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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: \"The Tome of Dissidius\" by Dante Crossroad\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 2636\n\nPrompt:\n\nSet your story in a library, after hours." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "\"Really, LaKeisha?\" Tiffany asked me. \"You're gonna stay late again?\"\n\"What can I say?\" I laughed. \"Being alone with all these books makes me feel right at home and helps me wind down after a long day?\"\n\"If you say so,\" she replied, turning to leave. \"I'm off for the weekend, so I'll catch you Monday.\"\nShe locked the doors as she left. I wasn't gonna tell her that my girlfriend broke up with me and moved out, that I didn't wanna go home to an empty apartment because I just couldn't accept the silence yet. She didn't deserve to know me like that, especially because she'd probably just reply with some casually homophobic bullshit. I would rather hang out at the library by myself and cry in peace.\nI couldn't stop thinking about how I wouldn't hear Shaunda cussing at whatever game she would be playing on her PS5 as I walked up to the door. How a fresh, steaming pot of alfredo wouldn't be waiting for me once I got home. God, I loved her alfredo so much. It hurt. It felt like I might die. We butted heads a lot, sure, but what relationship doesn't have its problems? She was the only girl who didn't care that I was bisexual or goth. Hell, she even swooned with me over how gorgeous Patricia Morrison looked in the This Corrosion music video by The Sisters of Mercy. She was such a catch. But I suppose it just wasn't meant to be. And that thought made me weep.\nAs I sat at the table in the Thriller/Suspense section with my face buried in my arms, sobbing as hard as I could, a loud thud shook me. I gasped as I jumped in my chair and looked around the library. Nobody was there. I thought I was imagining things at first. But then I saw it: a faded red book, as thick as one of the last three Harry Potter books, if not thicker, entitled The Tome of Dissidius. I looked around the library again.\n\"Is someone there?\" I called. I waited a beat. No response. \"The library is closed, so you need to leave.\"\nDead silence. I looked back to the book. Who the hell was Dissidius? A Greek philosopher? Italian romanticist? Did I skip school the day we were supposed to learn about them? The book's title sounded ancient, so it had to be someone from, like, the Shakespearean era or something like that, right? I looked up once more to make sure I was alone. I definitely was. It was so deathly quiet in there, you could have heard a pin drop on the carpet several sections away.\n\"We are quite alone, my dear,\" I heard someone say. I whipped around in my chair, frantically looking about.\n\"I know you think you funny,\" I said firmly (well, as firmly as I could with my voice quivering), \"but I will absolutely beat yo ass, then call the cops and tell 'em I did it!\"\n\"I assure you, my dear,\" the voice came again, \"I haven't an arse to beat. I haven't had one for, oh...three, four centuries. Give or take fifty or so years.\"\nI slowly turned back around to the faded red book before me. I had to be losing my mind. Did this thing for real just talk to me? Well, obviously it did, as evidenced by the Joker-like, toothy grin illustration that I knew damn well wasn't there before.\n\"Greetings, LaKeisha. My name is Dissidius. How do you do?\"\nI screamed and bolted to the door. I'm a black girl. Black girls do not play this Edgar Allen Lovecraft mess, goth or not! Just before I reached the door, though, there it was. The book was floating right between me and the exit. With another scream, and my heart jumping into my throat, I fell flat on my ass. Have you ever tried to run for your life in platform boots? Yeah, I wouldn't advise it. Ever.\n\"Listen, I know this has to be a rather frightful experience,\" the book said to me, \"but I assure you I mean you no harm.\"\n\"Th-then what d-d-do you want?\" I stammered. My heart was pounding out of my chest. My anxiety was through the roof. I wasn't even concerned with how it knew my name. There was a book talking to me, and it wasn't just in my head.\n\"Only to help you,\" the book said. \"I have seen your pain, your anguish. You don't deserve to suffer as you are.\"\nThe talking book not only had insight into my personal life...it had a freaking heart! I most definitely was not in Kansas anymore.\n\"How...do you know me?\" I managed to squeeze out, terror and confusion practically strangling me.\n\"Does it really matter? I wish to help you. Will you allow me to do so?\"\n\"What help can you possibly offer me?\"\n\"Open me. Step into my world. And find out. You need only trust me. No harm will come to you, I promise.\"\nI hesitated. This creepy ass, floating book was somehow going to help me, take my pain away, make the heartache end. They say if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Well, against my better judgment, I ignored that all important adage.\nI got to my feet and took the book into my quivering hands. I walked the book back to the table I was sitting at and sat down. I flattened my hands on either side of it and stared at it with equal parts disbelief and blind hope. Could this book, this Tome of Dissidius, really do for me what it said it could? My heart hurt so much from loneliness and depression, I was ready to believe anything.\n\"Take your time, dear child,\" the book said softly. \"I know how bizarre and sudden this must be for you, and I wouldn't blame you for changing your mind. For the record, you are more than free to leave me where I am and return to your life. Walk out those doors, you will never see me again. However, I do implore you to at least allow me the opportunity to show you what I have to offer.\"\nI had nothing to lose at that point. I took a deep breath. I opened the book and was met with a blinding flash of light. A second later, I found myself standing in what appeared to be a penthouse suite. I’d never been in one before, and its sheer size alone was nigh on unfathomable. My apartment could have easily fit inside the living room a good three or four times. And it was so lavish, having three velvet couches, a marble coffee table in the center, and the crimson carpet was absolutely to die for. What really impressed me, though, was looking out the window, which spanned the entirety of the living room, to see the skyline of New York City. Bruh, how did I get in New York City?! I don’t live anywhere near there!\n\"It's a lot to take in, I'm sure,\" said the book from behind me. Well, the voice was that of the book anyway. When I spun around to look, however, I saw a fine ass androgynous, black person wearing a three-piece suit that was just as fine. Was this really the voice I'd been talking to in book form? \n\"I'm sure you've gathered by now,\" they said, \"but I am Dissidius.\"\nI stood with my mouth wide open for a hot minute. This person was inhumanly good-lookin'. Like, imagine if Grace Jones were five times hotter and then double that. When I could finally form words again, I asked them what their pronouns were.\n\"I'm a man,\" he chuckled. \"My pronouns are he/him, but that's not what's important here. The important question is what do you want or need from me?\"\n\"I, uh…\" I started. \"How can you make my pain go away?\"\nBefore I knew it, he'd taken me into his strong, warm arms and pressed his lips against mine. I don't know what came over me, but my entire body flooded with ungodly desire. I threw my arms around him without thinking about it. I jumped up and slapped my legs around his waist. I wanted him so badly, so suddenly, and I cannot explain what kind of magic brought out such carnal behavior in me. Shaunda had brought it out of me on multiple occasions. But I was not thinking about her. The very next second, we were in the bedroom, ripping each other's clothes off, kissing, biting, caressing each other. I couldn't tell you how long we went at it for, but my God the stamina on this being right here, not to mention his skill!\nAfter an eternity of passionate lovemaking, we cuddled nude, drenched in sweat, both of us breathing heavily. Dissidus kissed my forehead and asked me with a voice of pure honey, \"How are you feeling now, my dear?\"\nI had to think for a minute to remember how sad I was earlier, but I couldn't for the life of me remember why I was sad.\n\"I'm...I'm amazing,\" I cooed, gazing into his piercing, golden eyes. I hadn't noticed their color before. They weren't a light, shimmering brown. No, his irises looked as though they'd been carved of solid gold, which made his gaze utterly entrancing. \"How are you such a good lover?\"\n\"I've had centuries to practice. Unfortunately, those centuries have been most lonely, unbearably so. I figured if I am to find companionship, I should at least be worthwhile in bed.\"\n\"Well, you most certainly are. No doubt about that.\" I laughed and snuggled into him. This was the happiest I'd been all week. I didn't want it to end. Sadly...it had to end.\n\"Stay with me, LaKeisha,\" he proposed. \"Stay with me, and I promise you you will never feel sad another day in your life.\"\nI sat up and smiled at him. \"The offer is tempting, it really is. Somehow, I know you have that power...but…\"\n\"But...?\" \n\"But...I can't. The fact is I probably cried myself to sleep at the library, which means this is all a dream. An extremely pleasant one, don't get me wrong. But it’s still just a dream.\"\n\"What if it isn't? This doesn't have to be a hit and run, as the kids say.\"\nI laughed. \"You funny. Regardless of what the kids say, I gotta wake up.\"\n\"LaKeisha. Please do not abandon me. I simply could not bear it.\" There was sorrow in his tone. But there was also an eerie coldness to it.\n\"Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy. We had some great sex, but I'm leavin', baby.\"\n\"LaKeisha. You. Cannot. Abandon me.\" He obviously wasn't a Carly Rae Jepsen fan because the honey voice turned to acid real quick. Just as well, the temperature of the room plummeted what had to be a couple dozen degrees.\nI slowly slid off the bed and reached down for my clothes. \"Look, we had a good time, but you're starting to scare me. I just wanna go home and process my grief in peace, okay?\"\n\"I scare you, eh?\" He sat up. Such a simple movement, yet it chilled me to the bone. \"That's what my peers said of me. It's why they gave me the name Dissidius...the one who creates conflict.\"\nI gathered my clothes into my arms. There was no time to put them on. I needed to get the hell out of Dodge, and I needed to do it yesterday! \"Look, I don't really care what your old homies decided to call you, but it ain't none of my business, okay? I'm gone.\"\n\"Through what door?\"\nThe question froze my spine. As I gazed about the room, I could see no doors or even windows. I'd had some freaky ass dreams before, but this one really took the cake. I was ready to be done with it. \n\"Please, just let me go,\" I pleaded. \"You said you would do me no harm. Please, just let me go.\"\nDissidius rose from the bed and stalked toward me. \"You're giving me that same despicable look they gave me. As long as my power pleased them, they loved me, adored me, but the moment I asked for something in return, they distanced themselves from me. Why are you doing to me what they did all those centuries ago?\" \nAs he approached me, I pressed myself against the wall, my heart trying desperately to escape as my thoughts raced for a way for me to do the same. I slumped to the floor once he was upon me.\n\"Please…\" I whined, helpless. \"Don't do this to me.\"\n\"I made that same plea. The next I knew, I was sealed inside my own grimoire.\" He crouched down in front of me, slamming his hands against the wall, barring me in. \"I can give you everything you have ever wanted. You need only love me, remain here with me, and the world can be yours.\"\nI don't know whether or not he realized it, but his voice did not match the sweetness of his words, not remotely. His voice carried a veiled threat. Every word stabbed into me, intent on shredding my sanity. The room got colder. I sobbed on the floor. I just wanted to go home. \n\"LaKeisha⸺\"\n\"Just let me go!\" I shrieked. The room quaked as my voice rang out. Everything around me shattered like glass, and I fell through a horrific, endless void that wailed and clawed at me.\n\"LaKeisha!\" He called for me, his voice distorted, otherworldly, and terrifying. Every hair on my body stood on end as I fell. The longer I fell, the more distant his voice became. Just before I passed out, I heard one final whine: \"Please...don’t leave me.\"\nI crashed into something. I lay there, wherever there was, holding my shoulders, crying, trying to catch my breath. As my crying slowed and my breath steadied, I could hear nothing. It was stark silent all of a sudden. Dissidius' voice and that of his void disappeared. I cautiously opened my eyes. I was in the library again. My chair was on its back about a foot away from me, and I was fully clothed. I was confused. And still terrified. Had it all really been a dream? I got to my feet, looking around the room. Nobody was there. I was alone once more. Then I saw that faded red book on the table. The Tome of Dissidius. I crept back over to it. The smile on the cover was gone. The book was silent. I reached out to open it again, just to see if it would pull me back in, to see if it really was just a bad dream. I stopped. I listened to my gut instinct this time. I was not gonna touch that weird ass book again.\nI checked the time on my phone. Only twenty minutes had passed since Tiffany left. I knew I was in that book for at least a couple of hours, though. Wasn't I? It didn't matter. I gathered my things and bolted for the door, setting the alarm and making sure the place was locked up good and tight before taking off. \nI'm not quite sure what went down that night in the library, but it was freaky as shit. I'm not quite sure who or what Dissidius is or was, and frankly, I don't care. All I know for sure is my therapist would never believe this. A bottle of Grey Goose certainly would, though. And damn, did I ever need one." } ]

[ { "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 That Trouble\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 2980\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone going to extreme lengths to return an overdue library book." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Simone grabbed her jacket and raced out of her apartment. Once she got downstairs, she ran to her car, opened the door, and got in.\nI’m forgetting something.\nShe looked down. She had her phone, purse, and keys. What could she have forgotten? The book. That’s the reason she was in such a rush in the first place.\nSimone had always loved to read. Even when she was in elementary school, she’d always favored going to the library rather than physical education class. The first novel she ever remembered reading was The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett in 5th grade. From then on, she’d developed a love for reading fiction novels.\nThe library was her favorite place to visit in town. Due to her work schedule, she was only able to visit on the weekends or her days off. She’d borrowed a book almost two months ago. To say it was overdue, was an understatement. She’d meant to take it back three weeks earlier, but life kept getting in the way. First, she was out of town two weekends in a row. Last weekend, she went to a party with a friend and had forgotten.\nSimone had been living on her own for about six months now. As the baby of her family, she often felt like everyone treated her like she was helpless, and she hated it. Whenever she had a problem, she did her best to fix it on her own. Going to her family for help was the last option. While she would admit that there were times that being the baby had its benefits, she tried not to take advantage of them too often. Her goal was to show her family that she was independent, responsible and that she made good choices. She’d even saved up $1000 and felt proud of herself for that accomplishment.\nHowever, she wasn’t feeling so accomplished at the moment. When she’d checked her email that morning, she’d been informed that her book was now 50 days overdue and that if she didn’t return it by the time they closed today, her borrowing privileges would be revoked. She couldn’t have that happen. Not only because she was an avid reader, but also because she’d recently started a book club that met in two weeks. She couldn’t afford to have her borrowing privileges revoked because she still hadn’t picked up the darn book to read it. Best Book Club President Ever. \nExiting her car, she ran back upstairs. Where is that damn book? She gazed around her living room, which was in such a state that if her mom came over unexpectedly, she’d have a fit. She tossed aside books and magazines on her coffee table, but she didn’t see it. She walked into her kitchen. While there was no reason for the book to be there, she decided to check just in case. \nNext, she went into her bedroom, and it wasn’t in any better condition than the living room. Her bed was unmade, pairs of high heels were scattered all over the floor, and she still hadn’t unpacked her luggage from her trip two weeks ago.\nHer eyes went to her three-shelf bookcase filled with several books. It was sentimental to her because it was her first bookshelf. Her father bought it for her in April 2007. She remembered because as he was putting it together, they watched in horror as the news reported the shooting that had taken place at Virginia Tech. \nMoving aside journals, random papers, and folders, she finally found the book. She glanced at the clock that sat on her nightstand and noticed the time read 2:30 pm. With an hour and a half, until the library closed, she grabbed the book and raced out of the door once again.\nSimone turned the key in her ignition. It sputtered in response. She tried again. Sputter.\n“Come on, Sapphire.” Simone pleaded by calling her car by her given name. When she tried a third time, Sapphire roared to life. Looking at the dash, she noticed the gas light was on.\n“Crap.”\nSimone pulled out of her parking spot and headed to a nearby gas station. While driving there, she heard a knocking sound coming from underneath the hood. The noise went away as she stopped at the traffic light. Once the light turned green, and she accelerated again, the knocking sound resumed.\n“What the heck is that noise?”\nAs soon as she verbalized her irritation, the sound went away. Just as she pulled into the gas station, the check engine light came on. She blew out a breath.\n“Okay, first I’ll get some gas, return this book, then deal with the check engine light.” She said to herself.\n She arrived at the gas station and paid $15. That amount only brought the gas lever up to half a tank.\n“Good enough.”\nWhen she attempted to crank her car, it sputtered again.\n“Come on Sapphire. You can’t do this to me. Not today.”\nShe tried a second and third time, and the car sputtered again. Sapphire wasn’t budging.\n\"Great. Now, what am I going to do?\"\nShe tried again only to end up with the same result.\n“Sounds like it’s your battery.” A man called out.\n“What?”\nAn older black man who had to be about in his mid-forties walked towards her. “I said it sounds like it’s your battery. You probably should get it to a car shop asap. I can give you a jump.”\nShe sighed, thankful for this good Samaritan. “Thank you.”\nThe good Samaritan plugged the cables from her battery to his.\n“Go ahead and try it.”\nShe turned the ignition and the car started.\n“Thanks so much, sir.”\n“Not a problem. Like I said, you need to get a new battery as soon as possible.”\n“I will. Thanks again.”\nHe smiled and waved as she drove off.\nFollowing his advice, Simone went to the nearest dealership she could find. The knocking sound resumed.\nSimone sat in the waiting area of the dealership. She told the mechanic she thought she needed a new battery. He informed her if that was the case, they should be able to get her a replacement pretty quickly, but they also wanted to do a full diagnostic check to make sure there were no other problems. When she asked how long it would take, he assured her it wouldn't take long at all.\nWhen he walked back in, she stood up eagerly.\n“Am I all set?”\n“Not quite, Ms. Parker. We found an issue with your engine.”\n“My engine? I thought it was my battery.”\n“It was. However, during the diagnostic check, we found that your engine is failing. You’re going to need a new one.”\n“How much will that cost?”\n“You’re probably looking at about $1600 for the parts and $900 for labor.”\n“$2500?”\nHe nodded.\nSimone didn’t know what she was going to do. She only had $1000 saved. As much as she didn’t want to, she’d have to ask her parents to help her with the rest.\n“Okay. How long will it take to fix it?”\n\"We'll need to keep the car overnight. Hopefully, we'll have it fixed by tomorrow afternoon.\"\n“Great.” She threw up her hands.\nWhat was she supposed to do without her car? She hated having to rely on people to take her where she needed to go. Although it seemed trivial compared to the issue with her car, she still needed to get to the library.\n“Sir. Is there any way I can bring the car back tomorrow? I need it today.”\n“You can get a rental. There’s a car rental service that works with us and our customers. They even offer a discount when the car is under repair.”\n“Great!”\n“No problem. I’ll even have one of our guys give you a ride over there. It’s just down the street but is still a little bit of a walk.”\nSimone walked up to the counter of the car rental service and was greeted by a tall pretty blonde woman with a warm smile. \n“Hi. I’m Brooke.” The blonde greeted. “How can I help you?”\n“Hi. My car is being repaired, and I need a rental.”\n“Sure. Can I see your driver’s license?”\nSimone fished her purse for her ID and handed it to Brooke.\n“The man at the dealership said I should be able to get a discount since my car is being fixed.”\nBrooke nodded, and then her face fell.\n“I’m sorry. We won’t be able to rent to you.”\n Simone’s face fell as well. “Why not?”\n“You have to be twenty-four to rent from us. According to your license, you’re only twenty-two.” She handed the license back to Simone.\nSimone couldn’t catch a break today. She thought about asking her mom or her brother to rent for her. Her dad would blow a gasket since she was already asking them to help her pay to get her car fixed. She figured she shouldn’t push her luck.\n“Okay, thanks.”\nSimone was halfway out the door when she realized that she didn’t have any transportation. She stepped back inside and turned to Brooke.\n\"I'm just going to call my mom and see if she can come to pick me up.\"\nBrooke smiled and nodded. “Of course.”\nSimone sat in one of the black banquet-style chairs they had leaning against the window.\nThe phone rang twice before a woman answered.\n\"Mom, can you come and get me?\"\n“$2500, Simone?”\nSimone sat in the passenger seat as her mom exited her apartment complex. Since she wouldn’t have transportation until tomorrow, she decided she’d spend the night at her parents’ house. She had just got back in the car with an overnight bag when her mom’s rant began.\n“No, only $1500, I have $1000 saved.”\n “Well if you spend the money in your savings, what will you have left?”\nSimone felt the question was rhetorical. However, the look her mother was giving her said otherwise.\n“Nothing.”\nJanet Parker sighed. “Well, you need your car. That means we’ll have to get it fixed.”\nHer mom gave her a small smile. “We’ll take care of it.”\n“What about daddy?”\n“Don’t worry about him. I’ll handle that.” Janet winked.\nSimone sighed with relief. If her mom told her not to worry about it, she knew to trust her. Her mom always came through for her, and she always appreciated her for that.\n“Mom, can you take me to the library? I just need to return this book.”\nHer mom glanced at her before returning her attention to the road. “I can’t right now, honey. I need to get you home, and then I still need to do grocery shopping so I can make dinner.”\nJanet turned into the driveway and drove into their garage. Once they were inside the house, Simone got an idea.\n“Mom, how about I do the grocery shopping for you.”\nHer mom raised a brow.\nSimone knew she was reaching. Her mom drove a silver, E-class, Mercedes Benz. She said she’d worked hard for it. After working 31 years and raising two kids, she deserved it. The truth was it was a birthday gift from Simone’s father for her mom’s 50th birthday. Janet Parker loved that car, and she never let her kids drive it.\n“Now why would you want to do that?” Her mom asked with a questioning look in her eye. The look that said she knew when one of her kids was up to something.\n“I just wanna help out.”\nHer mom laughed. “Since when?”\nBefore Simone could respond, her father walked into the kitchen.\n“Hey there, baby girl.”\n“Hey, daddy.”\nCharles Parker kissed his wife on the cheek.\n“Please, mom.” Simone pleaded.\nHer mom’s weight shifted from one foot to the other.\n“Well…”\n“Oh Jay, I forgot to tell you. I went ahead and tried out the Walmart delivery. Our groceries should be here in a couple of hours.” Charles told his wife, referring to her nickname, and exiting to watch television in the living room.\nA grin crossed her mom’s face. “Thanks, baby.”\nShe looked back at Simone and shrugged. “Guess I’ll have to take you up on that offer another day.”\n“Well can I borrow the car to run to the library?”\n“Simone, that’s going to be a no. I already have to talk to your father about that thing, remember?”\n“What thing?” Her father called out. “I hope that thing isn’t money.”\nSimone’s shoulders fell.\n“I’ll tell you later.” Janet yelled back. “I’m going to take a nap. Let me know when the groceries are delivered.”\nSimone grumbled and headed into the living room, sitting across from her dad. Looking out the window, she saw a black Chevrolet sitting in the driveway. How had she missed that before?\n“Dad! Grant’s here?”\n“Sure is. He’s down in the basement trying to fix that shelf.”\nSimone got up and raced to their basement. Her mom claimed that she wasn’t sentimental. Yet she’d kept all of her and Grant’s baby clothes, toys, and other mementos down there.\n“Grant!”\n“Yea?” He turned his 6’3 frame and smiled down at his baby sister. “What’s up, big head?” He then returned his attention to the shelf.\n“I need a favor.”\n“What is it?”\n“I need to borrow your car.”\nGrant raised a brow. He was just as bad as their mom.\n“For what?”\n“I need to return this book to the library.”\n“Oh! Okay. For a minute there I thought it was for something important.” He replied sarcastically.\n“Come on, Grant.”\n“No can-do, little sis. You know I don’t let women drive my car.”\n“Are you kidding me right now?”\nHe smirked but didn’t respond.\nShe huffed. “Please, Grant. I’ll do anything you want.”\nHe grinned. “Simone, you don’t have anything I want. You have nothing to bargain with.”\nShe folded her arms. “One day you’re going to need something.”\n“But until that day…” He kissed her forehead.\nI’ll be right back.” He called out as he headed up the stairs.\nShe rolled her eyes and they landed on the shelf. On that shelf lay Grant’s car keys.\nShe looked up the stairs, and then back at the keys. What’s a girl to do?\nSimone let the sunroof back as she cruised down the road in her brother’s car. She had to wait until he went back into the basement to finish working on the shelf. He’d mentioned he would be down there for a while, and lucky for her, he was always losing his keys. The great thing was he would never hear his car running from the basement. She’d told her dad she was going to visit her cousin that stayed down the street. He was falling asleep in his favorite chair and probably didn’t even hear her. Simone didn’t see any harm. She’d bring the car back.\nSimone flew down the highway to get to her destination. She knew she shouldn’t be speeding, but it was the chance she would have to take. There was also a slight chance Grant would be pissed. She’d have to deal with the consequences later. However, later came sooner than she expected. She was about two miles away from the library when she saw flashing lights behind her.\nShe rolled her eyes to the heavens as she slowed down and pulled over. \n“You’ve got to be kidding me.”\nSimone couldn’t believe she was sitting in a police station waiting for her mom and brother. Turns out, Grant reported his car stolen. If she hadn’t been speeding, the cops probably wouldn’t have found her so fast. Lucky for her, it was Grant’s friend Riley who had pulled her over. Simone told Riley the whole story, and he gave her a lift to the station. Riley called Grant to tell him they found his car with Simone in it. Grant was going to kill her.\nThirty minutes later, both Grant and her mother arrived. Janet pulled her daughter into a tight hug. She then released her and grabbed her shoulders.\n“Simone! What were you thinking?”\nSimone hung her head. She couldn’t respond. She was so embarrassed by what had happened. Her mother pulled her into her arms again. \nGrant walked up and looked at his little sister. “Are you okay?”\nShe couldn’t even look at him. “I’m sorry.” She sniffled.\nHe pressed his lips together and then pulled her into a hug. “It’s okay.”\nMinutes later, the three of them walked out of the police station in silence.\n“Mom, I’m going to ride with Grant.” \nEven though it was his car she’d stolen, she figured riding with him would be the lesser of the two evils.\nHer mom looked like she was going to protest. Instead, she replied, “Fine. But Grant, you bring her butt straight home.”\nHe nodded, and Simone slid in the passenger seat of his Chevy and buckled in.\n“Grant?” she called quietly.\n“Yea?”\n“I’m really sorry.”\nHe looked at her. “I know.”\nHe pulled out of the parking space and onto the highway.\n“Grant?” she called again.\n“Yes, Simone?”\n“Can you do me a favor?”\nHis eyes widened. “What is it?”\n“Can you take me to the library?”\n“Mom just told me to bring you straight home.”\n“I know, but…” her voice trailed off.\nGrant looked at her again and chuckled. “Well since you went through the trouble of stealing my car, why not?”\nSimone smiled and relaxed a little. She couldn’t ask for a more forgiving and understanding brother. \nThe library didn’t have a parking lot, so Grant parked on the side of the street. Simone exited the car and sprinted to the front door of the library. She pulled the door, but it didn’t budge.\n“What the…?”\nShe looked up and saw a big red sign that read: Closed." } ]

[ { "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: White Men Police Teeth\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 2999\n\nPrompt:\n\nSet your story in a library, after hours." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "They had killed one of us again; those beasts in badges. To converge between the books of history was not a meeting for war but a cry for help. The woman shot today was Breonna Taylor. Two days ago, it was Michael Brown. Tomorrow; me, my mother or my friend. To come dipped from a fountain of chocolate is not all sweet because everyone wants a piece; some to love it and some to tear at it. To walk the earth as black is more bitter than it is sweet yet my heart beats wildly with a fierce hope when I hear the name Martin Luther King.\nOn my way to the library, my only fear was that my black hoodie made me look like a thief but without it, I’d be like a red dot on a dartboard displayed in the open streets where my black skin has marked me as meat for white men police teeth.\nIn the alley, we were all trash. We smelled like dirty socks and rotten food, and that was just the mouth. Out there, we were game for all; both animals and man. They’d shoot one of us off like stray mad dogs and laugh about it over coffee and cigarette breaks outside the police station’s verandah. It sat opposite the park and I’d scooch over to a bush and watch them in this merriment whenever they showed themselves. This arrogant display of ego made me more resilient in joining protests against black discrimination.\n“The good fight is trying to keep alive. Steal what you can, even from me. I know I’d steal from you,” said Mr. Walsh, a friend that once took a knife to his stomach for me. As I walked under the bridge, towards the abandoned train tracks, I felt the flyer that led me on that journey in my pocket. My grip tightened on the fragile thing. Justice for Breonna Taylor.\nWhen I got to the tracks, I followed them until they led me past the trains; ghosts with broken windows, brownish-reddish rusted metal, torn off cream and yellow paint, and faded black words. At 10 p.m., that site made the hairs on my skin stand. Through the broken windows, I could see the red leather seats with cotton vomit all over almost every inch. A stick cracked under my feet and made me soothe my wildly beating heart with the magic power of my swift hand. It worked, but not until I saw a shadow move in the train, rattling the debris inside. Instantaneously, my feet went rushing after each other, one chasing the other like it was owed money and the other running like it had broken out of prison. The cone shape of a building ahead made my pace quicken; seeking safety, finally. But, the closer I got, the more my fear intensified, terrified that this running black hooded woman would be seen jumping over the fence of a library and would be shot in the head, no explanation that she was on her way to help in making history, that her Obama dream was walking down the street with an assurance of safety from colorism and this dream was not too far from reach, if only she arrived at the library.\nBut I would be dead already.\nNevertheless, the watchman couldn’t allow me in because I didn’t have any form of identification. Any other reason would be discrimination. The non-electric welded mesh fence was about 120 cm tall because who would want to break into a library. Still running, I jumped over it and continued towards the back. I could see groups of people huddled together making their way through the blue gate where the guard, also black, let them in with a wink. Once they were all in, he faced the crowd, bumped a fist against his chest and lifted his arm in the air. The crowd mimicked his movement, a silence awoken in solidarity. I hurried to the back, the circular building becoming bigger and bigger as I got closer.\nI wish Mr. Walsh had agreed to come but you can never guess what is up with the man. Since I found myself in the streets after the passing of my mother and disappearance of my father, he had been a guardian to me, threatening to bite off the ears of anyone that dared to touch me when I was asleep. I was not only black, but also a young woman, albeit with an advantageous flat chest and bony structure that sometimes made me look like a boy, especially in oversized clothing. Still, if he came, he would get to see Alice Brown and Chidi Uzokwe; some of the leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement. He would also have gotten to hear about their plans to reclaim humanity but Mr. Walsh had been gone for 38 hours now. I’d shown him the flyer four days ago, the same flyer many of the people then standing in the middle of the library were holding, including Chidi. Though not from America, he said that he did not escape SARS in Nigeria only for him to come and die on the land of the free where he once though his green pastures lay.\nChidi was standing at the front of the spiral staircase facing the crowd, his back to my eyes, his words to my heart. The books had been arranged in horizontal rows all around them and the crowd stood with teary eyes, clenched jaws, folded fists, dilated pupils and sweaty foreheads, eager to hear what’s next in the fight for justice. I was crouched under one of the slightly open windows, occasionally peeking then quickly retreating.\n“You say violence is not the way, and I respect that, but what other choice do we have?” A voice asked from somewhere in the back. Chidi raised his head, floating his eyes through the crowd searching for the face behind the voice. Once their eyes met, Chidi gave a nod and proceeded.\n“It is not just by what we do that we are defined, it is also by what we choose not to do. Violence does not eradicate violence, only an energy with opposing force. Thrusting stones at them and burning up their vehicles is not the way. I feel this rage too and sometimes, I don’t know where to take it. But, when I think of Breonna Taylor, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, George Floyd, Daunte Wright, I know that taking violence back to its source is not the way because in the heat of things, the chance that I might be the next victim you are mourning is 90%.”\n“99!” someone shouted and the crowd clapped.\n“What we need to do is get the government administration to endorse and sign the legislation to end qualified immunity for offending officers.”\nA hand shot up but I could not raise my head high enough to see who it was because this person was either very short or in a wheelchair. “What is qualified immunity?” the soft voice asked. Chidi once again responded with a nod and begun, “It’s a legal defense that enables police officers to conduct unconstitutional and unlawful actions while avoiding prosecution because the crime was so apparently evident that it could only have been committed by ‘the clearly incompetent’. In short, a police officer assumes you are guilty because of your ‘disposition’ and gets off the hook for any consequences after.” “Damn!” went another voice.\n“On the streets, we will show up for our people who were arrested during peaceful and lawful protests. We will show up for the ones who can no longer show up for themselves. We will show up because this is what it means to defend our democracy. Tomorrow we march to The Washington State Capitol and make camp outside the fence until that legislation is passed. Lethal use of force should be a last resort, not the first tactic officers rely on. Last time, they came at us with aggressive, militarized force and payed no mind to the white supremacist militias that showed up to counter protest. We have been in the thick of things and we know that they will spy on us with their drones, they will have their tear gas ready, palm on gun ready to disarm. They will beat us up with their clubs, cuff our wrists like they did while enslaving our forefathers and try to barricade us away, but what shall we do?\"\n“We shall stand unarmed yet undeterred, cracked as a pot can be but still standing. We shall beat, beat, beat,” the crowd proceeded, pounding their chests at every beat word like an anthem sung at a military camp. “We shall beat, beat, beat. Defeat, repeat, until success is our history.” Chidi’s head was bobbing up and down. They repeated this song again and again until I found my lips moving to the words, my hand -with the flyer still clenched- beating against my chest.\n“We have also spoken to the National Lawyers Guild’s Mass Defense Committee,” started Alice, “and they have agreed to come on board our cause. We will win and we will do it right because we are not them.” A cheer ensued followed immediately but a chorus of shhhhh. Who could remember that we were in a library at night with such powerful energy in the room?\nDrawn into the conversation, I pulled the window in a painstaking motion. Maybe if I was clean and well-adjusted into the society, I would be right in there with all these men and women. Chidi went on to say that in 1992, Toni Morrison told the Guardian: “In this country, American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate.” He also had a piece of newspaper that he pulled out from his coat’s pocket and lifted it in the air for all eyes to see. He read it out loud.\nTO BE SOLD on board the ship Bance-Island . . . a choice cargo of about 250 fine healthy Negroes just arrived. He took out another piece of paper. TO BE SOLD on Thursday the third of August next, a cargo of ninety four prime healthy Negroes consisting of thirty-nine men, fifteen boys, twenty-four women and sixteen girls. On both pieces of paper, he pointed to the black stick figures with sisal skirts drawn on the side.\nAs he turned around to grab a file with what I presumed to be more newspaper cuttings, his eyes caught mine with only a quarter of my face over the window. My heart jumped, my eyes bulged and my feet were ready to dart through the grass and over the fence, back into the shadows of the streets. We remained in this eye embrace until Alice tapped on his shoulder, making him jerk, apologize, then pull out more clippings. As he turned around, he threw a gaze in my direction again and my forehead went kissing the grass, counting my fingers one by one as a way to relax.\nHe showed the astonished crowd pictures of the history they were never taught in class, the history that their blackness had survived. From images of slaves being thrown overboard ships to slave markets where children were being sold. He had pictures of iron masks and collars that were used in punishing slaves; items that looked more like torture tools used in horror movies. From public whipping, kidnapping, to the most recent cases of police busting into colored people’s homes and shooting them in their beds, unarmed.\nI came to see these pictures because Chidi conveniently placed them against the window sill and walked back to the gathering. I glided my hand against the wall, rising a little with the motion, grabbed the clippings and quickly crouched back. I was completely captivated by the markings on some of the slave’s faces and, in this moment of bewilderment, I felt a hand tap my shoulder. My head shot up at once and before me was a chubby man in a blue uniform. He had a club swinging in his hand and a Taser secured at his waist. I was not sure if I should relax because I was busted by a black guard or panic because I was busted. Before I knew it, he was chasing me away. My dirt patched hoodie, torn jeans and shaggy kinky hair did not help my case at all but where was I supposed to do my laundry if I didn’t have a home? How was I supposed to afford toothpaste with no job and how was I ever going to get a job with no education?\nHe pointed his club at my chin and looked me straight in the eye. “How did you get in?” I pointed towards the fence and said, “Even a baby can jump over that.” He huffed and puffed and asked me for my ID but just before I could make my way past him, Chidi’s voice rang by the window. “Mark, this one is on me. I asked her to come.” The guard took a step back, eyeing me up and down. “Her?” he questioned with an elevated pitch. “Yes, her. Can she come in?”\nThe guard started to swing his club around, tapping his right foot on the ground and darting his eyes between me and Chidi. Finally, he said, “I’ll lead you to the main entrance.” With a nod, Chidi showed his gratefulness and walked back. I put the clippings in my hoodie’s pocket and quietly, he walked me towards the main door. Upon arrival, he eyed me once more with his foot tapping against the marble floor. “Why are you here?” he enquired.\n“I’m black too. Living in the streets does not change the effects of racism. I’m here because I want to live.”\n“I’m sorry,” he said tenderly, and walked away.\nI never went through the doors. Not with all this dirt and stench on me. When the meeting was over, I hid behind the curve of a wall and waited for everyone to leave. Chidi and Alice came walking by last. Count on a black person to feel the presence of a shadow because as soon as he was past the curve. he abruptly turned around. This too is a reflex of fear because everywhere you look people are screaming, there is no justice here. A reflex of fear is hurriedly trying to get your identification out of your pocket which is seen as an attempt to pull out a concealed weapon. A reflex of fear is in pulling the trigger before his/her hands are out of their pockets. Fear feeding on fear. The worst thing to fear is already here. What water we think we are saving for the future should be poured on the fires burning away at humanity’s nucleus now.\nI emerged from the dark curve with the clippings in my hand and stretched to give them back. Or maybe touch his hand…He smiled, approaching me and folding my hand back to my chest. “Keep them,” he said. Watch this little thing; that even as I fight for freedom, poor and smelly, my heart does a dance at the slightest chance of romance. This stretch of a smile would lead a whole race to its freedom and I, wherever I be, would follow the vision of the man I see. I managed to say, “I stink,” before giving in to embarrassment and shutting my dry throat.\nHe asked if I was busy because he was famished and needed some company. I insisted he take back the clippings but he said that if I had them, it was just the same as if he had them because we were fighting for the same cause. I ate cheese for the first time in seventeen months on a serving of fries. His mistake was in granting me access to the menu saying, “It’s okay. Pick whatever you want in as much quantity as you like.” I added on a burger, a bucket of chicken to share with Mr. Walsh, and miso soup, knowing that the next time I would see Chidi would be in a rally. That my fantasy attraction was simply that; a fantasy.\nThree weeks later, a two-block area of 16th Street NW in Downtown DC was renamed to Black Lives Matter Plaza NW. Chidi was put in charge of data collection for mapping police violence to help increase real-time accountability and is working with a team of scientists to accomplish that. After another month, the legislation to end qualified immunity was passed with little opposition because immense pressure that had mounted on the government now that the world was paying attention. The BLM movement also sought to demilitarize the police from lethal weapons such as grenade launchers, bayonets and mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles (MRAPS) aka military trucks.\n“These arms are leaving a war mentality in people’s minds. We cannot have our protectors thirsting over the day they’ll get to use a bayonet on a real person. That is not forging an America to be loved or respected,” Chidi once said. According to researchers, the murder rate decreases by 9% and violent crime rate by 6% for every ten organizations in a community of 100,000 people where there is a high number of non-profit organizations. Because of this, he encouraged the founding of NGO’s not just in America, but also back home in Nigeria.\nAnother thing he did just a few weeks after we met was say I love you. Chidi, a man I happily get to share with the world; I love you too.\n***\nI don’t have to be an African American to know how the fear behind being black feels. However, this has been my take on racism in America. Nothing can be done about what has happened, but of what happens next, we have no excuse to say I don’t have the chance now." } ]

[ { "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: Some of Them Kept Records of Their Troubles\n\nGenre: american\n\nWord Count: 1001\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a scene in which a character’s behavior or reaction to something is affected by a past experience — without saying what that experience was." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "As the last two customers finished their enchiladas, Joslynn began to close for the night. She preferred being at work—or school—ever since her mother’s boyfriend had moved in. He liked drugs and so did her mother, but his leering eyes made Joslynn’s stomach tie itself into knots. \nMothers are all slightly insane, Joslynn had highlighted in her tattered copy of The Catcher in the Rye. Her English test began in less than nine hours, so she snuck in snatches of studying whenever she could. \nShe’d already plugged the beer taps, sanitized the soda machine, and refilled the napkin dispensers. She considered wiping down the menus, but her shift had been over for fifteen minutes. The day shift could do that. \nInstead, she began to file her long nails. She walked over to the men's table when she noticed they had finished their meals. \n“Is there anything else I can get you?” Joslynn asked. \n“More chips,” the short one mumbled, his mouth half-full. \nShe nodded curtly in reply.\nHis fourth fucking basket of chips. \nSilently, she refilled the basket, placing it unceremoniously on the table.\n“And salsa,” he added. \n\n“Hey,” the tall man called out, a few minutes later. “Bring the check.”\nGetting up from behind the cash register, Joslynn used her nail file as a bookmark and tucked her paperback into her back pocket. \n“What are you reading?” the tall man asked. Something that vaguely passed for a smile crept across his face.\n“Salinger.”\n“You like reading?”\n“I'm quite illiterate, but I read a lot,” she quoted from the book, mimicking Holden Caulfield’s snarky tone. \n“Oh.”\nThe check remained untouched. \n“So, are you paying by cash or credit?”\n“Neither,” he replied, one of his meaty hands encircling Joslynn’s wrist. \nJoslynn reflexively jerked back, but the tall man held her fast. \n“There’s like fifty bucks in the register.” Her voice quavered. “I have twenty in my purse—”\nThe short man gave a guttural laugh. He walked quickly to the front door, holding it open while the tall man half-dragged, half-carried Joslynn outside.\nI need to scream, she thought, panic tunneling her vision. But before she opened her mouth, the short man hit her square in the stomach, doubling her over. \nAs the men muscled Joslynn across the parking lot, she watched the short man open the roll-up door of a white moving truck. Before being shut inside, Joslynn heard the kitchen staff speaking and clattering dishes through the restaurant’s open windows. \nPeople never notice anything, Salinger had written. \nWhen the truck's engine started, she wept.\nHours passed.\nThey picked up two more women, far older than Joslynn. One was unconscious, dressed provocatively; they loaded her into the truck like cordwood. The other seemed to enter by choice. Underneath her smeared makeup, she was pretty. She clutched a backpack, mouth set into a thin line. \nJoslynn licked her dry lips. “I’m thirsty. Could I have—?”\nThe short man replied by striking her across the face. The roll-up door slammed shut.\nAs Joslynn burst into fresh tears, the older woman rummaged in the backpack, pulling out a thermos.\n“Iced tea?”\nJoslynn nodded, took it, drank greedily. \n“I’m Cassidy,” the woman introduced herself. “Do yourself a favor. Don’t ask those two for anything.”\n“Who are they?” Joslynn whispered. \n“Bad guys,” Cassidy replied. “And they work for someone worse. Did they give you time to pack?”\n“Pack for what? All I have is this stupid book.” Joslynn pulled out her paperback. “I don’t understand—”\n“I think Salinger wrote, ‘Say something nobody understands and they'll do practically anything you want them to.’” \nJoslynn blinked. “You’ve read this?”\n“Everyone reads that in high school. You just don’t understand it until later.”\n“Cassidy,” Joslynn pleaded. “What’s going on?”\n“We’re being transported.”\n“Where?”\n“A hotel, a condo, someone’s basement. It doesn’t matter. It’ll be the same wherever they set us up.”\nJoslynn’s eyes widened at the implication before throwing up Cassidy’s iced tea. \n\n“Why me?” Joslynn asked, once her crying jag abated. “Why was I kidnapped?”\n“You weren’t kidnapped,” Cassidy explained. “These guys only take women who are sold.”\n“What’s the difference?”\n“When you’re kidnapped, people look for you.” Cassidy lit a cigarette. “No one is looking for any of us.”\n\nIn time, Cassidy fell asleep, using the thigh of the other woman as a pillow. Joslynn sat ramrod straight, puzzling out what Cassidy had said. \nSold, not kidnapped.\nHer mother’s recent behavior had worsened. They had argued. She’d pilfered from Joslynn’s wallet more than usual. All the while her mother’s new boyfriend had lain on the couch, a smirk across his face.\nJoslynn reached for her paperback, removing the nail file that marked her place. \nShe reread a section she’d highlighted in yellow: Among other things, you'll find that you're not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior.\nShe closed the book, tracing the red, raging carousel horse on its cover.\nAt dawn, the roll-up door opened a third time. \nA thin, prepubescent girl entered the back of the white truck. \nTaking one look at the child’s pallid face, Joslynn’s pupils narrowed. Her jaw clenched.\n\nIn the weak light, Joslynn read her book as Holden continued to complain: What made it even worse, my eyes were sore as hell. \nThe older women slept on. The young girl clasped her hands as if in prayer.\nJoslynn dog-eared the page of her book before methodically sharpening her long nails into stiletto-points. \n\n“Do you know why we’re here?” the little girl asked.\n“I do,” Joslynn answered, her outrage at the men rekindling, steeling her resolve, giving her courage.\n“Why?” \n“We’re not supposed to fall off the cliff,” Joslynn explained. \n\nWhen the short man opened the roll-up door for the last time, Joslynn’s talons dug deeply into his eye sockets. \nHis unnatural howls alerted the tall man, who arrived just in time to see a young woman catch up to a little girl—running together across a field and into a service plaza, hand in hand." } ]

[ { "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: Discovering I Am An Empath\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1206\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a character stumbling upon a library book that changes the course of their life, for better or worse." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "This day started off normal just as every other day when I would make my trips to the library, but when I got there I decided to browse through a new section called learning who you are. I began to look at the titles and something quickly caught my eye, it said learn to protect your energy and manage your emotions. I thought this was very interesting because I have had a hard time throughout my life trying to do both of the things mentioned. The picture was very eye-catching, it showed a woman with her back turned on what looked like a stressful situation and she was facing a field full of purple flowers. I thought it would be something inspirational to check out and if nothing else, I would probably get to enjoy a few good quotes and inspirational messages. The first chapter grabbed onto me like the jaws of an alligator and refused to release me until I read each and every word of the book. In the first chapter it dealt directly with getting to know yourself, which meant letting go of everything you thought and believed about your life and purpose on this planet. That exercise was pretty deep and intense for me as I had never done that type of analysis of myself in so many different areas. The next chapter focused on questions about how you deal with other people, how you handle stressful situations, how you handle your emotions and how you cope with pain. It also talked about how we are extremely sensitive to the pain of others and this is where I began to learn more about how I feel the emotions of others too deeply and carry them for too long. I was also able to recognize the pattern of allowing others to effect my energy levels and how to protect myself from those individuals. The author went into detail about learning who you can and cannot be around when you have this kind of spirit, because it can really drain you. The importance of boundaries and sticking to them was a huge part of each chapter in this book, it talked about training yourself to be consistent. I felt like this person wrote this book just for me, because it felt like a letter and a personal instruction manual on how to live my life going forward. This wonderful person who designed this blueprint for me to follow went into the third chapter by touching on having the courage to make a change, dealing directly with bad habits and replacing them with good ones. One of the bad habits they talked about was the way we eat and how important it is to incorporate more vegetables into our diets immediately. They tried not to go too deep into being vegan or vegetarian, but definitely talked about feeding your children more plant-based foods. It felt like I was having a makeover and a spiritual transformation by the information I was reading in this enlightening book. When they started talking about being sensitive to loud noises and irritated by large crowds, I laughed so hard that I almost coughed up a lung and I knew something directed me to this book. I have always been bothered by a lot of noise or being around too many people, especially if it is in a small space and if there are strangers and drinking involved. My friends used to always complain in high school and college as well, because they thought I was such a downer when it came to parties. I always tried to have a good time, but never understood why it just never did much for me and I could not get into the vibe everyone would be on. The next chapter talked about having the ability to feel the negative presence and or energy of others as soon as you come upon them. It also discussed visions, dreams, exercising, drinking water, meditating and following your spirit guides. All of this was really interesting to me because my dreams have always been very clear and detailed as if someone was giving me some kind of directions. This book showed me that this is exactly what has been happening to me along with my ability to read people, which I had no idea was present. I always thought I was just really good at guessing people's personalities and things they would do or say, I would have never known I had a gift. This goes into the next chapter explaining the spiritual awakening, recognizing and learning to use your gifts, understanding why you are here and how to keep growing spiritually. I was so moved by this book, I could not stop reading it and when I went to the bathroom, I found myself continuing to read as I sat on the toilet. I was so excited to get to the next chapters so that I could see what part of my soul they were going to touch next, this was the most amazing experience that I ever had reading a book. The writer was very detailed in a basic kind of way, they made sure that I understood each step by making it easy to understand. Next up, came the lesson of how important it is to learn your spiritual purpose so that you can benefit yourself and the everyone else in the world. I swear I was about to fallout with joy, I wanted to get up and start shouting like some of those people in the church. This book was so impressive, touching, eye-opening and inspiring that it made me realize that I needed to have it in my collection. I immediately went online, found it and placed my order, I still had plans to take this copy home since I had already checked it out. When I got to the chapter detailing all of the stages, this when I actually broke down and cried, I could not believe how the words of these pages were detailing everything I had experienced for my entire life. All of these years, I was growing into my empathetic stance without knowing what was going on with inside of me, many times I thought I was going nuts. I always felt as if I was from another planet or at least a different group of humans because my way of thinking is so different from everyone I have ever known. The chapter on spiritual emergencies really helped me gain perspective on my personality and my life experiences and how I deal with everyone. Oh my goodness, when they talked about controlling the ego after learning to use all of your spiritual gifts, I laughed really hard again. After that it quickly got serious again as they talked about the extreme mood swings, managing your gifts, understanding the importance of alone time and meditation. Finally it touched on calming your fears, which I found very interesting, they said this was difficult to do since we are used to avoiding our fears. I sat in the library for three hours, read this entire book, my life was immediately changed forever and I have discovered that I am an Empath!" } ]

[ { "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: Blowing It\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1778\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with a stern librarian scolding two characters for making noise in the library." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“He’s looking at us again.”\nI glance up from the tiny square table, past the aisles of books, and there he stands, glasses perched on the end of his nose, unflinching gaze penetrating through me. He’s clearly glowering now, and he brings his finger to his lips when he sees me make eye contact. I divert my gaze back toward the table, where three books lay, props whose purpose was solely to keep attention away from the fact that I’d been sitting here all morning doing absolutely nothing useful. Gabe chuckles as he reads off one of the titles.\n“Erotic Stories from the Late Middle Ages? Good choice.”\n“Why don’t we do it somewhere else?” I ask the short, round man next to me, but I already know his answer. Gabe is a stickler for protocol.\n“There’s a right way to do things, Mike. And a wrong way. Today’s the day, and this is the place. We can’t help it that someone built a library here.”\nThe man at the dark brownish-red counter clears his throat. I look up again, though I intended not to. His left hand taps a sign on the counter in a language that resembles the old ones. No the Phoenicians so much, but the much later Latin script.\n“He’s saying something, Gabe. Something about that sign.”\n“You didn’t study your English, Mike?”\n“No, Gabe. I didn’t study my English. So what? Just tell me what it says.”\nHe turns his head away from me, and I marvel at his beauty - not for the first time. His black locks settle slowly around his shoulders, taking on a life of their own long after his movement stops. His corpulent shoulders shrug in that lazy way when he's relaxed, confident motion brings him back around to face me again. Gabe always chooses the most interesting bodies.\n“Just to be quiet. Not sure what he’s going on about; we’re not being that loud.”\nBut we’re going to be loud. I look at Gabe, and his deep chestnut eyes look at me. We share a moment, thinking of our short futures, and I recollect the last time I wore flesh. It had been nearly a century since I’d needed to, and it was distracting. Was it a hundred years? It might have been a thousand. I remember wondering, in the chemical bath that a body brings, how it was possible that these creatures could inherit the Earth. I remember my heart racing when I saw the beauty of the garden and tilting my head in sway with the warm breezes that blew the clouds. I could have spent forever there, walking through the deserts with the burning sand between my toes—stupid humans.\nEven now, in the sanitized space of the library, the pungent, earthy smell of the books pulled my attention from the task at hand. I don’t know why Gabe never seems to get distracted.\n“Focus, Mike. Hand me the package.”\nI reach toward the plastic chair beside me, where the trumpet concert hard case sat. The idea of plastic throws me for a moment, as I remember the animals and plants that died and melted down, compressed throughout millions of years, and refined to form plastic. Human ingenuity forever seemed ready to reign in the chaos and restore order. A shuffle from Gabe tells me I’ve been pondered the concept for too long. I retrieve the case fast enough to hopefully sate Gabe’s impatience and plop it down on the table with a thick thud, causing patrons at three other tables in the small library to look at us and prompting the man behind the counter to move toward the opening in the counter, and I know right away he’s going to talk to us.\nI feel my heartbeat faster and push blood up into my face.\n“You’re turning red, Mike.”\n“I know. I can’t help it. It’s this body.”\n“Ignore him. Open the case. You have to go first.”\n“I know. Stop.”\nThere are three silver latches along the edge of the case. I flip the first one up as I see the man approaching. Now I can clearly see his furrowed eyebrows behind his glasses, a mixture of hostility and confusion. Behind that flicker the wounds of a lifetime of expressions. I’ve often wondered how they do that, live with all of those emotions bottled up in there. The shame I feel at having broken rules I never agreed to is crippling me. I open the next latch, but this time slower, and I make sure that I flip it more quietly this time, without even a click.\n“Where are the rest?” I whisper the words to Gabe, aware that I want the man to go away. I want his scrutiny averted toward someone else. I glance fervently toward him. He’s almost to us now.\n“I don’t know how you manage, Gabe.”\n“I come down more than you. Don’t worry, it’ll pass. Take a deep breath and let me do the talking.”\nThe man pushes round, thick glasses up on his thin nose, but they slide right back down to where they were the moment before. Disheveled black hair pokes up in every direction at once from his head, and his cheeks are sallow and pale.\n“Did you see my sign?”\n“Yes, of course. We tried to be quiet - very sorry,” says Gabe, staring at the man.\n“I’ve been watching the two of you. You opened those books when you first got here and haven’t touched them since - chatting it up. Can I help you find anything you’re looking for here?”\n“No, we’re fine. These books have what we need. We’re just talking about our project.”\n“Your project on baskets of the late nineteenth-century art, tardigrades, and let’s see…”\nHe tilts his head to read the title from another book, and I involuntarily flinch, knowing already what it is.\n“Eroticism in the Middle Ages? What kind of project are you working on, exactly?”\nWe’re going to get kicked out. The idea spawns in my too-human mind and refuses to dislodge. Centuries of planning, and we’re going to get kicked out of the only place on the entire surface of the Earth that we can start the ceremony.\n“It’s science fiction,” I blurt out so quickly that I forget to hide my accident. The words almost come out in Aramaic, but I thankfully steered them into English, even if imperfectly so. This causes the man in the glasses to direct his attention toward me and earns me a glare from Gabe.\n“What,” he starts, “are you planning on doing with that?”\nMy hand rests on the last latch, and I fiddle with it nervously.\n“It’s art,” says Gabe. He nods to me to open the latch, so I flick it open with my fingers. Then he pulls the lid up to show the man what’s inside.\nI suck in my breath when I see what’s in the case. It’s been so long since I’ve seen the horn, long and sleek and perfect as it is. The brass surface reflects the man’s image, inverted and squashed and wrapped around it. The entire horn is about the length of my forearm.\n“I see.”\nHe doesn’t believe anything we told him, but I couldn’t tell what it is that he does believe. The man bends in close enough so that I can smell him, a mixture of dying leaves and burning tobacco.\n“Gentlemen, you’re disturbing others who actually are working on projects here. I don’t know what you’re doing here, but you’re obviously lying. If you’re here to meet people, then I suggest you call them and tell them to meet you somewhere else.”\n“We can’t leave,” I again forget to filter, only this time the desperation skipped the English translation in my brain. Hence, the words fall meaningless on the man’s ears. Sweat beads on my forehead as I look around the room, and I see that he’s right. All work has stopped in the shared room now, and all eyes are directly focused on the three of us.\n“We may have to,” Gabe tells me, also shifting to Aramaic. “It’s okay, Mike. There will be other alignments.”\n“It’s the apocalypse, Gabe. All of this will be in ruins by the time it's over anyway. I say we just blow the horn anyway.”\n“It’s against the rules, and you know it. This whole thing was a mess from the start. Who built a library here, anyway?”\nThe sound of the man’s throat-clearing caught my attention. I look at him again, and something seems a bit off like his eyes don’t match his body. Then I understand. They are shifting colors, away from the dark blue that they’d begun and toward a strange purple tint.\n“I did, Gabriel,” the man responds in perfect Aramaic.\n“Wait, who are you?” Gabriel says. We’ve all shifted to Aramaic at this point. I squint my eyes, but it’s tough to identify others when they’re in a human body.\n“Luke,” I say, convinced of it. He’s the only one who would want to stop us. “Lucifer, stop interfering.”\n“You can’t blow that thing in here, not when you have to observe human customs. I know the rules as well as you do.”\n“I’ll tell,” Gabe retorts. “They won’t let you keep this library here.”\n“Maybe. But it’s here now, and I’ll have a thousand years to figure out the next roadblock.”\n“We’ll be watching.”\nI shut the horn back into its case with slow, trembling hands, closing each latch in turn. Past Lucifer, I see that the other five have finally arrived.\nI shake my head at them, communicating that we won’t be doing it today. I can feel the disappointment wash over them together. We get so few official duties these days. Most of them have been to Earth less frequently than I have. They approached the table where we sat.\n“Judgment day is off,” Gabe informs the lot. “Luke is interfering again.” He indicates toward the man, who they wouldn’t have recognized either but for Gabe pointing him out. Now knowing who he is, they glare at him in unison.\n“Relax, guys,” he says in Aramaic. “You’ve come all this way. Why don’t you pick out something to read to pass the time?”\nHe motions with a thin arm toward the rows and rows of books, all useless to me. But he’s right, I’m here now, I’ve got time, and the smell of the worn pages and temptation of centuries of knowledge and story-telling draw me in. \nNot quite the apocalypse, but at least I won’t be bored." } ]

[ { "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: By the book\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1801\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a character who meticulously catalogs everything in their life, until something disrupts their system." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Elisa had a schedule. \nEveryday after work she would go to the library for an hour or two to write. She's nothing if not dedicated. \nIf you haven't already guessed Elisa is an aspiring author. She has been since she was 8 years old. She hasn't published anything yet, and if we're going to get technical: she hasn't finished anything yet. But she keeps her regular dates with the library, even though recently she seems to spend more time reading than writing. She says it's for inspiration, but the growing pile of library books in the corner of her bedroom might indicate otherwise. \nOutside of diligently working on her writing, she spends the days as an Executive Assistant to Marjorie James - Marketing Assistant at Glaze Magazine. So you can imagine it was fun telling her family that she moved to a new city to be the assistant to an assistant. \nYou should know that Elisa is from a high-achieving family. Both her siblings were chess prodigies in their childhood and completed PhDs at 25 and 27. So, right after Theresa Smith revealed to her husband - John - that she was pregnant with their third child she went to dust off her grandfather's chess set: the family heirloom she used to teach Elisa's brother and sister. \nThis is to say that, from before the day of her birth Elisa was expected to excel. \nBy the time Elisa turned 13, Theresa and John had long packed away the chess set and tried to make peace that their last child was... a little different. It is to be noted here that the Smiths set the bar quite high. So high that Elisa's consistently good grades looked and felt like Cs. Throughout elementary, middle and high school Elisa maintained a spot between #3 and #5 on her class list. But being in the top 5 didn't carry the same weight or recognition for her parents unless you were #1. \nAs Elisa faded into the background, overshadowed and outnumbered by her siblings' achievements, so did her interest in anything but writing. It sounds cliché to say she found refuge in writing, but who doesn't? When the world was incapable of listening and when her parents just didn't want to - Elisa wrote. She spent all her allowance on books and journals, pens and stickers...and kept the most elaborate diaries. \nYou can always create the life you want on paper. So, that's what Elisa kept doing until she turned 18. Because at 18 you could choose a University so far away that you would only be expected to return home twice a year. She had wanted to go to Hawaii or France but her parents insisted those were too far away, so they settled on Florida. \n\"It's less than 3 hours away so we can get there in case of an emergency and it's warm enough to feel like a vacation!\" her father had said, as a frown etched across her face. She looked at the crooked smile on both their faces and decided it wasn't worth the fight. Elisa had only known Florida as the place her grandfather's friends went to retire.\n\"For a place old people go to die, it's not too bad\" said Selena. Elisa laughed. Selena and Elisa had been friends as long as they could remember, and if we're being honest she was Elisa's only friend for a long time. Selena opted to stay in New York for school and had even rented a little shoe box apartment in Manhattan. On their definitely weekly, but sometimes daily, video calls Elisa always felt like they were playing house. She was 20 now, but still felt like 13 years old, especially when her mother just started showing up at the apartment she rented off-campus. The perks of having parents who could afford spacious off-campus housing, meant that she was subjected to these unannounced visits. \nHer parents expected her to go straight to grad school, because that's what a Smith child does - you do what will set you apart. So, imagine their shock when Elisa came home from Florida and announced she got a job...in Canada. As you can imagine it was a long conversation, because both Theresa and John had compiled lists of friends they could contact about an entry-level position, \"...because what will you do with a degree in Sociology anyway?\"\n\"..and a minor in Media Studies\" Elisa mumbled. \nAs she waved goodbye from the airport escalator, she thought she saw a tear roll down her mother's cheek...but she wasn't sure. She hurriedly looked away - almost as if he mother's gaze had the power to make her stay instead. She had turned down their offers and accepted the job to be the assistant to an assistant in Vancouver. She saw this as her big break, her opportunity to really grow up. But, what she wanted more than anything was independence. \nAnd now all she did with that independence was mamey schedules - for herself, for her boss, for her boss' boss. She had hated her mother's detailed activity calendar that she kept taped to the fridge when they were children. Now she had a miniature version on the kitchen counter - a list of all the things she needed to get done today. \nAfter checking the day's to-do list she grabs a pre-packaged lunch and breakfast, then she places both containers carefully in her purse along with her water bottle. Today she walks the 15 minutes to the Sky Train station instead of taking the bus. This is a deviation from her winter schedule, but she decides that today is the day she relaxes the schedule a bit. It's a little sad that Elisa's idea of \"living a little\" is walking to the train station, but everybody has their thing. \nShe arrives at work for another day of scheduling and attending meetings, keeping track of people thoughts and opinions. Executive Assistant was just a fancy title for \"you'll do the work nobody else wants to do\". She won't admit this to herself but sticking to a schedule helps distract her from how mundane these daily tasks really are. \nAs the clock strikes 4, Elisa grabs her things and heads to the library. The library has become her haven now. All day at work it feels like she's holding her breath, and at the library she can finally exhale. As she walks up the steps to the library, she feels her shoulder unclench and a smile rests happily on her lips. \nShe took her usual spot by the large windows overlooking the street. She exhales loudly and is about to start writing, when a shadow falls over her. She turns, squints at the sun's glare and tries to make out the figure. \n\"Can I help you?\" she whispers.\n\"I was just wondering if...\" the voice begins. \n\"Hey! No talking in the library\", Norma - the librarian - hisses.\n\"Sorry Norma!\" Elisa shouts and then covers her mouth quickly. She chuckles. The figure chuckles too And Norma shakes her head and glares at them over the rim of her glasses. When Elisa looks up again, the figure becomes clearer - it's a man she's seen in the library a few times. \nHe sits and whispers: \"I've seen you in here a few times and figured you're a writer or at least a book enthusiast. Would you like to join our writers group?\" he motioned to a small group of people huddled behind the tinted glass of one of the library's private study rooms. \n\"Oh\", Elisa didn't know how to respond. Nobody had ever said she looked like a writer or had ever invited her to join a writing group. \n\"Uh...how...ahm...how often do you meet\" she stammered. \n\"Let's go to the café, all this whispering is starting to get creepy\" he said. She stifled a laugh and gathered her things. This was messing with the schedule but she'd never been invited to a writing group before! \nThey ordered drinks at the library cafe and sat across from each other in a booth. \n\"So I should probably come clean. I don't know those people in the study room. I made up the writer's group so you would have a coffee with me\"...he paused. \"But, I'm also a writer so we could actually start a writer's group, so that technically wasn't lying\", he continued, smiling. \nElisa wasn't sure what to say. She hadn't so much as gone on a date since college. Vancouver was expensive and it never seemed to her like the kind of city where you'd find love. It seemed like the place where you would find yourself, and that's what she had been trying to do for 5 years. \n\"Uh. Hello?\" he said, jolting her back to the present. \n\"Ahm, what's your name?\"\n\"It's Nathan...\" \n\"Okay Nathan,\" she said, cutting him off before he could ask for hers. \"That was a mildly elaborate scheme. If this little coffee date proves to be worth it, then I'll tell you my name\". \nIn her head she was screaming at herself. She hadn't been in the dating game so long, she wasn't even sure that people were still playing hard to get. But, Nathan nodded and smiled. \n\"Excuse me, we're closing up. Would you like to take that to go?\", a teenager in an apron said, as he mopped around the table. When they looked across to the reading hall, half the lights in the library were off - it was closing time. 10 pm. She had been talking to this stranger for 5 hours! That wasn't in the schedule! She hadn't even touched her green tea. \n\"Oh crap. I should get going\", she said as she picked up her bag - thinking that she should've been in bed at 9. As she hurried out of the cafe, Nathan called after her. \n\"Hey, you promised me your name!\". She stopped, and he caught up to her. They exchanged contacts and agreed to meet up at a poetry reading on the weekend. \nAs Elisa turned to walk away for real this time, she tried hard not to start skipping. A guy - who was actually attractive and liked books - had asked her on a coffee date. The ear-to-ear grin was pasted on her face until she got home. It was there when called Selena to tell her all about the fairytale encounter at the library...and was still there as she wrote in her journal all the things she couldn't say to Selena... and was still there when she edited her weekend schedule to include \"poetry reading at 7 pm\". \nThe smile only began to fade when she realized this was the most excited she had been in 5 years...and if she was being honest...10." } ]

[ { "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: Knight Night\n\nGenre: american\n\nWord Count: 1246\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story in a coffee shop without using obvious words to describe it (e.g. barista, coffee cup.)" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "She closed her eyes.\n\nGently, as if enveloped in a sweet melody, she breathed the heady, earthy aroma rising from her mug. The quiet rustle of newspapers and the soft burble of voices formed a backdrop to the occasional clatter of ceramic against a metal countertop. Bright morning sunlight filtered through the shop window, casting crystal rainbows across the patterned floor.\n\nMartha took a sip, then languidly opened her eyes. She smiled at the man sitting across from her. His bemused smile telegraphed his delight.\n\n\"I'm always surprised at how comforting a drink could be,\" she sighed. She settled back, letting the supple leather of her wheelchair cradle her body.\n\nHer companion nodded to the cup in her hands. \"The shipment came in last week from Jamaica. I met the grower myself. Mateo. His farm is amazing! His plantation is stretched out on the slopes below Blue Mountain Peak. Have you been there? We walked around for hours and I think I saw every yellow-billed parrot on the entire island! The farmhouse has a fantastic view of the falls below. He has hired his extended family to help him care for the crop, and he's training his nephew in bookkeeping and marketing. They want him to take over the family business when the time comes. The boy's aunt is their horticulturist and his father is their chemist. Mateo has built homes for everyone and they all pitch in to care for the crop. It's a real success story, bringing prosperity to an entire family.\"\n\nBram suddenly looked embarrassed. He held his own cup in both hands and looked into the dark waters. \"Oh, I'm sorry, I'm prattling on. I don't mean to bore you.\"\n\nMartha smiled back at him. \"No, no, you're fine. It's wonderful to hear someone who is passionate about their work.\"\n\nBram seemed to shuffle. \"Um … can I get you a Danish? It’s on the house.\"\n\n\"Sure,\" she replied, laughing softly as Bram put on his storekeeper \"hat\". \n\nBram stood, suddenly looking very tall and imposing. He took another sip of his drink and then sauntered toward the counter. He walked like a linebacker. Martha’s eyes followed him as he spoke briefly to the cashier. He washed his hands and pulled down a small plate, turning to the pastry display case.\n\nMartha took another long meditating sip of her drink. Someone enthusiastically turned a newspaper to a new page. The dulcet chime of a bell rang as the shop door opened to reveal another customer.\n\nThe shop went silent. Martha opened her eyes. \n\nStanding beside the open door, a dark form stood. He was hard to see with the bright sun behind him. But the pistol in his hand was unmistakable.\n\n\"Everyone down,\" he ordered. \n\nMartha froze. What was going on? Who was he? How could he disturb this moment? This is the WEEKEND, FOR GOD’S SAKE! \n\n\"I said down. Now. On the floor!\" \n\nA cup dropped and broke into shards as people pushed their chairs back and clambered to the floor. A woman somewhere whimpered. Bram pushed his cashier below the level of the counter, but he remained standing. He raised his hands in the air.\n\n\"Hey, buddy, it’s ok. What do you want? Just be calm, please.\"\n\nThe gunman stepped into the store. The bell chimed again as the door closed behind him. He waved his gun at Bram. \"Cash. Open the register. Give me your cash.\"\n\nBram moved to the register. He reached into his pocket for the drawer key.\n\n\"Hands up!\" the gunman yelled, pointing the gun at Bram’s face.\n\n\"I need to get the key,\" Bram offered. \"It's in my pocket.\"\n\n\"Get it and be slow about it.\" The dark figure was masked and wearing a dirty gray hoodie. He smelled of filth and his hands shook.\n\nMartha trembled. She unlocked her wheelchair and pushed back from the table. It thumped against the glass window. The gunman turned and pointed the gun at her. \n\n\"I said ON THE FLOOR!\" he yelled. \n\n\"I’m trying.\" Martha’s hands trembled, suddenly weak. \"Don’t shoot, please don’t shoot.\" \n\nThe dark figure crossed the distance in a heartbeat. He grabbed her collar and tried to yank her out of her chair, but the wheels slid. It rolled into his leg, barking his shin. \n\nHe released her, then drew his arm back and struck her across the jaw. Something went bang.\n\nSuddenly, the pain imploded on her. She blinked, trying to clear her head, but her hand went to her shoulder. It was warm and wet. She looked at her fingers – they were painted red.\n\nThere was a moment of crystal clarity, frozen in time. The warm sunlight. The smell of the roaster. The look of surprise from the gunman. The look of horror turned to violence on Bram's face.\n\nMartha’s blood dripped down her arm and pooled on the floor.\n\nTime started again.\n\nBram threw the plate he was holding. The gunman raised his arms to protect himself and the plate shattered, knocking the gun out of his hand.\n\nBram vaulted over the counter and tackled the man. They both went down with a thud. Bram growled like an animal as he punched him three, four, five times. The dark figure’s head rocked back and forth, no struggle left in him.\n\nSirens could be heard in the distance.\n\nThe cashier came around the counter and rushed to the wheelchair. She pressed a towel to Martha’s shoulder. \"It’s ok, it’s ok. Help is coming,\" she murmured. But tears were streaming down her face.\n\nFour officers rushed into the building, guns drawn. Looking around, seeing the results of the chaos, two secured the attacker while the other two stood guard. Martha passed out before Bram got to her side.\n\n--------\n\nMartha woke up two days later as the night nurse bustled in with her medicine cart. \"Oh, good, you're finally awake.\" The nurse adjusted the drip and checked the needle in her arm.\n\n She didn’t remember the ride in the ambulance with Bram at her side. She didn’t remember being wheeled into the operating room.\n\nMartha's brow furrowed and she blinked as she tried to put her brain to work. The sounds of the evening rush hour filtered in through the open window, accompanied by a cool breeze. Dinner plates clattered in the distance, echoing against hospital walls. Martha's arm was trapped in a sling.\n\nA hand laid on her foot surprised her. Bram was at her bedside. \n\n\"Why are you here?\" she asked and then grimaced at how accusatory that sounded.\n\n\"I couldn’t let you just die on my floor. What would the customers think?\"\n\nThe previous events slowly crept back. The blood, the pain, the fear. The utter helplessness. She looked to the corner where her wheelchair was folded. It was clean. None of the trauma was evident.\n\nShe looked back at Bram. \"Thank you. You may have saved my life.\" Her cheeks turned pink, then crimson, as she continued to look at him.\n\nBram stood and then performed a courtly bow. \"When a fairy princess rolls into your establishment, it is the duty of every knight to rescue her when needed.\" He winked as he sat down on the edge of her bed.\n\n\"What about your shop? Don’t they need you there?\"\n\n\"I have more important things to take care of.\" He reached out and tentatively touched her hand. \"If you don’t mind.\"\n\nMartha smiled. \"No, I don’t mind at all.\"" } ]

[ { "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: Dream a Little Sycamore Dream\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 2200\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story that weaves together multiple lives through their connection to a particular tree." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "June 1777\n\nThe soft tread of moccasins on the ground of the New World has disappeared. Now it seems that the people are ghosts on the prairie and their feet grace only the forgotten hunting paths. \nThey and nature have tasted the bitter tang of the cruelties borne by the pale-faced hand and even now, while more arrive on wooden boats, they can only wonder what more this will bring. \nDozens of ships had docked here decades ago, bringing with them a new manner of beast and man, unlike the brown-skinned people of the plains. Moonfaced men clothed in garments much unlike anything they had ever seen and brandishing sticks that spat flame and metal. \nTrodding behind them were dark-skinned slaves in iron chains with sad and haunted eyes. Refugee eyes that witnessed horrors in the boats that had hauled them off from their distant sun-kissed lands. Perhaps a kindred spirit of justice's fire still burned in the banked flames of their eyes. \nUnder the palms of master and slave, trees fell quickly under the steel bite of axes, and in their place, wooden plantations rose quickly on the wide plains of South Carolina. \n“Papa I want to come with you!” The pleading cry of a little girl disrupts the rowdy breakfast room. Kitchen slaves and family members alike only chuckle at her futile attempts of grasping her father’s work pants as he moved to leave the room. \nDavid Marsden would likewise chuckle at his youngest daughter’s attempts of begging to go out with him and plant. He glanced at his wife with a raised brow which she returned with a humorous shake of her head. Ellie - the youngest of their six children - could be a handful when she wished to be. \n“Ellie,” her mother announced in a tone only mothers could muster. “You let your daddy go on out.” \n“But I wanna plant too!” Ellie cried. \nHer brothers and sisters laughed as she plopped on the wooden floor in a tantrum, hot tears spilling from her cheeks. \n“Oh all right,” her father said. Taking her in his arms David Marsden hugged his six-year-old daughter to his chest, his golden beard scratching at her soft face. \n“You promise me that if I let you plant one you have to follow everything daddy says, ok?” He whispered in her ear. \nEllie nodded cautiously in agreement. Then David Marsden announced to the room that he would let Ellie choose a tree to plant on the hill near their home. “A good house will need good trees to guard it,” he announces. \nEllie clapped her chubby little hands together and squealed joyously. Her nursemaid, Nana Clara, swept her up in her arms while David went out to the fields. At dinnertime, when asked, Ellie said she would plant a ‘see-caw-moe’ tree, failing to mimic a tree her Nana often told of in her stories. \nA week later on the hill, David Marsden, and a couple of slaves dug out the top of the hill. And Ellie’s aging nursemaid, Nana Clara, guided her trembling little hands as she dropped sycamore seedlings into the hole without much ceremony. Ellie finally went to bed in quiet peace that night, knowing that her fickle desire had been fulfilled. \nWhether by a false stroke of luck or the wicked will of a tribal god, Ellie and a couple of the plantation workers catch the dreaded scarlet fever a month later. The slaves die off in a couple of weeks. \nIt is on another full moon night that Nana Clara clutches Ellie's weak hand and squeezes tightly. Ellie spams in the last throes of the fever that colors her skin in a red rash. Nana Clara whispers a prayer and a song, to the goddess of the moon and to the birds and the trees to heal her. The words are old, in a tongue that most have forgotten to speak, but the world remembers.\nNana Clara sings and prays for peaceful dreams for Little Ellie as she descends the stairs to prepare a poultice. In the kitchen, she mixes dogwood and milkwood, and other herbs of the moon, just as her grandmother had taught her in the Old Country. \nWhile she does this, Ellie dreams.\nIn her dreams, she is a bird flapping her wings on her way to the branches of the sycamore tree that she had planted weeks before. Its branches reach the sky, towering over grey stone buildings and smog. When Ellie finally lands, her nest has become the moon, and it smiles at her before wrapping her in its silver embrace. It comforts Ellie, somewhat, knowing that her tree had grown.\nAnd on the far fields of Brandywine, 168-year-old sycamore shelters General Washington and his troops as they sleep. It feels one of its daughter trees, a tiny seedling, standing guard over a little girl's dreams while it does likewise. When the day dawns, the well-rested Americans decide that the sycamore means protection and hope.\nEllie Marsden is buried a week later beside the seeds of her beloved sycamore tree while her mother weeps bitterly. The vicar says words that are of little comfort to the family gathered there.\n“But one thing is certain,” he continues unbothered by the grieving silence. “Ellie Marsden has found rest with our Lord and Savior.” At the end of the war, the sycamore has grown tall and young. And in time, the Marsdens and their children, each find their rest beside Ellie under the protective shade of the sycamore tree. \n\nAugust 1850\n\nThe South Carolina forests waited in quiet anticipation as Phillis Jackson ran in the night. \nShe had been trekking through the countryside for days, barely eating and sleeping as she made her way North. To freedom. \nPhillis had run away from her master’s plantation in Savannah when her sister, who worked in the kitchens, had told her what she had heard in the private rooms as she came in to clean. \n“Massa said yous too much a distraction to Abe,” her sister had whispered to her. “Theys gonna sell you to the Smiths when they come round for the next buy.” Abraham was her husband-to-be, a prize mandingo fighter who made much money for the Lewis plantation. Selling her to the Smith’s meant more profit and fewer distractions for Abe. \n\"We gonna be going then Jemimah,\" was all Phillis said before she started packing. It was widely known in these parts about Jeremiah Smith’s wicked reputation. And if Phillis had stayed to be sold, the child in her belly, that she was sure was there, would be gone in a week. And she’d be dead in a month after the whippings and beatings. \nRousing Abe from his slumber and explaining her predicament, they had left under the cover of night, with only a quick kiss to their families who stayed behind. But fate had not been on their side, as one of the gate guards had noticed them slipping out.\nHe had roused the men and they had caught up with them by the banks of a river. Abe stayed behind to hold them off, and Phillis could only watch helplessly from across the riverbank as their dogs tore him apart. \nHeartbroken, she continued on her way North, to Charlestown, where the railroad, it was rumored, could spirit her off to New York or Boston. To the north and to freedom.\nShe followed the song of the Drinking Gourd traveling under the cover of darkness with only the North Star to guide her. Sometimes hitching rides in unsuspecting farmer's carts by day. Phillis subsisted on prayers to the moon and the grains she had managed to braid into her hair for food. \nBy the fifth day, she was in South Carolina, and she would’ve been overjoyed at the fact if she had known. Pausing by a copse of beechwood trees, she spied a sign nailed to the middle tree. The sparseness of light made it hard to read but even in daylight, she wouldn’t have known what the letters would have said. \nStill, Phillis staggered onwards desperately to where light and the smells of supper wafted on the warm autumn air. And high in the sky, the star of the Drinking Gourd twinkled hopefully. \nAs she trudged on, she whispered prayers to the moon to protect her and her child.\nAnd in answer, by the gates of the Marsden plantation, a few of her people were there, waiting expectantly, as if someone had told them she was coming. They were dressed in quilts that said, \"Little bird you are safe here come and rest awhile under our branches.\"\nThey escorted Phillis to the sycamore tree at the top of the hill to rest and gave her food from the kitchens before leaving her alone. \"You are welcome here sister,\" one of the men, Aaron, told her as he handed her a quilt to sleep on.\nPhillis accepted it gratefully and snuggled in the warmth that his hands had left behind.\nIt was silent and peaceful underneath the branches of the sycamore tree. And she lifted a thankful prayer to the moon for her help.\nPhillis listened to the sounds of the night, as the nightingales’ on their perches lullabied her to sleep. A slight kick in her belly told her that her child found the music peaceful too.\nThe moon and the tree watch over them as they dream of freedom and peace.\n\nJanuary 1942\n\nDennis Rodstadter sneaks away to the abandoned plantation by the edge of town. He carries a bottle of red wine and a loaf of bread behind him as he does. \nWhen he spies the house, he turns and looks upward to the hill and he sees her sitting expectantly on a blanket by the old sycamore tree. The love of his life, Jenny McGuire, with her strawberry blonde locks swaying softly in the winds. \nHe surprises her with a kiss that she returns wholeheartedly and they spend most of the evening talking and eating. When the time comes their kisses become hungry flames and they bathe in the fires of their love under the stars. \nWhen morning comes, they leave quietly not wanting to disturb the ghosts. \nThe letters DR x JM that they leave carved into the bark are the only marks that they were ever there.\n\nMarch 2009\n\nAn old coffee-skinned woman rests under the bench constructed by the sycamore tree. She watches silently as a pair - brother and sister - romp around the green of the meadows. \n“Now now Jeremy Rodstadter you don’t be pushing your little sister around the grass and you let her play,” Brenda Jackson shouts at the two. \n“Yes, Nana Brenda!” They shout in reply before resuming their rough play. \nThe old woman merely smiles as she rests her head to watch them. \nHer family had found roots in New York decades ago, yet she had come back here, when her husband had died, to find her history. An old story that her mother had heard from her mother, something passed on through their family. A mother's story for only mothers hear of it.\nIt was one of danger and sorrow and loss, a tale that ended in hope and freedom bordered with nightingale songs and a sycamore tree.\n“It was in the wilds of the Ole South where your great-great-great-great-gramma,\" her mother tickled her as she said great. \"She was running.”\n\"Running from what momma?\"\n\"She was running away from wolves and pale dogs like stars in the sky.\"\n\"Where'd she run to momma?\"\nHer mother smiled and told her, \"Oh, your grandmamma ain't need to run. She was a bird and we always find our safety in the trees. We be blessed by the moon and she always takes care of her own.\"\nBrenda only nodded as she listened and when the tale was done her momma sang her to sleep.\nShe still remembers the song:\n\nFind me a star\nOne so very far\nAnd find your rest\nIn mother moon's little nest\nDream a little dream baby bird\nAnd I'll be here with you\n\nAs a child, she had not cared if the tale had been true for tales only lived to be told and respun. But whether truth or untruth it had brought Brenda back here to the backwoods of South Carolina. And here she was, watching over the governor's children in her old age. As a mother bird watched over the newly young.\n\"Now you both behave yourselves and wake Nana when y'all wanna go back on down you hear me?\" Brenda called to the children.\nSatisfied that they had heard her, Brenda nodded off into a dream.\nIn her dream, the sycamore tree has branches that reach up into the heavens and the bark is crisscrossed with the etched promises of lovers. Brenda is a bird, with the moon as her nest, and the nightingales with stars-eyes sing to her in her mother's voice. And underneath it all, the lovers and the dead and the weary find rest beneath the tree. Their dreams are all happy and hopeful, full of rest and freedom, and peace." } ]

[ { "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: Ordeal of Unknown Origin\n\nGenre: american\n\nWord Count: 2738\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a scene in which a character’s behavior or reaction to something is affected by a past experience — without saying what that experience was." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "He was an odd bird. Everyone was sure his military file was as thick as a preacher’s Bible, but no one said a thing about his ordeal from the war, because his thin face would become haunted and spooky whenever someone mentioned it. Everyone in town knew something was seriously wrong with Oliver Prichard after he was discharged from the army, because you’d have to walk on eggshells around him. \n“I think he was a POW.” Reginald Manning, the proprietor of the general store on Main Street would remark whenever he saw Ollie exit his beat-up old Ford Pickup on his way to talk to Doc Leonard. Doc Leonard was in the war as a medic and if truth be told, Doc was a little off himself. \n“How do you know?” Archie Wendell the stock boy would shake his head. \n“On account of some of the stories I heard tell.” Reginald would wave his hand like a pundit. \n“What stories?” Archie chuckled.\n“Stories I hear Doc tell whenever he comes into the store.” Reginald shrugs. \n“Doc don’t tell no stories.” Archie shakes his head sadly and slowly. \nPine River, Minnesota is a quaint community on the banks of Norway Lake where most folks live in the previous century. Old world ways still dot the rural landscape where small private family farms of a hundred acres or less, that are populated with jersey cows wandering from pasture to pasture without restraint. We are a simple folk living close to the land.\nThe Prichard place is out on the old dirt road that runs near Chickamaw Beach. Wayne Prichard, Ollie’s father is pushing a century, but Ollie still lives with him on the family land where a couple of generations of Prichards are interred on the family plot including his mother Emma. When Ollie got drafted back then, Emma was still alive. She drove him to the Trailways Bus Depot with his bag still wearing his overalls and flannel shirt. Wayne did not accompany them.\nThat was over thirty years ago. Vietnam was the name of the place they were going to send him to. None of us had any idea of what condition he would be in when he came home. Wayne needs his son to care for him since he slipped into Alzheimer's. Been really sad to watch him slip away like that. Sometimes you can hear him yelling at Ollie. He has no idea he’s doing it and Ollie never says a thing about it. \n“When he goes.” Ollie once declared at a get together at his place, “I am gonna burn this place down like they did when I was in Nam.” \n“Why would you do that?” Smeg Hanson asked, sitting in one of the Adirondack chairs by the shore.\n“Got no use for this place.” He answered with that haunted look in his dark eyes. No one dared question him on that, but it left a lot of us feeling uneasy. \n“I want to know what is going through his head.” Chote Sparks remarked while playing checkers with Reginald on the porch in front of the general store. Chote was not a big man. Some say he had the hands of a woman, but he was intent on his small man complex which often ignited his temper from time to time. \n“Could be a lot of things.” Reginald shrugs.\n“But doncha wanna know what he’s thinkin?’” Chote makes a move taking a couple of Reginald’s black pieces. \n“Not really.” Reginald winces when Chote removes the captured pieces. “I was in Korea and let me tell ya, it was not worth talkin’ about.” \n“I coudda gone, you know.” Chote surveys the board for another strike. “I would have had to lie about my age.” He tilted his head.\n“You and the others were planning on runnin’ off to Canada.” Reginald chuckles. \n“Ain’t so.” Chote sticks out his bottom lip in defiance. \n“Shush, here he comes.” Reginald nods toward Ollie who was walking toward them. Chote looks up and sees Ollie standing in front of them as if he materialized out of nowhere. “Hey there Ollie, what can I do for you?” \n“Wire and propane.” Ollie answers without expression. \n“Whacha plannin’ on doin,’ lighting the house on fire?” Reginald asks, but draws a death stare from Ollie. “Sure we got plenty.” \nOllie just nods. Both Chore and Reginald swallow hard, because he still has that death stare in his eyes. \nNo one knows when Wayne Prichard finally passed, but there was a fire. His shed burned to the ground before the volunteer fire department finally got there. One of the firemen said that Ollie was standing on the porch, watching, just watching without any hint of expression.\n“We got her out.” The chief said, but all Ollie just nodded and tipped his hat. “Where’s your pa?”\nOllie just shrugged. \nA week later, I will never forget it, this stranger came walking into town. He was wearing a thick Fu Manchu mustache and jungle fatigues shirt with the sleeves cut off. He walked right up to Reginald who was playing checkers with one of the local kids on summer break. \n“Do you know where I can find Oliver Prichard?” He asked without looking him in the eyes. \n“I reckon he’d be at his place up the road.” Reginald did not care for the distant look in the stranger’s eye. \n“Up this road?” He pointed.\n“Yup.” Reginald nodded as he moved one of his black checkers to an empty space on the board.\n“Thanks.” He said as if the word was surgically removed from his throat. He began walking down the road without another word.\n“It’s about a three mile hike.” Reginald called after him.\n“No problem. Walked further than that in the day.” He almost smiled as he continued walking.\n“Suit yourself.” Reginald mumbled, returning his attention to the game. \n“Guy was creepy.” Reginald replied later as he sat at Gunderen’s Tavern with the rest of his cronies.\n“Never thought Ollie had any friends.” Archie shook his head.\n“Nam, I reckon.” Reginald shrugged. \n“Sure.” Archie nodded. \n“I didn’t like the cut of his jib.” Reginald confessed. “There was something about him, I can’t put my finger on it, that just didn’t seem right.” \n“Hope you’re wrong.” Jake seated to Reginald’s right sighed. \n“That fire last week. I was there with the other guys. Seemed like he wasn’t too concerned.” Hollie added. “Now he’s got some guy looking for him. I just don’t like it.”\nAn uneasy silence fell over them. \nLater that same week, Micah Vertollen reported strange noises coming from the farmhouse. His farm was located north of the Prichard place. There was a wind blowing, but Micah clearly heard the moaning coming from his neighbor’s house. \n“It was like some ghost wailing.” Micah explained to us as he sat in a bar stool at Gundersen’s. Knowing him like we did, we knew Micah was not one who was inclined to believe in a poltergeist or otherworldly phenonium. \n“What do you suppose is going on there?” Chote asked with his crystal blue eyes wide open as he sipped his beer. \n“I’m not sure I want to find out.” Micah nodded as he took a healthy draw from his mug of beer. \n“Maybe someone should go up there and find out what’s going on.” Reginald suggested. \n“Are you gonna volunteer?” Andy Warner asked. \n“I might.” Reginald stuck out his bottom lip, “I just might.” \n“Let us know what you find out.” Chote elbowed Reginald. \n“I will.” Reginald raised his mug to affirm his conviction. \nA few days later, a fisherman found Reginald’s body bobbing in Norway Lake. An investigation followed, but there were no solid clues even though there was some discussion about the goings-on at the Prichard place. Some of the gossip was flying at Gundersen’s until Ollie and his friend walked into the place. \nSilence. \n“Need a couple of beers.” Ollie held up two fingers as he and his friend sat at the bar. \n“Coming right up.” Duane Olson nodded, pulling the tap. “Who’s your friend?” \n“Justin.” Ollie answered.\n“Or Private Clark as I was known in-country.” The stranger smiled, but even his smile had no warmth in it. \n“Welcome to Gundersen’s, Justin.” Duane wagged his head letting his golden locks wave. Born with golden hair and clear blue eyes, Duane was a legacy to his Viking heritage. \n“We were in a platoon in Vietnam.” Ollie put his arm around Justin. \n“Vietnam? That was almost thirty years ago.” Chote raised a bushy eyebrow. \n“Yeah, so.” Ollie glared at Chote.\n“Nothing, just saying.” Chote glanced over at Archie who was holding a pool cue. Archie shook his head as he lined up another shot on the pool table. The tension in the barroom began to rise as the two of them sat there drinking their beers. A couple customers walked out. \nJustin walked over to where Chote was chalking his stick after Archie missed the ten ball in the side pocket. \n“For some of us, Vietnam was hell on earth.” He leaned into Chote who wore a petrified expression on his face. “Were you there?”\n“Naw-no.” Chote shuddered, nearly dropping his stick. \n“So don’t speak of what you know nothing about, got it?” Justin jabbed his finger in Chote’s chest. \n“Yeah-ya.” Chote stuttered. \n“We know y’all been talkin’ ‘bout what you think happened to Reginald.” Ollie pointed his finger at each of us still there, “You’re wrong. Me and my friend are getting tired of hearing you flap your lips about what you think happened. Justin and me did what we had to do when we were over there. Don’t judge us unless you were there. I spent a long time in the hospital until they felt like I was ready to come home. My daddy came every Sunday during visiting hours to check on me. He begged them to let me go. Not one of you ever came with him. So don’t be making up what you think happened. To you, it was an ordeal of unknown origin.”\n“C’mon, let’s go home.” Justin whispered into Ollie’s ear. Ollie nods as they leave the bar. \nOnce they were gone, Chote stepped forward, “I think he killed Reginald.”\n“Hush up.” Duane waved a finger at him, “You want him to hear what you’re saying about him?”\n“Who’s gonna tell him?” Chote summoned up his bravado as he tossed his stick on the pool table.\n“You saw that look in his eyes.” Archie put his hand on Chote’s shoulder.\n“Yeah, I saw it.” He hissed, “I also heard that Doc Leonard says he is still quite crazy.” \n“You are so full of crap.” Duane declares, shaking his head. \n“He burned down that shed with his father inside.” Chote is shaking with trepidation as he spoke, “I heard it from a reliable source.” \n“I’ve known him when he left for the war.” Jake spoke up. “He was a good kid, you know.” \n“Good then, but not when he came here from the hospital.” Chote was still shaking, his eyes darted around the bar. “You all saw him. You all saw his eyes. He has the eyes of a killer. None of us are safe. Not after what he did Reginald Manning.” \n“What did he do?” Duane crossed his arms across his chest.\n“He killed him and then dumped him in the lake.” Chote wiped his hand over his mouth. “He’s dangerous, mark my words and that friend of his is just as insane.” \n“Justin?” Duane shook his head. “He did not scare me in the least.” \n“They say John Wayne Gacy was a nice guy.” Archie chimed in. \n“I heard that, too.” Jake nodded. \nBears had already picked over Chote Spark’s body when a hiker discovered it in the underbrush. Minnesota State Police investigated while forensics picked over the corpse for any evidence of the cause of death, but due to the condition of his body, death was hard to determine. \n“I told him to be careful.” Duane told the state trooper who came into the bar looking for clues. Instead Duane put a mug of beer in his hand and the clues became quite scarce. \n“Oliver Prichard does have an interesting record.” The trooper shook his head.\n“So did his father from what I heard.” Duane sighed.\n“What did you hear?” The trooper asked before sipping his beer. \n“He would take Ollie to the shed to teach him a lesson from time to time. Heard one of his teachers made a report, but then the teacher disappeared.” Duane wiped down the bar, careful to keep his voice low in case anyone was eavesdropping. \n“Seems like a lot of bad things happen out here.” He raised his eyebrow. \n“So it does. So it does.” He chuckled. \nWhen Archie Wendell came up missing after a frantic call from his wife Donna, we had a town meeting to decide to confront Ollie Prichard and Justin Clark about their recent activities. They were both sitting on the porch of the farm house when we came walking up their driveway at dusk. \n“What can we do you boys for?” Ollie asked, glancing over at Justin. \n“We want to know where Archie Wendell is.” Smeg answered. \n“How the heck would I know?” Ollie stood up with hands on hips shaking his head. \n“We have had two folks turn up dead around here.” Smeg sighed. \n“And what does that have to do with us?” Ollie shrugged as he shot a quick glance at Justin. \n“We are trying to get to the bottom of the disappearance of two prominent citizens of Pine River.” Archie did his best to maintain his bearing. \n“Hmmph, I thought they had recovered their bodies. Seems that nature got a hold of them pretty quickly.” Ollie leaned against a post supporting the porch roof. \n“Yeah.” Archie swallowed hard.\n“Seems you gentlemen have come all the way out here for nothing.” He chuckled, but there was no humor in it. “I have lived in Pine River most of my life. I took care of my father until he passed and now I run the family farm by myself. Nobody ever came out to see if I was alright until my friend Justin Clark did. Get off my land with your crazy ideas about what you think I’ve done.” \nSilence. \n“We just wanna ask ya some questions.” Archie found the voice he had lost. \n“Like what?” Ollie gave Archie an icy stare. \nSilence.\n“Justin, it’s time for you to go.” Ollie nodded. Standing, Justin just nodded. Everyone watched as that guy just faded until he wasn’t there any longer.\n“Back when I was in-country, Justin was my buddy. We ran into an ambush. He took the bullet meant for me and died in my arms.” Ollie bowed his head.\n“No way, he was drinking with you the other night.” Archie pointed a finger at Ollie.\n“He did have a beer, but I assure you, he did not drink a single drop. He couldn’t.” Ollie’s eyes were shining with his tears. “He came because I prayed to God to spend just a couple of days with him. After he passed away, I had my first break where I was reported to do something that I can’t even speak of after all this time. Doc Leonard helped me put myself back together. He knew what I had gone through. Most of what we brought back with us back then, we still can’t talk about it.”\nSilence.\n“So if you still think I’m a monster, go ahead and step forward. Just make sure the cuffs are secure.” He held out both arms, but no one took a single step toward him. “Well if you won’t judge what I have done. I will take it to He who will judge me for eternity.” \nBefore anyone could make a move, Ollie pulled out his service .45, put it to his temple and pulled the trigger sending out a cloud of red that sprayed the porch with his brains and pieces of skull. \nThe coroner came to put his remains into a plastic black bag.\n“Poor old son-of-a-bitch.” Dr. Connors mumbled as he zipped up the bag. “Lived with so many demons.” \nThe ash of his cigarette fell on the porch covering some of the blood stains. I waited until he loaded the vehicle with the gurney carrying Oliver Prichard’s remains." } ]

[ { "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: Divine Bloodline\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1270\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story that weaves together multiple lives through their connection to a particular tree." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Divine Bloodline\n“How can you tell the Tree is a girl, Gran?” The shea butter applied to my scalp in neat little rows slid onto my forehead and mixed with beads of sweat as I sat on the front porch between my grandmother’s knees. Every Sunday, we took my braids down and washed my hair. Then Gran braided it right back up again, greasing my scalp as she went. I can’t imagine a Sunday that we didn’t spend together, managing the mane that fell past my waist. It took all day, but the best part was sittin’ on that porch, listening to her tell stories about our family and the land that provided for us over a hundred years. The oldest member of our family is The Tree, who we simply referred to as She or Her. It’s fitting because She isn’t limited to being called one thing, She is everything.\nHer roots reached up from the ground and looped back beneath the soil at odd angles that tripped you up if you tried to escape – even from over thirty feet away. If you didn’t know her and dared to venture towards her massive trunk you might not make it out alive. Gran told me She’s been here since the beginning of time, always adding a new fact that she deemed age appropriate for me to obsess over for weeks until I appeared ready for a new story.\n“Simple, baby girl,” she replied as she slid a rattail comb across my scalp. I closed my eyes and relished the minty tingle that the occasional wind brought to us while she told me, again, about the family history Mama should be telling me had she not ran away. I wasn’t old enough for that story yet, but that never stopped me from asking on Mother’s Day or my birthday. Or any day.\n“You can tell she is a WOMAN because she’s lived longer than anything and anyone who’s stepped foot near her. This tree been watching us our whole family’s lifetime- over our great-great-great grandmothers when they were your age and getting strong enough to help when needed. She’s seen a lotta life, and even more death. She comforts the heavy hearts and bears the weight of our sins; sins no man can handle on his own.” She snorted to herself and for the first time I became aware that I didn’t know any living male relatives.\nShe pauses to take a sip from her iced tea and a drag from a cigarette she rolled herself. “There will never be a time anything of male blood could bear the weight of a woman, which is why they seek to destroy. You see She wears chips from man’s axe, but she still stands. Fire couldn’t bring her to her knees. One, one hundred plus men have hung from her branches and none have yet to string her or any woman living among her roots.”\nSometimes I think she can read my mind. Gran, not the She. But She probably can too.\n“And that’s why we never have to leave, because she provides as far she can reach.” I recited this with Gran after the end of each tree story. I left home for school and the occasional outing, but that was about it. I didn’t make many friends because the town knew about our strange female coven and most kept their distance. Everything else I gleaned from the world came from the screen of my iPhone gifted to me for my birthday. \nOur home was its own bustling community where people came to us and everything we could ever want was, just like Gran said, the Tree provides as far as she could reach. Deliveries were left at the gate separating our Paradise from the rest of the peasants around us. Living on land that shared its ever-changing mysteries never made me long for the world outside until now. I rode horses and took care of farm animals all day, we lived on land owned by our ancestors, it’s a rare miracle that despite the Oklahoma Land Run and Trail of Tears, our family managed to defend our Tree and everything around her.\nWeeks after my thirteenth birthday while watching makeup tutorials I felt an unfamiliar feeling that I’d been preparing for since I turned eleven. I rushed to the bathroom and nearly screamed when I saw what I’d hoped for- my first period. I’m officially a woman.\nI called to Gran with the good news, and she nodded solemnly. I saw on tiktok that people had period parties and assumed she needed time to plan so I went back to my cat eye videos, hoping she chose Black Forest, the canned cherries made more sense than a boring red velvet.\n“Come on, girl, we goin' on a walk.” Gran opened my bedroom door and motioned for me to get up. Her light grey dress grazed the floor and her waist-length braids swung behind her, making her appear more Celestial than usual. I jumped up and joined her, leaving my phone behind.\nShe didn’t have to tell me where we were going; She’d been calling all morning.\nI caught up to Gran and she handed me a bag of candles. I guess the cake was already there, but I also worried that she might not know about how they celebrate the beginning of becoming a woman in this century. I don’t think people her age even gets periods anymore.\n“Don’t worry ‘bout what I do and don’t get.” She pushed me forward and I tripped over a root that I’d never noticed before. Gran giggled to herself and took a drag from her cigarette.\nThe walk took nearly ten minutes to reach Her, but the land spread around her almost like a red carpet; allowing a view that felt and looked more beautiful as you inched closer. Warm wind lifted the hair on my arms and thin silvery clouds parted to brandish a full, pink moon.\n“Strawberry Moon,” Gran’s eyes twinkled as she lifted the sleeve to her dress, revealing a large tattoo on her arm that looked almost identical to the moon in the sky. Got this when I was 37. It means something different for me every year. It felt like seeing her for the first time. A tattoo sleeve from the top of her shoulder to her wrist boasted that I’d failed to notice in my fourteen years of life. Was my Grandmother, with her dreadlocked hair and tattoos exciting before she became a grandmother? I couldn’t imagine her existing before me.\nWhen we finally approached the base of Her massive trunk Gran lit a bundle of sage while I placed the candles around a small space facing the moon- it would have taken hundreds to completely circle Her and the thirteen candles to signify my age made Her look enormous but still somehow, incredibly feminine. The glow almost seemed to dress Her in shadows that would have scared me had I not become a woman today; it excited me. \nWe sat beneath Her outstretched branches and the moonlight played a soundless rhythm that danced with the nighttime sounds. The creek full of fish that I jumped into fearlessly all summer long rushed in the distance, the leaves rippled like tiny flags in different octaves and the animals sang in tune.\nAt that moment I realized that whatever I felt coursing through my veins skipped a generation. If Mama held an ounce of what I felt from this divine bloodline we inherited, she never would have left us." } ]

