churches. \nI tried to say the names. It wasn’t pretty. \nDavid laughed. He spoke Welsh fluently. Many found the Irish language difficult, but Welsh seemed created to prevent English speakers from understanding. Like wading through a shrub of thorns. There were roses at the end, once you managed to find your way through the words and emerge a bit worse for wear. \n“Cymru? You’ll never guess how it’s pronounced.” \n“Kim roo? Simroo?”\n“Try Cumree.” \nCymru, David explained, is the Welsh name for Wales, which comes from the plural of Cymro, a Welsh person. \nI suggested that if Cymru is pronounced Cumree, then Cymro must be pronounced Cumrow, right? \nWrong. It’s Simrow. \nAnd so went the car-ride. We deftly avoided discussing more pressing topics, about the case, and about so much left hanging heavily in the air. \nInstead I listened to David talk about words and his native tongue. Men David’s age took delicious pleasure in rolling their exaggerated “r’s” when they spoke, lifting the ends of their sentences with flair. Welsh is a musical language, with people speaking to each other in sing-song lilts. Even speaking English, they sometimes needed subtitles. It seemed purposeful, as if Welsh idioms were giving a finger to English speakers, and I was here for it. \nAlas, I was also here to help David figure out a case he’d been poring over. And not just to drive through the country listening to his musical voice. I was flattered he’d asked. But then he explained I was the only one who had responded to his letters.\nWe were old friends and he had signed his letter to me, “Llawer o gariad oddi, wrth Dayfdd.” Lots of love from David. In Irish David was Daithi. In Welsh, Dayfdd. My name in Welsh was Gwenhyfar. Gwen hui war. Guinevere. I liked the sound of that. When in a good mood, it’s what he called me. \nAnd that’s how he got me to come. David’s occasional good moods and warmth was always intriguing. But perhaps he knew that. I looked over at him, his thick black hair brushed back as if he ran his fingers through it often. He was growing handsomer with age.\nWe arrived at the police station, perched rather austerely between the river Afon Rheidol and the train station, not far from the beach. Aberystwyth was a coastal university city. When it wasn’t raining you could hear seagulls calling. But not today. \nDavid held an umbrella for me as we walked from the car. It had begun to pour buckets, transforming the mood of what had been a sunny, windy day. \n“Mae hi'n bwrw hen cyllyll a ffyrc,” he said matter of factly and paused to make eye contact as he held the door open. “It’s raining knives and forks.”\n“Indeed.” I followed him in and was immediately lost in the noise of the workplace. \nHe hurried me to a desk by a window. The station sounded like a cacophony of birds chirping various accents. David spoke slowly, adding unpredictable pauses in the middle of words. Others were guttural, some so thick they sounded continental. I understood little. \nBut I could tell he wanted to keep the crew away from me. My presence would not be exactly welcomed by some of the officers.\nI knew what I was there to do and the case wasn’t new to me. The unsolved mystery had garnered attention abroad. Two world-famous cyclists had been found dead under mysterious circumstances. And months later, Welsh police seemed no nearer to solving the case. I was not the first expert brought over. My presence meant they’d hit a wall. \nDavid seemed taller in the station, more serious. He was back to being DCI Wells and his laughter on the drive over was gone. I felt out of place. In the car and on the windy ferry full of anticipation, I’d felt soft and open in my bohemian scarf and skirt, artfully chosen. I’d checked my scented oils, adjusted my hair. David’s presence felt warm. Now it felt commanding. Here, I was a wilted flower in a faceless building with yellowed walls, a somber mood. But I was here to do a job after all.\nHe showed me an array of photos and objects in small bags and asked me not to touch them. To get me up to speed, he spoke quietly and pulled open a map with red circles marking a perimeter.\n“Now there’s no point going to the site itself while it’s lashing out,” he explained. “But we can look at what we have together and see where we are now.” I nodded, only half listening. \n“The bodies were found here?” I asked, pointing to the screen and knowing the answer already. \n“They were.”\nI had studied the case file for hours on the ferry and had a good sense of the details. Everything but the pronunciation of place names. \n“I’ll need to touch the bodies,” I said, knowing how he would react and saying it anyway. \n“OH FOR GOD’S SAKE GWINNIE!” The burst of noise was shocking, unwelcome and pedestrian. David rubbed at his temples and exhaled heavily through his nose. “Mae’n ddrwg gen i” he muttered. Mine thrrroog gan ee. “Sorry,” he said.\n“Detective Chief Inspector, will you stop trying to teach me Welsh please?”\n“Never,” he grinned. The tension was broken once more. He sighed and a slight smile appeared on his face. He looked tired in a way I hadn’t noticed. And I’d seen him look tired before.\n“Listen, this is for now not a murder inquiry. We’ve had nearly every expert in the country examine the bodies in more ways than you can bury a sow.” \nHe leaned on the desk and rested his foot on an open drawer. “Now. They’ve been buried. Alright? Just so. Don’t bring the coroner in and put a wasp’s nest on your head.” \nHe changed his tone and tried again. “Tell me what you see in the reports. The evidence.”\n“David,” I started.\n“You have their teeth,” he pointed. \nI looked at the bag he was pointing to on the table and lost my train of thought. Teeth told stories. I lay the bag flat in my hand and stared. \n“Tell me what you were going to say,” he insisted.\n“I can’t!” I said. “You won’t understand.”\nHe continued, playing the role of the detective. “You were going to say you need to see the bodies. You know that’s not why I brought you here.” \nI ignored him and ran the teeth under the light and traced their grooves with my fingers through the plastic bag. I could smell the musk of his cologne and I ignored that too. “I’m taking them out.” I said. “And that wasn’t what I was going to say.” \nHe watched me as I opened the bag and moved the chair to the window to get better light. The broken human teeth poured into my hand and I rolled them gently between two fingers, like dice. \nThe voices in the office faded to my ears. It was coming now. The quieting. I closed my hands lightly with the teeth inside. I listened. I closed my eyes. At first I saw only press photos of the incident. Bodies under tarps. Two bicycles at strange angles by the side of the road. \nThe bicycles were across from each other and twisted as if they’d been thrown. What had people scratching their heads was the cyclists weren’t riding together. They were going opposite directions. CC tv footage showed this, cameras on main streets they’d crossed. The footage had been checked exhaustively. No sledgehammer wielding pedestrians, no cars driving away with dents. No sign of the cyclists riding together. \nThey were crossing paths, two world famous cyclists in a university town in coastal Wales. Certainly they knew of each other, but no real connection could be found. The coincidence of their simultaneous visits to Wales, and their morning rides, appeared to be just that. \nBut what would have stopped the cyclists on the same road, across the street from each other, going opposite directions and why were the bicycles thrown? There were no skid marks, no tire tracks, no evidence of an automobile accident. \nJust the teeth. Something or someone has broken out several of each rider’s teeth. \nDavid interrupted my thoughts with two mugs of tea and stretched out his arm in my direction. “Still off the coffee I presume?”\n“Can’t stand the taste of it anymore,” I said, accepting the mug. “It yellows my teeth. Shall I read your leaves?” I joked. \nHe smiled. “I’m not sure I want my future known. Ah well, tea is the drink, anyway. Add a bit of whisky and it will warm the coldest of hearts.”\n“Can’t do whisky either,” I said, drifting back to my thoughts. I moved the cyclists’ teeth to one hand and swallowed a gulp of tea. \nDavid looked away. He wasn’t comfortable with me handling evidence this way, no gloves, no microscope. But he sent for me and he knew it had to be done. Still, he hated every moment of the way I worked. Not enough to hate my visit, I hoped.\nThe official cause of death had been put down as cardiac arrest. But it wasn’t really clear. Two heart attacks, at the same time on the same street? And each had teeth missing, knocked out. \nThe teeth were found on the small, quiet side road, among the gravel. This part was held back by the heddlu and kept out of the press. This is why he had wanted me to come. This is why he called for me. The teeth. \nI pushed away the newspaper images in my head and the information in case files, and swiped everything else away from my mind. I heard voices, in sing-song lilts, but not in the office. There, on the road that day. I listened. \nTwo voices, pleasant at first. Greeting, laughing almost. Friendly. \n“Two voices,” I said.\n“What? Who? The cyclists?”\n“They’re speaking in Welsh. I can’t … I don’t understand.” \nDavid unrolled his sleeves. “The cyclists weren’t Welsh,” he said flatly. \n“It’s friendly. Like a greeting. Sut mae.”\n“Hello, how’s it going?” he translated. \nI closed my eyes now and sat still. David didn’t rush me. But I could hear him breathing. I tuned him out. Listening. Seagulls. \n“Was it sunny that day?” I asked with my eyes closed.\n“It was. Middling so. Yes.”\n“There’s the voices.” I said. \n“I see.” He cleared his throat. “And?”\n“Welsh.” I said. \nDavid sighed. “Ack never. And here we are in Wales, where they’d be speaking Welsh. What else?”\n“They sound different now.”\n“Yes, well, brilliant. It was a partly cloudy day and there were voices.”\n“David, be quiet. Stop chopsing.” I used one of his least favorite Welsh slang words. I was irritated. \n“Dear one,” he sighed. “I need to close this case yesterday, using whatever means necessary. Now, bringing you over was the last of it.”\nI groaned with my eyes closed. \n“I don’t mind, it’s never a chore to see you,” he smiled. “But what could anyone expect to learn from teeth? If we have a short meal down the road, we can make the late afternoon ferry back to Dublin, no harm no foul.” He cleared his throat. \n“Mighty hungry.” More softly, “Unless, that is, you wanted to stay over...”\nHis sentence hung in the air. It was almost sweet, in its awkwardness, if I wasn’t holding human teeth in my hand. \nDavid broke the pause. “At the very least I’ve gotten to teach you more of the beautiful language.” He spent an unreasonable time with his mouth emphasizing the l in language. \n“How long have we known each other? You called me over, unconvinced by what I do?”\nHe grimaced and I felt his warm breath as he leaned closer to my face.\n“Why did you bring me here?” I asked quietly.\nHis hand found its way to my knee as he turned toward me. I opened my eyes. He smiled. \n“Continue,” he gestured. “Please.” But he still seemed unconvinced, as if I was making up a fairytale. “Welsh voices on a road in Aberystwyth.”\nPutting his sarcasm aside, I returned to the teeth. Voices arising from mouths long gone. \n“Was anything else found by the side of the road? What was in their system?” I asked. \n“Toxicology showed nothing interesting. Light breakfast and tea for one. Coffee for the other.”\n“They had it with them.” \n“Had what with who?”\n“Their coffee. David.” I paused. It was coming together but I couldn’t quite hear it yet. “Who reported the bodies?”\n“Two witnesses, aul fellas on a walk.”\n“They were the Welsh voices I heard.”\nDavid sighed. “They were in the report, yes.”\n“No listen, I heard their voices at the same time as the cyclists.”\nHe flipped through his witness statement files. “They were out for their morning walk, had stopped for takeaway coffee and came across the bodies.”\n“And the bodies? They were missing teeth, what other injuries? Clavicle?”\n“Clavicle, let me see,” he flipped through papers.\n“I have a friend who used to cycle. She told me once when her husband was healthier they had both broken their clavicles on a ride and spent a long time in hospital together.”\n“Yes, broken clavicles,” David said, reading the page. \n“Where are the train tracks?” \nHe pointed on the map and I followed his finger from the tracks to the gravel lane where the incident occurred. \n“I know what happened.”\n“From holding teeth?” David was incredulous. \n“From listening. Feeling the voices in objects. We are all energy and matter, and leave stories in our very bones.”\nDavid was in detective mode, massaging this brow again. But he said, “alright, let’s hear it.”\n“The cyclists go for a morning ride. Separately. Aberystwyth is a small place. I’m not surprised they crossed paths.”\nDavid leaned back in his chair and motioned for me to continue.\n“It’s wetter than mud and windy most of the time would you agree?”\n“Alright.”\n“One thing I do know about cyclists is that what presents as cardiac events is sometimes later discovered to be primary injuries.”\n“Such as? The teeth?”\n“The teeth came out when they crashed.”\n“Crashed what? There were no cars in sight and they had a wide berth to pass.”\n“They crashed. Each other.”\n“But their bicycles?”\n“Let’s say they see they’re riding along. This is a noisy area because of the train. They swerve to avoid something. And crash.”\n“What were they avoiding?”\n“They are shaken, disoriented, lost some teeth. But other than that, they can walk. They start going their separate ways. But they’re not okay.”\n“Heart attack. Both of them?”\n“Neither of them. With that force, often riders will have clavicle damage. With the adrenaline, some have been known to get back on their bikes and collapse later, appearing to have a cardiac arrest.”\n“Hard to imagine,” David said.\n“They’re in shock. But it’s due to cervical cord injuries related to broken clavicles. Their spine, David.”\nHe stood and paced near the window. “What caused the crash?”\n“It wasn’t a murderer on the loose striking down cyclists.”\n“Do tell,” he instructed.\n“Simplest thing on a Welsh morning. Two old men, hard of hearing, drinking coffee, gabbing to their heart’s content, standing in the lane, oblivious to anyone or anything else in the world around them as a train passes and cyclist cries go unheard.”\nHe shook his head in his belief. “Oh come now. I don’t understand,” he said. \n“Those aul fellas didn’t even see or hear the crash. They only noticed the collapsed bodies later. Did the men say what they were talking about?”\n“I can’t say,” David shook his head. \n“You don’t really believe me do you?”\nHe said nothing.\nI stood up to collect my things. “Well, you have your answer then. Take me back to the ferry?”\n“You won’t stay?”\nI shook my head. \nThe drive through the country was quiet this time as the sky poured knives and forks. Only the windshield wipers spoke their rhythmic language. I felt keenly aware of David’s hand on his own leg as he drove. I considered asking him to pull over. But I said nothing. He looked over at me wistfully once, and said nothing.\nWhen we arrived, David got out first and opened my door. He forced a polite smile. But not with his eyes.\n“Thanks for coming.”\n“Of course,” I said politely.\nWe stood facing each other. \nI broke the silence. “You have your way of listening and I have mine!” I blurted out. \n“I know,” he replied. “It all seems so …” But he had run out of road and found no language to share.\nI nodded and turned away. \nDavid idled the car as I walked toward the ferry. Seagulls cried out amidst the warming colors of a fading day. I heard the car fade away into the distance as David returned to Aberystwyth." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Silent War\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 2991\n\nPrompt:\n\nSet your story at a silent retreat." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The book bag hanging off my shoulder felt heavier than it had when I first tossed it on.\nIt only had the few essentials I needed to survive.\nBut after hiking up a mountain for three miles I was sure even the hair tightly wound in a ponytail on my head was to heavy for me to be lugging around.\nMy legs wobble as they finally straighten, the ground beneath my sneakers leveling. Sweat beads down the side of my neck, trickling a cool path over my skin as it slips inside my t-shirt.\nI take in the little rest area. The map had been straight forward enough, as had the email they had sent a week prior. My life had recently spiraled, too much outside noise had filled my head, which was why when my mother offhandedly mentioned that a friend of a friend of hers had gone on an silent retreat I decided to sign up. No questions asked.\nI take in a heavy, lung filling breath of air, fresh air that smelled strongly of soil, dried leaves and over all else the rich scent of burning wood. Standing beside the freshly made fire, stood an older man and woman. Silent statues, flashing warm greeting smiles at anyone who passed by them. Jugging by the matching pale blue shirts with the phrase ‘find your power in the silence’ embroidered in the center I surmise that these were our guides for the remainder of my time here.\nThey were handing out small note cards with instructions, keeping watchful eyes on everyone as new arrivals like myself continue to trickle in.\nIt was only three days.\nI had repeated that to myself every step I had taken from the moment I had parked my car up until now. Three days didn’t seem so daunting.\nI could go with three days of silence.\nIn fact I needed three days of silence.\nEvery single rustling of leaves, billowing of wind, and tricking of water sounded as if it was running straight between my ears. It seemed the earth around me had a lot to say when no one else was around. For the most part I had just counted each step in my head, and when the numbers had become to high for me to keep track of, I began to repeat all the things I had packed. And anticipating all the things I had to deal with when I got back home. Which lead me back to thinking about why I was even doing this to begin with.\nMy mother had sprung it on me last minute. And maybe it was the second glass of wine I had guzzled, but when she sent me the link I didn’t even think twice about registering myself for this little escape into silence.\nIt might offer a change of pace.\nMaybe after three days I would reset, take my life by the reigns and steer it into a new direction. Or whatever bullshit the cheery invite had written on it.\nThree days where nobody was voicing their opinions. Or telling me all the ways my life was a disaster. My throat tightens, the beating of my heart filling my ears as I head to the center of the campsite.\nA few other people were scattered around, some stretching on the ground, a few setting up their things. One girl was resting against the trunk of a tree, her vibrant pink hair reflecting with the light as she kept her head low and bent over a notebook she was scrawling in.\nI had packed a book, one I had stolen from the shelf of my local library.\nIt had been an impulse.\nI had been browsing the self helps books. It had been a new low. One that I hadn’t even been able to reach while tunneling through an infinite amount of ice cream cartons. But in that moment everything bubbled to the surface.\nAll the noise and everyones nagging voices has finally caught up to me.\nIt had been then that I had decided to lean into thievery.\nI jammed the first romance novel I found into my purse.\nI’d been so paranoid that someone would call me out on my new found life of crime that I bolted, abandoning both my friend and my half eaten chicken salad sandwich. I had mourned that sandwich, but the punishment fit the crime so I took it in the chin.\nMaybe that book was the reason my pack seemed so freaking heavy now.\nWhen I reach the guides, their eyes zero in on me like predators on prey. Only the were more inviting rather than ravenous with hunger.\nThey smile in greeting, stretching their lips with enough force that crinkles appear around the corners of their eyes. I try to reciprocate the silent welcome but keep my distance. Enough that the guy, who upon closer inspection has a sticker greeting card taped to his shirt. Carl. His name was Carl, and beside him stood Celia.\nBoth of them quietly observe me.\nBlinking and unsure how to proceed. My immediate reaction is to open my mouth to greet them, but at the slight widening of their eyes my lips clamp shut, my tongue shriveling in my mouth.\nA warmth spreads over my skin.\nRight.\nSilent. Retreat.\nInstead of bursting the quaint and quite bubble I now lived in for the next few days I nod my head at them and quickly snatch the index card from Carl’s hand. The two of them give me a parting, worrying glance before thankfully shifting their attention to someone else.\nMy eyes skim the the words scripted on the paper.\nWelcome to your peaceful escape! Enjoy the next few days getting to know yourself and the world around you. Phones are strongly discouraged, but in case of an emergency you are allowed to keep them on you. I almost let out an audible snort at that one. Phones were useless up here. I would have to launch myself off this mountain top just to get a sliver of service. Make yourself at home, pick an empty tent and enjoy the rest of your evening, we will be meeting at sun down for a wind down yoga session where we will allow our bodies to become one with the sounds of the night.\nFurther instructions will be given later.\nIn the meantime take a moment and enjoy the silence.\nWonderful.\nTossing my bag down on the ground, I hunch and peek into the tent I had selected for myself. It was secluded from the majority of the other tents that seemed to clump together. A thick tree rooted right beside it, a perfect place to lean up against while I read, or pondered my life choices. Which seemed much more daunting the longer I realized that the only voice that would be guiding me these next few days was my own. If I needed advice, or a second opinion, or to spiral into my mind it would be with the sound of my voice echoing in every corner of my mind.\nI wasn’t ready to deal with myself yet.\nThe tent looked inviting. Spacious enough for me not to feel as if the fabric walls around me would suffocate me while I slept. Triangular but sturdy. The inside lined with what I assume was a weather proof tarp to keep it insulated, a navy blue sleeping bag lay unfurled in the center with a singular pillow atop it.\nIt would do.\nMy fingers gently lift the metal zipper of my bag, ready to spill my things on top of the sleeping bag, only before I could awareness pricks at the back of my neck. A little needle that sends a shiver down each vertebra of my spine.\nCall it a six sense.\nBut something about the way the leaves crunched beneath the approaching footsteps sends my body into an automatic flight mode.\nSlowly I turn my head, coming eye level with dark denim pants.\nMy eyes drop to take in a worn pair of hiking boots. And then they travel, and travel, up to the owner of the denim clad legs. A familiar pair of hazel eyes stares down at me. Amusement lighting those irises when they clash with mine.\nWhat the hell was he doing here.\nHis presence is enough to make me stumble back on my heels and land butt first onto the ground. My back slamming into the tree with enough force that a hiss of pain escapes from between my lips. I firmly press them together to keep in the eruptions of colorful words that bubble in the back of my throat.\nInfuriatingly enough, the amusement in his eyes clouds over with concern. His body lurching towards mine, hands reaching out as if to offer me some sort of help.\nAs if his existence alone wasn’t part of the reason I found myself here to being with.\nHow was it that the one person on this planet I wanted to be far away from, had materialized as if summoned like the spawn he was. Unwanted fungus sprouting in perfectly green grass after rain fall.\nNarrowing my gaze, I try and spell out the phrase ‘back off’ in the pupils of my eyes.\nHe seems to take the hint, his hands raising in the universal sign of retreat. I don’t take my eyes off of him though, not until enough distance exists between us again. Until my body disarms, and my shoulders relax once more. But I was all to aware of the fact that he was but a mere few feet from me.\nOf course that could also be because instead of picking any other empty tent surrounding us, he had decided to settle for the one across from mine.\nGiving him direct access to me.\nAfter making myself comfortable, I peek outside. When I notice he was no longer by his tent I step out of mine. Stretching my legs and dusting off specks of dirt from my pants. When I rise I still.\nThere he was again. Not a figment of my imagination, a nightmare made reality.\nThose dark brows raise slightly, those eyes of his trailing the length of me, taking time to look at the shirt on my body before meeting my stare again. The smug smirk on his face enough to let me know what he was thinking without having to utter a single word.\nMy jaw ticks, at the same time I cross my arms over the front of the shirt subconsciously. It was my favorite shirt, and I wasn’t about to be shamed for wearing it. Even if it didn’t originally belong to me. His little league baseball shirt felt comfortable on my skin, and it wasn’t like the giant could wear it, he would rip the stitches trying to fit it over that massive head of his.\nI could feel a twitch begin to settle in the muscles around my eye.\nI needed to escape my escape. It was ridiculous. Even that sounded insane in my head.\nI begin to walk away, only to stop when something is hurled at the back of my head.\nPausing, I look down at the crumpled up paper nestled between my sneakers. It was the same paper Carl had handed to us upon arrival. I look from the paper to the man who had just thrown it at me as if we were preschools. He shrugs. My lips purse.\nThen he points a finger at me and at a spot in front of him and mouths ‘come over here.’ I hate that I perfectly make out the sound of his voice in my mind. That he is able to communicate with me without speaking. I could read his body like I was sure he could read my own. Which was was how I knew he was growing annoyed with my lack of motion at his command. I cross my arms in answer.\nDeciding to feign ignorance—and further entice his annoyance—I tilt my head to the side, allowing my hair to flop over my shoulder as my eyebrows crinkle together.\nI point to my ear and shrug before spinning on my heels and marching over to the other side of the grounds. Yoga had begun.\nDropping down, I fold my legs under me and close my eyes.\nIt was time to meditate.\nOr at least those had been the instructions. And at least this way I wouldn’t have to be bothered with the man intent on making this weekend hell for me. Or course ruining my life hadn’t been enough for him, breaking our engagement out of the blue, and destroying years of friendship between us wasn’t enough for him. No the over achiever also wanted to destroy this healing trip I had signed up for.