Datasets:

ImagineIt

/

Stories

like 0

[ { "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 Story of My Case\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1997\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a child witnessing a major historical event." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Note: A true story with my perspective. Some real quotes stated by real people. Harsh/sad actions and rude/offensive words.\n\nYou all might have heard the story of a 14-year-old black boy that got killed by white men because he flirted with a white woman. That lynching isn't just a story. It's my story. I'm that African American boy who got killed... I'm Emmett Till.\n\nAugust 24, 1955\n\n\"Aye Till! Where you goin' boy? Ain't I tell you and yo cousin to go off to the market and get me some eggs and milk? Go on boy.\"\n\n\"Yes sir. Be back in a jiffy.\"\n\nI find my coz in the field loading Uncle’s crops into a bag for his landowner.\n\n\"Let's get a goin'. Ya pops said we gotta go to da market or he finna whoop us.\"\n\n\"He ain't say all dat.\"\n\n\"Yeah, you right. Race ya.\"\n\nWe raced all the way down the block. Legs kicking the dirt off the ground. We stopped in front of Bryant's Grocery and Meat Market. I haven't been in Money, Mississippi for long. Moved down to visit my fam, so I don't know the area much, but we came down here, to the store, almost every day.\n\n\"It's real hot over here.\"\n\n\"Yeah, but you ain't stayin' for long. I heard it's nice over there in the Centennial State.\"\n\n\"She's a beauty.\"\n\n\"Really? I ain't know you liked Colorado dat bad.\"\n\n\"No, not Colorado, dummy. I mean her,\" I said pointing my head in the direction of a beautiful white woman inside the shop.\n\n\"Oh, nuh-uh, mister. You can't have dat. Not unless you want the KKK and night riders up your ass.\"\n\n\"I ain't scared of nothin'.\"\n\nI made my way to the fine-looking young lady, leaving Simeon outside. Of course, she looked way older than me, but hey what I gotta lose.\n\n \"How about a date, baby?\" I asked grabbing her hand while she stocked up bubble gum.\n\nShe shook off my grasp and went to the cash register. I grabbed her waist and asked, \"What's the matter baby, can't you take it?\"\n\nShe shimmed my hands off her waist and backed away.\n\n\"You needn't be afraid of me, baby. I've been with white women before.\"\n\n\"You better get out of her you Negro! Beat it or I'll beat you!\" some man yelled behind the counter.\n\nSimeon grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the store. The lady followed us out and went to her car, getting a pistol. We were scared and were told to run. We decided to not tell Mose about what happened at the store. All these things happened. The assault, fresh talk, and touching… Well, that's what the pretty lady said anyways. I'm getting ahead of it all though.\n\nAugust 28, 1955\n\nI wanted to go back to Chicago with my Ma, Mamie. My Ma warned be ‘bout the folks down here in Mississippi. Told me Chicago and Mississippi were two totally different worlds. I can’t blame her. I should’ve kept my mouth shut. Boy was she pretty though. Reminded me of a Southern Belle. I heard she spread rumors ‘bout what happened down at da shop. Ain’t nothing happened. I didn’t do nun. I also heard her husband was in Texas and came yesterday. I was afraid he would come over here telling me something about stayin’ away from his lady, but sadly that was not even close to what happened.\n\nOut the window, I saw a green pickup truck driving through the path of rocks in front of my Uncle’s house. My Uncle went out the front porch and talked to the two men. \n\n“You got some boys that came down from Chicago?”\n\n“Yeah. What’s it to you?”\n\n“Don’t get smart with me Negro. Show me to the Nigger boy who did the talking to my girl.”\n\n“Till don’t know no better. Things are different from over there than here in the South.”\n\n“How old are you, preacher?”\n\n“I-I’m 64-years-old.”\n\n“Well preacher you're not gonna live to see 65 if you don’t tell that boy to come down here now!”\n\nMy Uncle goes into the house and calls me down.\n\n“Bobo, come down here son.”\n\nI went downstairs like my Uncle told me. I stood in front of two tall white men staring down at me. One of the men in front of me pulled me by the elbow and dragged me to the green truck.\n\n“This him?”\n\n“Yes.”\n\nThe man pushed me into the house. \n\n“Put your shoes on, boy. You got no business talking to a white lady. You scum. Blacks ain’t got no business hollering to beautiful women like mine.”\n\n“At least let me put my socks on.”\n\nHe grabbed me by my ear and told me that I better listen to what he said. The men tied me up and put me in their green truck and drove away from my family. We went to Bryant’s store and picked up two men like myself. Remind me of puppy dog slaves. Scared of their white owners. Gotta listen to what they say or else. We passed by a boy. Willie Reed. I give some thanks to that kid. Having the balls to go off and tell people what he heard, men beating me and me crying out loud. If it weren’t for dat kid and his neighbor no one would have questioned Bryant or his half-brother, Milam. \n\nThey beat me. Had blood all over their colorless hands.\n\n“We’re gonna beat you ‘til you're shaken in your boots. We're gonna toss you into the river and teach you a lesson. You can swim your way back home.”\n\n“Y'all are some bastards. I’m as good as you are. I ain't scared. I had encounters with white women before. They love me. Just seems like your vanilla dont like some chocolate.”\n\nThey got furious. They drove to the cotton gin to steal a 70-pound fan. I don’t know what a fan gonna do. They can’t blow black people away. We always gonna fight back. \n\n“We better not get caught with stealing this piece of crap.”\n\nThey beat me some more and knocked me out. We drove for miles. I finally woke up and found myself being dragged by the Tallahatchie River. My body would be found days later attached to the fan, decomposed, shot in the head, lumped up and bruised, and missing an eye. \n\nMy Uncle waited for me. He waited until I got home that night, but I never came back. He drove to try to find me but never discovered where I’ve been. My other cousin, Curtis Jones, phoned the sheriff of my disappearance and called my Ma. George Smith, the county sheriff, questioned both Bryant and Milam, but they lied to him. They got arrested for kidnapping me, tho and soon everyone knew of me missing. The NAACP, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, became involved and everyone wanted to know what happened to the 14-year-old black boy. \n\nI was found. Two boys who were fishing and found my body. A disfigured blob. Tied by barbed wire around my neckline. Unrecognizable and naked, but wearing a ring which my Uncle identified as mine. \n\nLynching and racism were very serious around the time I was allegedly killed. You would see innocent black people hung by trees surrounded by crowds of white people with smiles stretched out across their pale skins. My death ripped people open. On September 3rd, tears flowed down those who saw me in my casket. My Ma, lookin' down upon me. I love you, Ma. You're my hero. You had me stay the same. Had others see what white men could do to a young boy. The Jim Crow Laws were a mess. It took over and segregated everyone. Colored on one side and whites on the other.\n\nSeptember of 1955\n\nMy case was held at a courthouse in Sumner, Mississippi. Blacks weren’t allowed to be juries in lots of places in the South due to them not caring about our opinions. Regardless of this, many Africans were on my side. My Uncle pointed my killers and my Cousin testified against false talk. \n\n“J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant died with Emmett Till's blood on their hands and it looks like everyone else who was involved is going to do the same. They had a chance to come clean. They will die with Emmett Till's blood on their hands.”\n\nSimeon wasn’t right, at first.\n\nThe court announced Bryant and Milam to be not guilty. They got awarded big bucks to testify the truth to Look magazine. They told journalist William Huie everything. \n\n“Well, what else could we do? He was hopeless. I'm no bully; I never hurt a nigger in my life. I like niggers—in their place—I know how to work 'em. But I just decided it was time a few people got put on notice. As long as I live and can do anything about it, niggers are gonna stay in their place. Niggers ain't gonna vote where I live. If they did, they'd control the government. They ain't gonna go to school with my kids. And when a nigger gets close to mentioning sex with a white woman, he's tired o' livin'. I'm likely to kill him. Me and my folks fought for this country, and we got some rights. I stood there in that shed and listened to that nigger throw that poison at me, and I just made up my mind. 'Chicago boy,' I said, 'I'm tired of 'em sending your kind down here to stir up trouble. Goddam you, I'm going to make an example of you—just so everybody can know how me and my folks stand.”\n\nRoy Bryant’s wife, Carolyn Bryant, told the truth after she told the lies. She said that I never did the touching parts and that much of what she said was a lie.\n\nPretty girls sure can be devious.\n\nAfter the truth was out there, a second trial still couldn’t be held to charge them guilty. Many people hated Bryant and Milam. Bryant’s life became real tough. He went to Texas and things didn't go so well. He was being ignored by black workers and others. Carolyn and Bryant got a divorce. Bryant wanted to be private. He was scared and denied killing me even tho he already admitted to sayin’ otherwise. \n\n \"This new generation is different and I don't want to worry about a bullet some dark night.”\n\nI see all these changes up where I am.\n\nThe next generation was fierce. Protestors everywhere. Blacks screaming for freedom and the right to vote. They demanded to be heard. Some were peaceful and some were violent.\n\nSimeon was now right... because Bryant died of cancer.\n\nMy case tried to reopen and find any live assailants, but nothin’ new came up, but my story lived on.\n\n“I thought about Emmett Till, and I couldn’t go back,” Rosa Parks said. Rosa Parks didn't go back. She sat down on that seat and refused to give it to any white man. Surprised any white man would want a black-rowed seat anyway.\n\n“...the crying voice of a little Emmett C. Till, screaming from the rushing waters in Mississippi,” Martin Luther King Jr. said. He gave speeches of wanting equality for his people. He spoke about me... One of the victims sought out by another white man.\n\nBooks were written about me like The Blood of Emmett Till by Timothy Tyson and movies were made like My Nephew Emmett by director Kevin Wilson Jr. I've been taught in schools and spoke about on the news. I'm Emmett Till and my story will be a part of those African Americans who died.\n\nI stand next to Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and many more who died and are going to continue dying. Let us remember my story and that African Americans are Americans 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: It Only Happens in Comics\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1043\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a child witnessing a major historical event." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Today, I was meant to go out to the local pond and fish with Brother Zeke. I had begged mum and pulled at her blue, floral bloomers just to ensure that my plans were secure. \nI had sat on the edge of the pond, rubbing my stubby fingers through the algae, Mama told me it was magic leaves who'd argued and got stuck together. I had always believed in that story, I believed in so many things.\nThen came the day I found out that the magic leaves were just fungi, that the pond was just a polluted cesspool.\nI grew up that day because the world was moving, and I was almost left behind. It was like in all those off-brand Netflix movies.\nThey called themselves \"The Fabian\". Like a brotherhood, or something straight out of one of Zeke's James Patterson books.\nOnly, this time... I couldn't flip over to the part where it ends.\n***\nIt's 2019, and I'm in my room. I'm on the floor looking up at the ceiling because that is all I can do without fear. Bathing, eating, breathing, blinking, thinking. Anything other than plain emotion posed a threat to my life.\nThis was the worst time to be a female, to have breasts and pert lips. The worst time to be BLACK.\nThe Fabian turned out to be some sort of group who'd overthrown the government. I don't know much about them, no one does. Mostly out of fear and not a mere loss of information.\n87 000 blacks had been kept in concentration camps, gassed to death, raped, maimed, mentally tortured, degraded. I only read about this kind of thing in storybooks. Where's the UN? Where's everyone who's meant to fight for us?\nI looked at my black ashy knuckles, felt through my kinky hair. And I wondered, \"What's wrong with this? Is it my lips? The fact that my nose is a little wider than most? That people clutch their purses when I pass by? What's wrong with me, with us?\"\nThe tears trickled down, without my permission, as they normally did. I felt so scared, so sad, so trapped. This can't be real.\nThen I remember Zeke, my Zeke.\nBefore he traveled, we laughed and played and endured the stares. We pushed and jumped and cried and coughed. We ate and shoved and slept and leaned on cars. We did so much because he was my brother and I was his sister. Because he held my fists back when people would belittle me. He would hug me when I hated my hair, would kiss me when I hated my nose, would hit me when I hated myself.\nBefore he traveled, he died, he got shot, he got tortured, he wasn't remembered, because we're shut in these huge houses that make it look and feel like we're ok. Because he insisted on smelling the crisp air again, he insisted on being black when being black was a sin. He took his sin outside, and like a plague, got cleared out.\nMY ZEKE.\nI looked outside my window, even though I couldn't see anything. I saw clouds and cars and felt like ripping off my skin. My thoughts are everywhere, like a trash site. Broken lamps and old car engines.\nThe Fabian: Biggest Modern Extremist Group!\nThe Black Holocaust\nThose were the only headlines I saw on the news nowadays. Every headline more gruesome and more of a reminder. Every continent had shut us out, we were in this alone. Almost like we did not exist anymore, we had no president or ally.\nEveryone feared these bastards. I fear them too... because I am the roach beneath their raised feet.\n***\nThe end felt more pleasurable than whatever was meant to end this horror. This changed everything, this WAS everything. Sometimes, I'd feel a rush, feel a push. An electric strum in my stomach, searing pain in my cerebrum. A push off a cliff, a rush, the turn of your heart at your weakness.\nThis push, that fear, that tire, it led to the biggest gathering of minorities in one place. Armed with WellCo tote bags and a heart that was too weak to make sensible decisions. They ran, they charged, and they didn't win.\nBecause even after killing The Fabian, Zeke won't come back, all the missing pieces of heart won't be buried. Because the unearthed freedom is worthless with the baggage of trauma, the 5 day old vomit on carpets, the migraines. The tears, the fastings, the vigils, the no breathing, no sleeping, no peace. EVERYTHING.\nFor the first time in 3 years, and again, since the centuries past. Blacks would rebuild this country, and hold it on our backs forever, the stamp of pain and officiality in strength. The pain and tears and doubt and permed hair, the bleached noses, and the poisoned food. The gas and the falling down and the apocalyptic running. The determination to live and the willingness to die.\nI was 12 when this started, and I was 15 at the end. Those numbers, the difference between them. The blood and seared melanin between them. The hatred and the anger between them. I would be in history books, but merely as one out of millions of scarred survivors, my Zeke would be there too, with aunt Rae and unc' Lenny. With the 200 000, with the 5 000 000.\n***\nThere were more than 500 000 people interconnected with The Fabian. There were some in the government, at my school, in my grocery store. I still think about them, and whether they're satisfied. People are writing about it, people are making memoirs, people are recording dates and numbers and deaths and lives. I'm just here, looking at that pond, feeling through the algae, so that some form of magic might run through me.\nAnd make me forget. So I can breathe and eat and dance all over again, I brush my hand through so much that I pull on the algae. And it's brown and wilted and irritating. It's nothing like what I thought it was 20 years ago, it's nothing like the childish hope I had when I was still able to go outside and feel, real." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: A Greeting from the Edge of the Universe\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 2994\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story with an open ending that gives readers just enough details to draw their own conclusions." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "As an intern for Area 51, I’ve seen a lot of strange things. A lot of strange things. I’ve learned to expect the unexpected. Even before I got here, I’ve been doing research on extraterrestrial life, since the summer before I started high school. I remember being bullied for being obsessed with aliens in middle school, so the research stayed classified. My own way of showing that I wasn’t crazy. Sure I probably seemed as crazy as the Ancient Aliens guy Giorgio A. Tsoukalos (who ironically works here in the history department). I got a degree in physics and minored in history, just to be taken seriously. I used that information to draw up new theories on different alien species, as well as explain some of their ships. I struck gold when my Ph.D. application essay about a proposal for a colony on Mars, which detailed the ship to go there and equipment for exploration, somehow got the attention of the government. I didn’t know it at the time, but my interview for my Ph.D application was actually a job interview. I should have known something was up when the questions went from basic interview questions to questions I didn’t see anyone on Reddit or anywhere really mention during their interviews. How on Earth am I supposed to know how to answer “What would you do if an unknown person offered you a can of cranberries and told you to run?” (The answer, I found out after I got this internship, is basically you’re supposed to run and plant the can of cranberries near any bare tree, as a peace offering for Pluto mites) I found out I got this bizarre internship I never even applied for via a USB delivered to my house, that played a hologram message followed by dudes in a black van hauling my ass to a secret building. They sat me down in front of an blue humanoid alien while I was still in my cat themed pajamas, and told me that I unknowingly wrote schematics for the blue guy to go home. I accepted, thinking the $100k yearly package was a lot, but now I realize I think I deserve a little more considering the shit I deal with. And well, I am good at this alien stuff. I’ve been offered a permanent position once I do get my Ph.D. And possibly give up my sanity.