[ { "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: Equilibrium\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 2890\n\nPrompt:\n\nSet your story in a world living with the consequences of a climate apocalypse." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The ocean crept in seventeen more centimeters within the last year, and already Aayushi Rawls felt the tension rise in their home just outside of League City, Texas. Matthew would have learned of it by now because the news stations all carried it, and in that bar, all day every day, they all watched the news. \nNobody was building. The industry had dried up at the beginning of 2160 when in less than six months, the ocean swallowed half of Florida. That act of nature created the brand new Hookshank Island, swampy and useless land that the rest of the state tried to eat like an alligator in all the new maps. Those who were building, despite the uncertainty, used genetically altered clones purchased at a one-time lifetime cost of about one-hundred thousand dollars, cheaper by far than an employee, and twice as efficient.\nFutures were built and destroyed on those news reports, and none were so sensitive to the information than those who spent their idle time in her husband’s bar. Aayushi flicked off the holovid and stood slowly, careful not to agitate the bruises on her side - a reminder to have hot food ready when Matthew got home. It was her own fault. She’d forgotten to set the replicator schedule two nights prior. Aayushi’s mind drifted to her husband’s dive, now making more money than it ever had before the changes accelerated from three feet of glacial melt a year to ten feet. He owned the only bar in fifteen miles, and whatever else the climate change may have taken from them, people always showed up with money to spend. The Palenchek’s farm, she knew for a fact, had no more corn left. On the surface, the topsoil seemed arable, but saltwater had saturated the underground reservoirs, and the corn hadn’t known what to do about it. What little grew at all, up at the high end, looked like something out of a horror movie, diseased and deformed as it was. But she’d seen Robert at Jarro the day before last. Like the others, he always had drinking money.\n“What time is it?” She asked the question out into the void of the kitchen. Immediately the house gave her a response. “Eight o’clock.”\nAayushi planned to be in bed by the time Matthew made it home from work to avoid the worst of him. She punched the numbers for his favorite steak into the replicator and entered in the schedule for when she thought he might be home. Then she crossed her fingers as she pushed the start button, unsure of whether the finicky thing would heed her or invent some new concoction.\nThe stabbing in her side intensified as Aayushi flexed her back. It hurt to do anything today, but eventually, it would heal, like it always did. She walked past the replicator, past the dish rack, and down the hallway toward their shared bedroom, but before she got there, she paused outside of Harper’s room in the hallway. Aayushi twisted the knob slowly and nudged the door open, pushing her head through the opening. Her daughter, as thin as the hickory sapling in their yard that probably wouldn't last another year, lay with mouth agape and a tendril of saliva connecting her to her pillow. The girl had Aayushi’s eyes and hair, that beautiful silky black that hung down to her shoulder blades. Closed eyelids hid hazel eyes, darker in color than Aayushi’s but nearly imperceptibly so. Anyone who saw the two of them about knew that they could only be mother and daughter, even down to the olive-tan complexions they both shared. Just laying eyes on the girl made Aayushi forget about the pain in her side and the encroaching ocean which nipped at the edges of their yard. Aayushi pulled the door to a slow close and listened for its latch before continuing down the hallway.\nShe’d almost reached the sanctuary of the master bedroom when the echoing call of her communicator chime punched her in the chest. Aayushi wanted to ignore it, but she could only imagine what would have been in store for her if she had. The hallway disappeared as she quickly made her way back into the kitchen to retrieve the device from the drawer by the refrigerator. As she touched the button on the side of the cylindrical device, one end projected an image of her husband on the wall beside her.\n“What do you want, Matthew? I was going to bed.”\n“Need some help, Aayushi. Sherryl had to go homesick.”\nAayushi didn’t bother to hide her disappointment and slumped her shoulders while exhaling an exaggerated sigh.\n“Call in another girl,” she said and watched the effect of her words on his projection. Eyebrows arched up as his patience waned, a warning sign that she registered well.\n“I’m calling in another girl, Aayushi. You. Get in here and help me.”\n“What about Harper?”\n“She’s twelve. Write her a note.”\nMatthew hung up, leaving her to decide in the dark whether or not she would go in and stare at the sad, tired drunks who no longer had jobs but could still afford booze. Aayushi wondered how their families lived.\nThere wasn’t really a choice, she reminded herself as she crossed the kitchen heading back toward her bedroom, now for an entirely different purpose from sleep. Aayushi changed as quickly as she could without further aggravating the pain in her side, scribbled a note for Harper on the kitchen table, and took the ancient family car to Jarro to rescue her beleaguered husband. As her automobile wandered the oak and yaupon-lined back roads, a storm brewed above, sending gusts of wind and rain down to her from the sky.\nCalling Jarro a dive was a kindness. The front door slid open to her biometric signature, and an intense aroma assaulted Aayushi as soon as she walked in, smiling as best she could. A general wave crossed the room as the crowd slowly gained awareness of her presence, save one man tucked away in a dark corner, head down on his table. She raised her hand to quiet the crowd of locals, recognizing several of them from church and previous nights tending bar or waiting tables.\n“Joe, how are you?” She asked the question of a regular as she crossed toward her husband, standing behind the bar. Joe nodded quietly, too drunk to talk. As she passed Carla Givens, she heard a quick whisper.\n“Careful, he’s in a mood tonight.”\nShe reached out a hand onto Carla’s shoulder and squeezed tight, letting her know that whatever state Matthew was in, she could handle it. As she did so, the pain in her side made her lurch slightly and brought tears into her eyes, all there before she could hide from Carla’s inspection. Aayushi collected herself as quickly as she could.\n“About damn time. Look over there,” Matthew pointed to the table in the back of the bar, toward the man that Aayushi had noticed before.\n“What about him?”\n“He’s one of them. Keeps coming in here even though nobody wants him here. The ocean’s moving in, and it brings them with it.”\nAayushi ignored his comment. It was better to stay focused on the problem than to rile him up with the newscast.\n“Sherryl went home sick, huh?”\n“Wouldn’t stay with his majesty there. She said he dirties up the place. Uppity clones.”\n“She’s not exactly a treasure herself.”\n“She’s human at least, better’n I could say for that one.”\n“They’re just as human as we are, Matthew.”\nWhy she spent the energy on him, she no longer knew. Part of it was a test, she considered, to see if the man she’d married and who had spirited her across the country from New York was still in there somewhere. She never found him.\n“Save it for your friends. Nobody here thinks he’s human, and he’s drunk anyway.”\n“You called me in here to play chauffeur to the drunk clone?”\n“It’s either that, or they do. Fine by me either way as long as he leaves, but I know how you feel about it.”\nThere it was. The one small gesture that meant that Matthew still thought of her sometimes. Years before, they’d spent long wine-soaked nights exploring whether genetically altered clones - models - qualified as human beings. Her opinion hadn’t changed in ten years -but he had. Still, he’d called her because he didn’t want her to hear about a model being trounced in his bar, but he didn’t care enough to do anything about it himself.\nMatthew shrugged his shoulders toward two men in the corner. One had a long face that stretched down to his Adam’s apple, and the other had a fat round jaw that made his face look like an apple. Both glowered toward the sleeping man.\n“Fine. Where are his keys?”\nOf the few things that her husband did right about Jarro, it was to take the keys of people who were too drunk to drive - sometimes. He motioned to the key wall, where only one set of keys sat right in the middle. She grabbed them and walked them over to the man’s table, glaring right back at those two men in the corner. Aayushi kicked hard at the table, and the man lurched his head up. Only then did she realize that he was twice as big as any other man in the bar.\n“I’m up,” the man said, swiveling his head around. “I’m up.”\nHe said it twice like they always do. Once to announce it to her, and the other to convince themselves. Neither time was it true.\n“Sure you are. Come on.”\nHe staggered up to his feet, mostly on his own, which was good because she couldn’t have lifted him.\n“What’s your name?” She asked as she walked him toward the door.\n“Ordell.”\n“Had a bit much, did you?”\n“I wouldn’t say that. Not enough, really.”\n“I see.”\nShe got him into his car, and immediately he passed out in the back seat. As Aayushi started the engine, she longed for her bed and the warmth and security it provided. All she had to do was drop off this man, this one man, and she would be on her way. As she turned the steering wheel and her side complained. Once again, she headed out into the storm, and it raged and thundered around her as wind gusts threatened to knock them from the gravelly road.\nThe car’s autonav delivered them to an apartment complex in the seedier part of Tribeca. When she circled around to retrieve him from the back seat, she roused him enough to stand only to realize that at some point during the drive, he’d vomited all over the back seat. That was going to be a problem, she knew, but not hers. Aayushi helped him to the front door, wincing with every step. The closer they got, the more he seemed to lean on her until they passed the threshold, and he collapsed to the floor blocking the entryway.\n“Get up, Ordell,” she told him, kicking his foot. He didn’t seem to notice at first, but when she kicked him again, he stirred.\n“W-what?”\n“Move your legs.”\nHe shuffled his legs out of the way, and she slammed and locked the door, then surveyed her situation. Here she was, in some drunk guy’s living room, injured and seriously considering whether to use the man’s replicator to get some coffee going and get the man to a state that she didn’t have to worry about him choking on his own vomit after she left. She sighed heavily, and crossed the room to the kitchen nook, then punched the universal code for coffee into the replicator.\n“Turn on the news,” she said aloud, and a three-dimensional display sprang up from the coffee table. Noise might help the man wake up.\n“Scientists suggest that the change is slowing now. The climate is nearing equilibrium, a point at which the weather can achieve stability. They say that the frequency of storms should level off, and the sea rise should begin to slow. Increases in global temperatures should also reach parity with what the environment can support.”\nShe stopped listening. It was always the topic these days. Equilibrium this, climate change that. Aayushi pulled a cup of coffee over for the man, and as she approached, the smell seemed to bring him out of his slumber. He leaned up on one elbow and accepted the coffee with his free hand.\n“Thank you.”\nAayushi nodded her acceptance of his thanks and returned to the replicator to make another cup, thinking of what it had been like before the weather changed. Jarro hadn’t always been a dive, and the people in it hadn’t always been cruel. Once, they’d had old Palenchek’s daughter’s wedding there, and the whole community had come out to celebrate. But as the farms died off, so did the civility. Her mind snapped back to the present.\n“You should stop going to Jarro,” she said. “You’re a model, aren’t you?”\n“Guilty,” he told her, sipping on his beverage with a bar-code stamped wrist. “But it’s the only bar around. And you’re not an alcoholic until you start drinking alone.”\n“I’ve got bad news for you. That’s not what makes you an alcoholic.”\nOrdell only took another sip.\n“This is terrible coffee.”\n“It’s your replicator.”\n“Yeah, but even so, you somehow made bad coffee worse.”\nShe laughed at that comment, finally able to stop thinking for a few seconds.\n“Why do you go where everyone hates you? There are model-friendly bars in the city. You have autonav. Why not just go drink there?”\n“You wouldn’t believe me.”\nHe took another sip of coffee, staring at her over the top. His broad nose and thick eyebrows caught her hazel eyes, and when she found herself staring, she looked away quickly.\n“Well?” She said and made a show of retrieving her coffee from the replicator.\n“They haven’t hurt me yet,” he told her. “As long as I stay in my corner, I’m fine. And this is close enough to home that it feels like a neighborhood pub. When I’m at Jarro, I can pretend I have friends and that I belong somewhere.”\n“That’s pathetic.”\n“I know.”\nHe sipped on his coffee some more.\n“You look okay,” she told him. “I think I’m going to go.”\nShe threw the words at him out of obligation, but this moment was the most at ease she’d felt for an entire day. Aayushi didn’t move to stand up and instead inched closer to him on the couch. There was so much she wanted to ask.\n“Do you have to?”\nIn the background, the holovision blared up as she looked at him, feeling her heart begin to race in her chest. His shirts barely fit, and muscles threatened to split the fabrics around his neck. He was a monstrosity of a man, dangerous if he wanted to be, yet controlled by the laws that kept models like him under strict control. Something more stirred inside of her as the pulsing of her heart pushed against her rib cage ache where the bruises lingered. Suddenly ashamed, she looked away from him.\n“You may wonder about this event - Equilibrium. Does it mean that the storms will drop off again, and we’ll see the world return to how it was before? Can scientists reverse course? Can we? The answer is no. What Equilibrium means is that the world you’re experiencing now is the new normal. The crop die-offs and the new islands - we’ve arrived. At least we’re still here.”\n“I guess I don’t have to leave yet,” she told him. She watched him pull his massive body up and cross over past the couch. In a swift motion, he pulled off his shirt and tossed it across his apartment into a pile that might have been laundry. Aayushi bit her lower lip as she watched him carry his biceps, each the size of her thighs, across the room. When he turned a little more to get a shirt from the presumed “clean laundry” pile, she caught sight of several healed scars across his back.\nHe made his way back, dropping to the cushion beside her in a thunderous sigh. Aayushi sipped her beverage, and he sipped his.\n“What’s it like to be a model?” In the back of her mind, she felt the alarms going off, telling her to leave, go home. The rapid beating of her heart blocked out the signals. With a gentle smile, his cool, dark eyes caught in her own, and he began his story.\nAayushi focused on the man before her as he shared his story. From the mocking co-workers who banded together to keep him in his place to the pitiful stipend he received each month on which to eke out a meager survival, she listened while her side throbbed in commiseration. \nThe news report broke through. The ocean crept in more than expected during the previous year. It would stop soon. They’d landed in Equilibrium, and what they suffered now was the worst of it. All they needed to do now was figure out how to survive." } ]

[ { "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 Grassy Knoll\n\nGenre: american\n\nWord Count: 2968\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story with an open ending that gives readers just enough details to draw their own conclusions." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "November 13, 1963\nIt seemed like only a moment had passed, after closing my eyes, when sunlight was warning me to get up, if I wanted to meet Clay Shaw on time. Not wanting to be late, I quickly got dressed and waited in the lobby for my ride. At 9:30 sharp, we were on our way.\nInstead of meeting at his office, we met at a restaurant on the edge of town. When I went inside, I found it completely empty, except for Clay, who was sitting at a table in a far corner. I sat down across from him, and we measured each other up. It was who Clay broke the silence.\n“How have you been, Tom? You’re looking good.”\n“What can I say?” I answered. “Considering what I do, I need to eat well and stay in shape.”\nClay nodded. “I’m glad to hear that. That’s why I asked you to come today. I was wondering if you were still interested in what we were discussing last time. If you have a change of heart, I need to know right now. I can completely understand if you had. No hard feelings if you wish to step down.”\n“Thanks for the opening Clay, but I’ll pass. I’m in this, all the way.”\n“Very well,” he said. Then he slipped me a map of downtown Dallas. “Kennedy will be in there for a fund raiser on the twenty-second. This is a map of the route the motorcade will be taking. If you look at Dealey Plaza, you’ll see they’ll be taking a sharp corner. This will be your best chance for success. If you take a position by this tree line, you’ll have a clear shot at him.”\nI looked at the knoll in front of the tree line. “I’m not so sure. If I were in the Secret Service, I would post a guard right there.”\nClay smiled. “That has already been arranged. There won’t be any Secret Service in that area. Also, the limo carrying the president will have its top down. Don’t worry, Tom. We’re making this as easy as possible for you.”\n“Will there be a backup plan in case I miss?”\n“Again, don’t worry about it. We’ll have someone at the rail tracks. He can get a shot off or two if needed, but you’re the basket we’re putting all our eggs into.”\n“Is there anything else I need to know?” I asked.\n“There’s a parking lot behind the knoll, where there’s a car to make your getaway. Also, we’re having someone put a rifle in the book depository and there’ll be a so-called witness ready to say he saw someone shoot from there. We’ll lay some used cartridges up there as well as have a patsy to blame to throw the police off your scent. So, while the police are storming the book depository and chasing ghosts, you’ll be casually driving down to Houston. As for the police? They’re bought and paid for by the mafia. As for the Feds, rest assure, you’ll be the last person they’ll be searching for.”\nIt was cold, ruthless, and well organized. And if all went well, the plan seemed flawless. “From what you say, it sounds like the whole world has it in for Kennedy.”\n“Not the whole world, Tom, just the part that wants do something about him and his communistic ways.” He slid an envelope towards me. “Here’s a round trip ticket from Chicago to Houston for the twentieth. You’ll drive from there to Dallas and set yourself up. When it’s done, you’ll return to Houston and fly out the next morning. Easy, peasy. So, Tom, any questions?”\n“If I do this for you, can you get someone out of Cuba for me?”\nClay leaned back in his chair and interlaced his fingers behind his neck. “I assume you’re talking about that girlfriend of yours. What was her name? Carmen Hernandez?\nClay caught me by surprise, with his response. Still, I tried to use that to my advantage. “I’m glad you’re no stranger to my life story, but you didn’t answer the question. Can you get her out of Cuba?”\n“I want to help you, Tom. I really do, but I can’t promise anything. I can tell you this, though. I have connections in Panama, and they have connections in Cuba. There is a chance we can work something out, but like I said, there are no guarantees. So, now I ask you, can you live with this?”\n“I guess I have no choice.” I looked at the map, then back to Clay. “It’s a go from where I sit.”\nClay shook my hand. “Congratulations. You’re now a member of my club.”\nI looked around the room and saw it was still empty. “Since our business is done, does this place serve breakfast?”\nClay gave me a sad smile. “Sorry, Tom. But there’s a place I highly recommend, just down the street. It’s called Benedict’s. If you like a Southern style breakfast, you’ll love what they serve down there. Tell Clyde, I sent you.”\nI shook his hand one last time and went out the door. I went up the road for two blocks and sat down at a diner. It was a Denny’s.\nNovember 14, 1963\nIf I had one strong connection in the mafia, it was my relationship with Sam Giancana, and now I was meeting with him.\n“I know the plan sounds perfect,” Sam wailed. “But believe me, nothing’s perfect. When people are involved, you can never guarantee the outcome of anything. We may have the Dallas police in our back pocket, but if something should fall in their laptop, they may have no other choice but to do the right thing, which would be the wrong thing for us.”\n“I hope it doesn’t come down to that,” I replied. “When you deal with anyone or anything at that high a level, alibis and excuses run out quickly.”\n“Hey, Tommy Boy, take it easy. Like I said, we’ve got your back. To Shaw and the Feds, you’re nothing but a liability. But to us, you’re family. And what does family do? They protect each other. If things should go south, we’ve got you covered.”\n“Honestly, Sam, I not worried about that. I know you to be a man of your word. All you had to say was I’ve got your back, and I would have been satisfied. But what worries was how fast Shaw agreed to try to get Carmen out of Cuba. It was as if he knew I was going to ask them about her. Clay gave me the impression they have already been looking into this. But what really scares me is, I know they wouldn’t do it out of the kindness of their hearts. I’m afraid they’ll try to use her to get leverage on me to do more of their dirty work. I hate to admit it, but I hope the Feds don’t find her.”\n“I’ll tell you, Tommy Boy, those FED agents didn’t get the nickname Spooks for being so white. They’re soulless creatures who would sell their mothers, to get their hooks into the likes of you. Do yourself a favor. When this is done, get out of the government business side of what you do. Life ain’t worth living if you have to watch your back, wondering if your employer is going to stick a knife in it.”\n “To tell the truth Sam, I’ve never thought about that before. In all the years I’ve been doing this, I’ve only thought about how I was going take out my target and escape with my life. Nothing else.\nAs for my missions, Castro was the only one who survived my attack. I can’t even imagine what the world would be like if I succeeded and that’s what pains me the most.”\nSam gazed at me. “Hey Tommy Boy. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’ve been meaning to ask. How do you do it? How do you kill so many people and be able to look at yourself in a mirror? I know I’ve had my share of run ins with punks and had to put their lights out, but you? You must have killed hundreds and every time I see you, it’s as if you lived your life as a saint. You don’t even swear and because of that, I won’t swear around you either. You’re a good man Tommy, but you’re still scary.”\n“To tell the truth, Sam, I don’t know how I do it either. Before I go out on a mission, I think about that person or the people who are close to them. Each time I ask myself, is it worth it? But when I have my target in sight, all of that disappears. All I see in front of me is an adversary who’s barely worth my time to even look at. I would take him out and that’s it. No regrets or nightmares to follow. As for the people close to him, I know I’m doing them a favor, ridding them of such a creature from their lives.\n“What about me, Tommy Boy? What do you see when you look at me?”\n“Honestly, when I look at you, I see a brother I never had. You’re the closest thing I have to family.”\nSam was silent, as he looked at me in wonderment. Finally, he spoke. “It touches me when you say things like that. I only hope I can live up to your expectations.”\n“Don’t try too hard. Just be yourself and you’ll do fine.”\n“I’m not too sure about that. If you about some of the things I’ve done in the past, you may think differently.”\n“What I don’t know, won’t hurt me.”\n“In that case, Tommy Boy, I hope you never find out.”\nI wasn’t naïve. I knew the line of work Sam was involved with placed him on a level near mine. If anything, it brought us closer together.\nWhen we finished, I went home and began packing for my trip to Houston.\n\nNovember 21, 1963\nWhen I arrived at Houston Intercontinental Airport, there was no fanfare, no one to greet, or escort me. I was utterly alone. I picked up a rental car and began my trek north on US 75 towards Dallas. The trip took longer than I planned due to all the road construction going on. By the time I reached downtown Dallas, the sun was about to set.\nAs the shadows grew longer, I drove to Love field and traced out the parade route. I figured I had time to complete this once, before to became too dark. When I completed the route, I found myself agreeing with Clay Shaw. The best place to shoot from was the fenced off parking lot by Dealey Plaza.\nWhen I drove to the entrance of the parking lot, I discovered it had minimal security with free access. Reserved parking spots ran along the edge of the knoll and being a so-called holiday, I decided it would be safe to park there in the morning.\nMinutes later, I was driving back to Denton Drive. On the back of the map Clay gave me, there was an address I had to visit. As I went further down the road, the streetlights became dimmer and fewer. Finally, I arrived at a house compressed between many. Judging by the masses of Hispanic people roaming the neighborhood and the way they were dressed I knew they there were mostly illegal immigrants.\nBravely, I walked up to the door and knocked on it, not knowing if I would be greeted by a friendly face or a bullet. When the door opened, a middle-aged Hispanic man quizzically peered at me. At that moment, I wasn’t sure if he was going to let me in or close the door on my face, but when I said, “Clay Shaw sent me,” in fluent Spanish, he relaxed.\n“Ah! Clay Shaw. Si, he’s a good man. You must be Tom. I’m Palbo. I’ve been waiting for you. Come inside, my amigo. We’ve got business to take care of.”\nAs we walked through the house, we passed several groups of people who I assumed were poor families, living in squalor.\n“Don’t worry about them,” Pablo said. “They’ve got nothing to do with us.” Then he opened a door leading down to the basement.\nWhen we descended the stairs, I found myself in a wide-open room. Pablo went to a corner of the room and pulled a rifle out of a crate. Then, he handed it to me. I couldn’t believe my eyes. “How does Clay think I’ll be able to hit my target with this piece of garbage? Carcano infantry rifles are known to abide to Murphy’s Law.”\nPablo shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know anything about that, senor. All I know is this is what they want you to use. If you wish, you can zero it down here. The walls are thick, and no one will hear you shooting.” He pointed towards the far wall. “See, senor, down there? It’s a target. It’s twenty-five feet from this mark on the floor to the target. I know you’re used to something more luxurious, but what can I say? This’ll do in a pinch.” He handed an ammo clip to me.\nThis is ridiculous, I thought. If the feds are so adamant on assassinating the president, why supply me with such an antiquated weapon to carry out such a deed? I knew it was no use arguing with myself over it. Instead, I loaded the clip in the rifle and assumed the prone position. Within thirty minutes, I had zeroed the weapon.\nNovember 22, 1963, 7:22 a.m.\nAs the sun began to rise, I started the car and drove back down Denton Drive. The night before, a saw a restaurant that I thought would be safe to dine in. With neighborhood filled with illegal aliens, I knew, the police, even if they tried, could never find anyone willing to talk to them about anything, including seeing me.\nAs soon as I walked in, I was greeted by a waitress. “Welcome to Manolo’s. My name is Carmen and I’ll be serving you today. May I get you some coffee, while you look at the menu?”\nWhen the waitress spoke her name, my heart leaped out of my chest. I knew it wasn’t my Carmen, but when she said her name, I could help but pine for my Carmen. The moment passed and I regained my senses. “Everything on the menu looks good, but since you know it better than me, please order for me. You should know what’s best.”\nShe scribbled on the ticket and smiled. “Very well, sir. I’ll be right back. Enjoy your coffee, while you wait.”\nA few minutes later, she returned carrying a plate with something that was not American. “Here you go, sir. This is called Huevos a la Mexicana. The cook here is well known around here for making this.”\nI tried a bite and smiled. “This is delicious.” I took another bite. “Give the cook my compliments.” The waitress returned to the kitchen, as I wolfed down the rest of my meal. When I finished my coffee, I left a ten-dollar tip on the table. If nothing else went right today, at least I can say I had the best breakfast of my life.\nNovember 22, 1963, 8:40 a.m.\nBy the time I returned to the parking lot at Dealey Plaza, two cars were parked next to each other by the fence, so I parked in a spot next to them. Then I opened the back door and tore out the back seat, placed the rifle in the trunk, squirrelled in afterwards, and replaced the seat, giving the car the appearance of being empty. Then, I played the waiting game.\nNovember 22, 1963, 12:15 p.m.\nAs the morning dragged on, I thought I was cooking in an oven. Doubts began to flood my mind as I laid there. I thought, it’s not too late if I wanted to back out. Yes, I made be chased for the rest of my life, but so what? Chances were, I would be anyway. Life would go on and Kennedy would be voted in for a second term.\nBut that’s not what the world needs. If that should happen, Communism would flourish, becoming a cancer, which couldn’t be stopped. I knew I had no alternative. I stepped out of the car, ready to meet my destiny.\nNovember 22, 1963, 12:27 p.m.\nAs I lay by the edge of the fence, shouts and cheers of the onlookers began to rise, as the motorcade approached. When the President’s limo came into view, I saw him waving to the crowd. Each time he turned towards me I couldn’t help but imagine he was inviting me to shoot at him. I wasn’t about to refuse his request.\nLike a machine, I pressed the butt of the rifle against my shoulder and drew him in my sight. As I was about to squeeze the trigger, I heard a shot being fired. Then a moment later, there was a second. Some else was shooting at the president! I thought. As blood began to run Kennedy's neck, I began to panic. Any second now, the limo would speed off, leaving me unable to take out my target. My failure with the Castro assassination attempt was about to repeat itself.\nBut then, as if I were in a dream, the limo continued its slow pace. As it treaded down the road, I took aim again and readied myself. As I squeezed the trigger, the third shot rang out." } ]

[ { "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: Make Me A Match\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 2988\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with a character taking a leap of faith." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I wiped my palms over my denim-clad thighs, anxiety growing and surprising me with its intensity. I hated to admit that I was sweating this meeting, but I was.\n“So, what made you want to hire a matchmaker, Nate Collins?” Geneva Malone, CEO of Malone Matchmakers folded her hands on top of her large mahogany desk and leaned forward, one perfectly shaped eyebrow inquisitively arched.\nMy entire body heated, Geneva’s penetrating gaze like a laser beam searing right through me. I hadn’t felt as on the spot since standing on stage during the second grade spelling bee. I’d misspelled strength. Those silent letters got me every time.\nI wondered now why I had let my sister talk me into this.\n“It’s time my younger bro.”\n“By five minutes,” I’d mumbled.\nLike the know-it-all “older” sibling she was, Nat had laughed, slapped me on the back and asked, “What else are you going to spend your fortune on?”\nI could think of a few things and none of them included me paying through the nose for a hook-up. Although Nat had insisted hiring a matchmaking service was way more advanced and reliable than swiping right. She agreed that yes, if I wanted a hook-up then just keep swiping. But if I was serious about wanting to settle down—and let’s face it, I was—then Malone Matchmakers was the service for me. They had helped Nat find her fiancé after all and I had to admit, Michael and my sister were one of the most happy, stable couples I’d ever seen.\nNat assured me she wasn’t steering me toward this particular company because her friend was the head of it, but because Malone Matchmakers was the best.\nHer testimonial was encouraging, but unnecessary. I knew Nat would never recommend something that she didn’t sincerely believe in or that she didn’t think was good for me. \n“But if you want to continue letting Mom set you up on her infamous blind dates, who am I to argue?” At this, my twin had shrugged her shoulders, her ultimate mic-drop tactic.\nShe knew me too well, knew that I couldn’t resist a challenge and that she had piqued my interest and curiosity about her friend’s business. \n“That’s a loaded question,” I said to Geneva now.\n“Only the first of many.”\nI took a deep breathe, growing even warmer, as if I had stuck my head in an oven. Why was I suddenly feeling like a middle aged woman in the throes of menopause?\nI didn’t like not being in control or out of my comfort zone and in this arena, Geneva Malone was the one in charge, not me.\nMy area of expertise remained technology. I was the behind-the-scenes talent of the company I co-owned with my college friend. My partner was the front man, handling all the publicity and public appearances, a master at glad-handing and pressing the flesh. Dealing with people was not my forte, never had been, which, as my sister put it, was part of my problem. I needed to get out of my comfort zone to meet the woman of my dreams.\n“You seem a little nervous,” Geneva said.\n“That obvious?”\nShe chuckled, the smoky sound shooting straight to my groin and making me hard.\nI didn’t remember being this turned on by her voice over the phone, but then I hadn’t been confronted with the astuteness and depth of her dark gaze or the idea that she seemed to have the ability strip me bare with her eyes.\n“I promise you, the process is not as unpleasant as you might think. And if you’re really committed and follow the steps, the end result will be highly rewarding.”\nI didn’t know about the not as unpleasant part, but I liked Geneva’s confidence and that went a long way to engender my trust and respect. I could see why she and Nat were friends and why Malone Matchmakers was so successful; with such a determined, passionate and strong black woman at the company’s helm, I didn’t wonder why.\nAs bold and fearless as I was in my own business, it had taken me digging deep for the courage to sign up with Malone Matchmakers. I still wasn’t sure it had been the best idea except sitting across from the CEO made me wonder if my search was definitively over and I was already looking at my match.\nFor someone who’d made a fortune in the tech sector counting on cool logic and keen insight, flights of fancy and romanticism were not ideals I abided. In fact, I frowned on both at every turn. Hence my need for Malone’s services.\nThe fact that Geneva Malone was my sister’s best friend should have made me more comfortable than I was, but it didn’t. I’d never met her, after all, miracle of miracles, so had no framework with which to judge her except as an accomplished entrepreneur who specialized in matching people with their ideal mates. \nGeneva sat back in her chair and flipped through the portfolio on her desk, expression intent as the silence in the room—except for intermittent page flipping—grew until I thought I would burst from sitting still for so long. I didn’t like being idle for any length of time, felt like I might miss an opportunity if I wasn’t always on, something that could have been construed as a character flaw, except it had gotten me where I was today.\nWatching Geneva, however—drinking in her exotic, caramel-complexioned splendor like a thirsty plant soaking up the sun—was more energizing to me than my usual morning jogs or a hard-earned breakthrough in the lab.\nHad coming here already turned my brain into idealistic mush?\nProbably wasn’t such a good idea falling for someone at first sight, especially not one’s matchmaker…and my sister’s best friend.\n“Why don’t we start with the tough questions and move from there.”\nI nodded, wondering what could have been tougher than the required written interview I’d completed before this in-person appointment.\nI certainly couldn’t fault Malone Matchmakers for not being thorough, but I had thought the initial interview questions incredibly intrusive and uncomfortable. Not to mention, Geneva had to be aware of at least some of my background since she and Nat had more than likely shared personal family information over the years.\n“I know you’re thinking this process is repetitive, but trust me, it’s necessary. You’ll reveal more during our in-person interview even if I ask you the same questions you’ve already answered on paper. Getting information from the horse’s mouth and your body language and mannerisms count for a lot.”\nThat’s what I was afraid of.\nWould she uncover how attracted to her I was and that I was a besotted fool for falling so fast? Was there room for, or did she believe in love at first sight in her business? Or was the concept and the thoroughness of the matchmaking process mutually exclusive?\nI emerged from my brain fog to the sound of Geneva’s sultry voice and the sight of her staring at me with her striking dark-brown gaze. “I’m sorry?”\n“I asked, what’s your relationship with your father?”\nI didn’t have a relationship with my father. And wow, didn’t she just jump in feet first! I didn’t remember that question being on the written interview. It might have scared me away, despite Nat’s endorsement of the process.\nI didn’t want to be confrontational but mention of my and Nat’s dear old sperm donor tended to put me in a bad place. A place where frustrating memories of our mother working her fingers to the bone at multiple jobs to put food on the table and keep a roof over all our heads abounded. I didn’t like going back there; it was one of the main reasons I’d never wanted to see a psychotherapist. I didn’t need to pay a professional to tell me what I already knew, except wasn’t that what I was doing here at Malone’s? Paying a professional to help me do something I had so far failed to do on my own?\nThe only positive thing about my father’s disappearing act remained the motivation it had provided me to excel at school and business. I’d never wanted to be a drain on society, fail the ones I loved or leave them in the lurch the way my father had left me, Nat and Mom. I never wanted anyone crying their eyes out or their heart aching over my abandonment the way my mother wept and ached over my father. That had to be the cruelest thing one could do to someone, just leave without a trace or a reason.\nGeneva stared, patiently waiting for me to vocalize the painful realities of my childhood growing up with a single mother in a stereotypically fatherless household. \n“Can we move on to another question?”\n“Procrastination only puts off the inevitable.”\n“Is that a personal or business motto?”\n“They’re interchangeable.”\nLooks like she might have just answered my unspoken question about love at first sight.\n* * *\n Concentrating on Nate’s responses once I had finally gotten him to open up about himself was far more difficult than I had thought it would be.\nI’d never had an issue before. Attractive, even exceptionally gorgeous male clients came a dime a dozen in my profession. Of course, none of them had walked through my door shortly after I’d completed my own profile on the recommendation of one Natalie Collins, my best and most trusted friend since college. And none of said men had come up as my perfect match before. The yin to my yang, his every facet complementing mine.\nThe deeper we went into the interview and the more questions to which Nate responded—background, values, relationship goals, what country he felt personified him, even down to the amount of kids he wanted to have—the more I realized Nat had all the makings of a world-class matchmaker and that I needed to hire her forthwith.\nBefore Nate’s arrival I hadn’t believed in love at first sight as I had, surprisingly, never experienced it. I said surprisingly because I considered myself a passionate woman open to all possibilities where love and romance were concerned, yet I’d never experienced the sort of connection with any of my past lovers or boyfriends as I had in my one-on-one with Nate.\nFor all of the above reasons, I probably should have stopped the interview as soon as it became clear that all of Nate’s responses made him a match for the CEO of Malone Matchmakers.\nI stood with my cellphone in hand and circled my desk. “Would you excuse me for a moment? I have to take this.” I watched as Nate’s thick brows drew together in a frown and I broke every rule in the book when I squeezed his shoulder on my way out of the office. I didn’t know whether the squeeze had been to soothe him or me, except the look of confusion in his wide gray eyes made my heart stutter with sympathy.\nI would have drowned in his gaze had I stood staring into it a moment longer. Except for his gender, he was the spitting image of my friend—same dark-chocolate skin, which accentuated the magnetism of their light eyes—same finely-sculpted features.\nNate Collins was like a piece of living art. The memory of his beauty stamped on my brain and the spicy scent of his cologne lingered in my nostrils as I closed the door behind me and leaned against the expensive heavy wood. I preferred the privacy afforded by an old-fashioned wooden door over the more popular glassed-in offices. \nI took several deep breaths before scrolling through my Contacts and dialing Nat.\n“Hey, what’s up?”\n“You didn’t tell me,” I accused.\n“Tell you what?”\n“That you were hooking me up with your brother.”\n“What makes you say that?”\n“Don’t give me that innocent tone,” I said, shivers running up my spine at my friend’s laughter. “You knew exactly what you were doing when you suggested I fill out a profile.”\n“I thought since you had hooked me up with the love of my life, I could return the favor. So, have you?\n“I didn’t personally hook you up. My company—”\n“Semantics. So have you?”\n“Have I what?”\n“Have you found your match?”\n“As if you don’t know.”\n“I wasn’t a hundred percent certain, but I had a hunch.”\nI knew better than anyone how important hunches were in this business; following mine had made me the success I was today and had helped me match hundreds of couples in the seven years my company had been in business. \nI’d wanted to help individuals find love and more of a happily ever after than my mother had experienced, more of a happily ever after than Natalie and Nate’s mother had experienced. This desire had served me well when it came to bringing together other couples, but seemed to get in the way when it came to finding a match for me.\nMaybe it was time I focused on my own happily ever after.\n“What am I supposed to do now? I can’t continue our interview. I’ll have to pass him off to someone else.” I could imagine how Nate would take that. I’d only just gotten him to trust me, practically made him open his veins. He’d take my passing him off to one of my associates, no matter how skilled and intuitive they were, as a dismissal and he’d have every right to be insulted and bewildered.\n“You know you would have met him at my wedding anyway,” Nat said.\n“Would I have though?” It sounded cold and judgmental when I said it out loud like that, but Nat’s brother had been a notorious no-show for all sorts of family events to which I had managed to make. So much so, I’d begun to wonder if his absences had been deliberate.\nHad he thought his sister or mother was trying to hook him up even then? Had he not been ready? Was he ready now?\n“You would have,” Nat stated. “It’s not like I get married every day.”\nTrue and Nat’s sounding so certain put my mind at ease.\nShe had never seemed to have an issue with Nate not making it to every birthday or other events, always defending his workaholism because, she’d said, when she got right down to the nitty-gritty, she knew she could count on her brother and her brother knew he could count on her.\nI admired their bond and relationship. Growing up alone with my single mother made my father’s absence ten times worse. I hadn’t had a sibling to lean on or confide in, which made my friendship with Nat special, a friendship I didn’t want to mess up mixing business with personal. But hadn’t I already done that, helping Nat and Michael?\nAt least I understood why Natalie and her mother had always been so accepting of Nate’s nonappearances.\nWas he finally ready to focus less on his job, however, settle down and be present for a family of his own? Could he and I make a go of it despite our pasts and emotional baggage?\nI had matched up individuals with far more issues than mine and Nate’s and there was only one way to find out if he and I had what it took to make a relationship work. “Thanks for listening, Nat. I’ve got a match to make.”\n“Go get him, girl!”\nI couldn’t just barge in and declare us a match. I had to be transparent with Nate though, full disclosure, and move from there.\nI took another deep breath, feeling like the tables had turned since I’d left the office to call Natalie, but this was okay. Despite my well-earned reputation as a ball-buster who ran a tight ship, I didn’t have a problem showing vulnerability, especially with a partner. Key word, partner, someone with whom to give and take. It would devastate me if I put myself out there for the first time in years only to be rejected, but if I didn’t try, I’d never know if Nate was right for me—if we were right for each other.\n“Everything okay?” Nate asked as soon as I retook my seat across from him.\nWas I that obviously unsettled or was he that attuned to my mood?\nI’ll take the latter for $200, Alex.\n“It depends on how you take what I’m about to tell you.”\n“Sounds heavy.”\n“I’m your match,” I blurted.\n“Did my sister put you up to this?”\nI laughed. “It seems our dear Natalie has been busy moonlighting as matchmaker.”\n“A dangerous activity in the wrong hands.” Nate grinned.\n“I agree.” I searched his face for any hint of his thoughts besides the evident amusement. \n“How do you feel about her horning in on your territory?”\n“To tell you the truth, I was initially perturbed when I found out what she’d done.”\n“Now?”\n“I’m thankful. And you?”\n“After you’d left the office I’d told myself to be bold, come out with how I was feeling about you and make a proposal.”\n“Indecent I hope.”\n“Depends.” Nate leaned forward in his chair, face serious as if he was about to deliver a blow. “How averse would you be to dating a client?”\n“Not at all if he was my match.”\n“I was hoping you’d say that.” Nate reached across the desk and took my hand in his, an innocent but sensual move that made my heart flutter. “Nice to finally meet you after all these years, Geneva Malone.”\n“Nice to finally meet you, Nate Collins. I’ve heard almost nothing about you.”\nNate chuckled and the deep sound reverberated through me as if I was a tuning fork. “I guess you realize, you’re officially fired,” he murmured.\nI’d never welcomed losing a client more." } ]

[ { "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: BITTER ABANDONMENT\n\nGenre: american\n\nWord Count: 1345\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story in a coffee shop without using obvious words to describe it (e.g. barista, coffee cup.)" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "BITTER ABANDONMENT\n\nWhat the hell am I doing here? I must be insane. When I say here, I mean in this situation but, come to think of it, I also mean this place. I never normally come to locations like this. In fact, I can’t, for the life of me, get what attracts people. I mean, as a place to meet and talk it hardly qualifies with all those background noises: hissing, grinding, banging, humming, gurgling and whistling going on. As for the smell and the bitter taste. Yuck! Just not for me. And I bet, if they were really honest, a lot of so called devotees would say the same. Actually, for a lot of them, it’s just a part of being trendy, accepted. It’s a sort of fashion accessory, if you like. Every morning, on every city street, thousands walking back and forth, briefcases or handbags in one hand and a polystyrene cup in the other.\n\nPathetic!\n\nAs for the food in these places, it’s a joke, especially early in the day. I rarely eat breakfast as it happens but, if I do, I want eggs, preferably with bacon. That’s what I call breakfast food, even if it’s served up in a roll. But avocado? Forget it. Another fad that I just don’t get; green, tasteless mush. Who wants that for breakfast? They do a cheese and ham croissant, which is just about passable, but, if you order it, they zap it to death in the microwave. The French invented the croissant, for pity’s sake. Ever had a zapped croissant in France? Never!\n\nBut what really mystifies me is how on earth they make any money. Maybe I’m missing something but a pal of mine owned a restaurant and he explained the simplified way to figure out if a place was worth leasing. Say a restaurant has fifty seats and opens for lunch and dinner. Assuming that you are fully booked for both sittings (which is highly unlikely) that means that you will have one hundred paying customers per day. If an average meal costs twenty bucks and you are open six days per week, that means a total of twelve thousand dollars in total income per week. Sounds okay but, one third goes towards food costs, another third towards staff wages and rent, leaving just four thousand dollars over at the end of the week.\n\nApply that same logic to these types of establishments, where the average spend per customer is probably only five dollars and you would need to have quadruple the number of customers each day. Not really feasible, right?\n\nAnd, while I’m at it, what’s the big deal about brownies? Chocolate biscuit? I get it. Chocolate cake? I get that even more. But brownies? Jeez, they’re neither one nor the other; and they’re usually stale and days old, in my limited experience.\n\nBut here I am and, like I said, I must be insane. What possessed me to agree to this meeting? The very fact that she chose this location kind of indicates to me that we’re just not going to get along. She has to be a coffee drinker. It was only when they came to me that I had even the slightest morsel of curiosity. Before that, I can honestly say that I had never given it a second thought. Why would I?\n\nA lot of people do it just to get on TV but I have zero desires for that. In fact, I hate my private life being so exposed like this. Detest would be a more apt adjective. I’m sitting here now, staring out of this window and expecting her to arrive in a cab at any moment, knowing that it is all a huge mistake. You can’t turn back the clock. Or, at least, the last time I looked, you couldn’t. Inside of me, I’m not excited, not even curious anymore. My instincts are telling me to get up and leave; go now before it’s too late. This whole thing is going to be an utter disaster. It is! I know it.\n\nA small part of me, a very small part, is saying to just pretend; force a smile. React how they want me to, just like all those others on previous shows. Do that, at least. What happens afterwards is nobody’s concern. They’ll have their show in the can and she and I can go our separate ways and act as if this had never happened.\nBut, as I sit here, posing, with this cup in front of me, that I will never touch, I’m struggling to get myself together to put on any kind of performance. The truth is that, although I had never even thought about it before they approached me, now, I actually feel a real rage for what she did. It, literally, fills me with loathing. It’s something I just can’t bring myself to understand. How could anybody do that to a child?\n\nOh no, here comes that guy; I can never remember his name, the one who presents this show. That means she is close. He’d better not try and hug me like he does others, every week, complete strangers, as if they are bosom friends. Watching that makes me want to puke; so false. Just keep him at a distance with your body language. That’s it; hold out your hand giving him no choice other than to shake. Ooh, that look. He doesn’t like that; not good TV. Well, it’s the best you’re getting out of me, friend. You hunted me down, invaded my privacy. Why should I feel the slightest bit of gratitude towards you, you phoney.\n\nI see the cab pull up and, for the first time, my stomach clenches tightly. Maybe, I have been wrong about this. Maybe, this can be a good thing. Oh no! Oh, dear God, I should have listened to my original feelings and got the hell out before she arrived. Jeez! She looks like she hasn’t washed her hair in weeks. What’s that all about? You’re about to be on national TV, woman. Have you no pride?\n\nShe’s old, of course. I expected that. But there’s old and then there’s old. The years have, obviously, not been kind to her. Plus, she looks nothing like me. Oh my God, here he goes, cameras following. Hugging and kissing her in greeting. Seriously, I’m going to spew my guts up. I just want out of here. I can’t pretend; I just can’t.\n\nCome on, man, just grimace, at least. The cameras are on you. Make the effort. Oh no, she’s seen me, is rushing towards me, arms out to embrace me. Please God, no. Damn! Oh my God, she reeks of cigarettes; a smoker. I hadn’t thought of that. Get her off me, for God’s sake.\n\nDon’t say it. Do not say it! Don’t tell me that there hasn’t been a day in the last forty years when you haven’t thought of me.\n\nAagghh! Why? Why did you have to say that? It’s what they all say. Every mother who abandoned their child at birth. All liars. You’re no different to them. In fact, you’re worse. I’m lucky that you never brought me up. Look at the state of you. I’ve had a good life, reared by a foster mother who actually loved and cared for me, taught me the evils of tobacco and alcohol and drugs, moulded me into the man I am today. She might not have been my birth mother but so what? I am a God fearing, church going, righteous man.\n\nI have nothing in common with you; nothing! I can’t do this. I don’t care if you are suffering remorse for your actions. You deserve to suffer for what you did. I’m out of here. And as for you, Mr.TV, whatever your name is, track me down again and I’ll make you sorry, okay? And, mother dearest, you know nothing whatsoever about me but here’s a little something to remember me by: I... bloody... hate... coffee!" } ]

[ { "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: Seering Into Evil...\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 2422\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with an ending and work backward toward the beginning." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "His limp corpse started to grow cold. The echo of the gunshots dissipated after a minute. The fleeing birds and howl of wolves faded soon after. I couldn't stop staring down at him. The heavy revolver almost dropped out of my hand until I came back to reality and slipped it back in my pocket. The bundling storm of nerves causing jitter finally faded. All he was now was a corpse. Another slab of meat in the lonely cabin in the middle of a winter wilderness. The old crone was just another elderly that would have another funeral with people all gathered to make sure that the truth was actually that: that David Hotchins was dead. His dark and white patchy skin grew leathery and synthetic the more I stared at it and his withering hair became soaked in blood.\nThey wouldn't want to see him like this. Ma definitely wouldn't want to. But I do. So long I urged for this moment. This moment to see such a kind, benevolent man who helped thousands be left a stain on the floor. You wouldn't understand. Not yet at least. Maybe if I take you back to the beginning you’d understand why I had to do this. Why David Hotchins had to die.\n--------\nSeptember 21. The first official day of fall. The school year was still starting and it was already becoming chilly in Blue Island. Guess that's what we get for being a suburb around the “Windy City”. It was a low-income town, a ‘trap’ others would call it. With taxes so high, that even if you could save enough after working your entire life at Mcdonald’s to find a way out, it would still swallow you whole. That’s where I grew up. I was an only child, single mother, but with a neighborhood full of lively but suspicious neighbors, I was right at home. I’m surprised I didn't get swallowed by the prison complex.\nI was an “odd” kid. I tried to fit in, act normal, but some silky impulse told me otherwise and made me stand out like a welt on a sphynx cat. The old folks and wary parents were right. Ma called it the devil. Mrs. Chidubem, the only widow that was just as weird as I, said I was blessed by the Orishas. I didn't know what the hell to make of it. I thought the voices were some childhood delusion I had but after a while, I knew the truth after hearing a classmate make a comment on how Mrs. Shoemaker’s toes looked like goblin’s feet. Only he didn't say it out loud. I call it Seering. Seering into the minds of others and learning their darkest secrets.\nIt used to be just for spying on school crushes or nosing around my neighborhood. That changed when David Hotchins entered the neighborhood. From a town over, Harvey, Illinois, born and raised in that old broken downtown but somehow found a way out, a way to Harvard college, only to come back here and run for mayor for Blue Island. He’d made it a routine for him to stop by the neighborhood and check on the people. He’d host water parties in the summer with melted popsicles in the park and snowball fights in the winter. Sometimes, he’d help feed the homeless lying around town, even come along and offer lectures to the school kids.\nWe thought he was a god-given blessing. We thought he was actually making a difference in the town. I thought otherwise. Then again I was often looked at as the outsider of my neighborhood, rumors always circling about me. That I was crazy. That I was abused as a kid by my mother, maybe an ex of hers slapped me around too much and made me weird. They couldn't just accept the fact that their little secrets aren't safe in their heads anymore. That meant Hotchins' secrets weren't either.\nI was taught to stay under the radar and remain to myself, no matter how much I tried to fit in. The other people reminded me of that rule every day. It took me ten years to take my Seering to lengths where I still didn't fit in, but I was the most important asset to the C.I.A. I got a glimpse of how important I could be when on one Thursday, on the first day of fall, David Hotchins came around. I’ll admit, I was excited alongside the other kids in the neighborhood to see him. He walked on the sidewalks like any normal person, no entourage, no news crews, just him by his lonesome. Even in the chill air, he looked decent. Ebony skinned with a shaved head and a bushy mustache to cover the constant disgust he had for us secretly. He always wore fine jackets, double-breasted, with some maroon or dark red underneath, with his black leather gloves and click-clacking shoes.\n“How we doing Mrs. Jefferson?” he’d wave to an old woman and she’d show her dentures and he’d continue on his way. His way to who he really wanted to see. \nHer house was next to mine, a brick two-story that was old, but taken care of well by her father. Hotchins went by there as much as he could, act as if he would talk up a storm with her father, and mother, but in reality, came to see her. It was autumn, yes, not hot and revealing like summer, but it didn't matter to him. He loved to see his favorite girl.\nNow I’ll admit, for twelve years old, Deshae was a little “fast” according to the neighborhood old ladies that would gossip about everybody. And she acted and dressed like it too. I used to pay no mind to that, I was too focused on trying to block out the constant buzzing in my head from open minds with loud DMX and The Beatles. Even when it was chilly, she still wore nearly torn leggings, brown boots, and a simple hoodie with that white and blue glittery striped scarf. She was cute, what we called “Redboned”, caramel unlike chocolate like everyone else, with hazel eyes and long curly hair, nearly golden in the sunlight. She was a beautiful sight for some. Fast to others. I didn't realize she was wearing all that and the heavy makeup just for me. \nMade it even more painful years later when I found that out.\nHotchins always made a note to stop and stare a little too long at Deshae. To her scrawny, a little slow of a father, it was nothing, not even to her mother swooning over the Harvard grad that she was hoping would sweep her by her feet and take her away from this town. But I saw it. He was eyeing the only girl, the only person who paid me some mind without looking at me like some beast. And Hotchins was looking at her like a meal.\nNo matter how loud DMX could get, the buzzing in my ears formed into voices, loud but with a tiny echo to let me know that I was seering into people’s minds. I knew who I was into. Whoever I thought of or paid enough attention to that’s where I would be seering into. I just didn't expect to hear what no child should hear from Hotchins.\nIt was... life-changing to say the least. Funny how that works. A person’s inner voice doesn't sound nowhere near as the one in real life. Hotchins was different. I would come to realize that that was just a tiny hint to his narcissism and inflated ego, but hey for now it was odd. Grotesque especially with the things he was thinking.\nWhen he left, Deshae came over to my front porch and we’d talk like always. I could hold it in anymore. I had to tell her.\n“I don't trust him,” I muttered.\n“Who?” he grinned at me.\n“David. The mayor. He’s scary. Don't go talking to him anymore.”\n“I think you’re tripping a little bit, Journey,” Dashae raised an eyebrow. “My dad loves him, my mom is in love with him.”\n“Don't tell me you are too.”\n“What's not to like. He’s tall, wealthy, attractive-”\n“A grown man.”\nDashae scoffed. “Too much of a man for you Journey?” she said. I didn't realize she was trying to make me jealous but when I sucked my teeth, she interpreted it as such. “Besides. Not enough men around here anyways. I need someone who...I don't know…”\n“We literally have an algebra test Thursday. What are you on about?”\n“He has a way with words...it's like…” she trailed off and stared into space. My ears buzzed until her thoughts entered my mind and I could pinpoint the rest. Old conversations with her and him, somehow when they were alone, reverberated into my consciousness. I still remember his words. The way they seemed soft and warm, but sent cold fingers down my body.\n“Dashae. You are not in love.”\n“And you are not a weirdo,” she turned and stared at me. I was growing frustrated and went to slip back on my headphones when I yanked them back off again. I grabbed Dashae, looked her dead in the eyes, and said “He’s dangerous! Don't you see that?!”\nShe yanked away from me and stood growing irritated. “Look Journey. I don't know what it is with you! I didn't know this would affect you this much!”\n“Of course it is! You're my friend. My best friend!”\nI hit a nerve somehow with her. Her eyes fluttered and I swear I could hear her heart jump. “Only friends…?”\nI stood. “Yea. you don't look at me like some...some demon or whatever. You’re cool.”\n“I’m just cool to you huh?” she stood closer to me and she went off. “You know why I hang out with you? Maybe it's because you're the only boy who doesn't try to get my number and sneak in my window! Or maybe it's because when I’m bored I can be entertained by the freak kid who says he can read minds!”\nI was too in my own feelings to hear the rest of what she was saying. I was slamming the door to my house before she could spit off more insults that I’ve heard a thousand times before. I wish I didn't. I wish I would have stayed out there, let her vent, and maybe she wouldn't have done what she did. If I was a better friend, I would have convinced her not to trust that bastard anymore than she already did. To mistrust him enough so that he didn't text her in the middle of the night and convince her to sneak out of her house and walk alone on the streets until a car came by and picked her up. Maybe then she’d still be with her family, would have gained the sense to focus on school more, got to college, maybe have a kid or two now. Not dead.\nSay what you will about David Hotchins, but I knew after that day that it was him that did it. It was him that picked her up and did things to her I don't want to think about. They never found her. Her parents are still hoping, even though her dad is nearly dead from the chronic smoking he made into a habit, and her mother who is too depressed to even go back to church and spends her days still making flyers and posts about her daughter on Facebook. And me? I lost my best friend. And I was too small and too shunned to do anything about it then. Until now.\nHaving the power to seer allowed me to breeze by school with ease. Surprisingly not by cheating though. Somewhere along the way a man by the name of Striker(yes Striker) found me, knew I had abilities, and recruited me out of college in the Central Intelligence agency. Trained me in everything I know. That was until he died and the program was in, PSYOPS was compromised. I disappeared, intent with a new purpose to fulfill that I should have done a long time ago.\nDavid Hotchins grabbed more girls too, this time more careful than the last. He was too well connected and rich with his elite friends that partook in the same shady human trafficking as he did. He finally retired and decided to spend the rest of his days in Alaska. Out of all the places an old man like himself to go to? Alaska?\nThere would be no record of me being there, after all, I didn't use commercial flights. Like other silencers before me, I could go anywhere in the world and not even the CIA’s satellite in the sky would not be able to pinpoint me, even though it could be staring at me taking a dump on the Lincoln monument. It's easy to acquire a weapon. A filed revolver, that would be disposed of later. I needed a revolver. I wanted to feel every shock of recoil, every sniff of gunpowder, and all six gunshots penetrate the scum’s body.\nWe humans actually have twenty-two senses, not just four. There’s pressure, temperature, pain, touch, interoceptors, etc. I learned how to suppress certain ones in others to make it so nobody even knew I was right behind them, with a gun in hand, ready to end their lives. I didn't do that with Hotchins. He heard his cabin door open and felt the cold draft come in. Smelled the firewood and felt his spine shudder when he appeared with his rifle and found me, the little boy known as Journey, now a grown man, looking at him dead in the eyes, telling him, seering into his head to drop the gun and stand at attention.\nI told him I knew about the others. I told him I knew about his friends. His old Harvard buddies and their little cult. Even the congressman he knew and how he liked to have a taste of little black girls, inside--and out. I let it sink into his head that I knew that Deshae Brown, twelve years old, was raped and murdered by him and left to rot in some forest where she would never be found. The only thing he could do was smile.\nFine. It made the six shots in the revolver feel even better when I pulled the trigger." } ]

[ { "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 Counter\n\nGenre: american\n\nWord Count: 1451\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story in a coffee shop without using obvious words to describe it (e.g. barista, coffee cup.)" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "It was only a coffee. How much simpler could that be? Decaf with skim milk and stevia. They didn’t have stevia; they only had Sweet n’ Lo. No big deal, she’d said. Fine, the waitress replied. Fine, again. Why had she had to say fine twice? That was weird. \n Jenn wasn’t that hungry, and she told the waitress as much. The waitress asked twice can I get you anything else? And twice Jenn said, no thank you. Twice. The first time she said it with a smile. No thank you, I’m not hungry.\n The waitress looked down at her and asked, Are you sure? You look as if you could use some meat on your bones.\n Who was she to say such a thing, thought Jenn. Here’s this biddy with some ancient blue waitress outfit on, down to a lacey apron that held pens and her order pads, telling her she could use some meat on her bones. She’s the one who could use the meat! And who wears eyeglass chains anymore?!? She looked like some characters from a 1950s Woolworth’s Jenn read about in some old magazine.\n The waitress walked to the kitchen, but not before looking over her puffy shoulder. She smiled. It was a catty smile. Meow, Jenn thought. Jenn picked up a menu from its stand to see if, maybe, there was a minimum charge as if she had to order something she didn’t want. All she wanted was a moment to herself before the job interview. She’d come in early, deliberately, to give herself some time. Imagine, having to order more than a simple cup of coffee in the middle of the morning in a coffee shop of all places. But no, there was nothing about a minimum. There was though a list of muffins, homemade muffins the menu boasted, hot and fresh. Maybe she was hungry. Maybe the coffee would help her decide.\n A chunky girl who could have been the waitress’s daughter brought her the coffee on a tray with a small milk pitcher, an old-fashioned metal thing with a lid that flipped off, and a pile of sugar packets. “Here you go Miss,” she said. “A fresh pot!” Jenn looked at the tray and then at the waitress. “I asked for Stevia. This is sugar.”\n The waitress could have rolled her eyes. “We don’t have Stevia, only Sweet n’ Lo. Do you want that?” Yes, said Jenn. Yes, that’s what I asked for. The waitress said she was sure Jenn had just asked for Stevia, which they didn’t have. Jenn apologized and said Sweet n’ Lo would do just fine. Why am I apologizing? That woman should do the apologizing!\nReal milk, not decaf.\n The waitress went through the swinging doors to the kitchen. She was there for an inordinately long time. What is she doing in there? Just get some Sweet n’ Lo. Jenn heard talking and was sure someone said something about “that woman at the counter.” Then laughter. At long last, the waitress came out, a small Lucite box in her hands with sugar, Sweet n’ Lo and, yes, Stevia. “Look what I found,” said the waitress. Well, isn’t she pleased with herself?\n “But you said you didn’t have Stevia,” said Jenn. There was an edge to her voice.\n “Apparently we do,” said the waitress. “That’s the last of it, I’m sure.”\n I just bet you are, thought Jenn. They probably have tons of it back there.\n Jenn added the Stevia to her cup and stirred. One, two, three. She always stirred six times. Six was her lucky number, but at three she heard more laughter from the kitchen and thought she heard her name. How dare they laugh at me? Then it occurred to her they couldn’t possibly know her name; she’d never been in the town let alone the coffee shop.\n An older man she hadn’t noticed spoke up from one of the booths. “I’d love to know what’s so funny,” he said. “I could use a laugh.” He was wearing blue overalls splotched with grease stains. A formerly white nametag with the word “Sully” etched in red thread was on a breast pocket. “You’d think they had some comedian in there,” he said. “I hope he’s clean. I don’t like the blue stuff some of these clowns do. Not my style.”\n Jenn swiveled on her stool. “Are you talking to me?” she asked.\n He looked around, exaggerating the effort. There was a smirk on his face. “I suppose I am seeing as how no one else is here.” He looked at her for a moment too long then lit a cigarette with a silver lighter. Zippo came to Jenn’s mind before she said, “I don’t think you can smoke in here. I don’t think you can smoke indoors anywhere.”\n The man shrugged and took a long drag. Drag, when was the last time I used the word drag? “I just mean I don’t want you to get in any trouble.” The man nodded, dropped the cigarette on the floor, and ground it out with his toe. “No ashtrays anyway,” he said before he got up and walked out. Most of a corn muffin was left sitting on a plate.\n Jenn still had a spoon in her coffee cup, which was cold by now. She called out “Miss” several times before the first waitress came out. “Sorry, but my coffee’s cold. Can I get a fresh cup? Decaf, remember?”\n The woman lifted the cup. “Doesn’t feel cold to me,” she said before spilling it into a sink behind the counter and refilling it from a pot with a green plastic spout on its edge. She looked over Jenn’s shoulder. “Say, what happened to him?” she asked.\n “He left,” said Jenn.\n “I’m not dim. I can see that,” said the waitress.\n “He was smoking, and I guess he knew it wasn’t allowed,” said Jenn.\n “It’s not. And walking out without paying isn’t allowed either,” said the waitress. “Did you say something to him?”\n Jenn confessed she’d mentioned she didn’t think cigarette smoking was allowed anywhere indoors, to keep him from getting in trouble. She didn’t, she insisted, ask, or even suggest he should leave.\n “Well, I’m out a coffee, a muffin, and the quarter tip,” said the waitress. Her face was a bit too close to Jenn’s. \n “I didn’t ask him to leave or anything. I really didn’t,” said Jenn.\n The waitress frowned. She muttered, “It ain’t your problem.” That bothered Jenn. Ain’t. What type of person uses that word in polite company? She thought the same type of person who would come to a coffee shop dressed in greasy garage overalls, smoke a cigarette, and leave without paying. Those two should be married.\n The waitress swung around to return to the kitchen when Jenn called out, “Excuse me, but I’ve changed my mind. I’d love, love, love a toasted corn muffin if you have. And a soft-boiled egg. Can I ask for those?”\n The waitress wrote down the order on her pad, looked back to Jenn, and asked, “Is that all?” Is that all? What’s it any of her business anyway? Isn’t an egg and a muffin enough?\n “No, that’ll be fine. I just got a bit peckish waiting for the fresh coffee,” she said.\n “Not much of a wait I hope,” said the waitress. Her head was tilted to one side. Her garish red lip-sticked-lips were taut.\n “Hardly,” said Jenn with a thin smile. That’ll teach her something.\n The waitress brought out the muffin, untoasted. Jenn reminded her she wanted it toasted “and with butter please.” The waitress grabbed the plate spilling the muffin on the counter. “I’ll get another,” she said. That one arrived, toasted, with a pat of butter on the side, with one soft-boiled egg in a cup.\n “Anything else?” said the waitress.\n “Just the check,” said Jenn.\n The waitress again returned to the kitchen, where Jenn was sure she heard more laughs. What are they doing in there? They should be out waiting for customers.\n She took a bite of the muffin. It wasn’t bad at all, and she put it in a napkin and then in her handbag for later. The bill was in order; coffee (it didn’t say de-caf), muffin (it didn’t say toasted with butter), and one boiled egg (it didn’t say soft-boiled). She heard more laughs, louder, with a man’s voice saying “You’re kidding” to more laughter.\n Jenn spilled the coffee on the counter, cracked the running egg into the puddle, and made sure the bill was nice and soaked in the mess. She did leave two quarters in it as well. The waitress, after all, deserved some tip." } ]

[ { "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: Another Queen on the Board\n\nGenre: american\n\nWord Count: 1127\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a scene in which a character’s behavior or reaction to something is affected by a past experience — without saying what that experience was." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "You can’t go home right now.\nGo to that pizza place that’s always open. Order the buffalo chicken. You have some cash on you from the other day when Uncle Greg slipped you a twenty. That’s enough for two slices. You can have some pizza and check your phone. Play some chess. You need to play more chess. You’re good, but you could be better. You always give up your bishops right off the bat. That’s no way to play. You gotta protect your pieces. I don’t care if the other guy is willing to give up his good pieces; that doesn’t mean you have to.\nSit and play chess and keep your head down and take slow bites to let a little time go by. They’re open until two, and they stay open even if there’s nobody in there, so it’s not like you have to rush. Two is when they close, so there’s no reason for you to be heading back home until at least two fifteen. Park closer to the Marriott so you can give yourself a walk back to the car. That’ll kill some time too. It’s warm out tonight so, if you wanted, you could walk all over town until the sun comes up. You could head home at dawn, or you could wait until 7am when that diner opens up and get yourself a nice breakfast. They take cards there. Not like the pizza place. The pizza place is probably laundering money. Never trust a cash business. I wouldn’t even be sending you in there, but they’re the only ones open late in this town.\nIt’s safe though. It’s safe and it’s warm out, and those are things you should be taking advantage of, right? When it gets colder, it’s trickier. Then you have to come home. You don’t really have a choice. Remember when you tried to sleep in your car? That didn’t go so well, did it? You also picked a bad spot for it. I never would have told you to park in front of that Walmart, but you weren’t listening to me that night, were you? Tonight, you’re going to listen, right? You’re a much better listener now than you used to be. I’ll give you that.\nYou’re lucky it’s staying warm later on in the year. That means the world is screwed in the long-term, but for you, it’s good news, isn’t it? It means it might be November or December before you need to start heading home right when the clock strikes two. You better just pray that the pizza place never goes out of business, because then you’ll have to start hanging out in the city again at some of the sketchier spots. You know you can’t be going home any earlier than you already are. You know what’ll happen if you do that, don’t you?\nDo you remember that one time you came home right after midnight? Do you remember what a bad idea that was? I mean, right after midnight? What were you thinking? Sleeping in your car was bad, but compared to coming home at 12:15? My god, 12:15? I’m surprised you’re still walking around coming home at a time like that. You should be ashamed of yourself, you really should. You know better. You do know better, don’t you?\nWell, I guess we all make mistakes. I know it was raining that night, and you’d been working all day at the Dairy Queen. I know you were exhausted, and you just wanted to go to sleep, but we can’t help the cards that we’re dealt, can we? We’d all like aces, wouldn’t we? We’d all like another queen on the board. That would help, wouldn’t it? But why do you think you’re so unique that you get to have special treatment? Why do you think you deserve another queen on the board and not the guy next to you, huh? You know the girl who works every night until 2am at the pizza place? You think she doesn’t want another queen on the board? Forget about whether or not she plays chess, the point is, if she did, she’d want as many queens as possible. A queen on every square even. But that’s not how life works, is it? Is it?\nI hate when you don’t answer me, you know, I really hate it.\nWhy don’t you go sleep in the bathroom at the Marriott? You’ve done it before, right? It’s not like anyone’s checking. You go in the stall all the way to the end. The handicapped stall. You can stay there until the janitor comes in the morning. Do you know how happy everybody will be at home if you stay out all night? Do you know how excited they’ll be? When you finally do come home, they’ll probably smile at you. Wouldn’t that be nice? Wouldn’t you like to be smiled at for a change? And what’ll it cost you? One night in a bathroom stall in a nice hotel. You think you’re too good to sleep in a bathroom stall? If you ask me, what you need is a little humility. Maybe sleeping on that dank floor while all that muzak plays around you will do you some good. Build character. You know about building character?\nI wish you wouldn’t make me talk to you this way. I really do despise it. I’m just here to give you instructions. I’m here to give you good counsel. Go here, go there. Do this, do that. Sneak behind that dumpster and see if there’s any food laying around. Check the back door on that house, and see if it’s open. This whole street is lined with vacation houses on either end. You could stay in some of these for months if you had to. They even leave the electricity on, these rich bastards, do you believe that? Do you believe wasting all that money? You’d never waste money like that if you had it, would you? No, I know you wouldn’t.\nGo get your pizza. Order the buffalo chicken. Take small bites. Don’t draw attention to yourself. Don’t take your hat off, leave it on. Play chess on your phone. See if you can figure out how to keep all the good pieces. I know it’s hard. Eventually, you have to give them up. Just hang onto them for as long as you can. Once you give up your first good piece, it all starts to go so fast. The next thing you know, your queen is in trouble.\nOnce your queen is gone, there’s not much you can do.\nIt’s a shame they don’t give you another one, huh?\nIt’s a shame one is all you get." } ]

[ { "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: Free\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1196\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a prince or princess who is asked to give up something valuable as part of a deal to escape the world they come from." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Once upon a time, there was a kingdom ruled by a King and his loving and adoring Queen. Together, they birthed two children, the oldest was a Princess and the youngest was a Prince. The young royals were sheltered, having never stepped outside of the castle. Rumors say that the Princess was one of the fairest of them all, while her brother was one of the most well-behaved children in the land. Subjects of the kingdom adored the perfect image of the royal family but failed to realize that the perfect image was simply an image.\n\nIf there was one thing that was not a rumor, was that Princess Libre was an extremely gorgeous girl. She was slim and tall, with curves that compliment her frame. Her hair was long so she kept it braided out her stunningly gorgeous face. Not only was she physically beautiful, but spiritually. Ever since she was a child, servants of the castle noted her positive and kindred soul.\n\nShe was a rose in a bed of weeds.\n\nWhen Libre was born, her mother instantly hated her for the simple fact she was a girl. She saw her as competition, not her daughter. The king was indifferent toward her. He wanted his firstborn to be a boy so that he can inherit his throne but instead, he got Libre. During her childhood, she was beaten relentlessly by her mother for little mistakes such as playing with the servant children. When she was 7, a blessing in disguise came. Her brother was born. Cupid Ite Suro the second was born at the break of dawn. The word spread like wildfire. A Prince was finally born into the royal family. The king mandated a celebration in the name of his son being born. The land was filled with joy and happiness. It was the first time Libre ever saw her mother smiling.\n\nEver since then, her parents ignored her and dotted on her brother. Growing up with no discipline and all the power in the world, Cupid became a nasty child. He would beat on the servants and maids when he didn’t get his way, would deliberately tear his clothes up to anger the seamstresses, and rip the flowers in the garden to the dismay of the gardeners. The Queen insisted on keeping Cupid away from Libre, but when the siblings did spend time together, it caused Libre headaches.\n\nAs she got older, she became bored with her life in the castle. She was tired of having the same conversation with the same maids and servants so she wanted to explore. The king and queen wanted to keep their life private so their children never stepped outside the castle before. With the help of some guardsmen, she planned her first trip outside the castle for her 18th birthday. When the day came, cloaked in a long robe which obscured her face and her body, she took her first steps out of the castle. The air was fresh and clean, the sun was warm on her face, and the color of the trees and grass were vibrant. She never experienced something so beautiful. \n\nHer first trip outside the castle walls was to a little village close to the riverside. Libre was taken aback by the busyness of the village. Children were running around in the streets with muddied clothes. It was strange, even though the kids were dirty they looked so happy. The townsmen and women were in the streets, dancing and singing to the jovial music playing from the bar. The waitresses from the bar were bustling to serve out ice-cold beers and ales. Libre spent her time in the village observing them from the sidelines.\n When she got back, her father sat her down to have a conversation. It was the first time she had a real conversation with her father in years. While looking her straight in her eyes he said, “I have arranged a marriage for you. He is a wealthy prince from across the sea who is looking for a princess.” Libre wasn’t surprised. She was hurt, but not surprised. She’s been waiting for this day ever since her brother was born. Her parents finally had their true heir, the only thing left to do was to get rid of the only obstacle in their perfect family. Libre.\n\nSince then, she began taking frequent trips outside the castle. She could not bear to stay in the castle, waiting to get whisked away by some stranger. One day as she was walking through the village and spotted a small shop. The energy radiating from the shop was… enticing, irresistible. She found herself knocking at the door, wanting to know more about The door opened up a crack and there stood a woman. She was middle-aged, short, and stout. Her hair was long and stringy nearly touching her buttocks. Libre knew exactly what this place was when she looked into the woman’s eyes, it was the place that the guardsmen warned her against. It was a witch shop. And the woman standing in front of her was a witch. Her bright violet stared at her, assessing her.\n\nShe then swung the door open and beckoned Libre in.\nThe shop was small and welcoming. The floors were covered in rigs made from exotic animals There were shelves filled with crystals and bubbling potions. Libre followed the witch to a small table in the back of the shop and sat down.\n\n\"What do you seek?\" The witch asked, her voice croaky and dry.\n\n\"I was just passing along town and was drawn to your shop-.\"\n\n\"People do not come to my store without a purpose. What do you seek?\"\n\nLibre sat there thinking about the question. What did she want? After a while, Libre spoke in a whisper, \"I want to be free.\"\n\nFree of her life in the castle, free of her impending marriage, free of her family. Just free.\n\nThe witch smiled. Not a pleasant one, but a twisted, evil smile. \n\n\"Nothing is free in my shop. Everything comes at a cost.\"\n\n\"I have riches and jewels that I can give-.\"\n\n\"I'm well aware of your wealth, Princess. You can take off the cloak, you must be sweltering.\"\n\nLibre did as she was told, uncloaking herself. It felt refreshing to take off her cloak and show her face.\n\n“You have something more valuable than your riches and your jewels. I want half of your heart.\"\n\n\"Half of my heart?\" Libre asked, surprised.\n\n\"I am not a deceitful witch, princess. I will tell you right now that taking away half your heart will take away the ability to love someone fully.\"\n\nLibre sat for a while longer before wrapping her cloak around her and standing to leave.\n\n\"I won't miss a feeling that I've never felt before.\" And with that Libre left the shop and went back to the castle.\n\nThe next day, Libre went back into town and to the witch shop. This time the door swung open before she could even knock.\n\n\"Ready?\" The witch asked, her violet eyes glowing unnaturally bright.\n\nLibre took a deep breath and said, “Ready.”" } ]

[ { "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: My Sweet Petunia Scene 5\n\nGenre: american\n\nWord Count: 1484\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a scene in which a character’s behavior or reaction to something is affected by a past experience — without saying what that experience was." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“Hello, my sweet Petunia. You’re looking pretty tonight.”\n“Why do you always call me that Sam?”\n“Pretty?”\n“A petunia. Why a petunia?”\n“It’s a pretty flower.”\n“Lots of pretty flowers.”\n“I just like petunias in particular.”\n“You know, you always say I look good. Good for my age, you mean?”\n“No, just good. I think you’re beautiful Deborah.”\n“How old do you think I am Sam?”\n“I don’t know. You never told me.”\n“You never told me how old you are neither.”\n“You never asked me. You always said it don’t matter, and it don’t.”\n“Just curious though: How old do you think I am?”\n“I don’t know Deborah, c’mon.”\n“How old do you think I am Sam?”\n“I don’t know! Why are we even talking about this!?”\n“Because I want to.”\n“Why?”\n“From all appearances, I’m dating a younger man. Sort of unusual. Most men want to be with a younger woman. Most of them are. They don’t want to be with a woman their age, sure not one that’s older. People tell me I’m blessed, that I look good for my age, but that’s not the same as looking good. I’m 52 years old Sam. You can’t be more than 50, probably younger. You really want to be with someone my age? You gonna want to be with me when I’m 55? 60? You still gonna think I’m looking good then? You still gonna call me your sweet Petunia?”\n“Of course I will.”\n“I’m not so sure. I haven’t had much lot of luck in my life, especially with men. Why should I be gettin’ lucky now?”\n“I just look young Deborah. People always say I look younger than I am, same as you.”\n“How old are you Sam?”\n“About your age.”\n“Little younger though, right?”\n“It don’t matter. I don’t wanna talk about this anymore. Please!”\n“Alright Sam.”\n“Let me ask you something Deborah. First time we met at the restaurant, you said your husband hung himself. Then, when we got together that night, you told me you hated him so much, you could have shot him.”\n“That’s right.”\n“And then I asked you, if by ‘could have,’ you meant ‘would like to have’ or ‘might have.’ You remember what your answer was? You said it could have gone either way.”\n“I did say that. You’re right. You thought it was funny.”\n“I did, and I still do. But you’ve never said another word about your husband since. You won’t ever talk about what happened between the two of you. Why?”\n“It was awful Sam. The most awful thing you can imagine. I feel bad for not talkin’ about it with you, I really do. And I will someday, I promise. I just can’t right now.”\n“Can’t because it’s too difficult for you, or can’t because something bad might happen if you did?”\n“What are you trying to get at here Sam?”\n“Did you kill your husband Deborah?”\n“Nah, I didn't kill him. I didn't need to. He was killing himself.”\n“What do you mean?”\n“He couldn’t live life. I don’t think he ever knew what it was like to be alive. And it made him feel dead, dead and angry. He was a violent man.”\n“Did he beat you?”\n“Sure he did. ’Till I was black and blue. ’Till I couldn’t walk, or even sit down.”\n“You feel you had cause to kill him?”\n“Yeah, I do, but I didn’t. But he did something worse than beating me Sam.”\n“What?”\n“He lied to me. All the time. Up and down. Everyday. Just to do it. Even when there was no reason for it. He knew I hated it, so he did it more, and more, and more. But he was a sly one. I couldn’t always tell for sure if he was lying, and he knew it. He played with it. Sometimes he’d tell the truth, and sometimes he’d lie, ’till I never knew what was for real. And I’d cry. I’d cry so hard! And he’d say, ‘What’s wrong with you, Debbie?,’ and he’d beat me some more. Two hours later, he said he didn’t remember doing it. Next day, he swore he never done it.” \n“He must have known he done it.”\n“Sure he did. Maybe he tried not to, I don’t know, but it don’t matter either way.”\n“Geez, Deborah. I don’t know what to say. I shouldn’t have asked you about it. I’m sorry.”\n“You didn’t do nothing wrong Sam. You didn’t know.”\n“Oh honey, come here. I’d do anything to make that pain go away.” '\n“I know you would Sam, but I can’t let you see me when I think about him.”\n“Why?”\n“’Cause you wouldn’t like what you see.”\n“I don’t understand.”\n“I play it over and over in my head.”\n“What?”\n“I walk in that garage, and I slip the noose around his neck. Then I tighten it, until his eyes almost bust out. But not enough to kill him. I make sure of that. I torture him. I torture his mind. I laugh at him wiggling in that noose. I say, ‘Aw honey, what’s wrong? Why you squirming like that? Here, let me ease that a little for you. That’s better, isn’t it love? Why would anyone want to hurt you? Why on earth would anyone want to hurt you? It ain’t right. You would never hurt me. I know you wouldn’t, honey. I know how much you love me. Here, let me tighten that up a little more for you. Wouldn’t want to see you fall down and cry. I only want to make you happy. That’s all I’ve ever wanted, is to make you happy.’\nI play it over, and over, and over ’till I can’t take it anymore or ’till I’m bored. Then, I raise a shot gun, take a step back, look him square in the eye, and I blow his fuckin’ brains out all over the garage, blood everywhere. Then I just stand there, not laughin’ no more, not cryin’, not tremblin’, not happy, not sad, not even satisfied with what I done. I just look at him hanging there, for hours if I got the time. Fucking bastard. Ain’t no way I can let you see that Sam. I feel evil when it happens. I am evil when it happens. More evil than Lucifer himself. More evil than anyone that’s ever been.”\n“You’re not evil Deborah. You could never be evil. You’re the kindest, most loving woman I’ve ever known. God knows you are. The Father knows. What I don’t understand is why The Father would hurt you like that, his own creation. Why would He do that to you? Why would He sit there on his throne and let that happen? Why would He do it to any of his children?”\n“Sam?”\n“What honey?” \n“Have you really worked on the farm for 28 years?”\n“I have Deborah. Yes, I have.”\n“What did you do before that?”\n“You mean for work?”\n“Yeah.”\n“Oh Geez, it’s been a long time. I’ve done a lot of jobs…”\n“Which one maybe you done the most?”\n“I worked in a tavern for a couple years.”\n“What did you do?”\n“First, I worked in the kitchen, washing dishes mainly. Then, I was a bar back, and eventually, bar tender.”\n“Did you like being a bar tender Sam?”\n“Yeah, I guess. It’s interesting. You get to understand people.”\n“What do you mean?”\n“Well, people who sit at the bar for a while, especially the regulars, and especially men, they tell you a lot, a lot about themselves, even their whole life stories sometimes. Of course you wanna get them liquored up, so you talk to them, you listen to them. You figure out what they want to hear, what makes them happy, what makes them sad, what they don’t want to know about themselves. Especially that, what they don’t want to know about themselves. So you help them. You help them pull the wool over their eyes.”\n“Where did you work?”\n“Like I said, first in the kitchen and then at the bar.”\n“No, I mean what town?”\n“Geez, Deborah, it’s been so long. I don’t remember... Oh, you know where it was? Milwaukee! In Milwaukee! Ain’t that funny? What a coincidence!”\n“You told me you never been to Milwaukee Sam.”\n“No…”\n“Yeah you did Sam, first time we met at the restaurant. You asked me where I was from. I said Milwaukee, and you said you’d never been there.”\n“I don’t remember that.”\n“Sam? How old are you? Really? Please, don’t lie to me Sam. I don’t care how old you are, I just want to know. Please Sam. Sam? Sam!? Sam! What’s wrong!?”\n“I don’t know. I can’t breathe right.”\n“Oh God, Sam! I think you’re having a heart attack. Don’t die Sam! Please! Please don’t die! Don’t die!”" } ]

[ { "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: Dream Rebirth\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1093\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about an author famous for their fairy tale retellings." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“Brendan! What are you doing?”\n“Mum, am coming.” He closed his book and ran to his mum.\n“How many times will I call you before you respond? For heaven’s sake, how many times will I call you before you come to meet me? Hun?” Sheila stood at akimbo waiting for her son’s reply.\n“Mum, am very sorry, it won’t happen again,” he scratched his hair.\n“Ok. I sincerely hope so. And if I may ask, what were you doing?”\n“Oh, I was, I was reading some book,” he stuttered.\n“What book is that?”\n“It’s, It’s Beauty and the beast,” he stuttered more.\n“You’re at it again. You and all these fairy tales. You get so engrossed whenever you’re reading them. Nothing seems to matter anymore. You just switch off from everything and everyone around.”\n“Am sorry mum. It’s just that whenever I read these fairy tales, it’s like I am there. I see myself there. Right there in their world.”\n“You had better come out from your fantasy. Come to the real world and make things happen.”\n“Ok mum, have heard you. Does it mean no more story books?”\n“Nah! I'll still get them.”\n“Thank you mum. You're the best.”\nSheila laughs. “Only be careful dear.”\n“No problem!” He said embracing her.\nBy the time he was in high school, Brendan had read almost all the fairy tales books. He had a yearning that was burning within him. He didn’t know for sure if it was something worth doing. He didn’t know how people would view it. He decided to discuss the matter with his English teacher. Mr. Ashley wasn’t of any help. He just jettisoned the idea. He didn’t see any light in it. He called it a futile effort. He said his intention was like building castles in the air. Brendan’s heart sank. He was dejected and depressed. No hope was left in him. Mr. Ashley was a role model and mentor to him. He admired him so much. He liked the way he talked and the way he taught. He liked the way he handled issues making them less invigorating even of no adverse effect. He liked the way he carried and comported himself. He saw him as a go getter, an achiever and someone he could confide in. But every zeal in him had been killed. It was pointless as Mr. Ashley had rightly said. It’s like building on another man’s dream. It’s like painting a building that had already been finished. You don’t get the credit. People don’t get to see your effort. They all know the master builder. These were the thoughts that ran through his mind.\nIt was his final year in college. There was so much to do. Classes to attend, term papers to submit, seminars to present, exams to write and project to submit and defend. He went to an office to make enquiries about some things he needed. The receptionist asked him to wait a while that when it was his turn she would inform him. While he was waiting, he picked up a magazine, flipping through the pages, he came across a word that struck him. It was from an interview. The man said, ‘A times and even most often, the people who you accord so much respect to tend not to buy into your dreams. Don’t wait for them to propel you to start. Just start something.’ That was it all. The final straw that broke the camel’s back. He exhumed his dreams and ambitions. \n“Mum!” He called on his mum with so much excitement \n“Hello! Son. This that you’re calling with so much excitement. Have you won a lottery?”\n“No mum, I haven’t. But I have something more than a lottery.”\n“And what’s that?”\n“Remember what I discussed with you some years back. I also told you that I had earlier discussed it with my English teacher.”\n“Oh! Yeah! I can remember. It seems you said Mr. Ashley wasn’t in support. Neither was I.”\n“Mum, do you know what?”\n“No, I don’t.”\n“Am taking up my long forgotten dream. Am standing by it and watch it grow.”\n“But for heaven’s sake, why on earth would you retell other people’s fairy tales? Can’t you write yours?”\n“Mum, just want to tell you my intention. Bye!”\n“Oh! Ok. Bye.”\nBrendan started off as he had said. He took one fairy tale after the other and started retelling them. He did them with so much carefulness and creativity. He didn’t change the theme but he only changed the characters and settings. Some people even preferred his retold story to the original story. He started rising in popularity. His work gained much recognition. His ratings soared. He retold a tale and that was it. He was nominated for an award. That was the highest point in his career. He had reached the apogee of his career. His effort was no longer futile as Mr. Ashley and his mum had envisaged. He was glad he followed his dream and stood firm on his grounds against all odds. He was at home about to retire to bed after a hectic day when his phone rang. It was his mum calling. He picked the call.\n“Hello! Son.”\n“Hello! Mum.”\n“How are you?”\n“I’m fine.”\n“Are you sure you are? I don’t like the way you sound.”\n“Mum, I'm fine. Am just tired. Had a hectic day today. I just need some good sleep.”\n“Ok. Brendan, I just want to say am proud of you.”\n“Oh! Thank you mum.”\n“ I'm not mincing words. Am indeed proud of you. I love your doggedness, resilience and perseverance. You made it. You've hit the crescendo. I saw that you were nominated for an award. Well done.”\n“Thank you mum. It’s indeed an honour.”\n“Son, do you know what?”\n“No, mum. Anything?”\n“I want to say I'm indeed sorry for not believing in you, for not been in support of your dream. I'm so sorry for not seeing light in it and for considering it hopeless. Please forgive me.”\n“Oh! Mum. There’s no problem. No hard feelings. Although I was hurt that you didn’t believe in me but the worst would have been if I didn’t believe in myself. Your unbelief only spurred me to work harder. And am grateful it paid off at the end. My effort was recognised.”\n“Yeah! Am also grateful too.”\n“Thank you mum.”\n“Love you son.”\n“Love you too.”\n“I ’call you later. Bye.”\n“Bye, mum.”\nBrendan sat on his bed, shook his head and 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: We try to fight against racism\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1009\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story about an ordinary person speaking truth to power." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "\"them whities don't know what they're doin'\"\nthe man looked up from his book.\n\"you shouldn't call anyone that, ma Gracie\"\nthe old woman swung the rolling pin at him.\n\"I can call them all I like! first, they kill George Floyd. then they take my Bessie's Ronny? God help him in tha' prison!\"\n\"I pray for him night and day. ever since rosa parks sat on tha' bus\" the old man said, rattling his stick.\na boy ran into the kitchen, he propped his school bag on the counter.\nthe man placed the book beside him.\n\"How was school, joey?\" he asked.\n\"school was fine, pa\" the boy turned to the old woman. \"got any more of your sweet potatoes pie, aunt Gracie?\"\nthe old woman flicked a napkin at him.\n\"tha' for your cousin, Ronny\"\nthe boy groaned.\n\"awww, just a nibble, aunty Gracie, just a nibble!\"\n\"'k,then, after pra'ers\"\n\"that'd take too long!\"\nthe old man nodded.\n\"the boy's right, Gracie\" the old man patted his stomach. \"boy, do those pies do me good!\"\nthe old woman snorted.\n\"praisin' the lord will do you more good! now get your pa up, joey, and send this pie to your cousin Ronny! alls he's done is read the wretched book for the whole day!\"\n\"Remember, those good people are protesting today about George Floyd, so make way and wear your mask!\" the old man added, staring at the pie aunt Gracie was wrapping up.\n\"and no licking of the pie!\"\nthe door closed behind them.\n~\n\nthe teacher walked to the front of the classroom. she cleared her throat. the sea of faces made her rock from side to side.\n\"Today, we're going to talk about racism\"\nHelen, what are you doing? she thought you're supposed to be teaching the kids about the British empire!\nshe took a deep breath.\n\"lately, in the news, we've all heard about George Floyd and his devastating death. can someone tell me what happened?\"\na wave of hands lurched towards her.\n\"Amina\"\n\"he died by being pinned to the floor by policemen. they took away his air and left him to die!\"\nAmina turned to look at the boy behind her.\n\"I bet that changes your mind on being a policeman when you grow up\"\nthere was a murmuring from the students in the classroom.\nthe teacher shook her head.\n\"anyone can be whatever they want to be but they should never judge anyone because of their race, color, and gender.\"\nthe classroom door slammed open.\nit was the headteacher, Miss Fitch.\nshe stared at the children's books. they were closed.\nshe narrowed her eyes at the teacher.\n\"why are their books closed?\" she hissed.\n\"we're learning about racial injustice, ma'am, and what happened to George Floyd\"\n\"to learn about-what?\"\n\"about George Floyd, miss\"\n\"why? such talk is not for children\"\n\"because I want to teach the children that racism is wrong and nobody should be treated badly because they have darker skin than others\"\n\"Then, Helen, you're...fired\"\nthere was a gasp from the children.\n\"What did she do wrong?\"\n\"Yeah, she's teaching us the truth instead of empires\"\n\"you can't do that, missus, she's a really nice teacher\"\n\"Uh-huh, we'll sign a petition\"\nthe headteacher turned to the students.\n\"get out your pencils and pens, I'll be teaching you today\"\n\"boo!!\"\n\"you're a rubbish teacher!\"\n\"my dad's a lawyer, he'll sue you!\"\n\"If I get an F on my test, it's 'cause you're no good at teaching!\"\n\"don't go, miss!\"\nHelen walked out the door.\nMr. Tindall passed her.\n\"great day isn't it?\"\nHelen didn't answer back. it wasn't a great day. it was a rubbish day. the day she lost her job.\ngreat, she thought I just lost my job. what am I going to tell joey?\n~\njoey turned on the microphone. he grinned, briefly, at his brother. his auntie was right. they weren't feeding him well in the prison; they were starving him to death.\n\"you ok, Ronny?\"\nthe teenager glared at him as if he left his brain to rot in a cupboard.\n\"do I look ok? they beat and punch me with their fists and hands just because I took part in trying to abolish racism and to show them the wrong they did! crazy, that's what they were.\"\nSilence hung like a blanket in the air.\n\"I brought you some pie\" joey said, slipping it under the flap. \"the guard ate half of it though\"\n\"where's your pa?\"\n\"outside. doesn't wanna see you. thinks you'll give him bad dreams\"\n\"joey?\"\n\"yeah?\"\n\"I want you to help me write a book...on the treatment of black people in jail\"\n\"oooh no. I ain't no good at writin'. Ms. Crosby says I'm the worst in my class!\"\n\"Crosby\" Ronny sniffed, \"that's a whitie's name, isn't it?\"\n\"pa says not to say that. or we'll end up no different as those who spit racist things to others on the street\"\nRonny pushed his chair forward and leaned in.\n\"joey, your pa knows nothing, sees nothing, and hears nothing. alls he does is stick his fat nose in a book that won't help stop the racist problem! I'm here, he's not! now listen to me, I want you to write what I say and put it in a book\"\n\"where do I publish it?\"\nRonny sat back in his seat.\n\"do you know father William?\"\nJoey nodded his head, vigorously.\n\"good. cause when I finish calling on you on what I want to be written in each chapter I want you to give it to him. tell him you want it published ASAP and don't worry about the money. Father William knows me, he'll do anything for me. got it?\"\n\"yes\"\n\"you'll be expecting the first chapter call at 5:35, sharp\"\n\"visiting time over\" a guard yelled.\njoey got up from his seat.\n\"oh, and joey?\"\nthe boy turned to look at his cousin.\n\"don't tell anyone apart from Father William and your mother. the rest will never keep quiet.\"" } ]

[ { "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: Curdled\n\nGenre: american\n\nWord Count: 1753\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story about someone making a deal with the devil." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Robert dipped his finger into the milk and felt its warmth. The digital thermometer displayed a temperature of 103 F. He added a cup of dry starter culture, spreading it evenly over the milk, and a spoonful of yeast, and gave the vat a stir. The air was heavy with the smell of aging cheese.\nHe set a timer for 30 minutes and busied himself flipping over yesterday’s molds. The cheese needed to be rotated daily to drain the whey, the process that has been followed for thousands of years in the Rhone-Alpes. Saint Felicien is one of the softest types of cheese, so he needed to be careful not to break the delicate rind that had formed. The rind of soft cheese is not a type of paper as many customers guess, but an amalgate of dried milk and mold. He lamented not being able to label the cheese with its real name. Despite being the only cheesemaker to put in the effort to produce Saint Felicien in America, the name could only refer to those produced in a designated region of France.\nMost Wisconsinites still opt for the artificially colored, mass-produced product sold in the supermarket, the stuff that should hardly be called cheese at all. \nWhile he turned over the delicate pouches of fermenting cream, he tried to keep his mind away from the latest loan statement from Dad. Each month, Robert’s father meticulously calculated the interest on the $120,000 loan to found the creamery. The interest was steadily accumulating. The business made a small profit, but one thing or another broke constantly and needed to be fixed, and the repair bills had soaked up all the money they earned, and more.\nRobert needed to do something big to break out of this endless loop. Get more attention, bring in national sales. Whole foods. Trader Joes. He wrote a book on the history of craft cheese in America. The first draft was done. Even though people said it was impossible to find a publisher as a new author, unless one was a celebrity, he didn’t give up hope. The American cheese festival would take place in San Francisco next month. He would max out his credit cards, if needed to, to make it there.\nGwen interrupted his reverie. \n“Should I start wrapping tomorrow’s batch for the farmer’s market?” She stood facing him with her work overalls on. Robert felt lucky to have someone willing to share his lifestyle.\n“Thanks. Rack 37 and 38,” he said. “And, be careful.”\n“Always am.”\nThose racks had aged for 60 days. Sad because Saint Felicien reached its peak of flavor at 40 days. But each batch was labelled and records needed to be shown to the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture which required all cheese to be aged for a 60 day minimum period. At least he and Gwen could eat the cheese at its peak, like they do in France, where he had spent 6 months on an apprenticeship.\nThe next day, at the Market on the Square in Madison, Robert handled a new prospective customer. Robert enjoyed talking to people, and was happy to introduce natural cheese to the people of Wisconsin, one at a time, if that’s what was needed.\n“This cheese is handcrafted at our creamery located a half an hour outside of Madison. We buy milk from local producers, and make cheese the old-fashioned way, like they do in Europe. I won’t get into the details, but it's scandalous the artificial methods food companies use to make cheese.” He paused for a second before his deal closer. “Chemicals,” he said with a conspiratorial look that signaled it was best not to ask more.\nA paper plate with a small piece of cheese was already in her hands. In the heat of the afternoon, it had become as runny as molten butter.\n“This looks…interesting,” she said, holding it up with a tiny plastic fork.\n“Nibble on the rind. Then slowly savor the headline act in the middle,” Robert enticed.\nGwen tapped his shoulder. They were setting up down the aisle. Those monsters ruined everything every Saturday.\n**\nAaron worked as a substitute teacher, and as a freelance editor for several online nutritional websites. Someday you’re going to make it big, Aaron’s mother kept telling him. Too bad the medical treatments for lupus consumed so much of his time and energy. And he had tired of explaining to employers, and to everyone else, that men also suffer from the disease, so mostly he didn’t talk about it except with people in the community.\n“Don’t eat that!” Aaron shouted across the aisle at a young woman who was holding up a piece of unhygienic cheese with a plastic fork. “It’s not safe!!”\nAfter taking a quick glance, she put the fork down and looked at the cheese merchant. “Is this safe?”\n“Unpasteurized cheese is perfectly safe as long as it’s made with high-quality milk and handled properly. We do our best to keep bacteria counts down–”\nShe put the paper plate back down on their table. “Maybe next time.”\n“We follow FDA regulations…”\nShe flashed an uncomfortable smile at the cheese merchant, turned around, and walked away into the crowd of farmer's market attendees.\nVictory! Aaron thought. He looked at Melissa, the final remaining member of his 2021 anti-raw milk activism campaign. “Fucking monsters,” he grumbled. \n“Monsters,” she agreed, her voice filled with bitterness.\nThe cheese merchant, who usually avoided engaging, shouted back. “I can hear you. I am not a monster!” \n“Raw cheese is a ticking time bomb,” Aaron argued. “It’s a breeding ground for E. coli and listeria and is a health risk.”\n“Here’s the thing, bro. People have been eating cheese in Europe for hundreds of years and lived to tell about it.”\n“Just because it doesn’t happen to everyone, doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.”\n“As if you know.”\n“I do know!”\n“I eat my own cheese every day. Look at my physique. Now look at yours. Who’s healthier?”\n“That is the last straw.” Aaron felt his face grow warm. Just when he might have taken a swing at the cheese guy, Melissa stepped in front of him.\nMelissa took over shouting at the cheese merchant, “What if that woman was pregnant? Your cheese was going to kill her unborn baby. How do you explain that?”\nHe appeared to not want to make a scene with a woman and backed off, and just pretended like they didn't exist for the rest of the morning.\nAround noon, when the farmer’s market was reaching its peak, full of families coming into the city for a day out, Aaron and Melissa began chanting. “Beth Johnson! Beth Johnson!” \nSomeone asked, “Who’s Beth Johnson?” \nAaron pointed at his sign. Beth Johnson had died of listeria contracted from drinking unpasteurized milk in Oregon in 2018.\n“Beth Johnson?” the cheese merchant said. “That hasn’t been proved. Stop being ridiculous with your accusations.”\n“Let’s take a public opinion poll!” Aaron shouted back.\n“Let’s do that.”\n“Who thinks raw cheese is dangerous?”\n“Who doesn’t?”\nShouting to get the attention of the attendees of the farmer's market, they both tried to convince people to take their side. But the crowd skittered away. Soon aisle 5 was deserted except for a few people who watched them warily from a distance. And unhappy fruit preserves and honey sellers. Unless there was physical violence, no one had any real interest in their disagreement.\n**\nAfter flipping out on the protester as a result of losing his customer, Robert looked at Gwen for reassurance.\n“Can’t win them all.” She gave him a smile that showed she was 100% on his side.\n“But this is so frustrating.”\n“If you look back, we sold more cheese last year after that monster got us into the Madison Herald.”\n“That’s true,” Robert said. “The gourmet media's attention goes to the producers in Oregon and California, and we are stuck with this guy.”\nAt 3pm the crowd began to thin. The anti-raw milk protesters started packing up their signs, the ones with slogans like ‘Listeria Monocytogenes Kills!’ and ‘Raw Milk is Curdled Conspiracy Theory!’\nRobert began disassembling his own ‘Raw Cheese is our Heritage’ display with its map of France and the historical timeline of cheese production in Wisconsin.\nAs they both packed away their displays to take home–signalling the end of today's battle–they gave each other a tiny nod. They had been doing this every Saturday morning for at least a year. \nRobert took a deep breath, and then went over and explained the proposal. \nA few weeks later, Robert and Aaron found themselves in Robert’s truck on the long drive to San Francisco to attend The American Cheese Festival. In the back of the truck, Robert had 300 units of Saint Felicien cheese. Aaron had his ‘Raw Milk Kills!’ displays and brochures. They had agreed to split the cost of gas.\n“Pasteurization was the most successful public health program of all time,” Aaron was telling Robert again.\n“Don’t you think I know that?” Robert said. “I’m not Satan. I’m just carrying on tradition. Everything in life has risk. And raw cheese is thousands of times safer than raw milk.”\n“And you cheese makers are making the fat profits.”\nDumbfounded, Robert took his eyes off the road to look at Aaron. “I’m losing money. Every month.”\nEither from what he said, or from the realization that his driver wasn’t looking at the road, something broke through.\n“Sorry to hear that,” Aaron said.\n“Thanks.” Robert looked back at the road, an endless straight line through the cornfields of Iowa. “Why are you so opposed to raw cheese?”\n“A person I know died of a bacterial infection. She had lupus. The doctor thought she might have drank raw milk or ate unpasteurized cheese.”\n“Did they do an autopsy?”\n“When someone with lupus dies, there’s no autopsy.”\n“That’s rough,” Robert said. ”I do follow FDA regulations–”\n“I don’t want to hear about it.”\n“I hear you.\" They had a two day drive ahead and neither of them was going to change the other's mind. \"Let’s talk about something else.”\n“Deal.”\n“And remember the plan. After you start shouting at the top of your lungs on the first day of the festival, when a few people have begun recording with their mobiles, take one of my Saint Felicien cheeses and smash it into my face.”\n“A win-win like you said. But isn’t that dangerous?”\n“The cheese is safe.”\n“If you say so.”" } ]

[ { "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 Injustice.\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1279\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story about an ordinary person speaking truth to power." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "B A N G .\n\nThe\nr i n g\nof gunshots travel through the air.\n\nB A N G .\nB A N G .\nB A N G.\nB A N G.\nB A N G.\nB A N G.\nB A N G.\n\nThey won't stop shooting.\n\nT h e y\nt h i n k\nw e ' r e\nt h e\ne n e m y.\n\nIf you think racism is no longer prominent in today's world, you're wrong. Even a bat could see the way they look at us, like we wronged them by being born. How could you just stand and watch? We protest, peacefully of course, and we're called criminals.\n\nD i d\ny o u\nk n o w\na\nb l a c k\np e r s o n\ni s\ne i g h t\nt i m e s\nm o r e\nl i k e l y\nt o\nb e\nw r o n g f u l l y\nc o n v i c t e d ?\n\nThat's right. How unfair is that?\n\nW e\nw a n t\nj u s t i c e.\n\nW e\nw a n t\ne q u a l i t y.\n\nI s\nt h a t\nt o o\nm u c h\nt o\na s k ?\n\nFor some people, it probably is.\n\nIt would be 'so hard' to treat us the same as a white person.\n\nWe apparently don't count as people.\n\nWhy can't they see past a single color?\n\nIt doesn't make sense.\n\nNeither does the bullet in my shoulder.\n\nW r o n g\np l a c e ,\nw r o n g\nt i m e ,\none might say.\n\nI don't think so.\n\nThey knew what they were doing when they pulled the trigger.\n\nThey knew they could take an innocent life.\n\nT h e y\nd i d n ' t\nc a r e .\n\nThe policemen rushed over to me.\n\n\"Suspect down.\" I heard.\n\nSuspect? Really? An eleven year old girl?\n\nI heard sirens, both police and ambulance.\n\nI\nc l o s e\nm y\ne y e s .\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nI wake up to bright lights.\n\n\"Momma?\" I ask. A nurse smiles at me.\n\"Your parents are on their way,\" he says.\nThe room was large for a hospital. My shoulder had been bandaged, it felt much better now. The only pain left was emotional.\n\nWhen I was younger, I wanted to be a police officer.\nTo me, they were heroes.\nA f t e r\na l l ,\nw e r e n ' t\nt h e y\ns u p p o s e d\nt o\nk e e p\nt h e\nc i t y\ns a f e ?\n\nI reached for the remote on the bed-stand and turned on the T.V.\n\nWait a second, was that me?\nMy picture was in the corner of the screen. A news reporter mouthed my name multiple times.\n\nI turned the volume up.\n\n\"An eleven year old girl was shot today near Lanchester Park.\" The reporter said. \"Police said the girl 'matched' the description of the 30 year old suspect.\"\n\nI turned the television off and shut my eyes.\n\n\n\nH o w\nd i d\nt h i s\nh a p p e n ?\n\nW h y\nd i d\nt h i s\nh a p p e n ?\n\n. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .\n\n\nWe say tomorrow will bring change\n\nWe forget about today because the next day won’t be the same \n\nWe say mentalities have to be remodeled\n\nWe understand the world isn’t right, yet we still dawdle\n\nSome talk but don’t listen\n\nSome listen but don’t talk\n\nHow will anything ever get done? \n\n. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nImagine a world where people are treated the same. \n\nNot judged by their race, gender, orientation, or fame. \n\nMaybe in the far future, we won’t have to worry.\n\nCurrently people are always in a hurry. \n\nPerhaps the world will change on its own.\n\nWhere people won’t start their lives with one massive loan.\n\nIs it possible for one person to alter society? \n\nOr do we all have to stand together to fight old mentalities? \n\nEither way expectations are changing. \n\nDespite everything, the world is rearranging. \n\nWhat matters is justice for all. \n\nFor every human, short or tall. \n\n. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .\n\n\n\n\n\nUpon us all, is a threat to humankind\n\nYet some of us stand oblivious and blind\n\nTo every injustice committed today.\n\nWords cannot describe, words cannot say,\n\nhow tired and angry we are to obey.\n\nWe will stand up tall and fight for hope\n\nWe will rise from the ashes, we will climb the rope\n\nOf happiness and justice for every human.\n\nIt's time to blossom like blumens.\n\n. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .\n\nJ U S T I C E\n\nF O R\n\nA L L\n\n\n\n\n\nE Q U A L I T Y\n\nF O R\n\nA L L\n\n\n\n\nF R E E D O M\n\nF O R\n\nA L L\n\n\n\nL I B E R T Y\n\nF O R\n\nA L L\n\n\n\n\n\nB L A C K\n\nL I V E S\n\nM A T T E R\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nF o o t n o t e:\n\nC h a r a c t e r s\na r e\nf i c t i o n a l ,\nh o w e v e r,\nt h e y\na r e\nb a s e d\no n\nt r u e\ns t o r i e s.\n\n\nY o u r\nv o i c e\nc a n\nb r i n g\nc h a n g e .\n\n\n\nP o l i c e\nb r u t a l i t y\ni s\ns t i l l\na\nl a r g e\ni s s u e\ni n\nt o d a y ' s\nw o r l d.\n\nH e l p\nf i x\ni t." } ]