\nI still couldn’t figure out how the two of us ended at this retreat at the same time.\nBut I would get to the bottom of that later.\nBecause there was one little fine print I recall as I sit with my eyes tightly shut. The little inscription flashes behind my lids in bright red warning.\nAnyone who breaks the vow of silence will be asked to leave the premises immediately.\nI fell my lips twitch in a smile.\nIf anyone of my peers looked over at me they would probably think I was certifiable, and maybe I was but the idea brewing was to good to pass up.\nI knew exactly how I was going to fill the rest of my time here. I’d read that path to peace was to let things go, to leave things as they were and exit with grace. But I didn’t want to go that rout, in fact the voice in my head was encouraging me to go in the opposite direction, and since she was my main source of guidance I was letting her make the final decision.\nIt took all of one second to come to a concision, and it evolved revenge.\nIf I could get him kicked out before tomorrow it still left me with a day to enjoy silence and find the inner peace I was in desperate need of. But before I did that I would be adding a bit of chaos to the mix.\nAfter an hour of breathing and stretching, Carl and Celia bow to the group. Dismissing us to our tents once more. Giving everyone time to go back to their activities. Ranging from journalism to trying to climb a tree.\nMean while I had started a war.\nA silent war.\nOne that neither of us intended on losing.\nIt had started with me stealing his flashlight.\nHarmless enough.\nIf I hadn’t been aware of his fear of the dark it might have even seemed childish. But if he was intent on making me suffer by being here than it was only fair I made sure he suffered as well. I watched from the safety of my tent as he searched all over his little campsite, flipping his bag inside out, tossing his things all over the ground.\nIt brought a warm satisfaction to my chest, comforting me enough that I was able to get in some light reading before preparing for the night.\nMy smile had lasted up until I returned from the restroom, my toothbrush gripped in my fingers falling to the ground when I noticed a spider resting on top of my pillow.\nIt had taken all of my will power and a silent prayer not to scream my lungs out.\nEven though I was smack dab in the middle of the woods, miles away from the nearest Target I knew that the spider innocently spread on my pillow was no natural act.\nIn fact it was plotted.\nI locate the culprit. He was reading, or pretending to. Because even from here I could see the slight shake of his shoulders as a mute laugh shook his frame.\nIt went on like that for the remainder of the evening, him doing something and me retaliating. Until I realized that the day was all but done.\nFor some reason time seemed to have flown quicker than I thought.\nUnable to stop myself, I scan the area. Trying to locate him, and when I do, I find that he was already staring at me. The distance between us seems to have shrunk, I take a step in his direction and he does the same, only I stop when I feel a drop of cool water weigh down the skin of my cheek.\nGlancing up I notice gray clouds had formed at some point, and then they open up. Dashing though the campsite I dive head first into my tent. Narrowly avoiding drowning in the rain that was pelting against the ground forcefully enough to displace it.\nI watch everyone make a run for it, covering their heads, the sounds of wet feet and muffled squeaks echoing until once again only the sound of nature fills the air.\nWhite noise closing us all in a bubble once more.\nI catch those hazel eye as he slips into his tent, dark hair matted down over his forehead as the rain pounds down harder.\nSweet dreams He mouths.\nFuck off I mouth back, his eyes shining and that dimple appearing before he flicked his tent closed. I do the same, curling myself into the warmth of my dry sleeping bag, resting my head back on to the fluffy pillow.\nAnd while I count each of my breaths, I can’t suppress a secret grin as I await a new day to begin, the cluster of poison ivy I found earlier—sprouting conveniently along the edge of the tree beside me—fresh in my mind along with how nicely it had rubbed into the fabric of his pillow.\nSweet dreams indeed." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Fool and The Trickster\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 1642\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story where your character is travelling a road that has no end." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "***\n\"You will never be a god.\"\n***\n When you run through the city streets, at its heart, you find memories set in stone, like pages from an ancient story — a place where time flows slowly, and history no longer endlessly repeats itself. Here, where every ending is just a new beginning, nestled within the trunk of a history-ridden tree, an old man sells thousands of souls, abandoned by the bygone eras. An orphanage for mirror remnants... His hands, with veins pulsating like ink paths on an unwritten paper, caress the deepest secrets hidden from the world's eyes... a world filled with hatred and judgment... But he doesn’t judge; he soothes... His wrinkled skin reminds one of butterfly wings - so delicate, yet incredibly strong. His eyes, deep as a well, reflect the constellations of the past, and his small mouth speaks with a voice that makes the heart quiver, echoing like a scream against fortress walls... A voice that's ominous yet soothing. With silver hair swaying in an autumn breeze, neither too cold nor too warm, he awaits his end amid thousands of books. \n Each day, he watches people come and go, for in this age, who is still interested in books? People, the daily ants, seek to build empires, yet all they manage to do is destroy the remnants of the present. But then, there's this young man who just entered the store. He exudes something distinct. He sits, staring emptily as if the world holds no meaning for him. His gaze sharpens, like it's being honed on a blade's edge, turning into pain. His eyes embody sorrow. Without blinking, he seemed to embrace his engulfing pain. \n The old man began searching for a book, for this shadowed young man reminded him of a story. Not one of princes or princesses, but of someone like him, lonely, sipping the bitterness of light's chalice. And he searches, but doesn't find. The snake on the stained-glass door coils tighter in frustration, for he knows the book is somewhere... The young man starts looking too, delving into the thousands of pages touched by many masters and wisdom that drips into the tea cups that the old man serves.\n And he searches and searches... Finally, he finds a book, neglected in a dusty corner, like a testimony lost to time. Holding it feels divine. Its aged cover, worn by the years, feels like the bark of an ancient tree that has withstood countless storms. The yellowed pages, fragile as butterfly wings dancing among summer flowers, carry secrets behind their words, embracing their own end... The impeccable writing, so pale that it touches the soul, seems to whisper the tune of an ancient era, every letter dripping like dew on a spider's web... The scent of the book, reminiscent of a lost and mysterious library... Stardust... Opening the book felt like unleashing Pandora's box, where memories and dreams waltzed eternally. This wasn’t just a book; it was a gateway to a realm where there were no kings or queens, just a bridge over rivers of memory, a lighthouse illuminating the darkest corners of the heart. Now, in his hands, destiny intertwines...\n***\n \"Once upon a time, as all stories begin... but this isn't a tale... it's a forgotten truth, not told to children at bedtime. It conceals lost kisses, broken hearts, and tears that no longer have a place on Earth. This story is the myth of the Earth, the song of the birds, and a love that can tear apart one's thoughts...\n Elden, this splendid young man, was like the sea and land combined... He was like the sky and Earth, meeting at the horizon. Foolish yet calm, transparent as glass, with an innocent face... By day, he was an art piece painted with vibrant colors that hid secrets, embodying an orchestra playing seemingly senseless notes but harmoniously blended, so calm, so soothing. His golden hair reminiscent of the sun shining on wheat fields had a scent of pure yellow. His deep brown eyes, like the bark of a tree, young yet wise, made you believe he held the answers to all the world's mysteries. Such a beautiful, pure fool with stone-like eyes. If you looked deep, you'd see forests that yet hid the chaos he lived in. He was Elden, the Fool!\n But at night, the Fool turned trickster. His eyes darkened, and now the forest seemed to offer no protection. Behind him loomed the shadow of his past. His mind surged with waves of emotions and riddles, seeking refuge in the absurd, for there he could understand his nature. Fool and Trickster in one being. A living contradiction, a poetry of opposites, an endless maze. Elden, who warmly invites you to discover him, exposes you to his traumas by night...\n He built a castle to shield himself from the world and to protect it from his paradoxical nature. He dreamt up his own world, where his dual nature wasn't a curse. For that, he took pride in himself, adoring the eternal silence that could be painfully deafening. A memorial to pain... But disaster began to erode his soul when he saw her... Moon... such an odd name for those times, which, he believed, made her special. Pale skin, almost translucent, velvety touch leaving behind the same pain, the same curse. Her black hair seemed to absorb and dispel all her sorrows. Her large eyes—much like his—held the Earth's power. Her voice was a mere whisper... yet she embodied the world's dual nature of love and hate. She loved the Earth but despised the sky... And every day, he grew more fascinated by her, not realizing how deeply he'd wound her, finding solace in what she loathed the most: the sky—a canvas reflecting countless souls, especially hers...\n When he first saw her, his heart began to sprout green, and his shadow turned to light. Over time, he learned to love her. Gentle, humble, open—the Fool seeking love... Yet she hid behind the hate her soul consumed in this bitter time. But she, too, fell for this fool, unaware that the Trickster could drain her last drop of kindness. When she offered herself fully to the Fool, the Trickster took over. He was terrified of the immense love he now felt for her. Tears filled his eyes.\n\"Love—a temporal illusion,\" he would tell himself.\n That night, Moon came to him, breached his castle's walls, and pleaded for her eternal exchange: happiness. But the Trickster, with his hidden thoughts, told her only fools love, and he was a mere pawn of fate. He thanked his god for being incapable of love, for not loving her, his illusion of death. He spoke hurtful words intended to wound her, while she stood motionless, as if witnessing a beautiful yet morbid secret painting.\n\"Like flowing water, I can't be held. I always slip through the cracks, always finding myself in long-lost memories. I built my castle from nothing, brick by brick... from the harsh blows and slaps fate dealt me, from times when I wished for death yet was very much alive. And now you come, illusion of truth, to tear down my castle, to render me immortal...!\"\n Moon realized that while she loved the Fool, the Trickster was there to destroy her happiness. She had to love both sides of the same coin equally. But she couldn't, so she vanished without a trace.\n Painful, bitter, sad—everything felt like death. The wounded Fool went to his father, the supreme god, and begged to be turned into a celestial body, believing it was the only way to find Moon, who had changed him slightly. He became the Sun... Elden turned into the Sun. What he didn't know was that Moon, scarred repeatedly by the Trickster, had run to the same god, asking to be transformed into a celestial body. Why? So she could learn to love the sky and shield the Earth from suffering. She became the moon, the goddess of the darkness she continuously tried to embrace.\n The Sun now sought his Moon but couldn't find her. The Moon sought her Sun, yet she couldn't find him either.\n\"You'll never be a god... You'll remain the Trickster Fool!\"\nCursed!\"\n***\n The boy had begun the story in his mind but finished it by reading it aloud, while the old man listened to his fate, with the pain evident in the boy's voice. Tears welled up in his eyes, and the quiver in the boy's voice reflected the same sentiment. They mourned their fates, their pain, their bitterness. The story came to an end, and the boy carefully closed the book, placing it in a place of honor among the old books, worn out by so many hardships. Silently, he went to the window, searching his pocket for a lighter, his salty tears falling on the floor that had been trodden by so many feet. The old man watched him, with a hint of fear but more empathy, and joined him at the window. The boy was now smoking a cigarette, the last one from the pack, lost in his haunting thoughts. With a gentle touch, the old man placed his right hand on the boy's left shoulder.\n\"Elden... you've finally come! I'm ready.\"\n Surprised, the boy turned to the old man and whispered: \n\"I've discovered the truth... but I haven't changed, I've just learned how to live without her! How to live... as I am.\"\n Though he smiled, the old man felt that Elden was still searching for his Moon. It was an endless road of searching. Nevertheless, he took the boy's hand, while the boy threw his cigarette on the floor.\n They stepped out the door, heading into the infinite together.\n**\nThe Sun - The Fool and The Trickster\nThe Sun - Angel of Death" } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: TEN DAYS OF SILENCE\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 1970\n\nPrompt:\n\nSet your story at a silent retreat." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Mum drove me to the Meditation Camp. She had done this course before and thought it would do me good considering my life circumstances. Before leaving she said, \"Just remember if I managed to do it, you can do it as well.\" She kissed me goodbye and left. I looked around, the purpose-built center was surrounded by native bush. It looked like a very peaceful place, but I was feeling very nervous. Would I be able to cope with ten days of silence?\nThat night for dinner they gave us lentil soup with bread. This would be our last evening meal until the last day. All the terms and conditions were very well explained before signing into this course. We were only meant to receive two meals a day. Breakfast at 6:30 am and lunch at 11:30. Instead of dinner we could have fruit and herbal tea at 5:00 pm. Getting used to these new and strict meal times was the first challenge. I'm going to be starving, I thought.\nWe were given a fixed place to sit while having our meals. My place was in front of a window with a view of the trees next to a Chinese girl, called Qi. She travelled from Singapore to Auckland to take part in this course. The poor thing had to sit in front of a wall.\n\"I got a window and you got a wall,\" I said cheekily and we both chuckled. It was the last laugh before becoming silent.\nThere were nearly seventy students at the center, mostly women. Men and women were separated even if they were married. Qi had come with her husband but she was not meant to talk to him during the duration of the course. From day one we were expected to meditate ten hours a day and practice \"Noble Silence\" that is, silence of the mind, no speech, and stillness. Would I be able to cope with this? I wondered. I didn't have any meditation experience, apart from lying down on my mat for ten minutes after a yoga session. The doubts about whether I could cope with this challenge were replacing the sadness I had after Tim called the wedding off.\nAfter dinner, I settled into my room. Each one of us had a single room. That was good. The room was tiny but functional. It had a single bed, a window, a table, and only enough room to place your belongings on the carpet. I felt grateful for having a window with a view of the forest. Cabbage trees, nikau palms, and ferns formed a lovely canopy to look at. The bathrooms and showers were in a separate building for us to share. My heart ached at the thought of Tim. What would he be doing right now? I sighed… After five years together, I was finding it hard to conceive of being single again. A tear rolled down my cheek. Where did I go wrong?\nI looked at my alarm clock. It was nine-thirty pm. We were meant to turn the lights off and go to bed early to be up for our first meditation at 4:30 am. I tried to fall asleep but couldn't. I was not used to going to bed this early. The walls of our cabins were thin like paper and I could hear the woman next door snoring. Dammit! I didn't bring earplugs. I wanted to listen to a 'fall asleep app' but I had no phone any more. We weren't allowed our phones, reading, or any writing material. I practiced some yoga breathing to calm myself down. I breathed to the count of six, held my breath to the count of four, and exhaled to the count of six. After a while, I fell asleep…\nA few hours later, at 4:30 am. I heard some very loud bells. Ding, dong, ding, dong. Oh no, this is so early; I'm still tired, I thought. I got up and followed the other girls like a sleepy sheep into the meditation hall. The lights were dimmed in the hall. I found the mat with my name on it. I looked for some cushions and sat down. Each one of us has a fixed place. Men sat at one side of the hall and women at the other side. There was a podium at the front where the teachers sat. There was a male teacher for the men and a female teacher for the women. We heard a recording on how to meditate. We were there to learn Buddha's meditation technique. I felt sleepy. I didn't think I could remain still for an entire hour.\nI listened to the instructions and focused on my breath. I followed the air coming in and out of my nose. Thoughts kept popping in but I was supposed to ignore them. I had a vision of myself returning the unused wedding dress to the shop. This was so embarrassing. I sighed so loud that I thought everyone heard me. The pain in my body was replacing the pain in my heart. My hips and ankles hurt. After fifteen minutes I already felt the need to adjust my position. Oh my God, will I be able to put up with a hundred hours of this? I wondered. I moved my right leg slowly so as not to disturb the person sitting next to me. I felt better and focused on my nose again as instructed.\nI was the first one standing in front of the restaurant. I like all types of food including meat. That was another challenge, as the camp was vegetarian. \"Ding, dong, ding, dong,\" the bell rang again. I noticed the younger girls trotting like foals, rushing at the smell of food. No one wanted to miss out as there were only two meals a day. There was porridge, roasted apples, bananas, bread, jam, margarine, tea and coffee. Yum!\nAfter breakfast, I rushed to the toilet. Ughh… Tommy troubles again. I've been having bowel issues since my fiancée left me. I had a quick shower. We were only allowed three-minute showers. Gee, there were so many rules.\nI went back to my room and checked the schedule for the day. Five hours a day of compulsory meditations in the hall and the other five meditations could be done in the hall or your room. I chose to meditate on my bed sometimes to give my joints a break.\nLunch was good. On our first day, we had white beans in tomato sauce, rice, and salad. After lunch, we had free time to go for a short bushwalk. This was beautiful and refreshing. We were only allowed to walk in a small area, so I ended up going in circles several times to let out some of my nervous energy. We weren't allowed to smile or look at the other students in the face. Each one of us was there to look inward only. The only form of exercise permitted was walking. This was far from being a fun retreat, it was very strict. Pure inner work.\nIn the evening, they gave us a talk about Buddhist Philosophy. \"Life is suffering,\" said the Buddha. By practicing meditation, the Buddha learned to alleviate suffering and become enlightened. This first talk woke up my curiosity and made me want to learn more about Buddhism. I was suffering. I still couldn't accept that my five-year relationship had ended.\nAt the end of the day, I was so tired I didn't hear my neighbor snoring. I decided to skip the 4:30 am meditation that night and sleep in until breakfast to recover my energy and be able to cope with the entire course. \"You can't quit,\" said my Mum to me. \"I'm going on a holiday and will be back to pick you up at the end of the course.\" My Mum did this course after she became a widow and said it helped her find some ground under her feet again.\nDuring the first three days, all we did during our meditation was focus on the sensations around our nose. I began feeling tingling and other subtle sensations and was wondering if I was on the right path. I still had inner monologues though. Maybe I scared him away when I said that I wanted to have three children, I thought. I decided to have a brief chat with my teacher about my worries. We were able to schedule a ten-minute interview with the teacher after lunchtime.\nMy appointment was at 2 pm. Claudia, the teacher, a mature lady was sitting cross-legged on top of a cushion on a podium in a small meeting room. She looked like a Goddess dressed comfortably in loose pants and a linen blouse. I could see a glow around her. I greeted her and sat on the mat at a lower level.\n\"Good afternoon, Claudia, my name is Lisa.\"\n\"Good afternoon, Lisa, how can I help you?\"\n\"I have been feeling a tingling sensation around my nose, is that what we are meant to feel?\"\n\"Everyone's experience is different but tingling is a common sensation, yes.\" She reassured me.\n\"I keep getting thoughts about a personal issue. Can I tell you about it?\"\n\"Oh no, no. Don't tell me. It's normal to have recurring thoughts, especially when you are new to meditation. Keep focusing on the sensations around your nose, and in time you will see how the thoughts will be less frequent.\"\nI bet that's the standard answer she gives to everyone, I thought. I thanked her, folded my hands in prayer position in front of my chest, said \"Namaste,\" and left as other people were waiting.\nMy Mum was right when she said \"The first three days are the hardest.\" Getting used to the meal times, the harsh discipline, and the tough schedule was hard. Besides, having Tim on my mind and not having anyone to talk about it was hard. But once I accepted this, I learned to navigate the course and began feeling more and more at ease. Even my bowel movements improved. I began to enjoy my own company.\nDuring the last days of the course, we had to focus not only on the sensations around the nose but on the whole body. We were supposed to scan the body from head to toe and from toe to head. By doing so, we could eventually reach different levels of consciousness. I spent my whole ten days trying to reach a deeper level but I think I only scratched the surface. More practice would be needed in my case.\nOn the last day of the course, I woke up euphoric, happy, so happy, feeling like I was enough. I wasn't sure if it was because I was going to be able to talk and be free again, or because this course had produced an actual shift in my consciousness. I was eager to talk to Qi and find out how she liked the course. I met her at the restaurant during our last meal. I had been watching her throughout the course and had been wondering what kind of job she had. I asked her,\n\"Tell me Qi, are you a musician?\"\n\"A musician?\" No, she chuckled. \"What makes you say that?\"\n\"'Cause I saw you counting with your fingers as if you were counting notes or syllables in a song.\"\nShe laughed again and said, \"No, I was counting the days that I still had to remain here,\" and we both laughed.\nQi and her husband did not like the course at all, but I thought it was worth it. The course aims to teach you to be happy no matter what. I think it changed me, I feel more balanced and serene." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Silent Treatment\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 1434\n\nPrompt:\n\nSet your story at a silent retreat." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "(contains some sexual references and swearing)\n\nThere he is, having a whale of a time, and me here, miserable as sin. Course, I can’t tell him anything; they’d be down on me like a ton of bricks if I as much as opened my mouth.\nThe thing that really galls me, really gets my goat, really pisses me off – hmmm, my collection of ways to describe how totally hacked off I am is certainly coming along … and there’s another one! – is that this was all his idea.\n“Let’s get away for the weekend!” he said, and it was the first time he’d been spontaneous since we started going out, back in the day. Back when he wanted to impress me. Back when he was after getting into my knickers.\nI bet my face lit up at the words ‘away’ and ‘weekend’. I felt it did. The possibilities galloped through my mind like racehorses. Paris was first past the post – exquisite, sophisticated, romantic Paree. Second by a neck, Rome – loud, boisterous, in-your-face Roma. And a good each-way bet, London – bold, diverse, familiar London, just down the road, but we hadn’t been there for aeons.\n“Fantastic!” I said, tongue lolling most probably, like an expectant puppy.\n“Great,” he said, a trace of relief in his eyes. “I’ve got it all booked up.”\nHe rummaged about in his briefcase and pulled out a brochure. For this place. This … godawful place.\nNow my face must have dropped below my knees because he started furiously bigging up The Retreat. The bloody Retreat.\n“Y’see,” he said, needlessly pointing to the photos of the things he was mentioning, “it’s in this lovely old Tudor house – all authentic beams and stuff – and there’s a restaurant with a Michelin star, a pool, and acres of grounds to wander.”\nHe let me hold the brochure then and I swear it was shaking in my hands. I was fuming (there’s another one!) not only because he’d booked something without discussing it with me first, but also because it was in the Cotswolds. The bloody Cotswolds! Which I was sure were very lovely, but the Champs-Élysées they most definitely weren’t!\nHe saw what he probably thought was disappointment, so he hugged me.\n“It’ll be great!” he whispered in my ear, genuinely enthusiastic. “And different.”\nI know different, and a trip to the English countryside didn’t sound that different to me. I smelled a rat and pulled away from the hug.\n“How so?”\nHe held up the brochure again and pointed to the print, which I’d been blinded to by the fact of … well … English countryside.