\nWhich brings me to today. 7 months in. 5 more to go. Me and the blue guy are friends, I call him Blueberry because I still don’t know how to speak Martian and can’t say his Martian name right (I’m nearly fluent in a different alien language though). I thought I had finally gotten used to this job. But this? Not expected, not in a light-year.\n“Hey intern, you good?” the spaceman tapped on the glass, “Are you done?”\nI blinked, realizing I was frozen for a solid minute, and clicked on the microphone button. “A few more minutes please.”\n“I’m stuck in my underwear, and I know that there isn’t a lot of attractive people around here like me, but I really prefer being in clothes.”\nI rolled my eyes and pressed a button that released pollen. Human men suck… even if they’re from the edge of the freaking universe.\nThat’s right. When this guy landed on this facility, we simply thought he was some astronaut from a foreign secret organization. Sure he was taller than half the guys on the NBA teams and had eyes that changed colors, but human. We even scanned his DNA. 98% human. The missing 2% is what triggered us to put him the chamber to figure out how he ticks. They put this task on the intern because everyone else didn’t want to and told me since I’m the intern I can handle an almost completely normal human.\nThis dude isn’t normal.\nAnd I’m the only one who knows why.\nSure he’s sneezing like crazy at the pollen like anyone during allergy season.\nBut this man? Never been on Earth. Knows at least a dozen languages, including my mother tongue Kannada. His eyes weren’t some side effect of unknown particles like everyone else guessed (its happened once or twice to people who were sent out to space). His eyes being able to change color in fact comes from the 2% non-human DNA.\nDNA that is made of DARK ENERGY.\nIt took me a whole 104.5 hours to decode that, comparing to other aliens, running different tests several times. Its dark energy, the stuff that makes up the universe.\n“Please tell me this part is done!” He whined, his eyes blue. “I’ll tell you more, I promise!”\n“This part is done, I’m going to have you hosed down and dried. Then you can tell me how you came from the edge of the universe.”\n“I’m guessing you actually believe me this time?”\n“You could say that… I still don’t understand how part if you is literally dark energy.”\n“I prefer the term cosmic,” he said with a wink, eyes dark purple. “You can call it whatever you want hot-” I hit the button, releasing a shower of water from the top of his containment unit, cutting him off. Why was I expecting a spaceman to not have a huge ego? Wishful thinking. Well actually most of the aliens I’ve met are humble, and some of the other people who work here, and many of them have like 4 Ph.D’s.\n“Miss Sitara, Dr. Kennedy wants to speak to you,” a woman with porcelain skin and a blond ponytail, said, halfway through the door. “And it sounds pretty urgent. Bring pretty boy here too.”\n“Carrie, hey, uhh did Dr. Kennedy finally read my message?” I asked, exasperated.\nShe closed the door behind her, “Yeah, I know how that is. I was an intern a while back, he didn’t even bother to know my name until the Christmas party, after trying out my gingerbread cookies.”\n“He doesn’t know my name, he either calls me the intern or Smithy, probably ‘cause he’s lazy to learn my Indian name.” I mumbled the last part.\n“Yeah uhh, anyways, whats with the urgency? I wasn’t even allowed to see the memo, no one saw it. I don’t think I’ve seen him this spooked.. like ever.”\n“Ummm…” I looked at him and then the binder full of notes and then at Carrie. “This may or may not be Level 9 clearance…”\n“Level 9? Are you sure?”\n“I’ve memorized all 10 protocols for levels of clearance for information. What I found here… I-I don’t think either of us would be even allowed to know this before Dr. Kennedy and the other cabinet members have even laid their eyes on it.”\n“Hey,” the spaceman whined. “I’m a person, not an it!”\n“I’m talking about your DNA and stuff, spaceman.”\n“Did you like what you saw?”\nI rolled my eyes. “Anyways-”\n“Sitara, what do you mean DNA?”\n“Why don’t we get spaceman in some clothing and head on over…”\n———————\n“Hey space dude,” Carrie started, once we were in the elevator. “Do you have a name?”\n“I’m waiting for someone to guess correctly.”\n“Hmm okay…”\n“I noticed none of you lovely ladies nor any ladies here have swooned at me. Aren’t I considered an attractive male?”\nCarried and I looked at each other and then at him. He has lightly bronzed skin, dark hair that brushed the nape of his neck, and muscles that slightly protruded from the plain black shirt he was wearing. His eyes were right now the color they usually are, dark green, though they did just flash grey and then dark purple for a few seconds. Sure he could easily be a Calvin Klein model but…\n“I don’t know where you get that idea but its not the most common thing for people to swoon at very hot people, it happens but not a lot,” I answered. “But y-yeah I guess you’re better looking than most human guys I’ve come across.”\n“You guess?” he crossed his arms, eyes grey. “Wow I need to understand Earth culture better,” he turned toward Carrie. “What do you think?”\n“I agree with her.”\n“What?”\n“I mean… yeah you’re pretty good looking… but I’m gay so no swooning coming from me anytime soon.”\n“You can’t be gay!” his eyes widened, his eyes going becoming grey again. Weird.\n“Oh God,” Carried rubbed her forehead. “Don’t tell me somehow you’re homophobic after being out there-”\n“What no,” he chuckled and shook his head. “I meant- I’m not really used to your slang I guess… I thought gay was referred to only men.”\n“Oh, yeah I guess nowadays its an umbrella term.”\n“Sitara right? So you don’t like men either?”\n“If you’re trying to ask me if I’m gay, I’m not. I don’t really care for gender, and I’m asexual.”\n“Hmmm… I need to find women who are attracted to men. Sexually.” He smirked at both of us, eyes bright red. Carrie and I looked at each other and shared the same “Ugh, men” glance.\nDing! “Aaaaand that’s our floor.” I announced. The floor seemed empty, unusually devoid of busy people, all the offices of the cabinet members are here after all. I paused at Dr. Kennedy’s office’s door, ready to knock on the stainless steel door, but Carrie pointed down the hall with a similar door. “Everyone is in there, waiting for you and this douche bag.”\n“Everyone?” exclaimed, ignoring spaceman’s “Hey!”\n“Yeah well the entire cabinet and some people with level 8 including me-something wrong?”\nI looked at spaceman, whose eyes flashed deep orange. Maybe his eyes describe his emotions… like mood rings. “I really think I need a one-on-one with Kennedy first… He knows the space stuff best.”\n“Sitara, c’mon, the suspense is killing me.”\n“Yeah, Ra-Ra!” Spaceman said smugly.\n“Ra-Ra?”\n“Space guy, no nicknames, Sitara focus!”\nI put a hand on Carrie’s shoulder. “Dude, you’d lose your shit.”\n“We’re in Area 51, how crazy can it get, truly.”\nI opened my mouth, but spaceman responded instead, eyes yellow, “Its the reason I came to you guys in the first place. I don’t know why you guys gave her,” he pointed to me, his eyes turquoise. “Someone who clearly is on the lower part of the hierarchy, but clearly very knowledgeable and the only one who heard me out, tasked with interviewing me. I’ve been here what 7 days, of your Earth time, and no one has taken me seriously, except for this fine person-”\n“Hey you three-” Dr. Kennedy started to scold, bursting out from the door, but stopped once he saw me. “Oh my God, Sitara Rao just the person I was looking for!!” That is the first time I’ve heard him say my full name correctly.\n“Dr. Kennedy, I-I take it you read my message.” I felt my voice go up an octave.\n“Yes and-” He saw Carrie and the spaceman. “You didn’t talk to anyone else right?”\n“No, umm what I messaged you stayed between me and spaceman here.”\n“Oh this is the spaceman?” Dr. Kennedy looked at him up and down. “He looks so…”\n“Normal? Yeah,” I pointed to the tag on the spaceman’s neck, my voice returning to normal. “But this is him.”\n“Wow,” For the first time since I got here, Dr. Kennedy looked flabbergasted. He rubbed his surprisingly intact grey hair and adjusted his glasses. “Um okay… I’m glad you followed level 9 protocol… Jesus I- Maybe I shouldn’t have called this meeting, maybe I should have talked one-on-one…”\n“Dr. Kennedy, what did you tell everyone else?” I asked, anxiously.\n“I just said that the new alien- well human… just said it’s urgent,” he sighed. “I can’t believe you were able to decode the 2% of DNA we couldn’t read, I mean seriously an intern decoding dark energy-”\n“Hold the phone, DARK ENERGY? THE ENERGY THAT MAKES UP THE UNIVERSE?” Carried shouted. “How in this God-forsaken universe did a man from outer space get DNA from DARK ENERGY?”\n“Carrie,” Dr. Kennedy answered calmly. “Please calm down. I think we’re quite late for the meeting, lets all head inside. Sitara, I need you and spaceman front and center.”\n————\nThe silence was deafening. There’s 45 people here, and just 10 minutes ago, half the room laughed at me for saying the spaceman is from the literal edge of the universe. The other half argued about mathematical and physical practicalities. Then they started laughing too when I mentioned the dark energy DNA. That was until I presented all the evidence. Even Dr. Kennedy had stood up, walked over to the projector, and pointed to the DNA sequence then at the sequence of dark energy molecules. It was then everyone took the intern seriously for once in their lives.\n“All this fuss about dark energy in my DNA,” spaceman started, his eyes turning yellow. “No one is even asking about my human DNA. I’ve never been to Earth, but I gotta know, what part of Earth is my human DNA from?”\n“It was hard to place,” the head of genetics stood up to answer. “We think Middle Eastern or African. Not confirmed though.”\n“Its actually pure Mesopotamian.” I squeaked into the mic. “If you trace farther back-”\n“That can’t be-”\n“She’s right,” Spaceman said, his elbow on my shoulder. I tried not to twitch. “We’ll discuss that later but my creators saved DNA from ancient Mesopotamian people.”\nEveryone whispered questioningly about “creators.”\n“Settle down, please!” I called out. “I’ve confirmed what he said was true. Before I mapped out the dark energy DNA. I didn’t find a lot, but there’s a file on his ship, batches of DNA from different eras of different societies of people. And before any one tells me there’s no evidence, feel free to check a batch marked ‘Mongol Empire 13th century.’ And this time,” I turned to the genetics department. “Go back far enough, don’t use calculations from today.” The head of genetics, Dr. Leroy scribbled down something on his notepad. “I’ll discuss the creators shortly. The matter of spaceman never being to Earth can be proved by testing the bacteria from his body. Things that any full grown human would have, he does not, because his biome is comparable that of a newborn. However, he has bacteria that does not exist on Earth normally. Like bacteria that thrive in either extreme heat or extreme cold.”\n“But why?” someone asked.\n“Maybe the edge of the universe is surrounded by extremes. Extreme heat, extreme cold, etc.”\n“Its great,” spaceman said sarcastically. “Though we don’t actually get exposed to the environment outside. We tend to stay inside.”\n“Inside what?”\n“We have essentially a moon sized ship. Like that one planet destroyer in that space documentary. Star something.”\n“That’s not a documentary…” I mumbled. I turned my attention back to the audience. “Anyways, this is all what I’ve learned so far. Any questions? I don’t really know uh too much else but I can uh clarify anything.”\n“How did you know this DNA is from dark energy? DNA and Dark energy molecules are very different.” Someone asked, a scientist from the space-plant biology department asked.\n“I have a good understanding of both physics and biology, and evaluated dark energy molecules with his DNA,” I pressed a button on my iPad. “I’ve sent the work to everyone, if you want to evaluate it.”\n“How did you guys not know that I have DNA from dark energy?” spaceman asked, hands on his hips and eyes grey. “I mean you literally have someone here with dark energy DNA. And I know because I used my sensor before I was put through testing.”\n“What?” I asked, looking at him incredulously. “How come you didn’t mention it before?”\n“I thought you of all people knew. It didn’t seem relevant to mention since I thought you knew. I thought that’s how you figured it out?”\n“N-no I don’t go around sequencing human DNA. I’m just an intern. Besides, everyone who even steps inside Area 51 gets their DNA analyzed. Your sensor might be wrong, because-”\n“No he’s right, someone here does have some dark energy in their DNA.” Dr. Leroy said, standing up. “I’m looking at the sequencing here, and I’ve seen part of it in someone else. I thought because it was unrecognized simply due to error but after your evaluation of his DNA, it makes sense.. but-”\n“I remember this,” Dr. Kennedy chimed in. “It wasn’t concerning at all… there were no abnormal signs…”\n“Really?” I looked between both scientists, a look of recognition passing between them. “I hope its okay with whoever has this dark energy DNA, but who here has it?”\n“Isn’t it obvious?” spaceman said, with a smirk.\nI looked at him quizzically. “No?”\n“Its you.”\nI froze. Me? “You-you’re wrong. I was born here on Earth, I grew up here. T-there’s people who have w-w-witnessed my birth, including my parents, who are definitely human and are also from E-earth- I can’t possibly have dark energy DNA? My eyes don’t change color like yours and-and there’s confirmed records because Area 51 and pentagon do extensive background checks.. I mean they even found the time I bought the entire Percy Jackson series at a school book fair when I was five, and that was with cash. I- I don’t understand.”\n“He’s right,” Dr. Leroy said. “I haven’t re-evaluated everything but you definitely have dark energy in your DNA. None of us will force you to go through testing, but we think you should. Discussions need to be made, but you’re welcome to evaluate anything that you can yourself, so long as there’s records and witnesses, of course.”\nI simply nodded.\n“Well, now that that’s out of the way…” spaceman stepped closer to the mic and scanned the audience. “I’ll tell you why I’m here.” He cleared his throat.\n“The planet is going to-”" } ]

[ { "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 Matter\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 2996\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about an elderly character who was part of a historic movement years ago." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Aaliyah was ready to take on the longest awaited journey of her life. Death. \nShe lay on her daughter, Ebony’s, living room couch, cushioned underneath a mountain of heated blankets. She had always complained about Ebony’s house being too cold. Even under the heap of blankets, she still felt a slight chill. \nThere was something different in the atmosphere this morning when she woke up. It was almost as if her almond colored skin could feel the difference as goosebumps rose on her arms, causing the small hairs to stand up against her limbs. She called out for her daughter to come to her, saying, “Ebony, I need you here right now.” \nEbony was at Aaliyah’s side within seconds. “What is it momma?” She picked up a pillow from the couch and gave it a fluff before placing it back beside her mother. \n“Today’s the day.” Aaliyah said with confidence. “I’m going to die today.” \nEbony gave her mother a slight smile, “Don’t talk like that, ma.” She told her. “You still have many more years of life to come, you’re just a little sick, that’s all.”\nAaliyah shook her head, “No, no. I can feel it. Can’t you?” She raised her arms above her head, swaying them slightly in the cold draft of the room. “My time has come.” \nEbony’s daughter, Aaliyah’s granddaughter enters the room holding her stuffed puppy. “Hi mimi!” She greets Aaliyah. “Look!” She smiles, showing off her two missing front teeth.\nEbony moves to the other side of the couch, kneeling down beside her mother on the carpeted floor. She says, “Momma, stop talking like that.” She demands. Her eyes are glistened with tears now. “Why don’t you tell Janie a story?” She offers. \nJanie smiles and runs to the couch, plopping herself next to Aaliyah’s feet. She is holding onto the light brown puppy and positions the pillow to rest her head on it. “Tell me a story, mimi.” \nAaliyah heaves a sigh. “I guess there is time to tell another story. But after this, I shall join papa in heaven. He is waiting for me.” She says. \n“What story are you going to tell us today?” She asks. \nAaliyah smiles, her eyes seem to be looking in another time, another world. “It was the greatest movement. The one that changed our lives.” She begins. “Papa and I were, what, sixteen at the time? It was twenty-twenty, just after the riots started.” \nThe world was different back then. Racial unrest was a popular topic, the constitution preached of a world where all men were created equal- but that wasn’t exactly the case. This was when the Black Lives Matter movement began. \nGrady and Aaliyah were sixteen at the time that the protests started, and being young, black, Americans, they were passionate on the subject. In their hometown of Mesa, Arizona, many people were saying that the movement was against the white people. It was hard to stand up for what they believed in amongst an ocean of people who believed differently than them. \nAaliyah’s mother, Nia, would not allow her to join in the protests. So with the help of her best friend, and future husband, they created a blog. They believed that the best way to spread the movement was through the internet. They called the blog, “We Matter.” \nWithin days of creating it, there were over ten thousand subscribers and views on her posts. \nGrady stood beside Aaliyah at her small desk in her bedroom as she ferociously typed away on her keyboard. \n“You say, “Black Lives Matter is belittling the white’s.” But it’s the opposite of that. It’s about overcoming ignorance and finding a way to be together. Black lives matter is just about being able to love everyone and not discriminate against others because of their skin color. You say, “All lives matter”, but it’s not about that. The white lives already matter, it’s the black’s who people fail to recognize.” \nAaliyah turns to Grady. “What do you think?” She asks. \nGrady smiles at her and says, “I think it’s perfect.” \n“Great,” Aaliyah guides the cursor to the top of the screen where the big blue “publish” button will release her words for the entire world to read. \nShe takes a deep breath. “Here goes nothing.” She clicks the button. \n“Congratulations” The screen reads. “Your post has been published!” \n“Shall we celebrate with some ice cream?” Grady suggests. \nAaliyah’s eyes were glued to the screen. She presses the refresh button at the top, and smiles. “Already has 50 views.” She exclaims. \nGrady pats her on the back, “Ice cream. My treat.” He pries her away from the computer and convinces her to follow him out the door. \n“Out to get a treat, ma! We’ll be back soon!” Aaliyah calls out to Nia. \n“Be back by seven!” Nia answers. \nAaliyah and Grady head out the door and start walking down the street towards their favorite ice cream place, Sonic. \n“Mimi, what’s sonic?” Janie interrupts the story. \nAaliyah smiles at the thought, “The most amazing ice cream and slushy spot. Closed down long ago, it’s too bad.” Her eyes gloss over in the memory, as she continues her story.