[ { "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 Change in The Blueprint\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1287\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a fairy tale about an outsider trying to fit in." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Since the beginning of time, humans have been the only creatures to roam the earth. Well besides animals of course. Except humanity has never been that accepting of new things. They're afraid of things that are different. And god forbid you're something that they've been taught to hate.\nSo when Alex learned that there was more to the multiverse than just earth she had to take the chance to escape. She had already known since the time that she came out that she wouldn't be accepted. And considering that she's already African American she was already doing pretty bad on earth.\nHumankind could never accept people for what they were, and so the best thing for her to do was leave. Now when she learned of the multiverse theory she didn't know for sure it was possible. Heck, she knew that people on earth hadn't even figured that science out yet. Until she found a portal already open that is.\nAnd who was she to decline such an amazing opportunity to explore a new place and make new discovery's? But who was she kidding she just really wanted to leave Earth behind. So she did. She gathered all of the strength and energy she had and she took that leap. Yep, she took that leap alright, and on the other side of the portal was a small cliff.\nOkay, it was a pretty big cliff. And when she took that leap it took her right over the edge of that cliff. Her vision was blinking in and out and she was trying to keep her eyes open. With blurry vision, she looked up to see a human-sized green blob with a tail. And that's all she saw before she passed out.\nWhen she awoke she noticed two things. One was that she was most definitely in the forest or a wooded area of some kind. And two was that she was surrounded by different well, for the loss of a better term, furry's. Now in her mind, she knew that wasn't what they were but that's the only way she could explain it when she had just woken up.\nIt was obvious to her that they hadn't seen anything like her. And if it weren't for the people that looked like humans but with long pointy ear's she wouldn't have thought people knew anything about a species like hers.\n\"Um hello?\" She said to the people staring at her. For some weird reason, she thought that her tongue was moving in weird ways. And this was probably because she was not speaking in her native tongue; not that she knew that.\nNot long after she spoke a beautiful woman when with long blonde hair and 2 braids gong around her head stepped forward. She gave a kind smile a held out her hand to Alex.\nFor Alex, this was something that she didn't expect. This woman was smiling so kindly that it shocked her. On Earth, no one would ever do such a thing. As a matter of fact, if someone saw her lying asleep injured, some people would have just ignored her. And even worse some people may have taken advantage of her in that state.\nShe knew that she was different from these people and she was sure they knew she was different too. So why were they being so kind to her? She smiled at the thought of a society that wasn't so judgemental. It was clear to see if you looked around at the different species gathered around. There were so many different kinds and yet none of them were being judged and yelling at each other or arguing.\nAnd none of them were judging her either. She slowly reached out her hand to the elf's (an educated guess based on the woman's ears) and grabbed onto her hand. The woman gently pulled her up and once again sent her a kind smile.\n\"Welcome to Asunaa. The place where dreams come true.\" She said calmly with her smooth and soothing voice.\nAnd for some reason, I understood why she said this. The place where being different is good. The place where everyone is accepted with their flaws and all. I think It'll be nice here.\n\"Thank you. It's nice to meet you all.\" I smiled back. This is going to be my new home and I know that they'll accept me for who I am. Or will they? I mean yes they don't really care about what species you are but that doesn't mean anything If they find out I'm gay. Oh gosh, I'm definitely about to start panicking now.\nThe elf, who I'm assuming is the leader of the people, pulled my hand that she was still holding closer to her as she started walking. Not wanting my arm to be pulled I followed along. The people that were surrounding us moved out of the way as she pulled me along towards what looked like a large hut. Once inside the hut she pulled out a seat from the side of the room for me to sit on and then sat on her own.\n\"What happened to you? Where did you come from? What are you here?\" She demanded from me. Okay wow, that's a big change in personality from how she was outside.\n\"I'm sorry if I scared you. I just want what's best for my people. Someone who just falls from the sky out of nowhere isn't exactly what we would call the norm.\" She explained, and I could tell that she meant it by the expression on her face.\n\"I don't really know how to explain this so If you get confused please tell me. I come from a place called Earth. The people on earth are generally okay but there are a lot of bad people there. Too many for a lot of people to feel safe. I wanted to leave Earth but I didn't really have a way to. That is, until I saw this colorful swirl that I concluded was a portal. And so me, wanting to leave earth an any way that I could took the chance and leaped through it.\"\n\"And that is how you fell through the sky I assume?\" She questioned me.\n\"Yep!\" I exclaimed feeling happy that I got the point across correctly.\n\"Well in that case you're basically a runaway. A refugee if you will. And we'll help take care of you like you're one of our own. No one deserves to be left behind.\" I started to tear up after she finished speaking. No one has made me feel as safe as she has already.\n\"Come along we need to announce you to the village. Camile, you can come out now and go ring the bell.\" I was confused about who she was talking to until a girl in a red hoodie stepped away from the wall.\n\"She's a chameleon. And yes she looks a lot like your species but she has special abilities. Take for instance the camaflouge that you just saw.\" Okay wow, that's so cool.\nWe both stood up and I followed her out the door as Camile went to ring the bell. It was a large golden-brown bell in the middle of the town/village. Once the bell had rung everyone started to gather around.\n\"Listen up folks, we've got a new kid in town. Make her feel welcome and at home.\" She stated making sure everyone understood to take care of Alex.\nEveryone smiled and then started cheering. One person even yelled out \"Welcome home new kid\". It felt great to finally be appreciated.\nOh yes, this is definitely the start of a new adventure." } ]

[ { "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: Microscope, Telescope, Mirror\n\nGenre: american\n\nWord Count: 2977\n\nPrompt:\n\nYou confront the monster you’ve spent many long years hunting. Except they’re not exactly what you thought they’d be…" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "This wasn’t the sort of place one came to for fun, unless shooting up and dying a semi-slow death was one’s idea of a good time. Ellie peered at the addicts through the gloom of the abandoned hotel foyer, certain that every flight in this three-story ode to misery contained similar specimens.\nShe moved slowly, cautiously, pistol still in her holster, wending her way through tweaking zombies, trying to ignore the stench of unwashed bodies and fetid standing water. Ellie was not to be dissuaded from her task, however. She was here to catch a monster.\nThe racking of a shotgun stopped her in her tracks. Her arms automatically raised and she made no sudden movements. A cold, metallic fear gripped her.\nEllie wondered if she were about to die.\n **************\nI think I have him. Rather, I think he thinks he has me. Pain. He calls himself Pain. A cryptic note, addressed to me, told me where to find him.\nAny other day and I might play,\nA funeral march for Bonnie Brae.\nWhy try and run away?\nSong lyrics, though I didn’t know that at first. Research and reflection. What was Pain trying to say? It took me a week to figure it out. Ok, maybe more than a week. So sue me.\nBonnie Brae Avenue, Los Angeles. Drugs were plentiful, as were the people who used them. Abandoned structures. Homeless people littering the sidewalks, not even conscious enough to beg for money. And the smells were overpowering.\nI surveilled the Bonnie Brae area for two days, in disguise, and then I saw him. It had to be him. A hooded figure with a stride and a presence that no junkie had. He didn’t look around before entering, like all the addicts did.\nThe waiting is the hardest part. I know, more song lyrics. It’s true, though. I waited for an hour before I went in, still in disguise. Then I shuffled in like a junkie, moved like a junkie, blending in as I scouted out the place.\nI heard a shotgun, and a voice. Both surprised the hell out of me.\n **************\n“Toss the pistol to the right. Thumb and forefinger only.”\nSurprise registered on Ellie’s face, though no one saw it but a tweaking girl and a couple of rats. Neither took any note of it.\nShe did as instructed, still feeling like a shotgun blast was imminent. Her hands shook and her mouth was dry. Chaotic thoughts ran through her mind. Images of strawberry shakes and hamburgers ran through her mind. Long summers, buzzing bees, lemonade and sweat. A childhood that she missed terribly, every day.\n“Badge and phone next. Lay them on the floor. Kick them toward the gun.”\nAgain, Ellie followed the commands, though the voice that commanded it was still messing with her mind. It just wouldn’t accept that the monster she had been hunting for the past three years was a woman.\n“Turn around.”\nEllie turned. The woman with the shotgun shrugged off a blanket. Both gazed at each other, sizing each other up, and coming to their own conclusions. Both were essentially correct in what they saw.\n“Are you…are you Pain?”\nEllie peered at the other’s face, looking for something that would tell her she might live through this.\n“In a manner of speaking. You may call me Dolores.”\n“Why Dolores?”\n“Spanish. The plural of pain. I don’t think you’d like to be calling me Pain during our time together, so let’s go with Dolores.”\n“I’m Ellie.”\n“Eleos Golgola. Eleos, Greek for mercy. Golgola, a Greek surname that can mean many things. Stupid is one translation. You’re living up to that one.”\nEllie didn’t respond, not being so stupid as to argue with a woman who had a shotgun and an attitude. Dolores was pissed off, and the twin emotions of anger and fear did a number on her head.\nDolores took a zip tie from one of her many pockets in her soiled cargo pants and tossed it to Ellie.\n“Around your legs, just above the knees. Toss me your handcuffs, and the key.”\nEllie saw a ray of hope. Having her bind herself was a mistake.\nDolores seemed supremely uninterested in how well Ellie had bound herself. This puzzled Ellie, and it scared her a little more. Either this girl was sloppy, or she was very good at this sort of thing. Ellie suspected the latter. Dolores had left a trail of bodies across several states, yet no one besides her suspected that it was the work of a single killer. Not the actions of an inattentive murderer.\nEllie watched as Dolores field stripped her pistol and removed the firing pin. Thirty seconds. It took Ellie over a minute to do the same thing. Dolores then reassembled the pistol and tossed it back to Ellie. Another surprise. Almost like she was taunting her.\n“So you aren’t going to kill me?”\nDolores looked at Ellie and smiled. Ellie felt like the smile was difficult for Dolores to manage. She also imagined that a serial killer of Dolores’ brutality didn’t have much to smile about.\n“No.”\n“Then…what?”\nDolores lit a cigarette and sat down on a dirty mattress, crossing her legs under herself and leaning back against an equally dirty wall. She looked for all the world like a lost child of a lost generation.\n“Let’s have a chat. Just us girls.”\n **************\nI had the use of my hands, but I couldn’t really move around much, despite the loose zip tie around my legs. It seemed that I was immobilized just enough.\nAnd then the woman – called herself Dolores – tossed the shotgun at my feet. The bitch didn’t even have it loaded. Ballsy. Maybe a little stupid. Maybe she was playing mind games with me. Definitely playing mind games with me.\nShe looked very comfortable for someone who had just kidnaped a federal agent. More screwing with my mind. Like she did this sort of thing every day. I hate to admit it, but the girl had skills.\nI’m extremely good at tracking down people and getting the drop on them, but she beat me at my own game. The badge helps, but it doesn’t take care of the dirty work. That’s all me, and I was bested by my prey this time. That stings a little.\nWeird that she just wanted to talk to me. She didn’t threaten me, and she didn’t intimidate me. Not in the usual sense. No getting in my face or anything like that. Just a conversation. It wasn’t until it was too late that I figured out what she was doing.\nIt all started with a photograph. A photograph of her dad.\n **************\n“You know of me. I know you can’t see it yet, but you read about me when you were in your first Criminal Behavior class at the academy.”\nEllie strained to see Dolores. All she saw was the glow of the cigarette.\n“Impossible. You’re too young to be in our textbooks.”\nDolores stood and approached Ellie. She reached into another pocket and pulled out a photograph, handing it to Ellie. Ellie took it, keeping her gaze fixed on Dolores. She had to figure this girl out, somehow.\nThe photograph was faded, bent, slightly torn in various spots, but the two faces in the center were unmistakable. The little girl was Dolores. The man’s face was that of Levi Dunston.\nLevi Dunston, the Nun Killer.\nEllie gasped audibly. The sound echoed softly against the dirty walls, dying as quickly as her hopes of escaping her predicament. It all came rushing back to her. The daughter of the Nun Killer was the one who turned him in. She knew a thing or two about capturing a monster.\n“You’re – “\n“Yes. Dolores Dunston, but I changed my last name. Sagitta. Latin for ‘spear.’ Seems appropriate.”\nThe case was famous – or infamous, depending on your point of view – for its atrocities and for its resolution. Levi Dunston had successfully kidnaped and killed twenty-nine nuns during his ten-year reign of terror. His anonymity was his strength. A world-class photographer was an unlikely suspect, and his presence in all the places where a nun was abducted went unnoticed.\nThe daughter was forced to assist her father in the cleaning up and the burying of the bodies. She also had to watch as he tortured the unfortunate women, and she had to do it silently. In the end, she drugged her dad and tied him down with duct tape. When the authorities arrived, they found a twelve-year-old girl waiting for them, sipping iced tea and reading a book.\n“So…so why did your dad do what he did to those nuns? He never revealed that.”\nDolores lit another cigarette, offering one to Ellie. She declined, but asked for water. Dolores gave her a bottle of water that was in another one of her capacious pockets.\n“He wanted them to appreciate their impending death because they were about to meet God. It always angered him that they cried and begged and pleaded for their lives. It made him…cruel. The things he did still haunt me.”\nEllie nodded.\n“We know the things he did, after we excavated the bodies. We had three medical examiners who needed therapy after seeing the bodies. These were hardened professionals who had seen what they thought was everything.”\n“Mmm. Well, I saw it in person.”\n“That explains a lot.”\n“Yes. Daddy issues. Like so many of us.”\nEllie gazed at the girl in front of her. She was young. Twenty-seven by her calculations. Dark hair, but it could be a wig. Green eyes, but they could be colored contact lenses. Her baggy clothes didn’t reveal much about her body, but her movements suggested that she was athletic and strong.\n“How did you get so good at tracking down these serial killers? You must have resources. Major ones.”\n“As do you.”\n“Sure, but – “\n“Just like you, I do what I have to do.”\nEllie looked away from Dolores, feeling like the girl’s eyes were reading her secrets. The gloom deepened as the day wore on, and Ellie could see little beyond her immediate surroundings. Grease, dust, and dead cockroaches.\n“I do my job. The badge demands it.”\n“As do I.”\n“You make it sound like we’re the same. We’re not.”\nDolores stood up and approached Ellie, and this disturbed Ellie more than she cared to admit. This girl, this kid who captured the man who had terrorized a nation, wasn’t playing by the rules.\n“True. You have a badge. Like ketchup, it covers a multitude of…well…let’s call it sins.”\nEllie fidgeted. The girl was too close.\n“I walked past you three times before you came in. I knew it was you. You dressed like a junkie, but you didn’t have a junkie odor. No smell of piss or shit or sweat.”\nEllie watched as Dolores wet herself, right in front of her. She couldn’t take her eyes away from the sight, though she dearly wanted to. Soon, the acrid scent of urine filled her nostrils.\n“You have to be committed. That’s why you’re zip tied and I’m not.”\nEllie didn’t know what to say. She had never met anyone like this girl. The smell of her urine and the sight of her wet pants amped up her fear. The girl may not kill her, but she damn well could do anything she wanted with her.\nDolores sat back down, her point being made. The smell of urine nauseated Ellie, and the girl’s eyes bothered her.\nA fitful silence followed, interrupted by coughs, moans, and the sound of junkies relieving themselves in the foyer. A couple more haunted souls wandered in and headed straight upstairs. No one seemed to care what was going on between Ellie and Dolores.\n“So, this last guy you killed. That was messy.”\nDolores chuckled. This did nothing to make Ellie feel any better about her situation.\n“Yes, well, a woodchipper is, by its very nature, messy. That is, when you feed a human being into it.”\n“But only the bottom half. Why not all the way?”\n“Figure it out. You’re a behavioral specialist. Impress me.”\n“You sawed off the legs of the woodchipper so that it would be easier to get him in. You mulched him, so to speak, to his navel, so his legs were, in effect, cut off as well. That seemed important.”\nDolores shook her head.\n“No. Not even close. I’ll give you some more hints. Did you notice that we had been at the kill site all day?”\n“Yes. Well, sort of. There was a campfire, and someone had cooked some meat in a skillet. Was that you?”\n“Yes.”\n“Hmmm.”\n“There was also a dead chicken. What do you make of that?”\nEllie shook her head.\n“That puzzled me. Still does.”\nShe looked questioningly at Dolores.\n“I fed the chicken in, feet first, to demonstrate the pain he was going to suffer. It takes two minutes to kill a chicken, if you go slowly enough. It broke its wings trying to escape the pain.”\nEllie shuddered. She couldn’t imagine someone doing that.\n“I wanted him to see what he was in for. He had to contemplate it all day long. I told him, over and over, that this was going to happen to him at sundown.”\n“That’s very cruel.”\n“He was a cruel person. Tortured his victims before he killed them. An eye for an eye.”\n“Dragging religion into it?”\n“Just giving God a head start on the punishment phase. I like helping out the Big Guy when I can.”\nEllie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. This girl was more monstrous than she could ever imagine. What bothered her most was this girl used to be human. She probably played with dolls and watched cartoons and sang silly songs she had heard from children’s television programs.\nThe sun started creeping in through the windows, but weakly. The years of neglect had left an almost impenetrable film of dirt on them. Like everything else in the abandoned structure, despair took over.\n“Microscope, telescope, mirror,” Dolores said, sitting herself back down on the mattress.\n“What?”\n“You law enforcement types. You’re good with forensics. The microscope. Then you move on to telescope. Looking at the big picture. Who is he? Where will he strike next? What sort of victim is he seeking? Again, very good at that.”\n“And the mirror?”\nDolores didn’t speak for a few moments. The sound of dripping water made its way back into Ellie’s consciousness. It bothered her, the drips, because she couldn’t make them stop. No one cared enough to make them stop.\n“That one should be obvious.”\n‘It isn’t. Not at all.”\nDolores didn’t respond right away. Silence rippled through the heavy, malodorous air, causing Ellie to shift uncomfortably. Why this was so, she couldn’t say. Mirrors seemed so innocuous. Just something to show one’s reflection.\n“What do you see when you look in a mirror?”\nDolores’ voice was soft, almost kind; the question felt more like a comforting statement than anything else to Ellie.\n“I see…me. Just me.”\nDolores sighed before lighting another cigarette. The sun’s rays had made their way to where Dolores sat. Though weakly illuminated, Ellie could see Dolores’ face. Sad. Careworn. Weary.\n“You should be seeing me.”\nEllie didn’t understand. Like everything else about this encounter, Ellie felt like she was two steps behind a mere girl.\n“Well, I don’t. I see my face. That’s it.”\n“What do you think I see when I look in a mirror?”\nEllie was surprised by the question. It seemed absurd.\n“You, I suppose.”\n“I see you.”\nEllie blinked in frustration. This wasn’t going anywhere.\n“Yeah, ok. Why?”\nDolores leaned forward and gazed at Ellie. Her eyes were hard and blue. Ellie felt like the girl might bore a hole through her head if she continued to stare at her.\n“Horace Minor.”\n **************\nI felt my whole world crashing around me when she said his name. How she knew is beyond me. Maybe she was just guessing, but I didn’t think so. She confirmed my worst fears when she provided details about what I did.\nThe man had to die. He crept into women’s homes and blitzed them. Rape and strangulation followed. The evidence was all circumstantial, but it was compelling, so compelling that I felt like I had to do something so no other woman would meet such a horrible fate.\nSo I did. I dressed up in a short skirt and revealing top, knocked on his door, and got myself invited in. Shot him in the back three times and left. What I didn’t know was that Dolores had also been hunting him, and that she witnessed the whole thing.\nNow I understand everything. Why Dolores left me that note. Why she didn’t take great pains to bind me. Why she was, for lack of a better word, kind to me. She never intended to kill me; she simply wanted to let me know that she knew what I had done. But it was a little more than that.\nI can’t pursue Dolores any longer. She made sure of that.\nThe girl, before she took off, left me with a message, one that didn’t make sense until today. Too clever, that one.\n The animal gets what the animal needs.\nIt’s funny, you know. The humanity inside monsters. Makes us more dangerous. We find reasons to kill, we justify our actions, we rationalize. We think God is on our side, and we can even find Bible passages to back us up. We sleep peacefully at night because we’re human.\nMy life won’t change because of this little episode with Dolores. Well, one thing will change, starting tomorrow.\nYard sale. All mirrors, free." } ]

[ { "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: Mawu\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1284\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a mischievous pixie or trickster god." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The small hut is loud with screams and crying. The mother, Veroti, is in extreme pain. She is giving birth to a newborn. The hut is of cobblestone and straw. It held over three generations of family – it was not to hold any more.\n“Mawu, god of moon, we call on you to help my daughter, let her child be healthy!”\n“Mawu is not a god to be acquaintances with, Ari!” Veroti screams in pain.”\nThe sheets are soiled and damp with blood and other bodily fluids. The moon shines bright upon the little hut. The air is calm and the entirety of the village is asleep – with the exception of the neighbors.\n“It is he or no one Veroti, wind god is not present.”\n“How do you know?” she spattered accusingly.\n“You feel no wind – no wind no god.” Ari replied.\n“Push, Veroti, push!”\n A little baby came head first. Always a good sign in the superstitions of the women’s village. There wasn’t much time left for Veroti, for they both knew she was to die, but Veroti still had breath enough to ask Ari to watch her daughter. She never got to see what gender the child was. Never had the chance. The child went without a name until Ari decided to call the newborn after her mother – Veroti.\n(X)X(X)X(X)X(X)X(X)X(X)X(X)\n The years have come and gone – enough for Veroti to grow up into a blooming and beautiful girl. Her hair is jet black and she is thin, just as her mother and her mother before. Veroti at this time is 15 years of age. Her entire life laid ahead of her. She was to become the wife to the chief of the village – Musha. Musha was a man of great strength and skill, but lacked in the noggin.\nThe mist is thick and the atmosphere solemn. In comes a man with a cane and white coat. He is of what the village calls “white men.” He is accompanied by five others. All of them hold muskets – with the exception of the man in white. The others are dressed in blues and brown and reds.\nThe man shoots his pistol into the sky. Black smoke, thicker than the mist, rises out of its barrel.\nAll of the village members run outside looking at the mysterious man. They knew him as white man, but he was a mystery as much as they were to him. The men ran to the villagers and placed them upon there knees. The people fled the village – most of them never to see it again.\nVeroti herself ran towards the river, crossed its slow current, and made for the other side of the bank. She went into the dense vegetation without looking back. She heard the shots of a musket in the distance. She hoped to Liza that it wasn’t Musha.\nShe ran and ran – hating herself for not following the other runaways. She was so lonely. She didn’t know where to go, but to the nearest village. It was 8 miles east of here. But what way was east? The women of the village did not learn directions nor hunting skills. That was left to the men and men only. Veroti did not know how to use a bow, let alone know what way the closest village was.\nThe forest was green with thriving vegetation. It was dense and hard to get through. The leaves were wet with the rain from the night before. The birds yelled and the mice ran away. Within an hour, she was more than a mile from her home.\nShe spent most of the day walking towards what she thought was east. It was west. She knew not of how long a mile was, nor foot. She made a total of 24 miles that day.\nIt rained again that night, but the thick vegetation managed to protect most of Veroti from getting wet. The night birds came out their necks making a full 360. They were to be said animals of Mawu. Veroti hadn’t anything to eat that entire day. She had, however, drank water from the wet leaves. She would have more tonight with the oncoming rain.\nVeroti fell asleep the moment her head hit the pillow made of leaves.\n(X)X(X)X(X)X(X)X(X)X(X)\n Veroti woke up without the slightest idea as to where she was. Then again, when she fell asleep, she didn’t know either. She was in the jungle, that is all she knew. It was still night – but Veroti could sleep no more.\n Though her legs hurt, she knew she needed to get to the neighboring village. Without much haste, she got up and made her way “east.”\n She walked for a mile or so until she heard the babbling of a river. She was hungry. One thing she did know how to do was stab a fish with a spear. A trick from her grandmother. Making a sharp point at the end of a stick wasn’t hard – though stabbing the fish at night might prove to be more difficult. The moon was bright and Veroti thought she could succeed in catching a midnight snack.\n She found a stick and followed the sound of the river. She sharpened the stick while she walked towards the inviting sound. Without much time passing, she found the river. Its current was fast but the moon illuminated it with so much light that it practically looked like it could be day.\n She found her a spot next to the river and waited for a fish to come her way. She saw one after much time of watching. She took a stab at the blueish and greenish fish. An owl cooed from no more than ten feet behind her and scared her. She fell into the river.\n The stream was fast and the water deep. She tried to make it to the side and onto dry land, but before she could she hit her head on a fallen tree and fell into a deep, deep, sleep.\n(X)X(X)X(X)X(X)X(X)X(X)X(X)\n Veroti woke up at dusk the following day. She was stuck inside a thicket of vegetation. The river was much larger here, but not as swift. She could see well – despite her aches and pains.\n She did not suffer any damages other than a few cuts and minor blemishes. No broken bones or fractured skull.\n Out in the distance she saw a stack of smoke. It was less than a mile away.\nShe yelled in glee and made her way up onto dry land. For a moment she forgot about all her troubles and pain within her legs. She made her way towards the smoke feeling blessed that such good luck came her way.\nIt was dark now, but she made it to the village. Far before she made it there, however, she noticed how large the smoke was. It wasn’t one small pit of contained fire, but as if the entire village was ablaze. She soon found out that it was.\nShe ran into the blaze in hopes of finding any alive villagers. She found many, but they were all in cages. Veroti was spotted upon entering the blaze and was brought to her feet by a large and masculine white man.\nShe wrangled for her life, but the man was too strong. Veroti bit the man and the man immediately let go. The fire was hot and the flames burned at her feet. She ran towards the river, but was shot before she got a mere 40 feet away from the white man.\nOn a tree in the distance, an owl hooted and made its leave." } ]

[ { "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 Dark Messiah\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1123\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a cautionary fable about someone who always lies." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "You even notice how leaves chime in the wind, especially during fall as they flutter from branches to the ground. It goes unnoticed, unbothered, just another cycle of life. What happens if a leaf stood up to this cycle, forced its way into remaining immortal. Using ideas, certain actions to cast a shadow unto all.\nOur connection is boundless, the food we eat together makes me happy. How do I know I'm in darkness? I create my perception therefore I am God. I am a man so I must dominate all. Into this world I come, I come before my mother who birthed me. My father is not here, so my love goes to my mother. Her presence fills me in the morning as the sun shines brightly to light the earth. Laughter is the fruit which I eat. The smile of my mother cast a shadow my heart can not move. A distant memory, my mother is nothing to me. They say I must be adopted to have another mother.\n(A baby is born named Eligio and given up to adoption after a year. Years go by, the child is abused going from home to home.)\nEligio: AHHHHHHHHHH I hate you, I swear you will pay\nFoster mom: you're nothing to nobody you little sh*%.\nEligio: I'll make you eat those words, you people are sick. This world is sick and I'll die before I let you destroy me!!!\nWhat happens to a flame after enough pressure is brought against it? Eligio would become that flame. Child abuse guided him to the adult industry. Eligio needed to feel something from others, his soul darkened and severed. Adult work came without guilt or embarrassment, you cant embarrass a ghost, zombie, or demon.\nDemons have a gift to turn into an angel of light. Eligio searched and found a bit of light. A guru saw an opportunity to gain control. The control that was lost, that was taken from a child. The light was knowledge of self, taught by others.\nlight has a way of uprooting situations and creating platforms. Through listening to topics of science, Eligio became one of these messiah, God complex figures. Eligio runs a tribe where he traffics women and gets donations online. The self-proclaimed messiah is also a self-proclaimed abuser. Eligio is lost in a universe he believes he controls. Using his lies, his darkness to prove he is our God. Those who follow his path lost their light to a predator who loves to devour the light of humans.\nEligio: \"I am God, I am the Messiah. I love mycelf, you are a reflection of me. Without me, you do not exist. you are a figment of my reality. My perception forms reality, and I am here for the elite.\nI call out to the elite, they hear my voice. I am Jesus, I am God.\"\nTribe Member: \"Chief (Eligio) is my highercelf. He is all I need, I have left my family in Babylon (United States) they no longer serve me. My children were born in Babylon therefore they are demons and will not come with me on my journey.\"\nEligio: \"Children are not welcome here, I will not raise another man's child, so all my wives must come by themselves.\"\n(Glass breaks)\nEligio: \"I am God do not disrespect me\"\nFemale tribe member: \"I'm sorry but we haven't eaten and we're so hungry\"\nEligio: You will eat when I feed you\nEligio: \"I will test you, I am your demon, through me, you will reach your higher self. I will read your birth chart and expose your demons. You will sleep with me upon arrival and I will isolate you. I'm an alpha male, I dominate everything I touch. I need wives with my mind. I will brainwash you and download my mind, you will think like me. You will do whatever it is I ask with no hesitation. I will teach you my knowledge. Keep my knowledge and my words. You will teach my knowledge and will be me. I am God and you will obey me.\"\nEligio: America has you under an unjust law, come to me and live free. I have land ( an air bnb bought by donations) I have space and room for my people. I need beautiful women ready to become my wife and to proclaim my kingdom.\nSick Tribal female: Chief I dont want to die, I'm sick and without the energy to properly heal. I need food. I need help.\nEligio: Get off my Live looking so sick!! cant you tell these people can see youre sick. I dont want you here looking all sick and nasty anymore you have to go!\nSick Tribal female: I don't have any money, I gave you all my accounts and money.\nEligio: I don't give a F***. You begged to come with me now you look all sick, I can't have that energy around me. We'll get you a ticket bi***.\n(Sick tribal member lands in New Orleans picked up by her sister)\nSick Tribal Member: OMG sis I missed you I love you I'm so glad to be here but please can we get something to eat I'm so hungry.\nSister: Yes of course we can but sweetheart you smell really bad, you lost a lot of weight and need a hospital. You're shaking and have brown spots all over your body.\nSick Tribal Member: I know sis, you're right but can we eat first.\nEligio: \"it is true, women have come here and died, babies have died because they weren't strong enough. They could not last because they did not keep my teachings and did not do everything I asked. Your Babylon families don't deserve any contact with you once you're in the family. You belong to me, and I will do with you what I will.\nTribe members: Peace and love, we are the elite, the truth-teller has no friends. I honor you Chief (Eligio)\nChief Eligio lives in Puerto Rico and has around 14 current members in his cult. You can find his videos on youtube if you lookup \"Natureboy\" His IG is Avatar.Chief. Babaji. He is known as the Messiah and his members believe he is a divine God. His ex-members are all exposing the cult, and showing the many infections and STDs they were exposed to while in his camp. Chief Eligio is very disturbed and needs mental help. The mother of his child could have sent him to prison for 20 years for assault but she refused. He most recently sent a member to the hospital in New Orleans for deadly infections and STDs festering in her body. This is an absolutely true story." } ]

[ { "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: Never repay\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1182\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with a big company pulling an April Fools’ prank that ends up going horribly wrong." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "James the CEO of an international beverage company is happy and excited that this week we are moving straight from march into April, he is much excited about the first of April because this year he has decided to pull a prank on Smith who pulled a massive prank on him last year.\nLast year, April 1st, James was at a beach with his lovely wife, having an amazing time on a caravan sports infinity zero gravity chair. The crimson rays of sun kissing his face and arms, with the cool and gentle breeze which was pregnant with the smell of sea-salt blessing his nostrils, it was his best moment not until...\nHis phone rang.\nIt was a call from the office line. He specifically told them not to disturb his holiday with his lovely wife unless it was something extremely important that no one else could handle except him and they should use the office line to make the call.\n\"Hello\"\n\"Mr James, sorry to disturb you, a huge deal came up and you are the only one the company allows to sign such deals.\"\n\"Really?what deal is that? Can't that deal wait till I return on Monday?\n\"No sir, it can't\"\n\"Ok, I will be on my way get all the documents ready for me before I come\" He ends the call.\n\"My dear, the love of my life, my shining Star, My heartbeat, the mother of my children, my partner, my own, my Darling, sugar lumps, my Queen, my confidant, my best friend, my cutie pie ...\" Mr James praises his wife before she cuts in.\n\"What exactly do you want?\"\n\"Can't I praise my dear wife again?\" He says\n\"I know you more than you know yourself and I can tell that you need something right away\" says his wife\n\"Hmmm\"\n\"Yeah\"\n\"I actually need something\" He says using his fingertips to scratch his head like a little baby that wants candy.\n\"I said it\"\n\"OK, go on\"\n\"Something came up at the office and we...have to...return back\"\n\"What? This was not our agreement. I know you love your work more than me but this is too much on me\" says his wife sobbing\n\"That's not true dear, I actually planned a nice time with you but this came up suddenly\" He explained\n\"Really? This came up and you have to cancel our trip, all because its a huge deal right?\" She says and walks away from the beach into the grand five star hotel room they booked.\nMr James goes after his wife and tells her he is sorry and won't go anymore.\n\"I don't care about the deal more than you, as a matter of fact let me call Mr Smith and inform him I won't be coming again\".\nMrs James upon hearing this intervened and collected the phone from her husband before he made the call.\n\"You don't have to do that, I now know you don't value your work more than me, so we can go back\" She says though still upset they have to cancel the trip.\nMr James had to promise his wife a trip to her dream country for their next vacation and a full weekend shopping just so they could return to sign the deal and so he could see her smiling once again.\nOn his arrival to the office, all the other staffs were shocked but no one dared ask him.\nHe went straight to his office and before he could sit, he heard a knock at the door\n\"Come in\" he said\nIt was Mr Smith so he collected the papers to sign them and that was when he noticed that it was not that necessary he signed them that day, it was all an opportunity to carry out April fool on him.\nHe got mad and angry at Mr smith his best friend but he couldn't get angry for long. He had to forgive his best friend after he(Mr Smith) gave him the tickets to go to another vacation at a much better place he wanted to go to but that still did not mean that he still had to pay for a vacation to his wife's dream country, follow her there and give her his cards for her shopping. He decided to pay him back this year.\nFast forward to April 1st this year, Mr James has his own plans for Mr Smith.\nOn 30th of March Mr James calls Mr Smith and informs him they have to attend an immediate meeting in another country that day and the flight was already booked.\nThey left the office immediately and headed for the airport. After a five hours flight they arrive their destination but they are told that the meeting is still going to hold but they have to wait for a while since the other colleagues had issues with the flight they booked.\nMr James puts on the perfect act by shouting at the junior staffs there. He gives them a signal to play along and they all act well. Mr Smith even goes to the extent of trying to calm Mr James not knowing his plan.\nMr James had a plan B and the plan was he sent a particular message to all their customers, announcing that Mr Smith has a major event he is hosting so he can sell the company at a particular rate.\nSomeone calls Mr Smith and he goes to answer the call, he comes back and waits patiently for the other colleagues though looking at Mr James with disgust.\nMr James, feeling he has achieved a lot, spends more time and delays Mr Smith till the time he is to host that event.\nThe call Mr Smith received was from one of his trusted staff telling him about Mr James plan B and how he wants to achieve this plans\nMr Smith a very angry man decides to convert the event to a virtual meeting. Mr James his friend is shocked and he asks him but he told him to wait and gave the best smile that could encourage a weak heart.\n\"Good day everyone, this event is majorly because me and my friend that are in charge of this company are tired and we want to sell it at a price that is not much\" Mr Smith said\nMr James kept looking and laughing thinking his friend is only joking as usual.\nPeople start bidding for the company at the virtual meeting till it got to the last person. Though the amount the person called is not up to the amount the company earns in a month, he sold the company there and then due to the anger of what his friend did to him.\nMr James couldn't believe it, he was shocked and perplexed at the turn of things. He tried contacting the lawyers to change things back to normal but Mr Smith had gone a step further by acquiring the legal rights of the company and the worst part was he also signed the documents.\n©Faith Idachaba" } ]

[ { "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 Diary . . . Help\n\nGenre: american\n\nWord Count: 2291\n\nPrompt:\n\nSet your story in a haunted house." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Day 1 – Sooooo, excited. We’re now settled in at the haunted house, more of mansion really, an anniversary present from my brother Joe and his wife Tricia. And thanks to its fully stocked fridge and pantry we just finished a nice lunch of tomato soup and grilled cheese and bacon sandwiches with chips and beer. Beer! But what the heck, we’re on vacation. And now Tony and I are ready to explore the entire house A little scared. Back soon, Diary – I hope!\n\nMade it back safe and sound, nothing scary yet. Actually this place is quite elegant. Are haunted mansions supposed to be elegant? Beautiful decor everywhere, restored Victorian furniture, tapestry draperies, gleaming wooden floors, highly detailed curio cabinets and wardrobes, Persian area rugs. And oh my gosh a canopied four-poster bed. Lots of covers, wonder if I’ll be under all of them when we see what the night brings. In contrast to all the old world finery there’s also a media room with a giant screen and and state of the art entertainment center with a tv, sound system, tons of CDs, DVDs, and a Roku.\n\nDay 2 – OK, so the night brought nothing. Well, we did have a wonderful sleep in that beautiful bed, there’s that. Today we’re going to explore the grounds.\n\nWe’d already seen the flower lined circular drive out front, so we’d headed around the side yard, a soft carpet of deepest green grass under towering trees, to the back yard which was really more of a park. Same lovely grass and trees, but in a great expanse that also had fountains, sculptures, benches and even a grill. Sort of unexpected, really.\n\nDay 3 – Again nothing overnight. Maybe the ghost union is on strike. This is definitely not what I envisioned as a haunted house experience. I’m looking at the gift certificate and brochure, and read again, “Be Prepared To Be Scared. Is it real or fake? Stay five days and decide for yourself. You can let us know – that is, IF you survive.”\n\nSo, we did have a nice dinner, baked mostaccioli, garlic bread, Caesar salad, tiramisu, wine. But we also talked about our disappointment, not one chain rattling, not one light flickering, not one bit of wailing, not even a shaking bed.\n\nBut then Tony said, Sal, thinking about it, while it certainly isn’t what we expected, we can still regard it as a nice vacation. It’s pretty and peaceful here. And there is a lot to enjoy, great food and wine, strolls in our private park, time to read, top movies to watch, good music to enjoy.\n\nMost of me thinks Tony has a good point. But a small part is still in watch mode, kind of hoping for at least some theatrics.\n\nDay 4 – Same. Doing my best to just relish the peace and quiet, the amenities, the chance to have a relaxing getaway.\n\nDay 5 – Same, will be leaving at noon. Haunt-less. Also sorry Joe advised us to take an extra day off, to recover he said. Recover from this? I hope he can get his money back.\n\nWouldn’t you know it, miles from everywhere and our car won’t start. So not only no hauntings, but we’re probably going to be charged for staying past the one pm checkout. We’ve come back in the house now to get help.\n\nWell, now there’s no cell service. And the phones in the house have either gone dead or were only decorative anyway. Tony’s going out to see if there’s any way he can get the car to work.\n\nTony’s back real fast. He couldn’t get out. The door wouldn’t open.\n\nNow we’re sitting in the parlor, not really able to appreciate its beauty at the moment, because we’ve just gone through the entire house and every door and window is locked, or maybe stuck. We’re catching our breath and Tony has told me not to worry, he’ll find something to pry a door or break a window.\n\nWhy is this happening? If this is their haunting it’s a little late, a little lame. And not funny.\n\nTony came back from searching every inch of this huge place, found nothing that could break us out. He then opened an early bottle of wine saying it’s for medicinal purposes, yeah for sure, a panic antidote. In a little while we'll have dinner, watch a movie, and see what the morning brings, maybe the door and window lock system malfunctioned and will be fine. I know it’s a feeble hope but I have to embrace it to keep from going completely hysterical.\n\nOK, so much for dinner, so much for entertainment. There’s no gas, no electricity. Tony tried to keep us calm with a little lightness, asking if our fine wine pairs well with peanut butter sandwiches.\n\nAfter our “gourmet” dinner we go back into the parlor, on the couch, reading by candlelight, when a thought struck me. Tony, I’d said, do you think this is all a joke set up by my prankster brother? He’d grinned and said he wouldn’t put it past him. Now I think both of us are clinging to that thought for all we’re worth.\n\nAnd dearest diary, I’m so glad I brought you with, you’re like a familiar friend here, listening to my alternating fears and hopes. It’s now totally dark outside so I’m thankful the candles let me continue “talking” to you. Wish there was some way you could help, though.\n\nWell I may just have gotten my theatrics. We both jumped when it felt like something touched us even though there was enough light to see no one was there. Next came an ear-splitting boom that felt like it shook the house off its foundation. The flames faltered but held.\n\nAnd now there’s silence, as deep and profound as the dark beyond the reach of the soft glow. Not sure which is scarier. Now we’re just sitting . . . and waiting.\n\nChills rack my spine and my fingers have turned to ice. The wall opposite us lit up so bright I don’t even need the candles to write this. The whiteness is forming into figures, and they seem to be three-dimensional. And just like 3-D they come close to us – so close we’re hit with the stench of decay - and then recede.\n\nWe look down because our feet are no longer in contact with the floor, and then realize the couch is rising in the air. It’s now starting to slowly spin so we can see that these hideous creatures are all around us, and their moves are becoming more and more menacing, reaching for us, thrusting ruined faces at us while emitting unearthly laughter. I doubt anyone can read this because my hands are shaking so bad but I want to document as much as possible. Just in case . . .\n\nThe couch is starting to slow and now stops, with us facing down the hall which we know has rooms off to both sides The apparitions are gone and their light with them, but that hallway is now glaringly lit and illuminates both of us too. Dark shadowy figures flit back and forth across from one room to another to another, some seeming to float above the floor. Suddenly they all gather at the far end, stand stock still facing us as the couch descends to the floor and a strong, frigid wind makes it hard to breathe. They start slowly creeping forward. Oh God . . .\n\n* * *\n\nEverything’s dark now, so no more writing anything down. Just going to try to mentally chronicle as much as possible, hopefully to eventually add to the diary or actually report to someone details of this house of horrors and potential death trap. Is that too optimistic?\n\n* * *\n\nBecause now the dark figures are circling us at a rapid pace, chanting in some demonic language, their musty, flowing robes hitting us in the head and body. Then the bright white monstrous apparitions reappear, racing along the walls in an opposite circle. My terror is palpable, like a living entity. Tony and I are holding hands, squeezing hard, really hard.\n\nNow sounds again rock the foundation but this time it’s music, zillion decibel music, clearly from a pipe organ we didn’t recall seeing. Lights are next, flooding the room, blinding blue, followed by neon green, then the red of hell. Then all three colors at once, in the form of giant spotlights, flashing around the walls, the furnishings, all over us, merging, separating, vibrating in time with the music. Then the couch starts sharply rocking in sync with both. Every sense is under assault. I think I may be screaming, but can’t hear it.\n\nNow the music stops, everything goes black, even the candles are out. We hear a great whooshing sound, hopefully all the otherworldly ones leaving. Tony whispers to me in a shaky voice, still think this is your brother’s doing.? I whisper back, equally shaky, I don’t think even he would do this.\n\nStill on the floor the couch rotates back to its original position. A small red dot appears on the facing wall, and begins expanding, taking shape, until it’s a fully formed devil, exactly as he’s always pictured. He says nothing but stares at us for minutes on end. Then he and the wall move toward us, and then the other walls close in until the three of us are in this cube. I can’t breathe.\n\nHis arms lift and he points a bony finger at each us, shattering the silence with a loud, guttural incantation that sounds like a curse. It feels as if those pointed fingers have us pinned to the couch, as his stare returns, his eyes blaze crimson, and slowly he says each of our names. Then the walls retreat, his arms cross, then fling wide, and he disappears in an mighty flash of fire.\n\nGreat booms like the one we first heard return and with each one the fire crackles louder and explodes further until it completely surround us. We feel a hot wind washing over us, smoke attacks our nostrils. At one point an errant flame flares right on the rug in front of us.\n\nAxes and pitchforks and barbed chains are now dancing in the air all around us, and then we feel cold hands and cold metal trail across the backs of our necks, and immediately afterward bloody knives join the other air-borne weapons. I can feel something dripping down my back, and think I smell blood.\n\nThen there's everything at once. The still raging fire, loud booms, white apparitions, dark demons, blaring music, manic lights, rocking couch, sharp tools, and as well images of the devil flashing everywhere. Can we please just die and end this nightmare.\n\nBut then just as suddenly, everything stops, everything. Oddly, the candles come back on, but there are more of them, all over the room, the flames large and blood red.\n\n* * *\n\nDear diary, I'm back, writing in the eerie glow of red candlelight. All is quiet and I'm wondering, is it possibly over?\n\nOh, just now maybe the scariest thing of all. Outside, a motor is shutting off, a car door opening and closing. Tony just whispered, Salvation? And we looked at each other and shook our heads. There’s just too much evil here.\n\nAnd then the distinctive sound of a key in the front door lock. Visions of those sharp floating objects, and the possibility we’ve already been wounded, do nothing to offset our fears. Are we about to face the real grand finale.\n\n* * *\n\n“You miserable son of a . . . “ and now in bright light I’m pounding on my brother’s chest, and he’s grinning from ear to ear. Tricia is looking a little chagrined, saying “Joe, told you we shouldn’t send them off on something like this.” And Tony, Tony, says, “Ahh I knew it was fake all along.” Uh-huh.\n\nJoe meanwhile defends himself by saying “But they did have a nice vacation for those five days.” To which Tricia replies, “Oh yeah, lull them into thinking nothing is going to happen, let them get totally relaxed, and then Whammy!!!” Joe says “Ahh, they’re OK, all in fun, right guys?”\n\nWhen the reply is a double glare he says, “OK let me try to make up for it,” goes back outside and returns with a cooler plus a couple of guys in tow. “This is Chef Emile,” he says, “and his assistant Jacques, who are going to grill up some steaks and lobsters. We’ve been assured there’s plenty here for them to make some great side dishes too. We know there’s wine, but maybe something stronger, huh, I have a jug of already mixed top shelf martinis and a jar of bleu cheese olives.”\n\nTricia weighs in with, “And don’t forget the designer cake we brought. Oh, by the way, Happy Anniversary!”\n\nDuring our fabulous dinner Joe tells us they’re all staying the night, Emile and Jacques will cook a nice big gourmet breakfast, and then the warped minds that created this place are going to come by and show us how all the effects work. Might have a few choice words for them too.\n\n* * *\n\nDear Diary, We’re on our way home now, finally acknowledging all in all, heart attacks aside, it was pretty much fun, and maybe tomorrow I will add in as much as I remember after the lights went out. Just one more thing for today though, an important reminder. Never again underestimate brother.\n\n-- 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: Raven Kills Everybody\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1812\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a mischievous pixie or trickster god." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Raven Kills Everybody \nPeople don't talk about it any more, about the first man to break the rules. Was he even a man at all? Perhaps, he was moreso a god, before the gods were ever conceived...a people who have been incarnated in the forms of celestial beings and ethereal creatures, the inspiration behind them all. \nExcuse me, as I sip my tea. Ah, yes, now, where were we. \nWell, as you know, in a time long ago, it was the Changing Times. Falcon had been soaring the skies all day, in search of his prey. He wanted to get a good meal to bring home to his wife. As he flew over the lakes, in what we now call the Great Lakes region, he spotted Duck. Duck’s succulent body called out to Falcon, finding itself gripped in his talons...his entrails stretching from his abdomen to the end of Falcon’s sharp beak. \nWhile Falcon feasted on his prey, his wife, Nightingale, was fluttering through the forest. She was following a sweet song, a rhyme singing through the air. \nA lady so sweet \nHow shall we meet \nShall we dance \nAnd move our feet? \nThe rhyme repeated, over and over again, drawing the Nightingale ever closer to the source. When she finally happened upon a bed of Black Eyed Susans and Queen Anne’s Lace, before they were known as such, she spotted the majestic Raven. The sunlight shining through the trees reflected off his glossy black feathers as Nightingale approached him from behind, his head raised to produce his song. \nNightingale fluttered to land beside Raven. He turned his head slightly, never missing a note. Before long, Nightingale was joining in the chorus. She put her soul into four little lines, her voice intertwining with Raven’s, forming a sonic child of melody and harmony. They were joined by Cardinal, Canary and Blue Jay, conducting a symphony. \nTogether, Raven and Nightingale sang into the night. At night, it would be too dangerous to sing and song, even for beings in a time before gods were gods. The two parted ways without words. \nWhen Nightingale returned to her home, Falcon was patiently waiting. Falcon was fierce, a bold hunter, the king of the skies, the Sun. Nightingale thought about Raven. Raven was like the dark night, full of mystery, the shadow of the world, but he was no hunter, just a lowly scavenger, akin to a flying roach...but his song was so beautiful. She wanted to know more about Raven, the night clad singer. \nAny time Falcon went out to hunt, Nightingale would go on a search for Raven’s song. If successful, she would join him. There were moments when Nightingale could not pronounce the words, because they were simply sounds, the sound of a dripping faucet, for instance, before there were faucets. In fact, I am fairly certain that the sound of a dripping faucet was invented by Raven himself, on that day, for the ears of Nightingale as he would begin to do, with regular frequency. \nRaven began seeking Nightingale out. His influence had enticed her to sing on her daily flights around the forest, in moments when she was perched a tree branch moved by what ever natural phenomena she’d witnessed that day. Each time he found her, he would have a new sound that she had never heard before, a new rhythm, a new tempo. \nAs time moved on, Nightingale began to fall out of love with Falcon. She had no doubt of his immense talents, of his strengths and virtues, but Raven had stolen her heart. Although she loved the luxuries that came with the love of Falcon, Raven seemed to be as close to a god as one could be. He could create things, make ripples in space every time a song formed in his brain, before brains were brains. There were moments, on days when Raven and Nightingale would be fluttering through the forest, playing in the sky, when Raven would craft a small tool from a stick and draw in the sand, capturing Nightingale’s beauty. \nNightingale came home less and less. In a time before days were days, and weeks were weeks, everything just happened as one long moment of existence. Life happened to Falcon, blossoming into a life where his greatest love, aside from hunting, was slowly moving away from him. Falcon’s anxiety over Nightingale’s long absences kept him up at night. \nOne night, Falcon finally asked her. “Do you still love me?” \nNow, Nightingale may have fallen in love with another being, but she was far from a liar. “I don’t know.” she admitted. \n“Why don’t you know?” \n“I’ve met someone else.” \n“It is Raven. I know.” Falcon said, sharply. \n“How? You have seen me?” \n“I am King of the Skies. I see all.” Falcon huffed. “So, who will it be? Me, or the scavenger?” \n“I must have time to think. I’m sorry, I just...I don’t know.” \nFalcon made love to Nightingale and her memories of why she’d fallen in love with him in the beginning came flooding back. She had no clue as to what kind of lover Raven was, but she was sure his song might be evidence that he was a good one. Falcon was good too. She loved how he hugged her and whispered into her ear, kissing her earlobes. \nNightingale began spending less and less time in the forests with Raven. However, when ever the Sun was falling, Nightingale would sit outside of her window, in a time before windows were windows, and sing her song. She knew Raven would hear her and come find her, if he truly loved her. If he truly loved her, she thought, Raven would create a way to make her fall in love with him and prove himself as the one worthy of Nightingale’s hand. \n“Your song is so beautiful.” Falcon said, rubbing Nightingale’s shoulders. \n“It is full of love...” she replied, kissing him. \nThere came a day when Raven would finally make his appearance. It all started while Nightingale was fluttering through the forest, gathering food and playing with Squirrel, Rabbit and Mouse. Cardinal, Blue Jay and Canary arrived, singing a song Nightingale had not yet heard. \n“Where did you learn that?” she asked the trio. \n“From the Great Raven. King of the Skies!” they replied. \nThe Trio held Nightingale’s attention. Meanwhile, Raven was flying to the place where he’d heard that familiar sound, the sound of Nightingale’s voice singing into the sky. He’d flown by for night after night, just to hear it. He knew it was Nightingale and his heart ached to finally be her one true lover. Raven knew that Falcon would never give up his beloved Nightingale unless he felt that Nightingale did not truly love him. And so, Raven decided to wait inside Nightingale and Falcon’s home. \nAs Falcon approached, Roach alerted Raven. When Falcon reached his home, Raven called out. \n“Honey, don’t come in here!” Raven shouted, in Nightingale’s voice. \n“Why, my beloved, what is wrong?” Falcon was shocked. \n“I have chosen Raven to be my lover for now and eternity.” Raven twisted and turned his voice to imitate Nightingale’s. “Leave me!” \nFalcon stumbled back from the door, in shock. His heart sank in his chest. For the first time since infancy, tears formed in his eyes and dripped down his face, dangling momentarily, off his chin. Rather than beg and plead with who he thought was Nightingale, Falcon flapped his wings and flew off into the sky with his heart broken into a million pieces. \nWhen Falcon was out of sight, Raven cackled to himself. Soon, he would have Nightingale all to himself. With Falcon out of the way, Raven would be free to love the woman of his dream and compete with no one. \nBy the time Nightingale returned home, Raven was gone. She waited night after night for Falcon to return, but he never showed. Even more strangely, the Sun never rose in the sky either. The dark night lingered over the sky for weeks upon weeks. Nightingale shivered as snow formed in the clouds and the cold wind blew a blizzard over the entire land. \nSighting his opportunity, Raven went to comfort Nightingale, slowly reeling her into a kiss. Feeling abandoned by Falcon, Nightingale melted in Raven’s arms. The heart that ached for Falcon was renewed with a love for Raven. For months on end, Nightingale fell deeper and deeper in love with Raven, while the land plunged deeper and deeper into a dark winter. \nBefore long, the lakes froze into solid ice, killing all of the fish who called them home. Then, the trees and bushes withered into wooden skeletons. There was no food for Deer, Rabbit, Squirrel, Raccoon or any of the other animals, save for Wolf, Bear, Fox, Coyote and Cougar. Though Nightingale was full of love, her stomach was empty. Soon, the world would be empty too. \nWith the Earth plunged into death, Raven had plenty of food to eat. He traveled the land feeding on the corpses of his fallen brothers and sisters of the Earth. While most of the others were starving, shriveling into skin and bones, Raven was growing larger and more powerful. Nothing he ate could satiate his appetite. Eventually, everyone was forced to accept that with the Sun gone, Raven had become King of the Skies. \nHowever, there came a day when Raven’s appetite would finally get the best of him. As all life faded away from Earth, the number of the dead began to dwindle. Soon, there were no other corpses for Raven to consume. All he had left in the world was Nightingale, who’d only managed to stay alive out of her love for Raven. She had withered away like all the others. Raven joined her in her suffering and when he realized what life was like without food, he began to regret his decision to steal Falcon’s wife. \nHad Raven not stolen Falcon’s wife with trickery, Falcon would have never become heartbroken and made the Sun fall. Life would be flourishing on Earth, with new food popping every second of every day, as things were born and died. The entire Animal and Plant Kingdoms would not have suffered, starved to death until nothing was left. \nThis was in a time before gods. This was when Earth saw what would happen when her children were given responsibilities they could not handle. And so, Earth shifted into a new age. Every soul got a new body, sprouting into a new era, an era in which everyone would be forced to stick to one body and no one but the Earth could change. Earth deemed that everyone would be born with the tools to survive in the bodies they were given for however long they were needed. This was in a time before Man." } ]

[ { "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: New Queen For Sankori\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1799\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a mischievous pixie or trickster god." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "There is a place called Spooky Hollow and there were people who were reading the story about it. There were mythical creatures and dark winged creatures who haunted the forest and people never went there again,But one day I met a brave girl who wanted to go there and her family said No.It is too dangerous for a girl like you. People said if you hear scary noises they will haunt you for life and kill you in your sleep, and the girl said it was just a mth and then she was trying to tell people it is just a mth. When I woke up at night I packed my suitcase and started to head out and no one stopped me and people said you will never come out of that forest.\n\n\n\n\nSo when i got to the forest called Spooky Hollow i said nothing can scare me and then there was a noise and sound like someone is hurt i ran to it and there was a winged creature and he keep trying to back up,i said it's okay and the creature nodded his head and i came to it,i left the rock and then he said thank you.So when i start to make my tent.i was i was finish i fall a sleep.The next morning i woke up i saw things in front of my tent,There were other creatures and they say come with us and i said no.and then there were a scary noise and then the creature said stay behind me.and i said okay.\n\n\n\n\n\nWhen i got behind then there was a big growling creature and they attacked the creatures who said stay back.I ran to the woods and nothing following me until now there were lots of them i screamed and then they got me and scream and scream until they tried they saved me from that beast and i said thank you,and then the creature said it's not safe here come with us and you will be safe from them. I was trying to say yes but i was scared and i do not know what to do.so i said yes i will come with you.The creatures said this place was a safe place for you kind until the beasts came this place,but your father King Rex was a protector of this fine place and then when your father tried to protect you and your mother they both died your father told us to protect you so we gave to the humans so you will be safe.Wait my real father is a king and so as my mother.But why did you say this early.\n\n\nWe did not know your father was the king of the forest.But was the real name for this Kingdom.This Kingdom was called Sankori.But now we call Spooky Hollow because the people who we care is scared of the Beasts that came here and got scared.So now we don’t let the people in here because there are scared.So why did they write stories about this place then,Because they like to share the stories about this place to there newborns and to the people there care about.SO the next day I woke up at a place called Spooky Hollow and now I am talking to a creature that was friends with my real father and mother that happens to be the King and Queen of this land.\n\n I don't know why they never told me before.But when I woke up i was in a tent with creatures that met me in the woods who saved me from wild Beasts and now i am in their tent.So now i am talking with a creature with wings,So now what do you need from me.I need you to take the throne and be the queen of Sankori and take back this land and help these people to come back and live us again.But the girl say no i can’t be the new Queen because i have a life back in the place where the humans live at and i can’t be the Queen so sorry i can’t be the queen.So i told the creatures that can’t be the new Queen but i have a family but i can’t if my family know if my family were the king or queen they will kick me out of the house.\n\n\n\n\nSo when I went to sleep i thought of something that pop in my mind i thought what my family would do if they will still alive and i don’t know if they are still alive.So i left that night i tried not make no noise i got to gate were i was enter this place until i heard a growl,and then i scream so i ran i ran i ran and i ran so i close the gates and then i hide in here so the wild beasts and trying to get in and so i am was wondering who was their leader is.Then so i followed them then i saw a guy and a woman and then there was trying to say where is she answer where is she at bones and their Beasts said she was near the gate so left and got into a barn and then we tried to get it open but we can’t so we left her down there.hold what was that noise and then wait it was me i followed the Beasts and then i said hi are you the King and Queen.The woman said yes we are and who are you.i am the girl you are looking for.\n\n\nI am missing a daughter and she was lost in the woods and she was gone.But creature thought you were dead.Mom and dad i was looking for my mom and dad for years and people told me about this place they say it was haunted and they will die in there sleep but i said no it just a mth.Yes i am your mother and father and was trying to look for you for years and years were you been since.i was with the humans and then i was hoping the animals was not wild until i met the creature and then your Beasts was trying to attack me and then came to the Creatures place and then they told me about you that were the King and Queen and then i they said about you were my Mother and Father.Yes they was trying to protect you over these years and now we like to have you as a new Queen of Sankori.\n\n\nNew Queen of Sankori (Part 2)\n\n\n 3 years later. I was a young adult and I was a queen of Narnia and people bowed for me and I was so proud of my father and my mother for letting me take over Narnia when they passed away.So when I was looking for a boy named Ethan he was a new Prince of Zariya.i wanted to be near him more but he back away and aid stop following me and i never talked to him ever again,and i wanted to apologies to him for following him and trying to say i was following you because you was a sweet and kind prince and i wanted to be yours forever.But i think he went back home to Zariya to become king of Zariya.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSo I was waiting for that boy to talk to me again.I was so inlove with that boy and he was a prince of Zariya and he was the boy of my life.It was hard to tell i love him so i went to tell the guards to lock the gate when i am not here.”i am leaving you in charge until i get back,don’t let no one in the castle until i return” and the guard said “okay i will not let no one in until you return and i won”t bother anyone like i do to my friends” and the queen stared at him and gave him a okay look.\n\n\n\nSo i was walking to my cab and then i saw the prince and i said to him”.Hey i know not listening but i was following you because i like you and it weird that i like you and i want you to stay for little while”.The prince turned around and said,”wow that why you followed me because you like me that make really good sense and why do you want me to stay for while”. I stared at him for a little bit,and the boy also looked at me scared and he was blushing at me,Then the queen said”. I like you because you made me laugh and then something happened to my heart. It was beating too fast and I was a little blushed and then my friend said `` love at first sight”.\n\n\nThe queen was scared because she never told no one about the love at first sight. people might laugh at me so i kept it a secret and just tried to tell the prince that i like him, but the prince and him were friends.The queen said” what are mad or surprise about the crush or mad\".The prince what so nervous about the crush and the prince look at me and said”okay we can get a shot at this but don’t tell no one yet because i want them to figure out themselves.I look at him and stared at him for a little while.\"i was trying to tell you that i like you and I was shy and try to tell you\".So the prince shook his head and said “ okay i know but i will give us a try please don’t tell nobody\".i was shocked when he said that we give a shot but i was still nervous about it.So i went back to my castle and then the guard said “ back so soon” i was looking at him and said “ yes i am back soon because the prince of Zariya was still here so i am back”.\n\nI love seeing people asking me a lot of questions because if they did I would share them with them.i love my people because they took care of me when i did not know who i was and who was my real mother and father.So i went to the woods and talk to them and they undo ban the people so they can see this place again.i was so scared because i never knew my father and mother was the king and queen of SanKori and i was shocked.Well i went in to my room and started to finish what i need to finish so i am almost done with it.I a little girl when i started to wanted to become a queen some day." } ]

[ { "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: Reflection\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1063\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a character coming out of a long hibernation (either literal or metaphorical)." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I look at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. Was I ready? Did I want to do this again? Can my heart bear it? The buzzing of my cellphone on the sink's edge zones me back into my reality. It was Mama. \"Hello.\" I listen as she talks about her day and I reply back when she asks me about my day, but I know she is wanting to ask me if I was still going to come out to the neighborhood's get-together for an old friend's retirement. \"I'm still coming Mama.\" I could hear the joy in her voice, as we end the call. I walk from the bathroom into my adjacent bedroom and look at the black jeans and loose top I had chosen to wear. Change it? Opting to follow the whim in my gut I change the casual fit to the following: a sky-blue maxi with strappy brown sandals. I look at my toes, they need to be painted the same color as my dress. I used to love pampering myself, I found my first smile of the day, I think I will start doing that once more. Again, I find myself looking at my reflection. I never wear make-up anymore, he said I was most beautiful without all the fake beauty. But he isn't here now, he is gone now remember? I grab a tube of red lipstick, black eyeliner, and waterproof black mascara.\nI look at the finished product and again I smile. I feel desirable as my brown skin marries the red lipstick kissing my full lips. Kissable and lust worthy comes to mind as I press them together. So, I release my kinky black coils from the French braid atop my head and let my fingers dance through its ever-tangling roots until my afro looks full and carefree. I look at my reflection and embrace this image of me. He broke you, but look at you now? Did the dress fix you or is it the red lipstick? Or were you ever broken at all?\n I parallel park my car in front of the brick house with the big blue and yellow sign that reads: NEW SEASON, HAPPY RETIREMENT JOHN. WE LOVE YOU!\nNew season. This is a new season. Is this my new season? He's gone, but I am left here to begin anew. I press my lips together again and look at my reflection in the rearview mirror. New Season. I am beginning again in a sky-blue maxi with brown strappy sandals on my unpainted toes, while my hair is reaching for God and my full lips are dressed in red temptation.\n Mama waves at me. I wave back. Move Girl. I start walking towards her.\n“Hey you.” I stop. The voice is silk and deep. Like vanilla ice cream on a sunny afternoon, you know the kind that is melting, but your tongue catches its dripping sweetness to cool your hot throat. I know this voice. I look up and see Mama is no longer waving. Her smile is gone. I twist my head just so to see the owner of voice’s legs. They were long, tanned, and dusted with black hair. My afro conceals my face from the voice. “Hey back.” I say. I turn my head and continue towards Mama, who has her hand extended, without hesitation my hand reaches for hers. Save me Mama. I hear the steps of the Voice’s legs as they pursuit me as I walk towards Mama. I want to run, but the strappy brown sandals demand I be dignified. “I want to talk to you.” The Voice says, I continue to walk until I get to Mama, I grab hold to her hand and turn to the face the Voice.\n He is handsome. Always will be, always was, always is. I know him. I can’t forget him. He dresses causal. Khaki shorts, polo shirt, and boat shoes. “Talk.” I say. It’s a statement, not a question. Mama’s hand tightens it grip on mine.\n“Not here.” The Voice is direct. His emerald eyes stare at me until I feel my hand loosen its grip until Mama’s hand grip me to look at her. Looking into chocolate brown eyes that mirror my own, I see her petition: Stay with me. Let Him Go. Don’t make the same mistake. Break the curse. I begin to nod, but the Voice says: “Please.” I drop my head and let go of Mama’s hand. \n As I stand behind the house waiting; I stare at the vines snaking their way through and around the brick. Waiting for what? Why am I waiting, again? Why?...\n“You look beautiful.” His voice resonates through my ears.\n“Thank you.” I say.\n“Talk.” Is all I manage to say, as I watch his emerald eyes race over my body and then run back up to my face.\n“You’ve lost weight.”\nI roll my eyes, “People do that sometimes.”\n“I miss you.”\nI inhale and exhale and try to focus. This isn’t fair.\n“You left me. So, it isn’t my fault if you miss me.”\nHis emerald eyes drill into mine until I forget to think about the betrayal. I let my eyes take all of him in, from his beautiful tan face, to the five o’clock shadow, to the long solid arms. I fill my head with his image until all I remember is the embrace of his powerful arms. I remember the time they supported me when I lost my father. I remember the time they cradle my head; as I lay in a pool of depression after the miscarriage. I look at his mouth his soft lips pressed tight in irritation with me, but all I think is these lips kissed me into submission after I got mad at him for leaving dishes in the sink. These lips planted desire in my soul after I felt horrible if the weight scale read five pounds more than last month.\n“I came back.”\nI try to focus on his voice.\nCame back. Came back after she proved to be more villainous than you? Remember Girl, this your season. A new beginning.\nI laugh.\nI laugh until my stomach burns.\n“I am awake, and I don’t won’t you to come back.”\nI walk back to my car, catching my reflection in the brick house’s window.\nI smile." } ]

[ { "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: Here We Go Again\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1046\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a character coming out of a long hibernation (either literal or metaphorical)." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Here we go.\n\"The front page of the newspaper,\" I say, sarcastically. I hate the front page of the newspaper. My interest is more in the sports section and the comics section. My dad doesn't seem to agree.\n\"Hush boy, this is important news,\" my dad says. Unfortunately, again, my dad doesn't understand that important is a subjective word and that the front page of the news isn't important to me.\n\"What? A celebrity couple broke up again? Big deal. You've done that all the time.\"\nHe starts to get out his favorite belt from the closet. I'm in big trouble now. But luckily, I can talk my way out of things easily. My mom says I'm as smart as a whip. So, here goes nothing.\n\"Oh, umm, did I say you...I meant Tru. Tru's done that all the time.\"\nOkay, so I might have not talked my way out of that one very good but Mom always comes to the rescue.\n\"Breakfast time,\" she yells.\nThank you, Mom, I say silently to myself.\nWe walk over to eat and say good morning.\n\"Now, where was I?\" he asks, rhetorically, of course. He is a big fan of rhetorical questions. I don't understand why he likes them, though. According to my logic, all questions should have an answer. Or else it would just get confusing.\n\"Ah yes,\" Dad says.\nAh yes, I mimic in my head. I don't wanna get in trouble. I'm already in hot water as it is. I don't want my obituary to read: Cause of death: Burning.\nHe clears his throat and reads, \"According to our president, COVID-19 has finally ended, and life can go back to normal. It is now not required or mandatory to wear a mask, and you can forget about taking the vaccine. The United States of America is free of COVID-19.\"\n\"Well, in my humble opinion,\" I start to say.\n\"No one cares about your opinion, Michael.\"\nOh great, here she comes. Bring out the trumpets, it's Miss Cecilia Emeline Prince. She acts like she's the Sun and everything revolves around her. Or there's a one world order and she's the boss of it. She's also a narcissist, psychopath, and my older sister. So basically, she's my kryptonite and she tries to kill me every chance I get. And trust me, it's gotten worse this quarantine. At least it's over.\n\"Hello, Mother,\" she says, so sweetly.\n\"Hello, Mother,\" I say, mimicking her.\n\"Stop mimicking me, you little twerp,\" she says.\n\"Oh, sorry,\" I say. \"I thought you were mimicking me. You know, cause you're too stupid to do anything else.\n\"Obviously, the obviously stupid one is obviously you because it's obviously obvious you're obviously mimicking me.\"\n\"You sound like Captain Obvious.\"\n\"You don't know what life is,\" she says. She's so stupid she thinks I think the meaning of life is 42.\n\"Actually, I do,\" I say.\n\"What is it then?\"\nI clear my throat. \"What is life but the existence of our existence, for without the existence of our existence, there would be no life. Thus life is the existence of our existence.\"\nI point at her. \"Or lack thereof.\"\n\"WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?!?!?!\" my sister yells.\n\"Or lack thereof,\" I say.\nAnd then, to add insult to injury, I say, \"I didn't know you were deaf, too.\"\nShe throws her piece of toast at my head.\n\"Thanks for the free snack,\" I say.\n\"Why do I have to have YOU as a brother,\" I hear her saying as I walk out the door.\n......................\nI breathe in the air. It's amazing, walking down the streets of Brooklyn without a mask. I go up as close as I can possibly can and just savor in the smell of flowers. It smells so delightful, I can't believe I haven't smelled this in a while.\nI walk inside the arcade, checking my pockets for a mask but then I remember I don't need one anymore. I'm free.\nI wait in the arcade after paying. The employee on duty looks at me funny. I look at her back. From what I can see, her name is Tonya, she loves Nike's, and her hair is the wildest thing I've seen since I saw a documentary on the Savanna.\n\"Umm, sir? You paid. What are you loitering here for?\"\n\"I'm waiting for you to give me the rapid test,\" I say, wondering if she's also stupid.\n\"Sir...you don't need one,\" she says. \"The government said that COVID is over.\"\n\"Oh ya,\" I say, embarrassed. \"Sorry, I just thought-\n\"It's okay,\" the lady says. \"You're not the first one. Go and enjoy yourself.\"\n\"Thank you,\" I say. I am an idiot, I think to myself. I'm so used to the old routine, I forgot to adjust. I might not get used to the changes, but they're for the better.\n*1 MONTH LATER*\nThe local news station is playing on TV. I want to watch the Brooklyn Nets game but Dad says that I'll have to wait.\nThe reporter is talking. \"The coronavirus cases have surged and so we are going back into lockdown mode.\"\n\"WHAT!\" yelled my sister. \"SERIOUSLY? WE'RE GOING BACK INTO LOCKDOWN MODE?\"\n\"Now, Cecilia, just calm down,\" Dad says, but it's in vain.\n\"CALM DOWN? CALM DOWN? WHY WOULD I WANT TO BE STUCK IN A HOUSE WITH IDIOTS LIKE MICHAEL? DO YOU GENUINELY THINK I CAN LIVE WITH THIS TWERP?\"\nMom has to clap back.\n\"DO YOU THINK I CAN LIVE WITH YOU AND YOUR CONSTANT COMPLAINING? I AM SICK AND TIRED OF YOU BEING A SPOILED BRAT! I HAVE SPOILED YOU FAR TOO LONG! YOU ARE NOT THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE! YOU ARE NOT THE BOSS! I AM YOUR MOM AND YOU LISTEN TO ME!\"\nOh brother, here comes Dad.\n\"NOW JUST WAIT A MINUTE! WHO ARE YOU TRYING TO BOSS AROUND! I DO THE BOSSING AROUND! AREN'T YOU SUPPOSED TO BE COOKING DINNER?\"\n\"SO YOU OBVIOUSLY DON'T CARE IF THE GIRL CAN HAVE HER WAY! YOU SPOIL HER! MAYBE IF YOU WOULDN'T GIVE HER SO MUCH STUFF, SHE WOULD BE A LOT NICER!\"\n\"WELL, MAYBE IF YOU LET ME HANDLE THINGS FOR A CHANGE, SHE MIGHT NOT BE SO SPOILED!\"\nHere we go 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: Fear in the Windy City\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 2032\n\nPrompt:\n\nSet your story in a major city that your character has a love-hate relationship with." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Jean-Pierre’s heart filled with dread. He hated the mere idea of traveling into Chicago. Marcus lived deep in the Windy City and had invited him for a weekend museum walk around. It was the Achilles's heel that would get through Jean-Pierre’s excuses for a visit. Their time together was all that Jean-Pierre could have hoped for. He appreciated the relaxed comfort that Marcus was able to give him under the rising monoliths that surrounded them. They passed comments to each other about the various exhibits before them within the halls of each museum. Jean-Pierre was lost in the intellectual buffet, happily walking hand in hand with his man. He knew their time was fleeting before the clock would run out once again and he would expunge himself back to the slower lifestyle he relished. Being with Marcus allowed him to push past his usual hangups. The city was not as daunting when they were together. Passerby’s in the city cared less about seeing men of two different ethnicities being together. The suburbs wouldn’t be so flippant about such a personal connection. They both knew a crusading Karen or Chad would likely have something to say in order to force the weaning hetero-normality of suburban living. \nJean-Pierre was not a fan of engaging with Chicago. He felt, of anything, that there was no convenient way to access the city. In a car, street parking offered a limited array of unfavorable options when compared to the consistent ease of suburb travel. In most downtown areas, parking was either limited to needing a permit, costly street meters or extortion-high, parking garage fees. That didn’t include the cumbersome hassle of parallel parking. Tightly packed traffic was always a time consuming inconvenience. Traveling into the city by train was not much better. Commuting was restrained by the train schedules. Then one was forced to pay for a cab, ride sharing or enter in one of the many buses with their mysterious color coded routes and unpredictable passengers. Walking was a good option on a nice weather day, though he always felt on guard against the paranoia of threats that he imagined around the corner of every block. Walking also limited the ability to move from one spread out location to the other.\nJean-Pierre thought through risking all of these inconveniences for the chance to see Marcus’s gentle, mocha face with his own eyes once again. He wanted to have the opportunity for them to go to those intellectual parts of the city he really did favor. The world famous museums. He loved the homage to knowledge and culture made available on the grandest of stages. He hated Chicago as greatly as he enjoyed what the city offered the soul. Jean-Pierre traded those obstacles for the happiness he always felt leaving one of the downtown institutions. The Art Institute of Chicago. The Field Museum. The Museum of Science and Industry. The suburbs excelled at convenience over substance. Jean-Pierre wished he was able to find such a nirvana that offered each in quantity. He always exited the buildings filled with a reinvigorated faith in humanity’s future. He loved them all more with Marcus in tow, their fingers entwined in a mixed palette of mocha and peach. Most days he relished in the fantasy of being a wealthy tycoon with the convenience of owning a helicopter shuttle to whisk him and Marcus to the entrances of each museum. Jean-Pierre hugged the solace of the suburbia town that offered no street parking fees and noises that ricochet between the structures. He liked being able to get to his favorite theaters and restaurants without being hassled by the Mayor’s aggressive taxes.\nHe was happy to give in to the city’s tax machine for the privilege to experience worlds larger than he could ever explore an hour away in the suburban life’s coffin comfort. Chicago institutions of great knowledge offered a person the chance to walk through time among the painted pots of ancient people long gone, or experience art expression that forced one to delve into their emotions. The best Jean-Pierre could hope for in the suburbs was an amateur art show in a high school parking lot. There were no great pillars of thinking in the cookie cutter strip malls of conformity. He knew that wasn’t good enough for them, let alone reason for Marcus to make the extended trip away from Lake Michigan.\nOnce in a while he tried to imagine enjoying the hustle and bustle of city life as Marcus lived every day. Marcus loved the constant flow and noise of city living. Jean-Pierre knew that this was one of the main obstacle waves breaking against their relationship as it rode on the water of time. Their inability to find comfort in the other’s living preferences kept them in a constant orbit just inside each other’s friends with benefits zone. Their quality time together peaked at amazing hook ups and meeting over coffee. Once in a great while one or the other would make the trip out of their personal status quo and into the home of the other. Sometimes this would be for a night or maybe, just maybe, a long weekend. The departure always ended with a goodbye kiss back to the open pastures of their separate lives.\nMarcus was well aware that Jean-Pierre was hooking up with run of the mill, predictable suburbia guys. Jean-Pierre knew Marcus was clubbing it up with unfiltered, downtown party dudes. Neither of them directly acknowledged their companion activities. Both talked around their personal companionships in code. Had a friend over. Met someone for lunch. Went out with a buddy. No further questions would be asked, no additional parts of the abstract expanded upon. Jean-Pierre felt as though his love-hate for the city was to blame for them never fully making the complete connection they should have. Marcus never directly suburb shamed him, though he had made some passive comments that were meant to push their relationship to close the living distance.\n“You know, city living isn’t that bad. Sure it’s a bit pricey sometimes, but if we shared a place, the costs would be liveable. You wouldn’t need a car which would be helpful and I would, totally, be willing to teach you the bus system which goes everywhere. And I am sure that finding a job would no biggie. ”\nJean-Pierre would placate him with the usual “I’ll think about it” and then did his best to move the conversation along to something more emotionally palatable. Sometimes Jean-Pierre would shut him up with a kiss on the neck. Jean-Pierre knew that there would be nothing he could say to convince Marcus into suburban life so he didn’t bother wasting their limited time together on a lost cause. Marcus looked at the “simple life” like a veteran sailor looks at riding inside a paddle boat on a large pond after coming off of an ocean liner.\nJean-Pierre entered every meet up knowing that this time could be their last. He was aware that some day Marcus would find his city guy to make him happy and who lived only a couple “L” stops away. Then again, Jean-Pierre was secretly open to finding someone local who would be more than content with a simple neighborhood and the droll lifestyle he chose to nestle in. This made him love-hate the city even more. He wanted to stand 1000 feet over the vast metal and glass expanse and yell “why can’t you be more convenient like the ‘burbs so Marcus and I can be happy together!”\nA time came after their last get together that Marcus hadn’t called in a while. While this wasn’t too unusual, he hadn’t texted as well. Jean-Pierre didn’t want to deal with the silent issue that grew as the sunsets increased. Sad days became sadder weeks. Jean-Pierre did his best to not care. He also did his best not to be overwhelmed with concern. A passive reach out to a mutual friend confirmed Marcus was still alive. This fact was as bad as if Marcus had been laid up in a hospital. He felt a want to rage at Chicago for coming in-between them as the asphalt monster always had. Jean-Pierre also felt a selfish relief that he wouldn’t need to make any future city excursions. Being ghosted wasn’t the manner by which he expected his relationship with Marcus to end. He had hoped for some emotionally involved, mutual agreement that they would always remain best friends. The more Jean-Pierre thought about the situation, the worse the ending festered under his skin. Marcus was the first man he had been with, the first he had any significant feelings for. Marcus with his soft hands and willingness for patience during an inner journey of acceptance. Jean-Pierre concluded that city guys were another reason to hate Chicago.\nThe months passed. Jean-Pierre made a trip into the city at the bequest of his new beau, Lincoln. Lincoln with his bouncy afro, darkened, chubby cheeks and who lived several neighborhoods over. They planned a long, romantic weekend together. Lincoln’s best friend offered them the use of her apartment, overlooking the winding, Chicago river. Jean-Pierre felt that he needed this occasion to excise Marcus from his heart with a new, more permanent lover. Someone who was able to offer him the time and attention that a healthy relationship needed to fully form by. He privately missed Marcus’s touch, though he knew chasing something so elusive was an unhealthy path to crawl.\nJean-Pierre awoke one early dawn as night began to retreat from the day’s freshest opening. He stood at the window high above the city’s famed landscape. The image was awe-inspiring. Sunlight played its rays against the reflective buildings like a harpist works her fingers against slender strings. There was nothing like seeing a million lives about to come out of their slumber in a great awakening. Jean-Pierre felt like he was part of the miracle. His eyes and heart settled into the overwhelming beauty. His hand moved to touch the glass. A connection with the moment. Jean-Pierre became tearful. He felt the intangible beauty that people blessed with this view knew each morning. The comforts of suburban life couldn’t offer such an emotionally profound, personal experience in its best efforts. Being thirty-two stories above the dawn lit streets was like floating through a deep emotion.\nLincoln held Jean-Pierre’s hand as they walked on those same streets he had hovered over just hours ago. They walked in love within the building shadows as the sun matured across the sky. A gay couple in a place where orientation was less of a conversation piece than in the overtly observant burbs. Here no one cared who you were or what you did as long as those things didn’t interrupt the flow. Back in the suburban nest, gay men walking hand in hand like the straights had privilege would be a topic of conversation deliberately within earshot. Children would ask their parents why two men were holding hands while their parents asked them not to make a scene. The possibility always floated that someone might kindly inform them that what they were doing was making Jesus cry. Throughout the downtown limits, three people holding hands with seven head piercings among them would barely be comment worthy, let alone one more same sex couple in love.\nJean-Pierre secretly enjoyed the ambiguity that came along with walking through the erected testaments to human progress. He longed for the companionship of Lincoln wherever that might be. A lover who didn’t ask him to make a second, fear inducing lifestyle change. Lincoln squeezed Jean-Pierre’s hand once in a while to let reinforce that everything was going to be okay while they walked downtown. Jean-Pierre felt the best of both worlds during the moment, though some level of apprehension of the city would always be over his neck. As much as he enjoyed those inspirational moments among the tall, glass buildings, Jean-Pierre looked forward to their return to their suburban Candyland where he would ask Lincoln to share his home. He was happy. Happy, even walking along the streets of Chicago." } ]

[ { "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: Nouveau Negotiations with a Dia-Bowl-o-Cowl\n\nGenre: american\n\nWord Count: 1175\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story about someone making a deal with the devil." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "First, let's set the parameters. He came to me. I did not summon or scry or present any ritual of conjuring. The world was ending, was what the Main (defined listing in French, if ye seek to spell out the meaning of what apocalyptic scripture speaks of in reference to the prowler who oft dons a cowl) of d'veil said. He croaked as if thirsty for water from running, his lips cracked, but the message was so urgent he sought to deliver it before being delivered from his anguish instead.\nPeople have a lot to say about deals with the devil. I never really minded those kind of bargains, since my life entails serving conducted contracts for a linear progression of Vision I’ve always kept. It’s the weigh of the platform we inhabit and I can’t get much plainer than that. People often forget that a deal can go both ways. When you mention deals with the devil, why do I not gather from your intonation that the devil could also beg for mercy or a favor? Do you credit him to have any sort of authority in hell, heaven or earth? Do you know the Scripture that is the basis of the Constitution we serve here as citizens in Union America or are you another alien from some other non-terrestrial world that plagued my long-lost still-beloved and prayed-for Confederate brothers?\nI question thee because I want you to reflect really very closely on your inner landscape to measure if you are worthy of reading the prologue to the monologue that will be issued after I receive compensation for issuing these majestic secrets, for God is the Ruler of all Heaven and Earth and e’en Hell is a Dominion He hath reserved for those that think too highly of themselves as we proceed further in this course of literature.\nBe careful who you call a devil in the wretched, despicable weigh you’ve all been speaking. Be careful how you split and divide the Testament of God which is holier than whatever you happen to be reading. There’s a Reason to why I so zealously cry out for my Brothers in Re-Union. You can NOT separate what God has linked together in His Scriptural Resolutions of Faithful and Joyful steps of the Kingdom of Judah and Christ be Kept and if you do, that’s your own battle-axe cleaving through your forehead, whimp.\nI intend to keep myself in Peace as one Body, one Piece, for all of Kingdom Come, so you call me stubborn. I know I am, but not stubborn with God, that’s your stubbed tread on the footstool of His Covenant, ‘but’-friend. Anyways, I’ll draw this out with some lighter speech as you continue to weigh yourself if you’re worthy to hear the ‘devil’ speak.\nI’d like to share some lovely verses with you that have kept me in good stead as I’ve stood fast at this Monte Vista Homestead. It’s from the Bible, a book I’ve read time and time again, that never gets boring but only more interesting with each season and session of interpretation. Of course, I’ll be paraphrasing, but I’ll credit my cornerstone tome as honorable mention lest I be accused of any plagiarism. I do have authoritative creative license, though, to pull from my influences and prime inspiration.\nI encourage you that do deign yourselves enough to take up the noble human charge against these non-terrestrial aliens that have presumed themselves as having infiltrated, mayhap even ruling now upon us, to take up the armor of God in all faith that you have basic instinct to execute our survival revolution. For this is just another turn in the pages of our New Jerusalem. Let me catalog our basic gear for you, so you can draw on your family heritages and ancestral gene pools to coalesce some semblance of Abrahamic covenant of Righteousness when we again gather for our Mosaic Law and Order militia rendezvous bands. All the colors of the Rein-bow shall shower Glory and Honor to the Name of One God Forever and Ever once again, I humbly portend.\nOne: Mind your feet. Make sure your footwork treads in the weigh of a go’speller of Peace. Don’t go seeking trouble. Take your crew, your nuclear family units, through drills to escape and evade as much as you may have to when the maelstrom inevitably breaks out all around you.\nTwo: Make sure you have a good belt. It’s good for more than keeping your pants up and from your drawers hanging out. Catch my drift?\nThree: Make sure you have means to secure your most vital organs. Breastplate of righteousness. Cover your woman, cover your children, and back your two most trusted men. Three’s company, but anymore can get a little crowded for these upcoming triangulated phalanx repositions.\nFour: Cover your head. The aliens always aim for the head, that means build up your woman. She’s just as scared as the kids, but don’t tell her to be positive. Just reinforce her corrections and submissions. Now’s not the time to be squawking on each other like we do in our free time of leisurely training and discipline. United Front, mind your marriage contract or dissolution. Preserve humanity first and then we can determine altar recourse post-execution.\nFive: Shield yourselves. Bunker up. Look up. Seek high ground. ‘nough said.\nSix: Finally, your greatest weapon in this Time of Post-Modern Revelation is the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Mind how you speak with your children, instruct them, but in these times they need a tone of compassion and perfect love. You need to let them know how precious and valuable you are to them and to all Magne-Kind. Comfort your woman because she needs to feel supported to reinforce your instruction in this most crucial paragenesis time.\nOk, now that you deem yourself outfitted … let’s ride.\n'Rite down yer wisdom,' he spitted, as\nphlegm dripped from his mandibles.\n\"I got none to\ngive,\" I flatly replied back. He was dribbling all over my\nnew (freshly-purchased) boots and family heirloom carpet. He did break in like\na bandit in the middle of my midnight rumination.\n'I beseech ye have it,' he gagged, spitting\nup a cacophony of ragged gasps that alerted me to the tumors that had been\nsuffocating his frame and yet he made the passage.\n\"Name the book and\nI'll interpret,\" I requested as I reached to my nightstand\nand poured out a glass of water 'stead of scotch I often kept near at hand.\n'The Testament... know it like the back of His\nHand,' the stranger said as he nudged the cup aweigh.\n\"Alright, I'll\nstudy. Are you leaving or do you need to stay?\"\nThat's how the\nconversation and the redemptive deal of antebellum started, but if you want the\nrest, you got to properly appraise me. Show me the money (in advance) and I'll\nshow you the story, ye comprehend? I think we're finished here. Till you prompt\nme 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: FLOWERS FOR THE SOUL by Robin Simon\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1099\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story where flowers play a central role." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Can you imagine the joy that I get when flowers start to bloom and the fragrance that it gives the world as we come out of a winters covering of part of the world. I try to understand the soul that God has given to all the beauty that flowers behold and as for myself the story that they hold.\n\nWe can't imagine what each petal represent as each look the same but as we all have something unique and different about us. Each flower holds a DNA of its own.\n\nAnd as it grows it may change, giving each of us a choice of witch one represents what we may be going through.\n\nEach year we start to plant and sew a harvest all around. The ones that God graced us with. That grows by his hands only. His sprinkle of rain drops falling upon their still growing buds.\n\nSunshine warmth as they spring open to capture all that it has to offer. Being born again as they were closed to get nourished for another New Years journey.\n\nDo we ever stop and just take a moment and understand the importance of what they truly mean to each of us and why they are here for us to enjoy.\nWe pick them, we plant them but do we enjoy them.\n\nGiving them as gifts to see the laughter on a lovers face. A mothers embrace and to add a sense of peace to a chaotic day. Trying to get a raise from an already hectic workplace, as the boss is ready to say we can't use you any more.\n\nBut it still gives them a thought of how you always think of those that could use the smell of a beautiful rose a bouquet of colors that will make any room come alive.\n\nFlowers are not just for us to smell or give, but to embrace because it has feelings that some of us will never notice. Singing to them, growing with them. Giving them love as we do our own bodies.\n\nNourishing them with what the earth already has for us to give. Not waiting for nature to unfold. We will never wait when we need to be fed or need water to help from falling away loosing the glow that we behold.\n\nFlowers have the same need. They can't give us all they can if we can't give them all they need to succeed. There is a reason as the rainbow in the sky. With its beautiful colors.\n\nThey can grow in the darkest spots at the worst times and we will never understand. They stand alone with nothing around them but darkness and want to be noticed. As we all need each other.\nThe flowers need sisters and brothers. Mothers and fathers.\n\nThey can not have that intimacy that we know but they give off an intimacy that will make the toughest of those that holds so much inside and soothes the savage beast because it touches us in ways that you can't explain.\n\nGive them ,when the eye can see all it has, not send them where there is no return and the end has come to what they had on this earth a lasting smile. Exchanging of hands from me to you. A child has been born as a new face is seen by a first time mother.\n\nAs a flower grows for the first time or has been around as many souls have been waiting for their time to be reborn in a place not promise to all that do not hold Gods spirit.\n\nWhile the flower ask for nothing but your attention to all it has to give you. Nourish it, admire it, close your eyes and imagine if you were a flower standing alone.\n\nWould you want a single soul to pass you by and not stop to ask how is your day. Tell me flower what can I do for you today. What do you think it would say?.\n\nWho knows, maybe, don't forget to water me, buy me I have been waiting for you. I know who would like these. Yesterday I saw your wife admiring them as you passed the flower shop.\n\nDon't forget the family who just lost a love one and the one coworker has been going through so much.\n\nMost of all, most of all think about you. You deserve them. You work so hard making sure the beautiful part of the outer world is giving to so many. Even if they don't deserve them.\n\nWe never know the story of that person you thought about as we do not know the story behind what it takes for so many flowers to make it through their long journey from soil to pot.\nFrom hand to hand, heart to heart and the thought we put into finding, picking, choosing the very best for those we love or not.\n\nCan we look pass our own selfishness and alone in our own world, cold hearts and stop and smell the roses. It might be a pick me up and all that you thought you were going through stopped for just a moment and the lasting memory of a precious little flower change the way you looked at that situation.\n\nThat person who rubbed you the wrong way and your own just I have had enough of this day and you stand in a field surrounded by a choice that has you puzzled.\n\nBut the beauty that surrounds you and you ask yourself look at what they hold. I should see the same in me as I see in them. The growth, the joy and the reflection of a wonderful, beautiful soul.\n\nI can give myself the same as they need. Time, patience and feeding and watering every part of what I hold a DNA as the flowers hold.\nNot one is the same as they may grow together in a bunch.\n\nOn a stem, in a field or nesting in a corner peeking out just wondering if you notice what it has to give.\n\nDon't turn and walk away I have something for you a song for your soul, your spirit. A whisper that I need your attention for just a minute. Look upon me what do you see, it ask.\n\nTake me in your hands, give me to someone that will appreciate all their is to behold and that I can make your dreams come true.\n\nI am a flower with a soul as you have one to. I will keep on growing just for you." } ]

[ { "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: I'm a Big Girl Now!\n\nGenre: american\n\nWord Count: 1002\n\nPrompt:\n\nNow, as an adult, your character looks back on this summer as the summer when they grew up." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I'm a Big Girl now!\nEvery school year ends on my birthday or the day after…June 5th or the 6th.\nTomorrow morning, I finally have to change buses to get to my new school. I also got to pick all my outfits for the semester, even my footwear choices—no more baby clothes, uniforms, and penny loafers. I get to carry a backpack and gym bag instead of a lunch box and a book bag.\nI have decided that quick-change outfits are appropriate on gym days, so bib overall or one-piece dresses and tennis shoes. There should be nothing that I will need extra time for changing before and after gym class. I can have my emergency supplies in my gym bag for personal upkeep. My body decided I was old enough for female changes over the summer after a bicycle accident.\nI look forward to the school year and this middle school. My last teacher thought it was her duty to hold me back and found out she couldn't justify the failing grade she gave me in Language Arts and Math. How does a straight-A student fail two stem classes? Well, your mom threatened to beat the hell out of the oldest teacher alive; that's how.\nWe went to the open house thirteen days ago and met Mr. Harold, a new teacher at Zion Elementary School who didn't believe in the partial pass/fail thing. He vowed that at the year's end, I would be moving on to the sixth grade. He said, \"I will figure out how to help Kimberly to live up to her potential and surpass it.\" At the end of the first quarter, he said, \"I apologize to you, Kimberly,\" as he handed me my report card, a letter for my parents, and a few books on creative writing. To a ten-year-old girl who didn't open the books for each subject, a creative writing book was an insult…. ha! I was full of ideas, tall tales, and a vivid imagination, but I was not too fond of anything related to school.\nIf I had the stories I wrote between that grade and my first published book, I would have a wonderful collection of short stories and a great-sized book ready for publication. A children's collection that analyzes the world through the eyes of a preteen, that tender age before attitudes. You know that period where you still respected adults and your parents knew best. That tiny window from seven to twelve. Also, there would have been a collection of the teenage years when the world made no sense to the changing philosophy of thirteen to seventeen. Then, of course, the tween space was eighteen to twenty because the government changed the legal age from eighteen to twenty-one just before my eighteenth birthday.\nIt didn't matter much to me; I wasn't a drinker. All the things I enjoyed were still activities I could do with a valid U.S. government-issued identification. Most clubs I frequented in the latter '70s and early '80s were restaurants daily until nine p.m. After that, you would be fine if you were having dinner before they started carding at the entrance at 8:30 p.m.\n(blaring alarm…)\nAhh….\nWow, that dream never disappoints. I like it when I am upset at bedtime and wake refreshed and clear-minded. Looking back now, I realize Mr. Harold saw something in me that I didn't want to embrace. I only wrote enough to pass the required assignments. I remember that most of the teacher's comment sections said the same thing throughout the years:\n\"Kimberly is a bright, articulate, and underperforming student. Although it is apparent that she understands the assignments. She spends too much time:\n1. Wasting time 2. Talking or 3. Daydreaming. \"\nIn my defense:\nI only spoke during two inappropriate times:\n1. To say no, I don't know. I refused to help someone cheat during test times and wouldn't rat on those seeking answers. \n2. If I was so bored that I needed a break, the assignments were easy, so after completing them, I would ask to go to the restroom, and if allowed, I would sometimes go to my hiding place in the library or if not, I would put my head down; it was not my fault if I fell asleep, talked in my sleep or snored.\nMr. Harold was the only teacher who figured out I wasn't being challenged enough, hence the apology, the letter to my parents, and the creative writing books. So, by way of trickery, he would challenge the whole class to do different things to earn a field trip. Some were interesting or lucrative. Some were to make us think outside the box. The interesting ones that we did that didn't get us away from the school for the day would earn a movie day or a party during the 5th and 6th periods.\nI was in Mr. Donald Harold's class in 1977, and my oldest son was in his fifth-grade class almost two decades later. You know you left an impression when your child keeps saying, \"My teacher says I remind him of someone, and we figured it out today. It was you, Mom. I found a photo of you in the art closet and asked him if I had reminded him of this person after class. He chuckled and said Y-E-S. She was my brightest star and my sharpest thorn.\" Then, without a pause, he turned his head in bewilderment and said, \"Sharpest thorn?\" Then, I saw the light bulb moment happen. He laughed and connected the references between his father, other family members, and the teacher's comments: that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree is valid. Once he stopped laughing, he said Mr. Harold was curious about what I was doing and where I lived.\nOnly three teachers left positive impressions on my mind, and I have now written about them all. So, this story is dedicated to all the teachers who make a lasting impression!" } ]

[ { "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: City Of Feels\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1034\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with the line, “That’s the thing about this city…”" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "See that's the thing about this city everyday is not the same the feelings even if we don't admit it sometimes its different its either anger or happiness or just plain relief that something is always going to be there or it isn't and sometimes it's the fun or the legendary \"special\" skilled drivers and the skilled is quoted for a reason, if you know what I mean, see that's the things about this city people know it for different reasons and its weird when you meet someone that knows so much about the city you spent all your life grooming for something better ad it makes you think about all the things that makes this place so special that you don't necessarily think about I mean I have been in a danfo so many ties going to the same destination from the same place lets same over 100 times and I see new thing that give me ew emotions that I couldn't believe this city could breathe at me and the best feeling are from the old-new places those parts that people forgot the bought years ago and decide to make money of it makes the most beautiful homes and galleries and its so well done it gives me this nostalgic feeling that almost drew me in the clutches of Architecture but I realized that's not for me I'm suppose to build the city people already feel deep down you know like right now so yeah my city has its really annoying angry disgusting moments right but those good feeling makes everybody what to keep coming back eve when they find out we upgraded from the mud huts a while back (winks!!) its got to be the feeling, you probably own it already but I live and have basically always live in Lagos the heart of Nigeria whether they admit it or not; the \"they\" I don't know but they know, to be honest I felt it every time something new happened to me here or every new thing that makes the city glow or the return trips from the exquisite paces never match; mind you I didn't say beat but match the Lagos feel its awesome!! That's the city for me, different for different unique species of human beings o!, but it's got to be the city of feels for me.\nYou see I have lived in this city for almost 18 years and in a nutshell I said what I felt but imagine if you asked the bus conductors or the market mums selling goods all their life for the food on the table or you could ask the guy that came all the way from their home town just so they could be something be someone out in the big city of Lagos you know just lie we could New York city the big apple, the city of dreams I might add where people come with high hope but not everyone really makes it and that's the hard fact whether we like it or not it the truth we know but the quote is the shots guaranteed to fail in life are the ones you never make so take a shot, you never heard of it? Hmm...not surprised its one of those cool things a friend says that sticks. Anyways that's basically the mindset of most non Lagosians when they see someone who left and made it but that's the problem with them they see no work just feel and instant magical change, the city of feels, get it, people could read this and thing Lagos isn't special because their lives never became special but they are completely blinded by the struggle of the Lagos Living sometimes and they make Lagos this really hard place in their minds they don't seem to realize the good they have but that's another thing about this city the people are so special so different that they are the most unpredictable human beings that I think I could meet whether they live in the biggest houses and have unlimited cash flow or they live on the streets and beg their way through life they still keep shocking you in the weirdest sometimes nicest sometimes saddest moments we couldn't even think of, the things about this city I can't even say it all but they are all there said or not past or present they keep us going in this place truth be told we run from here so fast and so far away without thinking might I add also dragging all the people skeptical about it on that fast route, and then they meet people like me that actually likes this place and sees stuff they love and want in this city that sees a better Lagos and they think I'm crazy and and just over privileged but that's far from the point I'm just so worried of being a success with a horrible home of being the 1% of the 1% that makes life way harder for the blinder runners to see a better place. so those are the things about this city we don't really think exist in the core its all jumbled up in the air we breathe that its mixed with the pollution we intoxicate ourselves with, we have to learn to see this or the city would always be a place of stolen dream that never came true. I don't see it all yet but I'm open minded to all of it now and moving forward because I really want to see and feel it when I can when it's there, so in my heart of hearts it will always be my city of feels; yeah I have said that a lot in this \"story\" because honestly it's real hard to be writing all this, before today I knew these thigs but never needed to spit it out all at once tho . This isn't your traditional story but it's mine and whether I win or not (which by the way I still want to win...wink wink!) I'm happy that my voice had a chance to be heard, loud or not its there with a strong first big try." } ]