\n“Just think. A weekend without speaking!”\nI was fittingly speechless. He took that as approval, I think.\n“No words. No raised voices. No bickering.”\nI got it now. We’d been going through a rocky patch, fruit mainly of my frustration and dissatisfaction with the lack of progression in our relationship; it was just stagnant, the same ol’ same ol’, every day, week in, week out. He seemed quite happy with things as they were, so I’d been pushing back, taking it out on him.\nAnd here was his solution: remove my resistance by removing my ability to gripe for a whole weekend. I don’t think it passed through his mind for an instant that what we needed to do was talk about it, preferably on fresh ground – like Paris, Rome, or London. Nope. He thought that a weekend of silence would be like a useful cloth, polishing up the dusty furniture that was us.\nHe gave me another hug and left for his allotment, leaving me apoplectic (noted!). The actual furniture certainly took some stick that afternoon; if it had ears, it would have tried to cover them. The neighbours will have been in no doubt about how I felt, that’s for sure.\nBut by the time he got back from digging up his turnips, I’d calmed down and had become a bit more philosophical. Let’s go on this sodding retreat, I thought, and see what happens. Who knows, it might bring something new.\nSo here we are. It’s definitely ‘different’ anyway, he got that right. Even at reception, we weren’t allowed to talk; we had to use gesture and facial expressions. It was quite comical really, and it brought him and me together momentarily through the universal language of giggling.\nThen we got to our room, and bugger me if he didn’t want to carry on with the silence. I protested – vociferously – but almost instantly there was a knock on the door. I went to answer it and was confronted by a man in uniform – a large bloke, very stern, with a finger pressed to his lips. Talk about Big Brother!\nWhen I’d closed the door, I started whispering to get my annoyance across, but my silent companion held up a hand and grabbed the pen and notebook helpfully supplied by the establishment.\nLet’s just go with it, he scribbled. We’ve paid for it, after all.\nI scribbled back an emoji with a down-turned mouth – an essentially superfluous, faithful representation of my own face – and flopped on the bed to sulk.\nHe got the wrong end of the stick and smiled. It occurred to me then – as if in a revelation – that he’s always been absolutely hopeless at divining my thoughts and moods. He gestured that he was going downstairs to take a look around, and did I want to go with him. I was in the mood for sulking some more, so I shook my head vigorously. He shrugged his shoulders – more proof of his obliviousness – gave me a little wave and left.\nI spent the afternoon alternately grumbling to myself – soundlessly – and crying. In between those two states, I tried to do a bit of reading: War And Peace, ironically enough, which I’d been slogging through in a personal project to read all the ‘important’ books on a list I’d seen in The Guardian.\nAt one point I nodded off and woke with the room in semi-darkness. It was getting on for dinner-time and he wasn’t there. I splashed some water on my face, pinned on my name badge – they didn’t even want you to ask each other for names – picked up my book and went downstairs.\nI found him in the lounge with three others, halfway through a game of Risk. I went up and touched him on the shoulder, and he gave me a not-now-can’t-you-see-I’m-busy kind of look. Here I sit, then, across the room, pretending to read my book.\nThere’s a couple (I can tell by their shows of mutual affection, of which I’m totally envious) and a very beautiful woman who – more irony – looks Russian; from her badge, her name’s Olga. While speaking’s not allowed, laughter is; there’s plenty of that going on. But ne’er a glance my way from him.\nIn fact … hang on a minute. What’s Olga doing with her hand on his arm? She put it there to draw his attention to something in the game – maybe warning him against invading Irkutsk, or Yakutsk, or Kamchatka, just to extend the Russo-irony. But she’s left it there, and he hasn’t shaken it off. And now…\nBloody hell! I know that look! I haven’t seen it from him for many years, but I know what it means. It means I want to get into your knickers. The bloody bare-faced cheek of the man. He’s forgotten I’m here!\nRight. That’s it. I’ve had enough. ‘Ballistic’ (there’s a final one) doesn’t begin to describe how I’m feeling now. I’m going to give him a piece of my mind, the bastard.\nBut I’ve got to make it good. I’ve got to make it count. I’ve got to encapsulate all my frustrations, all my grievances. Let me think.\nYep, that’s it.\nI go back to the table, lay my hand on his shoulder, get the same look as before. Then I give it to him with both barrels.\n“FUCK YOU, JACK!”\nWith the whole room gaping, and the large bloke from earlier bearing down on me, I exit, head held high. I’ll get a taxi to the station and head home to pack my things.\nMeanwhile, I’m feeling positively light-headed with relief, my emotional furniture well and truly dusted clean. The silent treatment has certainly worked, but not quite the way Jack had intended. I do hope he and Olga will be happy.\nBut then again, maybe not." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Evening Light\n\nGenre: coming-of-age\n\nWord Count: 1197\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story about someone who has been tasked to keep a flame burning, surrounded by total darkness." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The girl who holds the candle never showed up.\nScarlet was supposed to be done at five. The manager promised her that by five o’clock, she’d be all set, because the girl who works the night shift never bails. That was three hours ago, and Scarlet’s arm is beginning to grow tired. She’s allowed to put the candle down, but only for a minute. Then, she has to pick it back up again, and somehow, after resting for a moment, it always feels heavier when she retrieves it.\nShort, sputtering breaths dribble out from the woman lying in bed. Scarlet didn’t ask her name, which is unusual for her. Typically, she likes to know their names. She finds that if she can speak to them, it helps pass the time, and she likes to know the name of the person she’s speaking to. One time the person in bed woke up, but that was only the once. The doctors told Scarlet that she must be some kind of angel. She told them it was a coincidence, but she wasn’t entirely sure she believed that. When she was a little girl, her father cut himself very badly, and Scarlet kissed the wound. When she pulled away, there was blood on her lips, but her father’s skin was clear. He smiled at her and bought her ice cream. They never spoke about it again.\nThis time around, Scarlet wanted to know as little as possible. She only had two more shifts before she’d be transferred to Morning Light. That was the team everyone wanted to be on, because you could put the candles down for up to three minutes at a time. Their office was spacious and it had two windows. You couldn’t see out of them, because the dust in the air outside painted them a gray color, but it was soothing to know that they were windows nonetheless. One of Scarlet’s co-workers commented that a window wasn’t a window if you couldn’t look out of it. She was reprimanded by a manager, and Scarlet knew that even a verbal citation would result in never being allowed to go to Morning Light. That girl with her fresh mouth would be on Evening Light forever. She’d hold a candle for hours and never put it down, because what good is a minute? \nIt goes by too fast.\nThe rooms for Evening Light were converted storage rooms. The beds took up the bulk of the room, and the holders had to stand in whatever was left. At times, you were standing directly over the person in bed. Even so, if any wax dropped onto them or the blankets covering them, you’d be labeled as a Reassign, and then nobody knew what happened to you. Morning and Evening Light were all that were known. Some joked about an “Afternoon Light,” but that was a tired joke that never sparked a laugh or a smile. There were no more afternoons. There was the beginning of the day and the end of it, and lately, it was becoming hard to tell the difference. Only work orders helped distinguish.\nScarlet needed to be moved.\nIt didn’t matter that nobody ever slipped under on her watch. Death wouldn’t bother her, but the boredom might drive her mad. How could the other girl simply not show up? She must have been labeled Reassigned. That was the only reason a girl would miss her shift, and if she wasn’t Reassigned, she would be for the absence. There’d be no apology given to Scarlet. She’d be told to blame the selfish girl who put her in this position. Management never showed any remorse for conditions or environment. Nobody was happy with the current circumstances, and so there was no point in complaining or expecting sympathy for your plight.\nJust hold the candle a little higher.\nThe breath stopped before it steadied. Scarlet thought her luck had run out. There was no overt disciplinary action for a death, but everyone knew it meant a week’s worth of forms and interviews. If the candle was lit, why did the person die? If there was light, how could there be darkness? How many hours in the chapel would be needed to atone for the dissonance? Things needed to add up. One plus one. It was all there in the manual you received the day you were old enough to read.\nIf the candle stays lit, all will be well.\nBut people did die while the candle was lit. Everyone knew that. Death could not be prevented, but the Management said that was negative thinking derived from the selfishness that had gotten everyone into the present catastrophe. Management pointed to the manual where it says death is a choice the same way life is and sickness and wealth and starvation and all of it. All of it. Scarlet memorized the manual when she was a child. She had no choice. Her eyes ran over the words, and they implanted themselves deep inside her. Name a page and she could recite it for you. Her father used to have her do it at parties when the Management would come over as though she were a wind-up toy. The parties were enjoyed by all until Management stopped attending. That was a month or two before her father was arrested.\nAfter that, she was made to hold a candle. Her father had told her that she would never need to do such a thing. She was the daughter of an Executive. The child of fortune. It turns out fortune is a flame just like anything else.\nAnd flames run down.\nIt took her a moment to realize the breath had not just steadied; it had improved. The woman in bed seemed to be catching a rhythm. Another miracle, perhaps? Scarlet did not relish the idea of receiving more attention. Even the positive sort put a target on you. It meant that when you were finally moved to Morning Light, you’d go there with people believing you have a chip on your shoulder. They’d mock you behind your back, or even to your face. You’d be given two candles to hold to break any ego they assumed you’d brought with you. It was Hell until it was Heaven. You had to pay dearly for Heaven.\nThe woman in bed opened her eyes. She reached out her hand for water, but there was none. Scarlet put her hand on the woman’s shoulder so she’d know someone was there. Someone was always there, but with only the light from a candle, the person waking up might believe they had crossed over into a darker place. Even darker than where they were when they were alive. Even darker than the place surrounded by metal and concrete. Where windows only showed you dust and wax was running out.\n“Are you an angel,” the woman asked, the crust around her eyes breaking, and a tiny bit of blood appearing in the middle of her lips.\nScarlet touched that spot, and the blood came away on her fingertip, but the woman’s lip was still chapped and split.\n“No,” she replied, “I’m not.”" } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Into the 2Q Print\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 2342\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story in which a conversation takes place where the true subject is only implied." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "It was much like any other meeting room, a boardroom table, a Polycom phone, a video screen on the credenza, leather chairs, too many, cluttered, slightly stuffy. We might have been anywhere, San Diego or Boston, but we were in Palo Alto. The receptionist, a bored young woman of about my age, offered us coffee. Tom declined, so I did too.\nVisitors normally get the view, it’s a thing, but Tom was having none of it and we sat with our backs to the briefly glimpsed parking lot with the eucalyptus trees shimmering in background. Six months ago, the lot was half empty, but this time it was jammed with Beamers, Porsches, Tesla. Business must be good at Obsidia, I said. \nWe stared at a big poster of the Golden State Warriors; the team were standing in a storm of gold confetti holding a trophy aloft.\nAzi Azarian, CEO and Founder, burst into the room, and seemed surprised at the seating arrangement. Dark cropped hair, nine o’clock shadow, bulging biceps, and camo pants; Azi looked like he was on an R&R break from a combat zone. Rhett Turner, VP of Investor Relations, followed Azi into the room. Rhett looked irritated, like he didn’t want to be there.\nTom Block, my boss, the Senior Analyst, was a sickly-looking man with persistent rosacea and a 1980s comb-over. Wearing a rumpled gray suit, suspenders, he had a cheap, over-the-hill appearance that set him apart from his Wall Street peers. The dull gray man from Richtman Fuchs with the exotic, beautiful and super smart Associate – Clara Chung – that’s me, the latest addition to his software coverage team, and the first-ever woman! I wore a black dress-suit, white blouse, sensible pumps, the same thing every day. I looked like a million bucks, eye candy for the boys.\nThe boys were definitely interested in the eye candy. I fussed at a print copy of the Obsidia income statement and pretended to scan the numbers. It was performance art; I have great short-term memory. I don’t need notes.\n“So, what can you do for me today?”, said Azi smiling, clasping his big hairy hands together. Armenian hands. Rhett leered at me, like he’d had one too many at a sports bar. \n“Thank you so much for seeing us at such short notice” said Tom, oblivious or complicit, “we know how busy you are at the end of the month and ahead of the new platform launch, but we’re touching base with our most important companies before we head into The 2Q Print”. The Print being the end-of-quarter reporting, the conference calls, tiny-font spreadsheets, the sixteen-hour workday. I type fast, I’m fastidious, I can sit at the computer screen for fifteen of the sixteen hours without flagging, and still look gorgeous. I’m good under pressure; it’s another of my superpowers. \n“How is the Full-Court-Press going?” said Tom. \nCEO’s love to hear their idioms and catchphrases quoted back to them. A corporation is like a novel: it is an invention of the mind. It has setting, characters, plot, conflict, and sometimes the CEOs are really good storytellers; they create a whole new reality out words. But what good are words if nobody listens or they go unread?\nAzi launched into his elevator pitch, explaining how the Full Court Press - now abbreviated to “FCP” –was translating into something called “go-to-market motion”, and a “fly wheel of recurring revenue”, and other tiresome MBA stuff. Tom scribbled down the nonsense onto his notepad. when suddenly Azi’s rap veered into hard numbers, sales, margins, and other actually useful stuff, which Tom transcribed neatly in the margin. \nRhett jumped in and interrupted his boss. “Before we get too much further into this meeting”, said Rhett, “I just want to remind you that it’s the last week of the quarter, so we are in the quiet period now, which means there will be no updates to previously issued guidance”. Analysts hate those three words; it’s like being told by the Dentist to floss your teeth every day. Rhett looked at Tom and me, sternly, but I sensed that he was really speaking to Azi, his boss. \n“Aah, such bullshit!” said Azi, “these rules and regulations, they’re killing me”. Azi wasn’t your typical CEO, the cool calculating sociopath. He was different sort; seat-of-the-pants, take-no-prisoner, coming-to-America rags-to-riches sociopath.\n“It must be hard going right now, what with IT budgets being so constrained”, said Tom. It was an open-ended fishing question. Fishing for Alpha; that nugget of information that nobody else has. \nThere’s a fun story: the efficient-market thesis story. A wizened professor of finance is walking down bustling 5th Avenue in New York City, with a student, who spots a $20 bill on the crowded sidewalk. The student is about to pick it up when the professor stops him and tells him not to bother. “If it was real, someone would already have picked it up”, says the Professor. \nIn the market, everything that can be known is already known, but only because there’s thousands of us out there, fishing for Alpha.\nAzi was leaning back in his chair, arms folded behind his head, like he was sunbathing on his big yacht in Portofino or Ibiza. For a moment, I thought I’d accidentally told the professor’s story out loud, and blushed, but then I realized that he was still contemplating Tom’s question about corporate budgets. \n“We just got back from Redmond” said Tom, taking up where he’d left off, the Microsoft boys thinks tight budgets favor them. Corporates are risk-averse right now, so they go with what they know, not new untested platforms… like Obsidia”. Clumsy I thought.\nIt was like a red flag to a bull. Azi sat forward, slapped his big hairy hands on the table, making me flinch. \n“What do I have to do to get you to upgrade our stock?”, said Azi. There was something threatening in his manner, like he might leap across the table and punch Tom in the face. Rhett looked horrified by the question, totally not protocol, but it was out there now, couldn’t be unsaid. \n“Pardon”, said Tom, flustered.\n“You’re all the same, for chrissake!” said Azi “The JP Lewis guy touched base – Kellerman touched base, you touched base, everybody’s touching base! Next day he drops the Price Target on our stock and downgrades Obsidia to Neutral based on some lazy-ass macro argument, like he’s the only one that knows what’s happening in the real world! Then Kellerman downgrades us too! It’s all over Bloomberg and CNBC and $15 billion of value is wiped out, just like that”. He snapped his fingers.\n“Nobody ever got fired for buying Microsoft”, said Tom. Tom was an avid fan of Microsoft, and he had strong BUY rating on the stock. Microsoft was a huge source of underwriting and M&A business for Richtman Fuchs, so the bankers loved Tom for his unyielding support for the software giant. Obsidia was just a trading stock – commission dollars – nickel and dime stuff.\nAzi again seemed poised to leap at Tom’s throat. Jacked arms, big hairy Armenian fingers, it would be over in an instant. Rhett looked disgusted too, but a switch flipped, and Azi gave us a wry grin.\n“Did you see the game last night?” he said. \nI do hate it when they go bro-mode and start talking about team sports. It’s never figure skating or gymnastics. It’s not just a glass ceiling that women have to contend with on Wall Street, it’s also the locker room door.\nTom was suddenly animated in a fan-boy way that I found slightly nauseating. “Yeah! What a fantastic game!”\nI’d been up until 2.00am writing an initiation report that Tom needed for a new company. We were late for a deadline. He needed it first thing, but then – first thing – he needed something else.\nMaybe it was for my benefit because Azi was looking at me when he said “The Warriors were down 15-points at the end of the first quarter, but Curry and Thompson rained in 3-pointers. By half-time the Warriors were up double digits. It was a blowout win”.\n“Wow. Wish I’d seen it”, I said.\n“Yeah, it was a second quarter for the ages”, said Azi. The meaning of the non sequitur couldn’t be clearer, or could it? Tom was staring blankly at the poster on the wall as if daydreaming. \nThe rest of the meeting was dull, conventional stuff. Azi started lecturing us about generative AI and how it was going to change everything and everyone, including Wall Street. All very amusing and mildly threatening. Tom blanched, presumably at the thought that machines might steal his seven-digit paycheck.\nAzi left us with Rhett and the meeting wound down. Tom went to the bathroom, and I made small talk with Rhett, avoiding sports. I needed him to pick up then phone when I call with a question, so I made nice, flirted even.\n“You won’t be publishing anything on this meeting, right?”, said Rhett running his eyes up and down my body.\n+++\nThe black limo met us outside the Obsidia office building. Tom and I sat on the plush backseat, and I immediately felt very weary, ready to nap as we drove along Highway 101 back to the office in San Francisco, but Tom was all action, tapping stuff into his iPhone. \n“Did you see Azi’s body language when I mentioned Microsoft? I really landed a body-blow to that bastard”, he said. \nDelusional, I thought.\n“We need to take the numbers down, keep the same multiple, but I’m guessing at a $60 Price Target”, said Tom. \nIt wasn’t a guess; it was an instruction. I stifled a yawn, opened my laptop and started up Excel. The answer is $60, now how to get there? \n“I’ll phone Ray and get approval for a downgrade to Sell”, said Tom. Ray was head of Research, back in New York. Ray reviewed all Ratings Changes, before they went to the compliance department for legal scrutiny. \nI lowered Obsidia’s growth-rate, deducted a few basis points from gross margins, and stared in disgust at the second quarter revenue and earnings disaster that I’d just concocted. Our numbers would be the lowest on the Street, which would cause a big fuss, but the Price Target was close to $60. Tom guessed right. \nMeanwhile Tom was struggling to justify the Downgrade to Ray over the phone. “No, no, nothing came out of the meeting”, he said and paused. He was searching for something more, something convincing, then it came to him “it’s the macro environment, Ray. We’ve got to adjust our numbers to reflect the macro reality”. \nMacro. The easy out. I hoped that Ray might hang in there, and make Tom squirm, but he didn’t. Probably way too busy. A few minutes later I was cc’d on an email from Ray, approving the Downgrade.\n“Are you sure about this Tom?”. I was more intrigued than I was disappointed. Tom always harped on about how important it is to have primary data, bottom-up stuff, it’s what our clients need, but here we were fresh from a fishing trip without a fish, without a single data point. It was like a case study in ethical failure.\nTom was irritated by my question. “Just get the note written up for me so that I can review it at the office”, he said. Terse.\n“What about that Warrior game stuff, the second quarter turnaround?” I persisted. Surely, he’d read between the lines, hadn't he?\n“Azi was just spit-balling. He was trying to impress me. Mano a Mano” said Tom, signaling with impatience that the discussion was outside my wheelhouse.\nIt wasn’t my call. I was just following orders. A few minutes later, somewhere near the San Mateo flyover, I fell asleep in the backseat of the limo, and sweetly dreamed that I was somewhere nice. Portofino or Ibiza.\n+++\nObsidia posted monster results, of course. The second quarter print blew the analysts’ numbers completely out of the proverbial water. \nRhett phoned and told me that Richtman Fuchs is full of idiots and hung up before I had a chance to agree.\nThe market opened at 9.30 am in New York, but it was still dark over here, 6.30 am in San Fran; it felt dark too. Long-only investors piled in, the hedge funds scrambled to cover, and by day-end OBSD stock was above $100 a share. The cable news people shredding us analysts and Tom’s lonely Sell came in for particular ridicule, including a pithy “blame it on the macro” critique that appeared on the back page of the Journal. \nTom avoided me completely, but I spotted him gossiping with my teammates, my peers, both men, at the water cooler. I decide to lean in, Sheryl-Sandberg-style. I grabbed a one-page document off my desk, as if I was on a mission to the photocopier.\n“Clara was pretty persistent”, I overhead Tom say, “she felt the numbers were too aggressive, and I guess I should have spent more time on it, but I was tired, and…”\n“Hi guys!” I said, all cheery, like I didn’t have a clue what they were talking about.\n“Oh, Hi Clara. We were just discussing the game last night”, said Tom, sheepish, blushing and turning the rosacea an angry red.\n “Yeah! What a nightmare!” I said.\n“I don’t know what you are talking about!”, said Tom, confused.\n“The Point Guard got carried off the court with a herniated testicle”, I said.\nTom winced.\n“There’s talk of him retiring at the end of the season. The team’s getting old, and they need new leadership, apparently”.\nThe two associates looked shocked, and Tom looked like he was in an agony of discomfort. \n“I’m just kidding! Just spit-balling. Mano a mano” I said. \nA million bucks, eye candy, I waltzed along the corridor in the direction of the photocopy room, a freshly updated resume in hand. I heard that the Kellerman analyst had just been let go." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Writers Workshop At Lake Manitoba\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 1885\n\nPrompt:\n\nSet your story at a silent retreat." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "A grin exploded across his face as Harold Jones walked through the rows of desks to the front of the class to receive his award for the best story of the day. He could be a great writer, knew he had amazing stories stacked up inside him like shelves in a library, but just couldn’t get them them. He had always known this Writers retreat, held at the historic Arts Building at the University of Manitoba, would be the key to unlocking his success, and he finally was on his way.\nThe writers gave up technology to create stories with paper and pen only, in absolute, and total silence. Harold had applied for years, until a series of suspicious deaths in the area had tamped down demand, and they finally accepted him. The irony of having to go on a silent retreat to get the words out was not lost on him. He turned to gloat at Michal, who had won the award both the previous days. Michal avoided him, jealous maybe, his eyes on his faded trainers, so Harold nodded to the rest of the class applauding. He graciously accepted his reward from the teacher, Michelle, a gold chocolate bar. Harold had to admit his first thought was to eat it. He was starving, and though he felt he had won, guilt pricked him about how he cam by the idea, and he considered if this symbol should just disappear. \nWhen Michelle rang the dinner bell, Harold was ashamed when his mouth started to salivate. He followed the class to the cafeteria. His stomach rebelled at the sight of the brown rice and vegetables, but he took a tray anyway, placed it next to his chocolate bar and moved into the small outdoor patio for a seat. \nHe saw one in the shade and headed for it. Kicking the leg of the bench trying to get his sore hips down far enough, he fell into the seat, clanging the tray on the table. That's when he saw Michal across from him. \n‘I beat you Michal!’ The words rang in his head, eyes blazing in joy, and it was almost as good as saying it out loud. Then he worried, does he know? Harold gave him a sideways glance, would he say anything?\nA rumble broke the silence, a Harley Davidson motorcycle roaring. Harold looked down at his belly, then ducked his head slightly as the other writers glanced up from their bowls in the small patio.\nThat must have been when Michal stole his chocolate. \n After the first day of the Workshop, the rule against talking wasn’t as hard to follow as he had thought. Harold didn't know anyone here, authors from both the US and Canada, and he understood the hand gestures and nods of the simplified sign language, most of the time. But, in shock at the no phone, no computer, no talking rules on the Writers Workshop pamphlet, he had missed the section that the meals were vegetarian-only.\nHarold enjoyed the bean soup for lunch yesterday, a marvelous first course, he decided, until he found out it was the only course. He skipped the boiled vegetables and mushrooms over gluten-free pasta last night, filling up on famous Amos cookies instead from the tiny Snack and Sundries shop. And the dorm room, designed for young, limber college students, tortured over-weight, middle age writers. Harold had not fallen asleep without TSC encouraging him to buy the latest kitchen appliance in 10 years, and the narrow bed in the monk-like cell had more lumps than the porridge served in the morning.\nHarold’s editor Laura, had said he needed to start something new. Harold’s current novel was, in her words, ‘insipid, uninspired, and unsellable.’ Harsh words, but of course she technically wasn't his editor yet, though he had hope.\nHe had met Laura, an editor at a large online publishing site, through a friend of a friend. He got her personal email address with a promise of a follow up date to a Taylor Swift concert. The concert tickets, as fictional as his stories, got Harold’s foot in the door, and he had been peppering her with chapters from his novel ever since, a dark thriller/romance titled ‘Last Night at the Lake’. Laura had encouraged him to take a six month- long course, and never call her again, but Harold thought a week was just the right length to fine tune the heretofore hidden talents buried somewhere inside of him. \nBy the third day of the Workshop, he began to worry. His few ideas floated away like the clouds of curdled milk in his coffee. The sight and sounds of the authors furiously writing around him didn’t, as advertised by the organizers of this Writers Workshop, inspire him to the ‘Best Writing of his Life’, but instead made the point, as sharp as his unused pencil, that while they had stories to write, he did not.\nThe tablet arm desk groaned in pain as Harold twisted to get comfortable, eyes glancing at the clock to confirm the hands did actually move. He did not fit into the desk like he did the last time he had regularly sat in one, 20 years ago in college, although he rarely sat in one then, skipping class like a spinning stone on Lake Winnipeg. He tapped his pencil on his mostly blank paper. He did have some ideas, but tossed them out one after the other. Weak characters, pathetic plots, and half written, rejected story lines flew around him in a storm of dejection.\nHis uncomfortable creaking caused a sharp glance from Michal, in the next row over, a sneer of annoyance communicated his thought clearer than any word. Michal, rumored to be the greatest writer in North Central Canada, turned back to his own desk, and began scribbling again, his pen smoothly writing on the paper in front of him, stacking completed sheets on one side, only a few rejects ending up in the trash bin between them. \nHarold slammed his palm into his forehead. He had to do something, he had put so much work into getting here. Harold glared at Michal, seated right next to him, a human printer, writing without pause, ink flowing like a river across his page. \nHarold knew he shouldn’t have pulled Michal’s discarded papers out of the trash, he shouldn’t have read the small, perfect script. He only wanted to see some bad writing, typos at least, to find company in his misery, at least that's what he told himself. But reading them only made it worse. No typos, no cross outs, only elegant, dramatic sentences. The story snippets were all crime stories, oddly funny, and insightful like Harold wanted his stories to be. Sparks flew off the page, until the mystery would end without a resolution, or have an ending, without a beginning.\nIn one of the murder mystery stories, half written, the characters were at a crossroad, stuck. Harold saw something. He saw how the pieces that Michal had begun in the first half of a story could be tied together and completed in the second half.\n Should he ask Michal to use it? Harold tilted over as close as he dared.\n‘Hey, hey! Could I finish this story idea?” He held the paper up, his voice barely discernible above the pens writing around them.\nMichal turned, his dark eyes wide, eyebrows raised, then back to his desk.\nWhat did that mean? Harold leaned over to confirm, but Michelle saw him move, her eyes staring red laser beams of warning. Harold sat straight up. Definitely a yes.\nHe read the story again, and then, copying the scrap of a story in his own scrawl, he crumpled the stolen page tight into his pocket. He continued, the spark of an idea growing into a small fire, and then a beautiful flame, warming him with its intensity. The story moved fast, until the earned twist landed with a click, solving the mystery with an unexpected character, to have a deeper meaning than ever expected.\nThe time flew by, and he had just finished in time to turn it in, posted on the wall to be read by the rest of the class. The other writers milled around, reviewing each submission. That story had been the best thing he had ever written, and he had stolen most of it. Well maybe just part of it, but still the guilt toyed with him. He had changed the names, was that enough?\nSitting at the outdoor patio across from his rival, Harold saw the glittering gold foil of his chocolate bar, on Michal’s tray. His award! Somehow Michal had reached over and stolen it off his tray.\nHarold pointed at the chocolate, mouth open in shock. Lightheaded from not eating, Harold’s rage flicked on like an industrial boiler, roaring inside of him.\n Michal just smiled, popped his eyes wide in that curious expression, and put his head down to slurp a spoonful of his soup. Harold pounded the table and pointed again at the chocolate. \n“That is my chocolate!” Harold huffed, a fiery breath of anger, leaning across the patio table. Michal looked up, shaking his head from side to side. \nThe entire class, filling the patio turned, eyes sharp and accusing. Michelle two tables over had her long slender finger over her lips.\nHarold pointed at his chocolate then shouted in a big open mouth, soundless- ‘Mine!”\nMichal gestured to Harold’s chocolate bar and then to Harold with his head tilted sideways, a query twisting his face. He had a dark threatening look in his eyes. He picked up the bar and moved it away from Harold and closer to himself.\n Michal must be toying with him, he knew Harold had stolen the story, and this is his revenge. Anger boiled up in Harold, an over-cooked soup, frothing in big bubbles overflowing any control he had. Both hands slammed on the table, “No!”\nMichelle appeared as if an apparition, one hand on Harold’s shoulder.\n“SHHH!”\nHarold tried to make his case, pointing at the chocolate, and then at himself, repeating the words “stole my chocolate!” over and over in soundless mouthing.\nWhen they both, their heads synchronized in shaking side to side, refused, Harold realized they were both in this against him, vengeance for a plagiarized story. \nMichelle smiled and patted Harold on the shoulder.\nMichal had opened the bar, and now chocolate covered his teeth, in a shit-eating grin. \nHarold, open mouthed in shock, watched the last of his chocolate bar disappear, his fists squeezing so tight they turned white. He moved to leave, away from the table, away from the humiliation.\nThat’s when Michal put his hand out, resting it on Harold’s forearm.\n“Good story.” He mouthed.\nHarold swung then, toppling Michal, the table, and any chance of getting published in The Lake Manitoba Press.\nUnder the table, before he was pulled up by the rest of the class, Harold saw the glittering gold foil of an unopened chocolate bar. He picked it up, pocketing it for later.\nAnother story idea popped in his head, of a suspicious death at a Writers Workshop.\nHe opened the chocolate bar as he planned it out. This would be his best story yet." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Longing to Exhale\n\nGenre: coming-of-age\n\nWord Count: 1288\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story about hope." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "With tears streaming, I hesitantly packed everything I had in the nearest bag. All the worries and anxieties, the doubts, and unbeliefs, the joy and pain, the love and grief, and traumas and fears, the depression and wonder and hope. I tossed them all in and prayed for the best. With my heart in a sack slung over my shoulder I begrudgingly made my journey. I hoped someone had been listening as I called out, begging and pleading, that I wouldn’t be turned away but welcomed with anything other than pity. I’d rather be rejected and turned away than to be accepted because of pity. I didn’t need anyone's heart to go out for me; my heart was already gone, or at least most of it was. What was left of it sat restive in the bag on back beating boisterously like an animal trying to escape its cage.\n That’s how I’d always felt, like I was trying to escape a cage I’d been thrown into. A cage full of demons I’d been fighting for years with no luck and no one to help. Or maybe that wasn’t quite true. Maybe there was someone on the other side of those silver bars waiting with a key. Waiting for me to ask them to unlock the doors and let me breathe again, but the pride in my chest kept my lips sealed shut. I couldn’t possibly ask someone to take on that task, not when I knew what it was like. I’d held the weight of those iron keys in my own hands one too many times attempting to liberate the very people that held me captive. So I sat there, like an animal in a cage with my wounds on display for an audience, unable to speak. I stood there silently as they clapped while I took blow after blow. Still I couldn’t ask the one holding the keys for help. How could I when I was scared of being free. Don’t get me wrong, I hated the cage I’d been constrained to with every fiber of my being, but when you’ve been incarcerated for ages, the inside of those steel bars becomes home. It becomes routine, a sort of crutch, and the outside world becomes uncertain and unstable. In that cage, I knew what to expect day by day. I knew I’d be met with pain and torment. Outside, I didn’t know what to expect, I didn’t know what I’d be confronted with and it terrified me. But lately I’d been feeling like it was time for exposure therapy, it was time for me to breathe again. I had been holding my breath for far too long and I didn’t know how much longer I could continue on that way. And I knew I couldn’t overcome what I refused to confront.\nSo with weak knees and a heart that was barely beating, I walked up to the door and decided I was ready to breathe again. I decided I was ready to ask the person on the other side for help. I raised my fist and knocked on the old oak door. I don’t know what I was expecting. Maybe pity once they saw what I carried inside of my bag or anger for bringing my ratty clothes and bloodied heart to their front step, but I was met with neither. The door opened and we locked eyes. Bright eyes met my glistening gaze and I was swept up into warm arms before I had a chance to present the reason for my sudden appearance. I was ushered into the home that smelt like autumn and love. I shifted my weight from foot to foot as my eyes caught the decades worth of endearment that lined the brown walls. My eyes stung as I wondered if I’d ever get the privilege of experiencing anything like what I was seeing in those pictures. \nI was ushered to a couch and suddenly my words were caught in my throat. I contemplated remaining silent. “I just came by to pay you a visit”, I’d say. I’d carry my bag and its contents back home and dump them in the corner of my cluttered room. I’d cover them back up and pretend they weren’t there. Everything would go back to normal, to familiarity. But as coffee brewed and our knees bumped, my eyes welled up. The dam that I’d spent years building suddenly had given away and I didn’t know how I felt about it. Soft circles were rubbed on my back as I choked out the words I’d been dying to speak aloud. The words I’d only whispered to myself in the dead of night were suddenly floating around the air, and it felt good. It felt like the calm after last night's rain, like a slow smile or long hug, like stepping out of the house at midnight to see the moon grinning down at you. It felt like the first exhale after being underwater, like I was finally breathing again.\nWith shaky hands I unloaded my bag on the coffee table. I felt shy under the gaze of the god send next to me. Once finished, I sat back with a deep sigh and waited for a response or reaction. I waited for a sign of regret, resentment, or repulsion . Once more, where I expected blazing flames, I was met with a gentle rain. A rain so soft and delicate that fell down and kissed all the places I’d been previously burned.\n Hand in hand, we sorted through the chaos on the table before us. Together we tossed out the things that once diverted me from the troubles of my life. It was decided that, from there on out I would face things head on, no more distractions. We threw away all the things that plagued me at night or no longer served a purpose. All of my wounds were carefully tended to by the gentle hands that held mine. There were no reservations about the things that I’d laid bare on the table, only love and a devotion to help where needed. It was beyond admirable. When I was scared to dive into the deep end, my hand was held and I was told that everything would be fine. And together, we jumped. We dived head first into my problems and traumas and swam with everything we had in us until the waves were no longer besting us. At last, I glanced down into my hands at the heart that I now held as it beat steadily. It looked different than before. Newer, softer, loved at last. A little used and slightly torn, covered in bandages, but still loved nonetheless. With delicate fingers, we placed it back where it should’ve been all along, where it should have never left. \nBut sometimes that’s the way things go. Sometimes things are placed where they shouldn’t be, and they get bruised, broken, and occasionally stepped on. Sometimes valuable things are misplaced or ruined; they suffer wear and tear and sometimes irrefutable damages. Sometimes things don’t go how they should and everything gets chaotic and jumbled up. There’s confusion everywhere and everything is bleak and dark. The moon is hiding and there are no stars in sight. Sometimes the nights are cold and painfully long, but then morning eventually comes. Wrapped in a cardigan and a sunshine grin. The rain finally settles and the stars come out again to kiss you goodnight. The mess gets sorted out and the cage gets opened. You're greeted by kind eyes and love that knows no bounds. You exhale and pick up pieces of what used to be. You learn how to breathe again" } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Three Little Words\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 2981\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart or finish your story with a speaker unable to finish their sentence, perhaps overcome by emotion." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Anne rubbed her eyes aggressively before she remembered the mascara she was wearing. “Crap,” she muttered, glancing at the smears and flecks of black that coated her fingers. Oh well, it didn’t really matter what she looked like. There was no other soul in the office with her. The clock at the bottom corner of her screen indicated it was close to eight in the evening. She needed to close down her computer for the night but there were a few extra details she wanted to include in this proposal. It was the culmination of six months of work and she was damn proud of it. Her superiors would be too once they saw it on Friday. Anne double-checked her calendar to make sure the meeting request for her third annual employee review was still there. It was. \nSighing, she finally turned her computer off when her eyes began to cross. Anne collected her computer and turned off the desk lamp. The hallways of The Social Collective were silent but Anne liked the lack of noise. It reminded her of the good old days when the company was working out of a rented office with green walls and orange seating down on Fifth Avenue. Now, a year and a half later, they owned the entire floor of a downtown highrise. Everything was neutral tones of ivory, pale blue, and millennial gray. It was incredible how much they had grown in such a short amount of time.\n“Goodnight, Howard,” Anne called out as she passed the security guard behind his desk. Howard, an older gentleman with a shocking white crew cut and soft blue eyes smiled back at her.\n“Burning the midnight oil, I see,” Howard said, smiling broadly so the crinkles around his eyes were more prominent. Anne nodded. \n“Yep. I have a big proposal that I’ve been putting together for my employee review this Friday,” \n“Well, with how much time you’ve been putting in, it’s going to be amazing. I know it,” \n“I hope so,” Anne said, shifting the weight of her workbag on her shoulder. “Six months of work boiled down into eight pages and a ten-minute presentation.” Howard whistled.\n“Wow,” the shock was evident in his voice. “They’re going to love whatever you put together, Mrs. Clark.” \n“Three years and you still won’t call me Anne?” She asked jovially. Howard chuckled and shook his head. \n“Security guard code of conduct. All tenants are Misses, Mister, or Miss. I don’t make the rules, I just follow them,” he explained, shrugging his shoulders. Anne couldn’t help herself as she laughed at the comical expression he gave her. Howard joined in, their teenage giggling echoing off the sterile white tile and crystal clear glass of the building lobby. \n“Alright,” Anne said, collecting herself after a few moments. “It’s time I go home and have dinner with my husband. Goodnight, Howard.” She waved to Howard who waved back.\n“Goodnight, Mrs. Clark,” he said. \nAnne was still chuckling to herself as she marched across the empty parking garage to her car. No one had a designated spot but after three years, it was common knowledge that Anne parked on the second floor, the fourth spot from the stairs. In her car, she queued up the audiobook she’d been listening to on the way to work and began the trek home. This late in the evening, traffic was practically nonexistent so she easily traveled down the highway back to the small house she shared with her husband, Tyler, and their two dogs. \nThe house itself wasn’t much, just a three-bedroom bungalow with two small flowerbeds in the front, an even smaller garden in the back, and a stone pathway with glow-in-the-dark stones that made her irrationally happy. It was pure chaos when she entered the little house as her two Staffies, Glinda and Elphaba, bounded toward her across the hardwood flooring. \n“Hello! Hello!” Anne cooed, leaning down to accept kisses from her two Staffies, Glinda and Elphaba. “How are my girls?” It was a flurry of toenails on tile, excessive whining, and wagging tails as she padded past them into the house. Tyler stood up from the couch in the living room to greet her. Anne dropped her bag onto the floor by the kitchen table with a thud and a sigh.\n“Hey, pretty lady. How was your day?” he said and wrapped his arms around her. Anne mumbled something into his shoulder that he couldn’t hear. He leaned back to look at her face. “What was that?” \n“Long,” she moaned. “I think I finally finished the proposal I’ve been working on.” \n“That’s great!” \n“It is, but I’m kind of nervous,” \n“Why? Tyler asked. “Don’t tell me it’s because you think it’s not good enough. You’ve been working hard on it for six months, seven if you count when it was initially assigned. And I know no one else at that place has worked as hard as you do these last three years or would put this much effort into their work. What is making you nervous?” \nAnne chewed on her bottom lip, unsure of how to voice her concerns. It felt irrational to say something like the vibes just feel off, but that’s exactly what it was. Over the last few days, she’d noticed a shift within her team. Fewer and fewer people had been actively engaging with her during work hours. Rarely did anyone ask her out to lunch or dinner, but it was even more pronounced these previous weeks, especially considering she had noticed others going out together. Anne had also noticed Tandy, her immediate supervisor, having multiple conversations with the director of their department. What was making her paranoid was she thought she heard her name be mentioned on a few occasions during those meetings.\nOne part of her heart told her to calm down. These fears were unfounded and she knew it, yet her heart still raced every time she thought about it. Anne shook her head in an attempt to dispel the overwhelming sense of dread that was now taking over her. \n“Nothing, it’s nothing,” she said, forcing out a soft chuckle. “Anyway, what’s for dinner? I’m so hungry!” At the word ‘hungry’, Glinda and Elphaba sprang to life at her feet. Their untarnished love and happiness brought a much-needed smile to her face. \nThe next day of work was significantly less stressful for Anne as she was working from home. She dressed comfortably in sweatpants and a clean blouse since she would be on camera for a few meetings. Otherwise, it was a relatively quiet day. The dogs were on surprisingly good behavior as she led two meetings and participated in one with Tandy. \n“Alright, and everyone, don’t forget your annual employee reviews begin tomorrow,” Tandy said before ending their last meeting of the day. “I just want to say that I have enjoyed working with each and every one of you. Have a great evening!” The screen filled with her team members waving as though they were saying goodbye to a departing ship. Anne joined them, smiling as each person began to log off for the day. When her screen went dark, the smile dropped from her face. Why would Tandy say that? Was something going to happen tomorrow during the reviews? \nA shudder ran down her spine as remembered the way it seemed Tandy looked directly at her when she made her final statement. No, Anne said to herself as she pushed away from her desk. I’m just stressed and being irrational. She looked over at her dogs who were lounging, belly up by the office doorway. “Oh, to have your life,” she murmured, giggling as two tails rhythmically thumped on the carpet. She stepped over them, ignoring the frantic chaos as Glinda and Elphaba struggled to get up and follow her to her next destination, the kitchen. There, she found Tyler sitting at the bar, typing away at his computer. Slowly, he pulled his attention away from his screen and let his eyes travel languidly over her frame. \n“I love the Zoom dress code,” he said and Anne barked with laughter. \n“Me too,” she agreed, opening the fridge door. Rarely did she drink but after the day she’d had–scratch that, after the month and a half she’d had, she needed something stronger than water. From the fridge door, she pulled out a bottle of rosé that had barely been touched. She took her full wine glass to the couch where she was quickly accompanied by her girl, Glinda. The Staffie placed her head on her lap as though she were keenly aware of the anxiety coursing through Anne’s body. That’s the thing about dogs though, isn’t it? They always seem to know something before you do. \nAs she climbed into bed that night, Anne thought about all the things she was grateful for. She had an amazing husband who supported her in everything she did. She had two healthy, happy dogs who were as close to children as she’d get these days. And she had an incredible job that paid well and allowed her to do the things she loved. What could possibly go wrong? \nFriday morning, Anne walked into the building with a pep in her step. Part of it was due to the overwhelming love she felt from Tyler. He’d surprised her with breakfast in bed and a new bag for her laptop, all in honor of her finishing the biggest project she’d worked on to date. Part of it was also anxiety. There was still a nagging fear somewhere in the pit of her stomach. Her fight or flight mode was being triggered and she couldn’t understand why. Regardless, she smiled at Howard as she strode through the lobby toward the elevator. She hummed along to the song that played over the speaker while she rode up to the fifth floor to help push the fear out of her mind. She felt almost fine when she finally padded up to her desk and pulled her laptop from her new bag. \n“Good morning, Rachel,” she said to the young woman who sat across from her. Rachel had been with The Social Connection just under three months and was very sweet when she wanted to be. She looked up from her phone and offered a tight-lipped smile in response before dropping her gaze. Anne smiled back, though considerably less friendly. She never considered herself a particularly talkative person, yet she always felt too verbose in comparison to Rachel. Overall, the interaction was another ding to the armor she’d just finished building but Anne refused to let it dull her shine. She squared her shoulders, rearranged the minimal papers on her desk, and turned her computer on to work through a few tasks before her employee review. \nThat hour flew by and dragged at the same time. Anne felt like she almost couldn’t find any work to do yet she knew there was plenty of it waiting. When it was finally time to head into the conference room, she grabbed her laptop and a notepad. Fear gripped her heart as she walked down the muted gray hallway to the room they had aptly named the “fishbowl.” The conference room was just four walls of glass with a long oak table and eight chairs surrounding it. \n“Anne, good morning,” Charlotte, the owner of The Social Connection, said as she opened the conference room door. Tandy sat next to her with an expression Anne couldn’t read. Was it solemn or just exhausted? \n“Good morning,” Anne breathed. The solid glass door wooshed shut behind her. \n“How has your morning been?” Charlotte asked as she sat down in a chair opposite her. Anne smiled. \n“It’s been wonderful. Tyler surprised me with a new work bag. He’s more confident than I am that you are going to like my project proposal,” she said with some laughter. Charlotte and Tandy joined her, though altogether it sounded hollow in the glassy space. “So, should I pull up my presentation on the big screen?” She pointed to the television mounted on the wall perpendicular to the table.