\nGrady sits at the bench and scoots to the end to make room for Aaliyah. “Put your phone away,” Grady tells Aaliyah. \n“I’m just checking the blog.” She says in defense. “There’s almost two hundred views already.” \n“That’s great. But let’s focus on ice cream.” \nAaliyah puts her phone in her pocket and looks at Grady, “Chocolate, Strawberry, oooh reeces? Maybe a snickers blast?” \nGrady laughs, and looks away from Aaliyah, moving his hair from his face with his fingers. “Okay anyway,” He begins, “There’s a protest in Scottsdale tonight…” \nAaliyah sighs, “Like I’ve said, my mom won’t let me go. But you are welcome to, you don’t need me to be with you.” \nGrady rolls his eyes as if that statement was absolutely ridiculous. “You are my partner. I can’t go to a protest without you! Just sneak out with me and Ebony.” He pleads. \nEbony was Grady’s little sister. A beautiful girl with almond colored skin and long hair that fell to her hips. \nAaliyah doesn’t even consider his offer, “Do you know what mom will do to me if she finds out that I snuck out to go to a protest?” \nGrady laughs, “I can imagine the possibilities.” \n“The possibilities go past your imagination.” Aaliyah jokes. \nThey’re just finishing up their ice cream as Aaliyah decides, “Okay. I’ll do it.” She says. \n“Do what?” Grady asks, scraping the last bit of strawberry ice cream from the bottom of the styrofoam cup. \n“I’ll sneak out. Go to the protest.” \nGrady’s jaw drops. “Are you serious?” \n“Why would I joke about something this serious?” \n“Okay, okay. Wow. Okay, Ebony and I can pick you up at nine. Does that work?” \nAaliyah hesitates, and prays to every god she can think of that her mom would be asleep by nine. “Yeah. That works.” \nBy the time eight rolled around, Aaliyah was about ready to text Grady and bail. Her mother was wide awake in the parlor drinking a glass of wine and yelling at the news. She did a lot of that lately, it was as if yelling at the spokemen made her feel better. \nAaliyah goes to the kitchen and asks Nia where the midol was. \n“You’re already going to bed?” her mom asks. \n“Yeah, I need some extra sleep.” \n“In the medicine cabinet like always,” She answers without looking at Aaliyah. \nAaliyah opens the cabinet, making a scene of taking out two pills, and walks to her room, locking the door behind her. \nAt 8:30, her phone lights up with a text from Grady. \"See you in 30.\"\nShe puts the phone on her stomach and stares at the ceiling. \nShe gets up from bed and sits at her desk in front of her computer. She opens the tab to her blog. The top reads, 3,000 views. She allows a smile to come to her lips as she begins typing her next post. \n\"Tonight, I'm going to be part of history. By joining the thousands of protesters on the streets, I will be fighting for equality for black lives. Now is the time for change and if we don't make our voices heard, nothing will ever change. We will still be treated like we are less than when the constitution clearly states that all men are created equal. Now is the time to take a stand. Who's with me?\" \nShe reads over the passage carefully before pressing publish. A light shines through her bedroom window, Ebony and Grady are here. She takes a deep breath, my voice needs to be heard. She tells herself, ignoring the voices in her mind that are screaming this a bad idea. \nOpening her window as quietly as she can, Aaliyah lifts herself over and onto the ground outside. \nIn the car, Grady smiles at her and says, \"that wasn't so hard, was it?\" \nAaliyah sighs, \"The hard part is when we get home and police are surrounding the house because my mom busted down my door and saw I was missing.\" \nFrom the front seat, Ebony turns around and laughs. \"You two ready?\" She asks. \nEbony brought her boyfriend, Zeke, and he turned around and smiled at Aaliyah. The thing that Aaliyah loved about Ebony was that she treated her like she wasn't an annoying teenager. Ebony was 19 but treated Aaliyah and Grady like they were just some of her friends. Zeke was the same way, Aaliyah guessed Ebony's example wore off on him. \nScottsdale was only a 15 minute drive from where Aaliyah lived, if they took the freeway. They reach the fashion mall where the protest was being held and have to circle back a few blocks to find parking. \nAaliyah was in utter shock by the amount of people that showed up to take a stand. Blacks and whites alike were standing in the crowd, holding signs, and shouting chants in a unified group of people who wanted the same thing. \nAaliyah couldn't conceal the smile that crept to her lips as she stood amongst the crowd with Ebony, Zeke, and Grady at her side. \n\"See what we can do when we all come together?\" Ebony said to Aaliyah. \n\"This is beautiful.\" Aaliyah says. \nBeautiful it was. But with the beauty, came tragedy. \nLooters had come to the protest, and with the first sound of glass shattering, the unified crowd became chaotic. \nPeople running in such directions, shouting and screams sounds through the crowd. Ebony grabbed Aaliyah and Grady, pulling them close to her body. \"We need to leave. Stay together,\" she orders.\nThe needing to leave was a thought they all shared. But the staying together part proved difficult. People tore through their huddle, Grady and Zeke being separated from the girls. \n\"Grady!\" Ebony called out, but there was no answer, only the sounds of people shouting and glass shattering. Ebony takes Aaliyah's hand and drags her through the crowd, going against the current of people running. \n\"What are you doing?\" Aaliyah asks. \"The car is that way.\" She points in the opposite direction they were headed. \n\"There has to be reporters here. Someone needs to say something that will make this protest meaningful.\" She continues against the crowd of people running away. \nThey reached the front of the crowd where the more devoted protestors stood unwavering against the police who had created a blockade. Ebony pushes through. The two had almost reached the front row when the first gunshot sounded. \nIt has been said that the end of the world didn't start with a bang or a whisper, but rather one scream at a time. Aaliyah had never thought much of this saying until now. It was an odd thought to be having, but as the screams rose up around her, her world seemed to stand still. Her eyes were fixed on a poster that read, \"we will not be silenced.\" It was on the floor, footprints were plastered all over it but the black words were still very evident against the white paper. \nThat is, until the paper turned red. \nAaliyah snapped back into reality, her ears ringing with the sounds of screams. The hand in hers grew limp, and the owner of the hand fell to the floor. \n\"Ebony?\" Aaliyah whispers. Then again, but louder. \"Ebony.\" And a third time, but this time her voice was a scream. An ear piercing, bone shattering scream. \"Ebony!\" \nShe collapsed to the floor on her knees, cradling Ebony's head in her arms as she stared down into her eyes that seemed to be looking somewhere else entirely. \nThe noise and chaos around her suddenly fell silent. The people around her disappeared, and it was only her and Ebony. Ebony whose body was covered with a crimson red, her face a pale color, and her eyes that seemed to shift around her in confusion. \n\"Hey, hey,\" Aaliyah whispers. \"Hey, you're alright.\" \nEbony doesn't answer. \n\"Can you hear me?\" \nEbony's eyes connect with Aaliyah's as she takes her final breath. Her entire body grows tense, and her eyes flutter shut. Aaliyah stares at Ebony, as the sounds and chaos around her returns. \nSomeone is grabbing her arm, trying to pry her away from Ebony, but she won't let go. Her eyes never leave Ebony as the people around her urge her to stand and walk away. \nAaliyah strokes Ebony's unnaturally cold temple, as a tear falls down her cheek. She doesn't bother to wipe the drop as another one falls, and then another. \nFinally a strong arm lifts Aaliyah from the ground and carries her away as paramedics arrive on the scene. Too late. Too late. \nAaliyah looks up to see Grady holding her, his expression as hard as a rock and his face bent in disbelief. He carries Aaliyah to the car where Zeke was waiting. \nAaliyah hears Zeke ask, \"Where's Ebony?\" But doesn't hear Grady respond as she is lifted into the car. \nThe 15 minute ride back to Aaliyah's house is silent. At least, Aaliyah guessed it was silent. Her ears were still ringing with the screams and the gunshots and the breaking glass, and she barely realized it as Grady carried her back into her room and placed her in her bed. She didn't know when he left or when she fell asleep. All she knew when she woke up the next morning, was that it hadn't all been a terrible dream. \nShe gets out of bed and goes straight to her computer. Above the sadness and grief that she felt inside of her, there was anger. She opens her blog and begins typing. \n“Let’s talk about a sensitive topic. I attended the protest last night with my best friend and his sister and her boyfriend. It was beautiful, all the people that came together to join their voices for the same cause. And it was disgusting. The people that used the protest as a way to loot the building and take things for their own personal gain. But most of all, it was tragic. Police brutality is a big part of this movement. History has shown that police officers abuse their power and hurt people and treat people differently because of their skin color. I recognize that this isn’t the case for all of the police officers, but if we don’t address the issue as a whole, we won’t ever make a difference. My best friend's sister was shot last night. An innocent girl who only wanted to make a difference in the world. To make things better for herself and her future children. Because of the unfairness of this world, she will never get to have children. She will never be married. But her death doesn't have to be in vain. She can still make a difference. She can still make the world better for the future generations. We are all in this together, and if we don’t take a stand, then Ebony would have died in vain.” \n“Mimi, this story is sad.” Janie interrupts. \nAaliyah smiles at her granddaughter and says, “It is a sad story,” She says. “Sometimes that is a part of life. It is a part of why you are treated the same as the white kids in your preschool.” \n“What happens next, mimi?” Janie asks. \nAaliyah smiles, “The blog blew up. Everyone in the United States had read it. It was featured on the news, and Ebony’s name will be in textbooks. No lives mattered until black lives mattered. And now, all lives matter. The constitution finally preached the truth. All men were created equal.” \nEbony, Aaliyah’s daughter, wipes the tears from her eyes. She had heard this story countless times before, but it always managed to make her cry. Her namesake died so that she and Janie could be treated the same as any other white person around them. \nAaliyah stretches, “Mimi needs to take a nap now.” She says to Janie. Janie jumps up and kisses Aaliyah on the cheek. After Janie leaves the room, Aaliyah looks to her daughter. “You feel it too, don’t you?” \nMore tears come to Ebony’s eyes. She felt it. She felt her fathers presence, and the presence of her grandmother, Nia. She even felt Ebony in the room. She knew that her mother was ready. She knew it was her time. Ebony only wished that she could rewind the clock and give Aaliyah more time to be with her. But she knew that would be selfish. She was ready. \nThere was something oddly beautiful about the inevitable death. Ebony grabs her mothers hand in her own, and brings it to her lips. “You can go mamma. I am letting you go.” \nAaliyah closes her eyes. She was ready to take on the longest awaited journey of her life. Death." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: 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: How to Make a Monster\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 2995\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone who discovers the only family member they have left has just betrayed them." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Tzipporah\nYou think you know who you can trust. It should be easy to tell those who wish to harm you from those that won’t. And yet, it really is those that are closest to you that can do the most damage. They wear a mask that laughs and smiles in your face while all the while they are plotting your demise.\nIn hindsight, I really should’ve seen it coming.\n“Priscilla, why?” I asked, clutching at my heart where she had just yanked the essence of my power. Without my power, my knees buckled under me and I crumbled to the floor.\nShe stood over me, holding my power in her hand. It shimmered and fluttered like a butterfly. She looked her nose down at me. “Why?” She asked me. “Tzipporah, do you really not know?”\nI wracked my brain for some clue. Some explanation for why my dearest friend and oldest confidante would betray me. I could find none. My parents, the King and Queen of New Arden, took Priscilla in when her mother, my father’s sister, and her father decided to go on a second honeymoon trip around the provinces. Priscilla had to have been 5 at the time and she missed her parents terribly.\n“They’ll be back any day now,” I would always tell her. How could I have known I was wrong? Angry, dark clouds consumed the sky heralding a vicious storm on the day Priscilla’s parents should’ve never went out on the water. But they were young then and thought themselves invincible. Now, their daughter would have to grow up without her parents.\nSoon after, the battle of Tilleia broke out. It was supposed to be like any other fight, an easy win. I don’t know why my parents were on the frontlines, but they lead the army into battle. They fought bravely. They just weren’t lucky. Our side still won, but we paid dearly, with my parents’ lives.\nWith both our parents gone, we were all each other had. It’s been just us for as long as I can remember. We might as well have been sisters by how close we were raised. So, what happened? How did we end up here?\n“I don’t understand,” I said. Priscilla and I are from a long line of power wielders or wielders as we were usually called. My father was a wielder and so was his mother. There was only one wielder in a generation and that person would lead New Arden. Between Priscilla and me, it was anyone’s guess who the wielder would be since even though her parents weren’t wielders, wielding was known to skip a generation. When my power awakened at 7, I don’t think I fully understood what it meant. That I would be prepared for the crown every day hence until my 21st birthday when I would ascend the throne. I was not yet aware what that would do to our relationship. Priscilla had always said she didn’t care that I was the wielder and she wasn’t. I was naïve enough to believe her.\n“For years, cousin, I’ve watched you wield this power like a child,” she said. “If you don’t know what to do with it, then you don’t deserve it.” \nPain shot throughout my body. I had been a wielder since I was a child. My body had gotten used to the essence of my power coursing through it and now without it, it was as if my body was revolting.\n“I don’t know why the gods chose you of all people. Maybe it was a test all along to prove which one of us had the strength to take what they wanted.” She looked with interest as the essence seemed to dance in her hand. “It should’ve always been me,” she said. “You were never strong enough.”\nI didn’t have to be because we had each other. I never had to be strong on my own because I had her by my side, but now…\n“Guards!” She called. I heard the clang of multiple suits of armor coming towards us. They stopped maybe a few feet from where I laid. \n“Princess, what’s happened?” I knew the voice. It was Samuel. He’d broken formation and was kneeling beside me. He brushed my braids out of my face and looked me in the eye. His eyes were fearful and concern was etched all over his face.\nPriscilla yanked him to his feet. “Guard, that is not the princess. I am!” She held the essence in her hand to prove her point. “Now if you would be so kind as to take her to the dungeon where she belongs.”\nSamuel didn’t move and I could imagine the war going on in his head. He was bound to serve the crown, but what he wanted was to follow me. I no longer held the power and by extension, the crown, so Samuel must’ve felt conflicted as to what he should do. In the end though, there was nothing he could’ve done. \nSlowly he turned to me, “I’m so sorry, Z.”\nThe guards threw me in the dungeon to rot to death. I had no power, no family, no friends, nothing. Priscilla took everything from me. Something broke inside me that day. That fragile piece of me that thought the best of the world and trusted much too easily. It was gone and in its place darkness and bloodlust and an overwhelming, all-consuming desire for revenge.