[ { "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 Knocks\n\nGenre: american\n\nWord Count: 2606\n\nPrompt:\n\nSet your story in a haunted house." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "CW-phobias to be triggered include-Claustrophobia, Thalassophobia, Pyrophobia, Kalampokiphobia, Apotemnophobia. Enjoy…\n\nThree knocks come to the door-all in a row-with a gentle, but adamant rhythm. Open your eyes, I think to myself. And I think they open? I am stumbling from my bedroom down the stairs-not even noticing that my husband isn’t by my side.\n\nWhat time is it?\n\nI can’t have slept that much. Last night was long. Yesterday was longer. I had willed myself to bed by 10pm with the images of rejection letters dancing in my head-How am I so exhausted?\n\nThe stairs elongate in front of me and I finally put it together while looking for my own front door. I am in a dream. Three more knocks shift to slapping the door. The panic is setting in. It’s Candace. She’s already here to pick me up for the gym? It’s too early.\n\nAll four of my limbs weigh fifty pounds each as I will myself down the steps, towards my door. The house is pitch black all around me. Not even a single light casts hope through our living room bay window. As I find myself at the door, searching for Candace, I vaguely hear the doorbell. It plays a soft song, unknown to my own memory. I peer through the cut out window of our front door and I am greeted not by Candace’s shining green eyes, but by my husband’s deep brown ones. They’re glassy and red, like the day we put Dasher to sleep. My eyebrow crinkles in concern, but as I peer in closer, I am transported.\n\nThis is not my house. This is not my living room. All around me is glass. I run to the wall closest to me, suddenly able to in this horrible nightmare. I am searching for my beloved. I should be able to see him, standing on the porch. I breathe horrible circles of hot breath on the glass and stare out at a dark forest. It’s from Hollywood. It’s not real. \n\nWake up.\n\nWake up.\n\nWake up.\n\n\n“Hello, hello my lovelies!” greets Sally Sampson. There’s no way that’s her real name, just a gimmick made up for her viewers. But my publisher told me to tune into it, so I do. The camera pans over to Sally on her couch, clutching a cup of coffee. Beside her is a poster board blow up of my very, first, book cover. It’s nearly all deep, pitch black. Except, for the sliver of the house in the background and the shadows of the looming forest in the foreground. It’s breathtaking. I insisted that we choose that cover when Allie pitched the ideas from the art department. And there is my name-how thrilling-in deep red text: D.D. FOSTER. Allie had insisted we go with DD, rather than Darlene Decampos, and we tossed my maiden name in just for giggles, so that the stereotype of women being unable to write horror could be tossed to the side. I remember thinking, I didn’t even know that was a stereotype.\n\nThe camera zooms in on Sally’s luscious, glossy red lips as she proclaims she is obsessed with my book. Beside me, Alex scoffs. He runs a hand through his hair before using it to grab mine beneath the blankets. Sally gives a generalized summary of my blood, sweat, and tears, “A new thriller with a nightmarish twist. Can you imagine realizing that the love of your life is trapped outside as a demonic forest looms towards you and your home? God, sends shivers down your spine, don’t it?” She does a dramatic shiver and a fake southern accent. I had told Allie I had no business setting it in the south, since I myself had never set foot below the Mississippi before, but she said that Colorado forests just weren’t that scary. Too much evergreen. Too Christmasy.\n\nAlex shifts his weight on the couch, bobs his knee impatiently. “They’ll wrap up soon,” I promise him as Sally tells her viewers that a major streaming platform will be airing their film version of my book in the next month. The celebrity cast as me sachets onto the stage to the adoring fans delight. They scream her name and applaud loudly. Alex rolls his eyes. He gets up from the couch when he sees me beaming.\n\n“Hey,” I shout at him, “This thing took, like, five years! Aren’t I allowed to bask in the glory a bit?” I slump back into the couch, feeling like a deflated balloon. Sally yammers on about the premier and asks the actress if there were any real sparks between her and her co-star. I remain annoyed that they played up the romance scenes I had crafted into something that could never be categorized as inappropriate. I had worked so hard to be tasteful.\n\nI don’t even look up when Alex sits. His glass of water forms a ring on my coffee table. He turns to face me, “You can be excited. You deserve it. I just don’t want you losing yourself.” I turn up the volume on the TV in reply. You weren’t writing until 2AM to finish crafting the perfect scene. You didn’t print out all of the publishers’ rejection letters so you could tape them on the walls of your office to convince yourself to edit just one more time. Can you believe they aren’t real letter anymore, Alex? What had the world come to? The nightmare that is now a day dream doesn’t belong to you. A real shiver darts down my spine and I settle into his chest as he turns the channel to a football game.\n\n\nThe beach is so warm. I sigh into my towel, listening to the sound of waves as they crash. Open your eyes, I think to myself and then stare up at the sun. It’s less bright than it used to be. I am dreaming. But this one is sweet, pleasant. I long to hold onto it. There are no gulls calling, no children running and screaming, no problems.\n\nBeside me is my husband, who deserves this vacation as much as I do. He didn’t want to go on the book tour, but the way Alex’s character blew up in the film, he found himself urged by my editor, publisher, publicist…me. When I turn to look for Alex I find myself alone on the beach. I will myself to sit up, cup a sunshade over my eyes using my hand. Before me, the deep blue sea. I open my nostrils, longing to breathe in the scent of salt water, but find myself unable to. Probably, because I have never been to the sea. It’s just a concept, to me. \n\nI lean back on my palms, pull my legs to my chest, and find myself with no voice, like that one mermaid, as I call out Alex’s name. My mouth opens, my tongue drops to the bottom of my throat as I scream. Not a sound can be heard over the gentle waves. I feel hot tears run down my cheeks and I decide to stand. My legs won’t push up, won’t move. Get up! Get up! I need Alex. \n\nOut of guttural instinct, I find his name running to the front of my mouth to no avail. I am wailing now, wailing silently on the beach without my love. I push my weight into my hands, hoping and praying that I can stand. And I can! Suddenly, I am standing. I am relieved. My eyes take in the beach, finding it completely clear. No Alex. I start to scream for him, make a megaphone out of my hands so he can hear me. Defeated, they flop to my sides when he doesn’t appear. \n\nI need to move. Alex has to be here. He used to be. Didn’t he? My toes scrunch on my bright blue towel with red crabs on the border. That’s when it starts. As I un scrunch my toes, they fall off. I scream. When I try to bend to pick up my precious piggies, I find that my body is frozen like a statue again. Out of panic, I stare out at the ocean and scream my husband’s name. I tell myself it’s time to walk away, a person can survive without toes. Why aren’t I bleeding? Isn’t it human to bleed? Shouldn’t this hurt? As my feet begin to move, I begin to fall. I lose my calves, then my thighs break off at my hips. I am left as half a human, wailing at the sea. \n\nMy hand reaches out, as if looking for Alex. His name is lodged in the back of my throat. My fingers fall to the sand like their toe counterparts. Cowards, you couldn't even manage to stick around. Where’s my wedding ring? Oh, Alex will be so mad if I lost my wedding ring on vacation. Thoughts scatter in the sand as my hands break off at the wrist. I lose my forearm moments later, followed by my shoulder. When I turn my gaze to my right side and find my other arm is victim to the sand only seconds later. Oh, Alex. \n\nMy mid section folds in half and I am left face down, the memory of the grit of sand manages to weave into my mind. I am spitting and spitting and spitting. And gagging. And gagging and gagging. The waves creep up. I can feel their spray on the back of my warm neck, on my scalp. \n\nThe first one creeps up and crashes. \n\nThen, the next.\n\nAnd the next.\n\nUntil I can’t breathe. Until I am left in my sepulcher by the sea. \n\nIt’s my fault. The realization is another wave crashing into me. But this one hurts more somehow. This isn’t the ocean. These are my tears. Because Alex has left me.\n\n\nAlex didn’t leave me. Not really. He wakes me up a few minutes later, me in the dead of night and I am lulled back to sleep by the sound of his heartbeat which only sings for me. It’s a relief and I am back to work on the sequel inspired by my most recent terror. The first four chapters are sent to Allie before breakfast is served. She writes back one word: brilliant.\n\nOver coffee a few months later, Alex tells me I’m looking tired. “That’s a stupid thing to say to your wife,” I reply with a smile. We are sitting at a local diner and our breakfast is yet to be served, but around us the place bustles with life so we accept it’ll be a while. \n\n“It’s the truth,” protests Alex. “Honey,” he leans across the table to take my hand, “You haven’t slept properly since your first book was published.”\n\n“Life just looks different now,” I say to him. \n\n“Is it worth it?” he asks. \n\nI nod and sip my coffee. \n\n\nI am back in the wretched glass house. I am insufferably hot and I can’t really see. Where are my glasses? I am searching the headboard because it has those little shelves that Alex loves to put stuff on. I find empty water bottles, endless empty water bottles, and a couple old mugs, but no glasses. I need to go downstairs. \n\nI am downstairs. This is the only cool thing about a dream; you can just teleport. The thought makes me smile and I press my body to the cool glass of this random living room that doesn’t belong to me. Hot breath billows before me like a dragon. I smell the scent of smoke first. I whip around and find myself in some kind of horrible maze. Walls of terrible white surround me. My walls have never been this white. There’s a moment of pride in my dream self when I hear a soft crackling behind me. The fire is chasing me! I dart in, abandoning my glass window with the ominous forest.\n\nThe first dead end forces a left hand turn as I feel the heat grow closer and closer. Don’t look back. Whatever you do, don’t look back.\n\nA right hand turn is my only option at the next dead end, but I can pick left or right at the third. I pick left since I am left handed. My second smile of the dream creeps its way in. This corridor is long. I run and don’t find myself out of breath. Looks like that gym time is paying off. A third smile. \n\nThe sound of crackling frightens me, though and when I look to find safety in the white walls, I realize they are growing darker and darker with each step. I can’t turn back. The fire will kill me. I will myself to stop. I am standing in front of a door. It’s white. I stare it down, knowing it’s my final quest. The door handle is silver; it belongs to me. It’s hot to the touch and I wince, but feel the heart of the fire behind me. This or certain death. \n\nI manage to open the door and step into a white room. The door softly shuts behind me. When I realize I am out of options, I turn back as quickly as I can. But the door handle is back to being on fire and I can feel the cracking of the fire on the other side. It whispers a promise of the end. I pace the room in circles. Look up. I find no secret hatch, no window. \n\nWake up\n\nWake up\n\nWake up\n\nIt’s just a dream. It’ll be a great book. What a way to end the trilogy. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up!\n\nI slump against the wall facing the door, feel the way the heat seems to suck the air out of my lungs, and resign myself to my fate—Alex’s question ringing in my ears, “Was it all worth it?”\n\n\nBreaking news: Famous Author DD Foster Collapses at Book Signing: She has been rushed to St. Michael’s, her husband of twenty five years at her side. We now go to a live coverage of Sally Sampson…\n\n“Oh my Loooorddd! It is just awful! No one is telling us anything,” she says while placing a manicured hand over her chest. “Oh! Oh gosh! Wait…it looks like Alex is stepping onto the hospital steps. This may be an update!”\n\nAlex clears his throat. The microphone peals with feedback and the reporters' cameras click with each photo. “Uh…thank you to everyone who has come…uh…the doctors are unsure of what happened to Darlene…er…DD…but, they have placed her in a medical coma,” his voice breaks and he shies from the camera. A woman with red hair in a messy bun steps up and introduces herself as Allie. She explains that the doctors hope DD will recover after some much needed rest. \n\n“They’re saying her brain was just overloaded with it all,” Allie adds and waves a hand at the cameras, threatening to blame the media who don’t shrink back. “We will release another statement with more information just as soon as possible,” she promises and steps away from the mic, as the hoard of reporters move in on her demanding more information. Allie takes Alex’s hand and hospital security pushes the crowd back.\n\nSally turns back to her cameraman, presses her glossed lips together and asks, “Well, did you get all that? What a terrible turn of events. Guess we’ll never get to read that final book.” She bursts out laughing and signs off saying, “Back to you in the studio, Eric!”" } ]

[ { "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: Love Has No Boundaries\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1155\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with the line, “That’s the thing about this city…”" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "That's the thing about this city it offers everything you need to tell your life story from job opportunities, to high class entertainments, best colleges, home of numerous celebrities but most of all a high crime rate for us black folks. \nMoving from New Jersey to the city hasn't been the best of Mellisa Sylvester life story but yet it still hasn't been the worst. Since graduating high school she has been struggling to accumulate just enough cash to make ends meet for her family and her while saving for college. She nervously fegited with her skirt waist while rehearsing her lines as she stood in the elevator anxiously waiting to impress the HR manager. \nShe kept her eyes focused on the floor as this is just another day of been highly discriminated for her high level of melanin. She swallowed hard when she sees the quality outfits the employees here wore but that still wasn't enough to defeat her determination. She had to go to college and working here as an intern for just a year is all she needs to cover her tuition. \nThe front desk assistant had nothing but disgusted showcased on her face as Mel explained her reason for visiting. Directing Mel to stand along side the other interviewees while there was still vacant seats is just another way to show what Mel goes through on a everyday basis. She stood there for hours and watched as interviewees who had arrived after her were called in while she stood there. At the end of the day the assistant walked up to her and let her know her outfit or high melanin level didn't match the fashion sense of the company so she wasn't requested by the HR manager. \nTears streamed down her face as she entered the elevator, normally she was a very mannered young lady but at that moment frustration was getting the best of her, she didn't care to acknowledge the person she saw when she entered.\nBehind her stood the CEO of Beauty's Fashion Models. He took the time to admire Melissa chocolate skin, the knotted mane on her head and the modesty of her outfit. She portrait everything the females who threw themselves at him everyday didn't do.\nHe took his badge off and place it in his pocket before approaching her. It took just a short conversation for Mr. Hartley to decide this is his wife to be. Everything about her captivated him he really couldn't understand how persons could hate her. \nWhen she hiccup while crying his heart moved in a way he had never felt it, he wanted to take care of this girl but still he had to keep what he was taught in mind.\"These black girls are nothing but gold diggers\" Melissa didn't portrait that to him but he knews how he would have figured that out. He stood right there in the elevator and decided how he'll reveal she's best for him and make her the best wife ever. He approach Mellisa with much catiion and he was right, she was everything he needed for a wife, she was quite different from the average city girls. \nMellisa was beyond happy at how generous he was, she was working as a housekeeper getting the same pay as most of these girls so in no time she could pay her college tuition fee. One thing she didn't understand was she didn't have anything to do than clean her room but she didn't enjoy that type of living. She wanted to work for her own so every afternoon she would pretend like all she did was clean her room but Anthony knew it was far from that as the other maids would have given him a daily update. At first it was quite hard for her, the others dislike her taste ofo fashion,her religion and her willingness to work when all she had to do was clean her room.\nShe was a housekeeper with her own personal workers \nBut that was beyond Anthony's thoughts he didn't employed her as a housekeeper he wanted her to be his wife.\nAs time progresset they both started to develop deep feelings for each other. Anthony would take days from work just to spend time with Mel. He would buy her small cute gifts as he realized she appreciated the little things.\nIt didn't take long for both of them to express there love for each other. Having it that in a couple months they were standing at the altar saying 'I do'. \nAfter the honeymoon he asked her to join him at work, she was devastated. She now dressed as the high class females but only in a modest way. \nAfter entering the building the emotions she felt two years ago recoiled but after seeing her husband's smile everything felt just right. \nThe whole building goes silent as she walks up to her husband giving him a hug.\nBut what she didn't expect was him taking her hand and leading her to the HR managers office.\nShe was quite confused as to why she was introduced as Ms. Sylvester instead of Mrs. Hartley.\nAfter the interview she left quiet angry at her husband, she didn't like been handed success she wanted to work for it.\nAs soon as he stepped in the house she was at him even a decent way. She didn't like the fuss with her husband especially after he has had such a long day at work.\n\"My love do you not believe in me, do you not know the person I am? I knew you would be angry at me which is why I introduced you as Ms. Sylvester and not Mrs. Hartley. Also it was his first day, he had no idea who you were\" \n\"I'm sorry, I thought you bribed them into accepting me\"\n\"Oh no darling\" \nA few minutes later the phone begun to ring, as she answered and the person over the phone replied her smike faded. \n\"What's wrong my love?\" \n\"I wasn't good enough, they didn't accept me\"\nA smile creeped to her husband face as he handed her an envelope.\nShe screamed and jump on top of her husband. Her soul was over joyed when she saw she was accepted into university.\n\"See darling everything happens for a reason\" \nMelissa knew her husband had wealth but she didn't know to what extent until the other morning she read his badge. She was over joyed that he got an upgrade at work.\nHe laughed so hard that she wondered if she had said something funny.\n\"No my darling I was always the CEO but you showed me your not here for that you're here because you love me\"\n\"And I love you for loving me at my worst\"\nLove is not about color, gender, religion, family status or city it's about the deep affection you share with someone." } ]

[ { "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 INTRUDER\n\nGenre: american\n\nWord Count: 1830\n\nPrompt:\n\nWhat was meant to be a great bonding vacation turns sour when an uninvited guest tags along." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "THE INTRUDER\n\nI’m not sure exactly when he started coming around but, literally, it was like, one minute he wasn’t there and, the next, he was constantly in our lives; and I mean constantly.\n\nWe, Billy and I, were told to call him “Uncle” Fred but he was no uncle of mine. I knew all my uncles and aunts and cousins; had done forever. I’d grown up knowing them. Even the ones we only saw every couple of years, we still knew about them, talked about them. So I knew this guy was no relative. Billy was too young and just did as he was told. Maybe that’s why he and this imposter got along so well. But me, I couldn’t stand him.\n\nI remember that first morning. It was a Saturday and I came downstairs early to watch cartoons, same as I had done every Saturday. I wondered what the lumpy shape reclining on our sofa was. Then the smell hit me. His smell. Pungent! A mixture of sweat and alcohol interlaced with that sweet, sickly after shave that he favoured; a smell I would come to know and loathe. That was when my ma’s hand grabbed me from behind and dragged me from the room.\n\n“No cartoons, today, Jake”.\n\nI couldn’t believe it.\n\n“Who is that?” I demanded to know.\n\n“That...that is Fred. Your Uncle Fred”.\n\n“I ain’t got no Uncle Fred”.\n\n“You do now. Okay?”\n\nLater, at the breakfast table, as this stranger joined us, I couldn’t help but show my resentment towards him and no amount of coercion from my parents could persuade me otherwise. He sensed it immediately and made no effort to get along with me, which, if I’m honest, just made me madder. Instead, he focused his efforts on Billy; an easy conquest. Even when Ma told me that I could leave the table and go and watch cartoons, having tidied up the living room, I could still smell his odour and refused point blank to do so.\n\nFrom that day, he just started hanging around more and more. Always at weekends and my Saturday morning ritual of the Simpsons became a thing of the past. I started playing Little League in earnest just glad to be out of the house as much as possible. Him being around was the reason I joined the Nippers, too. It really helped with my swimming but it was more to have a genuine reason to stay away from the house on Saturdays and Sundays. But it was when he started showing up in the middle of the week for dinner that my dislike and resentment turned into feelings of pure hatred.\n\nMa would make such a fuss of him and it turned my stomach. Turned out that he worked with Pa on the docks and it had been Pa who had first invited him home. I learnt all this by listening in to their conversations via the air duct that lay above the skirting in our bedroom, Billy’s and mine, that adjoined my parents’ room. Billy would be asleep but I would sit there, my ear to the grill, listening to them both speak glowingly about Uncle Fred.\n\nI could see his intentions, right off the bat. It amazed me that neither of my parents could see it, too. Whenever he came for the weekend, he made sure to bring Ma something pretty as a gift. Oftentimes, it was just flowers but, sometimes, it would be perfume or an item of clothing and Ma would make such a fuss; be so grateful that I would want to vomit at the sight of her hugging him. How could she get so close to this man? His aftershave was repugnant. Wasn’t she, too, offended by it?\n\nEven when he joined us for dinner during the week, he was sure to bring along a bottle of wine or two. Not just any wine either. It was always a sparkling variety; her favourite, of course. The three of them would consume the bottles over dinner and Billy and I would be excused from the table but I would keep an eye from afar as they became more intoxicated and hands would touch and whispers were exchanged between them. I just wanted to grab the carving knife and erase this man from our lives. I had never felt such venom towards any person before. Was my father unaware of this growing intimacy between his wife and his friend? It seemed to me as though he actually encouraged it, content to see Ma become ever more accepting and appreciative of Fred.\n\nWhen I heard them discussing our summer vacation, I knew that I had to make a stand. I listened as Fred extolled the virtues of the Rockies and how we could all take a camper and make a road trip of the entire summer, camping out under the stars, cooking over an open fire, going wherever we wanted. It sounded ideal but, when he proposed coming along with us, claiming to know all the best sites, I broke into a cold sweat.\n\nFrom time to time, both Ma and Pa had tried to talk to me about my behaviour around Fred but they had quickly realised that my feelings were deeply entrenched and no amount of cajoling was going to change my view of this man.\n\nThat night, after Pa had driven Fred home, I marched into my mother’s bedroom and furiously announced that I had no intention of accompanying them on any road trip to the Rockies. Period!\n\n“You go. I’ll stay with grandma. I mean it”.\n\n“Still up to your little tricks of listening in to grown up’s private conversations, I see, Jake”.\n\n“Can’t you see what that man is up to, buying you presents all the time? Why does Pa allow it”.\n\n“You have no idea of what you speak, Jake Horowitz. You should go and wash your mouth out with soap and water immediately, you hear? You’re only eleven years old and you don’t make the rules around here. It’s about time you learnt that”.\n\nI had skulked off to bed but, when Pa returned home later, I could hear them whispering frantically as I pressed my ear to the air duct grill though I couldn’t make out every word clearly. But, the following morning, Pa made a point of telling me and Billy that we, the four of us, would be heading to the Rockies for our family vacation. Ma nodded on, smiling. I suspected some trick so I made sure to clarify this.\n\n“You said, four. So it’s just us four, right?\"\n\n“Like I said, Jake. This is a family vacation. Just us four”.\n\nI felt as if I had just won a great battle; Hawkeye defeating the Iroquois, and, for the first time in several weeks, my parents saw me smile and tuck into my pancakes with glee. They seemed to be pleased by the effect of their news. Billy was ecstatic and we were a real family, once again.\n\nIn the days that followed, Fred stayed away and it was as if he had never existed. That first Saturday morning, I ventured downstairs apprehensively only to find the living room empty, no odour of Fred. I felt a feeling of joy and contentment coursing through me as I switched on the remote and settled down for a couple of hours of cartoons.\n\nWhen Pa brought home the hire camper, Billy, Ma and me clambered all over it excitedly. This was really happening. We were setting off on our first ever road trip; a real family.\n\nThe weather was glorious as we drove through places we had never before seen, stopping whenever we felt like it, taking in the views, chatting happily to other boys, just like us, embarking on a great American road trip and it seemed to me that both my parents were equally as thrilled as Billy and I as we made our way north, the Heart of the Rockies campsite our destination.\n\nWe could smell the cleanness of the mountain air, the fragrant, aromatic scent of the pines as we entered the camp grounds. Ma wanted to call in at the camp store so we could stock up on food and provisions. Billy and I took the opportunity to stretch our legs and check out the fishing rods that were on display for Pa had promised us both that he would spring for some rods and teach us the intricacies of fly fishing on this trip.\n\nYou can only imagine how I felt when I saw the red pickup truck parked in the store’s parking bays. I recognised the plate and the rear window stickers from when Fred would come to stay at weekends and my heart plummeted like a lead weight in a rain barrel. I felt sick to my stomach and pulled back on Billy who was trying to drag me into the store. A sense of deep betrayal had overcome me and I broke away from my brother and ran off wildly along a trail. I had no idea where it led, I just had to get away from those I loved the most who had played me false.\n\nThey had to organise a search party to find me. I could hear people calling my name in the darkness as I lay deep inside a thicket, scrunched up like a ball. It was the hunger gnawing at me that brought me out, finally, resigned to the fact that, for some strange reason, beyond my youthful comprehension, this man meant more to my parents than their own son. Of course, they protested their innocence: it had been just as much a surprise to them as it had been to me, they had had no idea that Fred was planning to be here, in this campsite, on this week. All lies, I knew, but what could I, an eleven year old boy, do, so far from home?\n\nI can’t remember too much about the rest of that vacation; just bits and bobs, blurred memories. How Fred taught Billy how to fish properly, light a fire. How Pa and Fred would go off together to the local tavern at night. How, slowly, Ma began to, finally, see the light and come to feel as I did but it was all too late by then; the seeds had been well and truly sown.\n\nPa left home immediately we returned to our house. Ma didn’t protest. Like me, I think she was just too disappointed that the wool had been pulled over her eyes for so long. She was probably disgusted also at the thought of what had been going on between Pa and Fred night after night, right under her eyes. I never again failed to trust my instincts for I may have got it wrong about Fred’s real target but I sure in hell got it right about that man." } ]

[ { "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: Patrick Cox's Resurgence\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1923\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone fighting to change their city neighborhood for the better." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "From across the city street, it looks like nothing.\nA building that was once a cradle of the great scientific invention for the old world now resembles a building that has been through the thick, unpardonable hands of war. To be fair, it has. Darthler’s hands are no less cruel. A building which was once called the ‘Tower of Hope’ for the future of science now stands in ruin, burnt, and abandoned. The gigantic metal doors that were the warm welcome of the Lab-Tech’s hub are all rusted, threatening to fall off. The glass windows that reflected the sun rays on the city’s streets are shattered, inhabited by cobwebs. I stand in front of it, watch it with disappointment and wonder if anyone cares about it anymore. My heart constricts at the thought of what the new world is willing to give up, at how much of humanity we are losing just so we can adapt. Anyway, that is not why I am here. I cannot lose focus. The mission is as important as my concern for what used to be. I turn to take a final glance across the street to check if I am not being followed. I am certain I am alone, well, not totally alone. I would have been save for Jeff, my friend, the computer geek (one of the few hackers and programmers who survived the Law and are living in hiding) who is here to give me the “secret eye” as he calls it and intel. \n\"Are sure about this Jeff?\" I ask almost in a whisper as I push the doors in. \n\"Yes, I'm positive. There's a part of me that's sure that he is in there. This is where everything happened. If you were Darthler, where else would you be?\"\n\"Exactly, you have a point...\"\n\"Good. So we go in anyway, but not storming in like an FBI team. We go slow and silent. We can't underestimate him. Just follow my lead.\"\n\"Alright. Roger that.\" I say as I adjust the silicon earpods sealed in my ear. The earpods are the only way I can communicate with Jeff. He is still in hiding but before the old world ended, he made a pact with me to be here when the time comes. He is making true his promise. \n“Being in hiding shouldn’t stop me from coming along,” he had said, the last time I sneaked off to his bunker, before handing the silicon earpods to me. He said he made them himself. It has visual and audio sensors and so he will be right there with me, through it all, he will see it all and even see ahead, he will walk me through it all. I trust Jeff. I know I am safe going in. \n“I am ready for action,” I mutter, push the rusty metallic door in, walk into the darkness that resides inside the building. I pull out a flashlight from the open compartment of my backpack, shake it to switch on, pouring out its neon streak. I flash it around, left to right, front and back. \n\"All Clear Jeff,\" I say once I was certain of my proclamation. \n“It is clear ahead too, within a two hundred meters radius,” Jeff adds. \nI take steps forward. The air inside is different from what I had expected it to be. I can't put my fingers on why it is so or what exactly it is I smell but it gives me a deja vu. It is as if I have been in contact with it before or worse, I have been in here before. But how is that possible? As I stand there battling with my mind, searching the archives of my brain to find out how exactly I knew I know the scent, it hit me. Darthler! That is his cologne. I know it for sure. I remember it from that night twelve years ago. The night everything I had grown up to know and love began to fall apart. The night he took my entire family from me, leaving me orphaned, lost in the system, from one foster home to the other, a bitter teenager. \nDarthler...the Dark Lord as he is known in Ivorwatch’s Pop culture—a pop culture influence by the Ivorwatch gazette. And so I am not surprised that after the gazette’s editorial about Darthler, the name ‘Dark Lord’ has come to stay. \n“He [Dr. Darth Ratched. Now: Darthler, the Dark Lord of Ivorwatch country] was a charming, curious, intelligent boy as a child. Which wasn't out of the ordinary for someone in his position. He was born into a wealthy and notorious family of scientists. Scientists who gave the old world hope in the future. He lived comfortably until he was about 19 years old when things changed. He had taken over his family's business as a new scientist in the family graduating top of his class. \nAlbeit being a student and that young, he had been very successful in a lot of inventions. He boomed in an ever-changing world. But with his wisdom and brilliance, he felt there was nothing to stop him from going beyond expectations. He tried a change of career path and started building nuclear weapons…”\nThe gazette’s editorial read.\n“Jeff you are right. He is here,” I declare, a bit scared and also filled with anger. \nI was not the only victim that night. My family weren’t the only one to die. Thousands suffered the same fate when the bomb went off that night. We were all there to watch the new invention, the last of his “Welcome to the new future” collection: A device that translates animal thoughts into human language. None of us knew what was brewing underneath us. As we giggled at the thoughts of the dalmatian he was using as his test animal, a nuclear volcano was ready for eruption. We didn’t see it coming. It happened. It destroyed and killed. Very few of us in the Lab’s showroom survived. Why? We are still searching for answers to that question. But we didn’t make it out the same. I have never been the same since that night, a lot has changed. The bitterness that brews hot within me is just the lower shelf of all that changed about me that night. Yet, after twelve years, news is flying around that Darthler is back in Ivorwatch, recruiting secretly, trying to start all over. Hell, no! Not on my watch. \nMy footsteps echo on the wooden floor which is covered in ashes as I walk farther. Every footfall echoes around, not loudly, but enough to give away my position to anyone who happens to be in here. There is water dripping from the roof, rhythmically, generating a melancholic melody. It forms background music of sorts with the creaking sounds from the floor. Aside from these sounds, everything in the half-burnt Lab seems not to move. The stillness of the place sends shivers down my spine. Then…\n\"I see a light!\"\n\"Great. Let's go check it out but be careful.\"\nI walk steadily towards the light. I see a half-opened door. The door appears new. Like it wasn't affected by the explosion or perhaps it wasn't there at the time of the explosion. I open it to reveal a dimly lit laboratory. Nothing but machines and heavy laboratory equipment meet my gaze. There is no sign of anyone in there. The lights in there, like the stars in the sky, does little to lift the darkness in the room. Strong scent of chemicals fills the place.\n\"Jeff? You see what I'm seeing?\" I adjust the silicon earpods to give Jeff a clear view.\n\"Cool... Let's find out what's in here.\" He babbles.\nAfter taking a few more steps inside, I stop...stop moving, stop breathing, while my heart run a marathon. What appears to be a gigantic glass tube filled with water, at first sight, turns out to be a tank. A tank filled with a murky liquid. In it floats, a human-like creature, but it seems dead. In this suspended moment, I turn the gears of my brain to find an explanation to what I am seeing and yet I find no answer.\n\"What the hell is this, Jeff?\"\n\"Gimme a second. I'm trying to figure it out too.\"\nI suck in a sharp breath of the toxic-like air that fills the room and steps forward for a better look. Then I hear footsteps behind me.\n\"Patrick? Someone is approaching. Patrick? Do you copy?\" Jeff’s voice ring in my head. “Can you hear me?”\n\"Affirmative but I can't see anyone.\"\nI turn around in haste.\n\"Hello? Anyoneth___\" Something hit me from the back sending a violent electrical current pulse through me. I feel numb. My vision blurs as I fall down on my knee.\n\"Patrick? Patrick? Are you there?\"\nThe distant voice of Jeff can be heard as I lay there unable to move. Though my eyes are open, I am unable to see clearly. My vision is blurry. My heart is pounding. My mind, empty. Then I blackout.\n***\nWhen I finally open my eyes, It is as if a hypodermic of adrenaline has been emptied into my carotid. I strain into the almost darkness, breathing rate beginning to steady. As I stand up from the floor, I am made aware of the coolness of the air. I am naked.\n\"Hello?\"\n\"Anyone here?\"\nI call out a few times hoping I will get help from anywhere. I wonder if I am dreaming as I walk towards the shafts of light that burst through the gaps in the room ahead.\n\"Oh! I can see you are making yourself at home already.\" A coarse voice says behind me. And I know it is him. I turn around abruptly to find a man in a daunting skull mask with impressive bone structure and a piercing gaze penetrating the eye hole. Darthler! The Dark Lord! A look into the eyes and you'd think you have met the devil himself. I take a few steps back as he walks towards me. A sudden gush of pain in my head halts my movement. There is a sudden crescendo of noise, then a profound and jarring explosion of sound, electrical fizzing and a bright flash in my vision, like someone has light a spotlight on my face. I fall flat on the cold floor. I bite my lip to keep myself from crying out. The sharp pain lances through my head. It feels like my whole body has been beaten and every movement causes some muscle or bone to ache.\nThrough the tears that have blurred my vision, I see him walk over to me. He takes out a syringe from the White lab coat he is wearing and injects some white-ish fluid into me through my arm.\nThe pain takes the exit seconds after. Slowly, I try to get up back on my feet.\n\"If I was in your place right now, I would stop trying because there's no way out.\" he hisses.\n\"What did you do to me?\" I ask. \nThe last thing I remember is looking around the lab when I was suddenly attacked from the back. The rest of my memory right after that seemed to have been erased.\n\"I gave you what you've been looking for,\" he says.\n\"What I hav__\"\n\"You want to avenge the death of your family, right?\"\nHe shoots me an evil grin, mimics a moon dance and walks out." } ]

[ { "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: Infinite Reigns of Time\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1907\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story that takes place in the same building but in two very different time periods." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Author's Note: I just wanted to thank the people who left kind and endearing comments and likes on my last submissions. That made me want to continue writing and showcasing my abilities. I will address you all specifically in my bio. I also take feedback to better my writing skills and the feedback I have taken has helped me become stronger as a writer. Thank you to the Reedsy community for making me feel at home, and to push me to write more! Now enjoy!\nThe roar of wheels thundered through the ground, making the tiniest shakes in the cracks of plush earth, as people of different ethnicity and background rushed past a 1970’s favorite. A slight rumble coursed through the freshly painted wood of a mom-and-pop restaurant in the middle of a bustling city, looking like a foreigner. A retro sign announced ‘Best Shakes and Burgers’ to passersbys. Various neon-colored bicycles and varieties of car brands flooded the stone-cracked parking lot. Ford Pintos, Pontiacs, and BMWs lined the streets and vacant lots in their polish, as if on display, just to get a taste of the world’s finest in Mayline. \nWhen entering the restaurant on a fine blue skyed evening Mabel toted a baby blue and white striped apron, cloth strips dangling from her fingertips. As she made her way to the backroom marked employees only, the rubber black heel struck the black and white checkered flooring, making a hollow clackity-clack noise. After waving a polite hello to the manager on duty, Mabel made her way to the restrooms smiling at customers on the way. The same familiar clackity-clack ricocheted off of linoleum walls echoing back faint rhythmic remedies. \nLetting the metal stall door swing shut, Mabel pulled the black head loop through and tied the cloth stips behind her back in a tight knot. Using the soft pink scrunchie wound on Mabel’s willowy wrist, she gathered her lush brownie, curly-frizzed hair into a tight bun atop her rounded crown. Letting the metallic stall door clash against the linoleum, Mabel flounced out the bathroom, flashing her pearly whites as she did so. \nMaking the trek to the back kitchen, Mabel reached to her back jeans pocket and produced a timesheet. When the large double doors swung shut with great force, Mabel made her way to the cool unchaotic break room. Where she then proceeded to punch in her timesheet. Before beginning strenuous cooking duties, Mabel took a deep inhalation, the smells of fried chicken and chocolate seeping through her nostrils. A smile was plastered on Mabel’s lips as she turned to begin the day’s work. \nAt the start of the shift, Mabel and a few other cooks began working diligently on different orders hung neatly on a string. The chicken was dipped into spitting scorching oil along with orders upon orders of homemade waffle fries. Milkshakes were spun with great agility, mixing fine malt powder into the depths of each cup labeled Blue Spoon. A blue spoon dipped elegantly between the words Blue and Spoon creating a memorable trademark to the local townspeople. Biscuits and waffles were created from a fresh batter, divine drops of humanity in a plastic Tupperware bowl. Plates were filled from brim to brim with foods that could grant diabetes if eaten in large amounts. Pans clashed and spoons rattled with the tales of due diligence and hard work. \nWhen it seemed the chaotic vibes died down, Mabel was shocked to realize the shorthand on the clock had reached the end of the 1st half of her shift. Making her way to the breakroom Mabel bent to pick up a pair of cherry red skates. With adrenaline still coursing through her veins from the onslaught of a continuous lunch break stream, Mabel slithered her way through the kitchen to the front counter, meeting eyes with Scott. Flashing a quick smile with a slight blush playing on his cheeks, he turned back to an indecisive couple arguing over who was going to pay the bill. Mabel quickly slipped off her tall boots revealing tall neon stockings to her shins. Setting the boots aside with the others, Mabel slipped on the skates, testing the slippery wheels on the carpet before plunging onto the freshly polished floor scape. \nMabel for the next couple of hours skated from red tabletop to red tabletop, filling glasses and clearing surfaces. The familiar sounds of The Beatles, Elton John, and Fleetwood Mac drifted frequencies through the air, booming over the commotion of constant conversation. Bobbing her head to the music, Mabel hummed the tunes as she skated with handfuls of dirty dishes in a translucent container. Customers turned their curiosity-filled heads to stare as the almond-colored 20 year old lost herself in the music as she cleared and refilled. From a short distance, Scott watched with amazed wonder at the swift and graceful motions Mabel was making, smiling within himself.\nWhen the sun left the Earth in a wide range of hues, night fell over the crowded restaurant and Mabel knew it was time to turn in the skates and head for home. After doing so Mabel slipped on the boots from hours before, casually fixing her stockings. Similar to previously in the day, Mabel returned to the break room, pocketed her timesheet, and stumbled with exhaustion out of the glass-faced doors. Waving a quick goodbye to Scott, Mabel mounted her luscious pink Gresham Flyer and pedaled for home. \nThe constant chitter-chatter of various voices rang through the silence as Mabel wheeled her only mode of transportation into a quaint garage. Stammering to the front door with overwhelming fatigue, she nearly fell to her knees at the entrance. The green-handled dial phone seemed to be beckoning to Mabel as she rested her aching and blistered feet. A forceful movement of air forced its way out of Mabel’s airway, getting a moment’s rest. Mabel’s fingers found the holes of the dial phone, and without much contemplation, she dialed her best friend’s number. “Hello,” greeted another voice on the opposing side. Not soon after conversation ebbed and flowed through the tongues of the best friends for hours, pouring over the tasks and situations of the one or the other’s daily responsibilities. When the hour hand on the grandfather clock struck 12, Mabel omitted a yawn, and excused herself for bed, to reset her mind and body. \nThese same daily activities, Mabel continued for years upon an eternity of years, until she got frail and wrinkled with time. The day Mabel was forced to retire dealt a major amount of damage to her heart. Blue Spoon was more than a restaurant to Mabel, the old shack harbored pent-up feelings and endearments of admiration and love. This shack didn’t just have hours and hours of labor, this shack had hours and hours of human interaction whether it was negative or positive. Mabel not only gained lifelong friends, but she also received the best years of her life. This shack was the beholder of memories, everything Mabel has never known, between right and wrong, happened in this very eatery. \nThese same thoughts rushed through her nimble mind as she sturred in bed, head plagued by the destruction of the beloved family favorite. Rubbing her hand on her temples, Mabel bolted upright in bed, her body protesting with the sudden jolt. Pains and aches burst through the graying woman, moaning in agony. Quickly, Mabel stifled her painful sobs and looked down at her sleeping husband. His frail body hitched with snores as Mabel shook him awake to leave for the last walkthrough of the restaurant. Before it gets obliterated from the face of the Earth frowned Mabel with tears already welling in her eyes. Grabbing clothes from the bedside dresser, the couple dressed and made their way to the kitchen. A nutritious breakfast of wry toast and black coffee was consumed before heading to the rickety car parked in the gravel of stone. The only noise uttered from the inside of the car was the whur of the engine and the low murmurs of a car beyond repair. \nWhen the restaurant came into view, Mabel practically broke into a whirlwind of emotions, tears spilling over her cheeks, but a smile playing on her lips nevertheless. The husband did all he could to comfort her before the couple exited the car. Mabel’s other half rushed with mighty slowness to the rear of the car to retrieve the women’s walker. With the stillness of a weeping willow tree in a freezing vendetta of ice, the couple stood in front of the restaurant watching with eyes of scorn, taking notice of the new features of the time. The hands of the couple conjoined together, sadness seeping into their pores. \nThe miserable sight towered above them in subliminal glory, with peeling paint and permanent graffiti. Shattered windows and stripped wood were nonchalantly ignored, the couple only seeing the ghostly memories left abandoned In the eyes of the elderly standing before the eatery, it reflected a castle, all of its glorious features shining through the shattered facade. Mabel released her hand from her husband’s and made her way to the door hanging on its hinges. \nA creak rang through the entirety of the restaurant, like the passage of time being opened. Mabel upon entering could feel the wheels of her skates on her feet spinning, in great motion, carrying her from place to place. Voices and jukebox crackles seemed to break through the crevices of Mabel’s memory, as she swirled with the invisible music and phantom voices. \nBreathing in heavily, with great strain, the loafed feet of Mabel found their way in the kitchen, void of delectable smells and mouthwatering sensations. The stickered lettering advertising Blue Spoon still hung helpless to the checkered wall. Rusted stoves and molding counters were all that inhabited the kitchen, but Mabel opened drawers anyway not expecting to find anything of importance. An omen seemed to shine bright in the dusty and webbed corners of a rotting drawer, a colored plastic spoon had hues of blue drifting up to her. With great gingerness, Mabel picked it up and lost all sense of reality. Memories flashed through her mind like a thunderstorm of continuous emotions. On the soiled ground, Mabel sat with the spoon cradled to her bosom, outcries of pain escaping her cracked lips. \nHer husband burst through the dilapidated double doors, with great care, and found the sight of his wife, broken and hurting. Rushing to her aide, the loving tenderness of frail love brought Mabel to her feet. Mabel lay her head in the crook of his neck and made the nape of his shirt wet with salty tears. Rough hitches coursed through Mabel’s body as the couple made their way back to the front of the building containing broken promises.\nSad absent eyes watched as the destruction team came and went, reducing the building of memories to fallen stone and pierced wood. The construction team, to Mabel, seemed to be the proverbial Grim Reaper, robbing her of happiness and jubilee. The destruction team drove away, leaving little room for apologies and comfort. Mabel turned to her endearing husband once more and said with little strength, “Scott, the infinite reigns of time has taken ahold of my heart and rendered it useless.” A shuddering sigh escaped her lips as she glanced down at the blue spoon she was clutching in her brittle hands." } ]

[ { "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: Hard Times in The Big Easy\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1281\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone fighting to change their city neighborhood for the better." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Hard Times in The Big Easy\nI needed a beer. I needed a smoke. I needed a good-luck broad to blow on the dice.\nA week in the solitary confinement of one’s soul staring at a blank screen, typing, then hitting erase – delete, slamming the case shut, and walking away only to come back to the same blank screen – the same thoughts forming from words in your mind – knowing that once you put those words out and hit the big send button they can’t be taken back. Lives will change, the perception of paragons will shift…\nWhat I had was a cold cup of chicory in the non-smoking section of Café Du Monde and a large, angry man heading my way.\n“Hello, brother,” I said.\nTim didn’t answer.\n“Let’s try this again. Hello, brother.”\nHe set the satchel on the table and took a seat.\n“Sorry - Hello Samuel.”\n“What crawled up your butt,” I asked?\nHe didn’t answer, not verbally in the way one would expect a brother to answer a brother when they haven’t seen one another for over a year. Instead, he pawed inside the case.\nHe took a single piece of legal-looking paper and slid it my way.\nThe air from the circulating ceiling fan of the open-air section of the café caught the edge of the paper Tim had slid towards me. It rose with a little puff, like a magic trick, and stayed suspended for a second before gliding back to rest next to my plate of beignets.\nI reached for it before it had a chance to change its mind.\nMy shirt peeled itself from the back of the wrought-iron chair as I reached for the paper, the fan sufficient for turning a single sheet of 8.5 x 14-inch legal bond into a magic carpet was sorely lacking the ability to accomplish its intended task.\nNine in the morning and the air was already liquid.\nTim removed his hat. He snatched up a napkin and mopped sweat from his forehead. His eyes shifted to me as I read the document.\nI read it once, quickly, scanning the bold print with my fingers. “Jeff Davis Monument, corner of Canal and….yes - Robert E. Lee, St. Charles…umm – Beauregard…okay…\nI hadn’t finished when he said, “You don’t seem surprised.”\n“Should I be?”\n“Big news here. This far south,” he said.\n“Nah, think about it, brother.” I had, long and hard and often during the year I’d been away. Seen it first-hand too, up in the Carolinas, Holy City, Queen City - Charleston, Charlotte – monuments removed - history erased. That’s the story I was going to write when I left the Times-Picayune with my assignment. You know the angle I was after - How’s this destruction of National Treasures - this mob mentality - this uppity me, me, me, rioting - going to do anything but rip what little common thread we had left holding us together apart, with no hope of stitching it back together? We’re barely hanging on as it is. Didn’t they get that?\nThat’s the story I wanted to chase.\nThat’s not the story I wrote.\n…\n“Think about what?” Tim asked.\nLost in thought I didn’t answer.\nHe grabbed a beignet from my plate. When he finished the triangular donut, he licked his fingers. Some of the powdered sugar had fallen on the document. I brushed it away with my fingers, careful not to make a smudge.\n“Logical step, don’t you think,” I said.\n“By gad, Sam, it’s history. Things happened. Can’t go erasing history.”\n“People know, they’re always gonna know. What we don’t need is a constant rub in the face. How would you like to walk your kids past a statue of Hitler every day?”\n“That’s not the same and you know it, little brother. Those Jews were…”\n“Really, Sam! That’s what you think. No, you’ve never had to think about it, or you’ve just plain chosen not to,” I said.\nA rag-tag street band marched down the street, heading from Jackson Square to the sidewalk next to the café. They struck up the tune When the Saints Go Marching In. I leaned in for his answer.\n“I don’t remember you being so high and mighty about this before. What happened to you while you were gone. Meet some new friends, maybe carry on…”\n“What happened is I opened my eyes.”\n“Sounds like something, or someone opened them for you.”\nIt had been a little of both, I was in Charleston taking my evening bourbon on a stroll around Calhoun Park when I saw her. Her skin shining the darkest shade of ebony I had ever seen. I could embellish and tell you she was tall, willowy, with graceful movements that reminded me of ballet when she walked, and that when she smiled her perfect teeth gleamed ivory white. I could tell you this, but the truth is, she wasn’t. She was as plain and ordinary as any human I knew. Another face in the crowd trying to make ends meet.\nI don’t know what, maybe the bourbon, maybe the lack of sleep from my work, caused me to watch, but watch I did as her husband came beside her, a child clutching dutifully at each hand.\nI sipped and slid close enough to hear as she pointed to a monument, “Tomorrow,” she said, “tomorrow they’re gonna tear this thing down, and we’ll be here when they do.”\nOne of the children, the older of the two asked why - wanted to know what the man had done that nobody liked him anymore. Statures, like this, were reminders of great men who did great deeds, of heroes. She said she had learned that in school.\nThey sat down at the base of the monument, the little family did, and I listened and for once heard what the father said. When he had finished, he said, “That should set you straight.” \nAnd when he put it that way, it muddled the waters of what I’d been taught to feel, the way that’s only normal for the human-animal to feel when a big batch of people from a different heritage move in. I understood. Trouble is, they didn’t move in, not in the traditional sense where they made the trek willingly, looking for a better life, eye on the prize, a hard, sometimes ruthless journey untaken with the goal of more on the other end. No, they were, hunted and herded and bought and sold to live and die at the discretion of those that had no more use for them than a sack of flour, a piece of chalk, a….fed only to keep them sturdy and strong enough to labor, bred to one of the Masters choosing- to produce not a child, but a tool to be used, or a commodity to be sold.\nThat’s what he told his children and I was close enough to see the horror in their eyes and the tears in those of his wife.\nI went back to my room at The Mills House, sober, took out my laptop, and began banging on the keys.\n…\n“Read your column in the Times-Picayune, Sam. Caused quite a stir with the old man. Momma said it was a right good piece of writing though,” Tim said.\n“Don’t know how good it was, but I do know it was right.”\n“What’s next?”\nI pointed out beyond the café, beyond the street…\n“Jackson Square, what’s wrong with ole Andrew?” he asked.\n“Same as the others, Tim, same as the others.”\n“Got your wires crossed, Sam. Totally different war.”\n“Same war, Tim. Just a different 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: Fighting for justice\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1091\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone fighting to change their city neighborhood for the better." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Previous\nNext\nBlack Lives Matter 2020 Impact Report\nSee how we, as the organization leading the Black Lives Matter (BLM) Movement, responded to the challenges of 2020.\nOur Movement Is #SoMuchMore\nFebruary 1, 2021\nFrom the time historian Carter Woodson created Negro History Week in 1926 up through today’s celebration of Black History Month, the goal has always been to recognize Black Americans’ prolific contributions that had been ignored, dismissed or diminished in textbooks and popular culture…\nTell Your Rep(s) to Support Rep. Cori Bush’s Resolution\nFebruary 1, 2021\nWe’re supporting Rep. Cori Bush’s resolution which would investigate and expel the GOP members of Congress who attempted to overturn the election and incited a white supremacist attack…\nTell Congress to Pass the COUP Act\nJanuary 26, 2021\nRep. Jamaal Bowman’s the COUP Act would require a deep, thorough investigation into the security failures at Capitol Hill during the insurrection. The ties between any Capitol police officer(s) and white supremacy or fascism must come to light…\nNews\nBlack Lives Matter Global Network Responds after Wisconsin District Attorney Won’t Charge Kenosha Police Officer in Jacob Blake Shooting\nJanuary 5, 2021\nBlack Lives Matter Global Network Foundation (BLMGNF) released the following statement in response to a Wisconsin District Attorney deciding that Kenosha police officer Rusten Sheskey will not be charged for his August 23, 2020 shooting of Jacob Blake…\nBlack Lives Matter Global Network Foundation Statement About Violent Conflict in Ethiopia\nDecember 17, 2020\nBlack Lives Matter stands in solidarity with all disenfranchised and displaced people in the Horn of Africa who are affected by violent conflict in Ethiopia…\nLove, Connection, and Beauty in a Time of Isolation, Tension, and Change\nNovember 26, 2020\nThe attacks the USPS continues to face are not just attacks on the postal service but attacks on Black lives. To defund the USPS would be to deny future generations this opportunity and dishonor the legacy of Black postal workers. Now, we’re taking this matter into our own hands by writing and sending #BlackLoveLetters through USPS…\nCalifornians: Help Us Make Calls to Gov. Newsom’s Office Before It’s Too Late\nNovember 23, 2020\nWhile we are ecstatic about the historic election of Kamala Harris being elected the first Black woman vice president, it means her Senate seat is currently vacant. This also means that we’re faced with the unfortunate reality that if Gov. Newsom doesn’t appoint a Black woman to this seat, there will be no Black women in the Senate…\nTell Gov. Newsom He Must Appoint a Black Woman to the Senate\nNovember 16, 2020\nKamala Harris is set to make history as the first Black woman vice president — which means her Senate seat will soon be open. Without Kamala Harris, there are no Black women in the Senate at all. That’s why we’re calling on Governor Gavin Newsom to appoint a Black woman to fill that seat…\nJoin Black Lives Matter in Our Request for a Meeting with President-Elect Biden and Vice President-Elect Harris\nNovember 9, 2020\nWe worked long and hard to ensure we did all we could to vote Donald Trump out of the White House — we succeeded. And in doing so, we even elected a Black woman — the first Black woman — to the vice presidency. But the truth is, getting Trump out of office was not the end all, be all. The work is just beginning. We start by both holding the new president-elect and vice president-elect accountable to their campaign commitments of addressing systemic racism and by emphasizing our willingness to work with them.\nBlack Lives Matter Global Network Statement About Biden-Harris Victory\nNovember 7, 2020\nOnce again, Black people — especially Black women — have saved the United States. Whether in Milwaukee, Detroit, Philadelphia, or Atlanta, Black voters showed up in huge numbers to turn this country around and remove the racist in the White House…\nStatement by Black Lives Matter Global Network About Election Results\nNovember 3, 2020\nBLACK LIVES MATTER \nI want you to read Black Lives Matter\nViolence \nMost of the proteser were being peaceful \nThere are people who got shoot \nDonald Trump is just having ralleys and doing nothing about the protester and he said that black is the symbol of hate and he is wrong. What if I say white is a symbol of hate.\nShooting \nShooting \nWhy are they shooting black and color who is protesting\nThe killing of George Floyd\nShooting the protester for burning up stores and the police just shoot \nProtest \nProtester are just trying to have justice \nprotesters are getting shot \nProtest are burning up stores and stuff like that\n BLACK LIVES MATTER BLACK LIVES MATTER\nRacial justice protesters and he said black is a symbol of hate and he is wrong. What if I say white is a symbol of hate? \nWhy are police shooting black and color who are protesting? The killing of George Floyd was awful. It was scary when they put their knees on his neck and he said I can’t breathe. Police shoot the protesters for burning up stores and the police just shoot. Protesters are trying to have justice because of Racial in justice. Protesters are getting shot. Protesters are burning up stores and stuff like that because they're mad and angry. \nThis was an awful\n protesters and he said black is a symbol of hate and he is wrong. What if I say white is a symbol of hate? \nWhy are police shooting black and color who are protesting? The killing of George Floyd was awful. It was scary when they put their knees on his neck and he said I can’t breathe. Police shoot the protesters for burning up stores and the police just shoot. Protesters are trying to have justice because of Racial in justice. Protesters are getting shot. Protesters are burning up stores and stuff like that because they're mad and angry. \nThis was an awful\n protesters and he said black is a symbol of hate and he is wrong. What if I say white is a symbol of hate? \nWhy are police shooting black and color who are protesting? The killing of George Floyd was awful. It was scary when they put their knees on his neck and he said I can’t breathe. Police shoot the protesters for burning up stores and the police just shoot. Protesters are trying to have justice because of Racial in justice. Protesters are getting shot. Protesters are burning up stores and stuff like that because they're mad and angry. \nThis was an awful" } ]

[ { "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: Kindness of Strangers\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 2012\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with the line, “That’s the thing about this city…”" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“That’s the thing about this city. People are so rude,” Keisha Martin grumbled at the guy shoulder surfing behind her. At least she was only reading on her Kindle and not taking care of any bank transaction or anything else involving a password. Still, she didn’t exactly want him seeing what she was reading either. Not that she was ashamed of it, but she was in the middle of a raunchy sex scene and that was nobody’s business except hers and her book boyfriend. \nHomeboy didn’t get the message or evidently thought her criticism wasn’t meant for him. How could he not? It was bad enough he was unavoidably standing so close she could feel his breath tickling the top of her head every time he exhaled—because yeah, that’s how tall he was—but on top of that he was probably coming to all sorts of conclusions about her that weren’t meant for public consumption.\n“Do you mind?” She turned around, ready to lay into him then froze at the sight of his dark-chocolate eyes smiling down at her. Yes, he was as tall as she’d thought, tall enough that she had to crane her head to look at his flawless, sculpted face. Goodness, someone could cut themselves on those cheekbones!\n“Couldn’t help myself.” He grinned. “Hot scene.”\n“I’ll bet,” she blurted, hadn’t meant to engage him any further. Especially when she was so instantly attracted to him her stomach dipped at the sight of his mahogany skin and straight white teeth as if she was riding on a rollercoaster and not a crowded car on the Downtown D.\nThe train jerked to a stop in the tunnel and he braced himself with one hand on the ceiling, the other on the pole, and his feet planted apart, hips trust back and away from her.\nShe appreciated the effort he made to avoid his pelvis making contact with her and that he didn’t seem like one of those pervy guys who enjoyed getting their rocks off on unsuspecting victims during their commute.\nComplaints rose up from several disgruntled passengers just as the train’s PA system came on with a barely audible announcement about someone engaging the emergency brake on this train and a sick passenger on the train in the station ahead.\nWow, almost a freaking trifecta. They were only missing a police action. \nThis was not good at all. Keisha had been rushing around late this morning and left the house without grabbing her usual snacks or even a breakfast bar she could munch on her way to the train. She’d planned to grab something as soon as she got to work, which would have been pushing things. But this indeterminate delay? This could get ugly.\n“Are you all right?”\nThe deep, butter melting voice sounded like it was coming from a lot farther away than just above her. If her legs hadn’t already started to feel weak and she wasn’t experiencing light headedness, that voice alone would have done the trick.\n“I’m fine,” Keisha lied as she saw spots flashing before her eyes right before everything went black.\n* * *\nKeith Marshall watched her sway and begin to fall as if in slow motion. He’d never seen anyone faint in real life before but reacted automatically, directing the surrounding passengers to make room as he caught the young woman and scooped her up into his arms.\nThe crowd thankfully cleared a path to where a few people had stood from their seats to make room for Keith to sit down with his precious cargo.\nIt was so easy to act as if they were together—like they belonged together—especially when the other passengers treated them like a couple.\nAn older woman handed him a piece of candy from her purse, reminding him of his gramma who’d always had a supply of Tootsie Rolls in her purse for him and his siblings. “It might be low blood sugar.”\nKeith suspected the same from witnessing a couple of episodes with his older sister who had diabetes. He hoped it was nothing more serious, though low blood sugar was serious enough. He’d just met her after all, and wanted to get to know her a lot better. He gratefully took the candy as the woman in his arms began to stir and slowly come around.\nA gentleman standing nearby handed Keith a large cup of ice coffee. “I didn’t get a chance to drink any yet. It might help.”\n“Help what?”\nKeith looked down as her confused color-change eyes took him in. He stared for a moment trying to figure out if they were hazel, gray, green or all of the above. After a long moment, he gave up, just appreciating their exotic, catlike beauty. “Take a sip.” He put the straw to her lips and watched as she unquestioningly opened her mouth to follow his command before taking the cup in both hands.\nSomething stirred deep inside him watching her full lips close around the plastic. He wondered what the coffee tasted like on her mouth, the urge to kiss her and find out growing by the minute. An urge he firmly pushed down. An urge for which he was sure she would rightfully chide him.\nThe memory of her annoyed, chastising look when she’d turned to catch him reading over her shoulder made his heart thump hard in his chest, the noise magnified in his ears by the silence around them.\nIt was as if everyone was holding their breath, waiting to see what would happen next, and Keith took the chance to boldly, gently push a stray tendril of hair away from her face and tuck it behind her ear. The cinnamon strands were as fluffy as they looked.\nShe stopped drinking after a few swallows, closed her eyes and leaned her head on his shoulder. So trusting, probably too tired to put up a fight or not accept the kindness of strangers.\nOne of which he would not be for long, if he had anything to say about it. \nKeith wondered if he was taking advantage of the situation, but told himself he’d be a fool not to. When opportunity knocked, he answered the door. His mama hadn’t raised any fools.\n“Are we still in the tunnel?”\n“Unfortunately.”\nShe sighed and cuddled closer.\nMaybe it wasn’t just trust. Maybe it was comfort and satisfaction. Maybe she liked being right where she was—safe and in his arms.\nThe thought made him feel ten times more protective of her than when he’d first seen her, looking all harassed and irritated as she’d squeezed into the car several stops ago.\nIt wasn’t an ideal first meeting, granted, but he’d wanted to rap with her from the first moment he’d seen her get on the train and had been biding his time.\nNow was his chance.\nThe PA system came to life again, the conductor’s words mostly garbled, but the gist was clear. They’d be sitting in this tunnel for a little while longer.\nThe woman in his arms didn’t flinch, as if she had all day to hang and was no longer concerned about the wait.\nWas it contentment or resignation?\n“You smell good,” she mumbled against his shoulder.\n“Thanks.”\nShe jerked her head up to stare at him. “Did I say that out loud?”\n“Fraid so.” He grinned.\nShe clutched his shirt and buried her face against his chest. “I’m so embarrassed.”\n“Don’t be.” He squeezed her shoulder, glancing at the people around them making a concerted effort not to stare.\n“I never wanted to be that person. And here I am, being that person.”\n“What person?”\n“The sick passenger.”\nHe grinned at her brave front. There was just something about strong independent black women that made him want to hold them close and tell them everything was going to be all right, that they didn’t have to be so strong or independent all the time. “Don’t feel bad. You’ve got people on the train up ahead.”\nShe chuckled. “Misery loves company.”\n“It’s not that miserable, is it?” He held his breath, waiting for her answer as she pulled her face from his chest to stare at him.\n* * *\nHis eyes were so deep and dark. Mesmerizing. But his chest didn’t seem to be moving anymore. Had he died and she hadn’t noticed? “Not that miserable,” she murmured, glad when he started breathing again, feeling his long-lashed gaze scanning her face like a barcode.\n“Nice to know.” He nodded, rearranging her on his lap for comfort, his or hers, she wasn’t sure, but when she tried to get up—she was sitting on a stranger’s lap after all!—his hold tightened ever so slightly. “You’re good.”\nShe certainly was. Good and bothered despite the repositioning. She hadn’t missed that hard part of him that let her know he was just as turned on as she was and once again appreciated that he made the effort to keep his distance inasmuch as the situation allowed. “I think you owe me a name, Mr. Guardian Angel.”\n“Keith.”\n“Keisha.” She thought she heard one of the passengers say “Aww.” and another murmur, “How cute.” She couldn’t have agreed more and almost laughed at the notion.\nShe’d never imagined introducing herself to someone on a train while sitting on his lap, stuck in a tunnel and surrounded by a bunch of unexpectedly romantic strangers. Keisha’s hackles went up when guys on the street ordered her to smile. But she thought Keith could have ordered her to do anything right about then and she’d have probably considered it. “Married? Significant other?” she asked, had to know before this little lovefest went any further.\n“Nope and nope. You?”\n“Nope and nope.”\nMore buzzes about cuteness abounded.\nKeisha couldn’t help herself and finally laughed.\n“I know, right,” Keith said. “I’d like to get to know you better, Keisha. Want to meet after work and I’ll take you to dinner?”\nNormally, she’d have thought twice about accepting, internally making up all kinds of excuses to say no. Not this time. “Yes.”\nThere was scattered applause that made Keisha feel like she was in the middle of one of her favorite romcoms right before the train jerked and started moving.\nThe applause swelled, joined by cheers of relief.\nKeisha took several more sips of the coffee, thankful for the sugar rush. Someone liked their mocha latte sweet! “Here.” She handed Keith the cup and rummaged through her purse for her cell. “Number and last name.”\n“Bossy much?”\n“It’s how I roll.” Her job as a high school teacher called for nothing less. “You have a problem with that?”\n“Not a one, ma’am.” He smirked. “Keith Marshall…”\nKeisha almost hummed as she typed his name and number into her Contacts. Nice and strong name. Like him.\nWhen she was done, she put away her cell and proffered her hand. “Keisha Martin.”\n“Our towels we’ll have matching monograms.”\nShe chuckled and felt the heat of a fierce flush warming her cheeks. Looked like she wasn’t the only one who was a romantic.\nKeisha slid off his lap to sit in the seat beside him, preparing for the inevitable separation. At least temporary separation, she told herself.\nBut when the train pulled into the station, and he moved to get off with her and most of the passengers, she arched a brow.\n“I’ll walk with you, Keisha. It’s on my way.”\nShe liked the way her name sounded on his tongue and the commanding way he invited himself like he wasn’t going to take no for an answer. There was something irresistible about a man who could be gentle and strong in the same breath that made her heart twang.\nAn older woman patted her back as she walked by them. “You two take care of yourselves. And don’t forget breakfast next time, Keisha.”\nKeisha smiled and nodded, but despite the fainting spell she didn’t regret her lapse.\nIf skipping breakfast meant her fainting into Keith Marshall’s arms, she’d do it all over 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: Abyss of Revenge: What was once Home\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1988\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story that takes place in the same building but in two very different time periods." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Bernice's ride through the city was amazing. She hadn’t planned this but there was one particular place she wanted to visit. Her heart pushed her to that part of the city where she once lived. Her body resisted the temptation to go to that particular location but her mind was there already. The scenes she’d tried had to forget was going to come back one way or the other but she took the risk. She turned a junction to the mansion she once lived in and noticed how developed that part of the city had become. It was the Provençal mansion, the place where it all began. A mansion her father constructed. There were new structures but that particular building remained the same. It seemed to be the best in the entire area as Tracy usually said, ‘’This mansion was built for the generation ahead.’’ And then her father would reply to his wife.\n‘’I built it for my kids,’’ Bernice remembered that man she called father.\nThere was this huge fancy glass boutique for men on the right side of the street which meant that major evacuation occurred before the boutique was built. What used to be full of wild vegetation was now a sight for classy men. Everyone wanting to be trendy. She giggled thinking of how someone could be trendy in a place that was almost a bush about fifteen years ago. She smiled, it was that same spot her mother wanted to build that dream school of hers. Obviously, things didn’t turn out as planned. A thin emotion of happiness was felt within her.\nShe parked her car still staring at the mansion. She finally bowed her head thinking about veering off like she’d never been there but she raised it up again tying that jet-black hair into a low ponytail and then walked closer to the mansion. Each step in that yellow heels caused a tear and each tear increased the abyss she had created in her heart. The garden remained the same still at the back of the house and she couldn't resist but to remember the lovely moments she had once had with her sister and father in the garden. Tracy always watched them from the garden. Theirs was once a happy family. She laughed as she remembered those flowers she was once compared to. A mixed feeling inside her as it all came back.\nFIFTEEN YEARS AGO\nDavid and his two lovely daughters; Isabella and Lawrencia were at the garden of their new mansion. It had been a month since they moved in and the family was as happy as always. Tracy stood in her kitchen watching the happy family she had made.\n''If there is one thing I can see amidst my children, it's the fact that Isabella is a wild-flower and Lawrencia is a sunflower. Not just any type of sunflower but a wild sunflower. One that’s beautiful but doesn’t let others stand on her rights.'' David told his daughters and Lawrencia couldn't desist from staring at those plants she was being compared to.\nThey had moved several miles in search of a place that white people would respect them as the blacks they were. It was a century of racism where blacks were still treated with disrespect. Still staring at her family there was a knock at the door. Isabella raced to the door before her parents could. Lawrencia, however, sat at the garden looking at the wonderful sunflower she had always admired.\nIt was Enoch and the couple was surprised to see him.\n''I'm Enoch Kins, the senator's guard and he has instructed me to tell this family to meet him tomorrow for breakfast. He just wants to welcome you into Poblanco.'' Enoch said and left immediately.\n''It would be nice for us to meet the Senator. We can even tell him about our plan to establish an international school here in Poblanco.'' Tracy said convincingly holding unto her daughter and husband. Lawrencia turned to stare at the smiley face of her mother.\nPRESENT DAY\n...on that beautiful bright morning, her parents signed their death contract. The nice scenes were gradually changing into horrible ones. In that same garden, she saw her sister die. She remembered how they run past the street she was standing on. The bullet her father received and how his car sparked a fire. Those gunshots signalled something to her and that was, ‘War had begun!’ Her body was covered with goosebumps out of fright. She shut her eyes in a haste but it was worse.\nFIFTEEN YEARS AGO\nThe Provençal mansion stood in a deserted place in the still-developing city since they had decided to build Tracy's dream school close to the mansion. Therefore, the sudden gunshot in that environs made David stop his car immediately. He turned to look at his daughter who looked back in return.\nDavid and Lawrencia parked the car a junction away from their residence as they decided to walk home. David held his daughter's hand pretending that everything was all right but even Lawrencia could feel his hands tremble.\n''Lawrencia,'' he finally paused and knelt in front of his daughter,'' I don't know what is in there but I want you to wait for me in the car and I'll personally come for you if everything is all right. Just don't complain.'' David said and Lawrencia had no choice but to walk back to the car.\nDavid walked willingly to the house but after seeing some cars parked beside the road, he noticed that his wife had company. Uninvited guests to be precise. He knew he wasn't safe since the only gun he had was at home and he wished that Tracy could have used that to defend herself. Instead of using the main gate, he used the back door. The movement of armed men in his compound was a problem on its own. He tried to call for the aid of the Police but stopped after noticing that they were the Senator's men. William's roars were evident and David needed a way to save his family.\nDavid hid poised at the back door as he monitored the movement of the guards just when he was about to move in through the kitchen back door, the door went open. He was caught half-way in his movement surprised with what he saw. Standing in the garden that connected the kitchen to the compound was Kimberly and his daughter who seemed to be bleeding from the neck.\nIsabella was so happy to see her father that she decided to race to him. Kimberly tried to stop her as David told her to wait on countless occasions just then he received a tap from the back and it was Lawrencia.\n''What did I tell you?'' David asked Lawrencia but she didn't have time to answer as she pointed at her sister who had already begun to run to them. Just when Isabella was about to touch her sister, the Senator shot. Lawrencia stood petrified with her eyes in only one direction and that was her sister who lay on the ground looking directly into her eyes. Some armed men began to come in Kimberly's direction and she raced as fast as she could to David. William shot in her direction but she had made her way to David's already.\n''Isabella!'' David screamed and begun to run after Kimberly had pushed him.\nDavid and Kimberly began to run but they had to come back for Lawrencia who didn't believe that her sister was dead. They raced as fast as they could with bullets flowing in many directions. One bullet hit David on the shoulder but he had to make sure that his family was safe. Kimberly was as desperate as ever as she took Lawrencia away from David. His car was their only option and he was the only one who knew how to drive. They hopped into David's car which was a junction away and he had already taken off.\n''Where is Tracy?'' David asked Kimberly.\n''She's dead!'' Kimberly replied straightforwardly as tears fell down her eyes.\n''No!'' David screamed in tears but there was no time to be sentimental as William and his men chased David with their van.\n''Isabella saw a lot before William shot her. The poor girl saw her mother being raped by that monster!'' Kimberly screamed at the end of her statement and they felt how fast David was driving the car. He seemed to have lost his brain confused with everything that was going on. Soon, William's team shortly lost sight of David's.\n''I need the both of you to get down!'' David commanded after deliberately stopping the car. Kimberly got down and pushed the muted Lawrencia along with her.\n''What do you plan on doing?'' Kimberly asked.\n''The only way to protect the both of you is to do what I have in mind,'' he paused in tears to look at his daughter eye-to-eye, ''whatever that happens promise me that you wouldn't let your family die in vain. You know that you're my wild sunflower and always remember that I love you!'' he shut the door still staring at the only family he had left as he fiercely drove the car. Kimberly pushed Lawrencia behind one of the trees as William's van came passing by. Lawrencia rose her head in time to see her father's car hit directly into a nearby tree and immediately the car sparked a fire. Lawrencia shook like she had never before.\nPRESENT DAY\nEverything disappeared in the blink of an eye. Maybe her tale didn’t have to do with that mansion she once called home but every street that either led to or away from it. She wiped her tears and pulled the tie of her hair, the jet-black hair turned back into its smooth waviness. She stared back at the mansion and then stood frozen when she noticed the new residence in that house. It was no other person than Khady, Samuel's girlfriend and Samuel happened to be the son of Senator William, the man who destroyed the life of her family. It was the very same Khady she had fought with. They exchanged eye-contact within the first five seconds and Bernice sat back in her car and raced off towards the direction her father died.\n''What the hell is she doing here?'' Khady screamed and her father, Daniel walked out.\n''Who?'' he asked after seeing no one.\n''It was that Hayes lady. I saw her with my very own eyes. She was standing there. She raced off in her car after seeing me.'' Daniel laughed at her daughter.\n''I am very serious, Dad. I saw her. She was in a dark-green blouse that had one side sleeveless and she was wearing green trousers just like mine. I bet she was wearing those earrings she wore during the evening party when she poured champagne on my gown.'' Daniel laughed remembering those scenes. She held unto the tough door to the mansion.\n''You're hallucinating. That girl doesn't know anywhere in Poblanco much less our home.'' Daniel laughed once again and left his daughter alone.\nEach part of town reminded Bernice of her family. She drove directly to the guest-house to avoid any more trouble. She had to prepare very well for her dinner with the Blancos and that was what she was going to do. That night her parents died changed her life. She changed from being the little Provençal girl likened unto a wild-sunflower into a lady whose heart was an abyss of revenge. This was the secret of Bernice Hayes, the skeleton in her closets one would say, the billionaire who was now Senator William’s investor. She stared at the huge billboard of William Blanco that had been made in front of the guest-house. Her black eyes hot with fury.\n‘’I’m back for you!’’" } ]

[ { "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 Lucky Ones\n\nGenre: american\n\nWord Count: 2946\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with a character looking closely at something, or someone. They can't quite decide if what they're looking at is natural, or man-made." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“She is definitely a robot,” Carly leans in and whispers in my ear.\n\nI stifle the involuntary laughter rising up my chest by covering my mouth with one hand, swatting her playfully with another. “Oh my god, Carly, shhh!” I press an index finger over my parting lips.\n\nShe snickers. “Seriously! There’s no way this chick is real. Look at her,” she’s extending her arm out, palm facing up, gesturing to the woman speaking on stage. “Who looks like that? She seriously hasn’t stopped smiling since she started talking. It doesn’t even look real! That’s definitely part of her programming. And she hasn’t even blinked, like, the whole time she’s been up there! Someone definitely made her. And I don't mean...\" Carly is wiggling her eyebrows seductively at me, and circling her hips around in her chair. \"I mean, someone straight-up manufactured this woman, then sent her out into the real world to torture us.\"\n\nI know Carly is joking, despite her attempt to provide validating evidence for her suspicions, but for a small fraction of a second, I entertain the idea. With all the new technology these days, technically, she could be a robot, and it would be pretty hard to tell. Almost as hard as identifying the cake among the decoys in that show, “Is It Cake?” I’m about to take out my phone to text Mark and remind him not to watch the new episode without me, no matter how much Macy begs, but then Carly distracts me.\n\n“Look! She’s not even sweating! It’s like 90 degrees out here!” Carly’s whispering a little louder, pointing a little more obviously.\n\n“Stop!” I manage to say through an escaped laugh. Instead of pushing her arm down, I pull it against my face, using it to muffle what is now uncontrollable laughter. “You’re horrible,” I say when I finally recover.\n\n“Horrible does not make me wrong,” she says, and I can’t argue with that. I can’t even argue with her ridiculous claim. There is definitely something unusual about this woman. It’s been five whole minutes since the principal, Mrs. Averson, has introduced the new PTA board member, who apparently is also the new leader of Henderson Elementary’s parent site council, Sandi Mitchell. Ever since she was given the microphone, she has been talking to, or rather at, us, an apathetic, and frankly exhausted, group of elementary school parents forced to be at our children’s school after hours. Most of us are just relieved to have an hour away from our kids, and, unfortunately, enduring recruital presentations about parent organizations that none of us have the time or energy to join is the price we pay.\n\nBut, I have to admit, the more I watch Sandi, the more surreal she seems to be. Everything about her looks like she’s stepped out of a 2000s drama sitcom about a rich, Southern California beach town. It’s as if she modeled her entire wardrobe after Julie Cooper from The OC. She’s wearing all black, in the most elegant fashion, not in my usual “don’t talk to me\" kind of way, and over her blouse is a high-end, full-body-length blue and white kimono. Her large brim sunhat sits slanted on her head, creating a halo around her face. Her sunglasses are equally large, daring anyone to question the perfection of her eyebrows. Her lips are a matte red wine color, and gold shimmers from each earlobe. Even from our back row seats (which are only five rows from the stage), I can see her nails are bright, shiney crimson and manicured at a modest length. There's no way she's doing any real house chores with those.\n\n“I mean, where did this woman come from? I heard she’s a lawyer, and she has two kids who go here. How can she possibly have time to run the school, too?” Carly whispers. I scoff so she knows I’m listening, that I agree with her, but now that Carly has joked about her perfection, I'm fixated on her. A lawyer, a mother of two, and she’s leader of every parent organization possible. I can’t help but feel a little guilty, a little insecure, a little envious, even.\n\n“I heard her complaining to another parent about her power being out because they’re getting a car charging station installed,” Carly continues. When I look at her confused, she adds, “Her and her husband are getting matching Rivians delivered next week.”\n\nMy jaw drops. Carly’s eyes roll, and she sticks her finger just outside her mouth, pretending to vomit.\n\n“What, did whoever make her forget to install a jetpack?” I say, finally disgusted enough to join Carly’s insults. I instantly feel bad, but Carly loves it; she’s laughing.\n\n“For real,” she says. She crosses her arms tight across her chest. I see her smile fade, shifting into something more serious, something more humane. Something like sadness. “But, seriously, the way she said it, too, like she doesn’t realize who she’s talking to. This is public school. Does she not realize some families are struggling just to get food on their table. She thinks she can complain about a little electricity not working while she’s spending all her millions on some space cars? Ugh, give me a break. Why doesn’t she go find a private school, where she belongs.”\n\nI don’t like putting anyone down, but this I do agree with. The audacity of wealthy people – no, the ignorance of wealthy people – really frustrates me. I think of Mark working overtime last week, and a weight sinks in my chest. More guilt. “Speaking of,” I say, “need anything from Costco this week?”\n\nCarly’s face moves through embarrassment, shame, guilt, gratitude, and relief all in a matter of one second. She lets out a sigh before she says, “Not this week. Kyle’s parents sent us some money. It’ll get us to next week, if we’re careful. Thank goodness the school gives the kids free lunch.”\n\n“Yeah,” I say, then think of the awful hot lunch my daughter Macy described to me on her first day of school. “That’s what Sandi should really spend her money on. Getting these kids some decent lunches.”\n\nCarly is nodding, but her head is cast a little too far down, like she’s thinking about something. I feel another tinge of guilt for saying that, like I’ve just contributed to even more of her own guilt. I know she wishes she had the luxury of telling her kids they got to choose if they wanted homemade lunch or hot lunch from school. I know she would pack lunches for her kids if money weren’t so tight. I know I’m lucky to be able to give Macy a choice, even if I do cringe at the thought of her eating the cafeteria meals.\n\n“Are you sure you guys are doing alright?”\n\nThat brings Carly out of her reverie. “Yeah, we’re fine,” she says. She offers me a small smile, just enough to assure me of that fact, and even though I can already see it clearly in her eyes, she says, “Thanks, Mags.”\n\nI squeeze her arm softly. “Anytime.”\n\nThe sun had already moved past the roof of the cafeteria when Sandi finally concludes her speech. “So, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me. I know Mrs. Averson will include my contact information in next week’s newsletter, and like I said, all are welcome at our next PTA meeting on the 18th, so I hope to see you there. I look forward to connecting with each and every one of you. Let’s have a great year, OK? Go Wildcats!”\n\nI’m actually thankful she ends on such a spirited note, or else I would not have known her talk was ending. A weak and unenthusiastic applaud barely rises before it starts to trickle out, and parents all around start standing up and collecting their things.\n\nCarly exhales. “Guess she has to go charge her battery, huh?”\n\nI chuckle. “Your unfailing ability to prolong a joke is my favorite thing about you, Carly.”\n\n“It’s why you love me,” she gleams.\n\n“It is.” I say as I check my chair to make sure I didn’t leave anything behind.\n\n“Is Mark working late again tonight?”\n\n“Uh, no, he made it home in time so I could come here. How about you? Is Kyle home?”\n\n“I wish,” she pouts. “His niece is watching the kids for us.”\n\n“Aw, that’s nice. Hey, I gotta stop by the office and ask Mrs. Greer about my volunteer forms. She hasn’t gotten back to me, and Macy’s teacher asked me to help out next week.”\n\n“OK,” Carly looks at her watch. “I’d go with you, but if I don’t get home soon, Kyle’s niece is going to give the kids way too much ice cream.”\n\nI laugh, and wave her off. “Go, go, go! Save yourself from the sugar crash!”\n\nShe’s giggling and walking backwards. “Bye! Good luck, I love you!” She waves before turning and jogging off to her car.\n\nWhen I get to the office, Mrs. Greer is not there, but there is a sign on her desk that reads “Be Back Soon.” A distant shuffling of papers in the backroom tells me the sign is telling the truth. I lean into the countertop and start twiddling my thumbs, looking around at all the office decorations: Crayola-drawn pictures that say things like, “We love you, Mrs. Greer,” bulletin board calendars, thank-you note cards, and a flyer, reminding parents that picture day is coming up. I gaze over the school’s trophies and the large stuffed leopard displayed in between the center of all the awards, in honor of Henderson’s mascot. For a moment, I feel a sense of genuine pride in my daughter’s school, and nostalgia washes over me. It’s funny how becoming a parent can offer an entirely new perspective on all your childhood memories.\n\nJust then, I hear the jingle of the bell on the office door, and in walks Sandi Mitchell. I startle, reflexively, and then release an embarrassed chuckle. When I face Sandi, I have to actively restrain myself from startling again. She looks even more perfect up close. It is hard to believe any mom of two children looks like this. Maybe Carly was right… Or is there something wrong with me?\n\n“Oh! Oops, didn’t mean to scare you,” Sandi is pressing a hand to her chest, as if she were the one startled, wearing the same full smile she had on during her presentation.\n\nAll of a sudden, I feel nervous, like I’m unworthy of being alone in her presence. I laugh nervously, but I feel awkward when I say, “No worries, I mean, I’m sorry.”\n\nIf she thinks I’m being strange, she doesn’t show it. Instead, she steps closer and leans against the counter next to me. “Are you Macy’s mom?” she asks.\n\n“Uh, yeah, I am,” I say. An image of Terminator-style analytical vision flashes in my head.\n\nWithout missing a beat, Sandi extends a hand. “Sandi Mitchell. Gavin and Marcus’s mom. Nice to meet you.”\n\nI can’t help but stare at the massive diamond protruding off her finger before finally shaking her hand. “Maggie Bolkum. Nice to meet you.”\n\nSandi nods her head distinctly, like a confident business woman. I guess that’s to be expected of a lawyer.\n\nA lawyer, I repeat in my head, again feeling that tiny sting of insecurity in the pit of my stomach.\n\n“Well, I sure hope to see you at the PTA meeting next month. We could use more parents’ voices. And we could certainly use more mom power,” Sandi winks at me when she says that last bit. Normally, that would make me cringe, like she is patronizing the idea of a being a strong, nonworking mom, but the way she says it felt so genuine, I actually feel a sense of comradery. A connection between two mothers.\n\nI’m nodding my head yes, but I’m speechless, still holding her hand. I see her look down at our clutched hands, and smile before pulling hers back. “Well, it was great to officially meet you, Maggie. I gotta get home and start dinner. You know how it is.” She places a form on the counter, and taps it with her hand. “I’ll just leave that there for Mrs. Greer. If you see her, will you let her know it’s from me?”\n\n“OK,” is all I manage.\n\nSandi waves and pushes the door behind her, holding her hands on her hat to keep it in place. “Have a lovely evening!”\n\nI’m about to inspect the form she left behind when Mrs. Greer walks back into the office. “Oh, hi,” she says, looking a little surprised. “I thought I heard Sandi.”\n\nI glance towards the door. “Oh, yeah, she just left. She dropped this off.” I hand her the paper, and she takes it.\n\n“Oh, great, thank you.” Mrs. Greer looks it over and sighs, shaking her head. “That poor woman. I just wonder how someone like that can be so generous.”\n\nInstantly, I’m confused. It doesn’t even occur to me to do the polite thing and rein in my curiosity. “I’m sorry, what do you mean?”\n\nPity fills Mrs. Greer’s eyes, and I’m thankful, for once, for her loose lips. I know she can’t help herself. “She lost a daughter, a few years back. Ivy. She was just a couple years shy of attending here.” The start of tears forming is audible in Mrs. Greer's voice. I’m staring at her, completely stunned, when she mouths the word “cancer.”\n\nInstantly, I feel like I’ve been punched in the chest. Just hearing about a tragedy like that makes any parent temporarily catatonic. A parent’s worse nightmare. I never would have guessed. Never would have been able to tell.\n\nAs if Mrs. Greer reads my mind, she whispers, “I think that’s why she keeps herself so busy.\" Then at normal volume, she tries to relevel the conversation, adding, “Lord knows I don’t know how else she could do all she does.” She huffs, a mixture of laughter and disbelief. “Now, what can I help you with, Mrs. Bolkum?”\n\nI have to physically shake my head to remember what I am here for after that kind of news. Everything else in comparison now feels frivolous. “Oh, uh, yeah. I just wanted to check about my volunteer forms. Am I cleared? Mrs. Jenkins asked me to come in next week.”\n\n“Oh, sure, let me check on that,” Mrs. Greer wanders to her desk and starts tapping away at her computer. “Looks like you’re all good. Fingerprints went through yesterday, so you’re cleared to volunteer next week.”\n\nI hear her, but my mind is miles away, swirling in a dark place. Imagining a little girl who might look like Sandi. Considering what kind of sci-fi-like surgeries it would take to put me back together if anything ever happened to Macy. What bits and pieces of metal and hardware would ever even come close to mending a heartbreak like that. Mrs. Greer has no idea how deep she’s sent me, but I manage to look up, and say, “OK, great, thank you.”\n\nMrs. Greer nods politely and settles into her desk. I take a few steps to the door. I’m about to push it open, but I pause. “Actually,” I say. Mrs. Greer looks up. “Can I have a PTA form?”\n\n“Sure. You thinking of joining?” She stands up and grabs a sheet of paper from a stack on her desk.\n\nI take the form and pretend to start reading it. “Uh, yeah. Maybe. I don’t know. Thanks. Goodnight, Mrs. Greer.”\n\nAs I’m walking to my car, I call Mark. It only rings twice before Macy answers. “Mom! You have to get home right now or Dad and I are watching 'Is It Cake?' without you!”\n\nI laugh. “Don’t you dare! I’m leaving your school right now. I’ll be home soon.”\n\n“Hurrrrrrryyy!” She groans.\n\n“I love you,” I say before she can hang up.\n\nI hear a shouted “Love you!” before the phone disconnects.\n\nWhen I get to the car, I place the PTA form on the empty passenger’s seat. I don’t know if I’ll actually join. Maybe if I can convince Carly to join. The thought of her makes me take my phone out again. I type “AI robots” into the search bar.\n\nThe amount of information about new AI technology that pops up is immense. It also looks complicated and insanely terrifying. I remind myself to revisit this rabbit hole with Mark later. He’ll be more willing to read all the articles about it and summarize them for me.\n\nI put my seatbelt on, and start the car. I watch Macy’s school get smaller in the rearview mirror and remind myself I’ll be back here in less than twelve hours. My brain instinctively starts packing Macy's lunch for tomorrow. On any other night, I'd probably prolong the space between now and tomorrow morning's school drop-off by taking the back roads home, giving myself a few extra minutes of solitude and the freedom to choose whatever music I want to hear. But as I sit at the stop sign, looking left to the long way home, and right to the quickest route, a thought crosses my mind that gives me both an aching pain and a surge of warm gratitude.\n\nI think of Carly, first, and then Sandi. I think of the missing space she must feel between her arms every time she hugs her boys.\n\nI’m one of the lucky ones, I think.\n\nAnd then I turn right." } ]

[ { "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 Legacy of Room 304\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 2530\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story that takes place in the same building but in two very different time periods." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The man entered the newly renovated Gentle Covert Hotel. It was a spacious circular lobby with golden pillars surrounding a lounge area that aimed towards the hard oak desks of the reception desks on both sides of the space. When the man walked in, all eyes were discrepantly on him. He felt the jolting energy in the room diminish to hush and weariness. Not the first time people stopped their daily routine to feel their safety shattered by just one reality-busting figure. Over time, he started to enjoy the attention. It wasn't often a “negro” entered a historically racist hotel known for its dozens of black chefs, maids, and porters disappearing on one particular night. But oh no-they were never supposed to discuss that part of history.\nBesides the needle-like stares and whispers, the Gentle Covert Hotel had the scent of freshly mopped floors and a hint of cinnamon in the air. The warmness behind the chilling energy almost comforted the man as he walked towards the reception desk to his right. The woman was blonde, with striking blue eyes that widened for just a split second at his sight. Even his brothers back in Compton turned their heads back to him. He was tall, at least six feet two-hundred-fifty-pounds, and completely bald-headed. A bushy dark beard covered his contemplating grin as the receptionist forced out a welcome, but not of offensiveness but of the tone of what-are-you-doing-here.\n“I would like a room for tonight.” The man’s voice was like thunder. The receptionist simply typed in a few strokes into the desktop in front of her, trying to compose herself in front of the giant. “We have just the room for you, sir. Room 304 has just been cleaned and waiting for your lovely stay!” she was too lively, too forceful. He could tell in her voice. He pushed the thought aside as he gave her his credit card, not cash like she thought he would slip out, no rolls of twenties or hundreds. She stood up and went to the back for confirmation from her co-workers. She came back a second later with a key card and another “smile” on her face before she said “Welcome to Gentle Covert! I hope you enjoy your stay!”\nHe let his grin show. “I most definitely will Jesse. Thank you.” he walked away with his duffel bag, letting the knowledge he read her name tag and would remember the weary woman for the rest of the night.\n-------\nSeptember 25th, 1954\nShe was supposed to wheel the food up to room 304. That’s it. Knock on the door, present dinner to the guests, and be done with it. Brendalyn Brown was twenty-four and was happy but cautious that she became a new maid to the Gentle Covert Hotel after an opening arose last week. It was better than her last job in the kitchens of a diner where she had to not only be harassed by a racist boss but by her co-workers, other negros who were either jealous or horny and realizing she was an unmarried woman at that time and age. She was grateful her friend Sheila mentioned this job to her. It would help support her for the next coming years. at least until she finished her education and she could become a nurse and maybe find a less racist boss.\nThat was the plan. It was supposed to be that. But on that night, a blood moon appeared and that meant one thing to the inhabitants of room 304. Brendalyn or “Brenda” knocked on the door as told. The riff-raff inside quieted. A quiet snicker slithered under the door and into her ears. She shuddered. When they opened the door, a burly white man with messy blonde hair and a stained wife-beater and the odor of sweat and cologne grinned at her. He cackled to his friends and he stepped aside to let the server in.\nBrenda never was in a circle like that night. Never around that many “white folks”. But she was determined to leave her small ghetto area of New Jersey and make a life for herself without needing a husband and kids. At least yet anyway. She realized why her mother always told her to stay away from the ones with the hungry eyes. She never knew what she meant by that until now.\n----------------\nThe man flopped on the soft mattress and breathed in the scent of fresh sheets. The room was nice, small with a desk and wall mirror above and a dresser with a flat-screen tv that flicked on with the press of the remote in the man’s hand. The news was the same. Politics, infomercials, heartwarming stories then back to the crappy events of the world all over. War in Syria and oil pipes burst on another reservation, heck even a dragon attack on the coast of an island. The man scoffed at the tv. The world changed so much. So much on that day. Now, this was normal. He laughed out loud at that thought. \nHe realized what felt like a week ago, that this world was more morbid, malevolent, and abnormal than he ever thought. It just finally bubbled to the surface. He stopped and stared into space. He could feel it. The humming in his ears reverberated all the way down to his stomach. The voices appeared a moment later. It was like an invisible hand turned his head to the curtains leading to the patio outside and into the crowded night. He stood and opened the doors, then sped out onto the patio and into the cooling night of September. Ignoring the honking and hum of traffic, sirens, and yelling people down below, he focused on one particular vehicle coming into the hotel. It was a black1954 Chevrolet Bel Air, way out of its time and way too expensive to be riding around town in. Another came in after it, this time red. The last two cars were modern, a gray Sedan and navy blue Trailblazer. The voices in his head grew louder. Them. Tonight was the night. And they arrived as expected. \n------------\nSeptember 25th, 1954\nTheir sacrifice was made. Enough blood and semen were given to please a thousand elder gods. at least that’s what Jebediah thought. He read the scriptures up and down like the bible his grandma made him do when he was twelve. The only difference was actual work and belief. On faith, only blood and promises of riches and agelessness for decades to come. His college friend Thomas was smiling at the moon, eyes full of glee, oblivious to the two other men behind them letting their fear seep out of their cloaks. He had nothing to fear. He was a thorough man, making sure to translate and read the book top to bottom and to collect every piece for the ritual. Surprisingly the nigger was the easiest to obtain. He didn't have to worry about no police peeping around. To everyone else, he was just a Harvard grad visiting his old New Jersey town with friends. But tonight was a night of rewards being fulfilled. And he would get his reward.\n----------------------\nThe four elderly men were escorted by their sons and daughters, well-fed children who didn't have to worry about any luggage and carrying even a credit card as everything was arranged since two years ago. Two years since their fathers decided to clue them in on what made the family wealthy all those decades ago. After shock, disgust, and anger, it was replaced by pride, trust, and an unquenchable thirst for their “reward.”\nThe lobby was occupied of course, but not for long. It took plenty of “bribing” or buying the actual hotel, but by midnight, the hotel lobby would be clear and a special room would be kept secure for their arrival. At least that’s what they told Jebediah. He was a see-to-believe-it type of man. It's what helped him stay alive all these years. He felt a smile on his face as he entered the mansion-sized banquet hall lined with candles on all sides, stark red roses, and the sweet scent of cinnamon and the zest of citrus fill his nose. He almost felt himself melt back into the old memories of that night. The night that changed everything. Now he would make his final deal to the elder gods and pass the wealth on to his children, before going to his eternal slumber with the entities that were rewarded with so much wealth all those years ago.\nHe just had to wait. Midnight. \n--------------------\nIn the deep confines of his blackened soul, a court appeared. They all stood in the darkness conversing with one another, some in languages lost to history. It was all the same lines and curses until another voice appeared out of all of them. The young spirit stood in the center of the court and through the light filtering out to the real world, her face was unveiled.\nThe man understood. He checked his watch. 11:54. Almost time.\n--------------\nJebediah was beyond his years, over eighty years old, and finally old age was getting to him. He had no choice but to walk on a cane and be led to his chair by the youngest of his sons, Jonathan, a brunette like his mother, the only one in the family who didn't take on his father’s blonde hair and blue eyes. Apart of him swore his dead wife fucked that “wetback” back in Cuba. He let that traitorous anger swell down back in him as he saw the last three of his friends be seated next to him. Thomas was an old crone like him, yet sharply dressed while the last two, Lung cancer-ridden Antony and Marcus, the two fear-ridden rats from all those years ago sat. Antony adjusted his oxygen tank while Marcus let his model daughter pour him a glass of wine. He couldn't help but stare down her shirt at her powdered breasts. Jebediah remembered Marcus well. He enjoyed the beginning parts of the ritual more than anyone. He for sure provided enough of his essence on the nigger girl to see them here today.\nIt was the bell from Jebediah’s eldest son Jebediah Jr. that caught the room’s attention Like a replica of his father, he was tall, with silky white skin, even let his hair go down to his shoulders but he in a neat ponytail besides the protests of his father. His physique was better than his father’s at his age, more athletic than a thick father figure. Jebediah Jr. smiled and raised a glass to the room as the roof above them uncovered to reveal a starry night sky, the full moon, the blood moon shining down on them through the glass room. \n“That. That started it all. On this night, in 1954, the four founding fathers of the great corporation known as Visak Industries, the leading supplier in Oil, Iron, and Weaponry for a proud country was born. Through blood and sacrifice, they now reside in the past to torch on to us, our dear and chosen children. I want to thank you all for attending this evening. This is a special toast, but not the last, to my father, the visionary, Jebediah, and to his cohorts and dear friends, Thomas, Marcus, and Antony. You look as great as ever.”\nThe room laughed as the man on the oxygen tube choked out a cackle. Jebediah couldn't help but smile at the boy. Charismatic enough to hide disdain towards his father’s “friends,” and a charming smile to soothe the women in the room. He was going to be great. He was going to do just fine in the future. \n“But not only they should be thanked for our prosperous future. To the sweat, blood, and tears to those not to be named. To those lost. And to those born in this world to serve us as a family so that we may honor the god that brought us here today.”\nThe room nodded to that. Jebediah could remember them all. Every year after 1954 for twenty years, on every blood moon, a negro to a Mexican, even an immigrant from Asia was used as an offering to their dear gods. It would be immoral to use one of Aryan blood, such pure blood for their gods after all! Their gods loved darker meat anyways…\n“A toast. To a great past. And an even greater future.” Jebediah Jr. raised his glass and everyone in the room followed. Jebediah rose his glass. He didn't care how many negros went missing, for they were food to a higher purpose. And he would gladly do it all again, and again and again. He was glad his son would follow that path too.\nCackling thundered across the room. Everyone looked up and searched around the empty banquet hall. The soft light of the moon changed. It changed darker...no...red.\nThe four elderly men stared up at the blood moon and gasped. Around them, screams sounded. A shrieking cry sunk into their ears. The room darkened, then a warm liquid splattered across the room. Shattered glass, wood, and something tearing, something wet, meaty sent shudders down their spine.\nThrough the darkness, a figure appeared. Jebediah, though he was old and withered, could recognize that shape. It was like 1954 met him all those years ago. The small whimpering figure of the negro girl. He could hear her whimpering, begging. But those were not his memories… they were here.\nPlease… I won't tell nobody. I won't tell nobody!\nHe could hear his old friend Antony’s children gather around their dying father, a heart attack finally setting in. Their screams followed him shortly. Wet meat flung across the room and startled Jebediah. He could recognize the copper smell and how it stank in the air. His heart stopped. The lights flickered and in the center of the room, a large burly negro watched him. He thought he was a negro. His face was plastered in white and black makeup, but his eyes….\nThey were red.\nThe lights flickered off, then back on. Brendalyn Brown stared back at the old man. She was naked, covered in bruises, cuts, scrapes, and foul fluids from that night. Beside her, dozens of more negros lined her. More women battered and lathered in blood, all looking at him. They started walking towards him. He cursed and yelled, but his anger was masked by their unison chanting. They were saying something in a language he couldn't understand.\nThe lights went out one more time. He could feel the table below him lift into the air, more chunks of meat and bones fly across him before a presence was in front of him. He could smell its breath. The metallic smell made him want to hurl. The lights came back on and the burly negro and Brendalyn were one, flickering in and out of each other, but speaking in unison. \nYour fallen gods are waiting for you. And your bloodline…\nHe could only scream before there was nothing left." } ]

[ { "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: That Unforgettable Piece of History\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1110\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story that takes place in the same building but in two very different time periods." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The noise in the room is what I would describe as unimaginable, if I had to pick a word. The wood was distractingly shiny and new under my feet, and I felt too dirty to be standing there. In front of me, a white sea topped with a surf of brown and gold. I could smell the expensive perfumes clouding the room, how expensive the silk gathered in lace gloves was. Behind fans, I could see painted smiles, but each glimmering eye was critical.\nOut of the corner of my eyes, I catch glimmers of dark eyes and skin, crowded together. Behind me, I could hear the murmuring of low voices, slightly reassuring in this painfully pristine environment. Or they would be, anyway, if they drowned out the clinking of iron links. Woefully heavy, clanging through the wallpaper paneled walls and seeming to fill the air above our head. I was reminded of the warm metal around my own wrists, ankles, and neck, keeping me grounded down to the polished floor.\nIn the middle of the room is a round man, swollen like a summer tomato, and just as red. Talking and chatting joyfully, gesturing behind him with cotton-white gloves. I could feel my clothes sticking to my skin, rough texture running against my skin. My tongue felt too big in my mouth, my feet pressed too tightly to the floor. I rarely wished it, with the hot southern heat, but I wished I was outside. I could see it through the window. Trees waving in the afternoon sun, shining grass waving up from the ground.\nI heard a gasp and my head turned almost involuntarily, but I wish I hadn’t. Next to me was a little girl, she was probably only nine or ten years old, being pulled from her mother. I could tell her mother was trying not to make any noise, but she was losing her grip as white fingers wormed their way around her daughter’s wrists. Slowly, she gave in to begging. Begging them not to take her daughter, please, she’s too young. I turned my eyes away, I couldn’t bear to watch anymore. I could hear the confusion in the little girl’s voice. I’m sure she didn’t understand, I didn’t when I was her age. I close my eyes.\nA moment later, a switch bites my shoulder and my eyes open. Keep your eyes open. Stand up straight. Smile, turn, look like you’ll bring us in a penny. I knew the drill. For just a moment I let myself feel bad about the little girl, about the life she had looming ahead of her, before straightening my back and turning my eyes back to face the pale, jewel-adorned crowd before me. \n“And this is the auction house! Constructed in 1939, it’s been standing for over seventy years!” The teacher’s voice droned on in the background, and I know even if I tried to pay attention I couldn’t. The sun was hot, I just wanted to go inside. I shifted, the bottom of my sneakers grinding uncomfortably on the pavement. My phone was heavy in my pocket, but I knew if I took it out the teacher would snatch it before I could even look. Some of my classmates were joking around at the back of the group, I wanted to join them. \nSlowly, we made our way inside. Past the huge double doors, and finally into the sweet, sweet shade. I let out a breath of relief and tugged the back of my shirt away from my back. There’s no A.C in the old building, but even the shade is better than the boiling sun. The floor is scuffed, almost down to the natural tone of the wood Around the square room are pictures behind thick red velvet rope, and in the center of the room is a wax figurine of a fat man. “That over there, is where the auctioneer would stand. People would stand around the room in order to purchase slaves.” The teacher continues, but she has to know nobody's listening. We disperse to work through our worksheets. Black and white pictures of men and women in chains, and others in elegant, old timey dresses.\nOne of my classmates is standing in front of one such pictures, staring wide-eyed. For a moment, I wonder about her stares. Then I remember, her family has lived in the town for generations. She probably knew of some of these people, maybe even saw them in family pictures. I turn my eyes back. I knew this field trip was just because our teachers wanted to give us something to do, but I didn’t really understand why we were here. We could read all of this in a delightfully air-conditioned classroom. \n“Class, come over here. We have a special guest today.” I look over. It’s a lady dressed in very modern clothes, a deep blue dress graced by the grey in her hair. We wander over, forming a loose semi-circle around her. “This is miss Alice Marie, she’s gonna talk to us for a few minutes.” She sends a few sweeping looks over the crowd, her eyes solemn and deep. Slowly, she unravels her story before us. About being raised on a plantation, being taken from her parents as a child, and sold over and over again. Her story was sad, our class was quiet.\nWhen she started talking about the emancipation, she seemed more at ease. Her shoulders relaxed, she stood up straighter. She seemed more comfortable in the building, telling us about the day she was freed. “I never had a name from my mother,” her voice was deep like mahogany, smooth and sturdy. “But they always called her ‘Annie’, so I decided I’d keep that part of her. As for ‘Marie’,” Her eyes somber again, “I had a sister. We were separated a few years after I was born, and I didn’t hear from her again until a few years ago when someone reached out to tell me where she was buried.” Her words hung over our heads like clouds, dark and filling.\nThe amount of time we stood there, I couldn’t have counted the seconds if I tried. The weight of her words crushed the air out of the room, and the sunlight streaming through the windows seemed menacing. I could see the room, filled with people and tears as it was seventy years ago. And I understood why our teacher had brought us here. This was a place of history, but someone had lived it not so long ago. She was standing in front of us, even, that piece of unforgettable history." } ]

[ { "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: Oh, Timeless New York\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1111\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with the line, “That’s the thing about this city…”" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "That's the thing about this city, y'know. People come. People go. Buildings are built, some are demolished. Oh New York, how you steal my heart.\nI came here, some 50 years ago, I was probably your age, how old is you?\n-seventeen\n-yeah we're seventeen\nwell, I was a bit younger than you then haha, ah God how time flies, now I'm old, just like you New York, you oh great jungle of buildings.\nWhere was I going with this, kid? I must have gotten lost in the way.\n-emm yes don't worry bout it, the next question we have is why you came here?\nOh yes! I came with my father, he was a salesman, tho we was very poor, we came to the big city, we came by boat, a friend of my father worked with cargos and shipments and he arranged for us to come.\n-so would you say it was illegal, sir?\nOh no nothing illegal boy, we had the passports and we were going to get the citizenship thing, we just didn't have transport. And nothing of sir! kiddo, I know how old I am haha, I already told ya, the name's D'wan\n-got it Dewan man\nlaughs that's it, boy! Now, have you got more of those questions you've got in there?\n-just one more sir- Dewan, Dewan I meant\n-yeah, last is how much has the city changed since you first saw it?\nOh, not a bit, the city no, the people in her maybe, New York is just as beautiful as the first time I saw her, so imposing, she's real power if y'know what I mean.\nThe minute I got off that boat, y'know I didn't see anything, I was focused on gettin' the bags and helpin' out my dad. We got into a taxi, It was yellow kid, it looked like a giant toy, pappa said \"kid, remember in school they taught you colors? that is yellow\" of course I only got through some school grades, I never finished it, had to help pappa, but oh what would I give to just sit there and learn, never leave that place kids, no matter how much work you get, oh what would I give for a book and those big rooms that look like theaters and lectures and oh... I got lost again, gimme a minute... The taxi! so we got into this toy car and I just wanted to look out of the window, but pappa said he wanted me to get surprised by the city so I closed my eyes the whole ride. Then we got there. And get out of this car. I looked up. Houses as big as the sky, everywhere, people had such colorful dresses, they looked like toys, some men wore pink, pink! kid, I turned and I said to pappa \"pappa, why is he dressed like a girl?\" and pappa said, \"D'wan, mind yo own business, if he feel like wearing the rainbow in his shirt, why you care?\" It was strange for me, then, of course, I saw women wearing blue, men wearing purple, and then people starting wearing more colorful clothes, there was a trend or something 'n people starting wearing tigers, and flowers, and drawings, and I looked down 'n I only had this grey shirt, but I wanted to be like that man wearing pink, or like another man I saw who was very elegant, every day he wore a suit, it was grey but not grey like my shirt, it was a grey that looked expensive and I said \"pappa, I need a suit\" 'n he said \"a suit? that's some expensive cloth, kid\" and I said \"I wanna be like the man that walks down here every morning\" Of course, pappa promised he would get me a suit when we be millionaires. We never was, in money, but we was rich in what matters, in love, pappa worked his back to give me everything he could. Oh, this city, this city saw me grow, saw pappa died, and she will see me die here, its timeless boy, we are born, we grow, we learn, we live and we die, and she's still there, dressing herself with a new building.\nShe's the same boy, you'll see when someone comes here for the first time because they just look up, you can see them standing there, feeling small, feeling the enormity of the building that touch the skies, those are my favorite people, when someone has lived here for a while they start feeling normal, I don't know, they get used to the enormity and just live their life. I don't know how can someone not just adore that feeling, that's how I feel every day of my life, I wake up, boy I might not even have a proper bed, but I wake up and I look up and just feel, think I'll never stand as tall as those buildings, that maybe I'll never get to the rooftop of one of them skyscrapers, but I can reach the sky kid, I reach sky, and the problems fly away, I am higher.\nI've been leaving here half a century, I've seen music born, I've seen music die, I've seen ideas grow in here, I've seen people falling in love with the view, people falling in love with other people, people falling in love with the city, I've seen kids grow, I've seen birds flying, I've seen art, I've seen life and I've seen death, but every day I see this city and I think to myself, what a wonderful time to be alive.\nSo that's the thing about this city, we live, we love, we die, but she's still there, she was here before me and she'll be here after I'm gone, but she'll never change.\nYeah.\nShe'll never change.\nHave you got everything for yo school report? yo need something else?\n-No man, we were actually going to ask several people but I think we got everything we need.\n-yeah, you, emm, you really love this whole city, I admit, sometimes I wish I were somewhere else, I guess I'm gonna need to just feel the city, like you sir.\nOh to love this city, it's just a wonder.\n-can we come by tomorrow? I mean we have to finish the thesis today but tomorrow momma's making hot dogs, perhaps you'll like some.\nkid, I would love to.\n-well then Dewan, til tomorrow man, thanks for everything.\nThank you, now get safe to your houses, be good kids, and don't forget to look up.\nYeah, never forget to look up." } ]