\n“Actually, about that Anne,\" Charlotte began forcing Anne’s heart to freeze. She knew that tone. “We’ve called you in here today to discuss the future of the company.” \n“I see,” Anne said, her voice barely above a murmur. Every fiber of her being was screaming at that moment. \n“The Social Connection is growing at an unprecedented rate. And we are so grateful for your work, but unfortunately, we feel that you and The Social Connection are heading in different directions.” Charlotte’s voice was steady and rehearsed. She had too much personality for it to be cold but that meant nothing to Anne. She barely heard any of the things that came after that initial statement. A piece of paper slid across the table for her to sign. Notice of Immediate Termination was inscribed at the top in big bold letters. Specific words such as severance and effective immediately stuck out to Anne but everything else might as well have been gibberish. Three years of back-breaking work; six months dedicated to a project that she was excited about; all would be ripped away with the signing of her name. \n“Do you have any questions?” Charlotte’s voice cut through the buzzing noise that was growing increasingly louder in her head. Did she have questions? Hell yes, she had many questions! But when Anne tried to open her mouth, there were no words that would come. She physically could not speak so she simply shook her head. “Okay, well, we just want you to know that we are so appreciative of everything you have done for this company. You really did help us build this dream into a reality and we could not be more thankful for your contributions.” \n“Yes, Anne, you have done so much for our team. We are so grateful for everything you have brought to the table,” Tandy added. There was something in her tone that sounded false to Anne’s ears. She couldn’t fathom how someone could be so nice to her yet come across as so calculating now. \n“Do you have any questions for us?” Charlotte asked. There were still no words in Anne’s throat so she simply shook her head no. With that, Charlotte and Tandy said they would give Anne her space to read through the termination contract. They filed out awkwardly, neither of them looking at Anne or saying anything to her. When she was completely alone, she truly felt like a fish on display. Everyone could see in, from any angle, and watch as she struggled to maintain her composure. \nEverything she’d worked for, the career she’d been promised when she left her other job for this one at The Social Connection, was gone. The worst part was, someone else decided her fate for her and there was nothing she could do about it. In a trance, Anne signed her termination letter, collected her things, and walked out of the office. It felt like all eyes were on her but that was possibly the shame she was currently feeling. How could she have been so stupid? \nHoward’s surprise to see Anne so soon after she’d arrived did not go unnoticed. His head swiveled back and forth between her and the clock on the wall. “Leaving already?” He demanded, a jovial ring to his tone. Anne, still unable to speak, just nodded. “Okay, well, see you next Monday!” He said and she nodded curtly again. For some reason, she couldn’t tell him she wouldn’t be back. It was like admitting defeat. In her car, she caught a glimpse of herself in the rearview mirror and only then realized that she hadn’t shed a tear. She and Charlotte had been like best friends for the last three years. Anne was an integral part of creating The Social Connection. Hell, she was the first employee Charlotte had after herself! And today, Charlotte had treated her like a disposable napkin. That should have brought hot, wet tears to her eyes, yet there was nothing. Charlotte essentially said, “You are fired,” and she hadn’t even batted an eye.\nThe car ride home was silent with only the noise from the road and an occasional engine revving to break it all up. Tyler, who always worked from home, was in his office right off the kitchen when she eventually made her way back into their home. Glinda and Elphaba alerted him to her presence with the overzealous way they showed love. He stepped out, reading glasses perched on the end of his nose, and a quizzical expression clouding his eyes. \n“Anne? Honey, what are you doing home so soon?” He glanced at his watch. “It’s not even lunchtime.” Anne didn’t reply. She seemed to be in shock. Instead, she just padded over to the living room and dropped her new work bag on the floor. It crumpled over to the side without a laptop inside to support it and the copy of her termination notice slid out to the floor. Glinda and Elphaba whined for attention when she fell backward onto the couch. Tyler, oblivious to the dogs' antics, picked up the paper. He had barely scanned the page when his shoulders dropped. \n“Oh, baby,” Tyler murmured and rushed to her side wrapping his arms around her shoulders. “What happened?” He asked. Anne wanted to tell him everything, but something was blocking her ability to speak. When she finally opened her mouth, a loud, rib-cracking sob broke free as though the weight of the world were crashing down on her. Hot, juicy tears poured down her cheeks and onto her pants. Tyler held her and rubbed her back occasionally. She continued to cry, unable to explain how three simple words felt like three-ton dream crushers." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Incident\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 2258\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart or finish your story with a speaker unable to finish their sentence, perhaps overcome by emotion." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Leonard stared at his chipped and faded CU Denver coffee mug, the vortex of Columbian ground beans almost a black hole of doom that threatened to pull him in. Though he didn't consider himself old (only recently turning thirty), he noticed that time moved faster the farther he progressed in age. This last week, however, seemed to crawl at the pace of a snail in a race determined to lose.\nTo be fair, Leonard usually felt this way. Since back when he was a boy even. A creeping expectation of nebulous dread. That at any time, for any reason, something can and most likely will go wrong.\nAt the behest of his wife, Emily, Leonard had reluctantly agreed to begin seeing a therapist.\n\"You'll feel a lot better, believe me\", Emily said to him a few weeks ago in bed. Leonard's brother, Allen, had also encouraged him, also bestowing him with a few books: Madness: Dealing with the Neurotic Mind, God are you there? Its me, Adam and The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.\nAfter a few sessions, his therapist, Dr. Lewis, said he believed they made some developments.\n\"...these type of thinking patterns, and almost superstitious beliefs, are common for people that come from these type of backgrounds. A false sense of uncertainty or insecurity, which can lead to expressions of anxiety. This I think ties in with the feelings you have regarding responsibility in your father's condition.\"\nLeonard's father, Harry, had lived in Soviet Ukraine for most of his childhood and adolescence, before coming to the States sometime in the mid eighties. He met Leonard and Allen's mother, Lisa, and they settled down in Colorado. Harry worked long hours as a car salesman, in the hopes that Leonard and Allen would go to university and aspire to greater things. Leonard did, going to CU Denver with the intentions of majoring in business, but dropped out after one semester with the hopes of getting into film production. Like Leonard, or maybe even more so, Harry had struggled with anxiety and negative thinking patterns. When Leonard revealed he had dropped out of university, Harry almost suffered a hear attack.\nLeonard moved to LA, and after struggling for six months to get a foot into the industry, gave up the endeavor and instead became an adult film cameraman for a few odd months. Eventually, his family got word of his current livelihood, and Harry was hospitalized for heart pains. Leonard caught a flight to Denver right after, and was with his family when the doctor gave the news.\n\"-had expected , based on his previous medial history and the symptoms he was experiencing that this was a heart attack, but it appears he suffered from Takotsubo cardiomyopathy.\"\n\"...what?\", Lisa had replied.\n\"Broken heart syndrome. Something very recently must have caused him so much stress or pain that his heart muscles literally began to give in.\"\nHarry was fine and lived a relatively unbothered life, though is heart was now significantly weaker.\nRegardless, Leonard stared at the coffee with dread.\nLast Monday, a few hours into the start of the work day, Jones Anderson and Amy Morrison, members of upper management, had come to him, materializing behind his cubicle as if jinn. They talked hushed to him, and a few moments later he was in Anderson's office, Anderson closing the door behind him but giving a smile to Leonard as he sat down. They exchanged pleasantries for a brief moment, as they did a pit of fear growing in Leonard's stomach.\n\"We brought you here, Leonard, to discuss a incident that happened in the north wing breakroom last Tuesday. There was a complaint that Hugh may have made a...possibly insensitive comment about a certain subject matter. Based on the report, you were also in the room, and engaged in conversation with Hugh.\"\n\"I-what was the comment?\"\n\"Well...Hugh seems to have maybe done a bit of friendly ribbing with John, which escalated into maybe not so pleasant exchanges. In the report filed to HR, John claims Hugh said...\"\nLeonard listened, and as he did, his brain went through the birth of the universe, from the minuscule dot to the slow heat death, in search of what words should depart his tongue next. He thought of back when he was in university, and was caught cheating on his exam. Harry had departed some sage advise to Leonard.\n”I think it’s best to tell the truth with these things. That way, you don’t have to try and keep track of all the webs and strings. Just got to roll with the punches.”\nIn that aspect, Harry was the opposite of Leonard, as Leonard loved to lie. Well, not so much loved to lie, but vastly preferred it to its counterpart, confrontation. Dr. Lewis told Leonard he believed this stemmed from his mother, and her overprotective style of parenting during Leonard's formative years. In this instance however, he thought Harry might have been on to something. So he told the truth.\n”I mean…yeah, he said that. Hugh and John rib on each other like this all the time. Most of the department does. Hell, I’ve even done it.”\nLeonard left Anderson's office a little after that, returning to his cubicle. About an hour later, Jones and Amy returned saying unfortunately Leonard will be placed on leave until further notice, pending an ongoing investigation into him and the rest of the department. As Leonard drove home that night, he cursed God, his father and himself.\n\"I'm heading out\", Emily said, walking into the kitchen and breaking Leonard out of his trance.\n\"Oh\", Leonard replied, turning around, Emily embracing him.\n\"Don't worry so much, it's gonna be fine.\"\n\"Mm\", Leonard only said.\n\"Have you decided on what you're getting Allen?\", Emily asked.\n\"Mm...not yet. Probably just another whisky or something. Maybe a coke too. Old man's still a frat bro at heart, though he plays the part of the gentleman well.\"\nEmily smiled, planting a kiss on Leonard's cheek then leaving. Leonard continued to stare at the cup, the coffee untouched. The swirl had fizzled out now, the top now calm, all the grounds hidden at the bottom. Leonard tried to quite his mind, but found he could only muffle it.\n***\nLeonard had been in Anderson's office for about five minutes, his rhythmic foot tapping the only noise in the room. As the seconds on the clock ticked by, Leonard got up to see if perhaps he was in the wrong room, but Jones and Amy opened the door, greeting Leonard with their ever present grin and coming in. They engaged in grief conversation, when asked about the week, Leonard for some reason lying and saying he went skiing with some friends. Afterwards they sat down to talk.\n\"Leonard, what happened here was unfortunate. You've been with us for some time now, and I know a lot of people here can vouch for the quality of your character. Nowadays, we just have to be a little more mindful of what we say. Even if it's fine for you, you never know how it will be received by the other person or persons. Now I like you, you know that. It's just I have my bosses, and they're starting to squeeze harder, especially with things like this. Never know when something will snowball into a PR disaster.\"\n\"Yeah, Yeah I get you. Thanks Jones\", Leonard replied, the tight ball in his stomach starting to lessen slightly.\n\"Of course, of course. Now um, I probably shouldn't tell you about other employees, but since we like you, we let Hugh get his stuff after the office closed, to spare him any embarrassment. If you want, you can wait 'til tonight to retrieve your stuff, or get it now. Which ever you prefer.\"\nLeonard stared, his smile still plastered on his face.\n\"I-what?\"\n\"Your belongings. Hugh opted to get his after hours, do you want to do the same?\", Jones repeated.\nThe smile on Leonard's face slowly lowered, the tight ball in his stomach growing exponentially as his brain fired a million thoughts a second, none of them good.\n\"I-I'm fired?\"\n\"Not fired\", Amy said. \"We like to think of it as...your career journey is taking you someplace different. Like a caterpillar blossoming into a butterfly, this is just a change, maybe even for the better.\"\n\"That's a beautiful analogy, Amy\", Jones said.\n\"Thank you.\"\n\"I-I've been here eight years. I-I've never so much as had one incident or complaint.\"\n\"I know, and we thank you so much for everything you've done for the company in that span. It hasn't gone unnoticed.\"\nLeonard stared at the table, a swirling pattern on the oak, almost appearing to move.\n\"Um...I have a birthday party to be at tonight, so I'll just get my stuff now.\"\n\"Excellent\", Jones said, him and Amy standing up.\nLeonard was quick, gathering his belongings and exiting the building within twelve minutes.\nLeonard drove to a park, where he stayed most of the day. He didn't cry, or feel particularly sad. A feeling of despair had completely enveloped him, seeping from the inside and wrapping around him . He stared at the swaying branches above him, his mind strangely blank. He noticed the leaves fall from the branches from the whim of the wind, drifting in whatever direction they were lead.\nAfter a few hours had passed, Leonard called Harry. For what, he didn't know. Maybe some childish need for reassurance, maybe just because of the unbearable silence in the car. His mom answered, saying Harry's heart was hurting and he was currently in bed. She told him Harry would call him later and that they loved him, then hung up the phone. Leonard considered himself a mostly stoic person, the rare moments he expressed his emotions preferring to do it through humor. In this moment however, Leonard began to cry. Only slightly at first, but as the seconds passed spiraling into full blown weeping.\nTowards evening, around eight, Leonard drove from the park to his house, his phone displaying a list of missed calls and texts. He called Emily and Allen back, telling them he just got caught up at work and was arriving to the party soon. Before going home, Leonard stopped by the liquor store and got a bottle of whisky, then stopped at a local bookstore to get a copy of \"The Outsider\", by H. P. Lovecraft. The book was a personal favorite of both Leonard and Allen, and this copy was a unique print.\nLeonard showered and got dressed, heading out to Allen's house for the party. As he neared the house, he saw the block lined with cars. Leonard made his way into the backyard patio, guests and lively chatter filling the area. Allen's husband, Jeff, saw Leonard and beckoned him towards the porch.\n\"Hey\", Jeff said, hugging Leonard.\n\"Where's Allen?\", Leonard asked.\n\"With Emily in the kitchen. He's about to give a speech or something. Where have you been? We've been calling you for hours.\"\n\"Yeah, sorry about that. Got held up at work.\"\n\"Oh? So that means things must have gone well.\"\n\"Yeah yeah, um...they didn't fire me, so that's good\", Leonard said with a chuckle.\n\"Fucking great news man. And what about the promotion? Are you still gonna get it?\"\n\"I um...yeah, I think so.\"\n\"Dude\", Jeff exclaimed, grabbing Leonard's shoulders.\nAllen and Emily emerged out of the kitchen, Allen having a glass of bourbon in hand. They saw Leonard and approached.\n\"Where have you been?\", Emily asked.\n\"Um, I-\"\n\"He got his job back, plus the promotion\", Jeff interjected.\n\"Oh my God\", Emily said, hugging Leonard.\n\"See? I told you things would be okay. You have to stop worrying so much.\"\n\"She's right\", Allen said. \"It's just like that passage from the book I gave you. Let go of worry. For when you do, victory comes.\"\n\"Mmm\", Leonard replied.\n\"Anyways, this is great news, seriously. I'm about to go give a toast, and you can be damn sure I'm gonna mention this.\"\n\"Allen, you really don't have to. I'd actually prefer it if you di-\"\n\"Nonsense\", Allen replied, turning around. \"Your victory is my victory. Proud of you lil bro.\"\nAllen clinked his glass, calling for the attention of the crowd.\n\"Lads and lassies, I first want to thank you all for coming to celebrate me getting once inch closer to that glorious abyss\", Allen began, laughter coming from the crowd.\n\"In al seriousness though, this does mean a lot to me. If not for friends and family, life really would just be nothing more than a countdown to the void. But the relationships we make, either from being born into them-\"\nAllen looked at Leonard, raising his glass.\n\"-or the ones we make along the way, give it meaning, and make it fun. Which is what we're about to have, but first-\"\nAllen turned to Leonard.\n\"My younger brother, Leo, has been close to the furnace these last couple weeks. Dare I say cast into it. I won't go into the details, but not only has he escaped the furnace, he's in a better place than before he was in it.\"\nAllen stepped to Leonard, placing his hand on his shoulder.\n\"My brother got a promotion\", Allen yelled, a wave of applause coming from the crowd.\nAllen shook Leonard's shoulder, Leonard smiling and nodding his head.\n\"You're feeling better?\", Allen asked, hushed.\n\"I feel...\", Leonard began, staring up at the black and endless expanse. \"I feel...\"" } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The River of Vipassana\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 2974\n\nPrompt:\n\nSet your story at a silent retreat." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I have an allergic response to woo-woo stuff, so the last thing I want to do is spend a week and a half wooing around with a bunch of woo-woos in Peru. But things are going completely off the rails. Everything is on the table.\n\n“Alexa. Brew espresso,” I say, shouting at a receiver down the hall of my luxury canal-side flat on Orsman Road in Shoreditch, London. My DeLonghi Magnifica espresso maker hums and whirs. Pulling the sheets over my head, I reach to the other side of the bed and grab my iPhone. What have we here?\n\nThe notifications from the night and early morning stream endlessly. I scroll my TikTok ‘for you’ page which feeds interminably on auto-play. A woman attempts the ‘blackout challenge.’ Classic stuff. Switching over to X, I see that Holly, Simon & Kayla have already retweeted articles and posts on the tech merger that I passed on, @ing me on the posts (@NigelHaake). Shit. I am behind the eight-ball on my tech influencer quota and getting called out on it too. On a positive note, I’ve been invited to apply for the same fifteen LinkedIn jobs with my competitors that I get recommended every morning. Just brilliant. Riddle me this: What part of CEO in my job description indicates that I am looking for an entry-level coding job?\n\nReddit and Discord ding with alerts. I make a mental note to change my sleep setting so my iPhone can go on silent before 4 am. Checking Facebook, I am welcomed to a man shaving down a horse’s hoof, an ENT pulling detritus out of someone’s ear and lancing a blackhead, and a Malaysian man using makeup to turn him into the spitting image of an albino Cruella de Vil. Hmmm. Interesting. I watched all three all the way through. What the hell does the algorithm know about me that I don’t? Or are we all this f’ed up? I snap Kayla a picture of myself under the covers, and she instantly snaps me back a shot of her cleavage with an eggplant emoji. Cheeky. You have to keep that Snap streak going at all costs.\n\nHere's the problem. Every couple of hours I start crying. Today it starts before I get out of bed. In the plus column, that espresso smells like liquid f-ing gold. Yeah, so the crying. We aren’t talking about a stray tear. We are talking sobbing my heart out. Blubbering and sniveling like a schoolboy who skinned his knee falling off his pushbike. Uncontrollable gasps. Spittle webbing in the cracks of the sides of my lips. Real cringe shit.\n\nFast forward to the White Board session at Cr8v HQ. That is where Kayla puts it to me. And she isn’t taking no for an answer. I zone out hard while we are going over App engagement statistics, which is usually where I grill everyone. It is kind of ironic. Our literal job is to steal people’s attention and hold their attention hostage so we can foist unwanted advertising on them for things they aren’t properly interested in and don’t want anyway. We are experts in engagement. Yet I have never been more disengaged. I can’t focus. I am not present. Where am I? Bugger all. Hell, if I know.\n\n“Fancy joining us, Nigel?” Kayla asks. “Earth to Nigel Haake!”\n\n“This whole meeting is an absolute doddle, don’t you think?”\n\n“Nigel Haake. I’m just chuffed to bits that you’ve graced us with your presence. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining the meeting,” Kayla says.\n\n“Pleased to be here,” I say, deadpan.\n\n“I’m having you on, you knobhead,” Kayla says.\n\n“I’m gutted,” I say. “Well crack-on then, would you?”\n\nKayla continues her Prezi presentation. F-ing Kayla. I am a tech wizard. What you call magic, I know is just code. Algorithms. Infinite nested loops. Iterating. On the psychoanalytical—the woo-woo side—I’m no expert. But it is quite obvious to even a layman that I’m hanging by my fingernails here.\n\nKayla takes me aside in the hallway. “With the greatest respect Nigel, I’m worried about you and I’m not the only one who has noticed. You’ve got to pull yourself together. In case you forgot, you started this company, and we’re going to be needing you to be on you’re A-game here, if you don’t mind.”\n\n“Come for a chat in my office, will you?”\n\n“Here will do.”\n\n“Well, what is it then?”\n\n“You are going on holiday.”\n\n“What are you getting on about?”\n\n“You are going to the Sacred Valley in Cusco, Peru. You’re leaving this evening. I’ve booked it for you. And goody for you. You’re flying Delta. You can have yourself a pre-drink and a nosh in the Sky Lounge before you shove off. You’re welcome.”\n\n“It’s all settled then, innit?”\n\n“I went on the same retreat myself a few months ago. It will change your life. Believe you me.”\n\n“And what exactly am I supposed to be doing in Peru? Mind filling me in?”\n\n“It is called Vipassana. Meditation. You are going to sit silently without speaking, pretty much from 4:30 am to 9:30 pm. It’s a Buddhist tradition—”\n\n“—I’m going to what?”\n\n“Come off it, would you? When is the last time you went ten seconds without being glued to your phone? They’ll be taking that off your hands. That’s the first thing. The whole idea of the thing is to help you disconnect. See things as they are. Ten days from now, you’ll be floating down the stream of awakening. Well, I was floating. In your case, it might be more bobbing up and down a bit in the currents. Flailing about. Still. Not sinking. That’s the important bit. I mean, everyone can’t be as brilliant as me, can they?”\n\n“10 days! What the f**k, Kayla. Are you mad?”\n\n“Well, it isn’t exactly forty days in the desert, is it?”\n\n“I’ve been blubbering like a schoolboy. Having migraines. Haven’t been sleeping. I have this gnawing feeling of dread day and night. You really think this will help? I would try anything. I was thinking ketamine, myself.”\n\n“It’s either going to Peru or I could give you a screw. But I don’t want to get a reputation for being a tart. And I don’t think a quick poke would do it. You’re too far gone. Sayadaw Alp Doğuş will get you sorted. You’ll be good as new. Now off with you.”\n\n“I’m sorry. What were you saying? Did you just say something about ‘having a screw’?”\n\n“When you get back. If you’re lucky. I mean I don’t mean to toot my own horn. I’m good. But not that good. Have you seen yourself? You’re a proper mess.”\n\n“Great pep talk.”\n\n“Get going now. It’s not optional.”\n\n“Jesus. So, it’s like that then, is it? I do seem to recall hiring you to work for me, but somehow I think things have gotten mixed around. You’ll handle everything while I’m gone? Will you?”\n\n“For you, Nigel. Anything. Now, go, get yourself sorted. Please. Tickets and itinerary are on your desk.”\n\n* * *\n\nWhen the taxi drops me off at the Ashram of the Sacred Valley at about 3 pm, I follow the e-mail instructions. We are forbidden to speak to anyone else going on the retreat or even to make eye contact or use hand gestures. Real woo-woo stuff.\n\nThe sign that reads “Course Boundary” seems ominous. It is like a point of no return. I briefly think of running back for the taxi. But the view makes up for it. The compound faces the village of Calca, with the Andes rolling along behind it like a giant wall, the caps of the jagged mountain peaks kissing the clouds above. The mountains stand indomitable in the dappled sunlight under the passing clouds. While they hedge us in, there is something transcendent about an edifice so large that it creates rivers and shelters valleys. There is a sound of barking dogs in the distance howling at the visiting tourists. And the yips and yaps echo like tiny bells. The mountains seem to have something to say but whatever it is, it’s tosh to me.