\nThree years later\nSamuel\nThey say it’s the one that wins that gets to write history. Three years ago, Priscilla ripped the crown from Tzipporah’s head, the day before Tzipporrah’s 21st birthday. Priscilla claimed she was the true wielder and Tzipporah had stolen the power all those years ago. Priscilla had only taken what was rightfully hers. And the people believed her. To Priscilla’s credit, New Arden flourished under her reign and no one spared Tzipporah even a fleeting thought. As far as anyone knew, she was to this day rotting in the palace’s dungeons and had not seen the light of day in all that time. There were whispers though that she’d killed herself a year to the day after she’d been captured and Priscilla had ordered the body hidden from anyone with the inclination to try and resurrect her. \nSomeone like me. Priscilla fired me the minute she took power. She questioned my loyalty and she was right to do so. The moment she slipped up I would be there to push her over the edge making way for the rightful queen. So, I can’t blame her for not trusting me. Luckily, I wasn’t completely blacklisted and could get a job at a bar that I frequented. Unluckily, that bar was a favorite spot of the guards and I was forced to still see my former brothers-in-arms. For some, there was no hard feelings and they still saw me as their brother. For others, I was a traitor and they liked to remind me every chance they got.\n“Oh Sammy, get us another pint, will you? And make it snappy.” It was Ebenezer, one of the many guards that despised me. “Sammy! Sammysammysammysammysammysammy!” Ebenezer yelled incessantly. It was going to be one of those nights. I had to ignore him or I would never get through this with my sanity.\nSuddenly, the yelling stopped. I turned around to see what had happened.\nA brown-skinned woman with a shaved head had her hand gripped around the front part of his neck, very nearly crushing his windpipe. Her voice dripped poison as she said, “Shut your mouth before I make it so you never utter another asinine word again. The gentleman will help you when he’s good and ready and not a moment sooner, do you understand?”\nWith her hand around his throat, he couldn’t answer. “Blink twice, if you understand.” He blinked once and then twice. She smiled. “That’s a good boy.” She released him then. He crumbled to the ground coughing and wheezing.\n“Oh come now, Ebenezer, it wasn’t that bad. You’re embarrassing yourself.” She turned to the two guys that came with Ebenezer. Jaime and Luther were their names and they could be just as annoying as he was. With as much alcohol as they had in their systems, they were going to be a pain to deal with now that their leader had been incapacitated.\nThe woman looked Jaime up and down. “Jaime, goodness, you’ve gotten fat!” To Luther, she said, “Oh no, Lu, the years have not been kind. Now I know what you two are thinking. You think you’re going to get me back, but let me give you some friendly advice, don’t.” And I swear, her eyes turned black and the air around her went thick with an imperceptible force. Just as quickly, her eyes went back to normal and it was if nothing had happened. But I’d seen it and Jaime and Luther had seen it, too, evident in how quickly they gathered up Ebenezer and hightailed it out of here.\nShe sat in Ebenezer’s now vacant seat. I wiped down the counter in front of her. “Thanks for that,” I said. “I owe you a drink. What’ll it be?”\n“Oh, you owe me a lot more than that, Samuel.” She looked me right in the eye and for the first time, I was able to get a good look at her face. She was older, gone were her signature braids, and she had apparently learned some new tricks, but there was no mistaking it. “Tzipporah?”\n***\nI took her into the backroom, so we could talk in private and even then, I couldn’t allow myself to speak above a whisper. “You’re supposed to be in a dungeon or dead. How are you here?”\n“I’m fine, Samuel. Thanks for asking. How have you been?”\n“Tzipporah? What happened to you? Priscilla stole your powers, but it looks like you found new ones. How is that possible?”\nShe scoffed. “Priscilla stole my powers? You seem to be the only one in New Arden that believes that.”\n“I know you, Z. You would never do something like that. That’s not you.”\nShe leveled me with an intimidating glare. “Me? What do you know about me? I’ve changed, Samuel. You knew who I was, but you don’t know me.”\n“Explain it to me, then.” I desperately wanted to know what had happened. “For starters, let’s talk about your new powers. Tell me that’s not dark magic you’re wielding.”\n“And what if it is? You think you have the power to do anything about it?” There was an edge to her voice, but she shook it away. She took a deep breath. “I didn’t come here for a lecture. I came to see an old friend. We were friends, weren’t we? Or was I fooling myself with you, too?”\n“Of course, we were friends. I would’ve followed you to the end of the earth, and I’m sorry that the one time you needed me to, I didn’t.” When Tzipporah was dragged away, I did nothing and I’m going to have that on my conscience for the rest of my life.\nWith a light touch, she brushed a hand against my face. “It’s okay,” she said. “I don’t blame you. You were just a pawn. What I want is the queen.”\nIn an instant, I knew exactly who she was after. “Don’t do this,” I said. “Don’t let her make a monster out of you.”\n“Look at me!” Her voice took on a frightening timbre and for a brief second, her eyes flashed black. “She’s already made a monster out of me.\"\nShe moved to walk away and I stepped in her path.\nShe turned those terrifying black eyes on me. “I don’t want to hurt you,” she said. “But I will.” I could hear it in her voice that she was serious. I stepped aside. She touched my face one final time. “Don’t blame yourself,” she said. “There was nothing you could’ve done.”\nAs she left, I realized that she was right. There was nothing I could do, but that didn’t mean I shouldn’t try.\nPriscilla\nHeavy is the head that wears the crown. My desk was covered in stacks of papers and declarations that all needed my attention. Had I known what I was signing up for I might’ve rethought what I had done. I still remember the look on Tzipporah's face when I snatched her power away using a trick I learned from the family's tome. Poor little Tzipporah. She was so foolish, so naïve. It was her own fault what happened. How could I trust this much power to a whiny little girl like her?\nA knock at the door brought be back from my thoughts. “Enter,” I said.\nA guard stood in the doorway, waiting for permission to speak. “Yes?” I asked impatiently.\n“There’s a Samuel Vincent here to see you,” he said. “He says it’s urgent.”\n Samuel? Tzipporah’s little pet. When we were growing up, those two were attached at the hip. I would’ve liked to have kept him on, but it was clear his loyalty was with Tzipporah. What a waste. I wonder what business he had with me now.\n“Send him in,” I said. The guard left and a moment later, Samuel strode into the room. I came around the desk to meet him. “Samuel, it’s been too long. You’re looking well.”\n“I’m here to warn you—“\nI held up my hand to stop him. “Ah, but first, bow before your queen.”\n“You won’t be queen for much longer if you don’t listen to me. Tzipporah is back and she’s out for blood.”\nI laughed. The way he was sounding, I thought it would be something more serious. Tzipporah had disappeared from the dungeon years ago and I hadn't seen her since. It didn't matter. Wherever she was, she was no threat to me. “Tzipporah is weak.\" I said. \"She always has been. What can she do to me?”\n“You have no idea and it’s all because of what you did. Why’d you do it? You were cousins, sisters. How could you betray her like that?”\nI shrugged. “I wanted what was owed me. I deserved it more than she did.”\n“So you stole it from her? And then lied about it.”\n“The people believe what they want to believe. That’s not my fault.”\n“Just admit it. Just this once.”\nHow annoying, but what did it matter? “Yes, I stole her powers. What of it? Now if that’s all. You may leave.”\nThere was a knock at the door and then Samuel burst in. “Priscilla, you’re in danger!” he yelled.\nMy eyes widened. “Samuel?” I looked at the Samuel that had just got in and then turned my attention to the Samuel right in front of me. “Samuel?”\nHe smiled. “Afraid not.” He wiped his hand across his face, blurring the edges of his facial features. When it came back into focus, it was a face I never thought I’d see again. “Tzipporah?”\n“I always wondered what I did to deserve you,” she said. “What crime I committed to deserve what you did to me. But no, it was you. Priscilla has to get what she wants.”\nSamuel held up his palms to her. “Tzipporah, I know you said you changed, but there’s got to be the old you in there somewhere, right? She’s not gone for good, is she?”\n“Yes, she is and let me present you to the murderer.” She held her arm out to me and as she did, her eyes flashed black. I jumped at the sight of them. “Oh, did I scare you?” To Samuel, she said, “I commend your effort, Samuel, but this conversation is between me and her.” In an instant, he collapsed to the ground though she hadn’t touched him and she was nowhere near him.\nI fell to my knees in front of her. “I’ll give you whatever you want. Just please don’t hurt me.” I didn’t like the weakness in my voice, but I believed in self-preservation.\nShe looked her nose down at me. “Oh, I’m supposed to give you mercy. Where was my mercy, Priscilla? Do you know how painful it is to have your power ripped right out of your chest? Would you like to find out?”\nI flinched. I’d almost forgotten the look of pain on her face after what I’d done. She tilted her head, examining me. “Are you scared? But I’m weak, little Tzipporah, remember? What could I do to you?”\n“I’m sorry, okay. I was jealous and I wanted what was yours.”\nShe shook her head. “I don’t care. I really don’t care.” She raised her hand and I closed my eyes. This was it. I was about to pay for all my sins, but right when I braced for the lethal blow, nothing.\nI looked at her and there was murder in her eyes yet she did not move from where she stood.\n“I won’t kill you,” she said. “That’s not me. I want you to live long enough for me to destroy you. I want you to watch as your world crumbles around you.”\n“Y-You can’t touch me, I’m the queen,” I said, feebly holding on to what I had left.\n“And your days as queen are numbered, I’m afraid. I got in here, didn’t I? There is nothing I can’t do, nowhere you can go that I can’t reach.” The implication of what she said sunk in. Knowing that that future lay before me, I really wish she’d killed me instead.\nShe made her way towards the door, stepping over Samuel’s unconscious body. At the door, she turned back and said, “I should thank you. Where would I be if it weren’t for you? Whatever happens next, you have no one to blame but yourself. I am the monster you made, 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: The Fields of Friendly Strife\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 2108\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a child witnessing a major historical event." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The Fields of Friendly Strife\n\"Upon the fields of friendly strife are sown the seeds that, upon other fields, on other days, will bear the fruits of victory.\"\n-- General Douglas MacArthur\n With considerable fanfare, Mrs. Bryant pulled the blank cover sheet from the bulletin board to reveal their latest hero for study – the famous black American athlete Jesse Owens.\n “Does anyone know who this man is?” Mrs. Bryant asked as the children gazed at the colorful poster of Owens, which featured images of him crossing various finish lines and receiving medals.\n “I can’t remember his name” Eric said, rubbing his chin, “But I remember that picture – it’s from the Olympics, a long time ago.”\n “Right you are, Eric” Mrs. Bryant nodded. “This is Jesse Owens, one of the greatest track and field athletes of all time, and the pictures on this poster are all from his record-setting performance at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, Germany.”\n “Did Jesse Owens win the Olympics?” one boy asked, then reddened as several children began snickering.\n “Well, there are many events and many competitors from all over the world at the Olympic Games every four years, but yes, Jesse did win several events” Mrs. Bryant explained. “But the most significant thing about his victories in Berlin is not that he won and set new world records, it’s that the German dictator, Adolf Hitler, had determined that the 1936 Berlin Olympics would be the showcase where he demonstrated to the world that the German Aryan race was the dominant race on earth. Then, to have an American outperform all his athletes, and a black American to boot, it was quite a statement. In spite of Hitler’s plans, what the world ended up seeing was that all men, regardless of race, can possess and achieve greatness. And by the way, Jesse Owens was born right here in Alabama.”\n As Mrs. Bryant answered the many excited questions the kids had about Jesse Owens, Eric and his best friend Tom stared at the poster’s images of the man. They were not unique in their rapture, though. Nothing was quite as exciting during your third-grade year at Rosley Jr. High as Mrs. Bryant’s daily observation of famous Alabamians. What did set the two boys apart in those days though, was the fact that they were even friends at all. That was particularly unusual because Tom was white, and Eric was black. \n Over his lifetime, Tom had heard of many sports legends, as his father Ray was a great sports fan. But not surprisingly, Ray had always denigrated the accomplishments of great African-American sports heroes to the point that Tom knew very little of the facts. He knew the names, though, and they came to him now in his mind with various sports commentators heralding their accomplishments, and Ray’s angry voice rebutting with his traditional responses.\n May 1971 “One day after leading the Milwaukee Bucks to the NBA championship and being named MVP, Lew Alcindor, in keeping with his Muslim faith, has adopted the Arabic name Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, meaning ‘noble, servant of the all-powerful’ But by any name, he is the single most dominant force in basketball today! Leading Power Memorial High, then John Wooden’s UCLA Bruins to championship after championship, now bringing the lowly Milwaukee Bucks back to league prominence, there’s no telling where this young star’s career will lead!”\n Who? Ain’t nobody ever heard of Lew Alcindor, much less this stupid new name! I don’t know about no Power Memorial High, but everybody worth a damn knows Bill Walton was the best player ever played at UCLA! Your Bob Cousys and your Pistol Pete Maraviches – that’s your pro basketball greats. Not these damn upstarts that won’t never amount to nothin’!\n July 1971 “Jim Brown has become the youngest man ever inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame! But considering he rushed for an all-time record 12,312 yards and scored 126 touchdowns in only 9 seasons, nobody should be surprised by that!”\n Jim Brown was nothin’ but a movie star! He quit early ’cause he didn’t have nothin’ left! He ain’t half the runnin’ back Jim Thorpe was!\n May 1972 “Wilt Chamberlain has just been named MVP of the 1972 NBA Finals, leading the Los Angeles Lakers to their first championship title!”\n Wilt Chamberlain ain’t nothin’ but a big overgrown freak! He can’t shoot at all – all he can do is dunk it like some lumberin’ oaf! Bob Cousy and Pistol Pete Maravich – now them boys could truly play the game – all parts of it! Wilt Chamberlain my foot!\n April 1974 “Hank Aaron has just broken the unbreakable record! With his unbelievable 715th home run, Hammerin’ Hank has eclipsed the all-time mark set by the legendary Babe Ruth! This one will stand forever!”\n Hank Aaron? Ain’t nobody outside of Atlanta ever heard of Hank Aaron. The Babe was and will always be the greatest slugger in history! Back then, pitchin’ was good. Hank Aaron hit all his homers against weak pitchin’!\n Tom had become so lost in his thoughts that he hadn’t heard the bell ring. Eric punched him in the shoulder and rousted him from his desk, and they quickly joined up with the crowd of kids already out in the schoolyard waiting for the busses. For the next half-hour, all Eric could talk about was the Muhammad Ali – George Foreman fight coming on TV that night. \n In those days before cable or satellite TV, televised sporting events were rare, with only the grandest events receiving coverage, and that was usually on weekends. But that Tuesday, October 29th, was one of the exceptions. According to Eric, Muhammad Ali, former heavyweight boxing champ, would square off against George Foreman, the current and apparently unbeatable champ, in Africa. \n In order to suit closed-circuit broadcasts in the United States, the fight, dubbed “The Rumble in the Jungle,” would be fought at four in the morning local time, October 30th, in Kinshasa, Zaire, so it would coincide with prime-time evening viewing in the US. Regardless, Tom knew that it was unlikely Ray had taken their broken television set in for repair, so there would be no heavyweight championship viewing at his house that night. But after supper, as the kids were finishing up their baths and preparing for bed, Tom heard Ray cursing in the living room as he leaned back in his worn recliner, struggling to tune his old Delco AM radio in to the fight. \n Hours later, as he lay in the stifling heat of his darkened bedroom, Tom could hear the crackling broadcast from half a world away filling the living room. Ray didn’t believe in running the air conditioner in the fall, regardless of the fact that what passed for “fall” in Alabama was barely any cooler than mid-summer. But with his rickety old fan keeping him cool in his recliner, Ray comfortably settled in with a toddy to listen to the fight. \n Even before the bell, Ray was already cussing Muhammad Ali for a variety of offenses and pulling for George Foreman. Ray had never liked the flamboyant, trash-talking Ali, even when he was still Cassius Clay. But after Clay had converted to Islam and changed his name, Ray’s hatred for him had ratcheted up a level. Reminding everyone of his own two years of heroic service in the Army after being drafted in 1956, Ray would assail Ali as a draft-dodging coward for his refusal to serve in Vietnam. Ray didn’t believe in anything called conscientious objector status, especially for Ali. Citing his “mouthiness” and “arrogance,” Ray would denigrate Ali as an unpatriotic sham, and extol George Foreman and other black athletes who he felt “knew their place.” In truth, Ray had no respect for any black athlete, firmly convinced as he was that it had been a tragic mistake to integrate professional sports. But his hatred for Ali was such that he would pull even for a black man, so long as Ali lost. Just then, Tom was jolted by Ray’s latest outburst. \n “Muhammand Ali? His name is Cassius Clay, and there ain’t no way he’s gonna beat ol’ George Foreman…unless the whole damn fight is rigged! That’s probably why Ali made ‘em fight the damn thing in Africa!”