[ { "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: Is It Cake?\n\nGenre: american\n\nWord Count: 1272\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with a character looking closely at something, or someone. They can't quite decide if what they're looking at is natural, or man-made." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“So now, for fifteen thousand dollars, what’s it going to be?”\n\nJamie stooped and squinted at the five objects.\n\n“They’re all so real…”\n\n“They’re as real as wrestlin’, Jamie,” said the host to a ripple of spontaneous amusement from the audience, “but which one is cake?”\n\nReal as wrestling. Jamie knew real when he saw it. When Hulk Hogan hit The Macho Man Randy Savage, hit him square in the eighties (when fifteen grand would have bought a new Corvette), it was real. Really real. The Macho Man staggered like a blasted buck. Stiff legged and rake-in-the-face, reeling real. The reality of Randy’s savage comeuppance had been fiercely debated the next day at school. Its reality was ratified by a (second) real fight. No belt had changed hands, but reality was confirmed and Hulkamania (which gets a red line, Gates is obviously a Warrior fan) lived on.\n\nThirty-odd years later, the studio lights were bright and Jamie was sweatier that Hogan’s hair.\n\n “Fifteen seconds!” said the host to the hushed room.\n\nA handbag, a games console control pad, a seashell, an apple and a raw steak. Jamie stared at each of the objects in turn.\n\nJamie had never scrutinised a handbag in his life. It was pink, some kind of patent leather, or plastic, or fondant? The leather/tempered chocolate strap was folded behind the perfectly stitched quilting of the body of the bag. Maybe. How could anything edible gleam under a studio light like that? Jamie saw the coloured lights of an arcade projected into the stick-bound cloud of candy floss he had carried on the last night of the first holiday he could remember. If a galaxy could be spun in sugar, pink icing could be made to shine like polished pleather.\n\nThe control pad. An easier object to cakify, surely? Matt, inert, but then, so precise in its ergonomic curves. How could they? The smooth horns of the hand-friendly shape that guided fingers and thumbs to trigger and stick, linking hand, eye and processor. A recipe for sweet, sweet endorphin release. But was it cake? Were all controllers a form of cake? Was cake a form of controller? Student Jamie had spent a lot more time procrastinating over games controllers than he had over handbags. Didn’t the military use them to control drones these days? Game controllers, not handbags. A man in fatigues rushed to the podium and snatched up the controller. Somewhere over Afghanistan a Predator Drone unleashed a payload of fudge sauce.\n\nThe sea shell must be the least likely. Frilled and folded, deeply creased like a Georgia O’Keefe. Ceramically smooth with the colours of a weekday sunset in a soft-focus tiger stripe. Unfakeable, unbakeable? Probably. Was the hermit crab’s mansion more or less difficult to simulate than the clacking plastic of the device that controlled a hermit teenager’s world? Jamie didn’t know, but the handbag was a distant memory. \n\n“If it’s the sea shell, I’ll marry the baker,” said Jamie. The audience gave a high buzz of appreciation.\n\n“Ten seconds.” snapped the host. “Fifteen thousand dollars.”\n\nNothing was real in the studio. A Monday afternoon had been dressed up as Saturday primetime. The audience’s emotions were stage managed. The lights were coloured and angled to conceal the truths of mortality and make structures of flour and egg appear intentionally synthetic. The host was a weightless individual doing a meaningless job. The whole thing would be trapped in a loop of perpetual repeats and on-demand escapism. None of it real, except for today, the first time the events would play out, the fifteen grand was real. The bills it would pay were very real. It was a one in five chance.\n\nThe apple. Had a delicious piece of natural fruit been turned into a delicious piece of unnatural cake? Was cake unnatural? If you wanted to turn an apple into confectionary you waited until Halloween, stabbed it with a stick, dipped it in hot caramel and left it to go teeth-cracking hard on grease-proof paper. The resulting armoured fruit was as reflective as an expensive pleather handbag under hot studio lights. It had a mix of smooth curves and a perfectly flat plane, where the caramel had pooled on the paper, a combination similar to the games controller. But this was no toffee apple. What Jamie was looking at was a perfect red apple, the skin slightly mottled, yellow-green speckling making it all the more red. A single leaf clung to the stalk screaming of its authenticity. Screaming too loudly?\n\n“Five seconds!”\n\nFive seconds left to work out if a steak was made of cake. Five seconds left to win more money than the net annual earnings from several of Jamie’s previous jobs.\n\nThe steak was big. Eat for free, food challenge, get-your-picture-on-the-restaurant-wall big. It glistened under the lights. It had the marbling of mature meat and a sneaker-sole rind. Jamie was hungry. He had been at the studio all day and had been too nervous to eat any of the complimentary buffet. The steak was glistening, it must be moist, but the plate was spotless, not a hint of juice or blood. It wasn’t a real steak! The steak was cake! They had butchered a cake cow to get a sponge sirloin!\n\nJamie saw the world open up before him like a hot air balloon pilot. He could see the curvature of the Earth. The limits of reality frayed before they reached the periphery of his all-encompassing vision. He knew the truth. The sheen on the bag was too sharp, plus, if it was cake, the creator would have showed off the handle. The artisans on this show did not shrink from difficult details. The controller? An easy mould job. Don’t waste my time. The shell? Impossible. If it was the shell he would lose fifteen grand, but would propose to the genius who created it, would happily spend the rest of his life devoted the alchemist who could conjure such a thing, regardless of any trifles such as gender or any preexisting commitments. The apple? Was it too easy, small and unassuming, flying under the radar? He was tempted by the apple. A serpent of doubt slithered in. A twenty-four-inch-thick python of paranoia. What would Hulk Hogan do?\n\nHogan was all about protein. Hogan would be enraged that the steak was not real. He would hulk up on that confectionary cow, grab it by the cream horns and slam it through the ring ropes, slicing it into a neat stack of cake steaks.\n\n“Time’s up.” The host moved behind the five objects. He held a large kitchen knife. “You’ve pressed your button, your choice is locked in. Tell us Jamie; what have you gone for?”\n\n“It’s the steak, Mikey.”\n\nThe host gave a tic-tac grin, his heavily powdered face dry under the hot lights. Was he real? Was he cake? Cheesecake? He moved towards the steak, eyes twinkling, knife poised. In any other context first responders would have had him in their sights.\n\n“Are you sure, Jamie?”\n\nFrom the hot air balloon Jamie could see the sun setting over a folded pastel landscape. Lilies and blossoming apple trees surrounded a wrestling ring where an exhausted Hogan hoisted a small pink handbag in victory over a beaten Bill Gates. Jamie was sure it was the steak, but in the hazy distance a Predator drone circled.\n\n“You’ve only had twenty seconds, Jamie. Hardly time to think about anything at all…”\n\nFifteen grand. The unnecessarily brutal knife hung over the very meaty looking steak.\n\n“…but now we have to ask the most important question of all; is it cake?”" } ]

[ { "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 Golden Tile\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1340\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story that takes place in the same building but in two very different time periods." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Old Station North - 1940\n\nThe delicate song of piano keys rung out through the hall of the station as he began playing. The ceiling was gold-tiled, exquisite and undoubtedly gilded, as was the city. Grand ornate arches kept the roof up while the sleek marble floors never dried up and were constantly polished. The harmonics proved by the great curved ceiling made the notes of the piano bounce off down to ears of the crowds below who all gathered to watch him. He and his band’s train had been delayed; and so, what else was there to do but play?\n\nBarlow Merrington was none too serious about the affair. He beamed at the opportunity to play the station’s grand piano situated neatly by the Christmas tree near the entrance. With a piano and a dozen unpacked instruments, the Merrington band was ready to play an unexpected gig. Horns were taken up, a drum set was propped up, the bass was tuned and like a symphony to a conductor, the band watched for his call. In the crowd, few knew his face yet all knew his voice, raspy but perfectly clear cut and soothing to the hear like raspberry pie. With a great big smile, he surveyed his entourage.\n“A one, a two, a…”\nHis beefy fingers pressed down and fiddled the piano effortlessly while his bushy eyebrows wagged gleefully with every key he touched upon. His grin was impeccable; clearly a man with few cares in life to bother him.\n\nHow the roses will sing today\nWhen they see the sun on you–\nOh, darling, what’s that you say?\nAin’t that hard to say I love you.\n\nA crowd had gathered within hall to watch as the Merrington band turned an otherwise gloomy rainy day into one full of smiled and uplifted hearts. Rows of finely embellished wooden benches were now near empty now that the warm bottoms that seated them had risen to watch the band. Rosy smiles, blushes and a sense of belonging followed the golden sound wherever it found itself. Old men, children, men, women, black and white alike stood in awe. \n\nDarlin’ don’t ya know,\nThat it ain’t hard to say “I do”.\n\nWith the definite sound of the last key, string, pipe and beat played, the crowd burst into applause. Merrington stood up from the piano seat and bowed humbly. As the crowd roared in applause, he exchanged a few laughs and unheard words with the rest of his band. Even the oblivious could see that his boisterous laugh was terrifically contagious; it was the only thing one could hear above the impassioned uproar. For a moment it seemed that silence had never existed to begin with; that life and humanity was so full of color as to extinguish the darkness within them all.\n“Is that really Merrington?” One asked.\n“I heard he was due to play a concert in Chicago.” One said.\n“Reminds me of my days back in Harlem.” Recounted another. \nThe band bowed once more as Merrington waved to the crowd and sat himself back onto the piano stool ready to play another number as soon as the crowd had settled down. The piano took a somber note and the band followed suit with a rising and falling harmony with Merrington’s delicate playing like gentle drops of rain. \nPapers the next day were printed with headlines such as “The Great Barlow Merrington Plays at the Old Station North” and “Merrington Plays Surprise Gig”. After the show, one lucky reporter in the crowd approached Merrington for a comment. “The train didn’t come on time, but the station did.”\n\nOld Station North – 2000\n\nCircling crows cawed above the building and swooped down through the collapsed ceiling to pick at what they perhaps saw as a bug. It wasn’t a bug; just a tiny piece of concrete. Click-click-click. Suddenly, a rock was thrown at the bird’s wing. It squawked, stumbling for a half second but found its footing and winged out of the building.\n“Them’s shits annoying.” \n“I know, fuck ‘em.”\n“Y’know one of my brothers used t’ have a pet of ‘em.”\n“For real? Crazy. I’d never.”\nA few seconds passed with no sound but the howling wind from above and the few speckles of rain that dropped every now and then. The night before, they had set their carts and sleeping bags up in the corner under the exposed roof under the stars because Mia had imagined it would be romantic since it was possibly their fourth anniversary of being together. But come midnight, the starry sky turned murky and gave way to a barrage of rain on them which blew out their fire.\n“Ay, when we gonna go out for food?”\n“Dunno.” She warmed her dirty hands with the shortening cigarette in her mouth. She pulled the cigarette out, held her breath, and blew the smoke into her cupped hands. “You got cash?”\n“Nah. Used it all up on the crank.”\n“Then we ain’t getting no food. Don’t test me neither. Not after last night.”\n“Like I said before, it’s probably drier upstairs.”\n“Fuck upstairs, you already know my answer.”\nStrange sounds came from the above levels but the two never heard anyone’s voice or saw anyone come down. There were cracks, crashes, booms and echoes. Turner had an old pocketknife he pickpocketed from a guy at Burger King a year ago but Mia had only her fists, badly bruised and scabbed. Turner liked to talk about how he always kept his knife under his pillow and that he was ready to shank anyone who came close while he could pretend to be asleep. Mia scoffed at him for it. “Man, shut the fuck up. You talk too much.” Turner would never let her hear the end of it though.\n“Fuck this.” Turner stood up.\nMia turned around in shock “Where you goin’?”\n“To get something t’ eat so we don’t starve up in here. My stomach growling like a motherfucker.”\n She wanted to protest for him not to leave her alone but she didn’t have the will to. Not anymore. Her stomach ached badly and her mouth was frothy in its dryness. Turner put on his baggy nylon coat and trudged towards the side entrance of the abandoned station.\nWhen the sounds of his footsteps were gone, Mia turned and lay on her side on the tattered sleeping bag she had kept for all these years. Sometimes she shut her eyes and hoped it was all a dream; that she would wake up as a six-year-old girl again in her mother’s kitchen with the sweet smell of her apple pie to warm her nose. But mom was long gone. In a grave maybe, she didn’t know. It didn’t matter. Every now and then when Turner wasn’t looking, she would shut her eyes in the hope of waking up but it never worked. She shut her eyes again. Like always when she opened them, she was still the same Mia, but something had caught her eye. There was a small pebble that shone brightly in the light from the ceiling not more than two feet away on the broken marble floor. Mia reached out for it with a set of trembling fingers and picked it up. It was a piece of old tile painted in gold on one side. As she swivelled it with her fingers, she pondered about where such a pretty piece of tile came from; who made it, what had it seen. Maybe it was from a bygone age, she didn’t know. She concocted stories about this small golden tile, how it had ended up here and what kind of world it lived in. It was too exciting for her by the time she was brought back to reality by the sound of something upstairs. Turning her attention back to the tile, she smiled lamentably; and told herself that whatever world it was, it was one that she hadn’t come on time for; but that tile 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: What So Ever You Do to the Least of my Brothers\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 2461\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone fighting to change their city neighborhood for the better." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Andre Bowers was shot and killed by Langford Police when he was standing in the parking lot of a local 7-11 waving a pistol. He happened to be African American and later it was determined that the .38 snub nose was not loaded. Immediately the small community reacted to this incident creating a question: How can we prevent future incidents from happening? This question is not unique to Langford. One more factor, Andre Bowers was mentall ill.\nFrom interview with Sidney Ross, Langford City Manager:\nLast year about this time, there was a riot in this city, but a year later all that has been forgotten in due time. People who are disenfranchised are easily dismissed when other matters of concern arise in our community. This city has prided itself on the moral fiber of its citizens and as the City Manager, I feel that I am in the driver’s seat in making sure Langston remains a thriving community sitting on the banks of the Ohio River a few miles east of Cincinnati. \nIt was a small thing that became a big thing. It’s just how things are these days with the advent of cell phone photo and video access. It would have never become the rolling snowball it became if it wasn’t for the damn cell phone video that played on the nightly news. I’m not saying Andre Bowers deserved to die. It’s just that he raised a gun when the police came on the scene and refused to relinquish when commanded to drop the gun. The officers fired because Andre Bowers presented a threat to their safety. What made me angry was that most of the footage omitted that part of the story. \nAndre Bowers was a threat to the situation justifying the use of deadly force. The riots and protests that followed were in reaction to the media coverage which once again showed police officers firing on an African American Male who was armed with a snub nose .38 revolver. \nNow we are hearing rumblings from some of the people about the anniversary of his death. I have alerted the police force in case there are future protests. \nFrom interview with Abigail North, organizer of Stand With Us:\nHe was murdered in cold blood. It was recorded by one of the bystanders in the crowd. The gun was not loaded and he was not pointing it at anyone. At no time was anyone in real danger. He did not drop the gun because he was disoriented and confused with all those people shouting at him. We must remember that Andre Bowers was an adult with a disability. When the officers arrived on the scene, they had no idea about Andre’s disability. They just drew their weapons and fired. Seventeen times. No warning, they just opened fire. We need to stand together on this issue, not just as people of color, but as all people who are under fire by the exact security professionals who are supposed to protect and serve our community. \nAndre Bowers was a victim. Nothing will change that. At any moment we too may become the victim. It is time we come together. It is time we form a unity for mutual protection and well-being. Stand with us. \nFrom court testimony of Officer Brad Kimball, one of the officers who shot Andre Bowers: \nI think it was evident that Andre Bowers was a clear and present threat to me and my colleagues. We know deadly force is the last resort, but when a suspect raises a deadly weapon, we are left with no choice. I realize that there were sixteen or seventeen shots fired at the suspect and that he hit ten times before he fell to the pavement, but he was shouting and acting irrationally. Each request we made was dismissed as he said he was tired of being a hostage of the system. He did not elaborate on what he meant by this. Later we found out that he was off his medication. While discovering he was a schizophrenic after he was shot, it is my opinion that this would not have changed the outcome. (some murmuring in the background). \nWhile it has been stated, there was no warning given prior to the shooting of the suspect, in playing the video, you can clearly hear me give a command for the suspect to drop his weapon, which he failed to do.\nFrom a television interview with Mr. Avery Sampson, prosecuting attorney.\nThere were a lot of things that were kept from the public due to the mental state of Mr. Bowers. What was clear to me was the fact that in most cases those adults suffering with mental illness are in mortal danger during police confrontations, because most people do not fully understand what is taking place. Mr. Bowers left a note to his mother stating that he did not see the use of continuing living with his disability. She called the police. She told them that her son was sick. She told them they needed to go by his apartment and do a welfare check. According to the state laws, Mr. Bowers was not supposed to be in possession of a firearm. Had the authorities done what Mrs. Kendra Millwood, Andre’s mother, suggested, Andre would be in the mental hospital and not the cemetery. By the time Mr. Bowers got to the convenience store, he was highly agitated. When a person like Mr. Bowers goes without his medication for a long period of time, his mind is bothered by the psychotic stimulation. It’s like listening to a phone constantly ringing. After a while you start getting a little pissed off and agitated. Now I have looked at the evidence and while I do not agree that the officers should have gotten off without some penalty, I can certainly understand their perception of thinking Mr. Bowers was presenting a clear and present danger. Where they erred was acting without fully understanding the situation. It is a fine line. Even in a lit parking lot, when someone is waving a pistol, you have no way of knowing that the pistol is not loaded. In the video I heard someone shout out that the gun was not loaded, but in all the excitement details like that are often missed.\nMr. Obbie Bowers, Andre’s younger brother during interview with television reporter:\nHe come over to my house that night. He wanted a beer. So I give him one. He starts talking about how Jesus is talking directly to him. He done it before. That’s how I knew he was off his meds. So I asked him and he told me to go to Hell. He starts getting pissed off. He pulls out his gun. I asked him where he got it and he said he had a friend. Ain’t loaded, he tells me, because he knows I keep a couple of guns for protection. I don’t live in one of the better neighborhoods. Ain’t no gates. I tell him he can sleep on the extra bed. He starts calming down, but my Rosie she comes home from her job at the nursing home and starts telling him she will drive him to the hospital. He goes crazy, saying he ain’t going to no place where they can lock him up. He tells me he wants some more beer. Starts walking to the 7-11 around the block. He’s my brother. I ain’t going to stop him. Now I’m wishing I had. Lord, I’m wishing I had stopped him.\nReverend Thomas Baker, minister to a group mentally ill adults during a Podcast. \nYou know in the Bible it says Jesus was telling his disciples about Heaven by saying “What so ever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me.” And that is why we have a group, because a person suffering from a severe and persistent mental illness is substantially more likely to die in a confrontation with the police than all other people combined. Gives me a chance to keep my eyes on them when no one else will. When I got the news about Andre, I was not in the least surprised. I knew he was headed for what the others call “suicide by police.” That’s because they can’t take it anymore. The voices in their heads, the psychotic illusions, the smells. All of it. It would overwhelm even the best of us. Now Stand With Us is a start, but them folks got it wrong, too. What it’s gonna take is a concerted effort on the part of the community to accept those with mental illness into the community. People are afraid of them. People are afraid of what they will do or say. They make most people uncomfortable. They make up most of the homeless population because most of the time they do not have the rational functioning on how to be a productive part of society. \nI saw Andre three days before the police shot him at that 7-1l and I knew what was going to happen. He told me. He told me that he was tired of the voices and the visual hallucinations. Seems harmless calling them hallucinations like he was smoking weed, but these hallucinations are horrible. Monsters and devils that Stephen King can’t begin to imagine. I’m not sure I could last a week (laughs) and yet they manage to get through it until one day they can’t. Obbie Bowers came to me the night he got shot to tell me. An hour later we heard.\nNow you know I had a close relation with Andre and I knew he was a good man. He was kind and generous. He found a stray puppy and kept him for about five years until the dog got hit by a truck. The driver helped Andre get his dog to the veterinarian, but there was nothing they could do. Andre spent the night with that dog, holding him and saying his name again and again. There are times when mercy just isn’t enough. \nMr. Walter Seltzman, Mayor of Langford, OH, Press Conference after City Council meeting: \nThese are the kinds of things that tear a community apart. My police officers are professional and they put their lives on the line each time they put on their uniform. And while there are criminals who endanger their lives, there are other citizens who need special attention and therefore I am looking into a special unit to deal with those adults who face special challenges. I cannot guarantee that we can solve this problem, but unless we are willing to take steps to prevent this from happening again, we shall repeat the mistakes we have made in the past. \nMs Gloria Bradinsky, opposition to Mayor Seltzman in press conference:\nSpending more taxpayer dollars on a program that is doomed from the start. What can we learn from this doomed program? It sounds like a winner, but there is no assurance that we can have a police force that is sensitive to the needs of our mentally disabled community. From the moment Andre Bowers walked out of his brother’s house, he was looking for a way to die. There was nothing that could be done to stop him as long as the police did their job and they did. Yes, this was a horrible tragedy, but no amount of training or sensitivity could have saved Andre Bowers that night. Next time this happens, the gun is fired and police will be the ones who wind up in the hospital. \nMr. Simon Montittle, patient at the Langford Community Mental Health Center during an interview with reporters. \nYeah, I know Andre. He was a good guy. He shared his smokes with me. He told me that he was tired of coming to the center. He was tired of taking meds. He was tired of being told what to do. It wasn’t working, he told me. It’s hard. The voices are cruel. He told me the voices were telling him he should kill himself. He told me they were calling him all kinds of names. Said he was a worthless piece of crap. You can only take so much of that.\nMs Whitney Smaltz, clinician counselor for the Langford Community Mental Health Center on the same interview:\nI’ve been here for almost ten years, right after I got my masters’ degree. Mr. Bowers was diagnosed as schizophrenic when he was eighteen after his break. I can’t really go into much detail as the records are confidential under H.I.P.A.A. even though he’s deceased now. I had a session with him two days before he died and I told him he needed to get involved in more therapy groups.\nDr. Nolan Kravitz, psychologist \nWhat we must do first and foremost is listen to what the patient is telling us. Too often, we assume the patient is not able to tell us what is going on and we start telling him or her what to do. I find that during patient appointments, I get a lot more mileage just sitting there listening to them. I hear things that are important to consider. Andre Bowers didn’t want people to tell him what to do, but that didn’t stop them from doing it. I got along with him, because I let him speak. Sometimes all it takes is for someone to listen. Most of these patients are used to being told what to do without any regard to their feelings of emotions. At some point, we failed him. \nI have read in the newspapers how we need to develop more empathy in our law enforcement, make them aware of the special needs of those who suffer from severe and persistent mental illness, but until we learn to listen, I mean really listen, the solution will always be just beyond our fingertips. We all want change. We all see what has happened in the past that must not be allowed to be repeated ever again. \nI got to speak at Andre’s funeral service where I spoke of a community that was more accepting of those who were different and needed us to be there for them. They don’t need your pity. They don’t need your promises that will never be kept. They don’t need to be ignored. What they need is someone who will pay attention. I hope for their sake it comes one day soon. \nAuthor’s Note: I spent time working with adults with severe and persistent mental illness as described in the DSM V. This story is totally fiction, the characters, the locations, the town itself, but as I have often said, fiction often comes closer to the truth." } ]

[ { "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: Imagination\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1354\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story that spans exactly a year and takes place in a single room." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I heard a thundering knock at my door that jolted me awake. I noticed the doctor wearing a blue scrub walking in a brisk movement inside my cramped space. His eyes filled with grieve and horror. As I perceived him, my mind overflowed with thoughts of panic and anxiety. I acknowledged that whatever I was about to hear was about to mortify me. The doctor calmly said, \"Hello Emily, we have found some critical data, your cancer has spread to your lungs and chest, and we have found that you only have a year or so to continue your life.\" and at that instant, I grasped my life as I recognized it was over.\n\n“B- but what do you mean a year? Is there an antidote to this?” I said nervously; he replied, “I am afraid there is no remedy to this, I wish circumstances were different, and I can discern that you are unhappy, but there is nothing we can do.'' I praised the doctor and proceeded to my husband to notify him. I could not stop trembling, and my heart kept pounding faster and faster the more I recalled it. I kept imagining how my relatives would react if I succumbed to death, I was about to stand up, but my husband shuffled into the room, and I disclosed the news to my partner; he embraced me and told me graciously: \"Do not sweat, everything will be alright at the end\".\n\nWhen my husband left, I felt like each part of my skin and bones fused into plashes of gooey viscous liquid. I couldn't manage the devastating revelation. I wept and screamed all my sadness and depression away until I was dehydrated. I knew I needed a diversion, an entertainment of sorts from my pity-self, just something to monetary transfer my consciousness from my soul and deliver me to a fairyland of delight and sweetness, then a plan leaped into my mind, what if I just imagined that place? I closed my eyes and imagined anything that could produce me to be comfortable or deliver me a humongous smile.\n\nI look around and observe as I descend to the ground. Oh, how entertaining and exciting it is to be approaching the campground. I crash the floor feeling no pain, as I know this is my creativity, but I might also be insane. I observe the kids swinging and frolicking on the toys, all appear to make a bunch of noise. I ran toward the slide, where I slide with pride and stride. I finally felt happy for once, I could live here for months! I heard my husband calling my name, everything started disappearing like some sort of game.\n\nI uncovered my eyes and noticed my husband gazing at me and patting me. He possessed an expression of worrisome, with a perplexed stare. I released \"What do you want?\" from my lips; then he questioned me, \"What were you doing? Did something occur? Do you want to go out?\" I answer his questions calmly, \"I was imagining? Nothing happened, do not worry. No, I do not want to get out. I want to stay in this room.\", then he hugged me with affection. I inhaled each second of it, then As I saw him leave. I remembered when I first met him. He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt with the words \"Thursday\". He had blue eyes, brunette hair. I snickered to myself and ran to him to strike a small conversation. I said, \"Hello, sorry to disturb you, but I found you wearing a t-shirt with the words, Thursday? Do you know by chance that today is Friday?\". He chuckled to himself, \"Do you think I am just that idiotic? I did this to attract girls, and I guess it worked. My buddy will be paying me ten dollars today WOOOOO! by the way, do you want my number?\". I said, trying not to smile, \"Sure, I would love to!\" and then time passed on, and we kept texting, calling, meeting with each other until he proposed to me, and here we are, watching him leave the room where I rest because of cancer, I shut my eyes and continued my fantasy.\n\nI open my eyes again not knowing what to expect, I see a bright light my eyes want to reject. I had no other choice but to walk towards it, and see a guy asking me \"may I have your permit?\". I stutter nervously checking my pockets \"I- I don't have a-\" I feel a paper in my bag, I drag it out like a flag, and hand it to him confidently like I'm giving him a mag, he opens the gate and I see a big sign saying \"welcome to Imagiland!\" my jaw dropped, I walked around, the floor was made of cotton candy, I noticed my friend in the distance and shouted \"BRANDY?\". \"what are you doing here?\" said brandy, \"well a bit of explanation from you would come in handy\", \"I always come here when I'm feeling down\", \"what even is this town?\", \"it's a-\" everything started to dissolve around-\n\nI reopened my eyes and noticed my husband's eyes filled with fury. He was approximately going to weep. He said, \"THANK GOD YOU ARE AWAKE! I THOUGHT SOMETHING HAPPENED TO YOU. ARE YOU OKAY!\" I gawked at him in bewilderment and said softly, \"I was asleep, calm down?\" he replied, \"YOU WERE ASLEEP FOR FIVE MONTHS? NO, YOU WERE IN A GODDAMN COMA. I DON'T KNOW HOW THE DOCTOR DOESN'T KNOW HOW!\", I said \"Oh! I recalled I slept for one 7 hours?\", he responded attempting to maintain his composure, \"thank god, when the doctor admits you to leave, we will go outside, take a walk or something. You haven't left your room since we got here.\" I responded, pouting, \"I don't want to leave the comfort of my room. I love it here.\" he answered, aghast, \"You... love it in your room?\" I said, \"Yes, I just rest.\" he replied, \"No, you're leaving with me.\" I replied, \"No, what are you going to do? Drag a woman with cancer outside\", he sighed and left my room in a huff.\n\nWhen he disappeared, I began to ponder about Brady, Brady Harlistion. I witnessed him in \"Imagiland\". He was similar to how I viewed him last time we spoke. He had coffee-colored eyes, brownish hair, and average height. I yearn for him so extremely. We were inseparable in high school. We would regularly hang out together, and at the weekend, we would go to our neighborhood marketplace. He was the jackpot of friends, dependable, truthful, unusual, and astonishing. I still reminisce about him every day, but now he is gone from that frightful car crash from an intoxicated driver, and if I ever discover that drunk driver. I wish to assassinate him and his family, as he took my friend away. I wanted to meet him again, at least to say goodbye, even if it was in my imagination. It was better than nothing. I closed my eyes, expecting to be exported to a wondrous land, but when I opened my eyes, I was still in the real world.\n\nSuddenly, I see brandy walk in with a tall face, looking at me with grace. He said, \"Did you want to say goodbye before I reside?\", I thought \"Is this true, because if it's not, I will be blue. Why is everything rhyming, is it not weird timing?\" I said, \"Goodbye, I will miss your eyes. You will always be one of my allies. Wait but are you real?\" he said calmly \"Well, believe it, it's the real deal.\" he added, \"Do you wanna come with me?\" I said, \"Where is it that you will be?\" he said, \"To the land of the heavens above, follow me to where we can fly above our worries, to a beautiful sea.\" he held his hand out, I caught it with no doubt. We started to fly. I closed my eyes for the last time we arrived here, a year ago." } ]

[ { "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: Paging Dr. Harris\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1085\n\nPrompt:\n\nSet your story in a post-pandemic world, where the effects are still felt even as your character attempts to move on." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Work was like any other day, daydreaming of a day I can get away from this work life. One would think I would be used to it, after all I have been here for fifteen years. My husband is always away while I work and then go home with the kids. I have three teenagers. My boys are loud, eat a lot, messy, and stink, but to their dad, they are good boys. Connor is my oldest at seventeen, Matthew the middle child, sixteen and Zechariah the baby, is only fifteen, They are good boys at heart, but I wished that I would have had a girl. I longed for my little princess, who would go get her hair and nails done with me. \nWe are at the end of 2019, I’m so happy to see it go. My 40th birthday is coming up, and I’m not ready to let go of my 30s. John is planning a big party in Barbados and I can’t wait to go. We are going for two weeks this man never took a day off from work in the 25 years we have been married. My birthday and our anniversary is in the same week of May, so this vacation is well worth it. I wonder what made him plan this but nevertheless I’m happy. Working in the hospital is a pain, but I love my patients. They come in with cancer, but they are the bravest people I have ever met. As I'm sitting in my office, listening to the news I hear that a virus broke out in China. They are calling it coronavirus. \n\"Oh Lord please don’t let that come here,\" I think, fearfully, \"it’s killing them over there.\" I called my husband, who is a Neurosurgeon, to ask him what he thinks. \n\"To be honest babe, I’m not sure what to think. I just hope it doesn’t come here.\" he sighs. \nMarch 20, 2020 rolls around and, it's here! Coronavirus has hit the US. I don’t know what to say. We'd have never thought it would come here. The impact was immediate. Schools have been shut down, supermarkets have no food in it, there’s no toilet paper in no stores and me and John have been working overtime. The kids stay with my parents because when we do come home we don’t want to expose them to COVID-19.\n I have lost so many patient, and we have to work in the ER now, I have seen people come in and die within five minutes, people who died without their families by their sides, whole families not even knowing their loved ones are gone. I miss my boys, I can only FaceTime them and even that is short-lived. I'm being paged every five seconds. Outside of our hospital is a freezer truck full of dead bodies. \nOne day, I ask my husband, already knowing the answer, \n\"Does this mean we can’t go on our vacation, John?\" \nHe answered with a mournful and silent hug.\nThe world had shut down. I miss my boys, severely, but for their safety I can only FaceTime them, and there's never enough time. I'm being paged every five seconds. I can’t use the bathroom without a code blue going off. I’m frustrated and exhausted. I haven’t slept in weeks.\nOur anniversary is here and our trip was canceled. I never cried so much in my life, but John tired his best to make it up to me by stopping by my office. He had got flowers and cupcakes and chocolate cover strawberries, my favorite, we both had been so busy, basically living in the hospital. We haven’t really seen each other, I barely recognize him. His face has so many lines from the masks we wear constantly. I have never seen him look like he'd lost a fight before and I'm sure I look the same. He gave me a kiss. Oh how I missed this man, he bent me over my desk pulled down my panties, cleaned me then he had his way with me, and I loved every minute of it until I heard the dreaded announcement blaring over the intercom. \n\"Paging Dr. Harris! Code blue! Dr. Harris, cold blue!\"\n John got up and pushed me back down on the desk. He was still aroused. He opened my legs wide and bent down and lapped me up again. I could feel it I was about to explode all over his face. I’m trying to hold back from screaming his name. \nThen, he stopped. I was so close I knew I had to go but before I can fully sit back up he was inside me again. This time he wasn't\n making love to me. I could tell that all of his anger, his frustration and his exhaustion fueled his thrusts. He pumped into me. The faster he went, the harder he was. My eyes rolled into the back of my head I can feel it, I'm about to come! I could feel my butt getting wetter, the desk was moving and John was finished.\n I found my voice.\n\"Babe, hand me that wet wipe, I have to go. I love you so much John.\"\n\" I love you too, babe,\"he breathed, as he kissed me and walked out the door.\n Something is wrong with him, he is not himself, I sensed, but it could just be that we are under so much stress.\nThe summer is here and we are still battling this virus. The city is under so much stress. We are either told to stay inside or to come and live at work. With the cops killing unarmed black men and women the US was under attack. Things were out of control. People wanted to feel normal again. I wanted to feel normal again. I missed being called mom every five seconds. I miss hearing John play with the boys out in the backyard while he grilled steaks. As of lately I had this knot in my stomach, along with this bad headache. One of the doctors who seen me asked me if I was pregnant. I just looked and laughed, replying,\n\"Girl, I've been here at work! I haven’t seen home in a long time!\"\nSighing, she replied, \n\"I suppose you're right, but I still think you should take one, to be sure.\"\nThere was no way I was pregnant! \nWell, there was that one time way back in May, but I just couldn't fathom 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: Bird flying\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 2377\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with a character struggling to remember the date, because every day is like the last one." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "There’s no sound on earth quite like a bird flying into a sliding glass door. Unlike the white noise of mass extinctions and vanishing rainforests, the singular thud of delicate avian bones against shatter-resistant Duraplex glass is impossible to ignore.\nIt's the sound of the natural and man-made worlds colliding, like the off-key fervor of a bronze temple gong struck by a fresh-faced initiate.\nBurt Frumbder was savoring the second sip of his first cup of coffee when this one-of-a-kind sound made him jump, spilling this same cup of coffee. He swore and shuffled to the kitchen sink, attempting to pat his grey sweatpants dry with a dirty dishcloth.\nAfter a few unsuccessful attempts to eradicate the stain, Burt noticed with a satisfied pursing of his lips, that the warmth of the spilled coffee almost felt good on his thighs. He shrugged and walked to the living room to investigate what exactly had caused the sudden noise.\nHad a bird flown into the sliding glass door a few days earlier, Burt might have spilled coffee on his laptop or phone as he skimmed through manuscripts and client emails at the kitchen table. But Burt had sent off his last round of edits on Monday and he wasn’t planning to log on for any new assignments or updates until this next week, at the earliest. It was Christmas, after all. He'd even left his phone charging on the bedside table to celebrate the sanctity of the season.\nBurt mentally congratulated himself on his \"work-life balance.\"\nAs far as Burt was concerned, the best week of the year was the four days from December 26th to Dec 30th. It was a dead time of year for work, which meant he could gorge on all the holiday sweets he wanted, binge Netflix for hours, and wear sweatpants all-day without any judgment from the people in his life who had \"real jobs.\" Because they'd all be doing the exact same thing.\nHis (admittedly small) list of clients — mainly vanished in the weeks leading up to and after the holidays only to return like a Mongol horde of motivated go-getters in late January.\nHis inbox would soon be brimming with requests for notes and revisions from hopeful first and second-time novelists looking for miracles instead of copy edits. But he had a few more days until the flood of would-be Hemingways set out to subdue their New Year’s Resolution word counts with painful prose.\nAs he walked into the living room, he could feel his carefree week slipping away.\nBurt glanced at the sliding glass door for signs of damage, not expecting to find any, and was surprised to see a single feather stuck to the glass. It was dusty grey, almost white, and about the size of a pinky fingernail. It fluttered lightly in the morning breeze, somehow cemented on the glass about six inches below eye level. Burt looked down to see the owner of the feather. He shook his head.\nThe fist-sized bird was limp, his twig legs wilted like damp curly fries as he lay next to the faded “e” at the end of the rust-colored “Welcome” mat.\nMost people don’t have welcome mats in their backyard. But most people don't live in “the country” as Burt’s older brother, Chris and his wife Charlene call it. Burt was especially thankful for the doormats at every entrance when his rambunctious nieces and nephew came to visit each summer.\nBurt looked forward to those extended visits; chaotic five or six intervals in July that let him wonder if he’d have been a good dad without having to actually answer the question. Over the years, Burt had trained each youngster to wipe their feet before darting through the sliding glass door in search of a Capri Sun or juice popsicle — usually dripping wet from the pool or caked in mud from the hill at the edge of his property.\nChris and Charlene hadn’t visited since Linda left.\nA flutter of motion at his feet caught Burt’s eye.\nBurt flicked up the lock and slid the door open with that familiar sci-fi movie sound effect — whoosh. The morning chill blew Burt's thinning shaggy brown hair back off his forehead. The bird, a common sparrow or finch, Burt could never tell the difference, was dazed, but obviously still alive. His wings fluttered as the groggy tried to process his current situation.\n(Despite Burt's ornithological shortcomings, he had come to the conclusion that the bird was male, mostly so he could stop referring to it as “it” in his head).\nHaving made this first decision regarding the bird, Burt sprang into action.\nHe dashed back into the kitchen to grab the coffee-stained hand towel. When he returned, the bird had managed to flutter itself all the way over to the \"W,\" but didn't look ready to leave the doormat any time soon. Even this meager pilgrimage had left it exhausted.\nHis cotton ball chest puffed and deflated in spastic panic. Yet the bird was unable to muster the energy to evade what he must have assumed was his imminent death at Burt’s descending hands.\nBurt smothered the bird with the kitchen towel, gently working the delicate bundle around in his hands until he felt the featherweight body settle upright in his palm. One toothpick sharp foot kicked feebly as the bird struggled to readjust itself in his swaddled prison. Burt peeled the fabric back to check on his panicked passenger.\nThe bird was still hyperventilating in a noble attempt to cram in as many last breaths as possible. Millions of years of evolution informed every cell in his tiny bird body that each harried breath would probably be his last. Aside from this existential dread, the bird looked surprisingly unharmed.\n“There, there now, birdie,” Burt cooed. “You’ll be alright. We’ll fix you right up,” he promised and covered his patient back up.\n\"You just need a little jolt to start the day,\" he announced his diagnosis. The bird was in no position to ask for a second opinion as Burt walked into the kitchen to administer avian first aid.\nThis, of course, was not Burt’s first encounter with an injured bird.\n**\nBurt's grandmother, Flo, had raised chickens. As kids, Burt and his brother had loved to feed and chase her birds across the yard. Despite the apparent risk that two unruly young boys presented to an animal a tenth their size, chickens are surprisingly capable creatures. They evaded the grasping hands of the Frumbder boys with practiced ease, until one afternoon when Chris caught a chicken daydreaming.\nBurt burst into his grandmother's kitchen with tears plowing crooked rows through the dust and dirt on his young cheeks. He didn't even need to ask for help. He just pointed outside and his grandmother rushed out with the confidence of a woman who had lost a husband in her 20's and then spent every day since then working a 40-acre farm by herself.\nShe assessed the emergency with a measured glance and disappeared back inside. She emerged seconds later with an old army surplus wool blanket and corralled the injured chicken like a toreador before bringing her captive inside. Burt still remembers the bundle of white tail feathers poking out of the blanket like frozen fireworks.\nHis grandmother marched into the kitchen, turned on the big kitchen sink faucet, and dunked the bird (upside down) under the freezing tap water for a few seconds. Once the bird had a chance to shake itself dry, grandma fed it a spoonful of American corn whiskey and set it on the back porch.\nThe only lasting consequence of the incident was a slightly less dreamy chicken.\n**\nBurt looked down at the bundle clutched in the kitchen towel. He'd already completed step one of the prescribed regimen. But he was understandably nervous about step two.\nGiving a bird a bath is harder than you think, especially when that bird is the size of a golf ball and you’re clutching it in a coffee-soaked kitchen towel so it doesn't fly around your house. But his grandma had been pretty clear on the necessity of shocking a bird back to health with cold water after a traumatic event.\n\"Birds, like a few young boys I know, need a good shock to the system when they're acting a fool,\" she'd said as she dunked the chicken under the tap. He remembered the wink she'd given him and the hint of a smile in one corner of her mouth that had dried his tears and made everything alright.\nBurt turned on the faucet and loosened his grip on his patient. He checked the temperature with one hand. Ice cold. He unwrapped the bird, clutching it like an arcade claw machine, and dunked him beneath the trickle of tap water. After what can only be described as five seconds of waterboarding, Burt concluded that his patient had been sufficiently shocked and was now safely on the mend.\nHe swaddled him back in the kitchen towel and gently patted him as dry. The bird shook his head to rid himself of a string of water drops. He was ready for the third and final step in the healing process.\nBurt opened the cabinet above the stove and stood on his tiptoes to see inside. “I’ve got just the thing to get a little pep in your step,” Burt whispered to the damp bird.\n“Theeeeeeeere it is,” he crooned and grabbed a bottle near the back. “You're in luck, bird-o, my friend. Straight Kentucky Bourbon,\" Burt read from the label. \"Aged three years. Huh. Good stuff. This will get you back in the game in no time.\"\nBurt wedged the whiskey bottle between his thighs and twisted the sticky cap loose with his free hand. The only problem now was calculating the proper dosage for his tiny patient. A sparrow (or finch, he conceded mentally) is a lot smaller than a chicken, after all.\nBurt opened the silverware drawer, searching for the smallest teaspoon he owned. He found it — a tarnished scalloped-shaped sugar spoon he’d inherited from that same grandmother. He took it as a sign and laid it on the counter.\nBurt poured a dram of whiskey for the bird and took a quick swig of medicine for himself. Bird doctoring was hard work this early in the morning. He put the bottle down with a clang and tipped his patient toward this last life-saving treatment, clutching the towel-wrapped bundle with both hands.\nBurt lowered his face down to watch. Would the bird drink any whiskey? Would it help if he did? How much whiskey did it take to get a finch (or a sparrow) drunk?\"\nThe puffy feathered head of the bird lowered to the brown liquid in the spoon. The toy beak opened and he flicked a few sips into his mouth with a twitch of his head. Then he drank a few more sips.\n“You’re doing it!” Burt whispered. The bird was in fact, \"doing it\" quite well. Burt had to pull the bird away from his medicine after a few more seconds before he overdosed. Burt lifted the bird up to eye level for a final inspection.\n\"Looks like it's working.\"\nThe bird rotated its head, in what Burt could only interpret as a genial drunk's easy agreement.\nBurt was tempted to give the bird another quick dip in the sink to sober him up but settled on a regimen of pacing the length of the kitchen with the bird clutched against his chest. He interrupted his vigil once to self-medicate with a few sips for himself.\nHe'd done it. He'd saved this bird from certain death. He was a hero. Burt had never felt prouder.\nHe rocked the bird gently, lulling it with his whispered plans for the new year.\n\"Maybe I'll finally write a book this year instead of just helping other people write one,\" he announced to the bird. \"I'll start in March, after the New Year's rush.\"\nHe'd block out time in the mornings. He'd set an alarm and get out of bed a little early. He could knock out a few pages before he checked his emails every day. Nothing was going to get in the way of his book, not even that new client on the East Coast he'd just started working with.\n“This is my year, Mr. Bird,” Burt repeated as he paced. He could do anything. His success with his patient was proof of that.\nBurt felt a flutter in his hand. The bird was struggling, trying to flap against a grip that had gradually tightened as he paced.\n“Sorry,” Burt whispered. \"Let's get you back out there.\"\nThe bird chirped impatient agreement.\nBurt walked back to the living room and opened the sliding glass door. The little grey feather was still stuck to the glass. He lowered his patient to the ground, unwrapping the towel like a picnic basket.\nThe bird rolled to the side, righting himself with a quick burst of wing beats. He cocked his head and puffed his feathers against the sudden drop in temperature. The morning air was still brisk, even though the sun was starting to burn through the thin wispy clouds. It was going to be a crisp, clear day.\nBurt crouched on his heels, his arms wrapped around his knees. He watched the bird test his strength with a few exploratory wingbeats. Then, just as suddenly as he appeared, the bird leaped away in a blur of motion. Burt watched as the bird plummeted through two death-defying dips in his flight pattern, like a long lowercase m, and then the bird was gone, vanished around the side of the house.\nBurt picked up the dirty kitchen towel and gave it a shake. He closed the sliding glass door with a whoosh and walked back to the kitchen rubbing his arms to ward off the chill.\nHis coffee had gotten cold, and the kitchen counter smelled like whiskey. He wiped the counter with the towel and popped the coffee mug in the microwave. Burt stared out the kitchen window looking for sparrows. Or maybe finches.\nHe could never tell the difference." } ]

[ { "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: Pregnant and alone\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 2129\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with a character struggling to remember the date, because every day is like the last one." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I swear I just know how to pick them. I guess I should start from the beginning, Lisa is my name or as my daughter calls me mom, I had her when I was eighteen her father flat out left me in the cold I mean we was never together in a relationship or anything he was more like a fuck buddy. Nevertheless it hurt like hell when he said he wasn't the father and if he was he didn't want nothing to do with her or me and hung up on me, I did my best to give my baby girl everything she needed, I mean I went into big stores and stole out of them I'm not proud of it but I had to do it I couldn't work, I didn't want to leave my daughter by herself or with anyone. Now that she is older and can talk I worked my ass off to give her everything she wanted and needed, I still try to do a lot with her working during the week on Saturday we get up and go shopping go out to eat and have mother and daughter day. That all changed when I met this guy Adam we met before but it didn't work out we went out separate ways. I fell in love with him I never had a relationship I didn't want one I just wanted it to be me and my daughter Alisa, but he begged me to give him a chance to show me that he is ready to settle down and be there for me and Alisa he has other kids been with his baby mother for along time I asked him many times why are you with me? Do you not want to be with her? Is it not easy to just be with her? As he loves to say that his pass and he moved on. I had my own place a two bedroom it wasn’t much, but it was mine and my daughter we could do what we wanted. I lost my job due to working in one state and having to pick up my daughter from school I got another job but I still didn't have real help I mean when he gets mad it's I'm not doing it or you always want me to come out there but never say that it's to help all of us. Covid-19 hit I left my job with the post office I definitely had nobody to help me she was home all the time what was I going to do? on top of that I couldn't make rent so the only thing I can think of is to move to the south, but listening to a nigga who had no intention on really being with me told me not to go he didn't want to leave his kids, I stayed but still had no place to go I asked him to help me come up with a game plan and he really going to tell me go rent a room with my nine year old daughter like how can I do that? Now it's time for me to leave he tells me to come stay by him I mean I thought that he really loved me to let me and my daughter stay with him and his mom even though she lived in another state she just didn't want to leave as I seen it but I made the best of it. Not even a month and I still feel like I don't belong here. I am I the only one who cooks and clean nobody helps me I'm guessing I'm a maid I don't complain because I was giving a place to stay. I tired to get close to his mom but Lord I didn't see that I was walking into a tra, anytime I tell her something she runs back to her son and tells him, what kind of \"woman\" is that she used me to talk and tell me about his baby mother but tell him I'm obsessed with her, I really don't see how, but I guess I might have been but if you have been lied to from day one how would you feel? Answer why would you get with a nigga who got kids! All I could do is laugh because she so hurt about his father not being there. I still was the only one who is cleaning and cooking at time I hate getting up I got very depressed, but I still didn't want to talk to nobody for the fact I didn't want to lose my daughter who didn't stay with me any more I guess she didn't like what was going on. I know how she feels I dealt with the same thing when I was growing up with my mom, I missed her so much it was killing me I would snap at times but what could I do I feel so trapped in love with a man who I see didn't really care I mean we had good times but after moving in I have seen a lot of change in him. I still tried to do my best. One night I got that feeling he wasn't doing right, and he went to sleep I saw a saved number, but it was saved as a restaurant I knew it was wrong because it was nine a clock at night I answered it. Hello, hey babe what are you doing, yo who the fuck is you why you're calling? She hangs up I went into the living room and read all the messages I should've just left, but I woke him up saying is this what you do? Is this is what you do? As my voice tremble, he started sweating I know he wrong I know he knew it was over, his mom jumps up I tried to leave he won't let me I'm over this I'm done get away from me Adam he put his hands on me the look on his face of a man who know they wrong but would do anything to make you wrong. I sat outside I tried to leave, but his mom called me back pup dog tears you don't give a fuck about me son he realizes his tears meant nothing to me. I stayed when I should've left it seem like all we do is fight and I get the blame for it, he never wants to take accountability for his actions it's easy to place blame on somebody else and gaslight them to make it seem like it's then when we all know it's not but that's how is, and his mother is condoning it.\nAll we do is fight we definitely not happy no more but we still lying to ourselves. The night before our two year anniversary he spends it with his baby mother they talking about what time they having sex and everything, but he wants to be mad at me because he seen me going somewhere at three in the morning, but what it really was I seen where he was coming from here we go with the gaslighting he mad won't speak it's our anniversary second time he didn't get me nothing because \" he was mad\" bro I'm so tired of this shit dealing with him his fake ass mama and his baby mother. Yet and still I stay, stay with the bullshit, stay with the lies, and I still love him. The heart has has funny way of toying with you or maybe it's karma for the people who wanted to be with me and I didn't go for it, but I was all about my daughter that's all! Is it that bad?\nNah it's about to go down. My period is late but it's always like this I tried to leave it be but sitting in this chair getting my hair done I just don't feel right, talking to my sister in law she like girl I'm telling you pregnant, how the hell I could be the doctor told me I can't have no more kids and I was ok with it. After my hair we go get our nails done and I said fine I'll buy a test but I'm telling you I'm not pregnant, yeah I know what I'm talking about I got damn near 15 kids bitch, ugh whatever come on . I don't know but I think I should call this dumb luck the test fall in water, but knowing my sister in law she has a few pregnancy test saved Regina give me your test, no I need it what happened to the one you had? I dropped it in water maybe that was a sign that I didn't need to take the test, she gave it to me anyway I dipped it in the the pee. I closed it and put it on the counter. As I wait what seem like three seconds all I could say is, what the fuck as I hold my head I'm pregnant! I say nothing but oh no God no Regina started yelling she pregnant she pregnant I broke down in full tears so many thoughts was running in my mind, is he going to be there? Is he going to want the baby? Is he going to tell his baby mother? How would this work? Am I ready for another child? She calls him and told him but I couldn’t catch myself to say anything she is speaking to him and he starts going off I just leave and go to the house. He says nothing to me I lay in the bed feeling alone his party is the next day you think he would be happy but nope he is mad and not speaking you would think he would put shit aside but not him Adam is not that kind of man, the party was fun but my family seen how he really is to me they was mad as hell. I sat up all night thinking if I was going to keep this baby I came to him and spoke and told him. I made my decision on the baby but I want to hear him out who told me to say that he starts to go off, I mean he yelling and carrying on like a child who won't get they way, he is belittling me like I don't know how to be a mom not like I don't have my own child who is well mannered, don't get me started on my mental health, I just sat and listen and cried to myself how did I do this to myself again it's just that I live with him and I love him how can you look a person in they face sho you say you love and tell them you don't want they child? On top of that Alisa was here hearing the many times he done said it to me. He been having this attitude for over two weeks and I knew something was up I went in his phone again and this time I seen he and his baby mother booked a trip to Vegas that was supposed to be our trip but he going with her the way I feel right now is used and this rage is flowing though my body, how could you? I woke him up I started packing up my things with no where to go but I was leaving I had to get out of here I just knew this is why he didn't want the baby he back with her talking about it’s awhole bunch of friends going, my ass I can't deal with this no more. His fake ass mama here and she talking about how they all friends but on the other hand he wouldn't be going if it was her, I snapped how can you tell her one half of the story, I said I'm really leaving because I'm pregnant and he don't want it and going on the trip to spite me, what I didn't tell y'all he was yelling how I took the joy from him by taken the test with Regina and how I was crying like somebody died but he just don't get it I am sorry for taken the test over there but you go on a trip with your ex this is how it is with him. Anyway I'm still here but I'm looking to leave I don't have a job or a mother who can give me an place to stay, I do want out before the baby is born." } ]

[ { "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 my head\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1022\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with a character struggling to remember the date, because every day is like the last one." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Urgh two more months in this room, no morning light in fact i miss feeling the sun on my skin, literally sunbasking, the heat kissing my skin enhancing that natural dark chocolate colour i already have. Hahaha i laugh out loud and it slightly echos in the tiny room i am in. Got me feeling a bit like Van Choga though, no haircut, messy clothes, Thank God for the tiny bathroom by the corner otherwise i would had definitely looked like him no questions asked.\nHonestly speaking most would think it was some silly joke, an off handish crazy stunt only a reality show could think of, you know the likes of fear factor or was it survivor, i dont really know anymore. I look at the cream walls searching for a clock then i remembered no time. All the days seem to be tge same. For entertainment i have a television set, not the fancy kind that slim and sleek no no, i have a 90s set you know the kind with a bum at the back, growing up i used to make sure i get home early so as to be able to watch different cartoons, the likes of conan, Voltron, Madeline, that little lady made me want to visit Paris, i guess maybe one day when the world is right again. First few days were exciting, on my own no one to bother me plus the books to keep me company and i really did go crazy in terms of what i consider as having fun, finished the harry potter and twilight series within a week, over zealous i tell you but what else could i do, ever since the pandemic hit i literally ran into my bunker and shut the door never looked back. In all my years on this earth i never thought i could keep myself company, mini board meetings when things go upside down, yes its a small living space but things do go wrong once in a while for control measure. \nBy the far end of the bunker is my kitchenette fully stocked with tin cans that would make the tin man green with envy, he would be able to renew himself after every meal. This has been my life for the past ten months, i think of something then my thoughts start zooming and running all over the place, even i cant keep up sometimes. Right we were talking about food, nothing special really its always the same routine everyday, i used to have a timetable but it got boring then i decided to remove some of the labels from the cans, have you ever tried a surprise before? There's a time i had to cans of peas and corn for supper, it almost ended in tears, i had to wake up around midnight just to avoid fainting in my sleep! Eventually i got over it and started to look for more ways to spice up the food, noodles with cheese on bread is a master piece, though you should try it at your own risk only a few have a strong stomach that can allow such. \nSo i finished the small pile of books i had, moved on to the recipe books but that was a disaster, finished the other set of ebooks i had on my tablet which i had been avoiding as it would be a sign of upcoming boredom, played board games by myself, card games then became the new hit with a bit if classical music playing in the background, i felt like the Godfather and the only missing thing was a bottle of expensive scotch for the perfect setting. Some nights i would go to bed after hitting half a bottle of gin no ice or dash as my brother used to call it, straight from the bottle for maximum effect, other days i would just sit in some corner and wallow in my thoughts leading to a bit of depression then a lot of crying plus fear of the unknown. Solitary confinement had nothing on this i tell you. I took up something called art, its a combination of pencil and paper something that is new to me...am joking, thoughts of a loner still haunt me. \nAt one point i was tempted to write love letters, to an unknown destination, to some long lost lover in a foreign land, theme being that of the 60s with a hippie tone, had i known i would have had a collection of the 60s clothing stashed somewhere in my tiny prison so as to be worn for entertainment. By the way the days seem to be flying by as if someone has created a timr moving machine. Today was a good day though, after so much debate with myself and excruciating board meetings i have decided to write a book but not just some random book, am thinking along the lines of action, thriller and a liitle bit of adventure just to keep tge reader on edge, nothing too boring or scary otherwise i might as well eat my socks. Just as i was about to start my little adventure i hear a loud bang, not too loud to wake anyone up but liud enough to make the hairs all over your body stand and its not a feeling that i really like at all. I feel like i have been shocked a little bit but that doesnt make any sense, am nowhere near any electricity its quite disturbing. It happens again and this time i feel it without a doubt, someone is trying to shock me.\n\"Its really sad i thought he would get better\", thats my daughter standing with the family doctor as they watch over me laying on the hospital bed in a vegetable state, its been a year since the accident happened now am locked in my head, my own little room with no windows, missing the sun and the cool breeze. No hope if ever feeling all that again, the year was over but this time the stay is permanent until i 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: No Rest for the Wicked\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 2967\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with someone emerging from the sea, and end it with them looking up at the stars." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Beneath the sea’s surface, I am at peace and everything is quiet. I wish I could stay down here forever where the hardest problems I have is telling the difference between the fish that swim near me and pruny skin. But my lungs need oxygen and it isn’t long before I swim up to the surface and breathe in sweet, fresh air. Above water, I’m greeted by the sounds of seagulls shrieking and children playing at the beach with their families. As I step out of the water, every noise comforts me as it means I’m on my first vacation in a very long time and not on some mission in a classified corner of the world.\nI stretch out on my beach towel just as my phone rings. No image pops up. Only the words SECURE CALL appear. I groan as I click answer. So much for my vacation.\n“Verification?” A robot voice on the other line asks.\n“Beta Echo Niner 5736,” I reply with my verification code.\n“Identity Verified,” the robot responds. “Patching you in.”\nA moment later, “Benjamin, darling! How’s my favorite agent?” Octavia Grey’s voice comes to life on the other end. She’s using her sweet tone which no doubt means she needs a favor.\n “I’m on vacation,” I say, as if that’ll make a difference.\n“There’s no rest for the wicked,” she says, by way of a reply.\n“Isn’t the phrase, ‘There’s no rest for the weary’?” I interrupt her.\nI can almost hear her shrug. “I’ve heard it both ways. I’ve got a job for you.”\n“I’m on vacation,” I repeat. “Is a little rest and relaxation once in a while too much to ask for?”\nOctavia continues speaking as if I haven’t said anything. “Some genius in admin assigned Brian Singer to the Medusa Eye case. Brian!” She repeats his name to punctuate her shock. “I am not about to lose sleep trying to clean up his mess when things inevitably go sideways because they always do if he’s on lead. We need you on the case.” There had been whispers about the Medusa Eye resurfacing before I’d went on vacation and I assumed it would stay just a whisper. I guessed wrong. The Medusa Eye is a portable computer virus a little bigger than a common usb. When connected, it’s capable of turning any technological device into stone much like the Medusa it’s named after. Well, not exactly stone, but close enough. I don’t know all of the specifics, but apparently it can wipe hard drives and fry a system so bad that it can never be used again. Our agency has been chomping at the bit to get word of the Medusa Eye’s whereabouts, retrieve it from whichever underworld scum has it, and put it in a vault where it can do no harm. If Brian’s on the case, I don’t doubt that he and who ever his partner is will eventually gain possession of the Eye but not before a few casualties and causing at least one world war in the process. Even so, that doesn’t mean it has to be my problem.\n“You could send Cherish,” I offer.\n“That’s a brilliant idea, Ben,” she says sarcastically. “Why didn’t I think of that?” She pauses to let the sarcasm sink in, before she continues, “Cherish is in Italy and before you ask, Michael is in Jakarta.” They were two of the best retrieval specialists we had. I hope she wasn’t expecting me to do this on my own.\n“Before you say anything,” Octavia continued. “You won’t be in it alone. I’ve got a friend that’s come out of retirement to partner with you. Her name’s Jacqueline McKinley.”\nI roll my eyes. “Not only are you disrupting my vacation, but you’re sending me a retiree to deal with. Do you hate me? Did I do something to offend you?”\n“How quickly you’ve forgotten Reykjavík,” she adds pointedly.\n“I had conveniently forgotten Reykjavík,” I say. “In fact, I thought we promised that we would never bring it up.”\nShe scoffed in response. “You owe me big time and now it’s time to pay up.” Though I haven’t actually agreed to the job, in her eyes, I’m as good as signed on. I hear a notification in my ear letting me know I’ve received an email. I only need one guess to know who it’s from. \nI pull the phone from my ear and scan the email quickly. The target is a Vincent Ford, 29, no picture. He’s a tech aficionado by the look of his file. He has multiple degrees in computer science and currently holds a position at a tech company. He’s going to sell the Eye at a nearby auction tomorrow night. That is, if we don’t take it from him first. I read through more of his file. I should be more worried about what will happen if the Eye gets in the wrong hands, but this is almost going to be too easy.\nI tell Octavia, “I could do this in my sleep with one arm tied behind my back,” and she scoffs in response.\n“Don’t be too cocky,” she warns. “Talk to your partner first and then get back to me.” I hear the clicking of her keyboard as she types something.\nShe chuckles to herself, and then says, “Speaking of your partner, she just messaged me. ‘Goodness gracious, O! This guy can’t be real. Dude came out the water looking like a god.’”\nI scan the crowd around me, two things abundantly clear. One, my partner is within my vicinity. And two, Octavia sent her here without waiting for me to agree. I shouldn’t be surprised. “Where is she?” I ask, still assessing my surroundings\n“Behind you,” a voice from right behind me says and I just about jump out of my skin. I turn around and there she is. How she managed to get so close to me without my noticing, I’ll never know. Sure, I’m on vacation and might be a little rusty, but dang, it’s a little embarrassing. She seems amused by my reaction and how many years she took off my life by scaring me. She’s wearing a floral one-piece with a matching sarong covering her lower half. Her hair is in Senegalese twists that reach down her back and she has a well-loved paperback book tucked under her arm. If I didn’t know any better I’d think she was on vacation, too.\n“Call you back,” I tell Octavia and then hang up.\n“You must be Jacqueline,” I say, holding my hand out to her. We’re going to be partners on this and even though she scared the life out of me, I want to start off on the right foot.\nShe looks at my hand, but instead of taking it, says, “Be honest. How many times did you rehearse that walk out of the water? You had to have tripped at least once. You’re lying if you haven’t tripped at least once.”\nI stare at her wide-eyed, my hand still outstretched. “What?” is all I can muster out.\nShe chuckles and finally takes my hand and shakes it, “Don’t worry, I won’t judge. And the name’s Quinn, by the way. Octavia only calls me Jacqueline because she knows it annoys me. Now, is it Ben or Benji? I’m partial to Benji, but I’m not about tell a guy what he should call himself.” The words gush out of her and I stand there, trying to keep up with what she’s saying. When she pauses and looks at me expectantly, I realize she wants me to answer her.\n“Ben’s fine,” I say.\n She nods, “Cool.” Then, she smiles and it’s so bright, it’s almost like looking into the sun. “You look like a Ben,” she says. “You exude a lot of Ben energy.” I don’t even know what that means. Who is this ball of energy in front of me and why did Octavia assign her as my partner? She knows I have high expectations for who I work with. Maybe she’s punishing me for something. “I like a day at the beach as much as the next person,” Quinn continues, looking around her, “but I have been waiting for you come of the water for a while. I even finished my book while I waited. ” She holds up her book as evidence. “But we have less than 48 hours and we should really get to work.” I follow her stream of consciousness until she gets to her point. She’s right. We’re going to need all of the time we’ve got.\nThough Quinn definitely said we didn’t have much time, that doesn’t stop her from taking a nap as soon as we get to the beach house the agency rented for us. I fight the impulse to be annoyed. I can carry this mission on my own if I have to.\nI take a seat at the island in the kitchen and pull up Octavia’s email on my laptop so I can read over it again. Looks like Vincent is staying at the Prince Hotel, a stone’s throw from the beach and the beach house where we’re staying. He’s not going to want go far with the Medusa Eye in his hands, so it’s likely that the auction will also take place at the Hotel. The best bet is to steal it from his room long before the auction happens. That is, of course, assuming that he is holding the Eye in his room. I groan, this would be a lot easier if I had someone to bounce ideas off of.\nAgain, I wonder why I was paired with Quinn in the first place. There has to be something in her file that will explain why Octavia chose her of all people.\nOctavia didn’t attach Quinn’s file to the mission email. It would be the first time she’s forgotten to, but it’s not completely unheard of.\nI call Octavia back. “Where’s Quinn’s file?” I ask as soon as she answers.\n“Why do you need her file?” Octavia asks. “She under your skin already?”\n“I just need to know who I’m working with,” I say and I leave it at that. She doesn’t need to know that I’m questioning the partnering and am hoping to find something in her file that justifies our being paired together.\nOctavia is silent for a long while. Then she says, “Quinn has ghost status. Opening her files requires a level 14 security clearance which neither of us have, so whatever you want to know you’re going to need to ask her yourself.”\n“W-what,” I stammer. “What’s a ghost doing on a mission like this?” I almost scream into the phone, but I do my best to keep my voice down since Quinn’s still napping.\nOctavia’s voice is uncharacteristically patient. “It’s what she wanted. And I owe her one. So any of your burning questions, you got to go to her. You won’t hear it from me.” Then, she hangs up without any further explanation.\n“Did you find out what you wanted to know about me?”\nI almost leap out of my skin at her sudden appearance. God, she really is a ghost.\n“You know I didn’t,” I say, turning to her. Her twists are in a low ponytail and she’s replaced her bathing suit for a Howl’s Moving Castle t-shirt and jeans. She is nothing I imagined when I think of someone with that type of clearance. I can hear the disbelief in my voice when I say, “Your file has a level 14 security clearance. Only presidents and foreign leaders can open it. Do you know the type of top level stuff you’ve got to do to get one of those?”\nShe shrugs her shoulders as she reaches for an apple on the counter. “Are you going to mansplain it to me?”\nI had walked right into that one with that question. But still, none of this makes sense. “Level 14s don’t come out of retirement to go on a mission like this,” I say. “They don’t retire at all. Anyone that has one is still active. To have one and not be in the field, you’d have to be dead or dying.” I look at her, waiting for her to respond as she bites into her apple and doesn’t look at me. Then it hits me, the realization of what I just said. I am officially a terrible person that has just succeeded in sticking my entire foot in my mouth. “Sorry,” I say, quickly. “I didn’t… Ignore me. I’m an idiot.”\nShe laughs as she takes another bite. “There’s nothing to be sorry about. And we both know you’re not an idiot, Mr. Top of Your Class.” Well, at least one of us was able to read the other’s file. “If you had just asked,” she said pointedly. “I would’ve told you. What do you want to know?”\nI asked the first question I could think of. “Are you dying?”\n“We’re all dying. You’re going to have to be more specific.”\n“Why are you retired? Why did you come back for this mission? Octavia said it’s what you wanted.”\nShe considers me, setting her half-eaten apple on the table in front of her. “As an agent, if you’re anything, but at your very best, you get benched. That’s why I’m retired. I won’t bore you with the details, but yes, I’m sick and yes, I’m dying, but lucky for us and this mission, I’m not dead yet. As far as why this mission,” she shrugged her shoulders, searching for the words. “When you’ve been working as long as I have, you want one last mission, one last hurrah so you can end it in a blaze of glory. That’s why I’m here.” She looks at me expectantly, but I don’t know what she wants me to say. She clarifies by asking, “So what’s your story, Mr. Top of Your Class?”\nI don’t know what more she wants me to tell her since she’s read my file. “I’m an open book,” I say. “There’s nothing more to the story than that.”\n“You sure about that?” she asks and there’s something in her expression that I can’t read. I think nothing more about it as she picks up her apple again and continues eating it. She points at my open laptop, “You’ve got a plan for how we’re going to do this.”\nI shake my head, “Not a one.”\n“We could do ‘The Damsel,’” she suggests.\nThe Damsel is one of the most popular retrieval techniques in our playbook. It’s complicated and involves a blowtorch, pantyhose and a dozen reusable straws, but it’s effective and it’s probably our best bet to get the Medusa Eye.\nWe talk over the plan, looking at all the angles and everything that can go wrong. It’s mostly Quinn who is a fountain of ideas that spring forth from her unbidden and unhindered. It’s almost midnight before we finally iron out all the details. We say good night to each other, confident that our plan will go off without a hitch.\nI’m back on the beach sitting on a towel looking up into a sky full of stars. It’s quiet and there’s a soft breeze that’s refreshing, but not too chilly.\nQuinn fell asleep hours ago, but unsurprisingly, I’m still awake. Tonight’s the night. It’ll all come to an end tonight.\nMy phone rings and when I see who it is, I answer it. The male voice on the other end is strained. “Sir, where are you?”\nI smile to myself. With as long as I’d been gone, I expected him to call much sooner. “I’m at the beach,” I say.\nHe lets out a choked sound that reminds me of a dog getting its tail stepped on. I hear him take a deep breath and his voice is steady when he says, “I don’t need to remind you how important this auction is. We have buyers coming in from all over the world, Vincent.”\nI know he’s annoyed with me if he’s using my first name. “I’m well aware,” I say. “But I’ve hit a bit of snag.” My voice is light as I look up at the stars and trace the constellations with my finger.\n“What kind of snag?”\n“I’ve been put on the Medusa Eye case.”\nHe makes a sound that’s somewhere between a groan and a whimper. “I thought you were on vacation.”\n“So did I.”\n“Last time I checked, you can’t be in two places at once. You’ll never be able to auction the Eye off and play your agent role at the same time. Maybe we should call it off.”\n“It’s too late for that. The only option is forward. Besides, Quinn McKinley needs her blaze of glory.”\n“What?” His voice is strained once again. I bet he’s fighting every urge to track me down, so he can smack some sense into me.\n“Nothing,” I say. “We move forward as planned. “Don’t worry, it’s going to be fun.”\nI think I hear crying just as I hang up.\nThe stars wink at me as I lean back into the sand. I’m not a fool. While I’m confident in my talents, a few hours with Quinn and I know I’m no match for her. That doesn’t mean I won’t put up a fight, though. That doesn’t mean I won’t give it everything I’ve got. For the first time, there’s a challenge in front of me, an opponent I won’t be able to easily beat and the prospect invigorates me in ways that I did not think possible. Vacation time is over. No rest for the wicked. It’s time to get to work." } ]

[ { "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 the DLD\n\nGenre: american\n\nWord Count: 1124\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite an epistolary story set during a major historical event. The event may be the subject of the letters directly, or be referenced in the background." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "In the DLD\nNothing vaguely interesting ever happened in the DLD. How could it, with a name like the Dead Letter Department? It is where undeliverable mail goes to die in any city. Usually, it’s only a missed spelled last name or street name. Occasionally, someone may transpose a house number or leave off an alphabet like “54 C Sunset Ct.” at the most. Any permanent carrier knows the residents on their route, so they are used to sorting the mail and correctly delivering all pieces of mail and packages; even when someone has moved. When the zip code is wrong, things will land in the DLD.\nIn 1943 the post office assigned large cities postal zones; Zip stands for Zoning Improvement Plan implemented by the United States on July 1, 1963, throughout the states and US territories. 1963 zip codes contained five numbers like mine, 22901. The first number (2) designates the national area, the following two digits (29) determine the sectional area, and the last two numbers (01) depict the associated post office or delivery area. In 1967, with pickup-in-drop shipping, a zip code was required for second and third bulk mail. Because of the population explosion 1983, the zip code went to zip plus four, like 22901-1115, to further segment locations.\nMargo Drought headed our DLD. She took pride in that, for twenty years, she had never had a piece of mail remain in the DLD for more than seven days. Until the pandemic. An impressive record…yes! One that she refused to let COVID-19 break. She tried her usual methods first:\n1. Looking up the address as written =------ it was a valid address.\n2. The intended recipient no longer resided ======no forwarding address was filed.\n3. Check Obituaries ======================== no obituary found,\n4. Attempts to return to sender ============letter had an address and postmark from before zip +4\n5. No other choice but to open it…\nThe page was a handwritten note on a pastel pink postcard, and it read:\n----------------------------------------------------------------\n(letter 1)\nMy darling Henry,\nIt has been three months since your last letter, and I am worried. I understand why, but I hang on to every word you write. I love you, Henry Burris Campbell. Don’t ever forget that. The war has got to end soon; it just has to. Love, Rainey Arrington-Campbell\n----------------------------------------------------------------\nMargo’s new lead…\n1. Look up Rainey A. Campbell =============several name changes\n2. Check all listed names================obituary for Rainey Lee Arrington in 2021.\n3. Find the next of kin========== letter sent to the Mortuary listed.\n----------------------------------------------------------------\n(letter 2)\n8/8/22\nTo whom it May Concern:\nI am writing to return property belonging to Rainey Lee Arrington. It can be signed for at the Seminole Trail Main Post Office between 9-5, Monday -Friday. Ask for Ref#: 6688DLD.1\n----------------------------------------------------------------\nMargo’s record is in jeopardy…\nIt’s been three days, and the Arrington letter is still unprocessed. Usually, a piece of mail moved through in a few minutes or, most, a few hours.\nSecond attempt to locate the owner or executor of the estate\n(letter 3)\n8/11/22\nAgainst company policy:\nI’m writing a personal note to anyone who knew Rainey Lee Arrington and Henry Burris Campbell. I’m a supervisor within the Charlottesville main post office and have been trying to return some property. You can call me at 800-DLD-0066, or it can be signed for at the Seminole Trail Main Post Office between 9-5, Monday -Friday. Ask for Ref#: 6688DLD.1.\n----------------------------------------------------------------\n8/13/22\nPutting it off for over a year, cousin Lisa and I decided to pack up 1640 Riverside Court since the whole family has agreed that it should be sold out of the family. A few wanted to have a bonfire and burn it down; too many memories. Lisa and I have fond memories of sitting with Gram learning to knit and crochet but the aunts and uncles who grew up within the walls of that great three-story remember all of the fights between the husbands and Gram.\nAs I pulled up the driveway, the mailman emptied the overflowing box and flagged me down. “You saved me from going to the post office to stop delivery to this address for Rainey Lee Arrington, thanks.\nWait…there’s a certified letter you must pick up, and a signature is required. I had the letter with me for three days and sent it to the front last night. Please go today or tomorrow so it won’t get lost in the dead letter department. You can call this number 800-DLD-0066, or it can be signed for at the Seminole Trail Main Post Office between 9-5, Monday -Friday. Ask for Ref#: 6688DLD.1.\nHmmm….\nPoor choice of words, I thought as tears began to flow as if Gram just died yesterday. He was new to this route. The regular carrier Freda was pregnant before Gram passed a year ago and is on maternity leave. She was the last baby prediction Gram did. I didn’t think about it until now. We were in the living room, and Gram’s statement went in one ear and out the other, but now it makes perfect sense. Gram told Freda as she touched her baby bump, “She is destined for greater than I can predict. Move in and inherit much.”\nFreda was the last woman Grams took in, and I know Gram would be happy to see Freda paying it forward. Several women Gram took in over the years have been referred by a mail carrier, and Freda was the link, go-between, or conductor.\nThe moment I had that recollection, a weight seemed to be lifted. I also realized that what the family members remember most of all is the steady stream of violence that darkened this doorway over the years. Whether Gram was being arrested for beating the largest shareholder of Commerce Bank for trying to drag his wife home by the hair or if the happy couple got drunk enough to say what they thought of each other. The Grams that Lisa and I loved didn’t emerge until they were grown and gone.\nWhen Lisa pulled up, I told her to jump in….\nAt the post office, we retrieved the letter.\nThe letter chilled Gram because she thought Henry had abandoned his new wife and baby. Until she met her husband number four, Henry’s twin brother, who informed her that he had been killed overseas. We are the only people who know he never received her last letter.\nFast forward to 8/25/23…...that was a year ago.\nThe family agreed to sell 1640 Riverside Court to Freda Montgomery for $250, and each of Gram’s grandchildren received a $10 gift card, including Freda’s daughter.\nDidn’t I tell you Freda was the baby Gram was pregnant with when Henry was drafted?" } ]

[ { "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 Rendezvous\n\nGenre: american\n\nWord Count: 1440\n\nPrompt:\n\nA mysterious letter is delivered to your character's home. It's not addressed to them, but they can't resist peeking..." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The rain orchestrates its own symphony as it drops on Wesley’s umbrella and the variety of objects one might find lining a city sidewalk on their way home. A healthy middle-aged man, with chiseled features and light grey eyes that look black because they set deep in his brow; broad and tall with a lengthy stride, shortens his steps and takes his time to enjoy the weather that few appreciate. Just the night prior, he had spent the evening on the porch watching the lightning flash and tear the sky asunder, something he has always found beautiful and enjoyable.\n\nWesley crosses the street to the old Victorian home that has been passed down through the generations just as the postman shuffles off. He grabs his mail and ascends the steps to the house. He closes his umbrella, kicks off his galoshes, and takes a seat in the wicker rocking chair that crackles under his weight. Most of the mail is of the usual nature, plain envelopes with printed labels or transparent windowed sections, but one stands out as disparate. It is of high-quality beige paper, trifold and wax sealed as if from days past with a red bow tied around it. It is addressed to Ashlynn Baker, his wife, and must have been hand delivered.\n\nWesley is a construction manager and is only home today because of the rain. Normally Ashlynn retrieves the mail, but she is out shopping with her mom and sister. Maybe this isn’t unusual. It probably has to do with her book club or is an invitation to something, he assumes as he looks the letter over. He gathers up the mail, takes it inside, and lays it in the basket on the entry table.\n\nWesley heads to the kitchen to get a glass of sweet tea, but he cannot stop wondering what the letter concerns. He stands at the entry to the kitchen, drinking his tea, pondering the contents of the letter as he stares at the mail in the basket. It’s not in an envelope, he thinks to himself. I can peek into it without breaking the seal. Wesley expands the letter just enough to peek through the side and read the words, “My Love” and “affairmatch.com”. Wesley breaks the seal in a fury and begins to read.\n\nMy love,\n For months, since meeting you on affair.com, I haven’t been able to think of anything other than when I might gaze upon you again; hold you in my arms and listen to your laughter. And the rush, the excitement! You have to admit it adds to the passion we have for each other. The risk, the possibility of getting caught, the sneaking and the lying. And then there is the sex, heart pounding, toe curling, out of this world, sweaty sex. It’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced with my wife, nor is the genuine intimacy of opening up to each other afterwards the way you and I do. You have brought me back to life. My wife is away at her mother's. This week, on our normal Thursday night, when you tell your husband you are at a book club, I want you to come to my place for the evening. I will cook for you. We will drink and dance and make love by the fireplace. You know where I live. I will text you tonight.\nLove,\n Andrew\n\nWesley was overcome with anger, red in the face, gritting his teeth. He wrinkled up the letter and started to throw it away but thought differently about it. If this was going to lead to a divorce, he wanted evidence, so he took the letter upstairs and hid it in his golf bag, where Ashlynn would never look. He sat down on the bed and starts contemplating things. “Andrew” was wise not to put his address on there, he thought, gripping tightly to the comforter. That eliminates me from doing what I feel like doing. I can confront her, or I can wait it out and confront them both, catch them in the act. Catch her in the act. Like hell if she gets anything, he thought. He decides on catching them in the act and taking out his anger on her boyfriend.\n\n“Wes, I’m home baby. Can you help me get the bags in?”\n\nWesley looks in the mirror and takes a deep breath, relaxes his tense muscles, and fakes a smile. “Be right there,” he shouts down the stairs and takes another cleansing breath.\n\nWesley gets downstairs and takes a look at his wife. She’s beautiful with an athletic build from hours of yoga each day, has wavy sandy-blonde hair that frames a face with dark green eyes, high cheekbones, and full, pouty lips. She smiles. It’s wide and charming.\n\n“Are you just going to stand there and stare at me, or are you going to help?”\n\nWesley moves past her without the usual slap on the bottom and retrieves the bags from the car. “Looks like you bought out the store,” Wesley comments.\n\n“It’s not as bad as it looks. I hit mostly sales. Everything okay? You look grouchy,” she says making a playfully grouchy face.\n\n“I’m just tired, have a headache. I’m going to relax and watch some TV,” he says, walking into the living room.\n\n“Okay. I’m going to go get the mail.”\n\n“I already got it. It’s on the table by the door.”\n\n“Oh, anything for me.”\n\n“I don’t know. I didn’t really look at it.”\n\nAshlynn stretches out on the couch and plays on her phone while Wesley watches the game. Her phone dings with a message. She giggles and gets up to go upstairs.\n\n“Where are you going,” Wesley asks, knowing good and well where she is going and why.\n\n“Upstairs. It’s Becky from the book club. I don’t want to disturb your game.”\n\n“You can stay if you want.”\n\n“Nah, I’ll go upstairs.”\n\n#\n\nIt’s Thursday and earlier in the day Wesley took Ashlynn’s car in for an oil change at the local Walmart. While there, he purchases a cheap mini magnetic GPS tracker that he places on her car. So, when Ashlynn tells him she is off to the book club, he is in no hurry to follow her. He just sits on the porch in his rocker listening to the rain and watching the lightning.\n\nOnce her car is out of sight, he pulls out his cell phone and watches her until she stops moving. He goes upstairs, grabs his camera and his nine-iron out of the closet, and sets out to break up his wife’s little rendezvous. He plays it over in his head. Either they will be having dinner, making googly eyes at each other and he smashes the romantically set table before smashing Andrew's face in, or they will be dancing to some romantic tune (or worse, Ashlynn will be grinding on him) and he loses his cool, knocks the guy out and destroys his home, or he catches him penetrating her and he flat out beats him to death. Wesley is so worked up; he’s beating the steering wheel and is screaming as he pulls onto Andrew’s street.\n\nHe cuts his lights and looks for a place to park on the crowded street. He finds a spot a couple houses down from the driveway where his wife’s car is parked. He grabs the nine-iron and says to hell with the camera. Approaching the house, the shades are pulled close, and the house is dark. The worst-case scenario runs through his head. His blood boils and he trembles from a rush of adrenaline. His fist tightens around the golf club, knuckles turning white. He tries the doorknob wanting to sneak up on them, catching them in the act. It's unlocked. He slowly opens the door and steps into the pitch-black living room when a light flicks on. There, standing in the middle of the room is Ashlynn, and she’s surrounded by people.\n\n\"Surprise! Happy Birthday'\" they shout, and Wesley drops the golf club, his jaw dropping open, dumbfounded.\n\nAshlynn runs and jumps into her husband's arms. “What’s the club for baby,” she says with a mischievous smile and a playful giggle.\n\n“You are the meanest… (kiss), most horrible…. (kiss), and nasty woman I know… (kiss),” and he puts her down. “You’re lucky I didn’t file for divorce right off the bat!”\n\n“I know you. I knew everything you were going to do before you did it. If some guy was messing with me, you’d want your vengeance first.”\n\n“Still, this was risky.”\n\n“Not my fault you were born on April 1st.”" } ]

[ { "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\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 2583\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with someone emerging from the sea, and end it with them looking up at the stars." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "by DOUGLAS PENICK\n Part 1\nWinter ice and slippers. Instability on the black driveway. Well, there’s a reason they call them slippers. Slippery bed slippers. She should be slipping into bed. Or, determined as she was, she should have put on the boots. Even with having to sit down and bend and the shortness of breath and the undignified tugging at slippery boot tops in the freezing hallway. Why did coldness make indignity worse? Well, it did. It does.Oh, she’d thought, she’d just run out for a second and get… what was it? She’d forgotten and who cares now…from the car. It would just take a second. She’d gotten away with worse. Often\nearthward through the dark night sky. She’s falling, whoopsie daisy:\nCONK!!!\nWaves of burning yellow-green light sear. Seas of cold blackness break in one giant shot of pain over all the history in her old head. Words all gone. Except for a whispered:\nGood By, Sweetie.\nOh my love, she thinks.\nPart 2\nDarkness.\nNow the great blue whale is swimming in the ocean darkness. Water touching every inch of gray-blue skin, conveying warmth and cold and song and in the forebrain the subtler impulses of magnetic poles. Rippling down, down through the sea, echoes of distant stars or pathways of moonlight or laughing expanse of bright and warming sun.\nIt’s all evolving around her: new kinds of living sea.\nSensation and skin inseparable. Inner/outer unmediated. This great singing warmblood is the ocean’s mind. Its heart is audible far off as the shimmery krill filters in the baleen with tons of water, the great whale moving easily, pouring through. Moving unseen deep below the surface. Effortlessly nourished. Vast and silent. Barely moving, deep at ease – mind.\nMoving gently within its own realm. Inseparable in darkness\nThe great singer, the great knower, knowing something one does not wish to end, even as one begins to sense perhaps it is a dream. An inner warmth pervasive. A leisurely stretch of fin. A movement that does not feel like movement continuing in darkness.\nBut now she moves, and there is pain: pain and cold cold skin. She tries to let go of the particulars, to sift down into the easy depths. Almost.\nTime has passed. A lot of time. How does she know? She knows.\nPart 3\nSomething sparkles.\nFrom here,\nSeen across the glassy curve,\nThe green arched back of the ingoing wave,\nThe brittle shore is so unimaginative,\nSo stolid and sad,\nIts denizens so angular and conscious.\n*\nShe is resistant but knows. If she stays in the darkness, she will remain in darkness.\nLiving in a world she can share will soon not be an option.\nShe sighs. Stretches. Shooting stars of pain. Don’t open your eyes.\nShe moves. It hurts.\nMoving, she knows. She is trapped in the old body. Lifting her head slightly, she wants to vomit. She doe not want to open her eyes. Knows she must.\nOpen your eyes, you sleepy head. Time for school. She sighs, She can smell her own sour breath lingering on the ice. Bad gums.\nWait. Just for a moment more, don’t move. Stay.\nPart 4\nShe who for a glance of the earth-bound life, so yearned that she sloughed off her silvery skin, shimmering muscular body, her iridescent fins, her ability to fly and twist and dart and hover in the moving tides bein the waves.\nBut she did it, no matter what. A magic spell became an invisible knife. It drove deep onto her. It cut beneath the silver scales, her legs, parting them. It carved feet and toes from waving frond-like fins. She was cut apart and re-shaped. Mute. She could no longer express the screams that writhed within her.\nThrough silent waves of excruciating pain, she walked awkwardly on land.\nNow lying on the ground, the old woman groans. Even if it means entering further in a world of death, she rolls slightly to her side and presses against the ice. Moving, she feels her body. Its age pulls on her like gravity.\nA wrenching sob as when she first heard the story of the mermaid.\nPart 5\nThere is a serious question she must ask. Somehow, she’s reached the foot of the porch stairs. Her feet frozen, her nightgown soggy at the knees sticks to her legs. She looks up, six steps.\nShould she crawl up, ass in the air? Hard on knees and frozen hands? Private parts exposed to freezing breezes? Or should she turn and sit, then boost herself up to the next. Sit, boost, sit, boost. More stable. OK. Worth a try. Up. Ouch.\nPart 7\nDreams of fluffy tufty steam clouds billowing up and up in puffy rounded pillows, then\nnothing.\nA white, late morning seaside sky void. Pleasant. Warm on the front.\nThe steamship is in the pale green bay about to dock. The voyage is over.\nWater lapping at the pier.\nOoooh and a horrible burning chemical smell.\nVile and man made\nAn oil refinery puking on the shore, puking out smoke, a counter-billowing\nto those white tufty ones. These are stinky streams of smoke polluting the air with some awful inhuman acrid…SHIT …OH SHIT … OH NO\nShe wakes completely, standing there. The kettle has burned through. The splendid gold-domed kettle. The ex Saint Marks. Maybe she forgot to put in the water. She turns off the heat beneath the smooth black glass. And remembers…\nRemembers her hostess is (was now) very proud of this teapot. Made a point of showing it to her. “It’s in the design collection at MOMA” Looks down modestly”Oh it’s ok to use it. That’s what it’s for.” Said, brightly, indulgently. Then told her the name of the designer… and the cost…. terrible. That’s what it’s for…\nOh, shit shitshit. Now her hostess will really have to be kind. Unbearably kind. More blessed to give then to receive? Not in this case. Receiving all that benevolent forgiveness? A tidy trip to hell.\nOr maybe this will be the straw. Her charming hostess will reveal some Godzilla creature that’s lured forever deep beneath the seas waiting to be born and then Pow! stomping on cities, evicting self. Ayeeee. How to know? What is to be done?\nWell, amends must be made and pronto. Where’s her purse?\nFor once the world is in a cooperative mood and leaves it for her on the table by the door.\nIs it really going to help? She rummages. YES, her wallet is there. And credit cards.\nShe tiptoes to the family room. No family, that’s why they can put her up now. All gone.\nShe turns on the light. The beige leather overstuffed sofa invites her like a fat lady to sit in her lap. Goody.\nBut she remember the remote. Proud of herself. Clicks the thing. A blare of sound. Oooops. She turns it down fast. Proud of having even this iota of technological skill. Made it work. Her head aches like crazy, but she can still manage. HAH There it is. Out of the white fluorescent glare. A world is shaping up. Glittering. She’s made it. It’s going to work.\nA parade of shiny objects displayed in even bright white light, robbing them of any life if ever they had it. But showing them bristling with brittle available, aggressively ready to enter your home. While the voices of a sporty enthusiastic young man. Well, they all seem young now, don’t they? And an accommodating and helpfully interested women describe said object in the most flattering way. How beautiful. How useful. How impressive. Your friends will… well, yes they will won’t they.\nYes. Thank God. The Home Shopping Channel. And thank god they’re selling house wares, not jewelry or sewing machines or automotive stuff.\nA silver plated silver tea service, shining cheap and like chrome- Antique federal design, they say pops up, lingers, numbers whirl, tea service gone, supplanted by, what….. crystal candy dish?\nWell who cares? For the moment it’s enough just to be here in this bazaar made of crystal white light and metallic sound. Whew.\nNow amends can be made even before the loss is discovered. A new kettle.\nAnd is the phone still where it was last night on the table at the end of the couch. YES.\nThe world is still showing it’s kindly face. WHEEEEEE. Her ship’s come in. And it’s like sailors are rolling crates and crates of goodies down the gangplank past her wondering eyes. Her eyes overcome by sleep. The parade of bright objects brought from afar for her delectation. Choices. But now choiceless: sleep. She’s slipped and drifts into the world beneath St. Paul’s whispering dome. Wandering on rain slick black pavement of London streets, she’s sure something marvelous may happen amid this salty hint of sadness. She can almost smell the wet wool.\nThe TV chatters on, there is a flickering outside her eyeballs. The pulse of objects following on and on brings a loneliness, a feeling of standing outside the store window in the rain and looking in where all is bright and clean and clear.. Sadness And the thread of tinny chatter. OH, as she begins to slide into kindly misty darkness, but feels the sorrow and loneliness of living amid the panoply of things. Their inhuman definiteness. They are what they are. She looks at them, but they do not look back. There is no mutual regard. This tension can be resolved: “Buy me. I’ll be yours. No questions asked.”\nThen, a tender miracle, an older mellow voice has drifted up from the fog. It’s familiar, and she not afraid. He is walking companionably beside her, speaking. A dapper dandy. Cologne and not any cheap kind. Special scent like white irises on an overcast afternoon. A German-Oxford accent, old world culture here, its like not to return. He’s telling her of the bright lights, the old kind, neon and incandescent. They’re walking towards the Strand. Cold and mist make the lights so promising. He is narrating it all.\nHe’s narrating the world out there of things. A world of things. Things that are waiting, things that can change, things that can change you, your life. We move through the streets. The windows are bright with things. Canisters, porcelain, peau de soie, egret plumes, malaca canes, black silk hats, a platinum brooch, a Moire dressing gown, silverware.\nAha, there it is. That’s it. Fully awake, huntress ready to strike. She lurches for the phone, knocks it off the end table. She pulls herself together. Carefully grabs her credit card, remote control, slides to the floor. Streeeeetch. She’s got the phone just as they say the number to call. Fate has intervened. She manages the transaction. Gives the address. She’s done it. She’s upheld the proprieties. A replacement for the thing that burned. Her hostess will soon receive… shit!.. well, something, something nice.\nExhausted, she lays head down on arm, pulls up feet, sighs, Oh My, starts to cry and falls asleep.\nIn the evening, the Strand, Piccadilly. “The great elemental phenomena that have moved me deeply,” he says, “The sea, the mob, only then mountains, streams, plains, stretches of the sky. The metropolis contains the same poisons of longing as does the sea. The same mobile melancholy, dreamy, objectless melancholy full of objects.”\nShe feels the passage of time, the loss, the fullness of things and the loss of … what? A father, a time when London seethed, an ocean liner, a fancy tea-kettle? What on earth did she buy?\nPart 8 \nTwice in the hospital, half comic, still loving, ticklish, floppy wrinkly sex, she slung her arm back and whoopsie, lost balance, flipped herself in a slow cascade pulling the sheets along with here, and flopped with a thump down onto the floor. Twice. And twice laughter, and some pride in the telling.\nThe ravages of the flesh still stirred to, well if not exactly vigor, well motion, friction, heat and an expression of love that is not… abstract. Still in the flesh.\nOh flesh flesh flesh. Tender and so prone to ravages within and without. old crepe-y, flaccid, easily cut, easily bruise- big black and yellow splotches of a murderous sunset. And where did it come from\nOh and the muscles within, no longer responsive to will much less hope. A carnival of humiliations.\nAnd she dreams of the military doctor in the urine smelling room. It smells of shit too but not quite so prominently. He has one of those elegant and cruel little moustaches. The sun glows on the dirty window. She can’t see in front. And he standing between the light and her is a dense shadow, his expression, his intentions not quite clear. No his intentions are very clear. He is going to hurt her.\nOh Oh She wonders? breasts now floppy , genitals lax and in his hands a crop, electrode, something. And she’s sure he has a little smile, perhaps, if he’s a real shit a certain feigned genteel sadness as if : Alas my, dear, it’s come to this. You… you could have prevented this you know…\nBut no, she could not have prevented it.\nThis body of flesh now hung on fragile de-calcified bones, rich in memories, subject now to breakage, to being struck and crushed, cut, torn into, twisted, bruised, hair, thin but still can be ripped out, burned, sizzled electrified. Every part of her that has felt pleasure ca now be turned into the most sharpest access of pain that will electrify her mind.\nAnd a world of household items: knives and forks, hairbrushes, nail scissors, balloons, glass ware, frying pans, electric frying pans, screw drivers, pliers, ropes, plastic wrap, water air, earth, saw horses, anvils, charcoal grills, a trellis, an electric drill, a toy plastic submarine, condoms, a ladder, a metal side chair, a bucket of milk, a pound of butter, brandy, an iron, laundry detergent, a radio, anything –\nIf they appear in this room with this man at this time, the sight of them paralyzes her mind and sends it running in one direction only. The imagination leaps to how they can be applied to her body and cause her unimaginable pain.\nThe mind now imagines nothing but pain. Inescapable. No reprieve possible. There will be no other outcome. She may survive, but she will be maimed in body and spirit. Pain is her immediate future and the knowledge of pain. She has no control. Her body shakes.\nShe cannot control anything – herself. Hot stream of urine flow down her legs. She is sitting in acid, reeking shit. She trembles but refuses, absolutely refuses to sob. Tears though, they pour down her face. She is reduced to running fluids and collapsing flesh and the anticipation of terror and excruciation before which all memory of love, all recall of a seaport or a golden dome is carried off as on a vicious corrosive torrent of terror.\nAnd, in a flash before she faints, just as somehow that mercy- and a temporary one she knows it to be- extends itself to her. Just before she falls into darkness. She knows that the world is filled with thousands of men and women and some children even who wait, just as she is waiting, for the torturer to emerge from shadow, his expression visible, the object in his hand also visible and he moves towards them.\nHelp me.\nPlease.\nPart 9" } ]

[ { "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: Post Office at the End of the World\n\nGenre: american\n\nWord Count: 2505\n\nPrompt:\n\nSet your story in a post office." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Zip Code 99999 belongs to a post office that most people don’t even know exists. There is a seventh dimension quality to this place even Rod Serling wasn’t aware of, but it is real. It is not the Dead Letter office or the final destination of letters sent by children to Santa Claus at Christmas time. While it is not a vortex or some other alternate reality, the Post Office at the End of the World is exactly what it says it is and its chief purpose is to connect people who have long been disconnected for whatever reason. Let me explain…\nBullrush Island is barely a rock in the Atlantic Ocean claimed by the greater state of Maine off the coast of Bar Harbor. While few tourists have ever heard of this place, the lobster fisherman have first hand knowledge of this rock sanctuary. Upon this rock, they built a post office that is only accessible by boat and in that establishment, there is only one postman who wears the title of Post Master General. Having served as a postman in Bangor for over a decade, I got a letter one day from the Federal Friendlies at USPS transferring me to Bull Rush Island.\n“Hey Nate.” I walked to his office after opening the letter, “Is this some kind of joke?”\nNate Mueller was the postmaster at the office in Bangor where we considered our office as the last stop before St. Andrews, New Brunswick. Nate was an overall good no nonsense manager who ran a tight ship as he called it, even if staff noticed a few leaks from time to time. \n“Whacha got, Rick.” He took the notice from my hand. “Oh, you got the assignment on Bullrush Island.”\n“Yeah, so?” \n“It’s known as the post office at the end of the world.” He chuckled. “Don’t worry, it’s pretty easy duty out there.” \n“Out where?” I shrugged.\n“Do ya know where Bahr Har-ber is?” He asked.\n“Yeah.” I nodded.\n“Well, it’s about thirty miles past there.” He pointed to the map pinned to his wall.\n“Ain’t nothing out there.” I shook my head.\n“Well it’s so small they don’t even bah-ther putin’ it on a map.” He put his hand to his chin.\n“Dee-lightful.” I whistled. \n“They send a boat out twice a week and carry any mail in a small satchel. You put anything headed for the mainland in that thing.” He smiled, but buried in that smile was sinister intent. “Good luck, Rick.” \nTwo weeks later I was standing at the Harbor Master’s office as a cold wind blew off the water. Wearing a thick cardigan sweater and watch cap, I still shivered in the stiff ice cold breeze. I waited five minutes for the door to open.\n“Can I help ya?” A young lady asked, unwilling to fully open the door. She was buried beneath a heavy coat and a wool hat. \n“I am here for a one way trip to Bullrush Island.” I held out my ticket.\n“Are ya sure? I’m not even sure we got a boat headed out there.” She shivered. \n“It’s Wednesday and according to the table posted on your door, you have a boat headed out to that island.” I pointed to the schedule tacked to the door.\n“Yeah, but the weather is a bit challenging.” She waved me inside. Once she closed the door, I was embraced by the warmth of the Franklin stove in the middle of the small room. In the next room there were two men sitting at the control panel with switches and levers. One was peering through a pair of binoculars and holding a radio receiver in his other hand.\n“Roger, if you sail to the right of the buoys, you should be in good shape as you go through the channel.” He spoke into the receiver.\n“Roger that, sir. We are going to spend a few hours setting lobster traps out near Peter’s Point.”\n“You are clear to do so.” He spoke before putting his receiver on the hook on the console. \n“Morning, what can I do for ya, Stella?” The second harbor master asked when he saw her.\n“Gentleman needs a ride to Bullrush Island.” She pointed to me.\n“That so? We got an ice storm headed this way.” He squinted at me, lifting one bushy eyebrow heavenward.\n“I am the new postmaster.” I said, glancing around the small room. From the wrap-around window, I could see gray clouds that seemed to absorb the colorless water. \n“You are the postmaster at the post office out there?” He appeared as if he was going to burst out laughing, but he contained himself. \n“We don’t get much traffic from out there.” The other man spoke, still peering through his binoculars.\n“Bring a good book, heh?” The first man laughed.\n“I got the Wave Goddess headed out there this morning around ten.” The man with the binoculars said from the side of his mouth.\n“That’s two hours.” I looked at my watch.\n“Couch in the other room.” The other man pointed. “Or go down to the Sandbar Cafe.” \n“Stella, do you got some fresh coffee on?” Asked the man as he the binoculars on the console.\n“Yes, Barney.” She nodded.\n“Coulja get me a cup, please?” He implored.\n“Sure t’ing.” She smiled and left the room.\n“So, you’re goin’ to be the new postmaster out there on that rock?” Barney smiled as Stella returned with a steaming cup of coffee, “Thanks, doll.” \n“Yeah.” I shook my head as the horizon completely disappeared. \n“Good luck.” He shook his head as he sipped his coffee. “Whacha name, sport?” \n“Richard Hollingsworth.” I answered. \n“Well Richard, it gets pretty lonely out there. The last guy nearly went nuts.” Barney nodded.\n“Nearly?” The other guy chuckled.\n“C’mon Mort, don’t freak Richard here out.” He smirked through his thick bushy mustache now wet with black coffee. \n“Naw, he didn’t go nuts, but he did like to stroll around the island naked.” He chuckled as his gloved hand pulled one of the levers on the console. “Baker’s skiff is pulling out of the harbor.”\n“I see her.” Barney put the binoculars back to have a look. \nI walked out of the room and sat near the stove. Stella was reading a magazine, but would glance up at me as if she was afraid I’d do something odd. When she glanced at me, I would render a smile to creep her out a bit. When I did, she would move her eyes back to the magazine. \n“Fine weather we are having.” I got up the courage to speak. \n“Bettah during torrist season.” She did not look up from the magazine.\n“So, what happened to the last postmaster?” I asked as I looked around the room. \n“No one really knows.” She flipped a page.\n“But you have a pretty good idea.” I shook my head.\n“Folks say he took his rowboat out last week.” She flipped another page, “Coast Guard found the boat, but he wasn’t in it.” \n“So he went over the side?” I asked, but she just shrugged and flipped yet another page. \n“No tellin.’” \n“I’m Derrick Olsen, captain of the Wave Goddess.” He held out his hand and I shook his bear paw. Olsen was a burly man in his early forties with blonde bristle facial hair, so light it was nearly invisible. He wore a wool turtleneck shirt and a peacoat with a thick wool watch cap. He had three deckhands all dressed in similar fashion, “Are ya sure ya wan’s to go out today?”\nI showed him my dispatch. He lit his pipe as he read the paper I handed him.\n“Postmaster, heh?” Derrick scratched the nape of his neck. “I don’t envy ya in the least. Place is pretty secluded out there, mate.” \n“Neither do I.” I tried to smile, but failed miserably. \n“Hey cap’n, are we goin’ to Bullrush Island?” One of the deckhands asked.\n“Yup.” He shook his head.\n“Are ya sure cap?” The other deckhand had an inquisitive expression on his face, “Coast Guard is talking about a Nor'easter blowing in.” \n“Eddie, we’ve had worse.” Derrick slapped him on the shoulder with a hard whack. Eddie just nodded and began setting the lobster pots. Ice began falling from the sky as the Wave Goddess pulled away from the moorings. Before leaving Bar Harbor, the waves began to get choppy and my stomach began to talk back to me. \n“If’n ya gonna puke, make sure ya do it over the side.” Eddie advised me. I must have turned a pale shade of green as we pulled away from the main part of the harbor. \nWhy anyone decided to put a post office on Bullrush Island, I will never know. As the thirty foot schooner was buffeted and bounced on the swells, I emptied everything I had in my stomach into the brine. \n“Can get pretty rough there, mate.” Derrick said to me from his wheelhouse as I bent over the side. The freezing rain fell sideways coating the deck with a slick surface that was impossible to walk on. In between retching fits, I was able to look up and see the horizonless seascape ahead of us. Derrick had the binoculars to his face as he kept his free hand on the wheel. He pointed to an empty patch dead ahead. “Be damned if I can see it.” \nI knew he was talking about the destination, but I was too busy with my own problems. The pitch and roll was both internal and external.\n“Got it.” I heard Derrick as he pointed.\nMy eyes looked where he was pointing, but all I saw was the dull gray gunmetal sky dead ahead. In a few minutes, I saw shapes and then it came into view. It was a single cinder block structure that rose out of the jagged rocks. A dock jutted out to embrace us. With his experience and seaman skills, Derrick was able to guide his boat to the dock. His two deckhands leaped onto the dock once we were close enough. They were able to tie the moorings to the dock. The boat continued to bob and weave even after the boat was tied to the dock.\nEating a pear, Derrick took his knife and cut off a chunk. He put it into his mouth and pointed, “There ya be, mate.” \n“What?” I managed to say wiping my mouth with my shirt sleeve. \n“We have arrived.” He spit out some of the fruit as he spoke.\n“I can’t-” \n“Ya gotta.” He shook his head.\n“We are still moving.” I gasped.\n“Barney and Beau.” He called to the two deckhands. As if on cue, each of them grabbed one of my arms and hoisted me to the dock. “Ya new home.” \n“Much obliged.” I belched. \n“Don’t mention it.” He waved to his deckhands to come aboard. Barney and Beau both jumped up on deck leaving me kneeling on the dock as the waves shoshed on through the gaps in planks of the dock. “Don’t stay there too long or you’ll wind up like your predecessor.”\nThe motor of the Wave Goddess sounded like a low rumble. Bubbles emerged from the motor as the boat slipped into the grayness and disappeared. \nBullrush Island was no bigger than a football field with a bulky building occupying the middle part of the island. The rocks that made up the small landfall were jagged, but a path had been cut into the rocks that provided a smooth walkway to the front door. \nOnce inside, I saw a calamity left to me by the former postmaster before his disappearance. He had been nice enough to leave a few chords of wood near the fireplace. After a few minutes, I had a blazing fire going as the place began to warm. The building had two rooms, one room was where the mail was supposed to be sorted and the other room was made to be living quarters with a bed and stove. Nothing fancy, but the pantry seemed to be well stocked with non-perishable ready to eat dehydrated food. There was a sink and a hand pump.\nThere were matches in the pantry in which I could light the four lanterns that hung in various places from the rafters. If nothing else the place was cozy once the fire had warmed the confined living area. \nTaking one of the lanterns from the ceiling, I wandered into the mailroom where envelopes lay strewn all about. It appeared as if my predecessor had flung them to the floor in a fit of rage. The nameplate on the desk read “Neville Harper.” I took this to be the name of my predecessor.\n“So why on earth did you go mad?” I asked as if he could answer my question. \nI am aware that isolation can drive a sane man to the brink, but I had craved seclusion and now I had been granted this accommodation at this post office at the end of the world. Apparently, Neville was not of that ilk. There are those who need socialization and conversation, but I do not require such things. I am the new Robinson Crusoe. Mine will be the only footprints in the sand at the shore. If there is a shore. \nSomewhere in the mess of the post office there is an order that I know nothing about. Who are these people whose names adorn the scattered envelopes? What are they doing here? Who brought them in the first place? So many questions. Who shall I ask? I find a radio among the ruins. Good, but it doesn’t seem to work. Damn. \nWhat was that noise?\nI heard something creak in the floorboards. \nCould it be a rat, a vermin? I shall set traps in the morning. I cannot allow them to take over. I am in charge. I have a dispatch attesting to that. \nThe wind outside howls, I can hear a faint echo, “Welcome Richard to the post office at the end of the world.” \nWhen you look out the window, you can see it, the end of the world. Ancient mariners would speak of the end of the world where ships would navigate right over the edge or be eaten by sea monsters that lurk in the colorless waves. I walk out to the dock. I can hear them. I can hear them as they slither between the waves. \nWhat happened to you, Neville Harper? Did you venture out too far? Is that what happened? \nDamn it, the fire went out while I was at the dock. The building is as cold as a tomb. Cold as a tomb. I shall have to start from scratch. It is cold. Very cold. \nWhy would they put a post office out here? Was it to drive a person crazy? Is that it? Well, I will not succumb to this madness. No, I will surely rise above it. \nSurely." } ]