\n\nA line of haggard city dwellers is ambling toward the doors of the Ashram like cows to the slaughter. All of us are in sweatpants and t-shirts, carrying backpacks and sleeping bags, looking like kids going to a primary school lock-in.\n\nMy cell phone is in a clear Zip Lock bag with my name written on a card. A small Turkish man with a bald head is collecting the phones with a nod and assigning bunks, segregating the men and women retreat-goers. He grabs the Ziplock with my iPhone but I don’t let go. I hold tight, and General Zod here wrestles it easily from my grasp, grimacing and grunting for effect. I am officially cutting my tether to the Matrix. I’m now officially off-grid.\n\nThe Ashram of the Sacred Valley is a mud brick and timber building with a terracotta tiled roof. After settling in at the bunkhouse, I am instructed to enjoy the surroundings and walk about by myself until the first meeting. No, thank you. I didn’t get my outdoors merit badge for a reason. I sit outside my tent, cross-legged, and break the rule against intoxicating substances, by puffing on a weed pen I’ve stowed in my luggage. As the THC carries me off into the fuzzy air and hamsters start to run up and down my arms, I am perplexed at how I can’t reach Kayla. What am I going to do for ten days without her? I suddenly feel all alone in the world.\n\nAfter the sun sets, I sit at the far table in the back of the mess hall. Everyone is having a supper of fruit and herbal tea and waiting nervously for the instructor. An Asian gentleman next to me named Toag starts talking. “It’s my second time. Round one was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. When I was in college I spent some time in a monastery. That was child’s play by comparison.” Toag breaking the silence seems like a rebellion.\n\nThe other men at my table all look at each other, not sure if it is okay to break the silence rule. But within a minute or two we are all chatting and talking about where we are from. My stomach is grumbling, and I head back for seconds, looking for something heartier. I scoop a bowl full of drool into a tin can, which I eat with a plastic spoon. It is the nutritional equivalent of soggy cardboard. The drool looks exactly like the food Neo was given when he woke up after leaving the Matrix. I guess there is some carbohydrate in there, but it does nothing to quell my hunger pains. Rubbish. Straight rubbish. The battle begins.\n\nAfter dinner we go into the meditation hall.\n\nThey play a video of S. N. Goenka, a deceased guru, who gives a video discourse of the “Noble Silence” and lays out our itinerary for the next ten days.\n\n* * *\n\nDay 1\n\nSayadaw Alp Doğuş. How can I describe this man? Imagine Al Pacino in Scarface. If he was Turkish. With a proper beard. With long flowing hair. Wearing robes and beads. And replace the hard edges with a nervous laugh and a light and airy vibe, like the way you feel on helium at the Dentist’s office. But this last bit is a permanent affectation.\n\nHe stands up in front of the group. Closes his eyes. And begins his monologue.\n\n“Welcome, fellow stream-enterer. You are the feet balancing on the floor of the boat. You are the flowing river. You are the land that yields to let the river flow. You are the air that caresses the rapids. You are the cosmos that forms a perfect blue pearl in the depths of the black abyss. You are the mind observing the cosmoses. You are the forming word that vibrates in the void and shakes matter into being with a breath. You are that inhale and exhale of thought reverberating through all of nature. A humming sound. Ohhhmhhh.”\n\nBefore we start our first meditation session, Sayadaw Alp Doğuş finishes are instruction. “Rising, passing away. Rising, passing away. With this understanding of nature, try to retain perfect equanimity. No more craving and clinging. No more worship and hatred. No more seeking to balance the scales in your favor. Always equanimous, always equanimous. Strengthen your equanimity. Remain very alert. Very attentive. Very vigilant. Recognize that the balances are absolute. Highs. Lows. None may be maintained. Understand this. Every itch and niggle. They are all impermanent, impermanent, impermanent. Changing, changing, changing. Constantly changing.”\n\nAnd then we are left in silence.\n\nDay 2\n My back is buggered. I’m thinking of pulling out. In between meditation sessions, I massage my back with the backend of my toothbrush. It’s all I’ve got. I’ve got hard knots in my back from sitting cross-legged for 10 hours that are giving birth to baby knots. Knots for days. It is excruciating. The worst pain I’ve ever felt. TECHHHH SUPPOOOORRRTTT. Dear Lord. I’m going to die!\n Day 4\n Still thinking of pulling out. Jack Dorsey did it. It will be shameful if a barmy mug like Dorsey makes it and I don’t. This ego stroke doesn’t help. Pulling out is all I can think about. F-ing Kayla.\n\nWe are doing hour-long “sittings of strong determination.” It is as bad as it sounds. Bugger all. I haven’t been able to sit still for a full hour yet. I am a gonging gong. A proper knobhead. I cannot stand the sound of my own thoughts a moment longer. I’m pulling out for sure.\n\nI knock on the door of the office, and Sayadaw Alp Doğuş comes out, frowning.\n\n“What is it brother?” he asks.\n\n“I’m in torment. I can’t take another day.”\n\n“Ahhh. Good,” he says.\n\n“No. Not good. The opposite of good. The last four days have knackered me something awful. I miss Kayla. I’m tormented.”\n\n“Some say the soul is the size of a thumb. Others say it is the size of a persimmon seed. The soul was not meant to contain so much ambition. You are close to a breakthrough. This is the sound of the rust on a bicycle chain of an unused bicycle, sloughing off.”\n\n“Alright. But tomorrow is it.”\n\n“Good.”\n Day 5\n It happens suddenly. The back pain is outside. I am a stone. Detached from external stimulus. I am a stream-enterer. Floating. The “sittings of strong determination” pass in moments. I’ve finished working through my entire lifetime of thoughts. Waves of joy come over me. Time dissipates. I roll down the river.\n Day 7\n Porn alert. Every digital image I’ve ever seen flashes in my head. The grind of my daily digital overload comes at me in high resolution. I’ve lost equanimity. I am a magnet for a lifetime of mud. Muddy mud. Thick. The river is quicksand. And I am sinking. How deep is this depression? Where do these evil memories come from?\n\nI have to leave the meditation hall. I sit in my room and cry. The depression comes in waves. I am shattered. I feel everything I have ever felt. I try to let go of this noise. But it won’t go away.\n Day 9\n I channel the cosmos into a spot in the middle of my forehead. I accept all thoughts. They wash over. I detach. And return to the present. Stand next to the thoughts. I am not the thoughts. I am their master.\n\nIt gets better when the trauma becomes something that happened to you rather than something that is happening to you.\n\nI am the noble silence. I forgive myself, forgive the world, forgive all. I lose attachment. Care for nothing. Ohhhmmmmm.\n Day 10\n\nSayadaw Alp Doğuş debriefs us. He reminds us that all is rising, all is passing away. We bow and depart. I feel sad to be leaving. I don’t know how to plug back in.\n\n* * *\n\nClicking back into the Matrix, I call the taxi and leave the Ashram behind, bowing to the Sacred Valley one last time.\n\nAs I turn my iPhone on, a million notifications hit at once. Panic and anxiety flood. But then I separate the noise. Stand beside it. All is rising. All is passing away.\n\nThere is a message from Kayla, one of hundreds. “Call me, will you! Please! SOS! There is a tender offer on Cr8v. I need to talk to you.”\n\nI ring Kayla.\n\n“You’re alive!”\n\n“I actually think I have become a proper monk.”\n\n“Jesus. You haven’t shaved your head, have you?”\n\n“Shaved and waxed. Like Mr. Clean. You can see your reflection.”\n\n“Oh dear.”\n\n“It’s a proper shave. I think I’m well fit, innit?”\n\n“You got through it! I’m so proud of you Nigel. I was sure you’d pull out.”\n\n“Chuffed to bits that you feel that way.”\n\n“We’ve got a problem.”\n\n“Can it wait until I get back?”\n\n“No. Yirn is buying us out.”\n\n“Never mind that now. I really want to see you, Kayla. I’m so grateful you made me go through this. Fancy a pint. Maybe a mega-pint?”\n\n“Don’t push your luck. You won’t be getting that screw.”\n\n“We’ll see about that.”\n\nThe River of Vipassana carries me through the winding mountain roads, to the airport, and back to the roundabout at Shoreditch, back to Kayla and Cr8v. But I am not the same. The noise is there, but it does not penetrate.\n\nThe assault comes at me, but I am just a rock in the stream.\n\nAnd I want Kayla’s rock beside mine. All is impermanent. There is only the stream.\n\nRising and passing away." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Colours of You\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 1814\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart or finish your story with a speaker unable to finish their sentence, perhaps overcome by emotion." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "In an ocean of starlight, on an ancient wooden rowboat stained with centuries of service, we sail in solitude through the night sky, towards the After.\nThere is no scenery here. No mountains to frame the world, nor seas to divide it.\nThe rower drives an ore into the shadows and ink laps against the sides. On this final voyage, conversation does not flow as freely as the water in which it takes place. The passenger usually studies the stars in silent contemplation, while the rower rows.\nEventually, an invisible milestone is spotted amongst the shadows and the ore is lifted. The boat lulls idle for a moment, before being swept by the current, evermoving to the After.\n\n“Not far now,” the ferryman’s voice is hoarse. “I s’pose you already know what you’re doing here.”\nI nod.\n“And where you’re off?”\nI nod again.\nThe ferryman, a cloaked figure around the height of a small tree, takes a seat on the bench across from me. Their countenance is disfigured by shadows, but the reflections of starlight reveal a lifetime’s worth of wrinkles.\n“I must warn you; I’ve been doing this job for a while, and I’ve seen all sorts of things. You try to jump, try to swim, try anything, you’ll soon regret it. Anything but complete obedience won’t be tolerated. Is that clear?”\nI nod.\n“Good. Now, I’ve no interest in introductions. You do this as long as I have, and you’ll have heard every name in the book. I do have something to share with you, though.”\nI flick my gaze from the sea. The ferryman is a strange creature of abstract shape and shifting size, though its discernable head and shoulders and general silhouette resemble that of a human and do little for its divinity. Beneath the cloak could be my grandmother, withered and frail, or my brother, who stood at six feet, four inches in his youth.\n“On the way to the After, everybody is offered the chance to relive a single memory. In this memory, you can do and say whatever you like. You’re no longer bound by the laws of time and objective reality, but there are three rules,” the ferryman says.\nI expect a wave of dread, of sorrow, of regret for the opportunities that passed by like ships in the night. Instead, an aching absence.\n“Most people use their memory as a chance to say goodbye, let someone know that they’re not coming back. Others use it to speak with a loved one that they haven’t seen for some time. Last week, a boy took his dog for one last walk…” the ferryman’s shoulders drop, and they sniff a breath. “You can also use it to fix a mistake. Right some wrongs. It’s a lot easier to get into the After with a clear conscience, believe me.”\n“The rules?” I ask.\n“Oh, the rules. Yes, the rules,” the ferryman remarks. “The first rule is that it must be a true memory. Number two, you can’t do anything world shattering. If your memory is a tour of the White House and you fancy pressing the big red button, you won’t be accepted into the After. Clear?”\nI nod.\n“The last one,” they sigh and study the ripples that the boat creates on the water as it passes through. “You can’t stay.” The ferryman says. “At some point, you’ll return here. No matter what. The second your mind departs from that moment, you’ll come straight back to the boat. Just…” They pause and nod their head, “try to enjoy it.”\nThe ferryman reaches their arms across the length of the boat and a hand emerges from either sleeve. I take them in mine. The ferryman has rough palms, birthed from centuries of labour and love for this strange sailboat on a strange sea. “So, where you headed?”\n“The beach,” I hear myself say. “In Barcelona. The sun is setting, and my feet are bare in the sand, and jazz music is pouring from the windows of a nearby cocktail bar, and she is there, and I have her hand in mine, and…” My words ebb away and the sweet scent of suncream and freshly cooked seafood surfaces. I press my eyes closed. Hot sand singes my heels and beads of sticky sweat pool on the collar of my linen shirt. The scaly hand in mine is now soft and plump and cool. I trace her varnished fingernails with the tip of my thumb, and then her knuckles and the veins protruding on the top of her hand, and I am reminded that this is false. She is not real. She is not here. She is at home, hopefully asleep in her bed, with the electric blanket on and a dog-eared book on the nightstand, waiting for a phone call to tell her that I had to stay at the office, once again, and that I am on my way home.\nAnd then she squeezes my hand.\n“What are you doing?” She asks. I keep my eyes closed out of fear. “Babe?”\n“Just walking.” I manage.\n“Open your eyes,” a honey-sweet giggle rolls through her – I could drink the sound. “Look, the sun’s setting.”\nI peel them open. Vibrant daylight fills my head and, in being blinded by the sun for the final time, I am reminded of my agonizing reality. But, as the glare fades and my vision clears, she comes into focus. A captivating beauty crafted with wild locks spun from onyx, sapphire eyes peppered with starlight, and round cheeks so full of life. A delicate breeze catches her hair and, on its passing, delivers the light aroma of her perfume. I let it surround me and inhale enough that a whisper of the scent nestles within the crevice of my mind. I make a mental note to use sparingly.\nShe slows her steps and I stop. I remember what happened here, she asked me to stay and watch the sunset, but I wanted to go back to the room and get ready for dinner.\n“Let’s stop here for a moment,” I say, before she gets the chance. “Watch the sunset with me?” Her face illuminates. We lower ourselves onto the sand and she lays down, resting her head on my lap. I should have stayed.\nSunlight bleeds into the ocean, staining the sky with scarlet streaks, and another day is stolen by the horizon. Violet blooms in the absence of the sun as the embers of its dying light are swept away with the current. I can feel my mind slipping, as though the After has wrapped a wire around my thoughts and is starting to pull. I dip my finger into the cooling sand and write ‘STAY’.\n“What do you want to do tonight?” she sits up and asks as dusk sets in.\nTonight. The word twists my stomach and I long for the absence of feeling once more. Tonight. We went to a restaurant and then to bed. She finished reading her book and I had another late night at the office.\n“We can think about that later, let’s just stay here for a while longer. Let time pass.” How much time? Not enough. Never enough. I reach for her hand and pull it up to my mouth, grazing her knuckles with my lips and gripping. If I squeeze hard enough, maybe this will become real or maybe I will wake from a terrible dream and she will be lay beside me, her sleeping face illuminated by strips of moonlight peering between the gaps in the blinds. The silhouette of her hips will be cast on the wall and she will have the entire duvet pulled to her side, but it would be okay, I would let her keep it.\nI place a delicate kiss on each finger and then the back of her hand and her wrist and the inside of her elbow. I stroke my hand against her cheek and brush a kiss on both eyelids. She breathes a laugh against my skin and every hair stands to attention. She tucks her hair behind her ear, and I follow her lead, barely touching my lips to the base of her neck and drinking in her cherry-cola perfume.\nAfter some time, she pushes me away with a smirk and a raised brow. She stands over me and brushes the sand from her shorts. I push myself up and hold my hand in hers. She slips her fingers between mine and we walk along the sea, our path illuminated by distant streetlights that line the nearby promenade. The sea is in slumber now, and reflected on its ripples is the glow of a full moon.\nHer eyes study the coast. What thoughts does it conjure in her wonderful mind? She once told me that her thoughts appeared in colour, rather than an internal voice. It must have been lonely, I used to think. Having since visited a place so absent from colour, sailed on an ocean of black, I now realise that we who think in words are the lonely ones.\n“So…” she says, though her mind is elsewhere. “Have you thought about what we’re doing tonight?”\nThat invisible wire tugs again and my mind drifts. Our time together is coming to an end and the hole where my heart should be throbs.\nI prepare for a tsunami of thoughts, but nothing comes. The steady thrum of her heart beats through her hand against my palm. I search for something to say. Anything. I try to form the words ‘I love you’, attempt to describe just how beautiful she is, warn her of the accident and prepare her heart for the impending news.\nI breathe a tentative breath and consider a goodbye, and then I envision her eyes darkening and her cheeks sinking and her mind becoming plagued with the same voice that infects everybody else’s. She is untouched by death. She has no pain lingering in the shadows, nor a heavy heart brimming with grief ready to overflow at any given moment. I could never do that to her. To say goodbye now would be to stain the rest of her life with a minute, almost undetectable speck of black.\n“You once asked me, if my life was a painting, what colours would be in the palette.” I say, finally.\nShe turns, her brows furrowed. “I remember.”\n“Well, the palette would be made up entirely of—”\nMy mind flashes with shadows of memories. No. No. No. All of the late nights at the office. A blonde one with long legs. A green-eyed one with auburn hair. A short one with tanned skin. And I am transported back to the boat. Her hands are no longer in mine and her face is nowhere to be seen, but the scent of her perfume lingers." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Audition\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 1270\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart or finish your story with a speaker unable to finish their sentence, perhaps overcome by emotion." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Ten past five and Harry was late. \nHe climbed out of the car and pushed the yellow Pork Pie Trilby hat he’d borrowed onto his head. While the hat and his shoes, Oxblood Brothel Creepers apparently, went out in the sixties, he didn’t care. He slid the car keys into the pocket of his loose-fitting blue-jeans, their cuffs rolled up, and set off at a run down the sidewalk. \nAhead and atop a freestanding sign, large golden letters declared the offices of Phoenix Studios. The sign read, “A Streetcar Named Desire auditions today…” but he didn’t bother with the rest as he swept by and into the building.\nA line of sweat ran down his back as he watched the numbers above the lift count down. Once the doors had opened, a pair of blonde women flowed out, their perfumes wafting in their wake. Harry gawked at their nipped waists and stilettos before stepping in after them. He pushed the button to the fourth floor with shaking hands. \nHis heart raced when the lift opened, and he saw the gold phoenix across the glass doors. He marched into the glossy-white vastness of the reception area and came to a stop at an equally glossy-white desk. Behind it, the mud-brown eyes of the receptionist peered at him over the rims of her glasses.\n“Can I help you?” she asked. \n“Hi, I’m… I’m here for the audition,” Harry said and placed his hat on the counter, wiping his clammy hands on his pants.\n“Sorry, but we’re—” \n“You have no idea how hard it was to get time off work. I actually had to beg my boss.” \n“But sir, it’s not—”\n“I know, I know, I’m late and I’m so, so sorry. But, please, you’ve got to give me a shot.”\n“It’s not—” \n“All I need is a handful of minutes to show what I can do. It won’t take long, I promise.”\n“Alright, sir,” she said and frowned. “What was the name?”\n“Harry. Harry Harvey.”\n“Very good. Please, take a seat and I’ll let the producer know you’re waiting.”\n“Thanks so much. This means a lot.” He took his hat and went to sit in one of the uncomfortable-looking chairs along the wall.\n“Excuse me, Mr Collingwood,” the receptionist said as she adjusted the mouthpiece of her telephone headset. “I have a gentleman here for an audition. Yes, I tried to tell him, sir, but he insisted. Of course, sir,” she said finally. \nShe rose from her desk and peered at Harry. “Please follow me.” \nHe stood and followed her across the room, marvelling at how short she was even in her heels.\nShe led him along a corridor to a set of double doors and knocked. After several moments, she pushed the doors open to reveal a large office with walls painted blood red.\n“Mr Collingwood, this is Mr Harvey,” she said. \nHarry held his hat against his chest as he stepped past her into the room. He had expected to be nervous, but walking into the room knotted his stomach. It felt as if he had stepped into the depths of some creature’s lair to be devoured. And on the far side of the room behind a black mahogany desk sat that creature.\n“Thank you, Cynthia,” Mr Collingwood said. “That will be all.” \nShe nodded and closed the doors behind her.\nWithout standing, the producer motioned towards a pair of chairs opposite him. “Please sit, Mr Harvey.”\n“Please call me Harry,” Harry replied and shuffled forward to take a seat.\n“Mr Harvey, you understand that—”\n“Oh, oh, yes, sir. I know I’m very late, but it was the only time I could get off work. My boss is usually flexible, but we were two staff down, and the lunch shift was hectic.”\n“Yes, yes, that’s fi—” \n“You’ve probably seen plenty of people today all trying to get that big role. Like them, I’ve been to many auditions over the years and missed out on most of them.”\n“Yes, I’m s—”\n“Sir, if you’ll let me audition, I’ll prove that I’m the best man for the part.”\n“Mr Harv—” \n“It won’t take long. All I need is a few minutes.”\n“Harry!” Mr Collingwood said sharply, his hand raised before him. “I’ll let you audition, but please stop talking.”\n“Oh, thank you and sorry, Mr Collingwood. I do appreciate the opportunity.”\n“Very well.” The producer breathed deeply. “Why don’t you start with a simple character pose?” \nWith a nod, Harry slipped off his leather jacket to reveal a sweat-patched white tee-shirt, then drew it over his head to expose a tanned chest and crafted stomach. He returned the hat to his head, pulled the rim down over his eyes, and slouched into the chair. He hung a cigarette from his mouth and casually lit a match.\n“Mr Harvey. You cannot smoke in here.”\n“Oh…well, I…I don’t actually smoke.” Harry broke the pose and shook the match until it went out. “They all smoke in these old movies and I…ah…wanted to get it right.” \n“I see. Well, you did a good job.” The producer rested his hands on the desk beside a small pile of files. “What about lines? Do you have any prepared?”\n“I do, sir.” Harry stood, stepped into position, and pushed the brim of the hat up with his index finger. “Listen, baby, when we first met, you and me, you thought I was common. Well, how right you was. I was common as dirt. You showed me a snapshot of a place with columns, and I pulled you down off them columns and you loved it; havin’ ‘em coloured lights goin’. Wasn’t we happy together? Wasn’t it all okay ’til she showed here, hoity-toity describing me like an ape?”\n“Wow,” Mr Collingwood said, a look of surprise in his eyes. “That’s the best Brando I’ve heard. Been rehearsing long?”\n“Only this week, sir,” Harry replied.\n“Well, I’m impressed. So, you look like him and sound like him, but can you act like him?” Mr Collingwood waved to an open area beside his desk. “Show me.”\nHarry took the cigarette in hand, tossed the hat to the floor and began stalking around the room, his gait perplexed and tense. He flexed his arm and lifted the unlit cigarette to his mouth. Then, with a frown, he took a single deep breath and stiffened his arms before him. “Stel-laa!” he cried, his voice deep and harsh. \nHarry turned at the sound of clapping and saw the producer was now on his feet. “Amazing, just amazing,” Mr Collingwood said. “You could be Brando himself.”\n“I watched the movie a few times, sir, that’s all.” He smiled, a warm rush sweeping over him. \n“As I said, I’m impressed.”\n“Thank you, sir. So, how do you think I went? Do I have a chance?”\n“You did a good job, an outstanding job, in fact. But it’s a little hard to say.” Mr Collingwood sat down again, crossing his legs. \nHarry collected the hat from the floor and held it by the rim a little too tightly. “It...it wasn’t enough?” \n“Your audition was near perfect, Harry, but unfortunately…” \nHarry’s shoulders sank, and the colour began draining from his face. \n“…I’m auditioning for the parts of Stella Kowalski or Blanche DuBois today. With that in mind, I won’t be asking you back for a screen test. However, I am auditioning for the character of Stanley Kowalski tomorrow morning at ten sharp. I suggest you come back then. And, Mr Harvey,” Mr Collingwood continued, “don’t be late.”\nHarry stood there, speechless, eyes wide and mouth open. “I…I…I…”" } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Lucy\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 1823\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart or finish your story with a speaker unable to finish their sentence, perhaps overcome by emotion." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“So, what’s going on? Helen told me you were going to the middle east or something.”\n“Yes, I’ve been called,” she said, with that warm but shy smile as if she was admitting a crush. Its Lucy’s smile I remember. She wasn’t beautiful really but her face drew your eyes to it. Strong straight eyebrows and a pixie nose. Her mouth was a bit crooked and more so when she smiled.\n“Called, what do you mean?”\n“I’ve been called by God.”\n“Are you ready to order.” I absent mindedly waved the waitress away.\n“Oh, sorry, could we have a couple of minutes please?” said Lucy, ever polite. The waitress retreated.\n“Called by god to do what?”