\n As the opening bell sounded, Ray kicked off the bout with one more particularly energetic obscenity against Ali, and the fight was on.\n Of all Ali’s spectacular bouts, perhaps none could match “The Rumble in the Jungle” for sheer drama and hype. Ali had been on a stunning comeback, having defeated all the top heavyweights, to include Ken Norten and Joe Frazier, and now stood as the top-ranked contender for the title. George Foreman, the young, strong, and seemingly unstoppable champion had destroyed his last eight opponents in the early rounds, and appeared ready to do the same to the older Ali. As Tom lay in his room, straining to hear the broadcast drifting in from the living room, he heard Ray curse loudly as the announcer informed the world that the throng of African spectators were frenetically chanting “Ali – boma ye!” which translated to “Ali – Kill him!”\n In the first round, Ali landed some crisp combinations, leading many with his right hand, which was an unusual strategy so early in the fight, according to the radio commentator. Ray of course saw it as yet another of Ali’s arrogant, devious ploys to steal the title from Foreman. In the second round, Foreman tried to assert himself and did a good job of pursuing the dancing Ali, chasing him into the ropes and pounding away on his body. But what Ray saw briefly as a sign of Foreman’s mastery, the announcer soon began to identify as yet another strategic masterstroke by Ali. \n As the fight wore on, Ali was content to cover up and absorb Foreman’s punishing body blows, all the while tiring the younger fighter to a dangerously vulnerable point. As the bell sounded to begin the eighth round, Tom could tell it might be the last. As Ray cursed at Foreman to come alive, the announcer told the real story. In the last minute of the eighth, Ali gathered his strength and launched his final offensive, hitting Foreman with a vicious right that caused the champ to drop his hands. Ali followed up with two more thunderous rights, then brought the decisive combination heard around the world. Foreman’s arms flew out to his sides as his massive body smashed to the canvas. He would not rise to beat the count, and as the crowd went wild and Ali was named champion once again, Ray smashed his toddy glass against the wall and let loose a violent stream of curse words that would’ve made a drunken sailor blush.\n Tom lay in the darkness of his bedroom, surprisingly torn by a mix of emotions. Though he’d been learning for the last two years that Ray’s traditional teachings about race were seriously flawed, he had, nevertheless, been raised to hate Muhammad Ali. As a result, he was disappointed in Ali’s win. Further, regardless of anyone’s feelings about Ali, George Foreman had been a proud, patriotic champion. He was the flag-waving hero of the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, and sudden favorite son of all those who hated how the two black sprinters, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, had bowed their heads and raised their black-gloved fists in protest from the medal stand during the playing of the national anthem. As a result, he was disappointed by Foreman’s loss. \n Still, though he didn’t fully understand it, he felt something different that night as well. At that moment, something greater than sports and championships and grudges began to form in his mind. It would take years to mature, but it began that night in his sweltering bedroom, with the faint cheers of thousands of Africans and the crackling, breathless commentary from a fight fought halfway around the world. \n Indeed, Mrs. Bryant had been wise to appeal to the children’s sense of accomplishment and fair play as she introduced famous Alabamians in class each day. But her true genius lay in her judicious focus on heroes of all races. She had known that these little ones, freed from the shadow of the prejudices and ingrained biases of both black and white adults, would eventually recognize and respect achievement. They simply wouldn’t care about race if they weren’t taught to. \n And so it was, that on those fertile fields of youthful imagination, she sowed her own unique seeds of victory, seeds that would come to full fruition a generation later." } ]

[ { "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: FEAR-NO FEAR\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1610\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone facing their greatest fear." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "FEAR-NO FEAR\n“The life that I have\nIs all that I have\nAnd the life that I have is yours\nThe love that I have\nOf the life that I have\nIs yours and yours and yours…”\nThe above formed part of a an encrypted call signal, known as a fist. It was used to identify the wireless operator, calling England from Occupied France during World War Two. Previously, phrases from well known poems had been utilised but the Germans were easily able to copy them so new phrases were created instead. This particular phrase was provided to a woman named Violette Szabo who gave her life resisting the Nazis.\nIt’s impossible to write about fear without paying homage to three other brave men and women that faced their fears in different ways.\nOne such woman was Noor Inayat Khan, daughter of a Sufi, who had been brought up to believe in pacifism; Sufism being a mystic branch of Islam. This remarkable woman was actually born in the Kremlin, Moscow in 1914. Some accounts state that the infamous monk, Rasputin, was present at her birth. Her family eventually settled in Suresnes, a suburb of Paris where Noor became fluent in French. At the outbreak of the Second World War, the family moved to England and she volunteered to serve against the Germans. Her linguistic ability made her a prime candidate for SOE, Special Operations Executive -F (France) Section.\nDuring her training, her instructors repeatedly noted that Noor was “unsuitable” for the dangerous role she was to be given, that of the first female wireless operator to be parachuted into Occupied France. She was also declared “unsuited for jumping from a plane”. In a mock interrogation during training, Noor was described as “terrified’, “trembling” and had, in fact, “lost her voice” so frightened had she been.\nDespite this, Noor, herself, insisted that she could face her fears and was, subsequently, dropped into France, under the codename Madeleine, where she was met by one, Henri Dericourt, head of the Prosper resistance network. Noor began to transmit and receive messages, all the time being tracked by Gestapo radio detectors which meant that she had to continually move from one location to another. This was a particularly dangerous task as the bulky radio transmitter had to be concealed in a suitcase. If stopped and searched, the transmitter would be an immediate giveaway.\nIn order to actually operate the wireless, Noor had to run a wire, often posing as a washing line, another clear sign for the hunters. This was especially dangerous because, often, it would take hours for London to respond which allowed the detectors more time to seek out their prey. Worst of all, and unknown to Noor, or London, the Prosper network for which she was working, had been betrayed by the same Henri Dericourt who had met her upon her arrival. The Gestapo were closing in on Noor and she was forced to flee from hiding place to hiding place. Dericourt had informed the Gestapo that she had a fondness for wearing blue, another clue in their determination to track her down.\nLondon insisted that things had become too dangerous and that arrangements had to be made for her to be picked up and flown back to England. Had she done this, Noor would, almost certainly, have been betrayed by Dericourt but, showing incredible bravery, Noor insisted on staying, mainly because she was the only link between the resistance and London, all other wireless operators having been captured by the Gestapo. As this young woman fled from one suburb of Paris to another, knowing that she was being hunted, at times, she became paralysed by fear but continued doing her job.\nTime ran out for Noor when, as happened so often, she was betrayed and was arrested in October 1943 and taken to Gestapo HQ, the dreaded address of 84 Avenue Foch.\nAt around the same time, a French man by the name of Pierre Brossolette was flown from London on his third mission behind enemy lines. Following the death of Jean Moulin, Brossolette had become the Gestapo’s most wanted resistance fighter. He was easily distinguishable by the streak of white that ran through the middle of his hair, front to back. All Gestapo, SD and SS knew to be on the alert for this man. To avoid detection, Pierre had dyed his white streak black to match the rest of his hair but, even so, things became very dangerous and Pierre was ordered to leave France but, partly because of the bad winter weather and, partly due to a Lysander aircraft having been shot down by the Germans, Pierre decided to escape by boat. Unfortunately, they encountered a storm and the vessel was shipwrecked. Pierre made it to land and was sheltered by local resistance fighters, only to be betrayed at a checkpoint. Pierre was detained in Rennes, the Germans not yet recognising that they had actually captured their number one target. One can only imagine the fear that Pierre felt in captivity, knowing that each day, as the roots of his hair grew, it was only a matter of time before he was identified.\nForest Frederick Edward Yeo Thomas was a truly outstanding character. Unlike the two previously mentioned subjects, he did not know the meaning of fear. As a young man, he had fought for Poland against Russia in the Polish-Soviet War 1919-20. Captured by the Russians, he managed to escape after killing a Russian guard. At the outbreak of World War Two, at the age of 37, Yeo Thomas volunteered for a number of British armed units but was continually rebuffed because of his age. Being fluent in French, however, he became a prime candidate for SOE and was dropped into France on a number of occasions, operating covertly under the codename, The White Rabbit, and forming an excellent relationship with a number of French resistance fighters. In particular, he had become very close to Pierre Brossolette and, when he was informed of Pierre’s arrest and detention, hatched a daring plan to rescue his friend before the Gestapo could correctly identify him.\nUnfortunately, Yeo Thomas was, himself, betrayed and arrested at Passy Metro in Paris before he could carry out his friend’s rescue. He managed to conceal his true identity even after being tortured horrifically at 84 Avenue Foch where he was subjected to being submerged, face first, in ice cold water-often for so long that the Gestapo needed to use artificial respiration to revive him. Additionally, he was beaten unmercifully and given electric shocks to his genitals but refused to divulge a single thing.\nNot realising the importance of their prisoner, the Gestapo transferred Yeo Thomas to Fresnes where he twice attempted to escape, becoming such a pest that, eventually, he was sent to Buchenwald Concentration Camp.\nNoor, meanwhile, had revealed nothing under interrogation and managed to escape from Avenue Foch on two occasions. Her second attempt was successful but she was recaptured in the local vicinity and transferred to Pforzheim under the dreaded Nacht und Nebel (Night and Fog) dictate of 1941. This allowed the Nazis to arrest foreigners, deemed to be a threat to Germany, without warning or legal representation and transfer them to Germany where they were never heard of again. 7,000 people disappeared under this decree; 5,000 of them from France. Noor was incarcerated with both hands and feet shackled for ten months. Though she refused to divulge anything, she was badly treated and fellow prisoners would later testify to having heard her weeping at night in her cell.\nPierre Brossolette knew that it was only a matter of time before his hair gave him away and so it proved. He was transferred to 84 Avenue Foch and brutalised for two and a half days. His fingernails were removed, his hands placed between the hinges of a door and crushed, beaten severely and electrically shocked. Incredibly, he refused to crack. Even more incredibly, he had been provided with a cyanide capsule in case of capture but, either he had lost it, or, more likely, believed, optimistically, that he could still, somehow, talk his way out of his situation. On the third day of his torture, he finally knew that he could not take any more punishment and was on the point of breaking. Seeing an open window, he seized his chance and jumped to his death.\nNoor was eventually transferred to Dachau Concentration Camp, taken behind a hut and told that she was to be executed with three other brave women. According to eye witness accounts, they all held hands and wept. Her last word was “Liberte” before she was shot in the back of the head.\nYeo-Thomas, incarcerated at Buchenwald, was, typically, doing his utmost to escape. He, somehow, had himself transferred to the typhus block where he adopted the name of a recently deceased man and was able to survive as an orderly. Eventually, posing as a victim of typhus, he managed to escape, only to be recaptured and sent to a prisoner of war stalag. It wasn’t long before he, once again, successfully escaped, killing a guard in doing so. He managed to evade capture and made his way back to England.\nAfter the war, he was offered the opportunity to return to France and assist in hunting down and identifying those who had betrayed these brave men and women but, when his requisition for arms-which included grenades, knives, machine guns and revolvers -was received, it wasn’t difficult for the authorities to realise exactly what The White Rabbit had in mind for these people and he was stood down." } ]

[ { "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: Knit, Tink\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 2993\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with one character trying to convince another to take up their favorite hobby." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The Prince’s Ball is a dreadfully boring affair. It’s too bad that I am the only one in the whole kingdom that can’t get out of it.\n“Calloway, dear. Please put on a smile, my love,” My mother, Queen Hazel Simone of Sairence said. To my father, King Ellington, she said, “You would think we were sending him to the gallows.” We gathered next to Ambrose who would be announcing our arrival\n “Happy faces,” she warned.\nHe blew obnoxiously into his trumpet. Once a hush fell on the gathered guests, Ambrose boomed, “His Majesty King Ellington, Her Majesty Queen Hazel Simone and His Highness Prince Calloway.”\nEveryone applauded as we made our way down the staircase, the focal point of the palace’s grandest room which had a fancy name that I hadn’t bothered learning how to pronounce since I always called it the Ball Hall. Mercifully, my mother didn’t make me pose for photographs with them though I am sure she was itching to.\nInstead, she gave me orders to mingle which to me meant find someplace to hide for the duration. I walked steadily through the crowd, smiling at passerby, and even chatted to a person or two. That was my limit for social interaction so, I scanned the nearby tables for an empty chair. Curiously, there was a table near the wall with only one girl sitting at it. Her natural hair was twisted up into an intricate updo and the sky blue gown she wore perfectly complemented her brown skin. The two tables that flanked hers were filled with people laughing and engrossed in conversation. The girl sat oblivious to the ball around her, her eyes downcast. At first I thought she was sad, but as I approached, I saw her attention was directed at the knitting needles she was moving skillfully and at an impressive pace. Needle and yarn danced together in her hands and I admit to being mesmerized by the sight. I hadn’t realized I’d been staring until she said, “Hi, do you knit?” Her smile was luminescent and for a moment, I forgot who I was. \n“Me?” I asked, as if it wasn’t obvious who she was talking to. “No?” I groaned at the inflection in my voice that made it a question. Was I really not sure if I knitted or not?\nShe smiled in response and patted the seat next to her. “Come on, I can teach you.”\nIt was her smile and her eagerness to teach me that made me sit down. As soon as I did, she handed the needles to me. “Okay, first you want to push the needle in your right hand into the first stitch in the row of stitches on your left needle.”\n“Like this?” I asked, holding the needles up for her to see. The needles formed an x with the left needle in front of the right needle and the two needles were joined together by the stitch they were both in.\nShe nodded. “And then you wrap the yarn around the needle like this.” She wrapped the yarn around the back of the right needle and then forward between the right and left needle. “Then with the right needle, pull the loop of yarn through the stitch. Keep the new stitch on the right needle and slide the pulled through stitch off the left needle.”\nI followed her direction. “You did it!” She praised me, raising her arms in celebration. Her energy was infectious and I couldn’t help, but join in. She pointed at the project in my hands. “You got the first stitch down. Now do it again.”\nAnd I did. She coached me through it reminding of the steps when I forgot, how tightly to hold the yarn so the stitches would be even and how to start on the new row. As I knitted, I went into a sort of zone where I could forget about the ball and everything about it that annoyed me.\nSuddenly, I realized I had commandeered this poor girl’s project. When I thought to return it, I laughed to find that she was working on another project that seemed to appear out of nowhere. Had she been prepared for a dastardly prince to steal her project from her?\n“I’m Cal, by the way,” I said. “Thanks for teaching me this.” I dropped my title and my full name. For once, I wanted to be whoever I wanted to be. Though I knew inevitably something would come by to remind me who I was, for now, I would be just Cal.\n“I’m Eloise,” she said. “Thanks for taking the time to learn.” Though her attention was on me, her hands were still knitting just as fast. She’d have to teach me her tricks one day. “None of these other fuddy duddies have the patience,” she said, gesturing to the other tables with her elbow. It was their loss that they didn’t have the patience and my gain that I could spend what could’ve been a boring night with a beautiful girl.\nWe sat in silence for a while with just the sound of our needles clicking against each other and the music my parents had hired for the occasion.\nWhen the sound of her needles stopped, I looked up to see what was going on. She had stopped knitting and was looking past me, her eyebrows raised slightly. When I tried to turn around to see where she was looking, she held my chin to keep me from moving.