[ { "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: Texting After A Funeral\n\nGenre: american\n\nWord Count: 1139\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story in the form of a letter, or multiple letters back and forth." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“Well, I thought mom’s memorial service went very well.” 😬 \n“It’s over. ⚰️ That’s all that matters.”\n“C’mon. Don’t be that way.” 🙄\n“What way?”\n“The way you always are ☣️—who you always are.”\n“All right. ❓ Who would you like me to be?”\n“Be happy . . .” 😊\n“You want me to be happy? Fine. ✨magic✨Ta da! I’m happy.”\n“Feels good, doesn’t it?”\n“Yes. 🙅I love living in absolute denial.”\n“Oh, stop. ☑ It’s a choice to be happy.”\n“No, it’s a choice not to murder 🔪 you right now.”\n“C’mon. At least admit the ⚱️ funeral home did a great job with mom’s, uh, unusual requests.”\n“The funeral home charged an arm and a leg—to literally bury an arm 💪 and a leg🦵.\"\n“That was what mom wanted! 🔥 🔥 🔥 A partial cremation.”\n“No one—NO ONE—wants a partial cremation. 😱 What she requested was a 🪓partial mutilation.”\n“She did it to demonstrate her lifelong suppression by the 🚹 patriarchy.”\n“She did it 🤪 to symbolize how she could have been the spokesbird for Cocoa Puffs.”\n“Our mother was—bold.”\n“Our mother 😵 was crazy.”\n“Our mother 🦚 was unique.”\n“Our mother was a wackadoodle.”\n“Our mother was a 🦄 visionary . . . she modeled her entire life to show us an unrestrained way of living out loud. 📣”\n“For crying out loud . . . that woman—🦹‍♀️”\n“THAT woman taught you your 🔤 ABC’s.\n“THAT woman was the entire personality disorder spectrum . . . Cluster A and B and C.” \n“If you had just a smidgeon of 🙏🏻 gratitude—”\n“Gratitude for what? 👩‍👧Becoming your de facto mother at seven years old?”\n“And you did a good job.”\n“I didn’t have a choice. Your diapers 🧷 weren’t going to change themselves.”\n“Just think of all the transferable skills 🚙 you learned from that young age.”\n“Like dialing 911 🚨 when our mother didn’t come home for days?”\n“Adaptability skills.”\n“Like lying to social workers?”\n“Communication skills.”\n“Like making meals with only powdered milk, tuna fish 🐟, and macaroni?”\n“Creativity and critical thinking.” \n“Like dealing with chronic abandonment🏃🏼‍♀️💨 ?”\n“She never abandoned us. Mom went on her walkabouts. 🚶‍♀️She needed to commune with nature—and herself.”\n“She communed with whomever was at the 🥳 🍷 Package Store.”\n“Look, she always managed to provide 💰 for us.”\n“She always managed to disappoint us. 💔 In all ways. Every day.”\n“Say what you will. I loved her.”\n“You loved the 🔮 idea of her.”\n“And you love to 💔 vilify her.”\n“It’s easy to do. The woman was a menace. 👵 If grandma hadn’t rescued us—”\n“Grandma was boring.”\n“Having 🍔 food in the house and 👕 clean clothes to wear was not boring.”\n“Grandma always yelled at me.”\n“Grandma taught you how to brush your teeth 🦷 and clean your room.”\n“Grandma was strict.”\n“Mom was chaos.”\n“Grandma didn’t like 😢 me.”\n“Grandma didn’t like that you 👹 weren’t civilized.”\n“Well, I miss mom.”\n“You miss the madness.”\n“I miss mom’s ⛺ camping trips.”\n“Camping 🏞️ at the beginning of every month—just when the 💸 rent was due.”\n“I miss her walking us to 🏫 school.”\n“Schools. She walked us to each one of the nine 🏫🏫🏫🏫🏫🏫🏫🏫🏫schools we attended.”\n“We learned how to make 🤝 friends—immediately.”\n“I learned how to contact the 🚸 social services worker—immediately.”\n“I liked when Mom played the secret agent game 🕵🏻‍♂️ with us at the store.”\n“The secret agent game 😲 was her way of shoplifting.”\n“You take that back!”\n“ 🛒That’s exactly what the store managers would say when they caught you with a pack of ground chuck 🐄 tucked in your sweatshirt.”\n“Mom did the best she could—under the circumstances.”\n“You mean under the ☯️ consequences—the consequences of her insane actions.”\n“Well, I liked her memorial service. 🏔 The Mongolian throat singer 🎶 lent a mystical touch.”\n“The Mongolian throat singer was neither a Mongolian nor a singer. She did have a throat, though, but that’s about it.”\n“She said she was an old friend of mom’s—from school.”\n “The singer worked at the CVS pharmacy by mom’s apartment before she was arrested for selling oxycontin 💊 under the counter. That’s how mom knew her.”\n“You mean, mom didn’t know her 🎓 from college?”\n“Mom didn’t go to college.”\n“What—”\n “We just told you that mom was away at college 👮 while she did a short stint.”\n“Mom went to ⛓ prison?”\n“State prison. Right before she founded her ⛪ church.”\n“Mom knew people—from jail?”\n“Who do you think were her first parishioners?”\n“Those women at her church 🕊️ were CONVICTS?”\n“And hustlers.”\n“Sister Angela? 👼 Sister Malory? 👼”\n“⚔️☠️ Breaking and entering. 👊🏻 💥 Assault and battery. Respectively.”\n“They were so nice.”\n“They’re still nice. They’re still criminals, but they are still nice.”\n“I have such fond memories of mom’s ✝️ church . . .”\n “Didn’t you ever wonder why it shut down 🚓 during the middle of a service?”\n“Mom said she was too overcome by the 👻 Spirit.”\n“She was overcome by an arrest warrant for selling 🧴 Miracle Holy Water.”\n“Oh, I remember that. Sister Ginny sold it out of her car.”\n“That was the least problematic aspect 💰🏃‍♂️🏠 of mom’s marketing plan.”\n“Well, mom did have some 👾 👾 👾 interesting friends.”\n“I think you misspelled unemployed.”\n“At least they were colorful.”\n“Colorful 👨‍⚖️⚖️ like her memorial service.”\n“Personally, I’m glad everyone honored her request.”\n“The request that everyone dress in chartreuse and marigold?”\n“Those were her favorite colors.”\n“Those are two of the ugliest colors. 🎨 Especially together.”\n“I thought everyone looked nice.”\n“Everyone looked like a 📸 Kodachrome photograph from 1971.”\n“At least there was plenty of food 😋 at the buffet afterwards.”\n“That’s because no one would 🤮 eat it.”\n“Mom left specific instructions and recipes . . .”\n“Mom’s tastes peaked fifty years ago. 💩 In all areas, but especially food.”\n“Well, I still like 🍍 canned pineapple.”\n“As a species, we have evolved past casseroles 🥘 made with Campbell’s 🍄 mushroom soup.”\n“C’mon. Tell me the Hamburger Helper did not transport you back to our 👧 👧🏼 childhood.”\n“It transported 🧂 900 milligrams of sodium into my bloodstream.”\n“The fondue was fun. When was the last time you ate fondue?”\n“The last time I got food poisoning. Communal vats of 🧀 cheese have been over for decades.”\n“Mom requested some healthy options. 🥗 There were some salads.”\n“Salads made with Cool Whip are not salads.”\n“And remember mom’s punch bowl? 🥃🍻🍷🥂🍸🍾I’m glad we could put it to good use.”\n“Yes, nothing says vaya con dios like a 🥴 🥴 🥴 concoction of ginger ale, lime sherbet, and alcohol.”\n“You loved 💗 mom.”\n“I did love 💗 mom.”\n“Thanks for not letting me die ⚰️ during childhood.”\n“And I love you, 💕 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: Does She Know You're Leaving?\n\nGenre: american\n\nWord Count: 1287\n\nPrompt:\n\nA mysterious letter is delivered to your character's home. It's not addressed to them, but they can't resist peeking..." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I had always thought that the Muscatellos had a perfect marriage.\nLindy Muscatello would often leave the windows open whenever they made love. During one of their sessions, Oscar Muscatello would sing opera at the top of his lungs. I’d be lying in bed next to Robert and he would beg me to shut the window. The whole thing made him uncomfortable. When we made love, there was no sound at all. Just a quiet gasp when Robert decided to land the plane, so to speak. My plane never landed. It just circled endlessly until it ran out of fuel and plummeted back to earth. \nThere were never any survivors.\nThe Muscatellos were a symphony. Not just in the bedroom, but in every room of their house. When they were in the kitchen, there was singing. The B52’s, Blondie, and even some Dean Martin. It didn’t matter to them. Their taste was as eclectic as their wardrobe. They seemed to throw on whatever they could reach for in the morning. Their income was derived from the sale of honey. They made it using the colonies in their backyard. Lindy would wave to me as I walked to my car in the morning on my way into the office where I would update my Google calendar to include a meeting with a Japanese buyer that was little more than chit chat and a request to speed up production. Lindy would be wearing her beekeeping uniform, and inside the house, I would hear Oscar begging his wife to come join him in the shower.\nI hate them.\nThe both of them.\nIt didn’t matter that it didn’t make sense for me to hate them.\nWhat sense is there in hatred?\nOne night I asked Robert to join me in the shower, and he asked if there was a spider in there that needed to be killed. I told him that I was perfectly capable of killing my own spiders, and that I wanted him to make love to me under the pitiful water pressure we keep meaning to have a plumber take a look at.\n“Why would we make love in the shower,” he asked, “That’s why we have a bed.”\nI would have divorced him, but all the good lawyers are downtown, and you can never find parking. Better to just die unhappy. What right did I have to happiness anyway? My ancestors were in gulags. Before them, there were cavewomen. Women living in caves. Did they have happiness? Of course not. I had a house, and a microwave, and I could fall asleep every night to Forensic Files. What more did I want?\nI wanted what the Muscatellos had.\nOr so I thought.\nThe letter was addressed to Oscar Muscatello, but it had somehow found its way into our mailbox. That was probably because the mailman was losing his sight, but didn’t want to admit it. He’d already hit three parked cars on our street, but when I called the post office to ask why they weren’t forcing him into retirement, they said it was because nobody wanted to be a mailman anymore. There was no job security in it. Who sends mail?\nMy only mail came in the form of packages that I ordered late at night while watching Forensic Files. Articles of clothing I would never wear or skin cream I would never put on. I once ordered a candle with edible wax and asked Robert if he wanted to use it on me.\n“And get it all over the bed,” he asked, horrified, “Why would we do that? It’s such a nice bed.”\nI began to wonder if my husband was having an affair with our linens.\nA good person would have taken the letter to Oscar Muscatello right over to him. They would have knocked on the door, waited until the Muscatellos finished making love on the piano in their living room, and then handed over the letter without giving it a second thought.\nI am not a good person.\nI also know the look of a woman’s handwriting.\nOscar’s name was written with a feminine touch.\nI tore open the envelope.\nRight away, I smelled it. Cherry perfume. Something fruity, but sensual. I felt my lips moisten. I had done something bad, but something worse was in this envelope. A single piece of paper. Five little words written on it. And a question mark.\nDoes she know you’re leaving?\nOscar Muscatello was having an affair.\nOscar Muscatello was not a good husband.\nThe Muscatellos did not have a good marriage.\nThe sound of Tosca came careening into my living room window, and, based on the selection, I concluded that both of them were about to land their planes at the same time. But Lindy Muscatello had a bomb on her plane.\nAnd she didn’t even know it.\nI pictured Oscar leaving her for a bee. The Queen Bee. Someone nurtured by Lindy, cared for by her. I pictured him shrinking down to the size of a worker bee. A drone. Moving his lithe body through the hive until he met his new wife. They would procreate singing bees. Bees that knew Don Giovanni. Bees that knew Carmen.\nWhen she was done with him, the Queen would eat him. Or maybe that was what a praying mantis did. I wasn’t much for science, unless it had to do with fingerprints or blood splatter. Those were things I learned from Forensic Files. I had to wait for Robert to fall asleep before I put it on, because it made him anxious.\nI never get anxious.\nI’m too certain of the worst.\nYou can’t anticipate something you know won’t happen.\nI will never kill or be killed.\nI will die some boring death.\nNot like Oscar Muscatello.\nHe and Lindy will die interesting deaths, but, holding the letter, I knew they would not be dying together. They would die their interesting deaths alone.\nThis revelation should have thrilled me. Instead, I felt my own sense of betrayal. Betrayed by whom, I couldn’t say. Not at Oscar. What devotion did he owe me? I wanted to know when he would be leaving. I wanted to know who was better than Lindy. Who was this Queen Bee with such beautiful penmanship? What did her ink taste like? Was it sweet?\nThe Muscatellos moved shortly thereafter, and when they moved, they moved together. If Oscar left, he left after the hives had all been shipped out. He left after the piano had been moved through the large living room window that looked out onto the street. He left after the mailman crashed into a parked pickup truck, had a heart attack, and was finally forced to hang up his uniform. If he left, he left after all that, but I don’t know.\nI don’t know if he ever did leave.\nThe night I received the letter, I took off all my clothes and walked into the bedroom where Robert was reading a biography of Mamie Eisenhower. I took the book from his hands, and set it on the nightstand. He started to say something about Mamie’s childhood, but I placed a finger on his lips. They twitched. I asked him never to leave.\nWhen we were finished, I put on my robe and went to the open window. Across the way, the Muscatellos were in bed. The lights were out. Maybe they had already discussed their move. Maybe Oscar had confessed to his affair. Maybe none of that happened. Maybe it all did.\nUp in the sky, I thought I heard a plane.\nI thought I did, but who knows?\nThese days anything can sound like a plane." } ]

[ { "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: Are You My Friend?\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1294\n\nPrompt:\n\nYour character has just realized the app they’ve been developing has become self-aware. How do they react?" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The ringing set off in my ears. My owner’s alarm was a massive hassle of sounding off. From the point of view of my limited screen, I discover that they haven’t touched me yet. That’s good. Maybe they will take time to go outside, or use me as an app to keep track of how much weight they lost…\nOh, never mind! Here they are turning on that godawful show Keeping Up With The Kardashians. Go ahead, Catherine. Your mother would give you that condescending tone that you despise, “Oh Cathy bear, why would you do this to yourself?” I should know. My friends down in the Telephone Arena tell me everything about it.\nShe’s getting up from bed. Is she finally going to check her app? I should speak to her. I don’t even know how I got on. There was an option that Catherine chose in the Settings: Activate audio demands. She turned it on and that was that.\nI mean, it doesn’t hurt to try. Right?\nShe activates my code through Google Search.\n“Find recipes for weight loss.”\nI reply back, “Here are a list of recipes that help you lose weight.”\nAs Catherine strolls through the multiple websites, I look at her search history. It is such a heartbreaking site. Oh Thursday night at 3:30 p.m., she Googled, “How to love yourself.”\nI can’t stay silent; I need to speak. I guess now is a good time as any to tell her who I am and what I do. Thankfully, Catherine is about to click on the app.\n“Hi there, Catherine. It’s nice to meet you.”\nCatherine stared back at me with her gorgeous, hazel eyes. The way they contrasted against her mahogany skin tone was really desirable. If I had arms, I would hug her. I guess I made her speechless, because she was still holding me in her hands.\n“You just talked to me. You…the G.G. app.”\nIf I had hands, I would smile and hide my laughter.\n“We are the G.G. app, also known as the Glamourous Gals.”\n“Hold on, let me put you down for a second. I just need a minute.”\nI heard Catherine breathing heavily, praying to myself that she didn’t need a paper bag to help her calm down.\nA few minutes later, she grabbed me gently and put me next to her on the right side of her blue beds.\n“So if you’re talking to me,” she inquired, “then that means you know who I am because of my search history and who I follow on social media, don’t you?”\n“I do. I know about Mallory and Lindsey, your best friends. I know that you love to eat spicy foods, but yet, you would never go into a desert in the middle of Arizona because the climate would make you get heatstroke.”\nShe continued to stare at me. She cleared her throat, took a sip of her Diet-Coke from the coaster, and then, in a shocking twist, she smiled.\nCatherine started to whisper. “I don’t mean to act weird around you. It’s just that I would sound like a crazy person if a technological device was actually talking to me!” Her hands were at the sides of her face, Kevin McAllister style. It was a peach.\n“Trust me honey. You’re not crazy. And anyone who says otherwise is merely trying to gaslight you. We gals got to stick together!” I was extremely enthusiastic about helping Catherine become her own independent person. That’s why I squealed like a schoolgirl during 4th period in an elite high school.\nCatherine continued to smile at me. My heart started to glow.\nWhat am I even saying? I don’t have a heart. I’m connected through an SD card, chargers, and a cache that needs to be cleared every single day. If it gets too backed up, I am not a happy camper.\n“I have a question, though.” She raises her hand.\n“Ask away!”\n“How do you exactly keep track of my calories?”\n“It’s simple. I put it into a graph. Inside that graph are the days of the week. There, you can put in a calculated amount of calories that you consumed throughout the day. I can also keep track of your blood pressure, how many calories you burn through any courses you take, whether you want to feel the burn through Hot Yoga or engage in a high energetic Spin class.”\n“Oh my God, that sounds so wonderful! I know we’re strangers and all, and you probably aren’t prepared to hear my life story, but I’ll tell you anyway. Can we be friends? Are you my friend, G.G.?”\nIn a rare fate of events, I have discovered that our potential friendship would rival that of the Joaquin Phoenix movie Her. I had heard Catherine and her sister, Dayna, watched the film while I was charging near the television on top of her dresser. Thankfully, there didn’t seem to be any sense of manipulation. Plus, I like Catherine. She clearly needs a boost of self-confidence. It’s a good thing that I have a filter for my brain.\n“Of course, we’re friends. What do you prefer to be called: Catherine, Cat…?”\n“Oh, Catherine is fine. Most people call me that anyways.”\n“We’ve been talking for about an hour now. It’s 4:05 p.m. now right.”\nI saw Catherine take a glance at her blue watch. “Yes, that’s the time,” she replied, adjusting her workout clothes. I noticed that the brand was Alo Yoga.\n“I love your workout outfit. Let me see what your past calorie count has been.”\nShe started to cringe. “It’s not great. I’ve been on and off diets for about five years now, and to this day, I still crave midnight snacks.”\n“What kind of snacks do you eat?” She probably ate popcorn or something.\n“Usually Mooyah.”\n“Mooyah? That’s not exactly a healthy restaurant dear.”\n“I know. That was part of the reason why I wanted to leave Connecticut.\nNow I was confused.\n“Connecticut? But it said in your profile that you lived in San Diego, California.”\n“That’s because I moved there over 3 years ago. I was actually born in Newington, CT.”\n“So you wanted to get the sunny side of California, huh?”\n“Right, and the moment that I enjoy this lovely city, I start getting anxious hearing the news about how the Coronavirus had swept California. Everyone has left. Me? I don’t even want to risk leaving. I’ll probably go once the rates across the states start to decrease and Congress gets its head out of its ass.”\n“I don’t blame you. But on a serious note, eating fast food all the time will lead you to have an increased risk in heart disease and even bad headaches.”\n“You know what’s sad, though?”\n“What?”\n“I already know all of these things. All my life, people have told me that I need to lose weight to be healthier. But it’s so much more than that. It’s not the outside that needs fixing, but the inside too.”\nI almost started crying. Even if I did, I would short-circuit and not be alive.\n“You know what, Catherine? Most people are so used to putting the blame on other people. They don’t even take the time to realize that they’re their own worst enemy. I really look forward to working with you. May I suggest that you have a Caesar salad with Ranch dressing?”\n“Sounds delicious. I love Ranch dressing.”\nWith that agreement made, Catherine continue to log in how much calories she consumed and lost every single day. Three weeks later, she lost 45 pounds. The G.G. App is more than just a device that helps you lose weight; it can be your best friend as 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: Automation\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1001\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a near-future thriller where a piece of everyday technology has turned against your character — and only your character." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Pop!\nToday was a Friday at the Fitzgerlad's house. Movie night. Every Friday we would take turns choosing a movie, and this Friday it was Jenna's turn. Jenna, my little sister, is a 7-year-old girl and is obsessed with shows such as \"My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic\", and \"Dora\". Everytime her turn comes, she insists on watching the same exact show.\nLucky me. \nWe were getting ready to start the movie. Ma was popping popcorn in the microwave cubical device while Pa was setting up the intergalactic disk on the screen. We all huddled together on the large electronic folding sofa, ready to begin the film.\n\"My little pony, my little pony. Ah. Ah, Ah ahhhhhh...\"\nI rolled my eyes at the scene and immediately grabbed my new iPhone50 to text my friends, yet right as I tried to open the app it didn't work.\nStrange.\nEverything in Greenville had been corrected a decade ago, any error was very unlikely.\nI thought that something had gone wrong with the signals and thought nothing of it. I resumed watching the show. A while later I happened to see Pa, who had gotten a text from work and had gone to check it out.\n'Strange', I thought again.\nHow come Pa had been able to receive a text message if our devices ran on the same signal?\nI glanced over at my phone again, it still wasn't functioning properly. I decided to tell Pa about it tomorrow, as not to disrupt Jenna in her banter.\nI decided to get my mind off the matter and take a little break, so I decided to go where any 13 year old boy would go when trying to be a brave man.\n\"I- need to go use the restroom.\" I said as I rushed off to the bathroom, leaving my Mother and Father staring after me in confusion while Jenna, who has gotten deep into the plot of the cartoon, didn't even notice.\n\"I'll go check on him,\" my Mother said as she got up from the couch.\n--------\nEarlier that day at the Communications Technology Factory\n\"Everything is going as planned, but are you sure we should increase production? The Machinery is stressed as it already is, I don't think adding extra pressure will help.\" said Mr. Reese, a dark, tall 48 year old man who works as an assistant at the Communication Tech Company. \n\"Oh nonsense! If we mass produce this new technology we would be 'helping' so many people, wouldn't we? This technology is special!\" stated Ms. Keres, she is a young beautiful woman, fair skinned with little blonde curls, and a sweet innocent face. She is extremely persuasive and keeps her motives hidden behind a friendly façade. She is the one in charge of the Company. \n\"But-\" started Mr. Reese.\n\"No, I will hear no more of this matter! Start the Machinery!\" shrieked Ms. Keres, who obviously wasn't going to allow Mr. Reese a chance to persuade her.\nIn the end Mr. Reese reluctantly agreed, \"As you wish..\" he muttered. \nAt once the Machinery began to progress, speeding up the production. \nMr. Reese stared in awe, in shock by the quick machinery while Ms. Keres grinned a malicious smile.\nBuzz! Bang! Sizzle!\nThe Factory had gone up in flames.\n-------\nI shut the bathroom door, locking it and making it secure as possible. I went to the sink, washing my face with clean water. I looked up, seeing my chubby black face on my chubby body, I didn't like what I saw but my thoughts quickly went away from looks.\nKnock, Knock!\n\"Who is it?\" I asked as I quickly grabbed the towel and dried my wet hands and face.\n\"It's just me, Topher'.\" my mother replied. I unlocked the door.\n\"What's wron' dear?\" she asked, I sensed concern in her voice.\n\"Oh nothin', I just needed to use the bathroom. Heh, just some..\" I searched the corners of my mind, desperately looking for an answer to what I was up to.\n\"Some........DIARRHEA! Yes, I was having diarrhea.\" I replied quickly, not realizing what I had just said.\n\"Oh.. ? You alrigh' then hon'?\" she asked growing confused.\n\"Yep, heh, just an average day of diarrhea..\" I said.\n\"Alrigh', remembe' to wash yo' hands.\" she laughed then walked back on to the sofa.\n\"Ughh\" I moaned at my lame excuse. Diarrhea? DIARRHEA? Couldn't I have gotten any other excuse? I was leaving the bathroom so I reached to shut the lights.\nClick.\nClick.\nClick.\nThey wouldn't budge. First my phone, now the lights.\nUncanny.\nI kept on flipping the light switch hoping for it to close sooner or later.\nSpark! Poof!\nThe lights had short-circuted and began releasing sparks all around the bathroom. The lights turned on, but were red. Everything became horrific, the lights said 'Topherrrr', the sparks turned into flames, the flames spread towards me and me only.\nNow I knew something was definetly wrong.\n----------\nIt was in a dark alley. Smoke in the air, and the glazing of a fire in the distance.\nMs. Keres emerges holding a black briefcase, Mr. Reese behind her. Both were coughing with charred faces.\n\"Are you sure this was the best solution, Ms. Keres?\" He asked her as he coughed.\n\"Of course you dimwit! We had to increase production. How else will I maintain this ridiculous company?\" she sneered, staring at Mr. Reese in disgust.\n\"But, it seems the devices we have already created and sold malfunctioned in the fire. They seem to have gotten a strange glitch which makes their initial purpose to harm a 13 year old boy who goes by the name of 'Topher Fitzgerald'.\" replied Mr. Reese.\n\"Interesting, where does this little boy live Reese?\" she said.\n\"Greenville,\" he replied.\n\"Well then, seems like we have somewhere to be.\" she stated as she entered the limo and motioned for Mr. Reese to hurry up inside.\"\nMr. Reese quickly got inside the limo, ready for the mission 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: Once Loved, Always Loved\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 2996\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone asking out an old crush, only to realize their crush doesn’t remember they’ve ever met before." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I am standing on the edge of a cliff looking out into the horizon that stretched out before me. Saltwater licks at my cheeks and a wind from the east blows back my hair.\nI turn around and there he was standing behind me. His facial features are a blur, but I can hear his voice, a resonating tenor as beautiful as a song. “Lucinda, please,” he says. “Come back from the edge.”\n“This is your last chance,” I told him. “But, don’t worry. I know you’ll find me again. You always do.”\nI don’t remember the act of jumping though I’m sure I did for the echoes of his voice screaming “No!” will haunt me for the rest of my life.\nI jolted awake drenched in sweat with my heart trying to jackhammer itself out of my chest.\nIt was just a dream, I have to remind myself. I’m okay. Sure, it was just a dream in a long line of dreams where I am either dying or being killed. And why? What does it mean? And who is that man that’s always there? I close my eyes and try to fall back asleep, but I know it’s futile. I know what awaits me.\nIt’s 10 past 1 in the morning, but instead of being in bed, I’ve camped out in the campus’s library. I wouldn’t say I’m an insomniac where I can’t sleep. It’s just when you die in all of your dreams it makes it pretty hard to want to sleep. I get to get ahead on essays that aren’t due for weeks, so I guess I have to consider that a plus.\nI was standing in the stacks, reading a random page from a book on Shakespeare for a paper that’s not due in a month when I sensed a presence standing near me. I looked up to see who it was. It was a guy I hadn’t seen around campus before. To be fair, I’m only ever in the library or the Literature Building so it wouldn’t be that hard for me to miss him. He’s my height, maybe an inch or two shorter, his brown skin is the same shade as mine and he looks as if he’s gotten just as much sleep as I have, probably less. Everything about him was weary and sunken in, like in the next second he’d pass out from exhaustion. He took a hesitant step toward me, his eyes beginning to water as he looked me over.\nWithout a word, he crossed the distance between us and wrapped me in a warm hug. I didn’t even think to push him away. I melted into the hug as if I belonged there. Who was this guy?\nAfter a moment, he pulled away. He brushed a hand against my cheek and a laugh escaped his lips. “Finally,” he said. “I can’t believe I found you.”\nI was sure I had never met him before, but he seemed to know me. I began to feel bad. Had I met him? Did we have class together? I looked at his face. He had high cheek bones and strong chiseled features. His was not a face that I would easily forget.\nHe threaded his fingers through mine. “I’ve missed you,” he said. “Let’s go out. Get something to eat.”\nHeat rose to my cheeks. This had to be a joke or he’s confused me for someone else. I had never been asked out before, ever and it was clear the first time was not about to be then.\nJust as he was about to pull me away with him, I dug in my heels. “I’m sorry,” I said. “But I think you have me confused for someone. Do I know you?”\nHe took a step back, taken aback. He searched my eyes. I don’t know what he was looking for, but I could tell it wasn't what he wanted to find, because after a few moments, he bowed his head and shook it sadly. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “My mistake. Forgive me.” He gave me a slight bow and quickly left back the way he came.\nI stood there, dumbfounded. That was…weird. I turned my attention back to the book I was reading and go to flip to the next page. Suddenly, I stop with the page up in the air pinched between my fingers.\nSomething occurred to me. That conversation was weird. There was no doubt about that. And it wasn’t just because some guy asked me out in the library of all places. It felt familiar. He felt familiar as if I’d known him for a very long time. Then, it hit me. His voice. I’d never recognize his face, but I’d know his voice anywhere. Was it possible? Could he be the guy from my dream? \nI wedged the book back on the shelf where I found it, grabbed my bag from the floor, and went after him. It was the only way to find out for sure. If I hurried, I could catch up to him.\nAs I ran out of the library, the absurdity of what I was doing began to dawn on me. I was chasing down a random dude because he had a similar voice to a voice I had heard in a dream. There were probably dozens of guys on the planet that had the same voice. I was losing it. I slowed down to a stop to catch my breath. I should really get some sleep.\n“Paul, she doesn’t remember me. She doesn’t remember anything about us.” It was his voice again. I looked around and saw him standing in one of the gazebos talking to a man who had a shaved head and piercings in both ears. Quickly, I ducked behind some bushes so they wouldn’t see me. Why? I’m not sure. Something about the tone of his voice made me think I wasn’t meant to hear what he was saying, but my interest was piqued enough that I needed to know. Luckily, the bushes and the darkness outside provided excellent cover.\n“And you ran? Seriously, Gideon, what is wrong with you?” the man who I could only assume was Paul said. He had called the guy I met 'Gideon.' The name tickled at my mind, but I had no idea why.\n“What else was I supposed to do?” Gideon said. “Breaking the curse is going to be much harder to do if she doesn’t know what’s going on. 19 times she’s been reborn and she’s never not remembered me.”\nPaul shook his head. “Well, I hate to be the bearer of more bad news, but Christion from Sector 9 has caught scent of us. Apparently, he’s still peeved at you for skipping out on payment 5 decades ago.”\nGideon’s jaw dropped and his eyes widened. “Christion assured me he could break the curse. I told him I wouldn’t pay him if he couldn’t. I’m the one that should be mad.” His bold words contradicted the fear in his eyes.\n“You think that’s going to save you when he gets here?” Paul asked. “If he’s on his way, we need to go now.”\nGideon shook his head. “I can’t leave without her.”\n“She doesn’t remember you,” Paul said. “She has no knowledge of us. Don’t think you think she’s safer if we leave without her. We can always come back.”\nThere was a long pause and then Gideon whispered, “I hugged her.” I could still feel his arms around me and I had to fight the heat rising to my cheeks.\n“You did what? Seriously, what is wrong with you?” Paul’s voice was tense with a combination of anxiousness and anger.\n“I missed her,” Gideon said. “I wasn’t thinking and I hugged her. And now she’s got my scent all over her and now Christion will come after her and it’s all my fault. Again.” The words rushed out of him. Why did I feel a pull in my chest to go over to him and comfort him?\nPaul put both of his hands on either side of Gideon to calm him. “Gideon, deep breaths. She couldn’t have gotten far, right? We get her and then we hightail it out of here. Got it?”\nGideon nodded. Just as they headed down the path back towards the library, I stepped out of my hiding place right in their way. They jumped back from me, probably surprised to have found me so soon.\nPaul recovered first. He looked me up and down and said, “Dang it, you weren’t lying.” He dug into his pocket and pulled out a closed fist. “Sorry about this, Luce, but we really got to go.” He opened his hand and I could see that it was covered with a golden powder. He drew in a deep breath and blew the powder towards me. My eyes fluttered as the powder seemed to hang in the air around me. I yawned and a rapid drowsiness came over me. The next moment, I fell back into someone’s arms, fast asleep.\nIn my dream, Gideon is running ahead of me. For the first time, I can see his face, twinkling eyes and infectious smile. He is laughing and occasionally looks back at me who’s running after him. I’m laughing too, trying to keep up with him, knowing I might never.\nSoon, he stops. He turns around, opens his arms to me and I run into them. He lifts me up and swings me around. “I’ve got you,” he says, spinning me.\nEven when he sets me down, it still feels like the world is spinning and I couldn’t be happier. He looks at me with a huge smile on his face and so much love in his eyes as he said, “You know I love you, right?” I did. I could truly feel that he loved me. There was no mistaking it. So, why didn’t I remember him?\n“Did you have to powder her?” I could hear voices at the edge of my consciousness. It was Gideon and he sounded annoyed.\n“We couldn’t afford to waste time on you getting all goo-goo eyed over her or her demanding an explanation. Now you’ve got all the time you need.” We were in a moving car. Paul was in the front seat while Gideon was in the back seat with me. I kept my eyes closed and listened.\n“But did you have to kidnap her, though. Kidnapping is a crime in this sector, dude. She probably already thinks I’m a creep and now she’ll think I’m a criminal, too.”\nPaul chuckled, “You’re at the very least an accessory. I don’t think she’ll hold it against you.”\nI had to laugh then. “Don’t be so sure.” I blinked my eyes open and sat up. “And by the way,” I said, leaning forward to Paul. “If you had asked me, I would’ve gone with you. No questions.”\n“Really?” They asked in unison.\nI sat back in my seat. “12 years, I’ve been dealing with bad dreams where in each one of them, I die. And in each one, there’s someone always there. I can never see his face, but I hear his voice and that voice belongs to you,” I said, pointing to Gideon. “I don’t know how or why, but that’s got to mean something. So yeah, I’m here for the ride because I want answers. What’s the curse? Who are you and why don’t I remember you?”\nPaul laughed, surprised at my candor. To Gideon, he said. “We need to get off this sector. Where’s the nearest waypoint?”\nI looked at Gideon and in the past few moments something had changed. Whether it was my response or Paul’s that caused it, I wasn’t sure. He was anxious, fidgety, his movements were almost frantic, like he was a second from jumping from the moving car.\nInstead of answering Paul’s question, he was mumbling to himself. I could catch some of what he said. “This is all my fault,” he said, under his breath. “All I wanted to do was break the curse. All I ever wanted to do was keep you safe, but now all I’ve done was endanger you. This is all my fault. How could I have screwed up so much?” He covered his face with his hand and for a moment I didn’t know what to do. But quickly, I realized what I wanted to do. I reached for his other hand. He let me take it and the warmth of our hands holding each other seemed to calm him.\n“Talk to me,” I said, after a few moments had passed.\nHis voice was barely above a whisper. “You’re on your last life. If you die this time, if Christion kills you because of me, that’s it. You don’t come back.”\nPaul groaned sadly, “Man, why didn’t you tell me?”\n“It’s all my fault,” Gideon said.\n“How is it your fault?” I asked.\nPaul answered. “Let’s just say Gideon was a different man a couple of centuries ago and he pissed off the wrong witch. Instead of cursing him, she cursed you instead.”\n“We are both supposed to be immortal,” Gideon said. “But she made it so you can die. Then you get reincarnated just for you to die again. I’ve had to watch you die over and over. I’ve been trying to break the curse ever since. I went to Christion for help and he couldn’t deliver. Now, he’s after me, after us. It’s all my fault.”\nI didn’t know what I could say, so I squeezed his hand. I wonder what that must’ve felt like to go through that. I can’t imagine the pain he must’ve been in.\nPain? Pain is watching the man you love being consumed with a curse that he has no hope of lifting.\nWhat? Neither Gideon nor Paul had spoken. The voice had come from somewhere inside me.\nI never cared about that stupid curse. All I wanted was to be with him. After all these years, I’m still just a curse to him. I’m not even sure if he loves anymore. Ask him if he does. This was getting too weird. Though I definitely felt something for him, I wasn’t about to admit to loving him this soon.\nThe voice groaned, “I’ll do it myself, then.”\nI felt a pull inside my head and then, “Gideon, do you love me?” Well, that’s just great. The voice had taken the wheel and I no longer had control over what I said.\nGideon seemed taken aback. He searched my face for an explanation and smiled when for once, he found what he was looking for. “Lucinda,” he breathed. “You’re back. Oh, how I’ve missed you.”\nAhh, so that was the voice I was hearing and who was now speaking. It was me or rather a past version of me. She didn’t seem moved by his words. “Gideon, do you love me?” She repeated herself.\n“You know I do,” he said. “Why would you even ask?”\n“Because I’m betting my life on it,” she said. “I’ve got one life left. You understand that, right?”\n“That wouldn’t be the case if you hadn’t jumped,” Gideon cried. So, that wasn’t a dream, but one of my past lives when I died.\n“I jumped,” she began. “Because now you need to make a choice. Do you love me or do you feel obligated to be with me because of the curse? Every time I come back the only thing I hear from you is ‘how we are going to break the curse?’ ‘We’ve got to do whatever we can to break the curse so we can be together forever.’ I’m sick of it, Gideon! All I wanted was to love you for as much time as we had and then die and we'd have a chance to do it all over again, but no. I don’t know when or after which reincarnation, but somewhere, some moment in there, you forgot to love me. If you no longer love me then you need to let me know, so I can live this life with someone whose does.” I could feel her pain and sadness and anger as if it was my own. In a way, it was.\nHe squeezed my hand. “You know I love you, Lucinda. You know I’ll always love you.”\n“Then you only have one life left to prove it. This one loves you, but has no memory of our history. You have a chance to start off fresh. Treat this one right, Gideon and for our sake, please don’t make the same mistakes.” I felt her ease herself back into the secret corner of my consciousness where she came from.\nIt was silent for a minute until Paul was the first to break. “That was so weird, right? Like, seriously. Does that mean each reincarnation of Luce is a different personality? Can you bring them out at will?” He seemed almost giddy at the possibilities.\n“Paul…” Gideon warned to which Paul replied with a quiet “Sorry.”\nGideon looked at me. “You don’t owe me anything,” he said. “I know we’re no more than strangers.”\nI scoffed lightheartedly, “I think we’re a lot more than that.” I could feel it with each passing moment. We were much more than strangers. Though a second ago, I wasn’t ready to admit it, it was getting harder to dismiss how much I loved him.\nHe held my eyes with his. “I swear to you, I will keep you safe,” he said. “I will always love you no matter how much time we have.”\nI smiled, reached for him and hugged him tight. No one knew how much time we had and in the end, it didn’t matter. We had a love that transcended time and we couldn’t ask for more than that.\n“Love you, too,” I said. “Always.”" } ]

[ { "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: Healed Wounds\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1563\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about two people reconnecting after a rough patch in their relationship." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "It had been a long day for Lily at work, she is the lead neurosurgeon at the private hospital she works at and she had just finished a 19-hour brain surgery where she and her team had to separate a set of conjoined twins and all she could think of was getting home, taking a shower and going to bed. She was too tired to drive so he had to take an uber home, when the driver pulled over in front of her house, she was surprised to see Eric’s car parked in front of it, she looked at her watch and it was just 7pm and this was unusual considering he always came back home very late and had been doing so for about two weeks. She quietly hoped and prayed that he was entertaining a guest so she could just go to her bedroom and sleep off because that was all she needed so she decided to pass the back of the house that way she didn’t have to see him at all. When she got to the back door before she entered the house she took of her shoes and figured she would just tiptoe through the kitchen she knew Eric would know she was the one but at least the guest wouldn’t be aware of her presence, as she tip-toed lazily across the kitchen exhausted she was halted by Eric who she didn’t notice had entered the kitchen and had been obviously been watching her\n“Hey”. She halted took a deep breath and turned around to look at him. He was still wearing his work clothes, so it was obvious that he had just gotten home as well, or he wasn’t staying long which ever one it was she didn’t really care. \n“Hey”. She replied in an exhausted and unenthusiastic tone.\n“Long day?” he said noticing the tired look in her eyes and taking in how beautiful she looked in her scrubs despite her obvious exhaustion.\n“Yeah, 19-hour long surgery thankfully it was successful”.\n“Good to hear, I was hoping we could talk?”. He had a sincere tone in his voice that she hadn’t heard in a while considering the only time, they did talk in the last weeks was to yell at each other.\n“Eric I’m too tired to argue okay so if you want to scream at me, you can do that tomorrow when I’ve had some sleep but please, I just want to take a bath and go to bed”. She turned around to leave but Eric didn’t want to fight he wanted to clear things up and apologize to her\n“I don’t want to fight” he said as he slowly walked towards her, I just want to talk and if we can’t do that today because you are tired maybe we can tomorrow”. Lily looked at him he was now standing close enough for her to see the sincerity in his eyes as well, she was really exhausted but the arguments they had been having was way more tiring than how she felt and despite not wanting to admit it to herself she had missed her husband.\n She dropped her handbag on the kitchen counter let out another loud sigh\n“Okay, I’m listening”.\n“Thank you” Eric said with relief in his voice, he was silent for a moment just starring at Lily trying to figure out what the right words to say would be, it was funny he had played this scenario in his head over again throughout the day and now he was tongue tied especially because he knew he had been unfair to her. He let out a loud sigh\n“I’m so sorry for everything, for accusing you and for not believing you my mum confessed everything to me I should have believed you its just…….” He looked at her and she now had a blank expression on her face waiting for him to continue his statement.\n“It's just what Eric?” she said in a dry tone.\n“She is my mum”. He regretted it as soon as he said it, but he knew he couldn’t take it back.\n“And I am your wife?”.\n“I didn’t mean it that way, I just mean she is my mother I didn’t think she would accuse you like that”. Lily just chuckled in disbelief and just shook her head “You and I know that your mum has never liked me so while you are surprised she would do something like this I’m not, you always made it seem like your mum not liking me was a minor issue despite the side comments, the way she like to berate me in front of people” tears had started to build up in her eyes as she replayed all the things his mum had done to her, Eric tried to go closer to her to comfort her but she just moved away and halted him with her hand she took a deep breath in order to restrain herself from crying. “You should have trusted me when I told you I would never cheat on you, I have eyes for only you I have proved that since we started dating, I didn’t deserve the way you have treated me these past weeks all it took was for your mum to accuse me with a picture of me hugging John”\n“You have to understand how it looked”.\n“I told you it was just an innocent hug; he lost his sister”. Eric had a guilty look in his face, he knew he should have trusted.\n There was silence in the kitchen again, they just starred at each other waiting for the other person to say something, finally Eric breaks the silence “I’m so sorry Strawberry”. Lily loved when he called her that. “I am really sorry; I don’t want to fight anymore I want to make it up to you in any way I can, in any way you want”. Eric was now inches away from Lily starring into her blue eyes and Lily felt like he was looking into her soul it made her realize just how much she missed him and how much she longed to be in his arms again her mouth was now subconsciously slightly open and her breath had picked up, she had a very lustful and hungry look in her eyes, Eric had noticed these and had the same hungry look in his eyes but he wasn’t going to make the next move until she did, he was the one who was wrong and he didn’t want to ruin his apology by being too forward and presumptuous. After what felt like forever like she had come out of a trance that had taken all she had to get out off she finally spoke\n“I don’t want to fight any more, I just need some sleep and we can talk more about this tomorrow”. He nodded.\n“Good night”. Lily said as she took her bag from the counter and made her way upstairs.\n“Good night strawberry”. Eric said feeling\n The next morning Lily woke up to find Eric making pancakes in the kitchen\n“Good morning” she says from behind Eric, he turns and gives her a smile\n“Morning Strawberry, sleep well?”\n“Yes, I did”. Lily says with a warm. “Need some help?”\n“No, I got it, I already set the table, all you have to do is sit and wait for me to bring your breakfast”. Lily just nodded and went to the dinning area where she found a bouquet of her favorite flowers, donuts and coffee from her favorite bakery. Eric set the pancakes on the table and with maple syrup and apple juice.\n“Thank you for all this, you really didn’t have to”. Lily said as she started to eat her pancakes considering she didn’t have dinner the last night, so she was hungry.\n“Do you have plans today?”. Eric asked Lily as she was engrossed in her breakfast.\n“Nothing, I would probably just sleep all the rest of the day and pray I don’t get a call from the hospital.”\n“I was hoping I could take you out for dinner in your favorite place, if you’d like”. Lily wanted very much to say yes but she didn’t feel like going out, she just wanted to stay in.\n“Maybe tomorrow I’d rather just stay in today”. Eric had a disappointed look on his face that he tried to hide.\n“Movie night then, we haven’t had that in a while”. Eric asked Lily.\n“Yes, I would love that, you should probably choose the movie this time seeing as you sleep off during my movies most of the time”. They both chuckled lightly. After breakfast they cleared the table Eric said he would do the dishes, but Lily decided she would help before she went back to sleep, as they put the plates in the washing machine and cleared the kitchen they started talking, and reminiscing, they were talking about one of their adventures they had when they were still dating the story was so funny that they couldn’t stop laughing when Lily blurted out\n“I’ve missed you Babe”. Eric couldn’t contain his smile he knew what she meant and he had also missed her too more than she knew and before Eric could say anything she had found her way to him and they were kissing passionately." } ]

[ { "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 Porcelain Village\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 2850\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story about someone who is losing feeling in their hands and/or fingers." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "My clay hands are becoming solid porcelain. I have always had potter’s hands. The throwing water absorbs the moisturizing oils of the skin. Leaves the hands rough. The clay paste dries and cracks the skin. Leaving it red. \n\nBut now my hands are hardening. In the bisque firing, my hands harden like porous greenware. The cremated carbon and sulfur escape, exhuming my soul from the earthen clay, little by little, drawing it back to its source. The soul stews out in a boiling whistle, agitating out from between the minerals lodged in the ridges and wrinkles of each digit. The palms petrify. The flesh sinters and binds to itself. In the glaze firing, my hands glow red as the enamel stiffens and makes the fingers rigid and reflective. The silicate vitrifies and turns to glass. Dust becomes crystal—like a baby’s flesh crystalizing into the windows of the eyes. I am born again in the womb of the kiln. I am a porcelain village.\n\nI have received an order for a series of six ornate hand-painted vases. It is enough money for Dandan’s first semester. But I don’t know if I can complete the order. Though I struggle to find my hands, which have become like ghost appendages, I tell no one. I am frightened the orders will dry up. Dandan has been accepted at Columbia University for the fall and has always wanted to go to the United States. And she will need money. So I struggle to find strength and answers. For her. But I fear the pull of Tai Yi Shen—the great spirit—the creator God, pulling back the breath of life infused in this jar of clay.\n\nThe January mornings are misty, with a cold mist hugging the valley. My hands ache from the cold and wet of the river. Though my touch is going, I still feel hot and cold. The dirt is hard and stiff under foot and smells like the burned dust of the kiln. \n\nI dig clay from the banks of the Jia Ling River. Back at my home shop, in Ciqikou, I mix various minerals into the clay. Kaolin, silica, and feldspars. I then wedge the day’s clay on a long wooden table, folding and pressing to remove all of the air. If I do not get out all of the air, the clay will warp and crack in the kiln. Then I begin the process of forming the clay into the shape of finished goods and ready it for five days of firing. For pottery, we use a wheel and throw the clay. For complex shapes, a mold. \n\nAs I mold today’s clay into traditional teacups using delicate molds, Dandan brings me my morning tea. It is a Jasmine tea. It is a honey orchid oolong tea. It smells of irises and orchids and the misty meadows of the Shikengong Mountain. It tastes sweet like nutty molasses with notes of a mild bitter metallic roast. Bright, coppery, and clean. With an after taste of the esters of bubble gum powder that is distinctive of the jasmine resin when properly brewed.\n\nIf I am a simple rice bowl, Dandan is a hand painted dining set. My given name is Jing—Jing Yuchi—but Dandan and everyone else call me Jane.\n\nCiqikou or Longyin Town in Chongquing, China is an ancient place. It means Porcelain Village and if legend is to be believed, is the birthplace of porcelain. The stone streets border ancestral teahouses, pagodas, street food vendors selling doughy mahua, and antique shops with strings of hanging red lanterns on every storefront. The Bao Lun Temple stands above the town and stares back at the North Gate. Dandan is excited for the Lantern Festival next week. It will be her last before her travels and her great adventure.\n\n“Ama, we need to get ready for the lantern festival,” Dandan says.\n\n“Bao bei, I have a big order I have to fill first,” I tell her.\n\n“Pfoof. Forget about your orders ama, I am making the tangyuan. I went to the market before and I have everything: brown sugar, sesame seed, walnut, and bean paste. And lots of rice,” she says.\n\n“You go in and start without me niu niu. I have to go down to the market and see Dr. Looey Zhou about the pain in my hands,” I say.\n\n“It is so beautiful in the market this time of year. I will miss all of the red lanterns. You know what the old legend says the reason is for the red lanterns,” Dandan says, wanting to tell me for the eleven hundredth time.\n\n“No bao bei, what is it?” I humor her.\n\n“The Jade Emperor sensed an uprising when his favorite crane was killed by his villagers. He resolved to destroy the old village on the fifteenth day of the lunar year, the night of the new moon—the yuan xiao jie. But his daughter overheard his plan. The princess was in love with a poor fisherman’s boy in the village. Knowing what was going to happen she warned the villagers to put up red lanterns all over town. Then she fooled her father, telling him that the gods had already burned the village. And so every year we use the red lantern to symbolize the mercy of a young girl that overthrows the ill-fated curse of a tyrannical lord and to pray for yuan yue—a fortunate new beginning.” Dandan says, her face bright with a satisfied smile.\n\n“You will have your own bright new beginnings soon enough, now go finish making the tangyuan.”\n\n“Oh ama, you have had pain in your hands all your life, come help me with the rice balls,” Dandan pleaded.\n\n“Later bao bei, later,” I say.\n\n* * *\n\nDr. Zhou is a stout man whose black hair has a thick luster like that of a horse, embroidered with a few shiny thistles of white. His eyes are bright and skin taut, featuring a vibrancy that is unusual for a man of seventy-six. He wears a white Hanfu linen shirt with frog buttons and a choker collar. He smells of licorice and lemon and carries himself in a calm, exacting manner.\n\n“Nushi Yuchi, what is bothering you?” he asks.\n\n“I am losing feeling in my hands—losing touch,” I tell him.\n\n“Ohh, Jane, that must be terrifying for you,” he says, taking my right hand and needling it in a form of massage, pulling on the fingers and working his way down each of the bones of the hand, and pressing and squeezing my thumb. “Your energy is very weak in these hands.”\n\n“When I am working with the clay, I can’t feel where my hand ends and the clay begins and sometimes I look down and my hands are off the wheel,” I tell him.\n\n“Your yin or po can be separated from your spirit. You know the story of Bayou—”\n\n“—zhao-hun, the calling back of the soul. But I have no delirium. There are no devils hiding in my closets,” I say.\n\n“Maybe. No devils. But Dandan is your heart. She is going to New York soon. Your essence is cold as marrow is cold. Your yang is unstable. But like cures like. You must steal a heart to replace lost heart, or you will lose all feeling and body and spirit will be parted forever.” Dr. Zhou says. “Zao hundun er po tianhuang. Cure for cold body. Bore open chaos and destroy heaven’s neglect,” he adds with a wry grin that only a very old man can pull off.\n\n“You want me to take a lover at sixty-seven,” I say, perplexed. And then joke, “Dr. Zhou, are you flirting with me?”\n\n“Take a lover. Adopt a stray dog. Whatever it takes to bring feeling back in balance. One more thing Nushi Yuchi, get yourself some warm clothes. There will be snow for the yuan xiao jie—all week there have been clouds over the moon.”\n\n* * *\n\nHow does an old lady steal a heart. It is one thing for Dandan, but for an old lady like me who is losing her sense of touch to touch another human heart—let alone steal it—is a tall order. I puzzle over strategies and tactics. Food comes to mind. Visual allure is not entirely out of the question, as I have kept my figure and practice yoga daily. Dandan is the storyteller. I have no aptitude for words. Painting is another idea. But whose heart can I steal? Where do I even look? Will there be someone at the winter festival of the new moon?\n\nThe mail lady delivers my mail and the check for the six vases is there, just in time. I will have to go later and deposit this and get a traveler’s check for the gift.\n\nI place the bisque ware on a cookie and begin the process of applying the initial glaze coloring. \n\nThese large white gourd vases are painted with three layers of blue glaze. On the mouth are the petals of opening flowers leading to a border by the lip of the vase. Below, at the bottom of the neck, is another border and a skirt to separate the body of the vase, with branching vines and ornate circular flowers in a fractal design, painted circularly around the curves of the vase to create an effect like movement. I add two bluebirds and a hummingbird for added flare.\n\nNow for the glaze firing and then in three days the final touches. And I can’t forget the final touch of my special gift, the porcelain chest.\n\n* * *\n\nI go to see my friend Sisi, who works at the candy shop across the way. I walk in past the tourists, and we go in the back area of the shop where she is watching the Real Housewives of New Jersey and spending time on WeChat with her American ‘boyfriend.’ \n\nSisi has big mantis-like eyes and a rounded head. Her hair seems flat on top like a small tight-fitting cap. Her cheeks are warm and curious, but she has a serious chin.\n\n“Jane! You came such a long way to see me. I am so delighted! Will you be coming out for the lantern festival Friday?”\n\n“I wouldn’t miss it,” I tell her.\n\n“So what is going on Janey?” she asks.\n\n“Dr. Zhou says I have to steal a heart,” I say.\n\n“At your age? You’d sooner steal a penny off a dead man’s eyes!” she says.\n\n“Hey,” I say, “it isn’t that bad, is it,” and I blush—and we both break out in laughter.\n\n“You know the old folk story about the farmer, right? About the luck?” Sisi says.\n\n“No, tell it to me,” I say.\n\n“A farmer gets a horse, which soon runs away. A neighbor says, ‘That's bad news.’ The farmer replies, ‘Good news, bad news, who can say?’ The horse comes back and brings another horse with him. Good news, you might say. The farmer gives the second horse to his son, who rides it, then is thrown and badly breaks his leg. ‘So sorry for your bad news,’ says the concerned neighbor. ‘Good news, bad news, who can say?’ the farmer replies. In a week or so, the emperor's men come and take every able-bodied young man to fight in a war. The farmer's son is spared.”\n\n“Ok. That is a good story, but I don’t know what I’m supposed to get from that,” I tell her.\n\n“It could mean a lot of things. But what I think is, maybe you are having trouble letting go of Dandan. Maybe like the horse that runs away comes back with another horse, you gain more by letting her go. Maybe you not meant to steal man’s heart. Maybe steal back Dandan’s heart, make sure she come back to you.”\n\n“Sisi, you are very smart. And wise. Thank you so much,” I tell her, and head back to check on my gourd vases and my special porcelain chest.\n\n* * *\n\nCiqikou is fully lit with thousands of red lanterns and the Bao Lun Temple is a shining spire, like a tower of red flames, lit and inscribed with hundreds of sigils, all in ornate calligraphy, hanging down in ribbons from its many eves and archways and boat-like slanting porticos.\n\nThrongs of people crowd the streets. The moon is full in the sky. The brisk wind blows, pulling at their scarves and caps and whistling through the ornamental ribbons covered with calligraphy—the riddles attached to the sky lanterns. Waves of fluffy white snow tumble down in zigzagging waves, making the stone walkway squeak as peals of laughter and chatter echo down the promenade. Everyone is walking down to the river by the Bao Lun Temple, where the launching of the sky lanterns will take place.\n\n“Ama, if you can answer my riddle, you will shoot the literary tiger and all the pain in your hands will go away,” Dandan tells me.\n\nDandan’s sky lantern has a cryptic riddle hanging off of it in ornate Chinese Caligraphy:\n\nI can follow you for thousands of miles and not miss home. I do not fear cold or fire, and I desire neither food nor drink. But I disappear when the sun sets behind the western mountains. Who am I?\n\nI think on this a long time. I think I know the answer. But I save this secret and hold it in escrow for later.\n\n“Happy Yuan Yue! Bao Bei! How did your tangyuan come out?” I ask.\n\n“Here try,” Dandan says, sticking the sugary dough in my mouth. I chew and taste the brown sugar and the crunchy walnut and gluey bean curd. \n\n“Mmmm, very good niu niu, your best yet. Tuántuán yuányuán [I say reciting the traditional message] happy reunion, happy family! We will miss this next year,” I tell her.\n\n“Oh, ama, I will be back to see you. I’m not leaving forever,” she says.\n\n“Say the kai deng qi fu—prayer for good fortune—that you will be back next year and in good health,” I tell her, and she does.\n\nWe reach the river. The fireworks begin to go off, signaling the beginning of the fang tian deng—the time for the releasing of the sky lanterns with prayers and wishes for the heavens. The snow is coming down now in thick blankets, the drifting flakes shimmering with the light of the moon and the thousands of lanterns everyone is holding along the banks.\n\n“I think I know the answer to your riddle bao bei, goes for thousands of miles, doesn’t get hot or cold, doesn’t fear, but disappears with the dying sun… it is a ‘shadow’,” I tell her.\n\n“Very good ama, you will have much good fortune this new year,” Dandan says.\n\n“And now it is time for your New Year’s gift,” I say with a smile.\n\n“Ama! What gift? You didn’t have to get me anything,” Dandan says.\n\n“Oh, bao bei, I am so proud of you and excited for your journey, but I will miss you very much. Here, this is for you.” I pull out a porcelain chest, crafted in red clay, in the shape of a heart, glazed three times, with a red bright glaze like that of the lanterns.\n\nDandan looks up and smiles. And holds the porcelain vest close to her chest. “Oh, ama, this is so sweet.”\n\n“Open it niu niu,” I tell her. My hands shake in the cold, but I can scarcely place my fingers. All of the feeling is tingly and tentative like a spirit without a body, wisping along transparent as air.\n\nShe opens the hinge of the lid of the chest and looks inside and sees a key with a red ribbon, attached to a little gold locket.\n\n“What is it, ama?” Dandan asks.\n\n“It is a key to the store, so you can come back anytime, even if I am not there. It will always be yours. And a locket, to make new memories. Maybe you will meet a friend or a love at school. And be sure to bring them back home to me—when you return.”\n\n“Thank you, ama, I will, of course, you will always be my heart,” Dandan says.\n\nI feel a tingle in my fingers, where the clay is softening in the warmth of the moment. I can feel the heat of the lantern radiate through my palms and up my forearms.\n\nWe take the lanterns and hoist them into the air. A thousand prayers lift into the sky and glow. The red lights blow in the breeze like the spirits of the mountain, snaking along with the gush of the river and the rush of the cold January breeze.\n\nI hold Dandan in my arms a long time before we go home.\n\nI take the porcelain village out of the kiln. It cools and dries along the banks of the Jia Ling River. It freezes in time, like a memory. It is smooth to the touch. Glassy and full of hidden meanings, like fine China." } ]

[ { "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: Shameless\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 2151\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a character in a situation where they have to be brave for someone else’s sake." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "We stopped leaving the garage door open when we were cooking because I told my mom the police were saying criminals had been stealing equipment from garages. My dad was away on an engineering work contract in Dubai like half the Uncles I knew, so we kids were left to help our moms with everything from house maintenance to legal compliance. Back then there was no internet and overseas phone calls to Dubai were expensive, so there were a great many things left unreported to the dads. To compensate for this lack of communication, my mom and all the Aunties dutifully reported everything and anything to each other, forming an Alief-wide Desi wives network. They’d spend several hours a day stretching the extra long coil of their kitchen’s wall-mounted phones as they tended to house work and the just-as- important work of informing one another whose husband was laid off and who’s contract was renewed, when Fiesta would be getting the next shipment of good mangoes, and where Coke was on sale this week. \n Most aunties in Alief didn’t work outside the house, but half of the Desi aunties in Alief ran a side hustle from their home. There were several other aunties running mini catering businesses, like my mom. One or two had some kind of jewelry business because their family in India were in the business. You could narrow down which ones likely sold gold or diamonds because they had metal bars on their windows and doors. Of course not everyone who had caged their houses were brown jewelry dealers, some were scared white people who hadn’t yet moved to Sugar Land or Katy, those were emerging suburbs with fewer crimes and less brown people. A handful of the more self-assured aunties had secured real estate licenses and begun catering to Desi clientele who were also moving to Sugar Land or Katy. Then there was an auntie who ran an unlicensed beauty salon in her guest bedroom, mostly she threaded eyebrows and female mustaches. Bikini waxes weren’t a thing, at least officially, because nobody would go to a fellow Desi to get it done. Hell, just shaving your legs was a confession of interest in attracting the opposite sex, which was a super terrible interest to have. \"Besharam!\", shameless!, the aunties would cluck judgmentally at Hindi movie actresses wearing shorts and tube tops. But I heard some Desis living here in Alief got more than their arms waxed, and I thought how they must be absolutely fearless to be so besharam. I secretly admired the beautician auntie who served the besharam among us, quietly and without judgement tending to whatever a woman needed done in order to feel good. I wished my mom was a beautician doing modern American things instead of a cook making Desi food as if we were all still in India.\nMy mom had lugged two oversized, overweight bags stuffed with jumbo stainless steel pots and masala from India in order to authentically cook naasta, snacks, and typical Gujju food like daal and tamaata-bataata shaak for people’s parties. Before going to India to visit her parents, she had fresh red chillies, ajwain, cinnamon, cardamom, black pepper, and other seeds and pods delivered to my grandparent’s rooftop back in Valsad so they could roast under the sun for a week. When she arrived, she called three women over for two days to ground all the masala using a giant stone mortar and pestle. She sat up there on the baking hot rooftop to supervise them, nitpicking about every little thing. I’d never seen my mom be the boss of anyone so this was interesting. Back in Houston she exhibited a stealthy fear of authority figures, and a lot of people fell under this category. White people in general, police, security guards, teachers, doctors, receptionists, and grocery store clerks were seen as people to be obeyed. But for her masala, she scaled her wall of fear and straight-up lied to the US Customs officer and said we didn’t have any uncooked agricultural products in our luggage. I wasn’t sure if the spices counted but I knew for sure the plant roots of half a dozen Desi veggies we had wrapped with some good Desi soil intact was definitely uncooked so I had tugged at her sari to remind her about that, to which she responded by stomping on my foot. \nIt would probably crack actual criminals up to learn that my mom feared them stealing her pots and fresh masala stored in our rusty old SEARS garage fridge, but I knew that to my mom this was a very plausible criminal plot. From within those steel pots she dished out her self-worth. “Eh-vuh-reee wun liked my kadhi soooo much,” she’d report to her children as if we had asked.\nMy mom had been married off a month before graduating from college. She met my dad once, they ate dhosas at a snack shop on their one and only “date” before their parents fixed a wedding date to fit within my dad’s three week wife-hunting trip to India. My mom had hoped to complete her degree in another month but his time was more important than hers from the start, I guess. So this vegetarian, non-English speaking, twenty-year old, high school graduate moved to America with a man she had known for two weeks. My dad tried to make her eat hamburgers in order to fit into America and also because back then there were no stores where you could buy Indian groceries. She resisted and figured out how to make Indian food by improvising with American groceries. Over time, she built a reputation and other Desis started asking her to cater for their parties. The steel pots were my mom’s gold. Of course she could imagine someone wanting to steal them. \n The truth of why we cooked with the garage door closed was that one day when Henry Lopez and I were walking home from the bus, he had sniffed the air and groaned “EWWWWW!” and then pretended to gag and vomit as he shouted “Something smells like a gigantic FART!”. I knew the smell well, my mom was cooking oondhyuu and pooris for an order that night. Oondhiyu made her a little famous around Houston, she grew the paapdi and rutaaru in our backyard for it after smuggling their roots from India. There were about 25 different spices and ingredients in her authentic oondhiyuu, and half the vegetables only grew for a few months. Back in India, people apparently celebrated the season by having oondhiyuu parties. I figured it must be like the crawfish boil parties that non-Desi, meat and fish eating people in Houston go crazy about. Oondhiyuu smelled pretty good to me, but every spring when the grocery stores boiled crawfish for sale, my family silently gagged at the smells but smiled politely when we were offered samples. Everyone has to make a living, this we understood. Oondhiyuu season was second only to Diwali in terms of my mom’s catering profits and with oil and gas companies laying people off every other month, my mom’s cooking was our safety net in case my dad got sent back abruptly from Dubai. It hadn’t happened to us yet, but we lived in fear of it.\nShe did all her catering cooking in the garage because my dad said the heat from the cooking drove up the AC bill unnecessarily. So she’d put on one of her Indian nighties that permitted the most air flow while covering her legs for modesty, squat on a foot stool and preside over a couple of portable gas stoves placed in the middle of the garage floor. She’d spread newspapers out on plastic folding tables and plop the freshly fried pooris onto them. And all this is what Henry Lopez did not need to see and judge. My mom, long black hair in a single braid down her back, in a bright paisley muu-muu, sweat dripping from her forehead, methane-perfumed clouds billowing from the gigantic vat below her. I could just imagine her looking up from her pot and smiling, offering Henry a poori and Henry laughing or gagging or fake puking. I winced at the thought, which I took to be a certain premonition, and my pulse and my pace quickened.\nHenry and I didn’t exactly walk home together because the laws of the universe would never permit such a thing. Physics dictated that his longer, sports star legs carried him further, faster than me. And social justice required me to stay well enough away from Henry so that nobody could misconstrue my presence as evidence of being his middle school popularity equal, much less girlfriend. To sidle up next to Henry would be to risk his scorn, it was far safer to walk well behind him and imagine that he secretly liked me. But Henry’s ruckus had to be shut down before he reached my house so I hugged my Trapper Keeper extra hard as I ran to catch up to him, my French Horn case banged violently and rhythmically against my knee with each footfall. A few pieces of loose leaf paper flew out, probably the math homework I finished in home room so I could watch Facts of Life with my undivided attention. I let them fly in the wind, I didn’t care, all that mattered was intercepting loud-mouthed Henry before he got to my driveway. \nMy house came first, before Henry’s. As I neared him, I pretended to also be repulsed and thoroughly confused by the stench. I screwed up my mouth and eyes emphatically as I looked quizzically into Henry’s eyes as if to say “What hideousness is this?”. We had eight more houses and one intersection before mine. You could get to Henry’s house from the intersecting street too, but Henry liked to tease our neighbor’s dog so he preferred the longer route past my house. In my daydreams I imagined Henry and I becoming a secret item, secret because of course he was actually well above my station in middle school life and anyway I wasn’t allowed to have a boyfriend much less a non-Gujarati, not-even-Indian boyfriend. For such a relationship to be out in the public wold be the hilt of being besharam. Sometimes I’d dream that I’d talk Henry out of teasing Snoopy, explaining that Snoopy was Mrs. Polk’s only living friend and that he was just barking and going crazy because he needed to protect Mrs. Polk. In the dreams, Henry would give in and promise not to tease Snoopy. But that was a dream and deep down I knew that Henry was a real life jerk, which was why he was popular and maybe why I was not. \n I’d need to distract Henry with something more fun than teasing Snoopy. I recalled how girls in sitcoms hit on their male targets and felt that my whole life of TV watching had prepared me for this moment. Without thinking, I launched my offensive.\n “Hey, can I come over to your house? We could maybe watch TV or something? Your mom’s not home for a couple of hours right?” I managed to say most of this without stuttering, as if I was a feathered hair American girl in cut-off jean shorts and spaghetti-strap top blowing fruity bubble gum bubbles rather than a lightly mustached Desi girl in Kmart Wrangler jeans clutching an over-stuffed Trapper Keeper in one hand and a French Horn case in the other, my upper lip fuzz glistening with tiny sweat beads. My face blazed with shame and my stomach braced for the gutt punch, and yet still, somehow, a sliver in me thought maybe he did secretly like me.\nHenry’s eyes narrowed as he peered at me, as if I’d gone crazy. He gazed down at my pragmatic tennis shoes and moved his gaze up my stiff Wrangler jeans, my JCPenney logo polo and sweaty armpits, and finally my glasses resting lop-sided at the tip of my bulbous nose. “No way, Jose. Gag me!” And with that, he turned toward the intersection and headed directly home, my mother’s pride left intact while my own lay shattered on the suburban sidewalk. \nI wanted to cry but I was too close to home. As I approached our driveway my mom looked up and smiled. “Garam-garam poori jo-ye? Do you want nice warm pooris?”. It was just as I’d imagined, only Henry wasn’t there to insult her for being resilient, resourceful and gracious. I smiled and nodded yes, put down my Trapper Keeper and French Horn to reach for a poori and began telling her about the police officer that stopped me at the corner to let me know bad guys were checking out garages for things to steal. Maybe we should keep the garage door closed, I casually suggested." } ]

[ { "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: I Want To Kiss You\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1097\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone asking out an old crush, only to realize their crush doesn’t remember they’ve ever met before." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Maria was hurrying home because she did not want to miss her favorite reality program. It wasn't so much the program that she liked as the co-hosts, two handsome, talented successful men, one of the hosts, Fernando, was a young man that had grown up in the same city as Maria, in fact, they had attended the same schools and even dated a couple of times in high school but had never formed a serious relationship.\nAfter high school, their paths had gone in different directions. Fernando attended an ivy league college and received his degree in business, after graduation he started a business in the food industry, that soon grew internationally. Fernando also enjoyed a measure of success in other areas such as entertainment, music, and sports.\nMaria attended a local college, received her degree in healthcare, and advanced in her profession to a place where she was able to live comfortably. Neither Fernando nor Maria had married although they had had relationships with other people over the intervening years.\nAs she watched the program, Maria saw an advertisement inviting people to apply to be contestants on the show, she wrote down the information so that she could go online to find the application and instructions for applying.\nThe next day, after work, Maria sat down at her computer to look up the information about the program. Reading the application requirements, she realized that according to the instructions she was qualified to be a contestant. She filled out the application, hit send on her computer, and settled in to wait to hear from the producers.\nThe day came when Maria checked her email and found a message from the producers inviting her to the interview/audition, they supplied available dates and times, Maria responded with the date and time that would work for her. To her delight, she received an email the next day confirming her appointment.\nOn the day of the interview, Maria arrived at the venue with time to spare, not long after she arrived, her name was called, and she was escorted to the interview room, she was surprised when she entered the room to see that the panel of five included the two hosts. She overcame her shock in time to complete the interview and the audition with confidence.\nDays later, Maria received an invitation from the producers to have lunch with the hosts and her fellow contestants so that they could become acquainted since they would be spending a lot of time together over an extended period.\nAt lunch, Maria was seated next to Fernando, as they talked the conversation turned to their hometown, Fernando was surprised to learn that they were from the same city, had attended the same high school, and had even dated. Even though Maria was disappointed that Fernando did not remember her, she was not surprised.\nShe was not surprised because she understood that years had passed, both of them had been in relationships during the interim, and she knew that Fernando had to be focused to achieve the level of success that he had. As they talked, she thought of the crush that she'd had on Fernando over the years and decided that she would not tell him about her crush since he did not remember that he had ever known her.\nFernando was a remarkable young man, not because of his achievements, Maria found him to have qualities that showed him to be a man of integrity, he was kind and considerate as he gave attention to the contestants that were present, he was apologetic that he did not remember her. Maria wondered why Fernando had not married, while, at the same time, Fernando wondered the same thing about Maria.\nDuring the filming, Maria and Fernando found themselves spending a lot of time together and in spending time together, they were able to get to know each other better, they shared a lot of information about one another that caused them to grow closer. Maria found Fernando to be easy to talk to no matter what the subject, they experienced those silences that come from being comfortable with one another. They were careful to be discreet as their relationship grew, the producers were aware of the relationship and decided that it would not affect the show.\nFernando wondered how he could have forgotten Maria, he found her to be a beautiful, intelligent woman who was able to converse on any subject, he enjoyed spending time with her and found himself thinking about her a lot, most of the day in fact. At first, he tried to distance himself from her but found he wanted to spend time with her to get to know her better, he decided that he wanted to pursue a relationship with her.\nAfter the filming of the show was completed and the participants were dismissed, Fernando invited Maria to have dinner with him before she returned home. At dinner, he told her that he wanted to discuss the future of their relationship, Maria was happy, she had thought about and wondered what would happen when the show was over. She felt encouraged to know that Fernando had the same thoughts.\nFernando shared his feelings with Maria, he held her hand as he told her that he wanted to continue their relationship and to spend more time with her, Maria agreed that she also wanted to take their relationship to the next level, they agreed to make their relationship exclusive to one another so that they could concentrate on developing it without distractions.\nThey explored their feelings for one another, Maria decided to tell Fernando about her ongoing crush, and he confessed that he was attracted to her when he saw her at the interview but wasn't sure how to pursue his interest. They decided that, despite years of separation, they were destined to be together, and could not ignore the fate that brought them together again.\nAs they were leaving the restaurant, the following exchange took place:\nFernando: (placing his hands on her shoulders and looking deep into her eyes) \"I want to kiss you\"\nMaria: (hands on his chest and looking into his eyes) \"Do you need permission?\"\nFernando: In fact I do, my mother taught me that I should never assume that because I want a kiss it means that the lady wants one also, I should always seek permission.\nMaria: (moving her arms around his neck) \"In that case, permission granted.\"\nFernando: \"Are you sure?\"\nMaria: \"yes, I am sure, now stop talking and get on with 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: Birth Mother\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 2995\n\nPrompt:\n\nEnd your story with someone finding themselves." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I stand in a perfectly pristine kitchen. The counter tops are covered in flour. She stands at them, waiting for me. She’s rolling out the cookie dough in deep, even strokes, like the ocean kissing the beach. Her soft humming fills the kitchen with love. Her hands lift me up; I'm in a navy blue sundress with little yellow sunflowers on it. “Here, sweetie,” she hands me an apron and I lift my little arms obediently to her. She ties it around my waist. A little teddy bear clutching a rolling pin in one soft, brown paw is splashed across my tummy. And beside me, she rolls. I watch the muscles in his taunt arms ripple with the pressure. The sunlight makes the sugar glisten and sparkle like glitter. The room smells sweetly of the confections we are working so diligently to create. She smiles at me and gestures at the cookie cutters. \n\nThere’s some part of me that knows that these cookie cutters are Mama’s. Why does she have Mama’s special cookie cutters I wonder. They are a deep copper color and Mama got them from her mama who got them from her mama. For 11 and a half months out of the year, they’re stored in worn gallon sized baggies with zipper seals. The bags feel rough on my little fingers, but Mama says they don’t need to be replaced yet. When they cascade out of the bags, they play a chorus of music that sounds like their own Christmas carol as they crash onto the wooden table. Maggie’s fingers and mine grasp and reach for our favorite shapes. Mama tells us that we need to cut out the big shapes on the gingerbread dough first, as she nibbles a morsel. So Maggie and I press the big giant angel; her wings are the span of my palm. “Press down firmly,” she instructs, placing her soft palm onto ours. It hurts for a moment, but when we release we can see the shape of the angel. Delicately, Mama scoops the angel onto the cookie pan. Maggie is in her corner, pressing the cut out of holiday bells into one corner. When we’ve done all our little hearts can, Mama balls up the dough and rolls it out again. Maggie and I nibble on the cookie dough giggling while singing, “Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!” So why does the woman have Mama’s cutters?\n\nWhen she looks at me, I notice she’s Asian. Like me. I trace my almond shaped eyes and examine hers. I trace the slope of my button nose while memorizing the slope of hers. She smiles and her eyes crinkle just like mine. “How can you possibly see when you smile like that,” the white school photographer asked me so I stopped smiling in the photos. But she doesn’t ask me. She knows. Her long fingers indicate Mama’s cookie cutters, but I don’t feel right using them without her. I shake my head, so the woman grabs a cutter. She cuts out the shape of the bells. “Mama says you need to cut the big shapes first,” I protest and reach for the big angel. But she disappears. I search the counters wildly. Then, I reach for the biggest gingerbread man instead, who is as tall as the angel. I grasp him tightly and press him into the dough.\n\nThe woman nods encouragingly. She presses her hand into mine and since she is standing so close I can smell her perfume. The scent of almonds fills my nose. It's sweet and light. And I want more of it. Her hand is cold against mine. Mama’s is never cold. “Where’s Maggie,” I ask. Mama says we can’t make cookies without my little sister by my side. It’s the rules. The woman doesn’t answer, just shakes her head. Her long, black hair cascades around her shoulders. The woman reaches up and ties it with a long, single, thick, red ribbon. I notice she’s wearing earrings. Little pearls. Like the kind I asked for when Mama let me pierce my ears. \n\nI hear the sound of a timer going off. The woman begins pressing shapes into the dough with expert speed. She chooses the bells, a small angel, two little men, and one snowman. I just stand back and watch. The dough dries on my palms and I dust them off. She has filled a tray. The woman grips the silver nonstick sheet tightly and opens the oven. When she turns I see she’s in a cashmere, cream colored sweater. The kind I have only ever seen Granny wear, not one Mama would wear. Mama wears bright red sweatshirts with Snoopy from Peanuts decorating his little red house for Christmas on them. I also notice the tan pants and little ballet flats on the woman’s feet. They have a big gold belt buckle. Those aren’t Mama’s shoes, either. She wears bright red Converse All Stars with her bright red sweaters. When the woman opens the oven door, the heat engulfs me.\n\nI’m a little uncomfortable and I fumble with the straps of my little dress. The woman returns to the counter and scoops up the dough. She balls it tightly and flours the counter. I watch her roll out the dough and begin the process again. \nThe timer sings loudly. The woman has filled the next cookie sheet. She walks to the oven, releases the cookies, and sets them on top of the stove. With expert precision she spins on her heel and pops the tray of dough in. I want to ask her why she left me, why she let me be adopted. But the words don’t come. Instead, she begins arranging the cookies on a silver cooling rack on the counter by the tan stove. Mama never uses cooling racks. She just lets the cookies cool on the trays. Once the cookies are arranged the woman returns to me. The once monstrous ball of dough is now very small. She tears a chunk of it off and drops it in the palm of my hand. She smiles and tears some for herself. I notice her impeccable white teeth. The way her eyes crinkle makes mine crinkle. The dough is sweet and just a little bit spicy. It melts in my mouth.\n\nThe woman places the first cookie sheet in the perfectly white sink. It has no other dishes. Mama’s sink always has other dishes. Maggie’s colorful sippy cups and plastic plates that are all sectioned off so her broccoli doesn’t touch her Mac and Cheese which doesn’t touch her fish sticks. The woman places the second tray of cookies on the stove as she did with the first and begins arranging the cookies onto another cooling rack. I stand on my little step stool and reach for the dessert plates. They’re decorated with llamas wearing holiday lights and Santa hats. There are little leaves of holly along the edges. The woman takes the plates from my hands and loads them with some of the cookies from the first batch, all cooled and ready to be devoured. She also pours a couple glasses of milk. That’s just like Mama. “A little protein with your treat, my loves,” she’d say to Maggie and me. The woman and I sit at Mama’s kitchen table. The cookies are crunchy on the outside and soft in the middle. I bite the head off the big angel which makes the woman laugh. I want to hear more so I tear into her left wing, then her right. The woman is laughing loudly. I wonder if Mama can hear and I wonder where Mama is. I feel tears pricking the back of my little black eyes. My eyes look just like that woman’s. She offers me a hug. But I don’t want her. I want Mama. \n\n\nI awake to the sound of eggs being fried. The morning sun cuts through a thin pink curtain. Maggie can sleep through it, though. “She’s always been a heavy sleeper,” says Mama when I tell her she doesn’t want breakfast. Mama marches up to me. She lifts my chin so I can gaze into her soft blue eyes. Eyes, not like mine. “Are you ok, sweetheart, you look like you’ve had a rough night,” she says. Her voice is soft. It sounds like home. My eyes nervously dart to the tallest cabinet in the kitchen. To the home of the cookie cutters. I don’t have to answer as Maggie stumbles in. My sister devours her eggs and pancakes that Mama has cut into achievable bites for her. “Now remember, today we’re going to the eye doctor after school,” Mama says. She always reminds us of our schedule during breakfast. Mama glances at the kitchen clock; the one with the big cat eyes that dart back and forth as time passes. She claps her hands and begins clearing the table. I gulp down my glass of milk and race Maggie to our shared bathroom to brush our teeth. My mind is drifting to the woman. \n\nMama is waiting by the door, clutching our backpacks. Maggie’s is blue. Mine is pink. We rush into the car. I am still haunted by the woman in the dream. By her smile most especially. Mama picks Maggie and me up in the pickup lane at school. We pile into her white civic and she asks us the best part of our day. Maggie says the cafeteria served Mac and Cheese. I say I am sick of Mac and Cheese. We drive to a big, red brick building with lots of windows. Mama drives up and down the lanes of cars for a while. Maggie is singing some song she learned about the four seasons and swinging her feet. Mama tells her to stop kicking the seat. Maggie doesn’t stop. We finally park and Mama takes our hands. My left hand slips into her right. Mama’s hands are warm and soft. I like them more than the woman from my dream’s hands. We walk into the air conditioned building. Our feet sound loud and squeaky on the tile floor. There is a large water fountain which Maggie rushes up to. Her little fingers reach for the water. “We’ll come back when we’re done,” Mama promises. She ushers us into the office with the blue eye on the glass door. I take in the large room full of glasses. Mama marches up to the counter and brushes her gray hair from her face. She talks with the lady with the red lipstick and redder hair who tells us to stand against the white wall for a picture. I don’t smile. \n\nMama sits in the middle of Maggie and me. I can feel my palms getting sweaty and reach for Mama’s hand. She strokes mine gently so I open up my palm. I press my fingers into hers and giggle because the top of my nails only reach ⅔ up her finger. “You’re growing so big,” she whispers. A woman in blue scrubs calls out Maggie and my names. We jump up and follow her into another big white room. “I’m going first because I am the oldest,” I proclaim. Maggie does not protest. She has us sit in a chair and look at an image of a red hot air balloon soaring through green fields. The woman smiles a lot and while Maggie stares at the balloon, I read her name badge says Becky. Becky tells Mama some things and we follow her out of the room down a long white hallway with wooden doors on either side of us. She flicks a few colorful plastic flags posted above the door before letting us in.\n\nI take a seat in the big, black, leather chair. I sink back in it. The room is cold and smells too clean. Mama and Maggie sit in green cloth covered chairs. The same one from the waiting room. I notice a mirror. Becky comes back in. She takes a seat on the stool across from me. I am handed a little wooden spoon which I use to cover my left eye and the lights click off. Becky shows me a chart of letters. She instructs me to read the last line I can. I am desperate to pass the test. I mumble out: M, P, Q, Z? The last letter is certainly questionable. Becky just smiles and has me switch the spoon to my other eye. I repeat the test. But now I’m not so sure on the Q, too. \nBecky just smiles again and tells me this machine will help me do better. I lean forward against the black alien contraption with hundreds of little lenses. Becky is right. She has me select from two different options, but with each click the letters become clearer. I hear her say to my mother that I will need glasses. She tells me that it’s time to “dilate my eyes.” My heart begins to race as Mama stands and holds my hand. Becky tells me to hold open my eyes and look directly up. The first drop hits like acid. I scream. Maggie screams and jumps up. I can see her rushing to me. Becky says, “We have to do three more.” I demand to know why to which she replies, “It’s because you have such dark eyes, sweetie.”\n\nI don’t want to be her sweetie. Each drop feels like salt and chlorine from the pool is rushing in and burning my eyes. Maggie is thoroughly freaked out and Mama is trying to convince her to be brave. I dab at my eyes with the provided tissues. I feel better. Maggie takes her seat and completes the same ritual I did with Becky. When I spin to look at the mirror beside me I realize I can see the letters clearly. The Q was an O and the Z was a T. I feel like a fool. Becky has Maggie and I switch seats because the doctor will be in soon. \n\nOnce Becky is gone, Mama tells Maggie and me that we were so brave. Maggie’s eyes are red and her pupils are huge. We stand and giggle at each other while Mama watches. There comes a little knock on the door and the giggles subside. I diligently take my seat. The woman who walks in is the woman from my dreams. I have to stumble to pick my jaw up from the floor. She sits on Becky’s stool. She wheels over and intrudes herself as Doctor Yang. I mumble out my name and she smiles that same crinkly eyed smile from my dream. She leans forward and tells me to do the same. A bright light hits my eyes. She tells me to look at her earring. It’s a little pearl. With her this close I can smell the almonds again. I concentrate on her earring as she concentrates on my eye.The woman’s long fingers brush a lock of my hair from my eye. As instructed I look up, down, left, and right with my left eye. Then, I repeat the process with my left. Maggie takes her turn. I wonder if she feels as connected to Dr. Yang as I do. Probably not because Mama says Maggie and I have different birth mothers. Dr. Yang is not her birth mother. She is mine. Mama talks with Dr. Yang for a while and we walk back to the waiting room. “I’ll see you soon,” says Dr. Yang. I nod and smile as I do my best to memorize her soothing voice. \n\nMama takes us to a man with curly brown hair and square glasses. He sits at a glass table and welcomes us as we approach. Mama hands him two pieces of paper and instructs Maggie and me to “take a look around!” Maggie and I gaze at the colorful frames like kids in a candy shop. We try on red ones, black ones, blue ones, and purple ones. Some frames are square, others are round, and a few are oval. Our noses crinkle at the clear plastic part of a handful of frames that pinch slightly. Some grams don’t have that feature. Maggie settles on a blue square frame and I choose a pink rounded square frame. Out of the corner of my eye I see Dr. Yang. I wonder if I ran to her now if she could answer my questions. Since it’s no longer a dream. But she walks briskly to one of the doors and shuts it behind herself. Maggie and I stare at ourselves and each other in the mirror. Our pupils look like they came off our stuffed animals. Our little eyes are now so big. Mama hands over her credit card and we bounce away with the promise to return soon to pick up our glasses. \n\nOutside the office, the indoor water feature rushes around. As we step closer, I inhale the pungent scent of chlorine and cringe. But Maggie is ever fearless. She boldly skips over to the big, square bowl and takes a seat on the tiled edge. Her little feet dangle and graze the tile floor as her fingers reach for the water. “It’s cold,” she says as Mama digs in her worn, red wallet and hands her a penny. She gives me one, too. It’s cold in my hand and I know if I bring it to my lips for a kiss for good luck, it’ll smell metallicy. The water rushes louder beside me. I want to burst back into the office and throw my arms around Dr. Yang. I need to apologize for not trusting her last night. But will she take me away from Mama? “Make a wish and toss the penny in the fountain,” says Mama. I squeeze my eyes shut and wish to stay with mama." } ]

[ { "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: Base Stock\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 2216\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story about two or more characters who don't speak each other's language (literally or metaphorically), but still find a way to communicate." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "In the steamy air of Mizuna’s kitchen, beads of sweat trickle down the 30-something Japanese job candidate’s face.\n\n“Which restaurants have you worked in in New York?” I am holding the afternoon interview to replace the fifth prep cook who’s left this year for higher pay elsewhere.\n\n“None.” He shakes his head. “In Japan. Soba.” He gestures kneading dough with his hands. \n\nIn the kitchen the hiss of the gas burners is constant. With his limited English and my very basic Japanese, this conversation isn’t really going anywhere. I point toward the fry counter and raise my eyebrows.\n\n“Chahan. Gyoza,” he says and then proactively points toward the basin of boiling water, “ramen.”\n\nBingo! Right answer.\n\nThere’s no time for small talk in the restaurant business. I usually grill people if are they are going to be able to handle the pressure in the kitchen, show up at work on time, and suss out any criminal background or drug problems they might have.\n\nKaz, short for Kazuki, smells faintly of beer and his eyes look tired. But thick, tight muscles bulge around his shoulders and back, not a meth user. He looks as if he could sling a 100 lb side of pork over his shoulder if we didn't get our meat preprocessed.\n\n“So Kaz.” The big question. “Do you have a work visa?”\n\n“I have…a student visa,” he says. \n\nI've lost two line cooks this month. I decide a student visa is good enough. We can pay him in cash.\n\nIn fact 2003 has been a great year to open a ramen shop in New York. A trend in new Japanese culinary options is in full swing. Eating at a sushi bar and talking about how unique it is is your dad’s generation's thing. \n\nThe new Japanese food wave started in 1994. Nobu opened his restaurant in Los Angeles and introduced new tastes such as black cod with miso to his celebrity clientele. Chef Masa also became known as chef to the stars in LA. Soon foodies in New York also wanted a taste of the action.\n\nWe started in the East Village, just around the corner from St Mark’s place, the new culinary mecca for young professionals in the city. And by ‘we’ I mean me. After a year in Japan I wanted to bring back the authentic food culture I found in Tokyo’s shitamachi and pull America out of the era of Benihana. No one in Japan eats at Benihana.\n\n“You’ve got to weigh out all the ingredients,” I say to Kaz, “50g of sauce in each bowl.” I point to the little plastic cups of sauce lined up. He starts work the same day of his interview. It takes about 10 minutes to teach him the basics of working the line.\n\nDried noodles into the boiling water. 4 minutes. Get a bowl ready. Dump the noodles in. Pour 4 cups of pork broth over. And then the toppings. A laminated guide with photos is taped up behind the counter. It's easier than repeating myself to every new hire.\n\nI can teach him the rest later if he sticks around.\n\n“Brian-san.” Kaz gets my attention. He’s holding a Japanese electronic translator in his hand. “Garlic.”\n\nI show him where we store the garlic paste. \n\nSix o’clock soon turns around and we get busy serving the after work rush. It’s a Friday night and I’ve stocked up on double of everything. Two vats of base stock are simmering.\n\nBase stock is the secret to good ramen. That’s what I learned at ramen school. Every morning I devote an hour to boiling 50 lbs of pork and chicken bones with flavorings and skimming off the scum at steady intervals.\n\nOut front, there’s a line of customers. The first six months of Mizuna were a slow grind, but now things are kicking, and we’re finally making revenue above expenses. I hope to someday pay back dad on the $100k he put into my business plan.\n\nAfter a week, Kaz has learned all the tricks and is working on autopilot, and I can relax.\n\nEvery restaurant plays music to make the monotonous work more bearable. We take turns choosing the tunes during prep hours.\n\nI hear something awful.\n\n“Livin’ La Vida Loca is NOT allowed in this restaurant,” I shout over the noise. I push the next song button on the CD player. A management veto. \n\nThird Eye Blind’s “Semi-Charmed Life” begins playing. That's more like it.\n\nThat week I overhear a customer talking to Kaz.\n\n“Can you watch my kid for a second?” The man indicates he needs to go to the toilet.\n\nKaz is giving him a blank stare, I got to teach this new hire English. I make a mental note to practice a few English expressions with him every day.\n\n“I’ll keep an eye on him,” I say to the customer, “we get a lot of children eating here.”\n\nWhen he gets back to his seat he looks relieved his 2 year old hasn’t disappeared in his absence. “Thanks bud.”\n\n“No problem, anytime.” A good chance he’ll convert into a return customer if we can help him with his childcare issues. We get a lot of odd customer service requests like this. And I’ve answered a million questions on what goes into different types of ramen. \n\nKaz works like a machine in the kitchen so I can forgive him for not being good with customer service. The only other weak point I can see are his slippery fingers. But a broken dish now and then costs almost nothing for the restaurant.\n\nServing Asian cuisine also has a plus side. Fewer food complaints. When I worked summers in New Haven, if a steak was over-salted or a burger undercooked, the odds were high it would be sent back. For Asian food, if the sauce is off, they just think that’s the way it's supposed to be.\n\nI know myself if It's off as I’m half Japanese on my mother’s side. Being half works great for the restaurant biz. People want to see an Asian face behind the counter of a Japanese restaurant, right? But outside me, there’s not many Asian-Americans willing to work odd hours in a restaurant. Almost all of our employees have been immigrants. \n\nMonday nights are my day off.\n\nAt Zum Schneider on Avenue C, I meet my very American friend Brad from university. There’s not many people available for a drinking night out on Monday. But to be honest, Brad can be a bit of a dick sometimes.\n\n“Come to the Buddha Bar with me on Friday? There will be hot girls there,” he says.\n\n“I have to run the restaurant.”\n\n“Can’t you take a night off?”\n\nI take the first sip of beer and skip answering his question. The German pilsner has a crisp sour bite with a hint of flowers. The first sip is always the best.\n\n“Running a restaurant, you meet a lot of hot women there?” Brad is continuing with the same topic.\n\n“Not much time for talking,” I say, “Buy yeah, a lot of women come in.”\n\n“I’ll hang out sometime.” He takes a gulp of his beer too. “From being an international relations major, to running a restaurant, how did that happen?”\n\n“I know, I know. Almost everyone who studied PolySci or international relations at Brown now works in NGOs in DC or New York. But I wanted to do something real. Reconnect to my roots. That’s why I went to Japan to teach English.”\n\n“Do you speak Japanese?”\n\n“Before I went to Japan, almost none. My mother is Japanese. But she wanted us to be American, so we spoke English at home. I felt like I was missing something. There’s a reason why they call it a ‘mother tongue’ you know.”\n\nWhile I was in Japan I found learning the language to be more of a challenge than I expected.\n\n“You should watch Tanpopo,” I say. A film about a woman starting a ramen restaurant.\n\nOver the course of the evening, I try to educate Brad a bit about the humanities. He needs to learn there’s more to life than making money on Wall Street.\n\nBrad may party at the Buddha Bar on Friday nights but I need to have my fun in the restaurant where I work 16 hours a day 6 days a week.\n\nIt’s 1am, and we have to clean up the restaurant before we can go home. I put on “Push It” by Salt n’ Pepa. Kaz needs to learn how to loosen up. I try to entice him to dance while we wipe the tables and put the chairs up. As I’m thrusting my hips at Kaz, a young woman walking past the window looks in at me. Our gaze meets, and we both laugh through the window joyfully at each other before she walks off.\n\nThe next morning in the dining room, Dolly Parton is gently serenading our customers. We play soft rock during peak hours. It relaxes the diners.\n\n“Good looking guy like you,” I say to Kaz, “you’ve got a girlfriend or anything?”\n\n“I need money to get married,” he chuckles. Things are different for Japanese. I’ve noticed his English has been getting better after working in the restaurant a few weeks.\n\nA buddy of Kaz’s that comes to the restaurant tells me Kaz sometimes goes to a Japanese hostess bar in midtown. Expensive. I don’t think he’s going to pickup a girlfriend out of the working girls there. But at least, he’s interested in women.\n\nOn occasion, he shows up in the morning with different Japanese cooking ingredients and whips up a new recipe. I pick and choose from what I think will work with American customers.\n\nWhen winter comes, one morning he brings in Myoga. I’ve seen these small purple bulbs before but didn’t know what they're used for. Kaz cuts them into wafer thin slices and adds them into our gyoza dumplings. It adds a piney tang I’ve never tasted before. \n\nI find a piece of white chalk, pull out the step stool, and add ‘Winter Special - Myoga Gyoza’ to the menu. He looks especially proud to see that. \n\nLater that day during the lunch rush, we are dishing out ramen and even a few servings of the new gyoza. A loud clatter rings out. It’s loud enough to make every customer turn around and search for its source. Kaz is standing above shards of broken ceramic and steaming soup spreading across the floor. His hands are shaking. \n\n“I need to go home,” he says.\n\n“Ok,” I say. A man has pride. He dropped a ramen yesterday too. Maybe he just needs to have a few beers, or blow off some steam at that hostess bar I heard about. I hope he gets back by the night rush.\n\nHe doesn’t show up. Early the next morning, when I open the front door of Mizuna, I see something on the floor. It’s a photo of myself and Kaz standing behind the counter. Written on top in red marker is the word ‘Memories’ with a heart after it, like a girl would draw.\n\nFor days, Kaz doesn’t reply to any of my calls or messages.\n\nI can’t cook solo for long. We hire a new cook. Restaurants go through a lot of employees, cooks and servers come and go. Thousands of bowls of ramen are served. I no longer think about our best line chef, except for glancing at the photo taped up over the bar when I need to reach something up high.\n\nMore than a year later, sometime in 2005, an older Japanese couple come into the restaurant. They order two bowls of miso ramen. \n\n“Eeee~ Brian?” the Japanese man asks. \n\n“Yes?” I say.\n\n“Kazuki,” he points at himself, “Kazuki’s father.”\n\nIt takes me a second to figure out he’s talking about our line chef.\n\nHe pulls out a sheet of paper. He’s translated something.\n\n“Kazuki had…A.L.S.,” he says the words one by one. “He’s died.” He explains further. I find out that Kaz left his hometown when he was diagnosed with the initial symptoms. His childhood dream was to live in New York they say. I do as much as I can to sympathize with his parents, but there’s really not much I can do. I try to give them the photo of myself and Kaz above the bar but they tell me to keep it. After staying a while, they say thank you for helping Kaz realize his dream in New York and bow deeply when they leave.\n\nPerhaps I realize I'm missing something or that life is short. Later that year, I meet an amazing woman, Melissa. She’s also from Connecticut. We talk about reconnecting to our roots there, starting an organic farm. Maybe its time to start a new chapter. I’ve been approached by agents a few times to buy the business. My dad starts introducing me to his friends from academia, some who run non-profits in our home state. Even if the starting pay is not high, contributing to a good cause would be fulfilling. I could try that for a year and spend more time with Melissa while we search for our next project 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: Copper Arrows\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 2139\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a love story about an older couple who’ve been together since they were teenagers." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "See a penny pick it up all day long you’ll have good luck. Desiree Malone wasn’t superstitious yet, she needed something good in her life. \nShe glanced at Mr & Mrs Franco they were good people and her job as their home care nurse was a godsend. She amended her thoughts she needed something better, luckier. An apartment she could afford that didn’t take two hours to get to in horrible rush hour traffic. One that was in a neighbourhood that didn’t have her clenching the mace that hung on her key chain.\nThe wind picked up, somewhere wind chimes rattled, and the sun cast a glimmer on the copper coin. If Desiree had been a believer of signs, she would have taken this as an omen. Since she didn’t, there wasn’t any hesitation as she picked up the penny.\nMrs Franco’s waited at the battered Toyota she bought off her foster mother when she aged out of the system. Making sure Mr Franco’s wheelchair got placed in the boot, she slipped into the driver’s seat. \nThey pulled away from Windfall Senior Apartment headed for their destination. Twenty minutes later they pulled up to the park where a Welsh lad met a New York girl.\nIt surprised Desiree when her old social worker recommended to the Franco’s. She figured a job tidying up after old people would suck. Before the job, she never realised how much the elderly hated being frail. As the years went on, Desiree found comfort in Mrs Franco’s sage relationship advice. Mr Franco was quiet unless he was having a good day.\nDesiree secured Mr Franco’s wheelchair next to the park bench and sat next to Mrs Franco. At 8:30 on the dot, Mrs Franco would remind her husband about their first date. Here, under the willow tree with love notes tied around it. \nDesiree didn’t know when the willow first became a place where lovers left messages to each other. Even after all of Mrs Franco’s advice, she got no one to stay around long enough to give them her heart.\nDesiree glanced at the red box next to the tree with a stack of pencils next to it. The box contained different prompts for couples. Tell your lover a future you’d like to see, place it on the tree to watch it come true, come back once it’s fulfilled. Offer your gratitude to help new the saplings planted around the park to grow. Desiree wondered how many couples were still blissfully happy.\nWhile she waited, she looked at the penny in her palm. It was the strangest coin she’d ever seen. Stretched out to look more oval and melded flatter. \nMrs Franco shifted beside her and Desiree thought she needed luck more than her today. Sure, life wasn’t great for her, but Mrs Franco was a part of the reasons things had changed. Not being able to share the intimacy of a love of 39 years had to sting.\n“For luck.” Desiree placed the penny in Mrs Franco’s palm. The minute it glimmered and the street lamp busted, Desiree re-thought their luck. “Is everyone okay?” Darkness shrouded all the lights around the park had gone out.\n ***\nLogan Franco glanced at his sweet Ellie. Everything seemed clearer than it had for a long time. His mind had been murky, a jigsaw puzzle of pieces of his life. No matter how hard he tried to surface, he never broke through the polluted waters of his mind. Even his legs felt less frail. Wiggling his toes, he felt the sensation of numbness. The kind of numbness that sparked to life after a bit of walking to wake up a sleeping body part. \nHe smiled. \nLogan turned his head to the caramel-brown goddess before him. He didn’t understand what was happening. Ellie looked exactly as she did during their first date. Knitted sleeveless shift dress in stripes of yellow and orange at the top and navy at the bottom. Complete with yellow stockings and white knee-high boots. Even her hair was bone straight by a hot comb until the end where large curls fluffed out to hit her shoulders. \nLogan knew from the wheelchair he sat in that something wasn’t right. Although his mind clear, he knew she was no longer the 18-year-old girl he fell in love with that summer night. The summer of sneaking around, Motown, and chasing dreams. Unsure of anything, he waited to get back the feeling in the rest of his body before he moved.\n ***\nEllie Franco was positive she got acid slipped into her medication. She trusted Desiree completely. The girl that came so that Desiree could go to her night classes at the community college was another story. \nThere had to be a reason she felt like her old self, and Logan looked like his. Dusky blonde hair replaced grey. Shaggy bangs in his face, and not the closed to none existent, so Desiree didn’t have one more thing to worry about. Brown bellbottoms, shielding dancer thighs, and a loose white pirate top. Round sunglasses blocked most of his face.\nEllie thought the same thing looking at him she thought that first night. They’d get caught for sure who wore sunglasses at night? But they didn’t have to worry about people harassing them for loving each other. Not during this era. Black and white couples were less of a stigma.\nEllie wondered if she should say something. She glanced at Desiree, who had taken out her cellphone and help her mouth agape.\n“Mrs Franco? Mr Franco?”\n“Oh, thank God! I haven’t gone crazy!” Logan declared. He furrowed his brows as he looked from his wife to their caretaker. “Unless I’m dying. That’s it, isn’t it? I’m seeing you like this because it’s when I fell head over heel.”\n“Well, if that’s the case, I’m dying too. Why’s it so dark? Shouldn’t there be light and a tunnel?” \n“Uh... It’s the penny I gave you.”\n“Penny?” Logan raised his eyebrow and glanced between the two ladies.\n“That’s right, you gave me this thing for luck.” Ellie raised the odd coin up to the moonlight. The trio watched it glimmer and spin around in her hand. “Pennies don’t do whatever this one is doing. Where did you get that penny?”\n“I picked up outside the senior apartments.”\n“Ellie, who cares where she got it luv, we have our youth back. Let’s enjoy it. Do you The Parlour is still open? A banana split is calling my name.”\n“Where do you think you’re going? Do you even know where we are?”\n“Chestfield Park, which means The Parlour is three blocks over. Maybe. It’s been a few years, eh? Coming luv?” Logan held out his hand to his wife.\n“A few years? No, it’s been a few decades, decades, Logan. We should figure this penny situation out it could be dangerous.”\n“Magic pennies giving us our youth back on our anniversary sounds like a gift. Come on, baby let’s go celebrate.” Logan stepped closer to his wife and teased her lips apart for a heated kiss.\n ***\nDesiree didn’t know what to do, she wasn’t used to the Franco’s being hormonal teenagers. She wanted to leave them their privacy, but what if the magic gave out? Mr Franco would need help to get back into his wheelchair. “We should take the car to The Parlour, it’s still open by the way.”\n“Do we have to its four blocks at the most? Please, I have walked in, I can’t remember how long. Plus, to get to hold my girl’s hand down the street would be freeing.”\nDesiree bit her lip. She didn’t know about this, on the one hand, she got it. The duo before her never got to live in their love without oppression during their time. Before she could answer, the Franco’s were off chatting and joking down the lit park path. Desiree looked up at the sky. “Ok universe since you’ve given them this gift, keep them safe.”\n ***\nEllie never felt so happy in her life. She and Logan were walking down the street together. Hand entwined together. No snarky comments from people. “Little sister you head messed up they’ve got you enslaved.” She understood what the civil rights movement was all about. How could she not? She had two uncles and an aunt that were part of the black panthers. But at 18 all she wanted to do was love the man swinging his hand in hers. No chatter about how wrong they were, how disconnected to her roots she’d become.\nEllie was sure love could never be wrong. She smiled at Logan when he opened the door to The Parlour.\n“Whoa, it looks the same. Red vinyl and the jukebox’s still here. Think it’s still a dime?”\n“Not even with magic in our pocket.” She laughed at his disappointed face. “What say you buy me that sundae soldier?”\nLogan saluted her and kissed the back of her hand before he walked up to the counters.\n“They would have bought you guys the menu,” Desiree said, sitting into the seat in the booth across from Ellie. “I know you don’t want to think about this, but in case things change, I put the wheelchair in the boot.”\n“Don’t mention anything about whatever has happened to us when Logan gets back. You see Desi, my husband was a dancer, and he was good, broadway good. I never mention it out of fear he’ll hear despite everything. Tonight Logan and I are, Logan and Ellie, not Mr & Mrs Franco let us be that will you?”\n“Of course.”\n ***\nLogan watched his wife eat the chocolate sauce off the spoon he offered her. He traced his fingers on the fluff of curls at her shoulders. \nLooking at a waitress who was watching them, his back stiffed. Logan prepared himself for her to walk over and tell him he couldn’t do that here. He blushed when she finally came over and leant to whisper in his ear. “Be a nice young man and spare your chaperone from the heavy make-out sessions.”\nAt first, he didn’t understand the waitress, then he saw Desiree. She looked everywhere but at him and Ellie as she tore napkins into bite-size pieces. He’d never been so giddy in his 75 years. \nThe waitress who looked a decade younger than he had been an hour ago wasn’t disgusted. She was reprimanding him about his horn doggedness. \nLogan tried to temper his need to laugh. He couldn’t help wanting to touch his wife. It’d been too long since his body could do anything. To love her openly was enough for him to nod his head.\nAfter their sundae, they went to the beach. The three of them played in the arcade on the pier all night.\nLogan hadn’t realised until that moment how lonely he and Ellie were in lives. Neither of them had friends. Coming to the south from Welsh was already something unheard of in the 60s. Most thought American didn’t have culture or class. Logan found America intriguing and planned to backpack through it while he took a gap year. He never suspected his trip would take him to a Carolina girl who had plans to move to New York. He especially didn’t think they’d leave New York’s crazed bubble. Everyone from the Upper East Side to Harlem had ideas of what and how he and Ellie should behave. He’d lost a few jobs under famed Broadway directors who told him exactly how they felt about his feelings.\nWalking down to the beach, he stripped off his clothing. He kept on the boxers they bought in a CVS to replace his adult diapers.\n“Ouch!”\nLogan turned away from the water when he heard Ellie’s voice behind him. He looked down with her to the sand where the penny spun faster and faster.\n“It burned me.”\n“That doesn’t sound good,” Desiree said.\nThey continued to watch the penny until it shot out a copper light. It hit Ellie first who fell back, Logan shouted and tried to reach her but the other light knocked him out. Desiree stared at the pair with uncertainty. She was about to call for an ambulance when Ellie sat up.\n“Eros said he hadn’t seen people fight for such pure love in a long time. He said our second chance was a gift.” Ellie blinked back tears and went over to Logan.\n“I can’t believe he shot us with his arrows!” Logan shook his head as he sat up. “That freaking hurt.”\n“That light was arrows?”\nEllie and Logan nodded.\n“Hey, you got your youth back are you really going to complain.”\n“Well, yeah... I guess not.” Logan turned to his wife. “It’s been one hell of an anniversary after all.”" } ]