\n“I know you don’t believe; I so wish you could. God has called me to serve him in Syria I think. To start with I just noticed news items and Syria just kept jumping out to me. It just kept, keeps getting stronger. I see the word everywhere and it pulls me. I just know. I have no doubt.”\n“You’re going to perform there?”\n“No, I think I need to give up piano. This is more important than playing.”\n“What will you do?”\n“I don’t know yet, anything he asks.”\n“You know, when you keep seeing things, there’s a name for that. Selection bias, I think. Were naturally inclined to seek out patterns in the world around us, even when they aren’t there.”\n“I have no doubt. I feel it. I know it. I can’t explain why it should be Syria, I’ve never thought about Syria before, but I know it is. You remember when you fell in love, that feeling, that certainty in your heart. You can explain it away with serotonin, or hormones or conditioning, whatever you like, but you can’t escape the certainty of it. You just knew. And I know, I know God wants me to try to go to Syria. Everything in my brain and heart knows it. Feels it. Yes, people often see patterns in random events, did you ever think maybe God wants us to see them.”\n“But give up Piano? You’re just getting noticed. That John Adams piece at St Martins was amazing and the Janacek Allegro. Years of Piano. All that practice, all that skill. Why would God want you to give that up? Lucy, you’re a great musician”\n“I have to be faithful to what I believe is right, faithful to what I believe God wants me to do, whatever the results. The adding up isn’t ours to see is it. Who’s to measure what’s good or great?”\n“They’re Muslims Lucy, they have a lot of good reasons to dislike Christians, do you know what you’re letting yourself in for? There’s still fighting there isn’t there? You’re not going to try and convert them, surely.”\n“I know it’s not going to be easy. All I have is try to go to Syria. I’ve prayed for more guidance. A mission statement, with an itinerary and maps would be good, but He’s not playing, I’ve just got to try to go to Syria. I’ll get instructions en route perhaps.”\n“Very funny. Don’t you think you need to take it a bit easy on yourself? You’ve had a pretty tough couple of years. The infertility problems, the miscarriages, John leaving, it’s a lot, I’d be falling apart”\nShe smiled again, as if I was being silly. “I trust god.”\n“You don’t even speak Arabic. What are you going to do there?”\n“Well, I did the childcare course. I’ve started to learn Arabic. At SOAS. I admit, it’s hard, I’ve never been good at languages, I only speak French cos I went to school in Belgium for a term”\n“Oh god yea, I could have smacked your dad. ‘Learn something useful, in case the piano doesn’t work out.’”\n“Well, he meant well and maybe it was part of God’s plan. Perhaps He wants me to use it now. I always loved that Lilias Trotter quote; ‘You can never tell to what untold glories a little humble path may lead if you follow far enough.‘ ”\n“Is that what this is about, you want to be Lilias Trotter, give up being a famous artist to be a missionary?” We had argued about Lilias Trotter, Lucy finding her story inspiring, me appalled that such an amazing artist would sacrifice her art to travel to Algeria to try and convert people. Convert Muslims, it seemed arrogant, pointless. She didn’t speak Arabic either.\n“No, I mean she was wonderful, but no. I’m not sure I want to do this, to be honest, it’s kind of terrifying. And I love piano, you know I do, but God is asking and I need to say ‘Yes’. And the miscarriages, the infertility. That was hard, painful and it broke my heart when John left, but maybe it was just making way for this. Freeing me so I can follow his wishes.”\nShe is almost in tears. She loved John, her husband, it tore her up when he left. I wonder if she’s having a breakdown. I would be, she deserves one.\n“Have you told your parents yet?”\n“Yes, they don’t really understand. You know what they’re like, they never did. Always thought it was a fad I picked up from the nuns in Belgium. They don’t believe, not really, so it’s hard for them to understand”\n“Kind of a long fad, ten years now isn’t it?”\n“Hello, sorry we kept you waiting, I’d like an Earl Grey please and a piece of carrot cake. The waitress gets the smile and looks to me.\n“Just an americano, no milk.”\n“Anything to eat?”\n“No, thanks.”\nI tell Lucy, “I’m still fighting my thighs.” We’ve had the conversation often, staying in peak shape is a struggle for me. Dancer problems. “Can’t God wait a bit. I mean you’ve dealt with a lot this last year. It seems like a tough ask.”\n“Take the very hardest thing in your life, the place of the most difficulty and expect God to triumph gloriously, in that very spot. Just there he can bring your soul in to blossom.”\n“Then what happens?” I don’t mean to but I sound annoyed.\n“I don’t know. My only responsibility is to listen to God and feel the joy of my life.”\nAnd she did seem to feel joy in everything. An absolute abundant joy. It was lovely. The Earl grey was ‘delicious’. The carrot cake ‘wonderful’. “aren’t these cups lovely, so fine and pretty.” “Your eyes are lovely when they catch the sun.”\nWe started talking about a dream she had had. She was in a field in pouring rain trying to put a tent up.\n“So, I’m dripping wet. Rain is dripping off my chin and running down my arms. Even my bra is wet, and the tent is impossible, you know what they’re like, you get one pole in and another pops out. Anyway, I finally get the tent up, but when I go in there are moles inside.”\n“Moles?”\n“Yes, moles, a whole family, in the tent, and I’m trying to shoo them out, but they are as blind as .. well, moles, and they wander everywhere, so I start whistling at them like someone with a sheepdog. And I realise I’m whistling a tune “\n“OMG, what tune?”\n“I couldn’t work it out at first, I thought maybe it was a Beethoven melody or Verdi or something. Then I realised it was ABBA, ‘Take a chance on me’. My old music teacher would have had a fit.”\nLike we always did, we ended up giggling uncontrollably.\nShe was always the perfect friend. If my disastrous sex life was giving me a hard time, she was always there to cheer me up. She’d tease me for being wicked and foolish for sleeping around - “when are you going to realise you’re too valuable for this” - but she would turn out and hug me whenever I needed her. Could always make me laugh.\nWhen she had miscarried for the second time, it was just before Christmas, and she was in a lot of pain, couldn’t sleep and had gone out into the garden in the night. She phoned me in the morning, so excited that she thought she had seen the star of Bethlehem. She had read it was returning, there was some sort of alignment or conjunction or something after two thousand years. She was like a child. Excited to see that star. And she said Mary must have been so scared, in the night, pregnant on that donkey. She didn’t talk about her miscarriage, or that she was in pain or that her husband who she loved was deserting her because she couldn’t give him a child. She was worried about Mary two thousand years ago.\n ----0----\nIt’s hot and I’m not dressed for summer. I don’t really want to speak to Lucy’s parents. They never supported her music, were dismissive of her belief. I always thought they were small minded and mean. Then I hear Lucy’s voice in my head; “A few words of kindness can travel with you for years, all through your life really.” Lucy’s small quiet voice must have touched so many people, always kind, always with her smile.\nIt was the last time we met, that café on Regents Street. Lucy left a month or two later. I don’t think she ever got to Syria. She took a job working for Syrian refugees in Jordan, in the vast Zaatari Refugee Camp. Where eighty thousand Syrians have lived for years. Twenty thousand children under five so I guess Lucy was kept busy. I saw a few requests for funds for the kids on Facebook and guiltily gave a small amount. I feel bad now, that I didn’t give more.\nThen her mother’s invite to the memorial service arrived.\nShe had volunteered to work with kids in Gaza, orphans I guess. They never recovered her body from the rubble but there were witnesses; She was ripped apart by an IDF shell. I felt guilty in the church, a fake. I still can’t believe in a god. I just don’t feel it can be true. I want to meet him though, to shout, “That was mean, just plain mean, she was on your side, what did she ever do to you!”\nThen I hear her soft small voice, excited, but shy, chuffed. “God wants me in heaven.” And I cry and I so hope, really long for there to be a heaven, where Lucy will be whole, smile her beautiful smile, will run through gardens in the sun and be loved.\nI walk over to politely offer my condolences, to talk about kindness and bravery. I’m fighting back the tears. Then I see her grandmother’s face, same crooked mouth, same smile, and the sobbing arrives before I can speak.\n“Lucy …" } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Choices\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 2247\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart or finish your story with a speaker unable to finish their sentence, perhaps overcome by emotion." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“I’m just too tired to…” Her eyes landed on his face as she rolled over. She saw the expectation that lingered there in the lines between his furrowed brows. It traveled up into the creases of his forehead, pointedly asking, ‘Well?’\n“Either way, I might die,” she said quietly, flipping the pillow to lay on her back. She stared at the spot where the ceiling met the tattered rosebud-patterned wallpaper she once loved. They picked it out for their wedding registry at that little shop on South Houston St. while arguing playfully in the tiny aisle amidst the glues and the brushes about seating arrangements and cake flavors. She thought of the slice of dark chocolate cake with buttercream icing wrapped in aluminum foil somewhere in the back of their freezer and felt her stomach growl. She had not kept anything down in days. \nThe wrinkles on his forehead smoothed, but his eyes grew wide with hesitant concern that battled his desperate hope. “Do you think you will? Die?”\nShe wanted to die right this minute so she could leave this conversation, leave this world, leave this body and never have to make another impossible decision again. What difference did it make if it happened now or Friday? What joy or goodness could be had over the next three days that would be big enough, deep enough to overtake the pain and anguish? To make her want to endure the pain that wracked her body as her fever slowly crept higher. To make her not wish she would be swallowed up by one of the sinkholes that had begun appearing in the neighborhood as the ocean claimed the coastlines. She was so deeply tired. Death would be a release, she told herself. A release from 65-hour work weeks just so they could pay student loans for degrees they never finished, a note for a car she never wanted, and the car insurance she needed so that she could drive to the job that paid a quarter of their rent. A thousand times a day she welcomed the release, gaslighting herself until she believed it for a brief few peaceful moments each afternoon. The children she lived for would appear and shatter the daydream, an incessant pecking at the dark bubble in which she allowed herself the indulgence of becoming encased. \n“I think it doesn’t matter what I think… not anymore. It hasn’t for a long time.” She rolled herself to the edge of the bed and sat up, sliding her feet into her dingy, once-white house slippers. Standing, she turned to look at him with his back leaned against the headboard, knees pulled in tightly to his chest like he was preparing to push off a pool wall and commence the backstroke. He stared at her and his eyes began to well.\n“You could leave. You could go to my mother’s house in Toronto. They have places there that could help!” He knew that the wait was months, and by then it would be too late, but he couldn’t stop trying to reason against reality. Tears streamed down his face now, and he rose to his knees on the bed and reached for her hands. He clasped them to his chest and she felt his heart pounding erratically underneath. She let the muscles in her arms and hands go limp, held up only by his frantic grip. \nShe sighed. “I have to decide soon. I can’t waste time thinking about impossible solutions. I need to text him by 6:00 tonight. I have to go pick up the boys.” She wrestled her hands from his and walked out of the room, leaving him crying silently in the middle of the bed. She knew that he would remarry quickly. No one in their neighborhood could provide for three children on a single income without help, and his parents and sister had fled to Portugal. He couldn’t get a visa because of a terrorism charge from over a decade ago in Atlanta. It was for the best. His mother was nuts and his sister aspired to be her clone. \n4:58 PM.\nThe day was gray and overcast with a cold bite, and she was grateful for it. No one at the school would try to engage her in conversation about how gorgeous it was outside and how they should all get out and enjoy it. A sharp pain anchored itself in her rib cage as she climbed into their secondhand 2024 Chrysler minivan. They had both seen better days. Her first son had been born right there in the passenger seat six years ago. They arrived at the closest hospital with an operating maternity ward, nearly fifty miles away, after a harrowing mishap with a patch of black ice. Wrapped in her favorite college hoodie, she handed the screaming infant off to the emergency room attendant that rushed to greet them. When the doctor later examined her with the same care reserved for kicking the tires on a used car, he looked at her husband and loudly proclaimed, “A natural. See? Women are meant for this, I tell ya. You don’t even need me!” He offered congratulations to the air, shook her husband’s hand, and left the room.\nAs she pulled up to the school pickup line, she spotted the two small figures huddled together in the chilly air at the front. They looked up from the device they were sharing and spotted her just as she stopped in front of them. \n“The boys have had a challenging week,” came the shrill voice from the opening van door. “Please speak to them about the importance of paying attention in class and not talking to one another during lesson time.”\n“I’ll do that, Mrs. Moore.” There was nothing she cared about less. They were only in the same class because the public school was down to one kindergarten due to lack of funding, and they were kindergartners, for fuck’s sake. \n5:17 PM.\nThe boys clamored into the van as their older brother appeared at the passenger window.\n“Can I sit in front?”\n“No, you know you are not old enough yet and it’s not safe. In the back.” He made a show of being mad as was their game, playfully poking out his bottom lip, but climbed in the back seat. She hit play on the screen behind her head, and A Bug’s Life picked up where it left off that morning at dropoff. Apart from the talking ants and grasshoppers and an occasional giggle or gasp, they rode home in silence. \n5:22 PM.\nShe could wait and see, and maybe she would get lucky and they would save her in time. Or, she could take matters into her own hands, and maybe she would save herself in time. Maybe they would be able to get her to Canada. Delusional. She didn’t have the funds for a winter coat, let alone a trip to Canada. She laughed darkly. Saving her life was infinitely more expensive than a year's worth of groceries, but depending on who you asked, that life had no value aside from what she could produce. It didn’t make sense. She had stopped trying to understand the narrative being spun. There was no humanity or logic here. Not anymore. \nShe felt a long stab in the right side of her abdomen that brought the ginger ale she drank an hour earlier to the back of her mouth. Their apartment building came into view, and as she had learned while in labor, she focused on her breathing until the pain subsided. The setting sun had painted the horizon with brilliant shades of pink and orange but along with the vomit she held back, it only made her bitter. She used to love this time of day, but now it was just another thing being stolen from her. She pulled into the parking lot, grateful for the vacant spot by the door. She swallowed. \n5:41 PM.\nThe boys always beat her to the top of the stairs, and as they flung the door open, she heard the perky voice of a woman discussing the merits of the latest tax plan. “To put it in terms everyone understands, George, if you make less than eighty thousand dollars a year—which according to Ark Research is 65% of the American population—this plan is going to help you afford an extra vacation next year. A whole week if you have two kids or more!” \nShe reached the top of the stairs, gasping, unable to catch her breath. \n“Boys! How was the day?” \nHe had always been so attentive to them, even if mostly focused on the fun parts of the job. Even if it left her to be the rules and homework parent while he painstakingly crafted his D&D worlds or ran marathon COD sessions between shifts at the plant. It hadn’t begun that way; they felt more like a team in the beginning when their challenges were smaller, less… challenging. She thought he was different; thought they were different. Her mother used to say that he would follow her off a cliff. The cliff was here now, but she was going over alone. She gathered her composure and walked through the doorway.\n“Mrs. Moore yelled at us four times for talking, but it was really important because there was a roach.” \n“A roach! Did it creepy crawl its way to you and TICKLE YOU?” He drew out the last syllable of every word in a high pitch. He held his hands like claws in front of his face and took three giant steps toward where the boys stood. They squealed and ran from the room, their arms flailing wildly. He laughed with satisfaction. \n5:44 PM.\nShe sat on the couch. \n“You hungry at all, honey?” He moved to the stovetop and stirred something in a pot that sounded like macaroni and cheese. \n“I wish. The pain is really bothering me right now.” \nHe looked up from the pot and grew pale. He preferred to forget, even if just for a moment at a time. She was afforded no such luxury; it was always front and center, broadcast on a projector screen in her mind. \n“Have you decided?” He whispered, both needing but afraid of the answer. \n“Not yet.”\nHe was relieved again to be given precious minutes more to pretend and resumed stirring the pot. The sound made her nauseous all over again. She lay back on the couch to let it pass, thinking of the choice that would make itself for her if she didn’t soon. A commercial played on the radio for a non-invasive treatment that promised to reduce the appearance of wrinkles each session, starting at $7,899 during November only. Maybe she should wait outside the place where they did those treatments and rob somebody. She could sneak up on them like a clumsy thief in a cartoon, shove them into the wall so they hit their head, and then scream at them how her life was worth more than their vanity while they bled from their temple. She would go to prison and probably have to work in a call center for fifty cents a day, but at least she might be able to see the boys grow up. \n5:49 PM.\nShe pulled out her device and looked at the last message. \nI can help you, but it’s expensive and I can’t guarantee your survival at this point. I need to know by 6:00 tomorrow night or you’ll lose the spot. \nShe stared at the blinking cursor and waited for her fingers to type the words that would save her life or end it. She could hear her own mother’s warnings echoing across time, bouncing off the insides of her brain like a balloon half filled with water. Suddenly her stomach lurched and everything she had tried to hold back sprang from the back of her throat and onto the bare-threaded carpet. \n“Shit! Honey! Shit! Are you ok?” He rushed over with towels, gagging as the smell hit him.\n“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I don’t know where it came from, it just hit me out of nowhere. I'm sorry.” She felt a little better now. Like vomiting had jolted her out of her haze and cleared her mind momentarily. \n5:54 PM.\nHe cleaned up her mess and walked to the kitchen holding the inside of his elbow to his nose to block the smell. \n“I will make you some mint tea,” he mumbled. \nShe would like that, she thought.\n5:56 PM.\nShe lay back again and began typing. She had made up her mind. \n“Do you want honey? Honey?” He laughed quietly at his pun. She didn’t respond.\n“Honey? Plain tea then? I know you usually like honey but maybe you should skip it for now…”\nHe peered across the counter into the living room where she lay on their worn beige loveseat, her feet dangling over the armrest. She was still wearing her white slippers. \n“Honey?” He whispered as he walked around the counter and into the living room. The perky woman from NPR was now discussing the upcoming election and the polls that showed the most conservative candidate in the lead by 18%. \nHe knelt by her head. Her eyes were closed, the phone in her hand resting on her swollen belly. He laid his head on her chest. A single tear fell and refused to roll away." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Redemption Time\n\nGenre: coming-of-age\n\nWord Count: 2211\n\nPrompt:\n\nSet your story on New Year's Day." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I wasn’t praying.\n The thought had crossed my mind, but with some people, prayer just doesn’t work.\n “You’re destined to be one of the greats, glory to God.”\n Pops. Him and the same garbage he had poured into my head since I was old enough to pick up a basketball.\n “You will thank me later for all this. Just remember Proverbs.”\n Commit thy works unto the Lord, and thy thoughts shall be established.\n Mother effer.\n “Excuse me?” came his voice from what felt like high above, maybe heaven.\n “Nothing,” I replied, catching myself a bit too late, wondering if the octave of my whisper had been too high.\n “Nothing who?”\n “Nothing, sir. I didn’t mean any disrespect.”\n Of course I did.\n There was no logical reason for this exercise. I never believed Pops was God’s agent to make a point to the world. \n He begged to differ.\n “When you reach the NBA, you can use that platform to spread the Word of God.”\n Here’s the deal: Once upon a time I was a high school basketball star, all-state my senior year, conference MVP, almost led my team to a state championship. Accolades galore.\n I was part of Pops’ master plan. He had me pegged as a global messiah figure, all because I could make shots with relative consistency. I think he found meaning in his life through that.\n But here’s the problem. While I was good, and really, really good sometimes, I wasn’t elite. Not in the way Pops saw me in his mind’s eye. Not in the way college coaches assess prospects.\n Of course, I never made it to the NBA. Hell, I never even made it to a high-major college gig, unless you consider East Beach State in the tiny Daytona Beach suburb of Lester, Florida, a destination program. That came after I put in two years at Southern Illini Junior College in the one-horse town of Prestonville, Illinois.\n I went there because I realized my talent, and my fair-to-midland grades, wouldn’t cut it at a high-major school. I figured, put in two years on the farm, then jump to a blue blood.\n Maybe.\n Pops never forgave me for that decision. In his mind’s eye, he saw me suiting up for Kansas straight out of high school, and in a perfect world, eventually for the Chicago Bulls. Anything less would be disrupting the Lord’s grand master plan for saving folks from the coming wrath.\n His belief was that I was the chosen one. His only son. \n Hence, why I was on my knees that New Year’s Day 2005, Saturday, January 1.\n The rule was simple. If I scored less than twenty points in a game, I had to do 10 pushups per point to make up the deficit. So do the math: If I scored seventeen points, I was responsible for thirty pushups.\n He called it redemption.\n My predicament: I only scored ten for Nelson Allgren High in a 47-45 win—yes, we won the game—for the title of the Chicago New Year’s Eve Classic, a who’s who tournament that was played at the massive United Center. I had nailed a dribble-drive jumper in the lane with 0:03.2 seconds to go that caused utter pandemonium, high school girls’ high-pitched screams that carried into the dark recesses of the facility’s upper deck.\n The funny thing was, I knew the ball was in once it left the tips of my fingers. I felt some otherworldly strength, even though I was so tired I could have collapsed on the Bulls logo at center court. Was it God? Despite the fact that I haven’t talked to Pops in years, not after what he called the Southern Illini JUCO debacle, I still like to think so.\n There was a loud rap at my bedroom door the next morning. I was absorbed in a dream about her, basking in the afterglow of fantasy worlds and parallel universes. At that age, I thought she was The One, like Pops thought I was The One.\n We were both wrong.\n “It’s time!” came a Chipper Charlie voice.\n Pops.\n “Redemption time!” he said with a freakish grin and bad teeth as he entered my room, standing next to an in-action poster of Kobe Bryant. Kobe’s partially squinted eyes appeared to stare him down and ask him just what the hell he thought he was trying to prove.\n Kobe wasn’t God, but on the court? Maybe. After he died back in 2020? Quite possibly. At least mythical in status.\n Come on, it’s New Year’s, I mumbled, the fleeting thoughts of her fading into the darkness.\n “Excuse me?”\n “I’ll be ready in a minute. Sir.”\n A-hole.\n I didn’t say a word as I drove us along Chicago’s narrow side streets to Allgren High, cluttered with cars and neighbors and a stray tabby cat. I had a key to the gym, thanks to my celebrated status as probably the best hoops player to come through the school in its history. That’s not really saying much, since Allgren had never been known as a true Chicago basketball dynasty, not in the sense of Simeon or Morgan Park or a few other Chicago Public League schools.\n That was the reason I went to Allgren, Pops once told me. The competition I needed was there, not at a rich kids’ private school on the north shore, several of which wanted me bad coming out of eighth grade. No, Allgren gave me opportunity to hone my skills against “the future NBA,” he had said when I was an eighth grader. I personally think he and Ma didn’t send me because they couldn’t afford it, even with financial aid. They believed strongly in tithes and offerings like any obedient fundamentalist church-goin’ people.\n Belief ran unbridled through the bedrooms and musty basement of my childhood bungalow, where four of us existed in a sort of fake serenity. If Pops and Ma only knew the shit my younger sister and I had pulled over the years…\n Preacher’s kids are the worst, always testing the limits for a means of escape. Pops wasn’t even a preacher, though he thought of himself as one.