\nShe leaned in and whispered, “Someone’s trying to kill you.”\nShe looked to her left and to her right without moving her head. She looked down and then nodded, “Under the table, quick as you can.” The urgency of her voice made me move. If this was a cruel joke, she would pay the consequences later, but there wasn’t any time to waste arguing if she was right.\nBoth of us slid our chairs back from the table and then eased ourselves down to the floor, careful not to draw anyone’s attention. Everyone was occupied with their conversations and didn’t seem to notice us. Once on the floor, Eloise lifted the tablecloth up, so I could make my way underneath and she followed behind me replacing the tablecloth in its place so any passerby would be none the wiser. \n“What’s going on?” I whispered.\nShe rummaged through an oversized purse that was overflowing with yarn and knitting needles. “I told you,” she said. “Someone’s trying to kill you or kidnap you. I didn’t think it prudent to go up to them and ask which.”\n“What makes you think someone’s trying to kill me?”\n“A couple of angry looking men with bulging jackets obviously concealing weapons.” She spoke almost as fast as her hands moved when she knitted. “This is the farthest spot from the stairs, so it stands to reason, they would’ve already looked everywhere else. And you are the only person of importance in the immediate vicinity. Ergo, call me crazy, but I don’t think they’re here to wish you a long life. Ahh! There you are!” She pulled out a set of needles that looked exactly like the one’s she’d been using all along. She put her thumb on the flat end of the needle and pushed in. With a spring, the needle unfolded into a dagger with a 1 inch wide blade. “And Arthur said don’t bring the dagger needles,” she murmured to myself. “Who’s laughing now, huh?”\nShe passed the dagger to me handle first. “Stay put, okay. And if anyone comes, stab them with the pointy end.”\nShe took the other needle in the set for herself and pressed the button to activate it. Then, she left from under the table before I could even think to ask her to stay.\nLong moments passed while I held tightly onto the dagger. I could still hear the music, but nothing else that would be a cause for alarm. This is just a joke, I tried to tell myself. I’m going to come from under the table and everyone is going to laugh at how gullible I was.\nThere was a knock on the table above me and I stifled a scream in response. “Your highness, are you there?” I heard someone say. “Come quickly, we must get you to safety.” The tablecloth rose and I recognized the man looking back at me as one of the Palace Guard’s, his name though escaped me.\nHe grabbed my arm to help me up. The scene was as I left it, people chatting and dancing without a care in the world.\n“Your highness?” The guard tapped my shoulder. “We need to move.” But where’s Eloise? I wanted to ask. Was it really just a joke?\nI was escorted out with a total of five guards in tow. Something was definitely going on. They took me to the throne room where my parents were already waiting. My mother rushed to me.\n“My dear baby. Are you alright? Let me have a look at you.” She held me away from her at arm’s length and then brought me in for a tight hug. “I am so glad you’re safe.” She pulled away and glowered at the guards accompanying me. “Where were his guards? Why wasn’t he protected? Whose neck is about to end up on the chopping block?” That’s my mother for you. She could be a dove one second and a fire breathing dragon the next.\nThe guard that had found me spoke. “We had not perceived the threat as quickly as Ellie die.”\nSomeone groaned behind me. I turned and there was Eloise, her dress was rumpled and her bag was gone, but she still looked put together. She came to stand next to me. “My name is Eloise, Artie,” she said, staring pointedly at the guard that spoke.\n“It’s Arthur,” he grumbled in response. To the queen, he said, “This is my sister, Eloise. She noticed the threat and directed the prince to hide. She alerted me so that we could get your Majesties out and then return for the prince. We thought it best not to raise the high alert which would disturb the guests and the would-be kidnappers.”\n“So, someone really was trying to kidnap me,” I said. It wasn’t a joke.\nArthur nodded. “If it weren’t for Eloise, they would’ve. Eloise and two of our guards quietly disarmed them. They are currently being held in the dungeon to await questioning.”\nI looked at Eloise in amazement. Eloise, who just a few hours ago taught me how to knit and also somehow took down a bevy of would be kidnappers meant to do me harm.\nMy mother tapped her finger to her lips. I knew how dangerous that expression was. It most often meant she was going to come up with an idea that I didn’t like.\n“Miss Eloise, you have proven yourself capable of keeping my son safe. If there was an open guard position, it would be yours. Instead, my son is in need of an assistant. You shall take on that role and if you happen to save him from anyone that wishes to do him harm, then we can consider that a bonus.”\nI groaned. “Mother, are you really setting me up with a babysitter like a child?”\nShe leveled me with an intimidating glare. “Your safety is the only thing that matters. We cannot have a repeat of tonight’s events. Do you understand?”\nFor one blessed night, I’d forgotten who I was and what would be at stake should anything happen to me. Were I a regular guy I could live as I pleased, but I did not have that luxury.” Of course,” I said. “I understand.”\nFrom that day on, Eloise became my assistant and I had no choice in the matter, not like I was complaining. She was a skilled fighter, but also intelligent and funny and a little weird at times if I’m being honest. She had a way of seeing the world that could only see the good and it in turn made you want to see the good, too. Every day when all of the work and obligations were done we’d sit together by the fire and knit. Actually, she had made herself a knitting nook by the fire and I joined her one night and she never made me leave. It became tradition for us. I would never be as good at it as she was and I always made mistake after mistake.\nOne day, I showed her the mess I made, begging for advice or help.\nShe’d tell me, “It’s not that serious, just tink.”\n“Tink?” I asked her.\nShe smiled that infectious smile. “It’s knit spelled backwards. It’s when you pull the stitches loose one by one and start over. It doesn’t matter what mistake you make, you can always tink back to before you made it.”\nAs you can imagine, you don’t spend as much time as we spent together without it meaning something. It wasn’t long before we found ourselves in a bit of a predicament.\n“Eloise, please. Can you hold on a second?” She was speed walking down the palace halls away from me, and I was right behind her.\n“Do you realize what you’re doing? This is not a game”\nI jumped in front of her path, and shot my hand out to keep her from getting away. “Of course, it’s not,” I said. “I love you, Eloise. What’s so wrong about that?”\n“This can’t happen. You know that. Why won’t you stop pushing?”\n“You won’t tell me why,” I said. “You love me. I know you do, so why can’t we be together.” I tried to look in her eyes for the answer. The proof I knew would be there, but she wouldn’t look me in the eye.\n“Just let me do my job, Calloway. Don’t make this hard for me.”\n“I want to be with you, Eloise!” I yelled and I didn’t care who heard. “Is there something about that that you’re not understanding?”\n“Calloway, get this through your head. You’re going to marry a princess or some other daughter of the aristocracy, and you’re going to have loads of children and it will be my job to keep you all safe. Even if you don’t want to see the line between us, that doesn’t mean it’s not there. We can’t cross it no matter how much you want to or how much you think you love me. So just drop it already, please.”\nI couldn’t. I wouldn’t. I thought back to do the day we first met. How much easier things were then. Sure, I almost got kidnapped that night, but things were easier. “Can’t we just tink back to when we were just a boy and a girl knitting at a party?”\nShe shook her head. “No, we can’t because we were never just a boy and a girl, were we?”\nShe was serious. There was nothing I could say that would convince her otherwise. “I can’t force you. You can pretend you don’t feel the same way all you want, but I know better. You can run away, but me, I’m not going anywhere.”\nI would not be the first to walk away. If she wanted to leave then she would have to be the first to go. But she didn’t leave and I was surprised when I saw the first teardrop fall down her cheek.\n“You want to know why?” Her voice was thick with tears. “Why I won’t let you love me? It’s because I was told if you fell in love with me, I would be forced to leave. The Queen said she will not have a commoner for a daughter in law and she will not risk her son laying down his life for some peasant. It doesn’t matter how much you love me or that I love you. I’m not strong enough to walk away from you and I don’t want to lose you, so for both of our sake’s, can you please, please just leave it alone?”\nShe loves me? I knew it, but hearing her say it still made me hear soar. And then it plummeted when I remembered what else she said. “My mother said what?”\n“Calloway…”\n“You think I’m going to let her keep me from the best thing that ever happened to me?” I grabbed for her hand. “Come with me.”\nI found my parents in their office. I announced, “I love Eloise and there is nothing either of you can do about it.”\nMy mother put down the document she was reading and laughed, “You will do no such thing,” she said. “Do not forget. I am your queen.”\n“And I will be king,” I shot back\n“Not yet,” she said. “So you would be wise to remember your place.”\nI pointed to Eloise. “My place is wherever she is. If you force her to leave, you lose me, too. That means no heir, no next in line. Watch as the future of Sairence crumbles because of you.”\n“Hazel…” My father begged.\nShe shot her hand up to silence him. “I will not be threatened.”\nI scoffed. “Come on mother, you’ve taught me well. We do not threaten. We promise.” I held Eloise’s hand in mind and spared my mother one final glance. “You will not touch her. You hear me? I will sacrifice everything else for this kingdom, but not her. Do you understand?”\nFor an entire lifetime, it seemed I’d forgotten who I was. It took a girl at a party who taught be how to knit to remind me. I will be King and there was nothing I wouldn’t do to fight for the woman I loved. Hand in hand, we would brave whatever the world had in store." } ]

[ { "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: Sending a Message\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1995\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story inspired by SHINee’s “Ring Ding Dong”, where someone can’t get a song out of their head no matter how hard they try." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "\"What? I can't hear you!\"\nMika's voice sounded muted, underwater, lost in the seascape of screaming fans. She gestured a circular motion with her hand and pointed to the stage. After this. Already smiling, our grins both widened. I gave her a thumbs up.\nRing ding dong. It’s ringing in my head..\nFitting. And even as SHINEE, the kpop artist currently onstage, sang their famous song, I still couldn’t get It out of my head. I jumped and swayed with the crowd, as if I could dance away the incessant haunting song that’s been stuck in my head for over a year. \nWhat started as beads of sweat were now rivers cascading down my face. I could feel the liquid cast off into the crowd as I blinked and shook my matted hair from my eyes. Mika was still behind me, following closely. We shuffled our way through the fans, packed like sardines in a tin - albeit more like live ones - dancing and flailing in the maelstrom of something much larger.\n\"Water?\" She offered with a laugh, our words finally audible to one another. \"You're drenched!\"\nMy hand traveled to the back of my neck bashfully. \"Hey man. I've been waiting to see ... for months, I can't believe they're only the headliner.\"\nThe club was a sprawling multi-story complex, which had been recently officially converted from an abandoned warehouse-turned-rave venue in the early 90's. Glitter from decades past shone like diamonds in the porous concrete as the spotlights swept up and around the room. The main stage was on the bottom floor, with a second floor of upper seating around the perimeter. \nWe made our way to a table upstairs. I collapsed into a nearby chair and tilted my head back, chugging the rest of the water and splashing the last few drops on my face. \n\"Johaaaan!\" She drew out my name in annoyance. \"I wanted some of that!\"\nI sat forward, resting my forearms on my thighs, and flashed a grin. \"Sorry! I'll get you a-\"\nSuddenly, Mika's hand shot out. Clutched the sleeve of my damp t-shirt. I began to speak but froze when my eyes met hers. She was looking past me, over my right shoulder. Fear. Just as she began to duck, a sound like fireworks erupted to my right. Flashes of light. It was hard to distinguish from the sensations of the concert, and for a while those around us partied on, unaware. \nBut we, unfortunately, were used to this by now. Time slowed down and the seconds felt like minutes as I dove left, toward and beside Mika, keeping my feet under me but crawling, clawing, through the bodies to the fire escape. Back left corner. Bright red sign. Between the bar and the bathrooms. \nBy now the patrons near us were screaming. Dying. The pops continued. The assailant was following us. I pushed a body into the metal door handle, the cold night air bursting into my lungs as the door released onto the rusted iron platform. The body I pushed turned toward me to reveal the face of a young man, high-school age. Blood pooled between his lips. Vacancy already taking over the terror in his eyes. \nMika was already over the edge of the fire escape, which was quickly filling with panicked club-goers and threatening to topple. I hesitated. We were at least 20 feet from the ground. If I jump, I could die. But it was the only option I had - there was no other way out and staying to fight was almost certainly a death sentence, if not for myself then for more of these innocent victims of circumstance. I released my knuckle-white grasp on the railing and hurtled my body forward, curling, rolling and scraping my back against the asphalt before stumbling into a run. And still, the song lingered between my ears, my constant companion. \n------\nTwo years ago, I was in a coma. I awoke to a brand new world, a new body - or at least, that's what it felt like, because I couldn't remember a thing. They told me I was the sole survivor of the crash. My mom, dad, and baby sister all had died at the scene or shortly thereafter. I had no next of kin. I was totally alone.\nSometimes, when people have amnesia, little bits and pieces, flashes of memory, will come back. The doctors offered me this, reassuringly. But as the months passed, so did my hope of remembering who I was. I couldn't remember a damn thing. \nThe only thing I did have was the Sound. At first, it was like white noise. Indiscernible but ever-present. Every day I tried to listen to the Sound, to inspect it directly, but it was like trying to remember a dream after waking up, just always out of grasp. Until one day, I heard It. \nI was on the afternoon blue line, a short walk from my 옥탑방 (oktabang). These rooftop apartments were the only cheap housing left in Seoul. Even still, my paycheck from Buldak, the Korean fried chicken joint, barely covered rent. I was on my way to my afternoon shift when I boarded the blue line and found a seat to myself facing the back of the train. Recently, they had installed huge screens that played news on the back and front of each of the train cabins. So many screens. One of the many things in this world that felt jarring to me. \nA woman's voice accompanied a picture of an unconventionally attractive man with dyed hair and dark piercing eyes. \"...and he'll be performing for us tonight at the ballroom in the Gangnam district, if you're one of the lucky few who snagged a ticket! For the rest of us, here's his latest hit over the airwaves, ...\" the woman announced in Korean, her excited speech making it hard for me to pick up every word. \nThen, right there, there it was. The Sound. The Sound! I wasn't sure at first, but after a few seconds, I knew I wasn't mistaken. The Sound I had been hearing for months since I first awoke was a song. It was this song. What had thus far been white noise in my mind lifted like a fog to reveal a soundscape of a soft beckoning rhythm, accompanied by a deep, lilting melody. My heart leapt into my throat. Tears welled in my eyes. It was the most beautiful thing I'd ever heard. \n-------\nI sang the words to myself as I sprinted towards Mika's silhouette ahead of me, twisting and turning down alleyways, farther away from the nightclub. I could feel the cold spring air bite into my sweat-soaked shirt, but it felt far away in comparison to the words in my head.\n나의 두 눈을 감으면~\nI saw Mika disappear around another corner and followed suit, only to find the alleyway empty. My brief panic was interrupted by her hand. Shot out, clutched the sleeve of my damp t-shirt. Pulled me behind an old vacant food stand, which had, by the looks of it, sat here for a very long time indeed, and had since corroded to reveal a small opening in the aluminum base, just big enough for the two of us. \nWe sat in the dark, shaky silence. Police sirens echoed in the distance. The gunman was gone, leaving our adrenaline-wrought, fear-stricken, but otherwise unharmed bodies in the wake of tonight's events. \n\"Are you hurt?\" Mika asked breathlessly.\n\"No, I'm alright,\" I said, shifting slightly, noticing for the first time some scrapes from the fall. \"You?\" \n\"I'm good,\" she replied. We sat for a few more moments in silence, our heartbeats retreating from our heads, slowing back down to a reasonable pace. \nI respected Mika, and cared for her deeply. We'd spent so much time together in the year since we first met. And in this moment, the thought caught me by surprise: I love her. I need her. I must protect her. I-\n\"I think we're onto something.\" Her whisper, less shaky this time, derailed my train of thought. \n\"꺼져버리던 희미한 불빛…The faint light was turned off.. Just like the song. The next stage was supposed to happen tonight. I know it doesn't feel like it but I think we prevented something much worse from happening,\" she said.