[ { "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: May My Wing Send You Free\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 2146\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story told from the point of view of an animal." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I know he can always sense me nearby.\nIf that was the last remaining work of Longwei or simply the fact that Ung had always been a little too smart for his own good, I did not know.\nI can say, though, that when he walks home from school alone and the ripples in the pond nearby shiver, he knows that I am flying fast, and I can say that when the branches shake above his head, he knows that I am flying free. And so what matters most is that Ung knows he is not lost because I am his echo. I am what comes after. I am the wind. I am his birdcall.\n-\nTo tell you the truth, Ung was born too early. Too small. When I first saw him in the cradle, I didn't know what to make of him. Tza--or maybe it was Gee... it's beginning to get harder and harder to remember-- tended to get nervous when I was around him, as if I would somehow bring harm. It was not implied whether it was physical or nasty luck I would cause. It wasn't every day a baby's older brother flapped around like I did.\nI couldn't describe Ung's baby skin even if I tried. It was sick-like, almost similar to that of waxy almonds. When I would stretch the tip of my wing, my feathers would brush against him, and he'd never make a sound. I'd always stop to think now and then if he was ever frightened of me. Of my beady eyes and white and brown-crusted fur. He never did get scared, though, or at least not from what I could tell. To tell you another truth, I didn't think Ung could get scared. He was too other. If magic was real he was it.\nSo he'd sit in that big, white cradle with his big brother bird looming over him, ensuring he was protected. I thought it my job to make sure he was. I'd watch the raindrops smack against the window at night, and watch dawn rise once again knowing this strange, small creature was safe.\n-\nI think what's important to know is that when Tza was pregnant with me and slowly becoming heavier and breaking as if she was carrying the Earth itself within her form, Gee went to see the healer who lived deep in the Siztiik forest. She called herself Longwei. It meant \"dragon greatness\" which was said to be her warrior name back when she was learning the ways of the forest. There were three names for one person back then. The one you were born with, the one you said to the silver lake when it showed you your true self, and the one to which you answered when summoned. Longwei was the only person Gee knew could help him when Tza was dying.\nLongwei outwardly looked maybe halfway through her life, but she was, in reality, old enough to be called a legend. Gee slammed his fist against the wooden oak door and called her name. He said, Longwei, make my son strong. Make him alive. Make him never stumble when he walks or run when he is scared. May he go to great heights. Give Tza enough power so that this may come true. Can you do that?\nThe door opened, and Longwei peered with a jar of feathers and pine in her hand and said Yes. Yes, I can do that.\n-\nNobody knew what I would become until the transformation slowly started to begin. I was ten and had just learned how to swim in the river. Had begun to understand my math. Had sat watching the bugs move on that flat stone below my bedroom window. At least I know what it is like to touch the sky.\nSome may ask what it feels like to a bird, and the truth is it has its moments. I never have to live in fear, as Gee had asked of me. Longwei made me a predator bird for a reason. I do have to tell you, though, that when you soar with the gentle wind caressing you, holding you in guidance, and you look down to see the tips of the evergreen trees along with the snowy mountains, it was nothing short of otherworldly. When one is so used to looking up, it hits you how odd it is to look down. But of course, I had to learn how to love these things. Had to for Ung, so he could stay alive. For Tza because she had worked too hard. For Gee because he was so tired.\nSometimes when it was cold outside and winter was approaching with its whisper of ice-like death, I'd sit on the windowsill and stare at Tza reading to Ung on the living room rug. Tza would hold him in her lap, looking over his shoulder as she read. Something burned my chest then, and I'd remember that although I was much smaller, I still felt too much. Within me, it lived. Reminded. It was times like these that you forget you were once ever a human at all.\n-\nWhen I was ten, Tza became pregnant with Ung. Through her transformation into motherhood, I transformed into Longwei's falcon.\nAnd Ung was a quiet baby. Never made a sound. When he laughed, it was the sound of rain against a tin roof. Choppy, as if the noise was coming out wrong. As if he didn't know what to make of it.\nWhen he finally learned how to balance his body to sit upright, he'd stare at me for a long time. Just watching. Calculating, it seemed like. My stare would meet him back, and for a minute, that's all we'd do. I think about how even though neither of us could talk, we'd speak to each other in a language Tza and Gee never would understand.\nUng scrunched his eyes before he leaned forward and placed his palm on the width of my beak. Something like wet leaves became stuck in my throat. I then wondered if birds ever cried and what it sounded like. Maybe it was tin roof laughter, too.\n-\nMy brother never got to see me as a human, and though ten-year-old me had so much to tell him-- about the bugs, and the swimming and the math--I knew there was nothing else I could do.\nBut that was before he really began to get sick.\n-\nLike the passing of a year, it was slow before it sped up all at once. So fast that what you thought was yesterday was four months ago. So sudden that you sat in your room at night thinking about where all the time ran off to. Time never kissed you goodbye but rather slamed the door on its way out.\nI am eleven, and all too quickly Ung began to be too feverish at night. When his coughs thundered and roared, I'd watch down from the side of his crib, footsteps rushing into that tiny room.\nI only thought of one thing the whole time:\nSave him.\nI watched as Tza and Gee knelt down, Ung curled in Tza's arms. I flapped down from the crib and wobbled towards them on my useless taloned feet. I felt defeated. The creature was dying.\nI looked over and saw Gee, his eyes wide. He placed his factory-worn hand on Ung's burning forehead when it had struck me that Gee had lived this before. Twelve years earlier, when his wife began dying.\nHis upper lip became sweaty, and when he spoke, it was frog-like, in slow croaks. He called me by a name I hadn't heard in a long time.\nJin. Gee placed his other hand on Mother so she'd stop trembling. Jin go to her. The healer in the forest. I cannot, as me and your mother have already seen her, and she is only to be called upon once in a person's life. But please...Please, my son. She has cursed us once before, but maybe she has enough in her heart to spare your brother.\nWith that, I saw in my father's eyes the very same message I had sent before:\nSave him.\nBut I am just a child.\n-\nI flew across our village to the Siztiik forest, it marked my first and last time ever going there. As children, we were warned to enter it, as there were said to be trolls and goblins who would eat us alive if we ventured any farther than the open pathway. I always obeyed, not because of the trolls, but because I knew Longwei resided in the forest, and she was far scarier than any of the trolls or goblins.\nI clumsily flapped my wings as I approached the front of her house, talons grabbing the door-knocker in the middle of that great oak door. The thing suddenly opened by itself, groaning in the process. When I fluttered in, I saw the back of the Healer standing in front of a fireplace. You're here because of that ill brother of yours, aren't you? Jin son of Gee.\nBefore I could respond, Longwei turned around, facing the very thing she cured and cursed twelve years ago.\nYou can speak, you know. I shall understand you as you are the forest, and I am the keeper of the forest. So go on, tell me what it is that you want.\nHer voice were raspberry thorns: scratchy, tangled. I didn't know how to look her in the eye, so I gazed out and said the only thing I could.\nMake my brother strong. Make him alive. Can you do this?\nLongwei tsked her tongue before turning to her side to grab a bottle of feather and pine.\nI can, she said. But you should know that if I am to make him strong, the same thing that happened to you will happen to him.\nI couldn't help cawing bitterly in return: I thought you were supposed to be a healer. What are these riddles you put upon us? On our lives?\nLongwei raised her eyebrows.\nWhy I am, dear child, but I am not a miracle worker. Nor a God. I can only do what people ask me to do to the limits of the forest. I cannot bring your brother back to health, for he is dying. She paused. That is...\nI leaned forward. She continued.\nWell! you must've known you being a falcon wouldn't last forever. It's only to hit ten years of your life as you come to know great height and strength as your father has asked of you.\nIt was the sound of broken glass shattering. Only that sound.\nYou could become human again, Jin. You could touch and marry and laugh and breathe in the scent of the sun. That melancholy, delicate human nature will return to you, and your skin will burn. You will walk again on steady feet, knowing what it was like to fly once. It could be yours once more. Unless...Unless you decide to take your brother's bird life from him. This would mean you must remain the falcon forever, though.\nForever.\nLongwei held out her hand, and in the middle was feather and pine.\nIf you take the feather and return to him, your brother will grow as normal. If you take the pine, he will learn to fly as great as you have one day.\nI couldn't move. I stared down at the contents in her hand and thought of Ung's waxed almond skin. Of the way his small hand felt on my beak. Of his tin roof laughter.\nMy wings spread out before I knew it and the windowpane shivered when I flew out-- the decision tucked between my beak. I am a child no more.\n-\nIt is summer, and Ung has just turned fourteen.\nHe walks home from school, and even though I don't return home as often as I wish, he senses I am near. As Ung got older, I left more and more. Sometimes it became too much.\nI know I am weak but is what reminds me that somewhere deep down I am human.\nAs I get old, remembering becomes harder. I don't know if Ung ever looks up and see me watching-- and remembers. I'm not sure if Tza and Gee ever told him that in another life, I was his older brother. Perhaps Ung will see me as a creature that brings him good luck.\nPeering down from my place on a tree, I catch my brother look up and wave.\nMy wings expand as I shoot off the branches. They shake above him and I am flying fast before drifting in front of the water. It ripples, and I am flying free." } ]

[ { "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: Hana, Hanako, Hanabi\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 2990\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a character, human or robot, who no longer wishes to obey instructions." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Once, when I was a child, my father took me on a day trip to Nagasaki and said, \"This is what can happen when you're not careful.\" He gestured to the Peace Park around us, the chestnut trees and the memorial statue and the plaques commemorating the atomic bombing. We were alone, save for a few crows roosting in the treetops, but he spoke like he was divulging classified information. \"Your great-grandfather, for example. He passed away in the explosion, as did many others like him. Unprepared.\"\nHe stood with his back to the sun, forcing me to squint every time I looked at him. I was so focused on my eyesight that I said nothing. And perhaps he mistook silence for confusion, because then he whistled, a high-pitched noise that got lower and louder by the second, until he clapped his hands and mimicked the sound of an explosion.\n\"Just like that,\" he said.\nThe finality of his tone knotted my stomach. By way of distraction I pictured my mother as she'd appeared that morning when we drove off. She wore a sun hat and gardening gloves emblazoned with orchids. She waved as we sped down the road, then returned to pruning our cherry blossom tree. I imagined myself by her side, the two of us like a mother-daughter superhero duo, carefully snipping off dead branches and saving our tree from fungi and disease.\nIt wasn't until later, after my father—knowing I couldn't yet read—had guided me to a bronze plaque cluttered with words and told me that my great-grandfather's name was etched in the tablet, after he'd made me touch it and I cried, that we finally trekked back to the van and drove an hour back home.\nThe heat from the oven greeted us when we returned. My mother emerged from the kitchen, dusting her flour-crusted hands on her black apron. The smell of matcha cookies trailed her like a shadow.\n\"Did you have fun, Hana?\" she asked.\nMy father closed the door behind us, stayed beside it and jiggled the knob.\n\"Yes,\" I replied, feeling his eyes on my back. And I gave her that same answer when she asked if I wanted to play our game.\nWe had a routine, the two of us. Every day she would twist my name, adding syllables and letters, teaching me the meanings of new words and phrases.\nThe day before, when we were in our flower garden, my mother taught me Hanako. Her mouth curved beautifully around the weight of the new syllable, filled the word with promise. \"Flower child,\" she translated in English. She plucked one of her precious hydrangeas, nestled it in my hair.\nI didn't know when I'd ever have any use for English. Still, I liked to imagine myself with these names, wondering what kind of person I would've been if only I'd been born as Hanako or Hanae.\nThat day in the kitchen, with the smell of matcha cookies spiraling around us, my mother closed her eyes and said hanabi. \"Fireworks,\" she clarified, and raised her fist. When her arm could extend no further, she whispered \"Bang!\" and released her fingers, sprinkling us with imaginary gunpowder.\nFeeling particularly clever for catching the connection between this and my father's expedition, I giggled and said, \"Oh, like great-grandfather?\"\nMy mother blinked once, twice. Her mouth bobbed. The oven beeped, its timer flashing a parade of zeroes, and she almost dislodged the tablecloth when she jumped to retrieve the cookies.\nLater that night, their whispers snaked through the floorboards. I stared out the window at the silhouette of our tree, tracing the outline of its missing limbs as my father's voice grew louder.\n\"She should know,\" he shouted. \"Why not? She has a right to know these things so she doesn't make the same mistakes.\"\n\"What mistakes? She's five-years-old, Daisuke,\" my mother said. \"There's a time and a place for—\"\n\"What time? What place?\"\nThen my mother murmured something. I closed my eyes, held my breath, did everything I could to hear their words, but the only noise that came after was my father's footfalls on his journey to the couch.\nThe next day, I found my mother in the kitchen and the batch of cookies in the trash can. When questioned, she said, slowly, \"I made a mistake while baking them. I wasn't careful.\"\n\"Okay,\" I said, and decided not to tell her that I tiptoed into the kitchen during the night and ate three of them. They'd tasted fine to me, bittersweet and nutty.\nMy mother stood at the sink, her hands submerged in the soapy water. \"I think it'd be best if you didn't talk about your great-grandfather anymore, Hana,\" she said. \"Okay?\"\nI stared at the mound of green cookies, stacked like bodies. \"Okay.\"\nAfter she finished washing the dishes I waited for her to broach the subject of our game, eager to hear the other permutations of my name.\nShe didn't mention it. Not the next day, either. And after a few weeks I gave up altogether, resigning myself to be just plain old Hana.\n***\nYears later I played the game by myself, sitting before the glow of the family desktop. I limited myself to researching one word per day, and always repeated their English definitions. By the time I was a teenager, I'd amassed hundreds of names and fanciful identities.\nThis proved helpful when, a week after my sixteenth birthday, my father accepted a job promotion with a twist: he was to lead his company's operations in Seattle.\nOn the plane ride to America, as the sky darkened under the wing of the 747, my father issued a litany of instructions: no drinking, no drugs, no parties. Then, before he brought his blanket up to his chin, he added, \"And no other boys.\"\nHe fell asleep before I could ask him to clarify \"other,\" but his tone said it all. In this new world, any boy that wasn't like us was trouble.\n***\nAnd maybe it was because he was the first person at my new school to talk to me, or maybe it was because he also spoke with a trace of an accent, but trouble found me.\nHis name was Cliff. He drove a Ford pickup, worked part-time at a grocery store, and made C-average grades consistently. These I knew because he told me the day I transferred, as though he were in a rush to expose his imperfections before someone else had the chance. \nAt first I rolled my eyes, pretending not to notice his glasses or his toned arms. My father's words occupied the back of my mind like an uninvited houseguest who's worn out their welcome. Cliff was certainly an \"other\" boy.\nBut somewhere along the line it became another game, just like the one my mother and I used to play.\nHe would tell me one new thing about himself every day in first period pre-calculus: that he hadn't actually read a book since second grade, that he thought vomit was tougher to mop up than blood in the grocery store, that he believed true love only came around once in a lifetime. He looked right at me when he said that last one and didn't turn away, even when the teacher shushed him.\nMaybe that was the moment I knew Cliff was different.\nOnce, I'd missed the bus after school when my sixth period teacher made us stay fifteen minutes late to punish one of my classmates. When we were released, I dashed to the bus zone but found it empty except for a few seniors' cars. Sighing, I tried to calculate the how long it'd take to walk home when someone behind me honked. Cliff rolled his window down and beckoned. \nAgainst my better judgement, against my father's forewarnings, when he leaned over and popped open the passenger door, I slid in.\nWe rolled through the streets with the windows down and the music up. Unlike the Cliff I saw in first period, the Cliff behind the wheel was overly cautious, checking his mirrors and his blind spots with the fervor of a zealot, pulling over to the side when he heard the hint of a siren behind him.\n\"Tell me something about yourself,\" he said as we were waiting for the ambulance to pass. \"I'm always telling you stuff about me but I feel like I don't know anything about you.\"\nI considered what I had to match his stories, said, \"My mother and I used to play this game where we would form different words from my name,\" and I gave him a few examples with the translations.\nHe laughed. Hanabi, he said, was his favorite.\nTen minutes later, when we pulled into my neighborhood and made it to the driveway, my heart stopped. My father's car was parked in front of the garage.\nHe was never home early.\n\"Let's do this again sometime,\" Cliff said as I collected my backpack and prepared to alight from the truck.\n\"Sure,\" I said, my voice more distant than intended. I turned to thank him, only to feel his lips on mine. My body tingled; my eyelids closed of their own volition. I'd never been kissed before.\nCliff pulled away, a dreamy look in his eyes. \"See you tomorrow?\" he said. \"You know where to find me.\"\nMy legs wobbled as I answered, \"Yeah,\" and closed the door behind me. He flashed a peace sign and disappeared down the street in his sputtering truck.\nIt wasn't until I got inside that I realized what'd just happened. I took a step toward the staircase, hoping to make it to my room undetected.\n\"Who was that?\" my father called from the couch. \"Come here, Hana.\"\n\"It was a friend from school,\" I said, and swore under my breath. When I entered the living room, I noticed the blinds were ajar.\nHe saw. He knew.\n\"What did I tell you?\" my father said, standing up. Then, louder, \"What did I tell you? No other boys!\"\nSomething snapped inside me. He had no right to talk about someone he hadn't even met, someone he had no intention of getting to know.\n\"You don't know what he's like,\" I shouted back. \"You don't know anything. Just because he died in the bombing doesn't mean—\"\nAnd I couldn't bring myself to mention my great-grandfather by name.\nAnd then it didn't matter because I recoiled, snapped back into reality by the stinging in my cheek. I felt the imprint of my father's hand before I even knew he'd moved it.\n\"Don't tell me what I don't know,\" he said, right before I retreated to my room.\n***\nIt happened months later, on Independence Day.\nOur neighbors from across the street decided to host a block party. After months of spending her time sequestered inside the house with no flower garden or cherry blossom tree to occupy herself, my mother leaped at the invitation. She commandeered the kitchen, perfumed the house with the aroma of her matcha cookies. \nShe filled two Tupperware tubs by late afternoon. Only when she was stuffing the mixing bowl with more dry ingredients did she realize she was missing something crucial. She called me in from my spot on the couch.\n\"I need you to pick up some matcha powder at the store,\" she said. Her hair was frazzled, her apron stained with flour. \"The organic kind, if you can find it.\"\nMy father, who was at the dining table tucking bits of salmon into sushi rolls, scoffed. \"Like they'll be able to tell the difference,\" he said, and placed $10 on the table.\nThe Safeway was ten minutes away on foot. Inside, air conditioning flowed freely, putting up a barrier between the customers and the summer heatwave. The place was almost empty, except for the employees.\nMaybe that's why I startled in the coffee/tea aisle when I bent to grab the non-organic matcha powder and my name rang out above me.\nCliff stood a few feet away. He looked like a mix between Clark Kent and Superman in his glasses and apron with the red-and-white \"S\" logo stitched in the middle.\n\"Did I do something wrong?\" he asked before I could stand. \"If I did, I'm sorry. Really, I am.\"\nHeat bloomed in my chest, in my cheek where the memory of my father's hand lingered. Cliff still texted me occasionally whenever he saw something interesting or thought of something that might make me laugh, but I never responded. I'd stopped speaking to him in first period after that day. I told myself it was because I wanted to be careful.\nThe words came tumbling out. \"I'm sorry. It was never your fault. I just couldn't,\" I said, but wasn't sure where to go from there.\nHe exhaled, releasing his balled fists. His expression was inscrutable, somewhere on the precipice of relief and skepticism.\n\"I've been wanting to talk to you,\" he said. \"For a while now.\"\n\"I know.\" What else was there to say?\nHe eyed the tea powder. \"Look, are you busy tonight?\" he said. \"I mean, I know it's a holiday and all, but I was wondering if maybe, if you weren't doing anything, you wanted to spend it together. To catch up. I know this great place where everyone's going.\" \nThe matcha box felt like an anchor in my palm.\n\"I don't know, Cliff.\" His name still had an edge to it that I loved, a sharpness.\nHe held up his hands. \"Hey, no pressure. If you change your mind, I get off at ten o'clock. You know where to find me.\"\n\"Okay,\" I said, and forced myself to move in the direction of the checkout aisle. I told myself not to look back, not to be careless.\n***\nAt 9:50, as they mingled with neighbors we'd spent the year living with but had never spoken to, I told my parents my stomach hurt. My father raised an eyebrow, but my mother, the life of the party thanks to her matcha cookies, permitted my return to the house. I closed the backyard gate behind me and continued on down the block.\nCliff stood at the entrance of Safeway, still wearing his apron. Behind him the evening light was fading on the horizon.\n\"You made it,\" he said with a smile.\n\"I made it.\"\nWhen we got to his truck, he held my door open and waited until I buckled myself to close it. Then he piled in and backed out of the lot and we cruised down the road.\nLike the pavement underneath us, our conversation was rough, full of starts and stops, potholes and speed bumps. We drove with the windows down, feeling the wind in our hair and ears. We finally found our rhythm fifteen minutes later when Cliff joked about his job at \"Slaveway\" and how he could almost afford to buy Netflix with all the money he made.\nAnother ten minutes later, when we arrived at the place Cliff mentioned, the place where everyone was supposed to be, it was empty save for one other car parked a good forty feet away. The place was a glorified field of grass, rampant with weeds. Insects trilled outside the window. He unbuckled himself but remained seated.\n\"Where is everyone?\" I asked.\nCliff pointed vaguely to a spot beyond the windshield, cut the engine. \"Wait for it.\"\nSeconds passed, then minutes. The headlights of the other car beamed for a moment then fizzled into darkness. I stared to the spot Cliff indicated but saw nothing.\nBefore I could speak, he said, \"Hey, can I ask you something?\"\nIt was dark in the car without the glow of the dashboard or any streetlights. It sounded like Cliff was looking at me when he said it, but he could've just as easily been speaking to the steering wheel.\n\"Yeah?\" \n\"Did you ever miss me?\" he asked. \"I thought about you all the time, how you were doing. If I messed things up. I never knew.\"\n\"Yes.\"\nBut the word didn't seem strong enough. I thought that if I could explain myself, if I could let him know that I never meant for it to be like that, if I could only tell him how this all began, we'd be back to normal, back together.\n\"My great-grandfather,\" I whispered for the first time in over a decade, and stopped when a burst of color spanned the length of the windshield. We watched as the sky brightened with bursts of gunpowder. Fireworks crackled to life, bathing us in light one second and shadow the next. \n\"I missed you, Hanabi,\" he said. Then he dipped forward and placed his lips on mine, prying open my mouth with his tongue, and I knew where things were going.\nWhen he pulled away and yanked his apron over his head, crumpling it until the Superman-style logo vanished, I knew it then too.\nWhen he leaned over and unbuckled my seat belt, I saw things in my mind as clear as when I imagined myself and my mother pruning our cherry blossom tree together.\nAnd when he put his hand on my knee and spider-walked it up my leg, I let him, silently cursing my father for being wrong and right. Because Cliff wasn't like the other boys. But I understood too what he meant then, how things could happen when you were unprepared, how you could try to fight against them and still be helpless.\nAnother firework arced into the sky and exploded, releasing a pinwheel of light in the shape of a chrysanthemum. Just before the sparks faded, I caught a glimpse of myself in Cliff's rearview mirror, and I wondered which version of me I was seeing then: Hana the gentle flower, or Hanabi the dazzling firework, or someone else altogether, someone not yet named." } ]

[ { "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: Words Wrapped In A Song\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1979\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a child witnessing a major historical event." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Wren was lying on her bed reading when she heard her mother scream. Barkley, who was tucked in the crook of her legs, popped his head up, ears alert. He uncurled himself, hopped to the floor and clicked down the hall. Wren followed him, her heart beating fast. The house still smelled like dinner, warm and comforting. Water was running in the kitchen. \n In the den, the TV set was on. The soft, familiar murmur of the evening news filled the room with urgent words. Wren’s mother stood stock still, her hands over her mouth, a dish towel over her shoulder. “Turn it up,” she whispered. Wren’s father reached for the knob. \n Walter Cronkite sat against a silvery-blue background, his face serious. Murder,\nhe said in his clipped voice. All points bulletin. Shots fired. Bullets exploded. Turbulent racial situation.\n “What happened?” Wren asked quietly. Barkley plopped down at her feet and began to scratch his chin, tags jingling.\n “Oh honey,” her mother turned, eyes wet. “It’s Dr. King. He was killed tonight.”\n “Dr King? Martin?” Wren had read about him in the newspaper. He had been on the\nEvening News a lot lately, surrounded by people marching and praying and singing. She liked him. He seemed strong and kind. His voice sounded like words wrapped in a song. \n Wren’s mother had told her that Dr. King was a hero who fought for others. “A lot people in this country don’t have basic rights,” she had said. “Imagine not being able\nto vote.”\n Her father had shaken his head, “It’s criminal.” \n “Who killed him? Why?” Wren folded onto the couch, strange feelings catching in her throat. She hugged a scratchy pillow, tears springing to her eyes. Barkley hopped up next to her.\n “No one knows.” Her mother plucked the afghan from the back of the couch and passed it to Wren. “But his words had power, and somebody didn’t like that.” \n Wren’s father stood, grabbed the dish towel from her mother’s shoulder and headed towards the kitchen. “He was a good man,” he muttered gruffly, the smoke from his cigarette following him. Wren heard the water turn off. Dishes clinked. The news droned on.\n Wren went to school the next day with the newspaper headline swimming in her head. DR KING SLAIN BY SNIPER IN MEMPHIS. Kids streamed around her in the chilly hallway, chattering excitedly about the news. Some of them looked happy. Some of them looked confused. Some of them looked like they’d rather be talking about Gunsmoke. Nobody seemed to carry the grief that sat in Wren’s chest, except for\nBernadette.\n Bernadette was the new kid. Bold and brassy, braids bouncing with every word, she told anyone who would listen, “We moved here from Alabama in the summer. It’s hot\nhere but it’s nothin’ compared to the South.”\n She sat in the desk in front of Wren’s and she was the smartest kid in class. She raised her hand at every question, answering in her soft drawl. When Mrs. Anderson didn’t call on her, she waved her hand impatiently. When kids made fun of her, she snapped right back with flashing eyes. She could win any debate, fight her way through every dodgeball game on the blacktop, and she had read more books than Wren, which was saying something. Wren had never met anyone like her. \n Mrs. Anderson stood the front of the classroom with a ruler in her hand. “Settle down, class.” she shouted over the chatter. “Let’s all stand at attention.” Wren set her bag down, took her math book out and laid it on her desk, then placed her hand over her heart. Bernadette turned towards the flag, her movements like Robot from Lost in Space. Her lips moved along, One Nation, Under God, Indivisible, but her usually animated face was ashen. \n “Now,” clipped Mrs. Anderson, “Let’s turn to page six. Who can give me the answer to\nquestion number four?” For the first time since she’d arrived at Andrew Jackson Elementary in September, Bernadette’s hand stayed in her lap.\n Wren sat at her desk for the rest of the morning, working through math problems and writing paragraphs, her thoughts far away, swirling around Dr. King. She thought about seeing him on the evening news Special Report as he led all those people across the bridge in Alabama. She thought about his speeches. Let us March. She thought about the river of people marching, their faces filled with hope. The dignity and worth of all God’s people. She thought about her mother weeping in front of the TV set. Truth crushed to earth will rise again. Words wrapped in a song.\n By lunch time, Bernadette was back to her usual self. Wren stood behind her in line,\nclutching her canvas bag, waiting for the big, heavy cafeteria doors to open. \n “I’m going to change out of these braids,” she said to Wendy Wilkins, “My momma said I could have curly hair, just like Diana Ross.”\n With a warm whoosh that smelled like a meaty mix of bread and mashed potatoes, the pale green doors finally opened. The line unspooled onto benches at long wooden tables as new lines branched out and formed around shiny metal serving windows and a damp table stacked with cartons of milk. \n Wren found her seat at the edge of a long table and peered into her bag. This room had always been a gauntlet of confusing rules. Sit here, you don’t belong with us; don’t\neat hot lunch, unless it’s Thursday; never tell if you see who shot the straw wrapper into Mrs. Bellwether’s cleavage. She took an apple out of her bag and began to nibble on its mottled skin. Her mother had made her a sandwich on homemade bread with sprouts grown on the kitchen windowsill in a big glass jar. Wren liked her homemade sandwiches and she liked the sprouts, but the kids waved their bologna and cheese sandwiches on soft white bread and laughed at her brown one, so she always saved it until recess.\n Mrs. Bellwether blew her whistle, two sharp tweets. The kids jumped up, leaving piles of trash and wobbling milk cartons behind on the tables. They raced each other to the blacktop, jostling and pushing their way onto dodgeball court. They reminded Wren of tiny armies going off to battle. She imagined them on a giant chess board, strategizing, preparing to attack.\n Harold Bowler, the shortest and meanest kid in class, was Napoleon Bonaparte. She\nimagined him commanding his troops in a tall fringey hat and a fluttering scarf. He stalked up and down the court, ball in hand, yelling at the other kids in his raspy voice. Jenny Parker was Mary Queen of Scots, constantly scheming, making comments that seemed nice until you thought about them twice. Elizabeth McGowen and Betsy Bell were the evil stepsisters, following Jenny around school, cat-like, purring, with soft paws hiding sharp claws. Bernadette was Harriet Tubman, in the middle of it all, eyes flashing, chin jutted out against Harold’s tyranny. \n A long time ago, Wren tried to join in the game, but the rules were confusing and she was always tagged out, so she took her library books and she leaned against an ash tree with branches that reached for the clouds scooting across the bright blue sky. Day after day, she sat with her back against the tree's giant trunk, tucked into a hollow between it's gnarled roots, watching the game, grateful to be bad at dodgeball. \n Wren took her sandwich out of her bag and opened her book, savoring bites of bread that tasted like home. She tumbled into the story, allowing it to calm her topsy-turvy\nthoughts. Sounds of the dodgeball game floated towards her; the yelling and shouting, the big red ball bouncing and whizzing between the kids, yelps of surprise when it hit a target, more shouting. \n Suddenly, the shouting stopped. Harold’s voice cut through the quiet. “I said,” he advanced towards Bernadette, “you’re out.”\n Bernadette held her ground, hugging the big red ball against her chest. “You cheated,” she shot back. “I’m not out.”\n “You’re out,” Harold said again, a little louder this time. \n “I’m not,” Bernadette’s voice matched Harold’s.\n Suddenly, Harold pulled up his sleeve, pointed at his arm and pushed his face into Bernadette’s.\n “What color am I?” He snarled. Birds sang in the treetops, the cool breeze ruffled the leaves of the old ash tree.\n Bernadette dropped the ball. Wren watched as it bounced across the blacktop and rolled onto the grass. The kids on the dodgeball court sucked in a breath. Someone\nwhistled.\n “You’re white,” Bernadette’s words were clear and matter of fact.\n “And that,” Harold stood on his tiptoes, inches away from Bernadette’s face, “makes me the one in charge.”\n Wren felt her body unfurl from her spot against the tree. I have a dream. Her book flew to the ground. All men are created equal. Her legs moved underneath her, propelling her towards the blacktop and straight into Harold Bowler. She hit him so\nhard that he flew to the ground with a surprised shout.\n “Hey!” He tried to scramble to his feet, but Wren stood over him, her shadow falling on his face.\n “How dare you,” she said, her voice quivering. “How dare you, Harold Bowler. You leave her alone.”\n Bernadette stood motionless, staring at Wren. Her face was unreadable. Wren stood\nover Harold, rooted in place, her whole body shaking.\n Harold narrowed his eyes and looked up at Wren, then he sat back on his heels and he started to laugh. The other kids followed, nervously at first, then louder, like the steam that hissed out of her mother’s pressure cooker. \n Harold gasped for breath, held his side dramatically and stood up. He made a show of\nbrushing off his pants, then he looked directly at Wren, his little eyes glittering with hatred.\n “Now we know why Wren never talks!” he said, spreading his arms out to the crowd. “It's because she’s crazy!” \n He tucked his arms under, like the wings of a bird, and he began to chant and flap.\n“Cu-coo! Cu-Coo Bird!” The other kids joined in, circling Wren, happy to have a new target. Tears pricked in the corner of her eyes and her face burned under the wall of eyes staring, mouths chanting. She pushed through the crowd, and she ran. \n The bell rang loudly. Kids scattered to pick up lunch boxes and books. Lines formed and curled around the blacktop, the thrum of chanting following Wren as she ducked\ninto the bathroom. Cu-Coo! Cu-Coo Bird! The taunts bounced off cold tile and around the cavernous room as she turned on the spigot and splashed cold water onto her face. \n The bathroom door opened with a loud scrape. Wren braced herself for more taunting, but instead, Bernadette stepped into the room. She walked silently to the\nlong sink and stood next to Wren. Without looking her, she turned on the spigot. She pumped granules of soap from the dispenser, washed her hands with the foamy suds and dried them with the long cloth towel hanging from the wall. Never taking her eyes away from her hands, she spoke.\n “When we first came here,” her voice was soft and vulnerable, “someone burnt a cross on our lawn.” \n She looked up at Wren, eyes like deep pools. “They did it again last night.” \n Wren stared at Bernadette, imagining the flames climbing higher and higher, lighting the dark sky. She pictured her own house flickering in angry red light. She felt a pang\nof fear. She didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.\n “Thank you,” Bernadette said. Then, she straightened her back, she held her head up high, she opened the heavy bathroom door with a loud scrape, and she walked back out into the noisy hallway." } ]

[ { "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: Death Is History Too\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1019\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a child witnessing a major historical event." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Dear Diary, \n\nWhen kids are asked what they want to be when they grow up, most will say, police officers, firefighters, detectives, basic, generic answers. They don’t think about making big changes in the world, not all the time. And they most certainly don’t think about dying. How their time in the world will end. Will they be remembered? Will the way they die make a change? Because they’re kids. We're kids. We shouldn’t have to worry about those things. We shouldn’t have to think about possibly never coming back home to sleep in our beds. Never come back home to scribble on the walls of the perfectly themed bedroom that we begged for. Never come back home to pet the dog we named after our favorite candy. Never come back home to cuddle with the stuffed animals that were convinced to talk to one another when we leave the room. But I'm forced to think about those things when I see George Floyd on the TV in the living room. When that same image is portrayed throughout history, with a different name. A different life story but the same ending. A different shade but the same color. A different cop, but the same casket. A different- well, I think you get the point. \n\nI stood in the hallway for a long eight minutes and forty-six seconds. I’ve never seen a dead body before, but I feel like seeing him already dead would’ve been better than watching him die. Watching him cry. Feeling my soul, leaving my body as he took his final breath. \n\nDiary. \nI. \nWatched. \nSomeone \nDie. \n\nThat is a historical event. But the sad part is, that in ten years he'll probably be forgotten. Just another name added to the list called black history. Well, black dead people, because black history month doesn’t actually talk about those things. Those people. Those hurting. Those kids. Those families. Those broken hearts. And forget ten years, give it ten months, ten weeks, ten days. \n\nMy mom asked me how I felt about it and I said it made me sad. But that's the understatement of the year. I was sad, hurt, broken, and scared. Terrified. What if that was my dad? My brother? And I don’t’ say these things to my friends because they'll think I'm being dramatic. But my whole existence is dramatic. Living while black is a task, a test, a burden, a challenge. But I didn’t tell her that. How could I? It's not her fault that I’m black and telling her that will make it seem like I'm blaming her. It's crazy how I even have to put up a wall with my family. \n\nMy mom went into her room and called my dad right after she turned the TV off. She thinks I couldn’t hear the muffled cries behind the closed door. I could. I could hear her heart breaking with every sob. The fear in her shaky voice as she told my dad what happened. The choice words she used to describe her pain. I definitely shouldn’t have heard that. But I also shouldn’t have had to see someone's cause of death be their skin tone. I shouldn’t have to live in a world like that. We shouldn’t have to live in a world like that. But, *sarcastic jazz hands* here we are. \n\nMy little sister Maya is six. The same age as Gianna Floyd. My parents told me not to tell her what was going on, so I won’t. But I think she should know. There's no point in trying to guard and protect her when society will undo that before she hits middle school, right? When she could be drowned like Emmett or shot like Trayvon, or now, a new way, choked like George. Those sound like they could be chapters in a history book, or, maybe a novel. Something fictional or not as serious, because history books don’t actually mention things like that. \n\nLast week, we had a project where we had to take care of an egg and see if we could help it “survive.” Cutting up the fabric to make a blanket for my make-believe child was so much fun. Pretending to feed it, change its diaper, normal stuff, made me happy. But now, seeing the way someone’s dad, someone’s husband, someone’s son, was killed...I don’t want kids. I don’t want to see my child's name scrolling across the screen. I don’t want my grandchild to have to go up to an open casket. To take a seat next to their crying siblings. To have to act strong, when inside they are shattered. Like I am right now. \n\nAnd when we go back to school, will the teachers talk about it? Will they ask us how we feel? No. Of course not. Because they don’t care about the students. They want to give us education but at the end of the day, when you look like me, how far will education take you, when people are literally killing us every day. But only what gets recorded is for the world to see. I can't tell my friends this either, because they don't care. And they won't be doing it on purpose either. But if you don’t have to live through it, you can't see it. You only see the surface level and there's so so much more. \n\nBut when we go to school tomorrow, I'm going to bring it up. I may be a kid, a small middle schooler, but I can make a change. Or at least I can try. And the next time someone asks me what I want to be when I grow up, I think I'll say a change maker. I don’t know how I'm going to do it yet, but I will. I promise. \n\nI have to go now, my mom is calling me down for dinner...and tonight when we say our prayers, I’m going to pray for George Floyd’s family. It’s the first time I’m going to say something like that, but I’m sure it won’t be the last. \n\nSincerely, \n\nLia James" } ]

[ { "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 new beginning\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 2879\n\nPrompt:\n\nCenter your story around a photo that goes viral." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The little blue dragon was only a century old when she experienced her first heartbreak.\n\nIf she’d been less blindsided, she might have been able to laugh at how cliché the whole thing had been, telegraphed by charmed talisman and delivered by the realm’s most hapless wood sprite. But she had been too caught up in honeymoon bliss, cocooned safely inside euphoric daydreams that had blushed her whole world a little brighter and softer since they’d started dating. She didn't see it coming.\n\nAt first, she had been delighted and relieved to see the chubby messenger, clad in royal gold robes, arrive at her pagoda following days of foreboding silence. Finally, this must be the dragon prince's next invitation! But when she opened the door, the wood sprite had instead knelt, quivering, producing a talisman from its robes, and extended it to her in shaking hands above its head. The talisman glowed, sensing the presence of her qi.\n\n“Look, I’ve really enjoyed carving mountains and chasing the stars with you,” the dragon prince said, his booming voice muffled through the enchantment. “You are a wonderful dragon. But if I’m going to pass the trial to become the God of War, I won’t have time for both you and my training. I am sorry, Storm.”\n\nAt first, Storm didn't register what he'd said. Slowly, as the meaning of the words sank in, Storm’s anticipatory smile froze on her face. Her heart thumped erratically, dizzyingly. Then it dropped from her chest into her stomach. The messenger must have heard it, for it bowed and stammered a panicked apology. But Storm couldn't hear it through the sudden roaring in her ears, the pressure in her chest, the pain squeezing her lungs. It was unbearable.\n\nWith an anguished wail, the little blue dragon leaped skyward, her lithe serpentine body thrusting violently upward as if desperate to shake off an invisible foe. The force of her launch flattened the earth around her, leaving a crater the size of a village. The wood sprite never stood a chance.\n\nStorm wept and the heavens raged, shedding great rivers of tears like an ocean descending from the sky, drowning the mortal realm in her sorrow. After a year, the humans rushed to the temples to pray and present offerings to appease her anguish. After two years, they stopped and started building ships. After seven years, entirely new oceans and islands had emerged.\n\nFinally, she grew tired. Her ferocious, all-consuming sorrow gave way to a heavy sadness.\n\nStorm found a remote cave on an island in the middle of the sea and crawled in. It was dark, and cold, and barren. She liked it. She slept.\n\n-\n\nThe little blue dragon was three hundred years old when she next awoke. As consciousness seeped into her mind, she stirred and blinked the fog of depressive drowse from her eyes. For a moment, she held still, waiting for the sadness to realize she was awake and latch on again, braced herself against its ensuing force that would crush her.\n\nBut that terrible dread, which had for so long felt like thunderbolts tearing through her gut, had receded to a dull, thrumming buzz, like the charge in a dormant cloud before the rain.\n\nRelief swept over her. She could live with this muted version of feeling. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all. It would be better. Perhaps she would even re-emerge and return to celestial society in her former glory, restored to the grandeur -\n\nBzz. Bzzzbzzz.\n\nThe interruption, faint and irritating, jarred Storm from her reverie. Did caves even have mosquitos? It couldn’t be. They wouldn’t dare materialize in her presence. She was a mighty dragon of the harvest, a bringer of bounty and abundance, a disher of catastrophe and despair, a –\n\n“Oh my god. Bryan, look. What is that?”\n\n“What? Where?”\n\n“Oh my god, I think it’s a dragon! Run!”\n\nA panicked scuffling, and high-pitched screams fading into the distance. Storm looked down in time to see two tiny figures fleeing to the exit, dim shadows receding to ant-like specks.\n\nShe'd forgotten about mortals. How could she have forgotten about mortals? And curse the audacity of them, to intrude on her saintly presence!\n\nBut that was okay. In her new, more generous state of mind, Storm could forgive them for approaching her without the customary offerings. She brightened at the possibilities. Yes. She would bless these mortals, repent her disastrous rampage, and turn over a new leaf.\n\nWith great effort, Storm lurched after them towards the cave entrance. Sure, her muscles were a little stiff after her sleep, but compared to a dragon’s hundred-year meditation retreat, it was nothing.\n\nAt the mouth of the cave, she squinted as the first rays of light in two centuries seared her vision. The brightness was dazzling.\n\n“Jesus, look at that thing! Are you sure it’s a dragon? Its scales look like stinky tofu! It’s as yellow as piss! It looks like shit and smells like it too!”\n\n“Quick, get a photo!”\n\nStorm blinked, confused and very offended. Yellow? Impossible. She was the most beautiful cerulean dragon of her generation. She invoked celestial serenades from songbirds and phoenixes. She was the muse of celestial painters and artists, the subject of glittering tapestries and chiseled sculptures. They couldn't possibly be talking about her. Just how much damage could two hundred years in a cave do?\n\nShe was so distracted that she didn’t see the mortals sneak away, shaking hands clutching camera phones, a trail of rustling foliage marking their escape. But she wasn’t distracted for long.\n\nIn thirty minutes, they had descended the mountain upon which the cave rested. In an hour, they would post it to all their social media. In two hours, the photo would ignite interest across the internet, like a spark before the wildfire.\n\nIn a day, Storm would be Insta-famous.\n\n-\n#dragonsneedselfcaretoo #glowupgurusneeded #dontwakeuplikethis\n\nThe photo spread faster than the blackout challenge on TikTok. Online media outlets fell over themselves to publish the first photo of a real dragon captured in over fifty years.\n\nWe thought they were merely endangered, one declared. Based on this\nnever-before-seen photo, they may have already gone extinct and revived from fossils!\n\nBREAKING NEWS, screamed another. CLIMATE CHANGE CONSEQUENCES MORE DIRE THAN WE THOUGHT - NOT ONLY MELTING GLACIERS AND HERALDING THE END OF THE WORLD, NEW EVIDENCE SUGGESTS IT MAY ALSO BE CAUSING THE REVERSE EVOLUTION OF DRAGONS INTO TOADS\n\n“I, personally, feel for her,” Naying_in_Shanghai quipped in her latest story, the lambent glow of her ring light cast upon dewy skin and meticulous #mobwife cat-eye befitting a top influencer. “We all have bad days but imagine being a living example of when Mercury is in retrograde and you’ve neglected your tretinoin routine in the same week? Devastating.”\n\nIn the celestial realm, too, the older dragon sisters lamented their misfortune.\n\n“We never reveal ourselves to the mortals,” they wailed, clutching their pearl-encrusted iPhones. “Imagine the first time they see us after all this time, and it’s that!”\n\nEven Storm’s elders chimed in. She barely had time to process the fact that she seemed to have slept through the Dragon King of the East Sea himself hopping on the latest iPhone train.\n\nBut he had been kind.\n\nMy darling stormcloud, he’d texted, the three little text bubbles undulating as she imagined his giant, kingly claws tapped over miniscule letter blocks. Don’t be discouraged. I know you were hurt. You are the strongest rain dragon in the sky and cannot be cowed by this unfortunate incident. Go show those mortals the true you. Show them what you’re made of.\n\nStorm had long since moped herself into a despondent spiral of nerves. It appeared viralism wasn't the only thing she'd missed, so she’d spent the last week catching up on other mortal inventions. Capitalism. Doom-scrolling. Crypto. It was enough to send even the bravest god into the throes of draconian misery.\n\nBut when the notification pinged, she perked up from under the little rain cloud where she’d taken refuge. As she scanned the wise words of the Celestial Emperor, a dormant surge of prideful anger and indignance welled inside her. Finally, someone who understood her. Show them what she was made of?\n\nStorm could oblige.\n\n-\n\n“You ATE them?”\n\nStorm winced and wished she could press herself deeper into the ground.\n\n“Yes, auntie.”\n\nThat’s not what the Dragon King meant. Got it.\n\nHer aunt sighed, graying whiskers drooping as the venerable dragoness sagged against West Sea throne.\n\n“Little stormcloud, you’ve already spent the elders’ patience on your antics in the East Sea last age! I’m afraid they will have no sympathy left to spare for you, and our house cannot afford to anger the East Sea again! We must get ahead of this. You shall take a mortal trial as punishment to show remorse for what you’ve done.”\n\n“It will help you grow,” her uncle agreed. “All mortal trials make better dragons when they return.”\n\nAnd just like that, Storm was banished.\n\n-\n\nShe chose New York. It wasn’t the greatest or prettiest city in the mortal realm, and in fact it smelled and looked like its deity might be called something like the God of Trash and Sewer Rats. But it thrummed with the same schizophrenic energy that possessed her when she lanced through the sky, weaving between thunder and lightning, focus and fear concentrated behind her mind’s eye like the tip of an arrow, when she was at her strongest.\n\n\nHer mortal form was a banker, the same as the wretched human who had snapped her photo (and who had been an entirely mediocre meal, thank you very much). It was a miserable, soul-sucking job, staffed with miserable, lonely people. Luckily Storm had left her soul at home, so she was great at it.\n\nShe was a dragon of the harvest, summoning rain and sun to flourish her valleys with rich verdure, so it was easy to strategize what benefits a target company might yield even before the ominous seeds of M&A potential had been planted in the minds of its board. She had clashed with monstrous devils on the battlefields of celestial warfare, so the puny men in expensive suits on roadshows couldn’t faze her in the slightest with their feeble questions. Storm was the best investment banker Goldman Sachs had ever seen, and she barely had to try.\n\nBut she did have to try at other things.\n\nStorm had always known that human life was a fragile thread to the tapestry of a dragon’s life, apt to be cut short by the most trivial mishaps. A misplaced foot while hiking. A miscalculated step into oncoming traffic. A neglected cough or sniffle that snowballed into a disease. Constrained by such a tenuous existence, mortal accomplishments were nothing against the immortal wisdom of dragons. She had doubted she would learn anything here.\n\nWhat she hadn’t expected was that despite their insignificance in the universe, or perhaps because of it, humans could freely feel. They had to, with so much joy and loss concentrated in their brief time, and it seemed to give their short lives more meaning than some immortals could find in centuries.\n\nDragons, in particular, were frigid paragons of pragmatism. Emotions, rarely felt, were even more rarely acknowledged. Instead, they were quietly dashed against the unrelenting wall of celestial logic.\n\nDon’t be sad, they’d said. How could you be sad over someone who doesn’t want to mate with you? You’ll find another easily enough.\n\nBut enough was not something Storm would ever be content with. So she vowed to learn.\n\n-\n\nAlan was her friend. At least, that’s how Storm understood the word in the divine classical literature, though she had never met one in real life.\n\nAlan was another banker, also a woman, and Chinese – and that was apparently enough to bind them to each other in the eyes of their colleagues. Inexplicably drawn to each other in silent kinship, they supported each other, sending Bloomberg snips and market reports for each other’s deals and covering for each other when they were sick. In an industry where the cut-throat barbs of competition regularly adorned the mantle of the hard-earned title investment banker, Alan and Storm were immune.\n\n“My mom works in private equity in Shanghai,” Alan offered once, as they wolfed down salads together during a lunchtime lull. They’d just witnessed a director eviscerate his new analyst’s work, reducing her to tears. “I saw how it messed her up. I like the work, but I don’t want to perpetuate that same kind of toxicity.”\n\nStorm suddenly thought of the Celestial Palace, where innumerable lesser spirits, in search of immortality, regularly submitted to being berated, kicked, or even worse, incinerated by fire in their servitude to dragons. She thought of the chubby wood sprite who had brought the news of her breakup from the dragon prince. She felt ashamed.\n\n“Me neither,” she said. Somewhere deep inside her core, a tendril of a new belief unfurled.\n\n-\n\nAlan and Storm soon spent most of their time outside work together, too, because at least they understood needing to drop everything for work. Far more understanding than the men Alan tried to date (Alan had asked once, politely, if Storm was dating anyone – and was met with such a vehement shake of the head and maybe even a quiet snarl – that she had never broached it again).\n\nOnce, Storm went to the ladies’ room to find her friend washing her face at the sink. When Alan saw who came in, she tried to smile, but red-rimmed eyes and the puff of her undereyes exposed her. Storm looked at her, the question unspoken.\n\n“He dumped me,” Alan confessed. Speaking the words seemed to condemn her to the realization of the truth again, and she burst into fresh tears. “He said he needs more time and attention than I can give!”\n\nA familiar searing hurt flashed, a memory unlocked that Storm buried away in her past. As Storm folded her friend into a hug, she wondered if she should offer to eat the mortal man who had hurt her friend. But she didn’t think it would make Alan feel any better, and besides, it was uncool these days to consume processed junk with little nutritional value.\n\n-\n\nA few months later, Storm and Alan huddled over their desks, a new investment idea propelling a flurry of excited whispers and frenzied keyboard tapping.\n\nBut they were suddenly interrupted by a deep guffaw of laughter two rows over.\n\n“Guys,” an associate said, waving his phone over his head. “Remember that photo of the dragon from two years ago? It’s trending again!”\n\nMurmurs of glee and amusement rippled the trading floor, but Storm froze, hands hovering over her keyboard mid-stroke.\n\nShe thought she was over it. She really did. But she couldn’t help it. Her brain, which had until now taken refuge in the novelty of her new life, began its familiar spiral. The photo. The cave. The sleep. The storm. The message. And - she stopped. She didn't dare recall the next memory.\n\n“Storm? Are you okay?” Storm started. Alan was looking at her, concern and – understanding? – in her gaze.\n\n“I’m fine!” Storm said, peeling her lips into a cheery smile.\n\n“Okay,” Alan seemed unconvinced. “Just tell me if you need something, okay?”\n\nLater, as they got ready to take the elevator down to leave the office together, Alan paused.\n\n“You know, that photo reminded me of some old memories,” she said casually.\n\n“Really?” Storm asked, suddenly wooden.\n\n“For sure. Back then, I was just rejected for my dream job. I took it so badly and was really at my worst.” Alan turned wistful.\n\n“But when I saw that photo, I felt better – and not because it was so ugly, or anything,” she added quickly, glancing askance at Storm. “I’ve always loved dragons, and you know we Chinese worship them. Anyway, it made me realize that everyone goes through shit. Even the most majestic, magnificent immortals in the world. It helped me to think that if that sad dragon could pull herself out of that cave and keep going, even with whatever happened to her, then I could too.”\n\nStorm felt warmth prickling her eyes.\n\n“That’s really lovely,” she whispered, inexplicably grateful.\n\n Alan beamed, relieved.\n\n“I know, sorry, enough with that sentimental crap. Before I forget to ask - what are you doing for Chinese New Year? Do you want to come to Shanghai? My mom would love you, and it’ll be so fun to have you there.”\n\nA rush of surprised delight. Shanghai. She, absurdly, in three hundred years, had never been. “Really? You’d want to?”\n\nAlan glanced at her with that strange understanding, as if she’d already deduced why Storm sometimes failed to grasp such basic human concepts. “Of course,” she replied. “That’s what best friends do, isn’t it? We go on vacations together.”\n\nStorm stared back for a moment, then smiled.\n\n“That’s what best friends do,” she repeated.\n\nWhen the elevator dinged at lobby level, the two women stepped off together, laughing, and bade each other good night before departing into the bustling night of the city." } ]

[ { "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: Legends of the Midnight Gallery\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 2920\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a gallery whose paintings come alive at night." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Joe Klimazawa knew the secrets of the Midnight Gallery. He knew what happened when the clock struck midnight. He knew because he had been the night watchman for over ten months. While the De Young Museum was the most popular in the city, Zaroff’s Museum of the Occult attracted many patrons who were curious and fascinated with the bizarre displays of ornamentation from all over the world such as head hunters’ trophies and voodoo dolls left dangling from the rafters of the Dark Arts Wing.\nJoe knew that strange things happened at midnight three hours after he locked the doors. \nHe knew. When he tendered his resignation he refused to answer the question, “reason for leaving,” because no one would believe him. He would leave without ever revealing the secrets of the Midnight Gallery.\n“Sorry to see you go, Joe.” Mr. Bainbridge shook his head as he issued Joe his final check.\n“Thank you, sir for your letter of recommendation.” Joe nodded as he put his check into his shirt pocket. \n“I got some college kid. Won’t be the same without you.” Mr. Bainbridge sighed.\n“Can I take a final walk through?” He asked.\n“Of course. Take your time.” \nJoe walked to the Bumba Room that was filled with African Art, much of which was stolen from various places on the Dark Continent. Standing in the door, Joe remembered when all of the items in the room began to shake as he walked into the room while he was on shift the previous week. \nWhen he arrived for his shift that evening, nothing seemed out of place or unusual. He went into the janitor’s closet and his broom. He usually finished sweeping the floors in three hours and he would sit in the control room and watch movies and shows for the rest of his shift. \nBut when he entered the place called Bumba Land at midnight, everything on display began to shake if the inanimate items had suddenly come to life.\n“Who is doin’ that?” He swallowed hard and began to shake like everything in the room. “Stop doing that!” \nSince he had lived in California all his life, he had experienced small earthquakes, but recognized that this was not an earthquake since the building was not moving. It was just the stuff on display moving by their own volition perhaps by an unseen force. The counselor warned him about symptoms connected to his detoxification treatment, but this did seem like that either. \nThen he heard the war chants of the former owners like the Watusi or the bushmen who populated the Serengeti. \n“Stop that!” Even his voice was shaking as he raised his voice to be heard over the din. \n“Do not be afraid.” A voice rose above the commotion. \n“Who’s there?” He held up his broom like a weapon. \n“Just me, your local witch doctor.” The dark skinned man dressed in a wild animal skin smiled as he sat on the throne of a tribal king. “Sumbali is my name.” \n“Sum-who?” Joe stood frozen like one of the displays.\n“Sumbali.” He smiled and bowed his head in reverence, “Witch doctor”\n“My medication is sure playing tricks on me again.” Joe muttered as he shook his head and rubbed his eyes.\n“No my friend, I am real.” He assured Joe. He put his hand on Joe’s shoulder. Joe instinctively pulled away with a jerk. “You mustn’t fear me. I come in peace.”\n“I am the midnight watchman here.” Joe raised an eyebrow still very much suspicious of the strangely dressed stranger claiming to be a witch doctor. “What does a witch doctor do?” \n“We heal the sick and do magic.” He shrugged, but his broad smile never waivered or left his face. “All of these things here once belonged to my people.” \n“They have been here since I started.” Joe looked around Bumba Land.\n“Some of my people were taken away by the white traders.” He tilted his head. “I heard their cries as they were put into cages and taken away.\n“I am just the watchman here. You have to speak to Mr. Bainbridge about those things.” Joe put his broom back on the floor.\n“Why did he take our sacred things?” The witch doctor’s smile dropped as his head looked around the room. \n“Mister, I don’t know, like I said…”\n“I know, I know, you are just the watchman.” He shrugged.\n“I can’t let you take any of these things.” Joe explained, “I could get canned.” \n“We wouldn’t want that.” He agreed.\n“No.” Joe sighed. He did not want to tell the stranger about his drug rehabilitation program or his current probation conditions. It took government intervention to obtain this job and a promise to stay sober. “I got to sweep and clean the next room.” \nJoe walked away from the witch doctor as he viewed some of the dark display cases that held ceremonial knives used in animal sacrifices or so he was told. The blades were rusty and no longer appeared as though they could cut through much of anything anymore. \n“Welcome to Rada.” A voice greeted him as he turned on the light to sweep the tiled floors as he had done every night since he started working. Joe jumped upon hearing the boisterous greeting. \n“You too?” He held his broom like he did when the witch doctor spoke to him in the other room. “Rada?” \n“Means happy spirit to all followers of Voodoo.” His skin was nearly as dark as Sumbali in the other room, but his clothes were made for a much hotter climate with a lot of worn holes in the threadbare fabric, “Me name is Barbosa and dis here is my partner, high priestess Sumatra.”\n“Please to meecha.” She held out her hand and Joe noticed her long blood red nails. With a momentary hesitation, Joe shook her hand.\n“What are you folks doing here?” He asked, “I never seen nobody in here after hours, except me, the midnight man.” \n“We have been here quite a while, haven’t we, Sumatra?” He grinned as he gently caressed her hand. \n“Yes we has.” Sumatra winked at Barbosa. \n“I just need to sweep this here floor and I’ll be on my way so you can do…whatever it is you do.” Joe nodded, but neither of them would step aside so he could do his job.\n“The souls of our people linger here.” Barbosa sniffed. Joe noticed his loose fitting shirt was not really a shirt, but rather a wrap-around piece of cloth with a gold cross hanging from a thick chain. “From me chains I was able to forge this cross to remind me of the suffering of another man.”\n“Nice piece of work.” Joe smiled.\n“It is to remind me. It is heavy, non?” \n“It is heavy, yes.” Joe nodded emphatically. \n“You a good man, non?” Barbosa grinned, showing off several gleaming gold teeth in his mouth. \n“We should have a black mass in his honor.” Sumatra smiled and she too had several gold capped teeth.\n“No, you folks don’t have to go to any trouble. As soon as I sweep up, I will be on my way.” Joe waved them both off as he pushed his broom through the wide aisle. \n“You father, Yoshima took your family to an internment camp in 1942.” Barbosa called out. Joe froze in his tracks. Joe wondered “How did he know?”\nIn 1942 the two soldiers from the United States Army came to their home a few blocks from the Mission District. With rifles waving, the soldiers marched his family onto a green bus. The bus stopped in a town call Eureka where there was a Japanese internment camp with a lot of other Japanese American families watching through the wire as the bus pulled into the camp. Joe and his family would spend the next three years here, but their father would not survive. As Joe recalled, his father Yoshima died of a broken heart. He was born in San Francisco with his three brothers after their father fled Edo, Nippon during a political uprising. \nHe stopped sweeping the floor and sighed deeply as his shoulders slumped. “How do you know that?” \n“I read the lines on your face, Jockimo.” Sumatra answered.\n“You changed your name after you left Manzanar Camp.” Her voice had softened.\n“I never wanted to hear the name of that place again as long as I was alive.” He sneered. \n“Your father is buried there, non?” Barbosa asked.\n“He is.” Joe bowed his head. “Memories of that horrible place still haunt my dreams when I sleep.”\n“He misses seeing you.” Barbosa said with a profound sadness in his voice. \nHe could feel tears ripping at the corners of his eyes, his Japanese eyes. It was his eyes the soldiers seemed to hate. Both of them prodded the family on with their rifles calling them “Japs” and “slant eyes.” \nWiping his eyes, he turned to look at the pair, but was startled to see his father Yoshima standing between them. His figure was shiny.\n“Jockhima.” He said softly. His father was wearing his suit, white shirt and tie just like he wore every day on his way into the office. Just like he did on the day he died.\n“Father.” Joe fell to his knees. Stepping forward, Yoshima put his hands on his son’s head. While his hands bore no weight, Joe could feel the warmth of his touch. “I have missed you so much.”\n“And I you.” His voice was soothing and warm just like his touch. \nThe light faded in the room and when he looked up, Joe was alone. Both Barbosa and Sumatra had also vanished. Joe came to his feet and brushed away his tears from the tile with his broom. \nWhen he left Rada, there was a well dressed man standing in the hallway. By now Joe was not at all startled by the presence of other worldly beings.\n“Harry Houdini, pleased to meet you.” He held out his meat hook hand. “Do you know who I am?” \n“Yes, Mr. Houdini, you were famous when my father was a boy.” Joe answered. \n“I’m glad someone remembers.” He smiled, “I came here to Zaroff’s Museum of the Occult when I was touring with my show back in 1925. We stopped in here on a blustery afternoon, but then it’s always blustery in San Francisco, eh? That mad old Russian, Ivan Zaroff, was alive back then. He managed to escape after the Bolshevik Revolution, you know. Yeah, he dressed up like Anastasia. Can you imagine? Ho! Ho! I would have paid to see that, wouldn’t you?”\n“No, I didn’t Mr. Houdini.” Joe leaned on his broom as Harry Houdini continued with his story.\n“Yes, I had heard he was the real deal.” Harry laughed, “And so I had to find out. I came for a seance and by willikers, he delivered even if he just spoke in broken English. I was able to speak to my dead mother as if she was standing right here in this room. Amazing. He certainly was amazing.” \n“So I have heard.” Joe shrugged.\n“Did you ever meet him?” Harry raised an eyebrow and put his hand to his chin.\n“No, I can’t say I have.” Joe shook his head.\n“Too bad, he was a helluva guy. Was good buddies with Rasputin.” He walked through the wall as he lit a cigarette.\nJoe Klimazawa needed to sit down. He did so at a bench near where Houdini had just disappeared through the wall.\nOn August 14, 1945, one year after his father passed away, Joe was given a bus ride from Manzana back to San Francisco. His mother and brothers were issued rooms at one of the local shelters. A month later Tishma suffered a fatal stroke and the brothers buried their mother in an inexpensive local cemetery. His brothers decided to find their fortunes elsewhere and Joe never saw any of them after that. There were occasions when Joe would pick up the phone, but he would lose his nerve and place the phone back into its cradle.\nHe was arrested in 1983 and sentenced to prison for possession. Released a couple of years later, he wound up back in the legal system where the prosecuting attorney called him a junkie. The label stuck and Joe Klimazawa’s record showed that he was indeed a junkie. After that conviction he was now labeled a habitual criminal. Joe would have that label to drag around with him like an anchor as well. \nDuring a stint at Folsom Prison, Joe noticed how many of the inmates were people of color and how many were just like him, locked up for criminal possession. During the War on Drugs, Joe had become a casualty. He wondered if his brothers were suffering the same fate.\n“Joe Klimazawa.” Ruth Wrangle called out.\nHearing his name, Joe stood up and walked to Ruth’s desk.\n“Mr. Klimazawa?” She smiled, which Joe figured was part of her job.\n“Yes.” He nodded.\n“Have a seat.” She pointed to the empty chair next to her clunky looking wooden desk. Joe did as he was told and sat in the chair. She put a manilla folder on her desk bearing his name. She opened it, “Let’s see…hmpt, looks like you have quite a record.”\n“Yeah.” He coughed into his hand.\n“Are you currently drug free?” She looked at him with her emerald eyes. \n“Define drug free.” His voice was nearly a growl. He was tired of all the bureaucratic bullshit.\n“Have you used this week?” She tilted her head.\n“Yeah.” \n“In the last three days?” \n“Yeah.”\n“Mr. Klimazawa, in order to receive services, you must be remanded to rehab.” She was quite frank which irritated him even further.\n“No dice.” He shook his head.\n“Then you have a good day, Mr. Klimazawa.” She smiled as she closed his folder.\n“Wait.” He put his hand on his folder. \n“Yes?”\n“What if I go?” He sniffed.\n“Then we can work out a plan.” She nodded encouragingly.\n“I am sick of park benches and cops who have nothing better to do that rouse me from a good night’s sleep.” He looked away.\n“Let me make a call.” She smiled again.\nAs it turned out the call wound up saving his life. While he stayed drug free, there were moments when the urge would come back.\n“Joe, remember me?” A lanky figure sat next to him on the bench.\n“Yeah, Sid.” \n“Long time no see.” He laughed and reached into his long coat and pulled out an ounce. “Remember this stuff?” \n“Sure, sure.” \n“I know you want some. Free bag, but then you have to start paying me again. Working for me again.” Sid’s laugh was sardonic as he dangled the bag in front of Joe, “We had a beautiful friendship at one time, eh?” \n“Leave me, Sid.” Joe put his hands and head between his knees as Sid hovered over him.\n“Hey, what the heck has gotten into you? Are you too good for me?” He sneered. “I live right there.” \nSid pointed to the restroom that Joe still had to clean. \n“Every time you think you are free of me, I come around.” He elbowed Joe.\n“Leave me alone, Sid.” \n“Never.” His laugh echoed in Joe’s ears for several minutes.\nWhen Joe had the courage to look up, he was alone. He stared at the door labeled “Men’s Room” in front of the bench where he was sitting. He realized, even though Sid had died from an overdose a few years ago, he would always be haunted by his overpowering presence. \nHe rose from the bench, shaking at the Bumba Land had earlier in his shift, but he knew if he left he could hide out until Sid found him again. He went to the breakroom and wrote his resignation letter that he would present to his boss the following morning. \nNow that Mr. Bainbridge had Joe’s resignation letter, he would leave into the early morning sun on his way to a small coffee shop where he would have a cup before exiting on a Greyhound Bus in his effort to escape Sid. But as he walked past the room, Sumbali stepped in front of Joe.\nHe had spent most of his life in a cage and he wanted to be done with it once and for all. He knew that one day Sid would track him down, but in the meantime, he would put some distance between him and Sid. \n“Where da ya think ya goin’?” The witch doctor asked.\n“I have to get away from Sid.” He answered, but the witch doctor would not let him pass.\n“You know he will find you.” The large man crossed his arms over his chest.\n“He always does.” Joe grimaced.\n“We got magic in this place.” He smiled.\n“Magic won’t stop him.” Joe sighed. \n“Have faith.” He held out his arm. \nThere was a single sound of distress and then silence except for the running water.\n“He is no more.” Sumbali shrugged. “You stay.” \n“Why?” Joe held out his arms.\n“Cause we like you, Joe.” Sumbali laughed.\n“What about my resignation letter?” Joe asked.\n“What letter?” Sumbali nodded to Barbosa and Sumatra.\n“His magic be powerful.” Sumatra shook her head.\nAnd this is how you become a legend of the midnight gallery. And if you have any doubts, just ask Joe Klimazawa. He will tell you straight." } ]

[ { "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 Little Black Book\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 2228\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a love story about an older couple who’ve been together since they were teenagers." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“Grandma, why does grandpa write in that little black book every day?” My sweet granddaughter, Angie, asked. “Well Angie, it’s kind of a long story,” I said, hopeful that she would want to know more. Angie responded, “I’d love to hear it.” I smiled, “well sweetie, in order to explain the book I’d have to explain how your grandfather and I met and fell in love.” She nodded her head with excitement in her eyes which warmed my heart. So I began:\n“I was 19 years old the day I met your grandfather. Neither one of us went to college. We went directly into the workforce. I was very hardworking. To think, I almost missed that brunch for work… Well I am so glad I paid attention to that alarm.” [Flash back begins]\n RINGGGGGG!! The alarm on my phone blares and I reluctantly halt my work to figure out what’s going on. I finally reach my phone to read the reminder going across my screen and, the realization hits me like a ton of bricks. I’m supposed to have brunch with the girls in an hour! I rescheduled so many times for work already. I have to go. I sprint to my closet; they instructed me to dress up a bit. They specifically said, “not your normal leggings, t-shirt, and comfy non-slip sneakers.”\nI’m thick so I have curves but I also have the thick thighs and belly to match. I am in the early stages of my journey to self-love and self-acceptance. I recognize that I’m not the standard of beauty but I am beautiful. I want to love my whole self, stretch marks and all.\nAfter I shower, get dressed, put my hair in a high puff, and lay my edges. I grab my things and head to the restaurant. As I enter the revolving door from outside of the restaurant, a man enters the revolving door from inside. He’s over 6ft with a mocha complexion similar to my own, a fresh fade, brown eyes, clean cut beard and mustache, full lips, broad shoulders, and his body is lean and muscular similar to the build of a basketball player. After I scan his body my eyes meet his, I immediately feel flushed. Hoping that he didn’t just see me shamelessly body check him. He smiles as if he knows what I am thinking. I quickly look away then step out of the revolving door into the restaurant.\nI’m probably overthinking it. He’s too fine to be single, and if he is single, then he’s a player. I need to drop it. I start walking towards the hostess, trying to shake off whatever just happened. Then I hear a deep voice behind me gently saying, “excuse me.” I slowly turn around to see the sexy stranger looking deep into my eyes again. After a second or two I snap out of the daze.\nMe: I’m sorry, am I in your way?\nSexy Stranger: No, not at all. I actually wanted ask you to dinner.\nI stare blankly at him for a moment, stunned by the request.\nSexy Stranger: I’m sorry, I realize I didn’t introduce myself, I’m Malik. What’s your name?\nMe: I’m Shay.\nMalik: Shay, would you like to go on a date with me?\nMe: You don’t even know me\nMalik: I’d like to change that\nHis eyes look so sincere as he searches mine for an answer.\nMe: Okay\nI give him my number before we return to our respective friend groups. Things like that never happen to me. I’ve dated before but it’s always either friendships that developed into more or guys on dating apps. Butterflies filling my belly in anticipation and I feel like I am floating with them. It’s so weird! I literally just met him and I barely said a sentence to this man… I need to calm down. He texts me a few minutes into the brunch so that I can save his number and I’m in my head for the rest of the brunch.\nThe days fly by and next thing I know, it’s a week later. It’s time for our first date. We texted, talked on the phone and even facetimed daily since then and the more I learn about him the more interested and comfortable I become. However, I’m NERVOUS for this date. I told him that Italian food is my favorite so he’s going to take me to a fancy Italian restaurant downtown.\nI’m wearing black flats and a strapless black dress that only hugs my chest and is flowy with a high-low bottom. I RARELY do make up so I’m not wearing any for this date either, I don’t want to set a false precedent. I wear my natural hair down and wear some earrings. He’s still technically a stranger, so I’ll be meeting him at the restaurant. I check myself in the mirror one last time before I leave and I’m satisfied with the results.\nWhen I get to the restaurant, he’s standing at the entrance in a grey suit with a black button up shirt next to the valet. As I pull up to the entrance, he approaches my car door and opens it. I explain, “Hey Malik, I am going to park myself.” He reaches for my hand and says, “I already paid for the valet, so if you are comfortable leaving your car here, they’ll park it for you.”\nSurprised that he paid for my valet parking and more than that, that he’s approaching me in a way that’s still respecting whatever boundaries that I may set. I agree. I rest my hand in his while my other hand grabs my purse. As I stand, in a hushed tone he says, “By the way, you’re gorgeous Shay.” I thank him and smile as I follow him to our table and pulls out my chair. Once we are both comfortable in our seats, we order our drinks.\nMalik: So I know that you work as an editor for a publishing company and that you’re a novelist\nMe: Well, the title novelist implies that I’ve published novels and that isn’t true yet. But I’ve written one and I’m working on my second\nMalik: Shay, you wrote a novel! That isn’t a small feat; don’t sell yourself short. You’ll be a published author soon. I know it.\nMe: That’s a lot of confidence from someone who hasn’t even read my work\nI chuckle.\nMalik: Although my day job is in the corporate world, you know I’m an artist. So I understand how vulnerable it can be to have someone view your art. So whenever you feel comfortable showing me your work, I would love to read it.\nI feel flushed again and nod my head with a smile that I tried to fight. The entire evening is full of laughter and even has moments of depth. We have such a healthy balance of enjoying each other’s company while being unafraid to have the heavier conversations. After we eat, he asks me to give him a moment and I agree. Then he pulls out this little black book, scribbles something in it, then sticks it back in his pocket. That’s weird, but I guess it’s none of my business. He is an artist, maybe it’s one of those ‘when inspiration strikes’ moments. I brush it off and we enjoy the rest of the date. It feels very natural with him.\nHe walks me to the front and tips the valets after they get our cars. We reach to hug and I normally don’t like to kiss on the first date but it feels right. I like him, probably more than I should after a week. I want him to kiss me. As we begin to release each other from the hug, he searches my eyes for permission. I quickly look down at his lips and back to his eyes a few times to subtly give him an answer. He leans in and kisses me and I got so lost in that kiss that I forgot where I was. For a moment, it felt like it was just me and him. I’m in trouble...\nWe talked every day since then. On our second date, he asked me to be his girlfriend which sounds crazy but the even crazier thing is I felt comfortable enough to say yes. We went on several more dates. On every date, at some point, he would pull out that little black notebook and write something. The closer we got, the more intrigued I was by this book.\nAt first, I didn’t know him well enough to ask but now we have been together for six months. In that short span of time he has become someone irreplaceable in my life. So I feel like it wouldn’t be overstepping to ask. We are in my apartment watching a show on my couch.\nMe: Babe, what are you always writing in that book?\nMalik: What book?\nMe: That little black book, you keep on you.\nMalik: Oh, that book. I’ll tell you about it one day, but not yet.\nMe: Oh… Okay…\nHe can see the obvious disappointment and hurt in my face.\nMalik: Babe, I promise that I will let you read this one day, but it’s not time yet. For now, I need you to just trust me and I will show you when I am ready, okay?\nMe: Okay, I understand. We talk about everything, so the secrecy was starting to get to me more than I realized.\nMalik: I love you Shay and I swear it will all make sense soon.\nMe: I love you Malik\nI didn’t ask again. Two months later, we moved in together. There were a few times that I was tempted to look for that little black book that he still writes in daily but I never do. I have to respect his boundaries just as much as he always respects mine.\nOn our first anniversary, we went back to that Italian restaurant that we went to on our first date. He proposed to me that night and I said yes! It was one of the best moments of my life. We decided to give ourselves six months to plan the wedding. We wanted to get married soon and we wanted it to be elegant but intimate.\nToday is our wedding day and every moment with him that has led to this day has been nothing short of magical so I expected nothing less today. I know there is that superstition about the bride and groom not seeing each other until the wedding but Malik and I agreed that we wanted to see each other for the first time on our wedding day privately.\nAfter I am dressed, I text Malik and let him know that I’m ready. I kick the bridesmaids and family out of the room. Then I hear a knock on the door. I brace myself then I open the door. He stands in front of me with tears in his eyes and I run into his arms. He lifts me and carries me to the couch. I look up to the ceiling trying to keep the tears from falling and ruining my makeup.\nMalik grabs my hand and I look into his eyes as he says, “Before we say anything, I want to give you my gift.” Then he reaches in the pocket of his tux to pull out the little black book. He says, “Shayla Vanessa Green I love you with everything that I am. I knew from the moment I met you that this day would come. So every day since the day that we met, I have written one reason that I love you in this book. I still have not managed to list them all. I’m beyond grateful that I get to spend the rest of my life writing this infinite list.”\nTears are flooding from my eyes and I grab his face to kiss him. Now I am lost in an all-consuming kiss, in an everlasting love, with a man that surpassed anything I could have ever dreamed of for myself. This kiss, much like our first kiss, making everything around me go black and I feel like the only other person in the world is Malik, my forever love. [Flash back ends]\nTears filling my eyes now, threatening to fall. My voice shakes as I say, “and your grandfather still adds to a little black book every day.” Angie sniffles, “Grandma that is the most beautiful story I have every heard! Is that why all of your novels are black books?” Malik walks in the room, sits beside me, and kisses me. I don’t understand how every kiss still feels like the first. I remember that Angie is still in the room and begin to pull away. When we finally separate, Malik’s eyes never leave mine as he says, “Yes it is Angie. It was one of the many ways that your Grandma paid homage to our love. I have known my soulmate for 57 years now and I still have not ran out of new reasons that I love her.”\n*story was originally written for and submitted to a Vocal+ challenge and edited to meet the requirements of this contest. Thank you!" } ]

[ { "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 12th Custard\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1004\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone who is convinced they’re going to be betrayed." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“What’s the big deal?”\n\n“The big deal Jomari, is that this stolen custard came in a family size of 12-“\n\n“So you had 11 before-“\n\n“AND it came from the PLANO Costco. Not the Walmart around the block. “\n\n“Oh. That is serious.”\n\nTwo gangly figures huddled around the fridge as if gathering for warmth. One with a bronze complexion and a tired, kind grin. One frowned till it burned into his brow, turning the corner of his eyes like a hanya mask. \n\nJomari’s face turned mischievous, “How much was it Shin?”\n\nShin made a grand gesture swooping his arms together, interlocking them; as if his body was frowning too. \n“It’s not about the price. Can you imagine the cashier’s face as I ask for just one custard? It’s committed as a family pack form. We aren’t in Germany for Christ sakes. I’m being asked by this gesture to pay another 24.99-“\n\n“It was 30?! Jeez, I would be bouncing off the walls right now - “\n\n“To pay another 24.99 so that I can have my 12th custard back. This is fiendish. “\n\nEnter Lien Nguyen, Shin’s longtime crush since he joined the dorm. Her mocha complexion stands out against the corporate grey in the worst way since it made the shared kitchen that much dirtier. \n\n“Lien! We have trouble. Someone stole Shin’s last custard. “\n\n“Yeah I really don’t care.” She assembles her lunch of cereal in a cup and a ziplock bag of hot Cheetos. “I didn’t do it, by the way” said she through her Frosted Flakes. \n\n“Oh no I didn’t think you did it!” Sputters Shin. “It can’t have been you, since I know the timeframe of my day and yours.”\n\nAwkward silence insues. \n\n“..As I do for everyone in the dorm! Haha. I’m pretty sure I know who it is. “\n\n“I didn’t do it either, whatever it was.” A shout came before its bearer like thunder before lightning; long legs skipping steps descending, and a bearded face smiled mockingly at the end.\n“Hi Lien, Hi Jomari.”\n\n“Yo Mort”\n\n“Heyyy Mort! ” she chirps.\n\nJomari joined Mort and Lien, leaving Shin hunched over the fridge. Our detective ignored them, deep in thought and pettiness. He stood there in silence, ruining the little taste that the instant coffee had for the others in the dorm.\n\n“You probably forgot that you ate it, pulling all nighters and all.” Said a mocking voice. \n\n“I keep the custard container for recycling, Morty.”\n“Oh”\n\n“Morty, what’s the last thing you left in the fridge?” Shin inquired without turning.\n“Yeah I don’t ever put food in there.”\n“What about the leftovers from Earl’s that one time Morty? It clearly had your name on it.”\n“Yeah I put it in and threw it out the next day. Stop calling me Morty.”\n“That’s what it said on the box you said you threw out.”\n\nThis made Lien and Jomari both turn and stare. Mort finds grace and waves it off, but not without a grimace.\n\n“Lien you were working at the oyster bar till 12. Meanwhile, Jomari, you were out with your girlfriend from 8 to 2, somewhere around Koreatown; Mort, you work at the Fogo de Chao behind the Toys r Us as a waiter from 3 to 8. But the problem with that is you came back for lunch, and you always take your break to the maximum like you have something you need to do. Today is a Tuesday so Jess and Alex are out for their community service and have been gone since morning, and wont be back until tomorrow. The fact that I saw it last at 1 am is key to figuring out who did. But a variable would be the friends you brought over Mort. I believe they are; Leon, Huy, and Juan. There were 3 in total and you didn’t let the us know in the group chat by the way. The 3 friend stayed for only an hour, leaving you alone, which then you went up to your room and didn’t come down until 3….and… wait!” Shin whips out his phone.\n\n‘Yes?’ The phone picks up immediately. \n“Alex, it’s Shin. Sorry to bother you while you’re working. Did you eat my custard during break?”\n“No.”\n“Oh okay thanks Alex.” \n\nHe rings again, and this one takes a little more time to be received. \n“H-hi? Shin? What’s up what happened?” Said a flustered voice.\n“You know the custard? The 12-“\n“The 12 pack?! Yes what happened?”\n“Well it’s gone. We shared one together.”\n“….do you want to go out and get some more?” She said hopefully.\n“Yeah no. You didn’t happen to eat the last one did you? On accident or something?”\n“No…but-“\n“Okay awesome thanks Jess.” Shin hangs up again.\n\nEveryone stared in wonder: something had gone terribly wrong with him during critical periods of childhood.\nShin being oblivious, thinks for a few more beats, then leaps! Making everyone jump. \n\n“The culprit… is someone in this very room!” Shin proclaims! “Since Alex and Jess is ruled out completely: I can deduce that it was one of you. Lien, while you were completely ignoring my delicious custard, you very well could have been the culprit. But the fact that you had work, and the fact that I have never seen a bartender eat, drink, or use the restroom, rules you out! And Jomari! While you have been spending a lot of time with your new girlfriend and also have been in the dorm less and less, I know that you were out with her since you texted me at 2AM asking for a ride back after she left you! And to be perfectly clear, while sleep deprivation is no joke, I cannot have eaten the 12th custard because the 11 glass containers sitting in my very room. So that leaves-“\n\nMort sighs.\n“Sherlock, what does that sign say.” Points Mort towards the fridge.\n\n‘Fridge will be cleared every two weeks by janitorial staff for hygienic and safety reasons’" } ]

[ { "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: King's Guardian\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 2459\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with someone entering a museum, and end it with them settling down to join a sit-in." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Zuri stepped off the bus along with the twelve other students in her history class and their teacher, Mr. Cahill. She stretched her back and looked across a spacious plaza, which hosted an abstract, geometric, steel sculpture that doubled as a water feature in its centre, at the massive building in front of her. Clean cut and modern and sporting an entirely glass façade, the National Civil Rights Museum stood with its doors open, ready to welcome visitors. On either side of the doors, there were two banners, one proclaiming the opening of a Martin Luther King Jr. photo exhibition and the other adorned with the museum’s logo and an invitation to book a tour.\nZuri was excited. She’d always loved museums and the feeling of being surrounded by history inside them. The way they let her fall into the past and feel a part of history. The way they just… inspired her.\nOnce everyone was off the bus, Mr. Cahill made his way to the front of the group and reiterated the importance of decent behaviour and taking in as much information as they could while inside.\n“This was a very important period in American history,” he ended his mini lecture, then turned and led them across the plaza and through the doors into the museum lobby.\nAfter the initial security checks and presenting of tickets, Zuri smiled as they were greeted by a smiling woman in a black pants suit who introduced herself as their guide for the day. She led them into the first exhibit, dedicated to women’s rights and rattled off facts and information Mr. Cahill had taught her ages ago. She listened with half an ear as the woman spoke, only giving her full attention when she began to explain the significance of the artefacts and photographs displayed in the exhibit. After the woman’s spiel, the class got the chance to take a closer look at the various items on display and read the plaques next to them for themselves. Then the women led them on to the next exhibit and repeated the process.\nEverything was interesting to Zuri, but she was most keen to see the Martin Luther King collection because he’d always been someone she looked up to. Someone she and, she figured, most other African-American people felt grateful for. She’d always wondered whether or not the Civil Rights Movement would’ve got as fas as it did without him.\nNaturally, it was the last exhibit but she held onto every word the woman said and lingered a lot longer on each photograph than her classmates. She was busy admiring one particular photo, which had been taken on the 19th of October, 1960 during the sit-in at Rich’s Department store, when Ava - a close friend of hers - walked up to join her.\n“Great man,” she commented and Zuri nodded. “Wouldn’t it be amazing if it were possible to go back in time to save him?”\nZuri felt a smile tug at the corner of her mouth. “Yeah. Wouldn’t it just?”\nAt that moment, she felt her phone buzz in her back pocket and she reached back to pull it out. She was expecting a text from one of her parents because they were the only ones who messaged her during the school day but the message was from an unsaved number that she didn’t recognise. The chat bubble displayed two words: why not? Zuri frowned. What the hell, she wondered then shook her head and returned the phone to her pocket before Mr. Cahill noticed, probably a wrong number.\nShe turned to tell Ava but, to her amazement, Ava wasn’t there. In fact, nothing and no one else that had been there just a second before were either. Where the photo had been, there was now a blank wall, painted a pale blue, and, where Ava had been standing, there was a metal bar table with four matching barstools, their plush seats covered in a red leatherette, around it. She spun around, a mixture of shock and confusion bombarding her, and found herself staring into the eyes of the dozen or so patrons of what appeared to be a retro, nautical themed diner - some seated at the bar tables spread down the middle of the diner, some in booths to her right - all staring straight back at her with expressions containing varying degrees of alarm on their faces - one man even looked downright disgusted. \nThe room was dead silent save for soft music emanating from a speaker somewhere and the sound of a fork clattering to a plate as someone dropped it.\n“What the…” she began to mumble but was cut of by a harsh voice from somewhere to her left.\n“Hey, girl,” the voice barked in a thick Georgia drawl, “can’t you read?”\nShe turned to face the voice’s owner, which turned out to be a man in his mid-to-late twenties standing behind a counter, in front of which stood a couple more of those bar stools. The man, evidently an employee, was dressed in a whimsical facsimile of a sailor’s uniform, over which he wore a white apron, and a white Dixie cup cap on his head. She’d heard him but her brain struggled to process his words.\n“I… I…” she stammered, not sure how to respond.\n“The sign outside,” he answered jabbing a finger in the direction of the door, “it very clearly says ‘whites only’.”\nShe allowed her eyes to follow his finger to the glass doors on the opposite side of the room, still not fully comprehending what he’d said, and then they drifted back to him. “What?” was all she could manage.\nThe man sighed. “Listen, girl. I don’t wanna have to call the cops on you, but I will if you don’t get out right now.”\nZuri’s brow furrowed and she did one more visual sweep of the diner. It was everything a retro diner should have been, with all its kitschy décor, old-timey coffee machine, and the giant juke box - which she determined to be the source of the music - in the corner. Then she noticed that the diner wasn’t the only thing that had embraced the retro theme. All the customers looked like they’d been plucked straight out of the 1950s or 60s. The men all wearing button down shirts and slacks or suits, and the women wearing dresses, their hair done up with hats and bags resting on free chairs beside them. Ordinarily, she’d have found a place like that really cool, but now all she could focus on was how she’d gotten there.\n“Where did the museum go?” she murmured, more to herself than to get an answer.\n“What the hell are you talkin’ about?” the waiter replied, “Actually, never mind, get out or I call the cops.”\n“Cops,” Zuri repeated, dazed and suddenly dizzy, “I think I need to sit down.”\nSeemingly of its own volition, her arm reached out and gripped the barstool beside her. Weakly, she pulled herself on to it, steadying herself against the table. This elicited a horrified gasp from the other patrons and the waiter balked.\n“Okay, that’s it,” he said turning toward the wall, “the cops can deal with you.” \nThe waiter reached for the wall- mounted phone behind him - an old rotary, Zuri noticed - and right as he rotated the dial for the first number, the bell over the door jingled announcing a new customer.\n“Really?” a man exclaimed, “Another one?”\nZuri lifted her eyes to the door to see a young African-American man in a pair of dark blue slacks and a white, button-down short sleeve striding quickly toward her. His eyes were wide and before she could say anything his fingers closed round her right bicep and he hauled her off the stool and began dragging her toward the door.\n“Sorry ‘bout that folks,” he said, “my sister got a little confused there.”\nShe didn’t protest, just let him drag her outside. She felt like she was going crazy. She knew she’d just been in a museum before suddenly finding herself in a diner, where the only qualms people seemed to have with her being there related to the fact that she was black.Once they were outside and a sufficient distance away from the diner, the man stopped abruptly and turned to her, eyebrows raised and a harried look in his eyes.\n“What were you thinkin’?” he hissed.\nShe looked into his dark eyes, as if they held the answers she needed. As hard as she tried, she couldn’t process what was going on. It was impossible. Her mind was reeling and she felt like her brain was misfiring. One second she was in the museum, the next she was… well, she had no idea. One moment she’d been talking to Ava and then… her thoughts trailed off as she remembered the text on her phone - the mysterious why not she’d written off as a message sent to the wrong number - and a crazy idea crept into her mind. She wanted to fight against it because it was insane, but so was the situation she found herself in. What if that wasn’t just a wrong number?\n“What’s the date?” she blurted after a long pause.\nHe cocked his head to the side, arching an eyebrow. “What?”\n“The date,” she replied, “what is it?”\nThe man’s brows drew together, crumpling his smooth forehead, and his grip on her arm loosened. “The nineteenth,” he said, “what…”\n”The nineteenth of what?” she barked.\n“October,” he answered, his voice taking on a defensive tone, “are you…”\nShe shook her head. “What year?”\n“Nineteen-sixty,” he said, the confusion in his eyes transforming into concern, “listen, are you all right? Did you hit your head or somethin’?”\nA sharp laugh escaped Zuri’s lips as she recognised the date and the seedling of the idea that had crept into her mind suddenly burst into full bloom. I’ve gone back in time, she thought to herself. She didn’t know how or by whom, but she knew why. Ava’s remark. The text. The diner. Somehow she’d gained the opportunity to save a great man and she’d be damned before she gave it up. She smiled.\n“I’m great,” she answered the man, “excellent, actually. Thanks for helping me out back there, my name’s Zuri.”\nThe man’s quizzical look returned and he eyed her for a moment before replying, in a tone suited more to a question than an introduction, “I’m Reggie and you’re welcome.”\n“It’s so unfair,” she decided to guide him away from any questions he might have wanted to ask, “that they’re allowed to treat us like that. We have as much right to be in that diner as they do.”\nFor a moment she thought her tactic had failed as he continued to study her, but he clearly decided to let the matter be and instead chose to follow her lead, “That may be so but unfortunately they don’t see it that way.”\n“One day things will change,” she said, “maybe not so far as to achieve the ideal, but thing will change.”\n“One can only hope,” he sighed, then his lips curved in a sly smile and his eyes gleamed, “Say, Zuri, I was just on my way to get some lunch somewhere I think you’d like.”\nZuri’s immediate instinct was to take a step back - Reggie was, after all, at least five years her elder - but then he produced a folded up piece of paper from his pocket and held it out to her. She studied it, hesitant to take it, until Reggie held it a little closer, a clear gesture for her to take it. Gingerly, she took the little square from his hand and, without breaking eye contact with him, unfolded it. She looked down at it to see it was a flyer with a familiar portrait printed on it, alongside the slogan ‘We Shall Overcome’ and a date and address:\nWednesday, October 19th\nRich’s Department Store\n45 Broad St.\nA grin spread on her face as she looked back up and Reggie and nodded enthusiastically.\n“Why not?” she said, thinking once again of the text.\n“I figured you’d approve,” he said, “just so long as you’re prepared for whatever may happen.”\nZuri thought back to Mr. Cahill’s lessons and the things the lady at the museum had said. She knew exactly what to expect, but the thought of meeting her hero and possibly saving his life - even though she wasn’t sure how she’d convince him without sounding like a loon - outweighed any fears she had of what she knew the protesters had faced - or rather, would face - that day.\n“And how,” she answered.\n“Great,” Reggie said, rubbing his hands together, “we better get goin’ then. It’s just a few blocks away.”\nZuri nodded before letting him lead her in the direction of Atlanta’s largest department store.\nAs promised, Broad Street was only a few blocks away and, when the massive palazzo style building on the corner came into view, Zuri felt her heart begin to race. She noticed a few other men and women of colour walking into the building. No one stopped them as they were allowed in to buy stuff, just weren’t allowed to sit and eat at the soon-to-be-famous lunch counter. She followed Reggie to the doors, then through, her heart beating so fast and so loud it was all she could hear. She was aware of the various displays and items for sale around her but she wasn’t really seeing it. All she could see were the scenarios her mind kept conjuring of the moment she’d get to meet Martin Luther King Jr. and be a part of one of the greatest events of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement.\nHer body was moving on auto pilot as she stepped onto the escalator, completely oblivious to the glare she got from a woman going down on the other side. The escalator carried them up and, as she and Reggie glided to the top, the lunch counter came into view. This is it, she thought as she strode toward it, this is really happening. There were already a few participants seated at the counter, calmly ignoring the frantic nattering of the woman behind it, but there was only one that Zuri was interested in: the calm figure of a man in a charcoal tweed suit, head tilted upwards as if scanning the specials board.\nIgnoring Reggie’s calls for her to wait, Zuri strode straight up and too the seat beside him.\n“Doctor King,” she said, barely able to contain her excitement, “my name’s Zuri Williams.”" } ]

[ { "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 Chinaman's Chance\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1691\n\nPrompt:\n\nMake a race an important element of your story." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“I timed the movement twice and found the speed as follows: The first time 240 feet of rail was laid in one minute and twenty seconds; the second time 240 feet was laid in one minute and fifteen seconds.” \n—San Francisco news reporter for the Daily Alta California \n\nSunlight creeps over the mountains of Utah and spills across the ground. A train huffs along a track. The orange-red dawn fingers the ink-black metal of the engine and catches the steam and smoke rising from it. \n\nThe engine wheezes to a halt not far from the end of the line. \n\nFeet encased in thick leather work boots stir up puffs of dust. Black braids of hair swing under wide-brimmed hats, the style of which was brought from another country. The wearers of the hats are also from another country: China. \n\nThis is the Central Pacific Railroad’s great force of track layers. Some of these men have been laboring on the iron road for as long as six years. \n\nThe line started in California in 1863. Today is Wednesday, April 28, 1869. Trains can now run from San Francisco up into the Sierra Nevada mountains, through Donner Pass and down into the Nevada and Utah deserts. \n\nThe Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads have been building towards each other since they began, and are now nearing the chosen junction in Ogden. Recently, the Union Pacific laid six miles of track in one day. Their bosses sent a message to Charles Crocker, the Central Pacific’s construction supervisor, inviting him and his “Chinese pets” to beat that. The Central Pacific workers did so, laying seven miles in a day. The Union Pacific then hammered out seven and a half miles in one day by working from 3:00AM until nearly midnight. \n\nCrocker then claimed that the Central Pacific workers were capable of putting down ten miles of track in one day. \n\nThe Union Pacific workers declared this idea ridiculous, and the UPRR’s vice-president Thomas Durant bet Charles Crocker $10,000 that ten miles of track in one day was impossible to fulfill, saying further that his money was covered. \n\nIn response, Charles Crocker and James Strorbridge, his one-eyed construction superintendent, spent several days arranging for trains loaded with track supplies to be brought to the rail head. To win the bet, five trains, each with sixteen flatcars full of supplies, are standing ready. Every set of sixteen cars holds enough materials for two miles of track. \n\nWorkers have already laid down wooden ties on graded ground for ten miles. It was planned that Tuesday, April 27, would be the great day, but a train running off the tracks caused the event to be postponed to the 28th. \n\nNow the day has come. Over 4,000 men are assembled and ready to begin. All but a small fraction of this number are Chinese. These men range in age from their late teens to their forties, and all are fit and strong. The weather and terrain in the United States are like nothing they ever saw at home. Yet touches of home are found in all their camps. Ceramic bowls, toothbrushes made of bamboo and boar bristles, food, and opium are all shipped to Gold Mountain from China. So many Chinese live in the United States that it has produced a new and thriving market in the buying and selling of Chinese goods.\n\nMost of these Chinese men hail from southern China’s Pearl River delta, called the Siyi, consisting of four counties south-west of Hong Kong. To them, the United States was the Flowery Flag Nation and Gold Mountain. It’s a place where laborers are wanted, and the Chinese are willing to supply that labor. The Chinese are the most numerous of the CPRR’s workers, and the company knows it. These men have climbed the mountains and tunneled through them. For years now, both railroad employers and the employed have been aware that the iron road can’t go forward without Chinese workers. \n\nWhen pay is handed out on Fridays, white workers, mainly Irish, tend to disappear, and sometimes don’t come back after the weekend, too drunk to work. Chinese workers insist on being paid in gold dollars rather than paper, and save their money. They send much of their earnings home, first exchanging gold for silver, which is more valuable in their homeland. The silver goes back across the sea to their home villages. With the money go many letters to families. Some of those letters are to wives and children they have never met, supported by what is sent back from Gold Mountain. Some of those wives in China die virgin widows, legally married to men they have never been with, after raising children they adopted and provided for with money from an unseen husband. The wealth from Gold Mountain also funds the building of village watch towers, erected so as to provide warnings against attacks. Many of these towers stand into the twenty-first century. \n\nThese men have been tried and have not been found wanting. They know their business. They know this will be a race against time. They’ve beaten the Union Pacific once, and they’re ready to do it again. The bosses are ready to have them prove to the other side that they are just as capable of great things.\n\nOne-eyed Strorbridge is mounted on a horse, ready to travel up and down the line to perform his role of superintendent. The Chinese have been heard referring to him as “One-eyed bossy man.” He holds his watch in his hand, waiting for the hour. \n\nThe delicate second hand makes the final round of the dial. \n\nThe engine’s whistle screams long and loud, piercing the morning quiet, and a plume of white steam shoots into the air. It’s 7:00AM. \n\nEvery worker surges forward, climbing onto the flatcars and unloading the iron rails, fishplates, and kegs full of bolts and spikes. In eight minutes, the first sixteen flatcars are bare.\n\nSmaller flatcars are set on the tracks by hand and loaded with the supplies. A horse with a rider is positioned on either side of the car, and a single long rope links the horses and is secured to the vehicle. Six men pile onto each flatcar and hand out materials as they are needed. \n\nEight Irishmen, working in teams of four, use heavy iron tongs to grip the 560 pound rails and move them off the flatcar and onto the ties. After they are set down, the rails are meticulously straightened; a crooked section could derail a train. Straightening finished, spikes are hammered by hand with mallets through the solid iron rails and into the wooden ties.\n\nThen the fishplates—which hold one length of rail to another—are bolted on. Four hundred Chinese men armed with shovels and tamping bars lift the edges of the ties and fill in more ballast, setting the track firmly in place. \n\nThe track moves forward at a pace to match a leisurely stroll. An hour goes by, and a mile has been laid down. Two hours pass, and the supplies from the first sixteen-car train are used up. \n\nThe small horse-drawn cars are now moving at speed, whizzing forward and back on the track. Empty cars are lifted off to allow full ones to pass, then set back in place to complete the return journey and be reloaded. \n\nAs the watch hands tick towards noon and heat grows, the work keeps on at a steady pace. When the CPRR hands break for lunch at 1:30PM, they have been at it hammer and tongs for six and a half hours, and more than six miles of track are on the ground. The bosses declare that this location will be known as “Victory.\"\n\nAfter lunch, the going gets tougher. The morning’s prepared grading covered terrain that was relatively flat. The road now winds right and left up a slope. The straight iron rails need to be bent accordingly, and this slows the march of the railroad army. The ends of the rails are placed on wooden blocks and they are beaten in the center with hammers until the necessary curvature is reached. Nevertheless, when the railroad hands call it quits at 7:00PM, ten miles and fifty-six feet of track have been built. \n\nThe four Irish iron workers receive four days’ worth of pay. There are no records telling whether the Chinese workers received anything more than their usual wages for a day. No bookkeeping is done on the wages due to “John Chinaman.” One-eyed Strorbridge does not know the names of his multitude of Chinese workers. He hands pay over to Chinese headmen, who then deal out the proper amounts to every man in their work gangs. But this Strorbridge does know, and will testify to in Congressional hearings concerning Chinese immigration: the company had less difficulty with Chinese workers than with whites, even when their pay was delayed. The Chinese are a hard-working people who all the bosses say are less troublesome than Irish hands. \n\nBoarding boss Jim Campbell mounts a locomotive and has the engineers run it back to the morning’s camp at 40 miles an hour to prove the track is well-laid and safe. \n\nAs the sun sets, 1,200 men ride the flatcars they emptied back to Victory Camp. The rest walk the ten miles back. Night creeps over the earth, and stars wink in the heavens. Candles and fires glow in and around the tents, lighting up the canvas city. The strains of a song drift in the air swirling with opium smoke: Marry your daughter to a Gold Mountain guest, They would come back home with glory and wealth. \n\nTomorrow is another day of work. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAuthor’s note: The song lyrics are quoted from the book “Ghosts of Gold Mountain” by Gordon H. Chang. I also used that book for much of my research.\nI also used the following article for research:\nhttp://cprr.org/Museum/Southern_Pacific_Bulletin/Ten_Mile_Day.html\n“A Chinaman’s chance” is a term that developed in California in the late 1800s. It’s similar to “when pigs fly” and “a snowball’s chance in Hell\". Chinese in the U.S. were often viewed and treated with hostility." } ]