\n Redemption time was my time to do the pushups necessary to understand that my twenty points were a sort of tithe, my ten percent off the top that would guarantee favor from the Lord. Anything beyond that wasn’t gravy, but an offering.\n “You’re doing this for Him, not for me,” he would say.\n My tally for New Year’s Day was a hundred pushups, followed by two hundred jump shots, two hundred free throws, and then time in the weight room, before heading home for film study and to watch the Bulls-Magic game, my reward for all that hard work. Pops frowned on TV unless it was to watch basketball.\n One hundred pushups, I thought. You can do this, Jimmy. You’ve done it before. I knelt at center court, on top of the Allgren’s navy Fighting Stallions logo with red and white trim, charging into my consciousness like the fifth horseman of the apocalypse. \n The steed of Victory, with the ability to rise up and vanquish the enemy with a bombardment of three-pointers.\n “Before you begin,” Pops said, as he stood with his arms crossed, sporting his wire-rimmed glasses and an Allgren hoodie with the fifth horseman logo, khakis and Air Jordans, a basketball tucked under his right arm.\n “It is a New Year and you are shortly going to be eighteen, so I have decided to increase your pushup total from ten to fifteen. That said, your total this morning will be one hundred fifty pushups.”\n There was a moment of silence.\n Shee-it.\n “But…”\n “Ah, ah, ah! Remember your future. It is not just about you, son. Think of the souls that will be harvested because of your commitment to the Lord now.”\n A pause, and then he added, “You will balance out the heathen you will encounter in the NBA, both on and off the court.”\n Of course.\n I didn’t move. I just knelt there.\n “What are you waiting for? Get to work.”\n I considered standing and walking. I really did.\n But like any father and son, we had butted heads before and I knew that there was nothing in this world or the next that would find some semblance of compassion for the day, the year or my present physical state. \n “Do it,” he hissed.\n He’d always been a cold-hearted, aloof, command-and-control bastard.\n And yet, even now, I miss him on some level.\n I placed my hands on the cool, varnished hardwood, and stared into the eyes of the Fighting Stallion, which I now noticed had tiny crimson pinpricks for eyes.\n I imagined Pops with crimson eyes behind his bifocals, staring down at me.\n Math was never my strong suit, but I didn’t have to worry about losing count as I conquered my first pushup, then the second, the third.\n He counted for me. Out loud.\n “Fifteen,” he said. “That is one point. Keep going.”\n Nope. He wasn’t going to win. \n The beginnings of sweat were dampening my forehead and underarms as I made my way through twenty pushups. I was on my own count.\n By one hundred my pectorals and forearms were in agony, feeling as if I had a pair of shipyard cranes dangling from my torso, but I kept going like a trip hammer. At one-fifty, Pops stopped the count.\n I kept going, and I imagined him frowning. Mind over matter, baby.\n “What are you doing?” \n I didn’t even stop, the first drops of accumulated sweat from my swollen pores hitting the floor.\n He wants fifteen pushups per point?\n F him. I want twenty.\n So that’s what I did. He kept counting until we got to two hundred pushups. \n I would not show weakness.\n I concluded my experiment in some sort of rebellion by getting on my knees, my heart racing and my nose full of snot. A drop of sweat entered the corner of my mouth, and it tasted irony, like blood, not salty.\n I looked up and could tell he was doing mental math.\n Two hundred pushups, divided by ten points.\n “I’m impressed,” he said. “Twenty it will be going forward.”\n Great.\n Just dandy.\n “That should be proper motivation for you to put the ball in the hoop.”\n I always argued, lightly, that my ability to score was predicated on a lot of factors outside of my control. The defense, for example. A zone is traditionally tougher to break than a man defense. Teams constantly threw three-two zones us just to get the offense—me—off balance.\n “You shoot over a zone, praise God,” Pops said. “Your ability to shoot is your greatest asset. It will put bread on your table and the Lord in the hearts of millions.”\n I was averaging over thirty percent made from three-point land. That’s decent, but Pops always implored to shoot more, no matter the play that had been called.\n Then there was coach’s gameplan. It might be more efficient for him to use me as a decoy, thus opening up someone else to shoot, especially when I would get double- or even triple-teamed or trapped at half-court. In fact, that was the opposing coach’s plan in the waning seconds of the Chicago New Year’s Eve Classic title game, but the final play broke down and with seconds to go in a prestigious tournament, you know who’s getting the ball.\n “That there is the reason for the pushups,” he said, “so you have the upper-body strength to escape a double-team.”\n My shooting arm was an anchor, but I still did my two hundred jumpers and free throws, along with my weight-room work. I didn’t make any small talk as I drove us home, but Pops had a pronouncement.\n “Since it is New Year’s Day, and you were willing to go the extra mile with your pushups, I am willing to waive film study until this evening, after the Bulls game,” he said.\n My eyes widened, but I said zero.\n I had a whole afternoon to myself.\n “But we will reconvene after supper to shore up the mistakes you made yesterday. Is that clear?”\n “Yes sir.”\n I pulled up to the front of the house, but I didn’t cut the engine.\n “Going somewhere?” Pops said.\n “Over to one of the guys’ houses.”\n Pops almost rolled his eyes at my suggestion of frivolity. \n “I would have thought you would have decided to watch other NBA games this afternoon,” he replied. “The Knicks play the Nets.”\n His disappointed voice faded out, but he did add one thing.\n “Remember, be ready for film study after supper.”\n And then he was gone, disappearing into the front door of our cream-brick bungalow. I could see the teak-wood cross over the piano in the living room as he passed by. \n I pulled the car forward, avoided an errant cardboard box and a ditched Christmas tree, and drove about four miles.\n To her house.\n Emma. The dream girl.\n Pops didn’t know about her. He also didn’t know what we did together, the few chances we were alone. I was into her, so into her. I now wonder once in a while what happened to her.\n Pops never would have understood.\n Jezebel, he would have said." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Last Chapter\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 1414\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story in which an important message is cut off, leaving characters to wonder or puzzle out what was left unsaid." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Have a cup of chamomile tea. Listen to a song on loop. Take a vitamin pill. Walk two miles. Remember a tidy desk is a tidy mind. Writing routines are meant to squeeze out your creative juices, but whatever I'm doing—whether it's fit to be a routine or not—has accomplished nothing but the complete opposite. Ideas are as elusive as creases on a perfectly-ironed shirt. Everytime I shut my eyes, I see the brilliant hues of a dreamscape I'm currently unable to capture in coherent words. When I open them, my paper remains blank and my pencils unsharpened as they've been for three months. Perhaps it all boils down to escapism; I've become so sick of the freezer harmonising with the fridge during power cuts it might be messing with my flow. A change of environment might be the solution. The library down the street.\n. . .\nThe mammoth book cases loom over me on both sides, imposing, like the halves of a mahogany ocean that could swallow me any minute because of the plethora of heavenly hardbacks gathering dust on its shelves.\n\"Can I get the key?\" I ask a plump woman who seems to be made of lemonade and strained muscle. She is obviously committed to warming her throat with a Davidoff—and could be the librarian—but from her economic name tag, she might be just that, a janitor, security guard or much more.\n\"At your own risk, Sir. Don't say I didn't warn ya. No one goes visiting there, and for good reason. But you might just be different, who knows?\" She stumps the cigarette and throws me the key.\nI can't be more grateful. I fling the grimy arched windows to let in the delicious scent of Spring weaken this musty marriage of mildew and mothballs. With that, I'm just fine, so I scan several spines and decide I shouldn't waste my time on the self-help aisle. Fiction is more my thing. I can't believe this place was locked up. What were they thinking? Despite the tortuous mass of literature before me, I can't find something I haven't read or would have an interest in. I should have come here with a hanky. With even the smallest contact, I disrupt clouds of decade-old dust that tickle my airways and provoke sneeze after sneeze. Finally, I conclude on a laminated booklet (on which MANUSCRIPT was written with a Sharpie) whose folder I had to zip open. A curious sight in a library. Why this never got published doesn't matter, but whether I should waste my four hours on such a book does. I do so anyway, and the hours spent fly past like with kids dashing through a meadow with clear streams and blooming bromeliads. I've never read a more sweeping tale—one of a young detective and his wife searching for their relative who's disappeared from a small town.\nI'm sure Cigarette Lady's surprised I'm still alive; I believe she must've been on some sort of high that made her imagine things. I'm finishing the penultimate chapter when I realise there's no final one. Could it have been ripped out? Surely, an adult—I don't expect a child to devour such a voluminous book unless they're a Matilda which is rare—wouldn't be so immature or reactionary to do such, will they? I nestle the book under my sweaty armpit of my checked H&M shirt and head home because I've found the perfect task—to complete it. If only it could be so easy. What shocking twist can I include?\nThe missing person is the detective's brother, who, along with his wife, is responsible for the disappearance—because they murdered him. They were only trying to be hands-on with the investigation to avert suspicion. Wow. Seems like I've still got it after all.\nHowever, the fact that no one bothers about me taking the book and not saying how I intend to return it is quite unsettling. It could be what I was cautioned about. A library that doesn't lend books but leaves them there?\nI trot past the Obelisk Square, trying to keep the stench of rotting waste out of my nostrils though it's the norm. The graffitied wall that's held the artistic highlights of my childhood stretches out before me and my eyes halt at the greyscale poster that disrupts the continuity of the predominantly primary coloured wall.\nIs my idea coming alive?\nMISSING PERSON. I'm the young man in that picture. That face is mine. My face is his. The name underneath the photo is mine too. And the reward? $50,000 for the successful location and physical recovery of Arnold Phishwhite. Email and phone, my brother's. My brother Ethan, the detective. My brother is married, just like I'd read. Wasn't the missing person somehow related to the detective in the manuscript? Disturbingly, I am in the clothes the notice says I was last seen in and still, possibly, in: athletic shorts, a rumpled shirt and a pair of khaki running shoes. But if I am really missing, why did Cigarette Lady act so normal around me? She looks like she really needs the cash, but she's as unfazed as a satiated mouse lured with a cut of cheese. I scribble down some notes. I can use it for the last chapter although I've got enough self-awareness to know I would spend the whole time trying to make sense of all this. I rip the sheet of paper but the horror remains. There is no point in completing. Only eluding it—if I can.\nI struggle to quell the fright that ripples throughout my frame, that adorns it with festoons of goose pimples. But whatever attempt I make is like trying to stay nice and dry in the rain without a coat or umbrella—futile. Adrenaline courses through me.\n\"Any problem?\" Cigarette Lady calls from the end of the close where the library sags under the weight of age and despair. Sometimes, I feel it sighs when there's someone, anyone, within its walls or premises to listen.\n\"Not really, er, yes. Yes, actually. Have you seen this?\" I turn toward the wall, hoping to gesture at the poster.\nBut it's gone.\n\"What?\" She pauses to let out yet another puff of black smoke.\n\"I think you were right.\"\n\"The library. I told ya so, although I'm not sure why you look this pale.\"\n. . .\nEven my bed seems foreign-familiar, but Teddy doesn't. I bury my head in his bosom and hit it several times as some great form of catharsis. The self-deception.\nI decide to pull out my phone, and when I enable notifications, a swarm of missed calls invades my screen. All from Ethan and his wife Laura. Why don't they just—? I can't think of anything reasonable. Why am I missing? How am I missing? When I take out the trash, I see the same weeds Chapter 18 mentioned the missing person had in their garden peeping at the other side of the world. I sprint to the library, clutching the manuscript and ignoring how worn out my soles would become even after two minutes of exertion. The chilly wind seems to gently snatch something from me (possibly my footing and what's left of my sanity) as it howls with plain suggestions of things only it knows. The absence of the last chapter is more of an enigma than it is a turn-off, and a frightening one indeed. Enough of trying to figure out and construe conclusions and resolutions. Enough of finding the last chapter. It is obvious it represents the very last days, weeks, months of my life, with all the parallels. A black sedan, Ethan and Laura's wedding gift from me, pulls into the driveway, and I can almost promise you I see a wrapped corpse in their back seat. I could be killed very soon, and then what would I blame? But I just stand there, my feet lead-heavy, and wallow in the incredible array of fearsome feelings I grapple with so late at night. When I take my miraculous first step, I slide the manuscript into the neglected area of the bookshelf I coaxed it from. And flee while I have the chance.\nSome messages are best left unpublished, no, unarchived. I'm at angry-peace with whoever decided to rip out (a huge but tempting favour) the last chapter; I would've been gone if I didn't desist.\nAt least, while I'm unsure how that manuscript achieves its purposes…" } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: MIDNIGHT RAIN\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 1116\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart or finish your story with a speaker unable to finish their sentence, perhaps overcome by emotion." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The petite hand of a pregnant mother was placed gracefully on her swollen belly as she waddled behind her mischievous twins, Judy and Jeremy. The twins laughed at their mother's struggle to keep up with them, and a victorious smile graced their chubby faces as they witnessed their mother huffing and finally settling down on the recliner to catch her breath.\n“What happened Mommy? Aren't you going to scold us today?” Their innocent question brought a chuckle from their tired mother as she ruffled their hair and kissed them feverishly, savouring their sweet scent. “No, I am not going to do that. Instead, I am going to ask your dad not to surprise you today,” she replied cheekily, hugging Judy lovingly. This was followed by a loud celebration as both of them got excited upon hearing their father’s name.\n“No Mommy, please don’t do it,” they hugged her and kissed her, compensating for the mischief they had done earlier. Giselle smiled at their gleefulness and nodded, making them sigh in relief.\nHouses can be built easily but homes don’t. It takes a family to bring love and turn it into a loving home. Have you ever experienced those moments in life when you're overwhelmed with emotions? Maybe it's a euphoric rush of happiness, a gut-wrenching wave of sadness, or a heartwarming feeling of gratitude. But let's face it, there's one emotion that trumps them all - guilt. It's like a sharp knife that digs into your heart and soul, causing immense pain. And while it's okay to make mistakes, it's downright audacious and selfish to commit sins and feel proud of them without any remorse. People who act this way don't deserve forgiveness and must face the consequences of their actions.\nHeavenly winds were blowing, the slow chants of melodious rhythm were exquisite enough to make a person sigh in serenity. The sky was pellucid blue, A misty rain fell down. It was as frail as a Scottish smirr and its misty dew felt like warm butter melting on a face. As it fell, it unlocked the glassy fingers of winter's frosty fist, one by one. Flowers slowly unfurled in the meadows and rippled like coral arms at low tides. The rivers exhaled with a murmurous purr of satisfaction. Midnight drizzling was not less than a blessing to the people. In this very moment, loving Giselle was all ready to welcome her deployed husband after five months. The spring rain was here and it was sinless and glistening as an angel's tears.\nHow much time was he going to take? Her unsettling beats made her anxious. In that exact moment, the doorbell was heard through the pitter patter of rain. Judy and Jeremy had slept while waiting for their father. Giselle opened the door as fast as she could waddle with her heavy pregnancy. They say when a person gets addicted to sins, he is nowhere near a human being anymore. Callum wrapped his arms around his beautiful wife as she snuggled closer to his chest. In the dark of the night, Giselle and Callum talked about everything that had happened, but Callum withheld some important information. Despite Callum's red eyes, Giselle didn't suspect anything because she was deeply in love. Callum made coffee for both of them, reminiscing about old times.\nSuddenly, a bolt of lightning struck, and Giselle felt a sharp pain in her throat that traveled up to her chest, making it difficult to breathe. She tried to stand up, but she fell onto a beanbag by the couch, knocking over the coffee cup. As I analyze the situation, it becomes apparent that Giselle has been through a lot of pain and hardship in her marriage. Despite her husband Callum's unfaithfulness, she persevered and gave her all to her family, putting her children's well-being above her own. She made sure that her home was a welcoming and safe place for her family, even though it meant giving up her career as a teacher. Giselle's devotion to her husband was nothing short of spiritual love, giving everything in the name of love itself. Life can be challenging and merciless, but Giselle's unwavering patience and resilience in the face of adversity are truly admirable. It takes tremendous strength to stay committed to one's home and family in such trying times, and Giselle has exemplified that strength.\nAs she lay there, her body convulsing with intense pain, she couldn't help but ponder the true value of her marriage. She wondered if the love she had shared with her husband was enough to justify the unbearable anguish she was currently experiencing. Despite the whispers of a spiritual connection and a divine union, she couldn't shake off the feeling that she was being punished for the mistakes of her lover. The cruelty of life seemed to be at its peak, especially for those who seek to live in perfect harmony with the universe.\nHer auburn locks fell around her face, obscuring the pain etched there. The poison coursing through her veins was too much to bear.\nCallum's eyes remained fixed on her chest as it rose and fell in a labored rhythm. He couldn't shake the feeling of guilt that hung heavily on his heart. With each passing second, the weight of his actions bore down on him harder. He knelt down beside her, his body trembling with the effort of holding himself together. Every inch of him wanted to turn back the clock and undo what he had done, to erase the pain etched on her face. Yet, he knew that it was too late for that.\n\"Giselle, please forgive me,\" he whispered. \"Kaia made me do it. I fell in love with her. If only you weren't carrying our child, I would have never--\" But he knew that his excuses were hollow. He had betrayed the woman he loved, and now he was consumed by guilt. \"I cannot accept your excuses. You have betrayed me, and you need to take responsibility for your actions. It doesn't matter if Kaia influenced you to do it. You chose to cheat on me, and that is your fault alone. Additionally, do not try to blame our child for your mistakes.\" Giselle wished she could express her feelings out loud.\nThe last moments of Giselle's life were filled with unimaginable agony and despair. As she looked up at him, her heart struggling to beat, she could barely find the strength to ask him the question that had been gnawing at her. Her question was simple but powerful, \"How could you--?\" These final words would forever echo in his mind, a reminder of the pain and betrayal that he had caused." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Dick and Jane\n\nGenre: contemporary\n\nWord Count: 1016\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story including the line “I can’t say it.”" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Dick, on the way home from the fair:\n\n“Did you all have a good time at the fair,” mom asks.\n\n“Sure did, mom! I met up with Brandon, Robby, and Shane and we went on every ride twice! My favorite was the …,” Eddie, Dick’s sugar and caffeine induce little brother began.\n\n“What mom really wants to know is, who is she, Dick” Veronica, Dicks older sister asks, teasingly.\n\n“Who’s who, Dick,” Eddie asks, confused as to why he would be cut off for such a reason.\n\n“Yeah, Dickie, what’s her name,” mom asks, turning around in the front seat to give her son her full intention.\n\n“I can’t say it.”\n\n“Why?”\n\n“Because you’re all going to act stupid over something that is nothing,” Dick says with a roll of the eyes.\n\n“Nonsense, son, you’re thirteen now. Your hormones are thriving…,” Dick's dad says as he drives the car.\n\n“Oh, dear god,” Dick says as he covers his face. Veronica punches him on the shoulder and laughs.\n\n“…It’s ok to be attracted to the opposite sex. I used to be quite the lady’s man in my day,” dad continues.\n\n“He was. Your father was quite the looker. Did I ever tell you the time…,” mom began.\n\n“Her name’s Jane!”\n\n“Oh, Jane, what a pretty name for such a pretty girl,” mom says.\n\n“Dickie and Jane, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G…,” Veronica and Eddie begin to sing.\n\n“That’s enough you two. It’s his first girlfriend. It’s special. Oh, we should have her over for dinner,” mom declares.\n\n“We should,” dad agrees. “We can barbeque around the pool. That will give you a chance to check out the hardware, son,” dad says with a hearty laugh.\n\n“Jim! That’s your son’s girlfriend you’re talking about,” mom says.\n\n“Gross dad,” says Veronica.\n\n“What’s hardware,” asks Eddie.\n\n“She’s not my girlfriend! She’s just some girl I know from school. I’m not inviting her over for dinner,” Dick says.\n\n“But I saw you holding her hand, Dickie. Why else would you be holding her hand,” mom asks.\n\n“I saw it too, Dick,” Veronica says.\n\n“Okay, maybe we like each other, but not meet the parents like each other,” Dick tells them.\n\n“Just think about it, Dickie. We would really like to meet her, and we won’t embarrass you. I promise,” mom says.\n\n“It’s not going to happen. Just because I held hands with a girl doesn’t mean it’s serious enough to bring her home. It’s not like we have been on any dates or anything. If we had been dating for a while, I could see wanting to bring her home for dinner, but this is crazy. Can we just drop it?\n\nJane, on the way home from the fair:\n\n“I saw you holding hands with that boy at the fair, Jane,” her mom says.\n\n“You what,” her dad asks. “Who is this boy?”\n\n“I can’t say it?”\n\n“And why not,” mom asks.\n\n“Because one, if not both of you, will track him down and make a big deal over nothing.”\n\n“Nothing? No daughter of mine is going to be a slut,” dad says.\n\n“A slut,” Jane rages at the accusation. “How am I a slut?\"\n\n“We give you a little bit of freedom at the fair to hang out with you friends and what do you do? You run off with some boy,” Mom rages back.\n\n“Yeah, you know there are to be no boys as long as you live under our roof,” dad says.\n\n“No, I didn’t know that! That’s insane! You guys have let Johnny run around with girls since he was younger than me,” Jane protests.\n\n“It’s different for boys and girls. Do you want to get pregnant,” dad asks.\n\n“You’re crazy! I just touched a boy’s hand. How do you expect me to get pregnant from that?”\n\n“That’s how they get you, Janie. They come in all sweet and nice, then it’s the kissing and the rubbing, then they force themselves on you and you’re pregnant. Do they take responsibility – no! It’s the parents who have to swoop in and save the day. We’re just looking out for you,” mom says.\n\n“Sounds like you’re looking out for you. ‘Keep Janie a virgin until she’s out of the house so we don’t have to pay for it.’ Well, you can’t keep me locked up to where I have no life for the next five years. I need some independence, socialize, form an identity that doesn’t include you two hovering over me.”\n\n“Well, if we could trust you, but today showed us that we can’t,” dad says.\n\n“And why should we have to pay for your mistakes,” mom asks.\n\n“There won’t be any mistakes because nothing happened! Nothing is going to happen!”\n\n“And nothing will happen, you understand me young lady? No boys,” dad exclaimed.\n\n“You guys can’t do this to me. It’s not fair.”\n\n“We can do it to you, we are doing it to you, and that’s the end of this discussion,” dad says as he flicks on the radio to drown out any other questions or comments.\n\nDick and Jane under locker 109:\n\n“Hey, Dickie.”\n\n“Hey, Jane. Why the long face,” Dick asks as he shuts his locker.\n\n“I got grounded. My mom saw us at the fair. Thinks we’re a couple which violates the ‘no boys while living under our roof’' rule. They called me a slut and said I was going to get pregnant,” Jane says as she leans against Dick's locker.\n\n“I’m sorry to hear that. My mom and sister saw us too. I got teased. They were ready to throw a parade in our honor and want you to come to dinner so they can meet you.”\n\n“Uh, that figures. My parents let my older brother Johnny chase after girls since he hit puberty. I know he’s no virgin. I know they have to know too. Do they worry about him getting some girl pregnant – no.”\n\n“Double standards, I know. It’s not fair. If parents only knew their kids.”\n\n“Totally. Anyway, thanks for slipping me that coke at the fair.\"" } ]