\nWe had been working together for past year in what started as a mutual quest of curiosity: Why did we both hear Stay With Me in our heads all the time? Both of us could ignore it when we needed to, but without the direct gaze of attention, it precipitated back up into consciousness, relentless, beautiful. Like her.\n\"Yeah,\" I replied weakly. An awkward silence. \n\"Are you OK?\"\n\"Yeah,\" I stuttered. \"I'm just...\" My voice cracked and I found wells of burning hot tears under my eyes. I blinked them away in the darkness of our hideout. \"Meeks, this shit is dangerous. Maybe we should-\"\n\"No,\" she said forcefully, cutting me off. I was taken aback. \"We can't stop now. We're SO close, Johan. Please,\" she said, and I felt her hand on my arm. \"Please,\" she repeated.\nI nodded in the darkness. Maybe for myself. \"Yeah, you're right.\"\nWe emerged from the decrepit food stand to a cold and rainy night. The pavement glistened with Seoul's city lights that bounced their way into the narrow alley like pinballs, finding their way to the pooling water at our feet. Falling you…. \nI thought about the next stage. Exansor was trying to stop us. Mika was right - it meant we were onto something. It started with a hunch - a hunch that someone was trying to communicate with us, through the song. Next thing I knew, we were being chased by men with guns at k-pop concerts. \n\"I think we're going to have to go to HIS concert,\" I said finally.\n\"They will anticipate us there. It will be our deadliest mission yet\"\n\"Wait, WAIT. What if... what if they're setting us up? They knew scaring us like this would lead us there.\" Mika stuffed her hand into her pocket and revealed something small and glowing. It emanated a soft blue light, that pulsed gently in the palm of her hand. It was about the size of a postage stamp, shaped similarly, its features otherwise difficult to make out in the night. \nI shot a her a puzzled look. \"I nabbed it,\" she said, grinning. \"When that asshole was chasing us. In the mad dash I think he got knocked over. Anyway, this went flying off of him. So I nabbed it.\" She tossed it to me.\nI immediately chucked it as hard as I could. Her eyes shot me with daggers of anger and bewilderment. \"DUDE what the fuck?\" She ran off towards it and I followed her. \"Meeks! Mika - \" she kept running, unhindered. \"What if it's tracking us or something? What if-\"\nIt crackled. It trembled and vibrated, flipping to orient itself face up. A cone of light burst open above it, and a small hologram appeared. \"Mika. Johan. If you're hearing this...We've finally made contact!\" \nI turned to look at Mika, meeting her gaze of equal confusion. My heart pounded in my chest. Was this the answer?\n\"Exansor created this device - I nor you have much time - chhh - they're already on their way. Follow the song. Go where the song takes you. Do what you were sent to do - I believe in you. Save us from this horrible fate. Save us. Save humanity. Save-\" The holographic image sputtered and faded. \nSave...humanity? I blinked, staring at the device, wondering if it would give us anything more. The blueish light faded into a soft gray, and then dimmed out of existence. \n\"Well,\" Mika began, walking away towards the street. \"If we're gonna save humanity, we're going to need the k-pop stans.\"" } ]

[ { "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: Slowly Dying Night\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1259\n\nPrompt:\n\nSet your story at a large entertainment venue, after the show has ended, amongst the discarded plastic cups and confetti." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“Mom, I just- just need a ride, ok? ….No. No, it’s not like that, Mom, please can you just take me h-”\nThe phone beeps twice and goes silent. \nHoly fucking shit. This cannot\n“-be happening.” You hear your mom yell at your dad, muffled by the door to your room. It’s seven in the evening. “She cannot go on thinking this is normal-” Lying sideways on your messy bed, you clutch your phone like a lifeline, scrolling through K-pop Instagram until your mind goes blissfully numb. You’re trying not to cry. Something small hits your window, clinking softly. \nYou call again, but it goes straight to voicemail, and you sink to your knees on the sidewalk outside the venue, surrounded by dismantled fences and random bits of trash. A piece of confetti clinging to your disheveled hair comes dislodged by the movement, and flutters in a lovely downward arc toward the cold concrete. The sun’s rising. \nYou open the window and look down. It’s Sammy, all dark curls and smiles and mischief. She’s wearing something ridiculous, like a tracksuit with huge gaps in the sides cut off at the legs, fishnet stocking peeking through, crop top over the tracksuit, glitter rave makeup on and it’s so wild and weird but your stupid traitor heart flutters anyway and she holds up a sign that says\n“Codex HM concert?” \nYou nod jerkily, eyes blurring a little, and then realize he can’t hear you nod over the phone.\n“Um. yeah.” \n“What the fuck are you doing there? I never pegged you for a K-pop fan. How’d you even get there? I thought mom was like-”\n”Uh. 1. I don’t know. 2. There’s a lot you don't know about me. 3. I went with-”\n“Sammy!” you whisper-yell as soon as you exit the lobby of the building, and she smiles so wide it swallows your whole entire world. \n“I brought you cool clothes,” she whispers, and grabs you and hugs you and you start to cry again.\nYou wipe your eyes and streaky mascara stains your hands. \n“I’ll be there in a few,” your brother says over the phone. You don’t want to hang up, so you just hold the phone loosely to your ear and try to breathe as you sit on the curb. Try to block out the daylight with both hands. Stare through your fingers at a red solo cup rolling on the ground. Your head hurts. Stupid. You’re so stupid. This never could’ve worked out, why did you think it would-\n“Work, girl!” Sammy screams over the din of the music, probably-illegal beer sloshing over the edges of her solo cup, and you imitate Chin-hae’s dance move at the same moment as he does it on stage, the move you practiced for hours in front of the mirror weeks ago, watched millions of videos about, and Sammy screams with delight and it’s all worth it, every bit, everything for her. The lights swoop over the crowd as Chin-hae leans into the mic and goes into the final verse and she grabs your face with both hands and yells “I love you!” and you grab her face back and you\n“-kiss her? IN FRONT OF- I mean- Mei, that’s- it sucks that Mom is homophobic, but you have to-”\n“I know, Ming.” \n“-it’s, like, self-preservation, y’know?”\n“I know, MING.”\nHe sighs heavily, slightly distorted by the speakerphone, and you can hear him switch gears and turn off the engine. The red solo cup rolls down the street a little more, and then stops, as if having encountered some invisible roadblock. “So she grounds you for having a girlfriend, and then that very night you immediately run off and-”\n“Not anymore.”\n“What? ………Mei. What-”\n“-does that mean?” Sammy says, in the bathroom. It’s bright, too bright, and you’re a little drunk, clutching Sammy’s red red red solo cup, it’s blinding, and it’s too much, everything is too much, the muffled bass creeps under the door, it’s so so loud, this was a mistake- “I said- I said I don’t think we should be together anymore.” \n“Mei, that’s- you’re not thinking straight. You’re drunk.”\nYou giggle a little, and swallow your tears, eyes stinging. “Straight?” \nShe laughs too, but cuts herself off, biting her lip and looking at the corner of the room, trying to blink back tears. She’s gorgeous. This is torture. \n“I’m thinking- like- logically, Sammy. I can’t- If I were to come out to my parents, like, for real-” \n“We could hide.”\n“No. Sammy.” You can’t let her throw away her happiness for you, for a black hole of a human being. “You’re, like,” and oh great, you’re tearing up again, and now you want to throw up, “the best thing. Like, ever,” and you have to swallow some air, like it’s solid, and it’s suffocating you. \n“I’d kill you off, I think. I think being with me would kill your light.” \n“Mei-”\n“Just go,” you say, eyes squeezed shut, “please just go-”\nSammy’s voice breaks. You sway on your feet, afraid to open your eyes, afraid to see the damage. And you hear her waver for a second before turning and pushing the door open, stumbling back into the crowd and the music and for a second it burns, explodes like a supernova in your head, the karaoke nights and practicing dance moves at her house and boba tea dates and secret kisses in the apartment building lobby, your hands in her dark hair, her dark hair disappearing from view as the door closes, and you’re left with humming fluorescent lights and the bum-ba-dum-ba-duh of distant partying and the promise of life and joy outside this fucking bathroom.\nAnd it’s like the moment becomes real all of a sudden and you have to sit down, because your head is rushing and \n“I’m gonna throw up,” you mutter into the dashboard as Ming pulls away from the curb, and he grabs the back of your leather jacket and pulls you away from the dashboard and pushes your face out the open window, and the breeze feels nice on your swollen-from-crying face.\nThe light hits your eyes, temporarily blinding you, as you stumble through the crowd, trying to find her, but you can’t, she left, and you’re crying on the ground and random strangers are asking if you’re okay and you shake your head and they’re holding you up, “Let me call your parents, sweetheart,” and you need to tell them no, no that won’t help-\nAnd hours later you hide in some secluded corner shielded by black curtains, curled up with your head nestled between your arms, and the music has long since stopped, the confetti lies dead on the ground, and you want to go home, but you don’t want to go home. The cleanup crew jostles and clatters in the distance, murmuring voices discussing mundane things, and the world continues on relentlessly, dragging you forward with the force of its orbit, as if your life hadn’t fucking stopped the moment that door closed, and you know you'll remember this night forever.\nMing rolls down the window on his side and drives slowly down the street, and you can tell he’s trying to stall as long as possible before going home. You shift your position so you can stick your hand out the open window. The breeze glides over and past your fingers, and you curl your fingers softly, trying to hold it as long as you can before it slips through the gaps and continues on." } ]

[ { "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 Secrets We Covet\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1017\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story from the point of view of a “sasaeng” (an obsessive fan)." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Chapter 1: The Awakening\nI have always been captivated by the glimmering lights of the stage, the euphoria that permeates through the air when the music begins, and the sheer brilliance of those who grace it. They call me a \"sasaeng,\" a label draped in judgment and disdain. But do they truly understand me? Do they see the passion that burns within me or the yearning for connection that drives my every move?\nMy name is Minji, a name that has faded into obscurity as my obsession consumed me. It started innocently enough, a deep admiration for the talented artists who adorned the music industry. I would spend hours devouring their performances, memorizing lyrics, and researching their lives, longing to understand what propelled them to such heights.\nBut somewhere along the way, my curiosity turned into an insatiable desire. I couldn't bear to be left out, to be just another face in the crowd. I craved to be a part of their lives, to share the same air as my idols, and to breathe in the essence of their greatness.\nChapter 2: The Illusion\nTo the outside world, I was a nameless fan among millions. But behind closed doors, I was an enigma, weaving my way through intricate networks of information and connections. My obsession pushed me to uncover the secrets that lay hidden beneath the polished veneer of fame. I was privy to their schedules, their favorite haunts, and even their deepest desires.\nSome might call it an invasion of privacy, but in my heart, I believed I was building bridges. I craved understanding, to see beyond the masks they wore on stage. In my quest to connect, I yearned for them to see me, to acknowledge the devotion that fueled my every breath.\nChapter 3: The Descent\nAs time wore on, my actions became more desperate and more intrusive. I would wait outside their homes for hours, my heart pounding with anticipation. I convinced myself that I was protecting them, keeping them safe from those who wished them harm. But in truth, I wanted to be the one they turned to in times of need, the one who would shield them from the cruel world outside.\nI knew it was wrong, but the thrill of proximity fueled my obsession. I left tokens of my devotion—a carefully chosen gift, a heartfelt letter—hoping that they would recognize the lengths I had gone to be near them. But instead of appreciation, I was met with fear and anger, their eyes filled with a mixture of confusion and disgust.\nChapter 4: The Epiphany\nOne fateful night, as I lay in my room, surrounded by walls covered in photographs and mementos, I had an epiphany. The realization hit me like a tidal wave, washing away the fantasies I had woven into my mind. I saw the truth I had been blinded to. My actions were not driven by love but by a desperate need to fill the void within me.\nThe pursuit of their validation had become a substitute for my own self-worth. In their success, I sought refuge from my own failures. But it was a hollow comfort, a mirage that left me empty. I had become the very thing I had once despised—an intruder, a shadow lurking in the darkness.\nChapter 5: The Redemption\nWith newfound clarity, I resolved to break free from the chains that had bound me. I knew that to truly understand them, I needed to understand myself first. I sought therapy, confronting the root of my obsession and the insecurities that had fueled it. I had to learn to value myself, to find fulfillment in my own passions and dreams.\nSlowly but surely, the darkness receded, and I emerged into the light. I found solace in my writing, pouring my heart onto the page and breathing life into characters who resonated with the world I had once inhabited. My stories became a catharsis, a bridge to connect with others who felt lost and misunderstood.\nEpilogue: The Redemption\nNow, as I reflect on my past, I am no longer defined by the \"sasaeng\" label that clung to me like a shadow. I have emerged from the depths of my obsession, transformed by the lessons I've learned along the way. I still cherish the artists who inspired me, but my admiration now comes from a place of respect and appreciation.\nI have come to understand that true connection cannot be forged through invasive actions or possession. It lies in the empathy we show for one another, the support we offer in times of need, and the understanding that we are all flawed beings searching for our place in the world.\nSo, as I close the chapter on my life as a misunderstood \"sasaeng,\" I embrace the future with open arms. I am no longer lost in the shadows, but a storyteller who seeks to illuminate the human experience. And through my words, I hope to inspire understanding, compassion, and acceptance of our shared vulnerabilities.\nIn the aftermath of my transformation, I have made amends for the pain I caused. I reached out to those I had once intruded upon, offering sincere apologies and a genuine desire to make things right. Some accepted my olive branch with caution, while others remained guarded, their wounds too deep to heal so easily.\nBut I am determined to prove that I have changed. I channel my passion into positive pursuits, supporting artists from a distance, respecting their boundaries, and using my platform to promote their work. I aim to be an advocate for healthy fandom, urging others to find their own voice and embrace their individuality.\nThough my past will always be a part of me, it does not define who I am today. The journey from a misunderstood \"sasaeng\" to a reformed soul has taught me the importance of self-reflection, growth, and the power of redemption. And as I continue to write the chapters of my life, I hope to inspire others who may be trapped in their own misconceptions, guiding them toward a path of understanding and acceptance." } ]