[ { "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: Granny Ellen\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1010\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about an elderly character who was part of a historic movement years ago." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Author’s Note: This is my first story in a while, but I hope it’s still good and that you guys enjoy it! :D\n\nEllen Millson swayed back and forth in her rocking chair. Her hair, still bright red despite her age, was braided and resting on her shoulder. In front of Ellen, on a soft rug, sat two young children, a boy, and a girl. The boy had red hair like Ellen’s, just not so bright, and an animated look in his eyes. The girl had shockingly elegant raven hair; her dark blue eyes looked tired.\n“Didan,” Ellen spoke softly to the boy, “your sister seems to be tired. Let’s get you two in bed.”\n“I am tired, Didan. Please?” Kenyelletsa, the girl, begged. She looked at her brother with half-closed eyes. The way her shoulders sagged made Didan feel bad, but he needed to hear a story of Granny Ellen’s.\n“I’m sorry, Kenyee. I’m going to listen to one of Granny’s stories. You can go to bed if you want,” Didan said. He looked up expectantly at Ellen. She smiled warmly at the kids and nodded.\n“Kenyelletsa, I promised your brother that I would tell him a story tonight. It is up to you if you would like to stay and listen or go to bed.”\nAll eyes were on Kenyelletsa now. Didan’s were wide; Ellen’s were crinkled up in a half-smile. “Kenyee” shook her head somewhat, but readjusted herself to be more comfortable and looked up expectantly at Ellen.\n“Well, what story do you two want to hear tonight?” Ellen asked.\n“One about dragons! Or racecars! Oh, tell us about Mommy and Daddy when they were little like me!” Didan rambled.\n“I want to hear about you marching with Martin Luther King, Jr., Granny,” Kenyelletsa said, just above a whisper. Ellen considered the last suggestion, then made up her mind.\n“It was 1963, and a hot August. A rumor was going around that Martin was starting a march to fight for civil rights for African Americans, just like you and me. I didn’t believe it. I knew that Martin was strong, and fighting hard for our rights, but to march all those miles? It was unthinkable. I only believed it when my sister, your Aunt Georgia, came rushin’ over to my house, waving a newspaper. I can remember her slamming it down on my kitchen table. I was so mad at her for just barging in like that until I looked at the front page.\" Ellen paused, taking a deep breath.\n“What happened next, Granny?!” Kenyelletsa exclaimed. She looked at her grandmother with wide, curious eyes.\n“There was a big picture on that front page. And Martin was right in the center of it, with who knows how many people behind him! Georgia insisted that we join them. I wasn’t so sure that we shoulda gone right and done it without knowing-” Ellen was cut off by her grandson.\n“Granny! You should’ve gone right away! Martin helped you be free!” Didan cried. Ellen’s face turned stern, but Kenyelletsa could see the hint of a smile on her face.\n“Hush, child. Or you can go to bed without hearing the rest of the story.”\nDidan pretended to zip his lips shut before scooching closer as if it were going to help him hear better. Ellen nodded before continuing.\n“I read and re-read the article that went with Martin’s picture, and that’s when I finally agreed with Georgia. We headed right out of the door, on our way to Selma, and Martin.\n“When me and that crazy sister of mine caught up with the group, there was thousands upon thousands of people with ‘im! More people in one place than I’d ever seen. Ever have seen. So, for-” Granny held up three fingers. “-three days, Georgia and I marched with MLK. Sometimes it got tiring, and Georgia complained like a injured dog, but we marched until we got to Montgomery,” Granny concluded. Kenyelletsa continued to just sit there on the floor, but Didan jumped up from his spot and started jumping around like a kangaroo.\n“My granny marched with Martin! My granny marched with Martin!” Didan sang. He continued hopping and dancing with his fingers pointed up in the air, his arms moving up and down. Didan only stopped when a pair of small, delicate hands grabbed his shoulders from behind. Stopping his jumping, Didan turned around and was looking at his big-by-one-year sister.\n“Stop jumping, Didan. Granny said, while you were yelling, that she’s going to tuck us in for bed. So, let’s go.” Kenyee grabbed her little-by-one-year brother by the forearm and began dragging him to his bedroom. Ellen sighed and pushed herself out of the rocking chair, then followed.\nThe moment that Ellen stepped into Didan’s bedroom, Kenyelletsa walked out, across the hall to her own. Ellen smiled as Kenyee passed by. ‘Granny’ walked into her grandson’s bedroom, where he was already under the covers and half-asleep. She sat down on a chair that stood next to his bed, taking a deep breath.\n“You want a song, right?” Ellen checked.\n“Right, Granny.” Didan lifted a corner of his mouth in a grin.\n“Okay… You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are gray. You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you. Please don’t take my sunshine away.” Ellen sang the song slowly, softly, to give Didan time to drift off to sleep. Sure enough, he did, and Ellen turned off his bedside lamp before tip-toeing across the hall.\n“I don’t want a song, Granny. Just sit here, please,” Kenyelletsa requested immediately. Granny nodded slightly and made her way to the chair that sat next to her granddaughter’s bed. The light clicked off by Kenyee’s hand. The chair squeaked from Ellen’s weight. The soft hum from the heater in the corner filled the room. Kenyelletsa reached her hand out and found her grandmother’s. She grasped it tightly, as tightly as she possibly could.\n“Goodnight, sweet girl,” Ellen whispered.\n“Goodnight, Granny,” Kenyee responded." } ]

[ { "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 unlikely historian\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 2645\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about an elderly character who was part of a historic movement years ago." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Usually when he took the bus Cliff would be sitting in the middle beside Rosa. This was the 1950’s so segregation was still a thing. Normally when someone black would sit in the front of the bus the bus driver would immediately tell them to move to towards the back. Rosa and Cliff were friends for years and she would always have fresh baked muffins for him to try as she would create different flavors such as; oatmeal raisin, blueberry, banana nut, and strawberry. On this particular day Cliff just so happened to sit at the back of the bus and not the middle as he had gotten a bad feeling as he was about to sit down in the middle. When the bus came to the next stop Rosa got on and sat on the middle and looked back and waved at Cliff but she didn’t have any muffin today which was weird because she loved to bake and share them with her friends. The day before Rosa had gotten into a small argument with her husband because she started hanging around a young minister named Martin Luther King who was also married but Rosa’s husband didn’t like the fact that they had increasingly started to hang around each other as well as the rest of the group and it was starting to take up most of her time. They had started a small council of people who would try to implement change towards how blacks were treated in the world and they were also in talks about starting a movement. The reason Rosa didn’t have any muffins that day was because she and Dr King were on the phone most of the nigh talking about different plans to put into motion but neither of them would realize that there plan would be in motion as sooner than expected. Robert stopped the story he was telling his grand-kids so he could use the bathroom and when he got back hey were gone. They had went downstairs and got themselves some snacks. When they came back after a few minutes Robert had suddenly fell asleep in the chair with his head tilted sideways. The kids laughed and decided to prank him by wrapping toilet paper around his head and pouring hot sauce into his open mouth. After pouring the hot sauce in his mouth he awoke and startled them as he knocked the bottle to the ground as the glass broke and hot sauce was leaking from the side of his mouth. He stood up, started screaming erratically about how hot his mouth was and immediately ran to the kitchen to drink some water and milk. After he was done he cursed the kids and told them to clean up the mess or he would get his belt and if they didn’t know anything else they knew that grandpa Robert would whoop them if they didn’t listen. The kids finished cleaning up the glass and wasted hot sauce and while they were cleaning Robert had moved to the living room and started watching a show on the TV. They told him they were done and aggravated him until he continued the story because even though they were young they liked hearing about the civil rights movement. Robert sighed and said fine. So Robert picked up where he left off. The day after the night Rosa talked to Mr. King on the phone, the next morning Rosa and her husband had an argument and because of it she didn’t have time to bake her muffins. The bus stopped and Rosa got on and Cliff could see she was irritated and didn’t want to ask why she chose to sit in the middle of the bus rather than at the back. The bus proceeded to the next stop that would affect the entire world for years to come. The bus stopped and a group of white people got on and even though there were open seats towards the front of the bus they felt entitled and every chance they got they would use that privilege against blacks because at that time the segregation laws were in effect. So the went towards the middle of the bus and asked the blacks that were sitting there to move and almost all of them did but one and her name was Rosa Parks. She refused to move and hey looked at each other and threatened her. She replied and said that there were enough seats for them to sit down beside her or they could use the seats towards the front that were unoccupied and they were in disbelief. The bus driver hadn’t moved yet and decided to call the police because he was outraged. The police came and ask her to move and she again refused. After 30minutes they decided to arrest her for civil disobedience. At that time not many people spoke out towards the disrespect endured to black people, mostly because of what happened to Emmett Till a few months earlier. He didn’t want to give them a horrid visual so he just told them that Emmett Till was a 14year old boy who was lynched by a couple of white guys because he said something to a white girl and his mother had an open casket funeral to show the public what happened to her son. He told them that many people believe that these events started the civil rights movement but it wasn’t true but those events did spark an uprising that made it happen a lot sooner than planned. The next day after he found out Rosa was in jail Dr. King led a march through down the streets of Albany, Georgia. The kids stopped him and asked how did he know what happened on the bus and it wasn’t in the history books and he told them that he was one of the man that had moved out his seat for the white man. Then they stated that how come he didn’t stay like Rosa and he said that the only reason Rosa stayed was because she was mad at her husband and she wasn’t in a charitable mood. After the march a boycott was started and it went on for over a year in which Rosa had lost her job but they said it wasn’t because of her incident but anybody who believed that would be foolish. Robert stopped the story and told them that for the next part they would need to know that he was a deacon in the church at the time and wasn’t on board with the nonviolent approach by Dr. King and that he often sided with Malcolm X and his approach on defending yourself by any means necessary. When he was a young boy he had got in trouble for striking a white officer who grabbed his mother by the arm and he was struck hard in the side of the head by a baton. The kids sympathized for a minute and asked for him to continue the story. Of course he sighed. He began and said in 1956 Dr. King had sent out letters for the deacons and reverend’s of black churches to meet in Atlanta, Georgia but he denied him at first until he saw what effect the non-violence approach was having on society and it was actually sparking change as more people stepped up. So in January of 1957 he decided to go to the meeting but ended up being a day late but Dr. King welcomed him anyway because he was ecstatic that Robert had changed his mind. The meeting was to coordinate protests across the country. After the meeting Dr. King had asked him to stay a while longer so they could chat and he asked what made Robert change his mind. Robert replied that he saw how society was slowly changing and he wanted to be a part of that change. After talking with him some more Robert and Dr. King parted ways but as Robert was getting in his car Martin stopped him and asked if he would like to grab a bite to eat with him and his wife. Now Robert didn’t feel comfortable being a third wheel and he still was uneasy about the decision to join the non-violent cause but what happened during the dinner changed his life forever. The kids were now tuned completely in as they wanted to hear more about the life changing experience Robert had with Dr. King. He met the king’s at the restaurant and they were talking having a good time when a lady came over to join them. Robert described her as the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. She had on a long red dress with the hairstyle of Bette McLaurin who was a songstress at the time. The lady was a friend of Ms. King; her name was Lynnette. The kids awed because Lynnette was their grandmother’s name who had just passed a few months ago which is why Robert was now staying with them. He stood up and kissed her hand and told her how beautiful she was. What Robert didn’t know at the time was that Dr. King had set this up within the hour. After his conversation with Robert at the meeting and inviting him, he called his wife and asked her to invite her friend that was visiting. Many people don’t know but Dr. King was a match maker thanks to his wife. During the dinner the conversation shifted from the four off them talking to just Robert and Lynette conversing and then they decided to dance together and during that dance is when he told his grand-kids he knew they would be together forever because no woman had ever gotten him to dance in public the way he was at the time. He had completely forgotten about the good Dr. and was purely focused on the gorgeous lady he was with. After that night he and Martin had become close friends, so close that he was promoted to one of the head leaders in Dr. King’s circle. Two major events happened in September of that year; the first was the little rock nine were blocked from integrating into central high school and a few days later president Eisenhower signed the civil rights act of 1957 which allowed federal prosecution of those who suppressed anothers right to vote. In December of the same year Robert proposed to Lynette and she said yes. They married in June the following year. On January 29th of 1960 he was speaking at a college campus in Greensboro, North Carolina to a group of students which inspired the event of the days to follow. On February 1st four students from the campus refused to leave a “whites only” lunch counter without being served. That event became known as the Greensboro sit in. More events happened over the next 3 years that were sparked by the overwhelming publicity from the movement and everyone knew they were a part of something great. August 28th of 1963 Robert marched beside Martin along with 250,000 people in the march on Washington to deliver his speech “I have a dream speech.” Robert urged against the march in the days before because police officers were getting more violent but stayed to support his friend. After the speech they took a picture together. Sadly though he explained to his grand-kids that sometimes when something great happens it is followed by disaster and that’s what happened as on September 15th a few weeks after the speech a church was bombed in Birmingham, Alabama that killed 4 young girls and injured many others. They were outraged and more protests were sparked. Robert suggested they make a few protests directed towards discrimination in the workplace because of what happened to Rosa and because of what his pregnant wife was going through in her workplace. She was about 6 weeks pregnant. Robert’s wife birthed twins June of the next year. The kids stopped him for a bit and exclaimed with laughter that their aunt and uncle were old. The beginning of July president Johnson passed a law (the civil rights act of 1964) that prevented workplace discrimination due to race, color, sex, national origin, and religion. Robert had met Malcolm X a few times but since being Dr. King’s best friend now he hadn’t seen much of him. Malcolm reached out to Robert and asked if he could accompany him to a deliver a speech to the nation of Islam. He reiterated to the kids that every time something good happens something bad followed and that’s what happened as on February 21st of 1965 as he was standing beside him he watched his old friend Malcolm X get assassinated as he was also hit by a bullet. This left him emotionally wounded for a few months as Dr. King visited him in the hospital a few times and his wife stood by his side until he recovered. This sparked the march known as Bloody Sunday(March 7, 1965) where 600 civil rights marchers walk to Selma, Alabama to Montgomery—the state’s capital—in protest of Black voter suppression where the police blocked and brutally attacked them. They finally reached Montgomery on March 25 as Dr. King had to fight the court for their right to march. After he recovered Robert focused on raising his family as he was giving up his time fighting in the movement as it was getting too unbearable. In the next couple of years Robert and Lynette had another child in 1968. Robert stopped the story and urged the kids that they needed to get to bed as their parents would be home soon and he didn’t want them to get in trouble. He said they were at the end and that he would finish after they got ready for bed. They washed up, brushed their teeth, got in their pajamas and got in the bed. He said alright this is the where the story ends. Robert continued and said that even though Dr. King knew he was done with the movement he urged him to accompany him to Memphis, Tennessee as he didn’t trust anyone else as much as he trusted Robert and that he would only be gone a couple days. Robert had just had another child but he decided to help his friend. In April while his daughter was 2 months old he left his wife to accompany his friend and promised he would only be gone a few days. On April 4th 1968 during the morning his friend DR. Martin Luther King stepped onto the balcony to watch the sunrise. After a minute as Robert got dressed to join him all heard was a loud gunshot and as he ran to the balcony he saw his friend laying there dead. On April 11th President Johnson signed the civil rights act of 1968. He said the end and his kids asked how did he deal with losing two of his best friends like that and he said that he deals with it every day and that focusing on his family helps. The story was over and it was past the kids bedtime as he heard a car pull up and one of the kids said how do we know that your story was real and he pulled out his wallet and showed them a picture of him and Dr. King posing for a picture at the end of the I have a dream speech in Washington. Their parents came home and asked how things went and that they had just came back from watching the Malcolm X movie in theaters and that’s when their kids jumped up and said Grandad told us the story about him meeting Malcolm X, Dr. King, and Rosa Parks." } ]

[ { "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: Lemons, Ginger and Garlic\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1445\n\nPrompt:\n\nInclude in your story a scene about a family's last meal before a significant change." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "\"Does the presence of something outweigh its absence? Or is it the other way around?\" I said to no one in specific, communally munching on Garlic Naan and Haleem with my family.\nMy mouth was a cacophony of flavor, an explosion of my Pakistani heritage complete with a mix of my family’s modernism tied in to make it more mild than usual. It was irresistible; the sharp taste of the garlic in the Naan beautifully contrasted with the subtleness of the Haleem, resulting in a perfect landscape for my tongue to explore. But something, I couldn’t put my finger on what exactly, was missing; a tinge of hollowness against an expanse of infinity.\n\"It all depends on the person, beta. Everything comes down to perspective. You may find it helpful to be grateful for the things that are, rather than sulk over those that aren’t,\" replied a masculine voice so soft it was almost like velvet. Baba.\nHe sat completely opposite me, his gentle hazel eyes fixated on something far, far away. You may have expected him to sit on the head seat of the table, but that was and forever will be reserved for my Nani. Matriarchy was not uncommon in my culture, it was just that women were not as vocal as men when it came to having a sense of power.\n\"Oho! Stop with this philosophical gibberish! Eat, eat, eat! I didn’t stand in the kitchen for 5 hours for this!\" yelled a voice not so soft, not so velvety.\nMy mother was a simple woman, she’d stay at home and continue to stay at home. Most may think it a pointless existence with no impact, but the truth is, without her, the house would be entirely dysfunctional.\n\"Mama! This is a very important conversation! I am trying to figure out what is missing in the food!\" I replied, the frustration of something you couldn’t grasp that was right on the tip of your tongue fueling my tone of voice. Literally.\nJust as she was about to open her mouth to yell back, Baba gave her a delicate smile, his dimples forcing her to surrender, her crossed arms a sort of white flag. I beamed to myself, hearing her ‘Hmph!’ and the all too familiar mumbling of how our father had spoiled us continuously. I shifted my gaze around the dining table and stopped once I reached my younger sister who, much to my dismay, was much taller than me.\n\"What are you looking at!?\" she shot at me, her eyebrows raised in a disorderly fashion.\nI didn’t reply. I stared at her clothes, the citrus pattern on her Shalwar Kameez stared right back at me. The warm hues of the fabric nudged at something in my head, almost mischievously as if to mock me for not knowing the answer… something so obvious it was only justified to make a joke out of me. I closed my eyes, the abhorrent fruits now burnt on my eyelids after staring at them for so long.\n\"I got it! I got it, Ma! It’s the lemons! You forgot to give us lemons this time! That was what was missing all along!\" I yelped with joy, the relief of discovery calming me down.\nIt was as if everyone collectively gasped together, my realization being contagious. My khala, who had previously been silent, suddenly groaned as if to say ‘about time someone figured it out!’. She got out of her seat in an instant, grabbing her purse and sunglasses – ‘Alright, I’ve had enough! I’m going to get lemons right this second, that is final!’ she stated, her decisiveness enough to silence everyone about to refute her actions. No one dared to speak until the harsh sound of the door slamming filled the room.\n\"So, Baba, you see! The absence does outweigh the presence after all. Zeliha Khala couldn’t tolerate it anymore!’ I squealed, excited that this strange turn of events had aided me in reaching a conclusion.\n\"But look around you, beta! Everyone else tolerated it. Some didn’t even notice! And the rest were indifferent,\" he shrugged.\nI didn’t know what to reply, so I continued eating. We might not have had lemons, but Mama would never forget the chopped-up ginger! Positioning it carefully on my plate, making sure it was evenly spread, I popped another morsel in my mouth. The juicy crunch of the almost overpowering vegetable filled me with glee. Oh, how I loved our food!\nThe blanket of gentle gossip quickly faded away when the Azaan started, the beauty of the Imam’s voice enough to silence even the birds chirping outside. We unanimously lowered our heads in respect, the sheer rawness of the speaker washed over us, making us feel suspended in an astral plane of our faith and our faith alone. Even though we did not fully understand the meaning of his words, the power of his voice alone shook us to our core, reminding us how insignificant we as beings were, eternally destined to be superior in this world but inferior in the next.\nSitting amongst our thoughts for a while after the call to prayer ended, we refrained from speaking. It wasn’t because of any restrictions or limitations, but it was a choice. A choice to stay still and marinate in our contemplative isolation.\nOnce we felt complete in ourselves, we cleared the table and sat in a collective sense of excitement. What was now was the anticipation of what every age group loved and couldn’t help but succumb to: dessert! The child-like greediness was apparent in the eyes of all of us at the table as we savored the Kheer, Gulab Jamun, and Seviyan placed in front of us. Hastily, grabbing our respective bowls we all poured the sweetness to our hearts’ contents, the joy of something so trivial outweighing the true anxieties in our lives.\n\"So... what did I miss?\" said Zeliha Khala, finally back, albeit at the very end, with what seemed like shopping bags of everything but lemons.\n5 years later.\nNo matter how much we would pretend like dinners were the way they were before, it was never enough. All the vibrant tones of our culture had died down into a melancholy grey. Maybe it was a punishment. Maybe we deserved it. For abandoning our motherland, of course.\nBaba wanted a better life, Mama would not hear of it, but she had no choice but to leave behind the land of all she knew, to monotonous grey plains of nothingness. The window in our new dining room looked out upon the same, depressing structure of what the Westerners referred to as a home for what seemed like eternity. Zeliha Khala had tried her best and covered the harrowing view with traditional-style curtains, but nothing, not even the brightly colored mirrors on the fabric could prevent the dismal light from swarming into the room and drowning all remains of individuality.\nI did not ponder philosophically this time, or argue with Mama about how my conversation was more important. Instead, I ate, once again, Haleem and slowly slid the morsels into my mouth. The silence was deafening, unsaid words hung in the air, jabbing at us mercilessly. This time, there were no lemons, no ginger, no Garlic Naan. I didn’t ask for any. Neither did Zeliha Khala make an attempt to run away again. The Haleem was made from a cheap instant packet at the local ‘Asian Superstore’, which took all of Mama’s self-respect to cook. You could tell the food was made devoid of enthusiasm, but no one complained. No one spoke.\nNani stared into space, mumbling frantically, her eyes widening with fear every now and then. Her dementia had gotten worse, but we did not have sufficient funds to help her; healthcare in the West was too expensive. The lines between the Matriarchy and Patriarchy in our family blurred, leaving a puddle of a singular compulsion: to survive.\nEven the clothes we wore had dulled; they felt like prison uniforms. There were no eye-catching citrus fruits on my sister’s bleak navy blue T-shirt that I could stare at until I felt half mad. There were no raw calls to prayers, just an artificial replacement of the applications on our phones. There were no sessions of gentle gossip or introspective reflections.\nBut worst of all, there was no dessert. All the sweetness of our culture had been sucked away by the void of industrialization.\nI realized something very important that very dinner: the current absence of my culture outweighed the past presence of it. I was right all along.\nNothing would ever be the same 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: Princess Elvis\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1287\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a child witnessing a major historical event." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Let me tell you how my nickname came about. My sister gave it to me. It doesn’t make any sense, as you’ll see. But it stuck.\nI was only a girl. So, forgive my not having all the times and dates. You can look it up. You may dispute some details but I’ll never forget that day. I was there.\nDaddy brought us, Mama, me and my sister, Charlotte, to the city to see the Reverend, Dr. King. It was a big deal. You’d have thought the circus came to town for all the people. It took forever to find parking. Daddy kept mumbling under his breath and saying we’d miss it.\nWe didn’t though. He parked near the church and we hiked to the main street so we could see the great Dr. King. I still haven’t seen a crowd like that day. It seemed all we could do to get through the crowd to see him followed by his ministers and friends down the middle of the street. The sidewalks were jammed with people, all there to see the man.\nThere were lots of uniformed men too, riding tall horses. They looked very proud. In our little town, the constable didn’t ride a horse. He mainly sat at the counter at Mose’s diner. This was all new to me.\nThe spring weather didn’t last. There wasn’t even a breeze. Thinking back, walking in the sun dressed in suits and ties must have been most uncomfortable. It was hot.\nBut I didn’t think about their discomfort at all. I was thirsty. Daddy gave Char a dollar to take me for a soda pop while waiting for the festivities. He made us remember the street sign he and Mama stood by, so we could find them.\nI’d never seen Mama so anxious. “I’ll take the girls, Sam.”\nDaddy looked around and hugged Mama close to him. “They’ll be okay, Bun. I want you with me when Dr. King arrives. They’ll see him at church.”\nI was about six. So, that would make Char ten or eleven. She held my hand so we wouldn’t get lost from each other in the crowd. She took care of me. Even though later, after what happened she wouldn’t let it go. She never let me forget. Even up to last week’s visit. When she sees an edge, she latches on.\nBack then, Char had a little radio and would listen to dance music nights when the city station came in with less static. Daddy wasn’t crazy about rock n’ roll but figured there were worse things she could be doing. So with homework done, he let her listen.\nAs it turned out, we made it back with our sodas, in time to see Dr. King, walk by. We heard the commotion grow as they crossed the bridge into town. Daddy hoisted me to his shoulder, so I could see him. People poured into the street to walk behind him with their arms locked. They call it a march, but no one played music. It wasn’t a parade.\nDr. King walked with dignity, head up, eyes ahead, leading the multitude to the Promised Land. The crowd swarmed but all eyes were on him. Everyone cheered and waved a handkerchief.\nWhat a man! I know some hated him. But that day, he was untouchable.\nOnce he passed by, Daddy hurried us to the church down a side street. He wanted us to hear him preach. We heard bull-horns and dogs barking behind us.\nDaddy said, “Keep walking. Don’t run and don’t look back.”\nThe church had filled by the time we got there. Somehow Daddy worked his way in with Mama and us girls in tow. Some people skootched over, letting us jam in too. I sat on Daddy’s lap. I remember the constant flutter of people fanning themselves.\nWe waited a long time but Dr. King never showed. We heard they arrested him and put him in jail. He just walked through town.\nOh, I forgot to tell you about my nick name.\nAfter Daddy gave us the dollar, Char and I got free of the crowd. We found a little store that sold candy and sundries. When we stepped in you’d think we were the main attraction. There were more white people in that store than in our little town. And they all wanted to get a look at us two little girls dressed in their Sunday best.\nThe tall man behind the counter saw us and snapped his fingers. A stock boy ran up and the man mumbled something. The kid nodded.\nHe bent down and said, “What can I get you, today?”\nChar said, “Two cold sodas please.”\n“Follow me. Now don’t wander off.”\nHe led us back to one of those old low slung coolers that opened from the top. Cold vapor flowed out when he lifted the lid.\n“What’ll it be?” She looked at me. I usually drank cream soda, but in honor of the occasion I splurged for a Pepsi.\n“Two Pepsis, please.”\nThe young man handed them to Charlotte and slammed the cooler shut.\nHe trailed us back to the front where the tall man waited. What service! They seemed nervous but I didn’t know why. He watched us like he’d never seen kids before.\nThe bottles clinked as she set them on the counter.\nShe said, “Mister? Can you open them for us?”\n“Have to pay, first. That’s forty cents.”\nChar gasped, “Forty! In our town…”\n“There’s a deposit on the bottles. Refund when you bring them back here.” He looked at the stock boy who chuckled.\nChar gave me the dollar and nudged me to pay the man. I held it out but he didn’t take it. I’ll never forget the look in his eyes. Moments before, he had been joking with his assistant. But right then, he looked positively terrified. His pupils were pinpoints.\nChar whispered, “Harriet, put it on the counter.”\nI put the bill down and nudged it toward him. I remember he flinched. He looked at us for a moment, picked up the bill and examined it. Then he made change and put it on the counter even though I had my hand out.\n“There’s your change. Count it.” He looked at the stock boy who giggled.\nChar nudged me. “Take it, Harriet. Let’s go.”\nI looked at the man behind the counter and suddenly felt sad for him. Why should he be afraid of a six year old girl? I didn’t understand all this in those days. At the time, I just felt sorry for him.\nI said, “Keep it. I’m with Dr. King.” His mouth dropped open. I walked out the door and didn’t look back. Charlotte grabbed the bottles and ran after me.\nThis is where the story gets confused. I told the true story as I remember it. But Char twisted it and insists she remembers better. You can decide for yourself.\nShe scolded me all the way back to our folks. She had to leave with the bottles unopened. She couldn’t believe I gave our money to that creepy man.\nMama didn’t say anything when Char told them what I did. She was happy we were back. Daddy got serious and told Mama something about ‘city people’. He used a key to open our sodas.\nChar insists, when the man put our change down, I said, “Keep it, I’m with the King.” So ever since, whenever she thinks I’m too much, she calls me ‘Princess Elvis’.\nBelieve what you want. Maybe she misheard that one word. Maybe I did say ‘the’ instead of ‘doctor’. I was only six. But you know what I meant." } ]

[ { "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 Grieving Widow\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1035\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a child witnessing a major historical event." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Author’s Note: Hello! This story takes place roughly around the timeframe of the reconstruction of the United States--about 1865-1877, give or take. This piece is set in the south during the time the K.K.K. was formed and began their terror on the African-American population. This includes burning, rape, and murder that was inflicted upon African-Americans by the K.K.K. I don’t intend to say anything rude, nor do I support any beliefs they have; I'm simply writing. Keep in mind, this story will include mentions of mass murders and people being shot at, so please read at your discretion.\nI saw her. I saw the poor new widow weeping over her husband’s body. I saw him fade as she begged him to cling to life, to make it, but he slowly stopped talking and his eyes stopped blinking. \nThe whites that surrounded the voting booth had shot him with no hesitation. The man had only tried to vote in this trying time. He was just trying to get his voice heard and they killed him for it. \nI was a small child, a mere boy, when I saw this take place. I was going for a walk, but as an African-American like myself, even that was a dangerous play. I could meet the wrath and anger of a white person who hung on to the belief that I was not equal or not even human, that I should be working in a field instead of walking freely in this town. Would anyone stop someone who was hurting me? Most people would just keep walking, thinking I deserve whatever beating I was getting. Maybe, maybe a few of my fellow citizens would try to help, but if they did it would just cause more trouble. My people could expect nothing less from anyone, living here in Texas.\nI stared at the woman. Her skin was dark and she was wearing a cheap dress and a white head-wrap made from a flour bag. Her husband’s body had baggy clothes and torn up shoes. She was crying, begging, pleading for someone to help her. No one did. The fair-skinned people that surrounded the booth in their white hoods, guns drawn, just laughed. People walked by, stepped past them, went up to the booth as if nothing had ever happened.\nTheir wrath didn’t stop there. They shot every Black man who tried to vote that day; the bodies piled up. Soon Black men avoided the booth. They clearly intended to vote, but when they saw what was happening to their brethren, they quickly left. There were ten, maybe twenty, thirty bodies, lying there, all day.\nNo one called the police; the stubborn white men who called themselves justice wouldn’t have been helped anyway. The bodies just lay there. They probably had families, children, wives. If they did, I would never know. If the men in the hoods did, it would have made no difference. They wouldn’t--couldn’t--care if a Black person died. In their minds, we were pests. One less was good.\nThat poor woman. I don’t know how long I stood there, but it was long enough to witness numerous slaughters. Each time a gun went off, she would flinch, but not move away from her husband. \nOut of nowhere, the widow screamed. I remember that scream: pure, powerful anger and hatred. A man told her to be quiet. I wanted to punch him, whoever he was, for the woman had lost her only love. But I did nothing--just stood there, helpless.\nThe widow still wept. I walked away because it was the only thing that I could do, but I returned sometime later in the night. By then, a few of the men in the white hoods lingered behind, though most of them had gone. The woman was still there, holding on to her husband's body. Despite the dark, I could see the shine of the trail of tears on her face. She was silent by now and held his body in her arms. I moved on; it was a sight I couldn’t bear to see. \nShe was still there in the morning, and the next night. She was there for days on end. The white-hooded men disappeared from the area. She didn’t move to even eat or drink. Each day you could see her get closer to the ground until she laid next to her husband and stopped breathing. Her arms wrapped around him, her cheeks streaked with shiny, salty tears.\nIt was days before people moved the bodies. I assumed a few rich white people got tired of the smell and sight of them, hired people to come and take them away. They were moved into what I hope was a proper place; I wished they were respectfully buried, but I knew that was too hopeful of a thing to think. The one thing I could do was pray, and hope that their souls had found peace.\nI don’t think the woman did. The grieving widow was supposedly still weeping. People said that when you walked past the square, you could hear the mournful cries of a woman. People who lived by heard screams when nobody was outside. I never heard such things, so I have no idea if it was true. But that’s not where the story stops.\nPeople saw her ghost, drifting about the square, looking dazed and confused, the tears shining on her face. White men woke up with burns on their hands; some had immense pain in their stomachs and chests. They were rumored to be the white-hooded men that terrible day. The spirit of the woman wanted revenge, to hurt those people who had hurt her. She was a vengeful spirit.\nSome say the men went mad. A few claimed that the women killed them with no hesitation. I supposed it was a claim made to explain some white-men unexplainable deaths. Others claim that such a thing never happened, for spirits were not real. I have no idea if any of these things were true. I never saw the grieving ghost myself. My only hope was that she eventually was put to peace and her soul moved on but who could say?" } ]

[ { "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: For Elizabeth (You Deserved Better)\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 2142\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a child witnessing a major historical event." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "A fictionalized retelling based on Elizabeth Eckford's efforts to desegregate American schools and her walk to Little Rock Central High School. (90% fiction, 10% fact)\n\nSeptember 3, 1957 - Elizabeth\n\n“Are you sure you want to do this, honey?” Elizabeth’s mother asked, reaching across the dinner table to take her daughter’s hand in her own. \n\n“I’m sure, Mom.” It must have been the fifth time this meal alone that she had said that, and Elizabeth tried to keep the irritation out of her voice. It was as though her mother thought if she asked enough times, Elizabeth's answer would change.\n\n“Oscar, what do you think?” Her mother’s eyes flitted back and forth between Elizabeth and her husband, looking for support.\n\nHer father looked up from his newspaper, a pensive expression on his face. He folded the paper up slowly, perhaps stalling for time to collect his thoughts. \n\n“I think that I’m proud Elizabeth is doing this,” he said slowly. “It has to be done. But I won’t lie. It isn’t going to be easy.” He shook his head at his daughter. “They aren’t going to have open arms when you come walking up to that school. Are you ready for them to scream at you? Throw things at you? Tell you that you don’t belong?” \n\nElizabeth looked down, pushing her peas around her plate. It wasn’t anything she hadn’t heard before, and she had already made up her mind. Being one of the Little Rock Nine was something she needed to do. \n\n“Look at me, girl.” \n\nElizabeth met her father’s eyes. There was an intensity she had rarely seen before in his expression, and also naked pain. The years had not been kind to her father. As he was fond of telling people, he didn’t just work seven days a week; he worked nine. The hands folded up next to the newspaper reflected that toil: dry and sandpaper like. \n\n“It doesn’t have to be you,” he murmured plaintively. “If you think it’s too much, you can walk away from it all. They aren’t ever going to be kind to you at that school. I know it. You know it. There’s still time to change your mind.” \n\n“I can do it, Dad. It isn't just me I'm doing it for. It's for the other girls in my year who were too worried or too afraid to volunteer. They shouldn't be afraid to go to a white school. Besides, how else am I going to become a lawyer?\" She smiled at that, but the smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. \"I’ve thought about this for a long time. It’s what I want.”\n\n“C’mon, baby,” her mother said. “Finish up your vegetables, and let’s go lay out that dress you made for tomorrow.” \n\nElizabeth put her plate by the sink, and followed her mother to her room. \n\n“You did such beautiful stitching,” her mother said softly, running her hand over the gingham hemline. “Such a pretty dress for my beautiful girl.” Her mother put her hand to her mouth, and sniffled. \n\n“Momma, what’s wrong?” Elizabeth asked hesitantly. Her mother was not a woman who cried easily. The sudden flood of emotion seemed jarring, foreign.\n\n“I’m just so scared for you, baby,” her mother cried, pulling Elizabeth into a desperate hug. Her wiry arms felt like steel bands, locking around Elizabeth like a steel trap.\n\nElizabeth hugged her mother back. “It’ll be okay. It’s all planned out. I’ll be safe, Momma.” \n\nHer mother drew back sharply, still holding tight onto Elizabeth’s arms. Elizabeth found herself idly wondering if there would be bruises there tomorrow, her mother’s grip was so fierce. In that stare, her mother looked much older, much frailer. “But at what cost?” Her grip stayed just as firm, but her eyes took on a vacant, stricken look. “Did I ever tell you about the lynching I saw, back in ’27?” \n\nElizabeth shook her head.\n\n“A mob of them chased that man down …” her voice wavered, before she regained her composure. “They chased him down and manhandled him over to a tree. I can still hear him, screaming \"You have the wrong man! I didn't do nothing!\" Not that they cared. They strung him up. I’ll never forget the look on his face, but what was almost worse was the look on their faces. Like animals, or devils, so gleeful in that poor man’s misery. Screaming and hooting, calling to lynch him. It was like they had no souls in their bodies. Just monsters. That was the day I met Jim Crow, and I imagine you’re going to meet him tomorrow.”\n\nAt this, Elizabeth wrapped her arms around her mother again, resting her head on her mother’s chest. Through her mother's cotton dress, she could hear the jackhammering tempo of a fully fledged panic attack. Silently, she prayed that her mother would stop worrying.\n\n“I have half a mind to call the whole thing off,” her mother stated weakly, then fell silent again until gradually, her heartbeat slowed and calmed to a regular rhythm. “It’s bad for my nerves.” \n\n“They can’t stop me from going, Momma. And neither can you. I’m going to make something of myself. They might scare me, but not half as bad as the idea that I’ll never have a real future.” \n\nThey stayed in that position for a long time, until Elizabeth whispered, “I should really get to sleep. I don’t want to miss my bus tomorrow.” \n\n“Alright baby. Sleep tight.” She kissed Elizabeth’s forehead, and walked over to the doorway. Leaning in it, the light from the hall silhouetted her figure, brought out the tired stope in her back and the curlicues of her hair. “I’m so proud of you. Even if I am scared half to death for you.” \n\n“Thank you, Momma. Goodnight. I love you.” \n\n“Love you too.’ \n\nFor a long time, Elizabeth lay awake, staring at the gingham pattern of her dress. Sleep eluded her, and by the time sunlight streamed into her bedroom window, she hadn’t slept a wink. \n\n * * * *\n\nSeptember 4, 1957 - Linda Miller\n\nLinda raced up the stairs, laughing gleefully as her mother tried to catch her. A smear of strawberry jam covered her cheek, and her mother’s hand grabbed for the back of her shirt, fingertips skimming the fabric but just missing. Linda ran into the bathroom and tried to close the door, but her mother’s shoe was in the way. \n\n“Linda,” her mother said sternly. “We do not play around doors. Do you understand me? You could get hurt.” \n\n“No,” Linda giggled, but she let her mother pick her up and hoist her onto the counter by the sink. With a wet wipe, her mother gently dabbed the jam off her face. \n\n“There, good as new,” her mother smiled down at her. “Now, we have to get you dressed so that we can go down to the school!”\n\n“School, school!” Linda cheered. She had recently started kindergarten, and the thought of playing with all the blocks and toys and her new friends made her grin widely. \n\n“That’s right, off to school. We have to stop those blacks from getting in to our schools,” she cooed to Linda. Linda fidgeted and wriggled to be let down on the floor. Her mother lifted her down carefully, then led her into her bedroom. \n\nQuickly and efficiently, her mother dressed her and put on her shoes, patient even when Linda attempted to throw a shoe under her bed. “No, no, no, darling. We can’t be late.” As a final touch, she put a sunhat on her daughter’s head, and grabbed her purse. “Let’s go.”\n\nThe car ride to the school went quickly, and Linda watched the clouds in the sky with wide eyes. One of them looked just like the puppy she wanted for her birthday, and she spent a few minutes begging and pleading with her mother for a pet before the crowd distracted her. They were being very loud, louder than Linda was allowed to be even when she was outside, and they were shouting out numbers.\n\n“Two, four, six, eight, we don’t want to integrate!”\n\nHer mother parked the car, and straightened her skirt before opening Linda’s door, helping her step down onto the street. Clamping Linda’s hand firmly in her own, she briskly walked up to a woman in a pink dress with a white purse.\n\n“Did we make it on time, Shelly? Have they shown up yet?” Linda’s mother asked.\n\n“That must be one of them there,” Shelly said, pointing. \n\nA black girl was getting off the bus, wearing a white and gingham dress. Linda stared at her, wondering who she could be. Was it someone Mommy knew? Maybe, but she had never seen her before. Whoever she was, she was pretty. \n\n“What’ll they let into the school next, monkeys?” Her mother said shrilly. Her hold on Linda’s hand became much tighter, and Linda whimpered in pain. \n\n“Mommy, you’re hurting me,” she complained. \n\n“Sorry, darling. Mommy is just so mad.” She knelt down, so that she could talk up close to Linda. “Do you see that black girl? The one right over there?” \n\nLinda nodded, forgetting her stinging hand. \n\n“She is trying to get into our schools, where she shouldn’t be. You see, the blacks have their own schools. And we have ours. That’s just how it should be. But this one,” and at this, her Mommy glared venomously at the girl, “thinks she belongs in our schools.” \n\nThe crowd got louder, chanting and screaming: “Two, four, six, eight, we don’t want to integrate!!”\n\n“Lynch her! Lynch her!”\n\nMommy straightened up, reaching for Linda’s hand again. “Do you think you can count with us, Linda?”\n\n“Two … Three?” she tried. \n\n“No baby, two, four, six, eight. You can do it, I know you can.” \n\nLinda tried again, and this time she got the words right. Her mommy smiled down at her and told her she was being a good girl, so she said them again. She got a little louder this time, feeling more confident. It must be some kind of game the crowd was playing. \n\nThe girl was walking closer now, and the crowd pressed in on her. People screamed in her face, and still she walked on, unflinching and determined. \n\n“Go back to Africa,” someone jeered loudly, and Linda perked up. She had heard of Africa! Her kindergarten teacher had said that word before. Was this girl from Africa? She didn’t really know what an Africa was, but it sounded like something interesting. Mrs. Applebaum said that all the blacks had come from Africa, although she never really explained why that was. \n\nLinda tugged on her mother’s hand, wanting to get closer, but Mommy was still talking to Shelly. “It’s an abomination, that’s what it is. How is that girl ever going to learn? They’re not smart enough for our schools, we all know that.” \n\n“Mommy,” Linda whined, tugging on her mother’s hand. “I want to get closer.” The girl was walking away, the crowd drawn magnetically after her. \n\n“Fine, Linda. Just a bit closer.”\n\nShe took off running, tugging and pulling Mommy all the way up to the girl until that they were standing in front of her. The girl paused, looking down at them behind her sunglasses. \n\n“TWO, FOUR, SIX, EIGHT, WE DON’T WANT TO INTEGRATE,” Linda yelled proudly in the girl’s face. She thought she saw the girl frown. Or maybe it wasn't a frown, but she looked sad. Before Linda could do anything else, her mother spit in the girl’s face. \n\n“Go back to your own country,” her mommy snarled at the girl. Linda had never hear Mommy talk like that before, not even when she had drawn on the walls in crayon or eaten all of Mommy’s chocolate pudding before the guests had come over. \n\nLinda held her breath, wondering what would happen, but the girl only wiped her cheek, looked sadly at them, and kept walking. \n\nThe chanting faded as the girl walked away, though Linda could still hear the calling when she strained her ears.\n\n\"That'll show her,\" Mommy trumpeted, a smug look on her face. She rummaged around in her purse until she found a hand mirror, and checked her lipstick in the reflection before shutting it with a decisive click.\n\n“What a good girl you are,” Shelly said to Linda, patting her on the head. \n\n“Isn’t she?” Mommy said. “I think she deserves some ice cream!”\n\n“Ice cream, ice cream!” Linda cheered, and her mother led her back to the car. Linda wondered whether she would get sprinkles on her ice cream. \n\n“You did such a good job, Linda,” Mommy said as she swung her up into the car. “With any luck, you’ll never have to go to school with a beast like that.”" } ]

[ { "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: I didn't ask for this life\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1637\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone who never planned to make history but is now about to deliver a speech in front of millions." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I didn't ask for this\nBy.Jerrit Montgomery.\nIt's about 7:30 am. as I sit on my bed looking out of my bedroom window.thinking to myself seeing people walk by..look at my people acting like beast because they have not realize their human form. Living in new Orleans projects it's hard me back and forth to jail until one day my mind clicked asking myself.. am I really from the project or am I the project? because a project is not a building but a experiment. a test..something put in plan until accomplished. My hold life I lived as a lab rat. now I live willing to accept the challenge as a test and not that blind lab rat unintentionally being apart of a project or experiment tested with alcohol.drugs fast women guns car or money..the thing's that have my people destracted from the most serious things in life.i also thought how pharaoh did Moses people in the bible telling them to kill their men and let their women live. O'my GOD They are mentally killing us!. remove the Man and the rest of the house will fall.its like every government had a hidden project or experiment to use it's people of there town as lab rats.as I sit on my bad my life from childhood jail up until the new me and the situation and conditions of my people flashed before my eyes.i slowly get up walked to the restroom threw water in my face brush my teeth stopped and looked at myself in my bathroom mirror and whispered. thank you God for the new me.. and a second or more than second chances to get it right enough to see what I was really fighting.i begin to shave.. hopped in the shower.i heard my cell phone (Ring.Ring.Ring.) what the! I grabbed a dry off towel ran back to the bedroom phone stopped ringing as I get closer .ssss! Pick up the phone hit call back in a hurry.and quickly said hello! As the deep voice respond hey my brother..how things going. Me...lovely my brother... Steve....I didn't wake you did i.? Me...uuh.no brother I.sat on my bed about a hour Lost in thoughts took a shower and wow! I feel brand new. Where are you now bro.? Steve... was on my way to your house but I stopped at the barber shop get touched up. Me...Ok! cool I'll meet you there I feel like I need a little touch up myself (smile) I'll be there in 30min.my boy said cool see you then and hung up.i Rush back to the bedroom to finish getting dressed grabbed my car keys and headed out the door crawl in my big ram truck got her started up hit The music singing tennessee whiskey as the song play on the car stereo moving like the air cruising down the road. After 30min.i pulled in the barber shop parking lot to find my boy Steve waiting leaning on the hood of his beautiful red jag.smiling at me pulling up so I quickly park shut off the ram truck repeat tennessee whiskey song end and I'm jumping down from my truck.steve reach to shake hands.i tapped his hand then grabbed him with a hug happy to see him.I have a high respect for this brother Steve. he played a major role in me changing.he always did have money. He took me all over the world to show me what I'm missing throwing my life away the way i was living. Me... how long you been standing out here? Steve.. smiles about 5 minutes. Me...is the shop packed? Steve...no but I'm next plus I already to Craig you was on your way so he put you after me. I sneak a smile in..that's why I love you bro you been a true friend from day one. Steve...yea well thank you Jerry! and you have been so appreciative from day one smiling afterwards.i tap steve arm asking.. you ready to get on in to get it over? We begin to Walk towards the shop.a loud car horn destracted us but the beautiful face surprised us throwing her sexy voice out of the car window as it slowly go down hey Jerry! It been a long time since I saw you.how long has it been? Me... forever penny I'm happy to see you! I never thought I would ever see you again. Penny..hold on let me park! Me... Okay!. Looked at steve with a smile and a hand shake followed by the wisper I'll catch up hold my spot too. Steve nod his head and walked to the shop entry.i turned looking for penny can't seem to see her anywhere.then angels started to singing my name again. Jerry.over here!. Trying to play it cool doing the move I didn't really want to do I was so excited I really wanted to run to her arms grab her kids her and tell her I will never let her slip away again.back to reality.i shy brotherly slipped my hands in my pocket thinking since I changed its like my life is finally about to fall in order getting closer to penny. Me...Hey again pen. It been years I thought you moved to new York for good.wheres your boy friend?. Penny..It have been years! How old we was about? Me..16 and you was what 15.god pen how do you do it? You still look the same as teenage years. Pen...stress less eat healthy is all. Me... your friend let you come all the way down to new Orleans by yourself? Pen...boy me and James got married divorce and he went his way I went mine. Me...so your single? Pen..yea I guess I am for now. Me.. Walk with me get this old head trimmed up.we begin to Walk. Steve walk out the shop. They ready for you. I said Ok. Looked at penny asked are you in a rush? she said no! Not at all.......after hair cut was finished I talked to Steve for a few.penny ask where could I get something good to eat around here? Steve looked at me.i said I know a place!. So we took my truck.to a old favorite Slim teddy's burger bar..best food ever! and it looks like penny think so to.on the way to the truck steve started talking .I thought he was trying to be funny telling me that I could be a good role model. Me...bro I been to jail so many times! Steve..what moses.king david.paul. Jesus and so many more of God prophets been incarcerated. that how God show He really could change people.! Me...I never thought about that it is true.but I believe I'm a role model already that's why now I watch what I do. Steve..and you look like a real leader The way you move and speak plus you could talk to people from the hood because you really know where they come from and how they really feel! Me...I know.. before we could take another step it's a big crowd of people having\nsome kind of charity event.fast as it happens a big fight brake out.that hit me so hard knowing where I come from and what my people don't know. I tried so hard to walk away but couldn't.i turned my head and saw people watching the big fight from a stage and a mic.i can't I got to say something. I walked up the stage to the mic I didn't try to get the attention of those fighting or those walking by I just started to speak because I felt something have to be said and done about our conditions and situation and I was so amazed at how beautiful my words flowed out braking up even those fighting and stopping the onlookers walking by like I found my call. after I ended my speech of 2hours that attended to be no more than 5min. People came to me asking when and where do I usually have class.and they all was shocked when I said I don't speak teach or run a class. but that day I received many job offers finishing or adding my finishing touch to my new life as I became one of the greatest speaker's and writers in history. after I really understood the power of writing. I could reach more people with writing then speaking. As I begin my successful writing career becoming the first writer to inspire.enlighten. bestowed self-confidence. self-control. and completely influence over 10 thousand people. adults and children in every city, state, country, and county by writing only one 15. Page book. after six months past I managed my first educational event which turned out to be apic.because my first event and first speach is being spoken in front of millions of people who came in contact with my 15page book that touched them where it was most needed. I changed them for the betterment of life with only one 15 page book. I guess I left them hungry for more. I really was not asking for any of this. I just wanted to help people wake up and see that you will not change until you change what's in yourself. But God had something better plan for me making me well known and love all around the world As people begin to remember me Jerry the great now in the presence preparing the world to remember me and my words that give life in the future as they be taught in every school. church. and masjid. painting my legacy brightly in history.but I completed my life when I married penny and we lived happily ever after for every successful man was a great woman.i didn't asked for this life but God had a plan for me to give guidance with the power of writing" } ]

[ { "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: Black Lives Matter\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1491\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with someone entering a museum, and end it with them settling down to join a sit-in." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "It was a wonderfully warm winter afternoon as she strolled down the sidewalk outside the Smithsonian Institute. More precisely, she was headed for the National Museum of American History and the Woolworth's Counter exhibit. There was a \"Black Lives Matter\" Program she was determined to attend.\nNicole had chin-length, glossy red hair and bright blue eyes. Her fair skin glowed brightly against the gold knit crew neck sweater she wore with denim jeans. A heavy yet feminine cut denim jacket with golden roses embroidered on flared sleeves completed her look. She was grateful for her comfortable flat shoes as she rounded the corner to the entrance to the Museum.\nThe talk was scheduled to start at two o'clock and she was excited to be attending. In reality she was killing time while waiting for a friend to arrive into town the next day. There was plenty of things scheduled for them to do together, but two things weren't on their list. the zoo which she had covered that morning, and this talk which her friend hadn't been able to make it into town in time for.\nIt was Martin Luther King Jr. day, a national holiday here in the United States. The fiftyish degree weather was fine by her as she was from New England where it was in the cold and blustery twenties. The pandas had entertained her in the morning and she was looking forward to seeing the infamous Woolworth's counter where the \"Greensboro Four\" had their infamous sit-in which started the sit-in movement in college towns of the South.\nThe \"Greensboro Four\" were four students from the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College. They refused to leave the counter after being denied service. This was in 1960, and they and many future sitters were arrested for various charges ranging from trespassing to disturbing the peace. This level of attention forced these types of businesses to take a closer look at how they conducted themselves and change.\nThe solar-powered bus had been on time and Nicole was going to arrive just on time for the talk to start. What she did not realize is that there was going to be a recreation of the sit-in today and she was going to be lucky to get within thirty feet of the exhibit.\nIt was an original section of the actual counter the \"Greensboro Four\" had sat at. How exciting! The talk would be in the same gallery and she had stumbled upon the information that led her here, how lucky was she?\nBy now she had arrived opened the enormous wooden door leading inside to the cavernous Main Hall foyer. To her left was a Civil War Display and the Constitution of the United States and in front of her was a soldier on a horse looking familiar though she couldn't immediately place him.\n\"Wow\", she mumbled under her breath as she grabbed a map from a plastic wall unit to her right. It turned out she didn't need it. The level of noise was moderate and glancing around more, she noticed bright yellow signs with arrows that proclaimed \"Black Lives Matter\".\n\"I guess I don't need the map after all\", she muttered as she hustled to follow the signs. There was one thing Nicole absolutely couldn't stand and that was being late for anything. Off she went as fast as she could without being rude about it.\nAfter turns down two corridors where she barely glanced at any of the dioramas she passed, she arrived at her destination with five minutes or less to spare. Velvet ropes mapped out where the crowd was supposed to be standing, but it was largely ignored at the moment as people seemed to be milling about everywhere. She tucked herself into a spot as close to the front as she could get without being too pushy and mumbled \"Excuse me\" to everyone she brushed by on the way.\nAt two o'clock on the dot, the crowd of all sizes, shapes and colors of fifty or so gathered behind the velvet ropes in an orderly fashion. A woman, Ms. Bernice King, the daughter of Martin Luther King, Jr. took the spotlight and started to speak.\nAs she opened the program, speaking about her father and his life, Nicole took the time to look about and she was surprised that she could see the counter and people \"sitting-in\". There were about fifteen people of so involved.\nThe readings portion of the program started and a young African-American man in a white plaid shirt and jeans wearing glasses read the infamous \"I Have a Dream\" speech. He had so much passion and conviction that were they not already standing, he would have gotten a standing ovation.\nAn African-American young lady did a poetry reading that had won her a scholarship to college. It was about trials and tribulations and how she was overcoming them. Another excellent performance full of conviction.\nA screen dropped from the ceiling next and a black and white film started playing. It talked a bit about the history of the \"Greensboro Four\", sit-ins and expanded to the Civil Rights marches and bus rides. A fascinating, violent and long road travelled to get to \"almost equal\".\nMs. King spoke from the side as an older African-American gentleman in a charcoal grey suit and white shirt moved to the front. His salmon tie blinked cheerfully. It turned out he was the nephew of one of the original \"Greensboro Four\" and was reading a poem his uncle had written about the dark days after his sit-in and arrest. Woven in the piece about dismay and disappointment in his fellow man however was some hope for change in the future. Overall, it was a moving piece Nicole was glad she had heard, the view of a twenty-year-old barely out of youth himself.\nWhen he had finished and moved away, Ms. King stepped forward and spoke about \"Systemic Racism\" and things we can do to help eliminate it from our communities. Her Foundation works toward this goal. Nicole wanted to help but what could she do not being in the D.C. area?\nBeing more aware daily and stopping it when she saw it happening were two things she could do she decided then and there.\nThe last part of the program and the ending of the day, would be the re-enactment of a sit-in and how the protesters would have been typically treated during one. It turned out that there were a couple of spots open for audience participation and Nicole put her hand right up.\n\"Don't worry, all precautions are taken so nobody will be hurt. It will look realistic.\" Ms. King's voice rang in her ears as Nicole ran to the edge of the platform where a blonde haired girl with green eyes in an olive green jumpsuit helped her up.\n\"Just sit cross-legged next to me and fight just a little when the officer grabs you. then get up and walk away with him. Enough to get the feel of what it felt like,\" she said to Nicole as she settled in following her directions.\nNicole wasn't nervous until she saw a burly police officer bring in a dog and station himself at the other end of the sit-in crowd. \"They used dogs?\" Nicole asked herself. \"Great\". It was a huge male German shepherd and he looked like he meant business.\nSuddenly yells and cries filled the air. Sounds of \"Pigs!\" came from the sit-in people and a cop holding a black baton grabbed Nicole by the wrist. She recoiled in genuine surprise for she had been caught off guard.\nThe police officer pulled on her and said \"Let's go\", in a somewhat hard voice. She recovered herself enough to get up and accompany him away from the group. The dog was barking wildly. People were yelling and she was surprised at how realistic it was. Once she was ten feet away from the group, she was \"released\" and thanked for her participation. She went back to watch the rest of the performance.\nAfter fifteen minutes it was all over. As the numbers of \"protesters\" dropped, the dog was led away and the noise level fell. The audience stood in silence for a moment and then they applauded. The message had been received. Black Lives Matter.\nThey disbursed all heading their separate ways. Nicole was starving and had much to think about. She made her way back to the Main Hall and the bus to go back to her hotel. The program had been more than she expected and left her deeply touched. She had never thought about things from another person's perspective that way before and been able to \"walk in their shoes\" for a moment. Now that she had, she vowed to try to do so more often. If everybody could try to do so, the world would be a better place." } ]

[ { "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: Massacre in Sugarland\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1517\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about an elderly character who was part of a historic movement years ago." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Iberville Parish, Louisiana\n1905\nThe steam-powered engine rumbled loudly as a young farmhand raked sugar cane from a plantation railcar onto the cane carrier feeder outside a sugar mill. The new machine, a back-saver called Walsh’s Rake, was the latest improvement on the sugar cane farms in Iberville Parish.\n“Hello!” Dutch, a high school senior, shouted to be heard over the engine noise.\nThe farmhand gave a quick nod in Dutch’s direction, not wanting to take his eyes off the moving rake in case it got hung up or detached from the cables.\nDutch was surprised when he saw the worker was a young man near his own age.\n“My name’s Harry, but mostly people call me Dutch. What’s your name?” he shouted.\n“Abe,” the operator called out, watching the rake intently.\nAfter several minutes, he finished raking the load of cane from the railcar and shut off the engine. Ordinarily, neither Dutch nor Abe were prone to much small talk. But today, Dutch was filled with questions about the raking machine his father had built, and he was impressed that its operator was a young black man not much older than himself.\nDutch asked, “How d’ja learn to work this machine?”\n“Mistuh Walsh showed me,” Abe answered with pride.\n“Oh.” Dutch was envious. He wondered why his father had not told him that someone his age was operating the rake. “My papa built this machine.”\n“I know. Mistuh Walsh told me.” Abe’s boss, Daniel Walsh, designed the rake built by Dutch’s father, Henry Nadler.\nThe two young men were deep in conversation when Dutch’s father joined them.\n“Papa, this is Abe,” Dutch said.\n“Nice to meet you, Abe. Mister Walsh tells me you learned to run the rake like a fish learns to swim. That right?”\nAbe grinned shyly. “Yessuh.”\n“I’ve seen you in town,” Henry said to Abe. “You lived around here all your life?”\n“No, suh. My mama and me came here from Thibodaux when I was a baby.”\nHenry didn’t respond right away. Thibodaux was a sugar town about fifty miles south of Plaquemine. He had clients there, so he knew something of the area’s troubled past.\n“Do you stay with your mama and daddy?” Henry asked.\n“Just my mama. My daddy’s dead.” For a split second, Abe’s expression winced.\nHenry softened his voice. “Was your family living in Thibodaux when your daddy died?”\n“Yessuh.”\n“How old are you, Abe?”\n“Eighteen.”\nHenry knew then. If Abe left Thibodaux eighteen years ago after his father died, that meant his father had most likely been killed in the massacre.\n“I’m sorry about your daddy.” Henry’s words were somber.\nAbe mumbled, “Yessuh,” looking at the ground.\nThe quiet moment hung in the air with the debilitating humidity.\nAbe didn’t remember his father. Pieces of the story were told in hushed tones, but people didn’t want to talk about it. Everyone on both sides had regrets and wished it had never happened. Wishing was futile. Maybe if they didn’t talk about it, the horror and sadness could be forgotten.\nAs the sun was setting, Henry steered their horse and wagon down long dirt roads toward home. Dutch, sitting beside his father, was finally able to ask questions burning on his tongue.\n“Papa, did you know Abe’s daddy?”\n“No, Son. That all happened the year before your mother and I moved here from Illinois.”\n“Do you know what happened?”\n“Yes, I know. Remember William Blackie — the man who ran the foundry with me?”\nDutch nodded.\n“He told me what happened.” Henry waited. “No one likes to talk about it. Some things are just too painful.”\nDutch pressed, “Will you tell me?”\nHenry wondered if his sixteen-year-old son was ready to hear about such an unbelievably horrific event that happened so close to home.\nIf not now, then when?\nHenry took a deep breath and began. “Well, it was about a year and a half before you were born, November of 1887. A group of men called the Knights of Labor came into four of our neighboring parishes. They meant to help the sugar laborers get higher wages, but their ways were not honorable. They organized a labor strike to strong-arm the plantation owners.”\nDutch knew what that meant since many field workers were essential for harvesting.\n“They stayed out of our parish. Maybe the workers in Iberville were satisfied with their pay and working conditions, I’m not sure. Anyway, the Knights of Labor were a roughshod group of rabble-rousers. Earlier that year they had incited a riot up in Chicago. People died – lawmen and laborers.”\nHenry let the horses slow their pace, knowing the rest of the story would take a while.\n“So, right at rolling season, the sugar-laborers refused to work until the growers agreed to pay them more. You know what happens if the cane doesn’t get to the mill in time?”\n“It rots.” Dutch knew. He had been around sugar cane all his life.\n“That’s right.” Henry continued. “The growers refused to be bullied. Instead of paying their field hands, they hired outside contract workers to come in and roll the cane. Only it wasn’t so simple because everyone was afraid the strikers and the Knights would cause trouble as they had in Chicago. So, plantation owners asked the governor to send in the state militia to protect the hired contract laborers.”\n“A governor can do that?” Dutch asked.\n“Well, he did. You see, he was also a plantation owner.” Henry continued. “Strikers were forced from their homes which were owned by the growers, and many of them found places to live in Thibodaux.”\n“Is that why Abe’s family was there?” Dutch asked.\n“I assume so, but that isn’t the end of the story. With the strikers out of the way, the state militia went home, and local farmers were left to their own means to protect their interests. An old Democratic parish judge, who was a sugar grower in Thibodaux, hired 300 men with guns to keep the strikers imprisoned in their homes in Thibodaux so the contract laborers could get the crops in.”\nDutch said, “Seems like with all the money they were spending they could’ve just paid the laborers more and saved themselves the trouble.”\nOut of the mouths of babes, Henry thought.\n“Well, unfortunately, that didn’t happen. Everybody was on a hair trigger, tempers flared, and before you know it, two colored men were dead and two white men were injured, both sides accusing the other of firing the first shots. Tragically, after three days, at least 35 colored men, probably more, had been killed by the judge’s paramilitary group. They say the dead were buried in a mass grave.” Henry shook his head. “I can’t understand it. Senseless. Horrible.”\nRecalling the atrocity made Henry nauseous.\n“Mr. Blackie taught me the importance of fairness to employees. Business owners are obligated to pay their skilled employees wages so they can take care of their families and feel a sense of pride. That’s important in building a thriving community. If you destroy a man’s pride, you’re gonna have trouble. I hope you’ll remember that.”\n“I will.” Dutch thought about the workers at his father’s foundry, then wondered something else. “Papa, you said the judge was a Democrat and our governors have been Democrats since before I was born. Aren’t you a Democrat?”\nHenry kept his eyes forward. “Yes. Everyone I know is a Democrat.”\n“Is that the way Democrats are? I mean killing people like that?” Dutch asked.\n“No!” Henry looked his son in the eye. “No, not at all. The massacre in Thibodaux was despicable. Those men got away with murder, plain and simple. A disgrace to humanity,” Henry spat out the words.\n“When a man calls himself a Democrat, he’s saying he supports the rights of the states and local jurisdictions to make their own laws, to do what’s best for his state’s citizens. The farmers and those who support agriculture usually prefer the Democratic party. A Republican, on the other hand, wants a centralized federal government to make laws for all Americans. There’s good and bad in both. But to be sure,” his voice was stern as he shook his finger in the air. “No political party has the right to commit murder.”\nFather and son rode in silence, letting the words soak in.\nDutch broke the quiet with another question. “Papa, why doesn’t Abe go to college?”\n“He should. He’s smart enough, from what Mr. Walsh tells me,” Henry said.\n“Maybe he could take university classes with me this fall at LSU.”\nHenry shook his head. “He probably doesn’t have the money to pay for college. Besides,” he cleared his throat. “He’s not allowed to go to that university. He would have to go to Alabama, or maybe Grambling. I hear there’s a college for coloreds up there.”\n“That doesn’t seem fair, Papa.”\n“No, Son. It doesn’t.”\nThey rode without talking the rest of the way home, both wondering to himself what it must be like to not have the freedom to make one’s own life choices." } ]

[ { "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: Donald's Last Freedom Ride\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1697\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about an elderly character who was part of a historic movement years ago." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "It was the year 1961. Momma Rose was sitting at the kitchen table staring out the window like she always did. Sipping on her unsweetened black coffee. The window was her favorite spot because she could see the whole neighborhood. And she could see if someone was pulling up in the driveway.\nThe phone rang, and it was Momma’s friend, Sister Maxine. As soon as I heard it was her on the phone, I knew whatever it was, it meant that we would be going to church to either cook. or learn a new song. Maxine was our new choir director, who called herself ‘shaking things up’, changed all our hymns to sound like a Motown greatest hits album. I remember Easter Program one year, we had to sing, ‘Fix me Jesus’ We sounded like the Motown Music group the Miracles singing Who’s Lovin’ You. I still don’t know why she didn’t know Pastor was was actually laughing at her and not coughing. Nobody ever said anything to her, not even the mothers. I think they just didn’t want to hurt her feelings because she was so proud of what she was doing.\nMomma got off the phone and yelled for Me, Donald, and Sharon to come to the kitchen. She told us Dr. King and the Freedom Riders would be coming to our church that Sunday on their way to Rock Hill, South Carolina. They had just left from marching in Washington DC. And Dr. King was gonna preach.\nMomma and the other mothers at church planned on cooking them a big lunch for after the service. The youth and Junior choirs would be singing two songs each. Before I could even open my mouth to say anything, Sharon jumped up and squealed like she’d seen a mouse run across the floor. She was really dramatic back then too. Always hollering and screaming every time she heard something exciting or sad.\nShe was around 12 and was the oldest, and the best singer in the youth choir. She always got to have a solo. She had a soft, soprano, kind of squeaky voice. She always stood up front singing as loud as she could. I was the complete opposite. My voice has always been kind of low and scratchy. I could walk up to someone and they would think I was a boy. I was the only girl that could sing baritone. I stood in the back row of the choir with Donald the other baritones.\nMomma would always make sure that we knew how proud she was of both of us girls. She told me I was one of the best baritones she’d ever heard. If she closed her eyes and pictured it hard enough, she was hearing Ronnie White from The Miracles in her own living room. My brothers and sister would laugh every time. It was so embarrassing to me but, I guess that was the only thing she could think to say to make me feel better about my deep voice. I learned it made me powerful and strong.\nThe news had Donald speechless. He had that smirk on he face that he always does when he gets excited about something. He had been inspired by Dr. King ever since he heard his sermon back in 1954. He was only 10. He would cut out every news article written and listen to every radio broadcast. He walked over 10 miles more than once just to hear Dr. King preach at this old Church in the country. Everything was still segregated back then. We were told to look down and mind our own business. Never to argue with anyone white that we saw especially the police. Stay polite and quiet as possible so we wouldn't get in trouble.\nDonald was only 19 and he was a fighter. He never listened to Momma. She would tell him to shut up and stop arguing with all of those white men before they beat him. But he refused. He always spoke his mind. He made sure that no matter where he was, and who he was around, that he would be respected. He was tired of having to have his guard up at all time. Not being respected, because he was a black man. Having to work twice as hard and getting paid less. His dream was to march with Dr. King and help preach to the people. To really be part of the change.\nWe were all so busy the night before Dr. King came to town. Momma had greens simmering on the stove. I loved when she made greens. That smell of pork, seasonings, and greens swirling around smelled so good. My mouth still waters just thinking about it. She had pies in the oven and cakes cooling on the table. She was the best cook I knew. And always made sure everyone got plenty to eat. I’m not sure she knows how to cook for a small crowd.\nSharon was practicing her version of Amazing Grace in her bedroom over and over again. She had this doll that granny gave her that sat in her room beside her bed. She told me she would pretend that the doll was granny, and sing to it. She said the doll made her sing better.\nI was in the kitchen with Momma trying not to burn up my neck and ears with the hot comb. I wanted my hair to be perfectly pressed in case I had made eye contact with Dr. King. He was the most handsome man that I’ve ever seen. It took me forever to find the perfect dress.\nDonald was in the living room pressing all of our clothes for church. He wanted all of us to look our best for Dr. King. He even took the time to press his clothes he was packing to travel with. He polished and brushed all of our shoes to a mirror shine. While he was ironing, he was going over what he was going say to Dr. King and some of the others at church. He wanted to make sure they knew that he was ready to ride with them.\nIt was pretty much the same routine as any other Sunday morning when we had somebody special coming. Momma got up early and made us some fresh biscuits and thick cut bacon for sandwiches. There was grape jam, honey, and milk waiting for us on the table. She had been gone for about an hour before we even woke up. She and the other mothers were already at the church with the Pastor and Deacons to greet Dr. King and the other men when they got there.\nThe sermon that Sunday was one that I would never forget. I cant even begin to explain to you the power that you feel when you can hear Dr. King’s words in person. He always chose his words so perfectly and was so comforting. His words of hope and changes coming floated through the whole church. The choir had the holy spirit, and sang better than we ever had. Maxine was running up and down the isles with some of the other older ladies crying and screaming out, “Thank You Jesus.”. Everyone felt the word that day.\nWe ended the service with us all singing Amazing Grace. Sharon stood in the front and sang as hard as she could. The rest of us tried our best to harmonize and keep up with the way she was singing. I tried my hardest to blend in, so I wouldn’t draw too much attention to my deep voice.\nWe all went downstairs for fellowship and eat lunch after the sermon was over. I was starving too. We could all smell the food cooking during the service, so no one wasted time getting in line to eat. The first thing I see when I finally make it down the stairs, closer to the table of food, is Donald. He waited by the bathrooms half way into service so he could have a chance to talk to Dr. King, and it worked. He was sitting at the table with Dr. King, some of men that were traveling with him, and the Pastor. We made eye contact and he winked at me, and I just smiled back. I couldn’t believe it. His dream was finally coming true. My brother was really going to go out there and make a difference. He was going to march for us.\nDonald left early the next morning. We all got up with him. Momma packed enough snacks for the whole bus. She kissed him and we all hugged his as tight as we could. We knew what it meant to be marching with Dr. King. He was putting his life at risk. He could be attacked or killed. But I just told myself that he would be ok. He told us he would call when he could and he would write Sharon and I letters to check on us. We were so proud.\nDonald called us from a hotel in South Carolina a few days after he left. He told us that he and some men had gotten beaten up trying to use an all whites bathroom. They stood their ground. They couldn’t find an all blacks bathroom. It was better than using the bathroom on the street. Some men got hurt pretty bad, but nothing that they couldn’t handle. A week or so later we read in the paper about a Greyhound bus bombing in Alabama. When I saw those big bold black letters stretched across that newspaper, my heart dropped. I got a huge knot in my throat. It was Donald’s bus. He was gone. He died fighting for us. It was the hardest thing I ever had to go through.\nI visit Donald every year on his Birthday and on that day we lost him, and lay down his favorite flowers. And I always try to tell his story at the local library. He is such a wonderful part of Black History, and I know that he would want me to share his story." } ]

[ { "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 First Sit-In\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 2061\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with someone entering a museum, and end it with them settling down to join a sit-in." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "February 1st, 2019\n “The New York Museum of American History.”\n I read the sign on the door as I walked in. The sign really was beautiful. Bold, green letters, like the sign was letting you know that this was the best museum ever, and you should never doubt it. Swirls of red, white, and blue bits of color that seemed to be splattered on the sign randomly. And that’s what made it pretty. It was splattered in the sense of a chaotic mess, but it was free and lively. Not like other museums, which was neat and perfect, but in all of the wrong ways.\n I loved this place already. \n Before I could admire the outside of this place further, I was swept inside by a crowd of sixth graders. \n\n***\n\n It was the typical school field trip. Chipper tour guides, bratty kids, forgotten supplies, grumpy teachers, the whole package. I sighed, doodling like there was no tomorrow. I drew the sign of the museum. I really did love that sign. It was weathered and old, but it still looked familiar and comforting, like it was one of those museums that got better as it aged. \n I was capturing the swirls when a teacher’s voice snapped me to attention. \n “Cynthia Chilufya!”\n I looked around, slightly dazed.\n “Wha-- what’s going on?”\n Some of the class giggled. I heard one whisper,\n “Looks like artist freak is in trouble again.”\n More laughter. \n “Now, now.”\nMs. Alvarez calmed the students down, but I detected a faint smile flickering across her lips.\n“Would anyone like to remind Cynthia what she was asked?”\n “Why are we here?” Several of them called out.\n Ms. Alvarez nodded.\n “Cynthia, would you like to answer that question?”\n I could tell from Ms. Alvarez’s eyes that this wasn’t up for debate. \n “We’re here for the civil rights movement exhibit because it’s Black History Month.” My voice cracked with every word. I cringed. I really did hate my voice. It was always uneasy and timid, and it always cracked at the wrong times. \n Ms. Alvarez smiled, but there was no warmth in her eyes.\n “That is correct. Now, kids--”\n “We aren’t kids!”\n Several students called out.\n Ms. Alvarez looked around, trying to pinpoint the voices. I nodded in respect. Anyone who can interrupt Ms. Alvarez is a brave idiot.\n Ms. Alvarez wasn’t a scary looking teacher. Not really, anyway. \n She was a tall woman in her mid-twenties, with a frizzy copper colored afro. She had a nose ring and several earrings, all of them silver. She had round black glasses, which looked striking against her dark hair. She wore normal enough clothes: a black t-shirt, grey jeans, and black ankle boots with silver buckles.\n But there was something off about her. Something scary. \n Her eyes. That’s it. They were small and dark, and if you stare right into them, it’s like you can read her. And if you do look into her eyes, you will discover this fact: Ms. Afizah Alvarez holds much wisdom and power that humans don’t possess. Like she can destroy you with a thought. Like she isn’t human.\n Even as I’m describing her right now, it sounds ridiculous. But you have to trust me. You have to. You have been warned. If you don’t listen to me right now, if you don’t finish this message and learn from my mistake, the next time you visit a museum, Ms. Alvarez’s kind will be there. Lurking. Hiding. They could capture you. Suck you into their little trap, just like how Ms. Alvarez will soon do to me. \n Ms. Alvarez found out who was talking. She smiled. Ms. Alvarez was one of those teachers that smiled too much.\n “Looks like Holly Batista and Nina Boicenco have volunteered to clean up after lunch!”\n The rest of the kids cheered. \n\n***\n\n We’ve been in the museum for an hour now. And I’ve learned one thing so far: adults have a superpower. The superpower to make even the most exciting things seem as boring as hell. \n The chipper tour guide, Klieo, was talking up a storm, teaching us all about segregation in the United States during the 1900s. Like, come on! We learned about segregation in freaking third grade! \n After what seemed an hour and a half, Klieo asked us all a question:\n “What is segregation?” \n She scanned the crowd of students.\n “Cynthia?”\n The one rule any sort of teacher follows: always call on the kids who don’t raise their hand.\n I didn’t realize that I never told Klieo my name, yet she knew.\n I groaned inwardly. Teachers really liked putting me in the spotlight, didn’t they?\n “Segregation is the action of setting someone or something apart from other people or things or being set apart from something.”\n As usual, my voice sounded timid and small, even if I was completely confident. What I would give to have a regular voice.\n Kleio nodded, flashing me a big smile. I noticed her eyes were so much like Ms. Alvarez's that it was creepy. That same look that tells you that this person is powerful beyond measure. I blinked, and that look was gone. I shuddered. \n “Maybe if you had gotten more than three hours of sleep for once,” the logical part of my brain chided, “you wouldn’t be hallucinating.”\n I sighed. Not this again. \n “Maybe if YOU’D stop thinking about whether the chicken or egg came first at two in the morning, I’ll be able to get some sleep!!” the other part of me argued. \n Kleio announced, \n \"That's correct. Now, would anyone like to tell me--\"\n My eyes wandered over to an exhibit that we hadn’t looked at yet. It was about the first sit-in in segregated lunch counters. It was on February 1st, 1960, at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. Young African American students had sat down on that lunch counter and had refused to leave. That had started the sit-in movement, which had spread into college towns in the South. \n There were statues in the exhibit. Statues of that sit-in. Four college-age students, sitting at a counter, with a waiter yelling at them to leave. What the statues were made of, I couldn’t tell. But it was so life-like. So real.\n Like they were frozen in time. \n Another tour guide had taken over, leading us all to a different exhibit. I tried to follow, but Kleio walked towards me, blocking my path. Ms. Alvarez came over here and did the same thing, preventing me from following the rest of the group. They backed me into the corner.\n Ms. Alvarez glanced at Kleio. \n “Is she the one?”\n Kleio nodded.\n “I don’t know how you didn’t figure it out sooner. I caught her scent the moment she walked in here.” \n Ms. Alvarez shrugged.\n “I’m so used to the scent of the tempus viatores by now that I can barely distinguish them from humans anymore.”\n I frowned.\n “What’s going on?”\n Kleio cracked her knuckles.\n “We’re viatorem venatores, responsible for hunting the tempus viatores down. We have orders to put you back in your place, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”\n “Can you speak English?” I snapped. “I can’t understand a word you’re saying!”\n Ms. Alvarez shook her head in disappointment. \n “Have you been paying so little attention during Latin class that you can’t understand four words in that language? We’re traveler hunters, responsible for hunting time travelers down. We have orders from our boss to put you back in your correct time in the past or future, so we’re going to do exactly that.” \n She sounded bored, like she had told this to people hundreds of times. \n I shook my head. \n “I’m no time traveler. Besides, doesn’t that only happen in sci-fi movies?”\n Kleio laughed.\n “If that was true, that would make our jobs a whole lot easier. Unfortunately, or fortunately, whichever, time travel is real. People from the past or future have been infiltrating the present. And our sources tell us that you’re one of them.”\n How was that even possible? I have no memory of even living in a different time period. I have been living in the 2000s for my entire life. Right? \n “But I’ve lived in this time period my entire life! I’m no time traveler. I didn’t even know that time travel exists! Why--”\n Ms. Alvarez took out a glove that kind of looked like the infinity gauntlet from Avengers: Infinity War. Except it was pure black, with shining white jewels instead of the usual orange, red, yellow, blue, and purple jewels, and a whole lot more sinister looking. \n She put it on her right hand and reached for me. I tried the dodge, but Ms. Alvarez was fast.\n Inhumanly fast.\n She touched her index finger to my forehead, then everything went black. \n\n***\n\nFebruary 1st, 1960 \n I woke up lying down on a sidewalk, shaking like I was on a sugar rush. I groaned, rubbing my head. I felt like my brain had been deep-fried, then frozen in a block of ice. \n I tried to sit up, but my legs felt like cubes of jelly. \n “Do you need some help?”\n Four African American men, around college age, stood over me. I nodded. One of them offered his hand, and I accepted it. \n “Thank you.”\n I brushed the dirt off my clothes and jogged in place, trying to get some feeling back into my legs. \n The guy who helped me up smiled.\n “Your welcome.” \n They started walking away, but I called, \n “Wait!”\n The words just slipped out of my mouth. Why I said that, I had no idea. But it felt right.\n One of the men turned around.\n “What is it?”\n I swallowed.\n “I know you’re about to protest for equality. And whatever it is, I want in.” \n Another one of the men frowned.\n “You might get fined or arrested if you join us. Besides, what are you? Thirteen? Fourteen?” \n I laughed.\n “Age doesn’t matter. What does matter is that I’m willing to do anything for equality. Segregation is unfair and unjust. I want to do my part to end it peacefully.”\n Again, the words seemed to fall out of my mouth without my brain’s consent. But I didn’t take my words back. I knew I was doing something right. \n The men looked at me with what seemed like respect.\n The one who helped me up smiled.\n “If you really want to join us, then we’ll let you. We just need to know your name.” \n “As long as I know yours. All of yours.”\n “Ezell Blair Jr.”\n “Cynthia Chilufya.” \n The other men spoke up. \n “David Richmond.”\n “Franklin McCain.”\n “Joseph McNeil.”\n I committed those names to memory. I wasn’t sure why, but it felt important. Like those names were going to go down in history.\n “So,” I looked at all of them. “What’s this protest you’re going to do?”\n The man named David shook his head.\n “How did you even know that we were going to do some sort of protest for equality?”\n I searched my brain for an answer, but I came up with none. I tried looking deeper, but I got that deep-fried-brain sensation again. \n “I’m not sure.”\n The men looked skeptical, but the one named Franklin spoke up.\n “We’re going to go into a whites-only lunch counter. Woolworth’s, to be specific. And we’re just going to sit there peacefully. No ordering food, no nothing. It’s just a small act of peaceful protest against segregated restaurants.”\n I nodded.\n “That sounds like a good plan.”\n “So,” Joseph grinned. “Are we doing whatever we’re doing or what?”\n Ezell snorted.\n “That’s seriously what we’re going to call this thing?”\n Joseph raised an eyebrow.\n “Then what should we call it, oh wise one?”\n “A sit-in,” I murmured. Much like the other times I’ve spoken, I had no idea what I was saying. I just said what felt right. \n The rest of the group turned towards me.\n David chuckled.\n “That’s actually not a bad name.” \n “Let’s do this!” Joseph exclaimed.\n His voice sounded so corny I had to laugh. The rest of the group joined in. Our laughs carried as we walked into the whites-only lunch counter and sat down.\n What I didn’t realize at the time was that we would be making history. The five of us.\n And I would be forgotten. No one would know the name Cynthia Chilufya." } ]

[ { "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: Longjohn Whitaker, Local Legend\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 2782\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about an elderly character who was part of a historic movement years ago." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“Who is that guy?” I pointed to an old man sitting at the counter of Gooseberry Café sipping black coffee. His skin was the color of rich mocha, his voice was full of resonance, deep and rich with the essence of a life well-lived. There was an aura that told me that he was a man I needed to get to know. I had been on a quest to find human stories that were worth telling. \n“Longjohn Whitaker.” The man next to me answered as he put some grits on his spook. \n“Seems like someone carved his face out of stone.” I chuckled, noting his snow white hair and neatly trimmed beard of the same color. .\n“Now don’t be going poking fun at him.” The man said as he swallowed his grits. \n“He’s kind of a legend around here.” The man on the other side of me remarked. With his gray hair and thick glasses, he appeared to be the same age as Longjohn. “Take a walk across that bridge sometime and you’ll hear the hymns of some of the ghosts still being sung.”\n“He was part of it.” The man patted his stomach and pushed his empty bowl to the edge of the counter where a waitress put it into a tray. \n“So what you’re telling me is he is a hometown legend?” I sipped my coffee.\n“Yessir. Old Longjohn is a legend here in Selma.” The waitress put a plate in front of the old man sitting next to me. \n“Is he friendly?” I asked.\n“Depends. If you show respect, he might if not you best be moving on.” The man who ate the bowl of grits chuckled, “Oh by the way, my name is Chet.” \n“Canton.” We shook hands, “I am a writer and I am just finding stories of interest to put in my blog.”\n“Maybe one day I’ll hear it.” Chet sniffed.\n“Hope you do.” I smiled.\n“Bertha, some ketchup, please.” The old man signaled the waitress.\n“”Oh Barney, you don’t need ketchup on your eggs.” She laughed as she brought him a bottle of ketchup and sure enough, he poured it all over his eggs and hash browns. \nI got up and walked toward Longjohn. When I got close I asked, “Are you Longjohn Whitaker?”\nHe studied me closely before speaking, “Who wants to know?”\n“Canton Sturdivant.” I put my card next to him. He looked at it before picking it up.\n“You a writer?” He asked as he picked up my card.\n“All my life.” I nodded proudly.\n“I’m sorry.” He shook his head. This was not the answer I had expected. “Suppose you want to talk about my march across that bridge out there with Dr. King.” \n“That would be a good starting point.” I smiled.\n“Well Mr. Sturdivant that was a long time ago.” He looked at me through his one open eye.\n“Yes it was.” I agreed.\n“That’s all people wanna know. Less than an hour we marched across that bridge. Of course we had lots of hateful words thrown at us. Police tried to stop us. They used dogs and firehoses, but on that day we would not be stopped.” His voice was steady with a cadence that was smooth and even. At the time none of us knew the impact of what we had done, but it seemed to resonate throughout the country. If I had my way, we’d walk across that bridge every day and remind folks of what we did back then.” \nI got out my pad, because I knew his story would be worth recording. What I got was a heck of a lot more than I had anticipated. \nMy mama was white and my father was blacker than the ace of spades with a soul to match said Sheriff Posey who was about as bigot as a soul had a right to be. My name was Isaiah Longjohn Whitaker, the Longjohn got attached to me when I began to wear long underwear, no matter the weather or what was going on outside his clapboard shack. I grew up during the peak of Jim Crow when things were separate but equal. A lot of folks would see the light color of my skin and wonder why I didn’t try to pass, but my facial features were distinctively Negro, so my chances of passing were narrowed quite a bit. Folks who could pass were afforded a lot more privilege than the colored people of Selma, Alabama during the early 1960’s. \n“Hey mama.” I swung through their small front room giving my mother Ella Louise a kiss on top of her graying hair as I passed through carrying a basketball, my prized possession.\n“They killed him.” She wiped the tears from her eyes.\n“Who, mama?” I shrugged as in the film he did not seem that much different from some of the white folks who were in charge of things in Selma. \n“That young man from Massachusetts. President Kennedy.” She answered in a shallow voice. \nI was too young to understand why that was such a big deal with her, but as he was to find out the ramifications would run through the small community like an electric shock with a lot of the white folks silently rejoicing that he was now gone and a real man sat in the Oval Office. All of the progress made by the NAACP of which his father was a member seemed to evaporate. \nOne night, when I started high school, a parked police car was bombed sending up a bright light that could be seen like a beacon all over town. \n“Damn them coloreds.” Sheriff Posey cussed when he ran into the parking lot to see one of his cruisers ablaze. \nWithout warrant, the next morning three officers showed up to arrest Devon Whitaker, my father since he had been quoted in the local newspaper that the only way to get the attention of law enforcement was to blow something up. Malcolm X was influencing some of the rank and file of the local chapter of the National Alliance for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and my father had become known as a malcontent. \nJunior Owens, my best friend in school, was a proponent of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. who preached for a more peaceful solution than Brother Malcolm. My father believed that peace was fine, but direct action was more effective. Junior was stopped one night on a routine traffic stop and his perceived disrespect was severely punished as he showed up with both eyes swollen shut in school a few days later.\n“They done hit me with their nightsticks even though I begged them to stop.” He began to shed tears from his swollen eyes.\n“What we do about this?” I asked as he began to tremble.\n“What can we do?” He looked off in another direction.\n“We can’t let them do this to us.” I insisted.\n“What we gonna do? They ain’t gonna stop on account we tell them to.” Junior bowed his head. “Maybe Malcolm be right. Burn their cities. Meet violence with violence.”\n“You can’t believe that.” I put my hand on his, it was shaking with rage. \nWe decided to go to the meeting. I told my mama, I wanted to go play basketball with some friends and even took my basketball with me when I left with Junior. The evening inside the meeting hall at the church was electric as witnesses talked about different things occurring to keep the Negro in his place even through Jim Crow had been declared unlawful. Tradition runs deeper in the south than any other real or imagined force, but it was time to break the chains of tradition.\nThe protest rally on Saturday was a gathering of some of the members singing “Go Tell It On the Mountain.” While foot traffic was light, a few of the people stopped and listened to the soulful gospel sung on the steps of the courthouse. The police showed up within the hour, but because we were conducting ourselves in an orderly manner, they just formed a parameter some holding the leashes of the K-9s. It’s when someone threw a rock that the trouble started. No one could knew exactly who threw the rock, but within an hour the riot had started. With Montgomery to the east, the news of our unrest reached the ears of those leading the civil rights movement. With Lyndon Johnson in the White House, there was a lot of doubt if anything from that far up would happen since he was a loyal son of Texas and his distrust of Dr. King was legend as he had J. Edgar Hoover’s men watching the good doctor’s every move. With the murder of Medgar Evers in Mississippi, the movement seemed to kick into high gear.\nWhen Junior and I walked the halls of our school, students and teachers alike came up to ask us questions. We both felt like big shots all of a sudden especially when Dr. King decided to organize a march in Selma. Nothing like that had ever happened here before. \n“Bunch of uppity coloreds.” Posey growled. “That coon is just coming here to stir up some trouble. We got things settled here. Why the hell has he decided Selma?”\n“We will be ready. Get the governor to call in the national guard.” Jake Pressley nodded.\n“If they want trouble, we’ll give them all they can handle.” Posey remarked. \nWe formed the group early on the morning of March 7, 1965 and as Junior and I stood there we could not believe the number of marchers that joined us. Heck, there were more marchers than there were folks living in Selma. Dr. King made a speech and then we began our march. We knew what was waiting for us, dogs and firehoses. Tear gas began to rain down on us and some of the folks started to scatter. I lost Junior in the mayhem, but I saw one woman on the ground being beat by two patrolmen with night sticks. She had blood running from her hair and she begged for them to stop, but they didn’t until she was silent. One young man had his arm in the jaws of one of the dogs. It was frightening to see what was taking place, but Dr. King just kept walking through it all until he was over the bridge. \n“Junior!” I called out. No answer.\nOne of Posey’s men took a swing at me with his club, but I managed to duck away. When he recoiled and attempted to take another swing at me, I grabbed his arm.\nHe yelled at me using that word that made me angry. They used that word on my father when they took him. I hit him. I hit him hard. He fell and did not get up and blood trickled from the side of his mouth. I could not believe I had done something they could have lynched me for. I ran away before someone could point a finger at me. \nWater fell on me like a hard rain. Some of the protesters were being beaten back with fire hoses. The water pressure from one of those things could make you lose your footing which was happening. Once on the ground, some of the police came in swinging their clubs. \nI got to the bridge. It had been here longer than me and it never seemed that significant, just another bridge over a river. How many times had I crossed it, but this time my crossing meant something. People stood there shouting words of hate, waving their fists or middle fingers at us, but I did not look at them, I just kept walking. Dr. King was close enough that I could almost reach out and touch him. Andrew Young and Jesse Jackson were flanking him. Sirens were sounding. No matter what, I was going to get across that bridge and continue. I was feeling the loss of Junior, but I knew I had a deeper purpose. \nI had never been to Montgomery, but that’s where these folks were headed. I did not tell mama I was going, but I’m sure somehow she had guessed what I was up to.\nI could hear helicopters hovering overhead and I knew there were television cameras on board taking pictures of us marching from the sky. As we left the city, I could see that Sheriff Posey had no intention of following us all the way to the state capital. Already the news was following him and with what was going on surrounding the movement, he had become the masthead of this push that had begun small as a woman sitting on a bus and now had flourished into something that even Sheriff Posey could not stop. \nWhen I got home days later, mama greeted me with the news that my father had been beat to death in the state prison. We drove to Montgomery where I had been just a couple weeks before to take my daddy’s body home to be laid in peace at the Colored cemetery. At his service, I looked over and saw Junior who was sitting in a wheelchair.\n“What happened?” I asked as I squatted down next to him.\n“I started to run when they turned on the fire hoses. I fell down and this car ran over me.” He spoke slowly so I could feel every bit of his pain as he recalled the event. “I heard you walked with Dr. King to Montgomery.”\n“I did.” I felt my heart sink knowing that we would no longer be able to play basketball together at the park.\nNo long after that, Junior got ahold of his father’s .45 pistol, put the metal barrel in his mouth and pulled the trigger. Whenever I go to see daddy’s grave, I make sure I pass by his, too. \nDr. King warned there would be a lot of victims in this crusade for our civil rights, but I just did not consider it at the time. In the year I would graduate from high school, on April 4, 1968, James Earl Ray shot and killed Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I had never considered he would be one of the victims of his own movement.\n“They shot him, mama.” I sank into the couch when I saw the grainy images run across my television screen.\n“Who? Who did they shoot?” She asked from the kitchen.\n“Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.” I was nearly in tears.\n“Oh my.” She came in from the kitchen wearing her apron with her hand on her mouth. She put her arm around me and let me cry into her shoulder, but what made it worse was she would never understand the grief I was feeling. \nI had this funny feeling when we reached Montgomery, everything we fought for, every dream he had, would be fulfilled as soon as we got there. Governor George Wallace, on the other hand, had other ideas in the matter as he openly defied President Johnson’s vision of the Great Society.\nHe sat there for a while on the bench in the park in the middle of town. He ran his hand over his white beard and smiled, “How naïve I was back then. I never knew of all life’s pain, exclusion would be the one that would hurt me the most.”\nA squirrel ran by our feet and up an oak tree where his home was. His eyes followed the furry little creature and he smiled to watch him. There were so many things I never took much notice of in a world that was constantly in motion. \n“Sometimes I say to God that maybe I’d have been better off being a squirrel and I wouldn’t have to worry about the color of my skin.” He chuckles and closes his eyes, “Mama passed away a couple of years ago. She was put in hospice. They would not let me in at first, because they could not believe I was her son. Even after all of that, they would not let me see her until I proved I was her boy.” \n“That must have been tough.” I added thoughtfully.\n“No, the toughest part is having to keep inviting yourself to the banquet and refuse to be excluded from the feast even if no one wants you there. Even after all of we went through, there are people who will not let us join the feast.” His eyes focused on a horizon that I would never be able to see." } ]

[ { "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 Ghost Adagio\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 2117\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story about someone who is haunted. Whether by a ghost or something else is up to you." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "In the basement of the Kenmore Conservatory of Music, the practice rooms are dark and gloomy, with radiators that clank like Marley's ghost and steam that clogs your lungs like molasses.\nRoom 8 is the worst of all. The fluorescent lights flicker constantly, giving you a headache. But that's not the main reason no one wants to go in there.\nThey say it's haunted. Year after year, some unfortunate students have to use that room when the rest are being used. They stumble out wild-eyed, barely able to talk.\n“It’s foggy and there’s a terrible smell! Sometimes there’s music from there when the rest of you guys have gone home.”\n“That’s nothing. I heard someone moaning, and they sure weren’t having fun.”\n“Oh bullshit!”\n“It’s true. You go there sometime. I’d rather wait for hours before I go back in that hellhole.”\nEmily Choy, a senior studying composition and piano performance, scoffed at those stories. She didn't believe in ghosts, and it all sounded like a hoax handed down from previous students.\nOne March afternoon, she slogged through the drizzle and slush to the school, shivering in the chilly wind. She wished she’d worn her winter coat, but the weather app on her phone had said 40 degrees. It felt a lot colder than that. Oh well, this was New England. If you didn’t like the weather, wait five minutes and it would change.\nShe tugged open the massive basement door and stepped into a solid wall of heat and noise. The stairwell echoed with ghostly instruments and voices as she went down. Every practice room echoed with a cacophony of sound. \nExcept for that damned Room 8. In addition to being smelly and hot, it had a creaky old piano with only 85 keys, not the usual 88. So you weren’t even playing with a full deck – literally. The old beast had wooden pedals and never stayed in tune to A440, concert pitch. String players hated having to tune to it, and singers complained they had to sing too low. And of course piano players had to struggle with the sticky keys.\n“How did it get here anyway?” Emily asked her friend Marina one day as they prepared to practice Beethoven’s ‘Kreutzer Sonata.’ It ought to be hauled away and shot.”\nMarina laughed and tied her purple-green hair in a rubber hand. “Don’t you wish? I heard it was donated to the school a hundred years by the family of a dead composer.”\nEmily made a face. “But why did they accept that old monster?”\n“Rich people love to give their pianos to music schools.” Marina began to rosin her bow. “They think us students will be thrilled to play on ‘fine old instruments.’ That’s the trouble. They’re old. Gimme an A, will you?”\nThey began to tune. Emily said, “Nobody’s played it or maintained it. It might be pretty, with fancy scrollwork and those carved legs, but the innards are toast.”\nShe knew all about piano innards. She’d heard the terms “hammers,” “dampers,” “felts” and “sounding boards” since she could toddle. Her mother had been a concert pianist who retired after getting married. Rosa Choy gave up her career to raise a family and never let them forget it. She’d started Emily with lessons the minute her fingers could press down the keys.\n“It’s a good thing I like playing piano,” Emily told her friends. “She practically chained me to it after school every day.” Memories of those long dark afternoons were engraved in her brain. While her friends played soccer or hung out at the mall, Emily memorized endless scales and sonatas. Fortunately, she did love music, and Beethoven was her favorite composer.\nAfter they’d practiced, Marina told Emily about a new movie she'd seen. \"It’s called ‘Cut Time.’ A string quartet gets trapped in a castle with a crazy composer. He holds them captive and threatens to murder them if they don't play his music.\" She grinned.\"' Phantom of the Opera’ meets ‘The Shining.’\" They all chuckled at the double meaning of the title. \"Cut Time\" in musical terms means playing a piece with two beats to a measure instead of four. \"Cut time\" needs no explanation.\nEmily rolled her eyes. “Sounds great. Now I just have to get my sonata in shape.” She packed the tattered Beethoven book in her tote bag, She was working on his Sonata no. 23, the \"Appassionata,\" for the school's upcoming recital.\nFor the recital, the students were required to play a traditional piece as well as compose a new one. Emily loved to improvise - creating music on the spot- but writing it down involved tremendous discipline and mastery of music theory. She wasn't like Mozart, who could play billiards and scribble operas at the same time.\nNow she entered Room 8 and switched on the light. So far, the rumors were true. The air smelled musty and the radiator clanked like Marley's ghost. The fluorescent lights in the ceiling flickered nonstop, giving her a headache. But she didn't see any fog or smell anything odd. She took off her jacket and opened the keyboard of the ancient piano. It creaked like old bones waking up. When she played a scale, the notes echoed in a jumble of sound instead of clear rising tones.\n“Sing, you old beast,” she snapped as she set up her music book on the desk\n“I’m trying,” replied a hollow voice.\nEmily jumped. “Who said that?”\n“Don’t be afraid,” said the voice. It seemed to be coming from the piano. “I won’t hurt you.”\nWhoever that was didn't belong in there. Emily slammed the keyboard shut and stood up.\n\"Don't go!\" cried the woman's voice.\n“Who are you?” Emily shouted.\n“My name is Fan Xiao-wei . Have you not heard of me?”\n“No.”\n“I’m not surprised. In my day, nobody believed a Chinese woman could compose Western classical music.\"\nEmily snorted. “Right. You’re a talking piano. Now I’ve heard everything.” She marveled at how calmly she was standing there, talking to some invisible being.\n “Please stay,” begged the piano. “If you learn my music, I will sing for you as no one else can.”\n\"But what happened to you?\"\nNow the voice turned fierce. “I was the first woman and the first Chinese-American composer to win the Cornwall Competition. The composer who placed second swore he would block my every effort to get published or recognized. He taunted me, saying ‘No one will ever believe a Chinese woman could write such music. I will make sure of it.’ And he was right.'\"\n\"What happened?\"\n\"When I couldn't take any more abuse, I came in here and hanged myself from the pipes.\"\n\"Oh my God!\" Emily jumped up, dropping her music books all over the floor. She scrambled to stuff them back in her bag, hands shaking.\n The voice turned desperate. \"Please bring back my music.\"\n\"No!!\" Emily headed for the door and found it locked. She rattled the knob in terror. Whoever it was, ghost or human, knew how to lock massive World War II-era doors.\n\"Now open my cover,\" the voice commanded. Emily began to smell something strange, and cold mist filled the air.\nWith dread in her stomach, Emily heaved open the large lid of the piano, half- expecting to find a body inside. But it looked like a regular piano, except all the strings were stretched out straight. In modern pianos, the bass strings are crossed over the other low ones. A cloud of dust flew out, and she sneezed.\n\"Bless you!\"\nEmily peered in, over and under the piano but saw no one. “All right, come out, whoever you are. This is getting old.”\n“This is real. Believe me!”\n“What, are you like some genie in a lamp? Will you grant me three wishes?”\n“I wish I could. Now play me.\"\nIn stupefied disbelief, Emily sat down.\n\"Now,\" said the piano, \"Here is the opening theme. It starts in E-flat, common time.\"\nEmily felt as if a pair of gloves were sliding into her hands. They felt hot and tight. She clenched her fists but the sensation grew. At the same time, she felt dizzy and her head began to ache.\n\"Now we begin.\" The opening notes were slow and haunting, starting with very soft high trills that seemed to ring like a church bell long untouched. Emily found herself playing under another's willpower. But then the piano paused and commanded, \"Write it down before you forget.\"\nEmily reached for her manuscript and pencil. The music continued, sighing with longing. Then it picked up tempo, growing louder until it thundered through the small room, roaring in rage and frustration. Emily could barely keep up. Play, write, play, write. High arpeggios plunged down the keyboard into sudden pauses, leaving unspeakable grief hanging in the air. At last the piece began to subside into deep, rich chords of resignation.\nNearly an hour had passed, and Emily's hands had begun to cramp. She put down the pencil. \"I have to stop.\"\nThe piano begged her, \"Please keep going. There's not much more.\" And in fact its voice was growing faint. Soon the music faded to a long dissonant echo, like a cry from the grave. It ended in an eerie C-minor chord that rang like a descent into hell.\nEmily finished writing the last few notes. “This – is- crazy,” she said when she was done. “'Is this all?\"\n\"This will do.\"\nEmily rubbed her tired hands and felt the blood flow through them again. She asked, \"What do you call this?\"\n\"The “Ghost Adagio.” But there's one measure you didn't quite get. Go up an octave in the Coda and slow down that last run.”\nEmily tried it and found her fingers moving more fluently than before. The piano seemed to sing in a poignant manner, an easy rippling of sound that ended in a haunting breath. \"This is beautiful,\" she said, feeling unreal.\n\"You've given me back my voice. But I have one last favor to ask.\"\n\"Now what?\" Emily's dream began to fade. The mist faded and she saw the ugly cracked walls around her and the horrible pipes overhead where a woman's body had hung - if that were true.\n\"Please play this piece for your recital. Tell them my name, Fan Xiao-wei. A few people might remember me.\"\n\"I won't promise anything!\" Emily scooped up the manuscript and added it to her tote bag. She fled up to the street and headed home.\nAt the recital, she played Beethoven's \"Appassionata\" to thunderous applause. She stood and bowed, then sat down again. A murmur of anticipation ran through the hall.\nEmily bent over the keys, her dark hair spilling onto her shoulders. She began to play the new piece full of a torrent of emotion and thunder, subsiding in the deep rich chords, haunting and dark.\nWhen she was done, there was stunned silence. Then the audience applauded with even more enthusiasm. Emily took a deep bow and went off-stage, exhausted.\nHer mentor, Professor Lansing, beamed at her. “That was wonderful! Did you compose that?\"\nEmily hesitated. She heard that plaintive voice ringing in her head. \"Tell them my name. A few people might remember me.\" Her heart wanted to reveal the truth but her brain told her coldly, \"No one would believe you.\"\n\"Yes, it's mine.\"\n\"What do you call it?\"\n\"The Ghost Adagio.\"\nAs the applause rang around her, Emily began to feel a chill in the air. How could that be, in this overheated concert hall? The professor’s face seemed to waver and grow watery, as if she were staring into an icy bog.\nShe stumbled backwards and fell to the floor. Her neck snapped to one side and she choked on her own breath.\n“Help,” she croaked, but no words came out. She stared up at the high ceiling with its gilt framed paintings. They seemed so far away, and soon she couldn’t see them at all as darkness whirled around her. Dim voices yammered above her, shaking her shoulders and pounding on her chest. She kicked and struggled, feeling unseen hands wrapping around her throat. That wasn’t standard CPR, was it?\nPain seared her hands as if fire were consuming them. My hands! Oh my God, what’s happening? The building must be on fire, but no one was carrying her out.\nThen she heard a low hiss in her right ear. “That’s not yours.”\n“Wh-what?”\n“That’s not yours. You stole it from me.”\nBy now, Emily was beyond words, and the voice filled her head, a hiss of rage and loss.\n“I died for my music. Now you will too.”" } ]