[ { "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: Finding Sophie\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 2080\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone who keeps picking up different hobbies but never manages to stick with them." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“You should be more concerned,” Rebecca Kuti began with a loud yell. \nHer husband who was only a few metres from her looked up at her strangely, wondering if she was talking about the hero who died in the movie playing on TV but they weren’t watching. They had far more important issues to deal with and the one thing, which topped the list, was the unusual pounding sound coming from their daughter’s workspace.\n“About what?” he asked through clenched teeth, trying to control his anger.\n“The noise!”\n “It’s probably just Sophie working again.”\n“You need to talk to her, Chief. She needs to stop this odd habit of her picking one hobby today and losing interest in it the next day. Sophie can’t focus for ten minutes straight…she gets easily distracted.”\nHe took a deep breath and hesitated for a while. “Wasn’t she taking photography classes last week…when did she pick up carpentry of all the skills in the world?”\n“It’s not a skill she says, it’s a hobby.” She corrected. Pronouncing hobby with enough emphasis to spell out her newfound hatred for it. “Why does she keep doing this?”\nChief looked ignorant and lost just like her. He seemed to mull on a thought for a while before clearing his throat to yell again. Rebecca waited patiently for him to fully end his thinking process before raising an eyelid in his direction. Her composure was screaming a desire for him to answer the rhetorical question she had asked.\n“You should talk to her. She is your daughter.” He finally uttered.\n“And you think I haven’t tried? That relentless daughter of yours only listens to herself and the determined spirit rooted in her alone!” She bellowed.\n“There is no need to be this tensed up about it. She will definitely quit in three or four days give or take. She is only fascinated by it for now. How long has she been at it?”\n“Today is Saturday, right?” He nodded hopefully. “It’s only the third day.” \n“Damn it!” \nRebecca suddenly glowered at his outburst, her face stiffened so hard and her dark pair of eyes grew colder in an instant, a stranger in the room would have thought they were having a fight. She kept this look on and he on his part ignored her as best as he could. At last, the horrifying and deafening noises finally stopped after a loud crash.\n“What was that?” Chief snapped.\n“She must have broken her hammer again. That happens a lot. It’s the only time there is ever silence in the house. Only God knows what goes on in that workshop she calls a room.”\n“How I wish she could go back to learning sign language. Those days were my favorite days in this house.”\nShe rolled her eyes, slightly offended. \"This is no time for sarcasm, Dear. Besides, she only did that for a week.”\n“Well, it was a memorable week for me. Until she dropped it for gardening. Oh, those poor plants! They never had a chance of survival.”\n“You are lucky you were on a trip when she took up photography. Teni and I were her unpaid and oblivious models. She kept going around with a camera for almost two weeks I was so sure she would stick to it, but sadly, out flew photography and in came, videography. I wonder where she sees all these hobbies from.”\n“The internet obviously. It’s the source of everything these days. Conspiracy theories, gossips, cybercrimes, and articles on how to drive your family bonkers.”\nShe chuckled lightly, a speck of gleam returning in her black eyes. If there was only one person who knew Rebecca completely, it was her husband. He knew when she was truly angry, upset and even frustrated by observing simple gestures like a cold reception or eye-rolling. \nA sound suddenly came from behind, startling them. \nThey didn’t need to turn though, their precious daughter Sophie, a much younger version of Rebecca, clumsily walked past them with a curt hello. She looked nothing like her mother except for the same black eyes that kept fidgeting around. As she scanned every corner of the living room like a robot high drunk on caffeine, her legs and hands also joined in the search. The stunned Mr Kuti and the not so surprised Rebecca, who knew what Sophie was aimlessly looking for, watched her fretfully. They were both convinced their daughter had a problem. \n“Sophie dear, what are you looking for?” Rebecca probed with a cheerful smile forcibly plastered on her face. \n“Nothing, ma. Just my hammer.” She shared, without lifting her head from underneath the chair she was searching. \n“It’s in your workshop. Second drawer, to the left of your plumbing tools.”\nShe grumbled, stared, next, she stamped the floor. She had something to say, like correcting her mother it was a workspace, not a workshop, yet she kept mute. \n“Thank you.” She finally said after a pause as she trotted away. Her eyes instantly fell on her Dad though, and he was taken aback. She hadn't noticed him before. “Oh, Dad! I didn’t know you were around.” \n“Clearly. You were quite busy in there.” He teased. “What is it you are building this time?” \n“I am busy with furniture now. I stopped my architecture class.”\n“Why? You were so keen on learning it then you practically forced me to pay your online fees. It’s such a shame you quit it. The carpentry you are doing now, why don’t you sit down and tell me all about it.” \nRebecca signalled to him, shaking her head several times to dissuade him from complementing Sophie, but he didn’t notice her. When he finally did, Sophie looked excessively excited to be annoyed. \n“Sorry, Dad. As much as I would love to chat, I have a class in two minutes.”\n“How about we talk over dinner?” \nShe mused on it for a second, then gave her consent with a shrug of her shoulders. Just as she had left them baffled when she came in, she left the same way. Rebecca looked at her husband, her brow raised as high as it could go and her expression held back her annoyance. \n“You know what she needs,” he abruptly aired, thrilled as he had just solved the world's greatest enigma.\n“Real friends?”\nHe groaned, clearly annoyed by her oblivion. “No! she needs a job.”\n“But she has a job already!\"\n“I meant a real job where she goes to work at seven in the morning then close by seven. she takes her dinner, go straight to bed and voila, it’s morning and she has to do the routine all over again. there is no way she will have time for herself, let alone some hobby she will certainly lose interest in.”\nRebecca nodded in concord, the idea started to sound a lot better the more she thought about it. Sophie already had a Master’s degree in Cancer Biology and two Bachelor’s in microbiology and Sociology, the latter being a course she adamantly took against everyone’s advice. With her Master’s, Rebecca was sure she could easily get a job in a research institute or a pharmaceutical company. She recalled her friend’s brother was a director at the NRI and all she had to do was talk to her about it, surely, Bami wouldn’t turn her down, considering the fact she is Sophie’s godmother. She sighed at the thought of her dilemma eventually resolved, but like all bad dreams, her inner voice reminded her she was counting her chicks way too early.\n“Sophie hates jobs that confines her to a position. She will never agree to it.” She declared.\nHe mused on this for a minute or less, then finally gave up. He was short of ideas just as he came to terms with the fact that there was no other way to help her. Rebecca mentioned a therapist Sophie had seen years before after the incident and the smile on his face vanished in seconds like the winds. He shook his head, seemed to consider it again, then shook it even more. Although this meant his disapproval to the idea, she wasn't deterred by it. She reminded him of the fact that without the said doctor, they would have lost Sophie then. \n\"That bastard took advantage of her!\" He exploded, exhaling hot air through his nose. \"She was only fourteen.\"\nHer defensive instinct kicked in. \"Sophie said it wasn't his fault. He had nothing to do with it.\"\n\"Well, she can't see him again. That's decided.\"\n\"It's not, Babatunde! She will definitely see a therapist even if it isn't Dr Yaqub. Sophie's condition needs therapy. We have to help her.\"\n\"That was what you said when she went to see him. Now, look where that got us to. There is absolutely nothing wrong with her. She's fine.\"\n\"Where it got us?\" She snickered. \"Where were you when she had dementia praecox and was acting crazy? Where were you, Babatunde? Where were you?! Let me tell you where you were...you were gone as always. I had to see my only daughter suffer through pain and depression. Sometimes she spent weeks shut in her room without talking to anyone. Other times she would just explode without reasons. She was the one with the illness but I was the one losing my sanity. Without Dr Yaqub, we would have lost her.\"\nHe sputtered, losing his composure as well as his words. He knew he hadn't just touched a scar in his wife but carelessly pricked it with a needle, saying one more insensitive word would be peeling off the scars. They had been through a lot before and after the separation which was solely his fault, and regardless of their opinions of who had the worst end of it, Sophie did. \nShe started suffering from schizophrenia during the first year of their fights yet they failed to see all the signs till it was late. In his view, if they had only noticed it on time, she wouldn't have had to see the therapist and wouldn't have tried to commit suicide. He must have done something to her, he was sure. He could see the distant look in her eyes then but couldn't fully read what it meant. She wouldn't say a word about her sessions with him, he just knew something was wrong. The fatherly instincts in him told him there was more to what they could see.\nFortunately, he returned in time to stop the sessions and Sophie got better on her own. It took her five years, depriving her of teenage life, but she fought it hard.\nHe was proud of her. He had always been. Of all his children from his two wives and numerous concubines, Sophie meant a lot to him. She was his smart, intelligent and ever curious daughter who wanted to know everything about the universe. They were inseparable and bonded over each new idea she had, toys she bought or books she read. Everything was great...till his wife found out about his affair. It leads to a series of fights and bad blood and finally, a separation seemed right. He was tired of the fights and so was she. They were so selfish they never considered the possibility of it negatively affecting their daughter and almost ruining her life. \nShe started the habit of picking up several hobbies after then. From writing, singing, learning to play instruments, sky diving, basketball, rock climbing, hiking and several others she never managed to stick to. They had tried futilely to make her give up this habit, sadly, they couldn't. During one of their rare chat, she had let it slip that trying out new hobbies gave her a reason to live. That without them, she would have nothing. And for a father who loved his daughter deeply, hearing her say that, was like being stabbed by ice. The numbness leaves and the coldness eventually disappears, yet the pain remains.\nIf humans could travel back to the past, he would have given up everything for a chance to correct his mistake and saved his daughter.\nAlthough he had been atoning for them for seven years after returning to his family, he still had a long way to convince them he had changed. \n\"As long as she wants to.\" He finally conceded.\nLoud pounding noises suddenly came from upstairs and they guessed Sophie had started another class." } ]

[ { "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 Parts of Her That Are Magic\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1443\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with one character trying to convince another to take up their favorite hobby." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Her Eyes\n\nCatherine points to a small plant growing through a crack in the concrete. It has a long, thin stem, bending slightly towards the sun. Catherine would call it wispy, or fragile, but in reality, it’s only flimsy, and I doubt it will survive for longer than a week. \n\nHer fingers stretch towards it as I pull her away by the other hand. \n\n“Delilah,” she says. Her voice flits through the air. “It means delicate.”\n\n“You’ve been saving that name, haven’t you?”\n\n“Yes,” she says, sounding breathless. I look down at the flower. With its small white petals and absence of leaves, it’s entirely unremarkable.\n\n“So why this one? You know it’ll die in a week.”\n\nShe ignores me and gestures to a thornbush lining the cracked sidewalk. “Name that.”\n\nI realize that my grip on her left hand has slackened and tighten my hold. “Cathy, let’s go home.”\n\n“Catherine.”\n\n“If I say Catherine and name the bush, will you let me take you home without stopping again? I’m going to be late for Alicia.”\n\nShe turns her large eyes to me. They’re dark brown, almost black, and beautiful. They look just like Dad’s eyes. My eyes are the same color as theirs, but while her and Dad's eyes are filled with magic, mine reflect the weariness that could only come with being Catherine’s older sister and legal guardian.\n\n“Fine,” she says. \n\n“What is a name that means…” I stop walking to think. I’m not as good at this as Catherine is. \n\n“What about Briar?\" she suggests. “Thornbush.”\n\n“Ah,” I say, smiling. “Perfect.”\n\n\nHer Hair\n\nIn only an hour, Catherine will be at school, and my summer with her will be over.\n\nI signed her up for the elementary school lunch program, starting once my first term of college begins. I don’t want her to eat whatever filth I’ll try to scrape together while balancing school and housework. She needs more than pringles and instant ramen. \n\nCatherine comes out of her room wearing a hot pink dress and orange, polka-dotted leggings. She beams at me and points at her legs and then chest. She’s clutching a thick book under her other arm, the huge baby names book Mom and Dad gave her a few months after she started naming. \n\n“This outfit is named Phaedra,” she says. “It means bright.”\n\nI laugh. “I like that name.”\n\n“Thank you.”\n\nShe skips to the bathroom. “Could you do my hair?”\n\n“Of course.”\n\nAs she sits down on a stool in front of me in the bathroom, I say, “Alicia is coming with me to drop you off, because we’re going to dinner right after. Is that okay?” Catherine nods.\n\n“I can’t remember what Alicia means,” she says. “Could you tell me?”\n\n“Noble,” I reply instantly. After I had gotten home from Alicia and my first date, only three months ago, I had looked it up, thinking of Catherine. \n\nI grab a hairbrush, created especially for Catherine’s hair type, from the drawer under the sink. It was Mom’s, who knew how to take care of Catherine's type of hair, having had the same type herself.\n\nCatherine and I are half Nigerian, but I inherited more of Dad's European features while Catherine resembles Mom unmistakably. Mom used to do Catherine’s hair in beautiful little updos and buy her all the right products. Now I couldn’t even afford those. Mom and Dad left Catherine and me everything they had in their will, but Catherine can’t claim her share yet and I can only hope my half will last long enough for me to leave college and get a job, trying to save where I can. I’ve even debated dropping out. \n\nI can’t help thinking that if Mom were here, how different, less damaged Catherine’s hair would look.\n\nA lot of things would be easier if Mom and Dad were still around. \n\n“You’ve named this hairbrush, haven’t you?” I ask Catherine. \n\n“Yes,” she says. “Cody. It means one who helps others in need.”\n\n“I wish I could help you more with your hair. I’m sorry I don’t know as much.” Catherine’s back tenses slightly at the reminder of our parents.\n\n“Alicia has hair like me too.”\n\nShe’s right. I don’t know why I’ve never thought of it before. \n\nI decide to let Catherine’s hair be free today. “Yeah,” I say. “I can ask her some stuff if you want.”\n\nCatherine nods and jumps off the small stool to put on her shoes. Her hair is thick and curly and magical and poofs around her face like a halo. \n\nShe’s an angel, after all. \n\n\nHer Hands\n\nShe has magic fingers. When Catherine points her fingers at something, it’s like she’s waved a wand and made it beautiful. \n\nShe’ll point at an old, peeling mailbox and say, “Angelica. Messenger.” And suddenly, it’s not just a mailbox anymore, like she’s covered it with glitter and given it a smile. \n\nShe’ll point at a neat welcome mat on somebody’s doorstep and say, “Bellamy. Means handsome friend.” And suddenly it’s more of a welcome than a mat. \n\nShe’ll point at a stray dog curled up, sleeping under a park bench, and say “Ekanta. Solitude and peaceful.” And suddenly you’re running for the bag of dog treats you always have at home, not because you have a dog but because of how many times she’s done this before. \n\nWe’re in the park, me sitting on a bench while Alicia and Catherine are walking around the playground. Alicia is holding one of Catherine’s hands while Catherine points to things with the other. I’m close enough to see Catherine’s eyes sparkle and Alicia’s soften lovingly whenever Catherine smiles. \n\nI have Catherine’s name book on my lap, where she asked me to hold it for safekeeping. The gold lettering, Baby Names and Their Meanings, shines in the sunset light. There’s a slight chill in the air, and as I shiver I refocus on Catherine to make sure she has a jacket. I see that she’s wearing Alicia’s jacket, her small body dwarfed by it, drowning in fabric. But now Alicia’s arms are bare, so I get up, making sure the name book doesn’t fall, and go to give her my own. \n\nAs I approach, my jacket in my outstretched arms, Catherine glances at me and then points to my shoes. Her fingers are long and slim, compared to Alicia’s, which are chubbier. I drape the jacket over Alicia’s back and grab her hand, waiting for Catherine to speak.\n\n“Kymani,” Catherine says. “Traveler.” And suddenly they aren’t shoes anymore, but adventurers. \n\n\nHer Smile\n\nToday marks one year after my parents’ death. \n\nI’m in Alicia’s cramped dorm room. It’s decorated, in golden banners and balloons of many different colors. Alicia approaches me, sitting on her bed, with a cupcake in her hands and a grin on her face. \n\n“Happy Nineteenth!” She sings. She knows what day it is. She knows that today holds more significance than just being my birthday. The corners of her lips droop slightly when I respond halfheartedly. \n\n“Thanks, Alicia.” It’s the first birthday we're spending together. I try to smile convincingly, but it’s as if someone's cut a chunk out of my heart, filled it with lead, and placed it in my stomach. \n\nShe quiets and leans closer to me. “Do you want to go home?”\n\n“Yes, please,” I say, grateful. \n\nWhen we get to my house, I tell the babysitter she can go home early. \n\n“I tried to get her to do activities, but she's only been reading that book all day,” she said apologetically as she left, referring to Baby Names and Their Meanings. “She wouldn’t leave the room either, and didn’t seem to want to be around me at all.” \n\nI pat her gently on the arm. “I’ve been trying to get her to stop reading that book for months. Don’t be too hard on yourself.”\n\nCatherine is in her room when I knock on the door. I run to her try to pick her up, but it ends up like a hug, for her legs skim the floor when I try to lift her. She’s tall and gangly, not much shorter than I am. Alicia stands in the doorway awkwardly.\n\n“I’m sorry,” I whisper into her thick hair. It smells like peaches, thanks to the shampoo Alicia recommended. “I shouldn’t have left you alone today.”\n\nI can hear her sniffling, and I pull back. She squeezes me a last time and then runs to Alicia, who stiffens momentarily and then strokes Catherine's hair happily.\n\nThe smile Catherine flashes me is weak, but it’s still as full of magic as it usually is." } ]

[ { "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 Antique Pleasure\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1819\n\nPrompt:\n\nSet your story at a convention for a hobby most people have never heard of." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "THE ANTIQUE PLEASURE\nNow there are many ways of revoking the inert nature that the young men of my village have indulged themselves in. This was the surest way of ensuring the community remained rooted and transfixed in the field of Hard work, integrity and totally neutralize torpid characters among the young generation. The group has gathered and now it is time to leave for the dangers of the adventurous livelihood. The protocols are not encrypted in the form of a manuscript but due to the acute nature of zero tolerance to indolence, people have pasted the laws and rules on the tablet of their hearts and it could make one think that it was part of the communial manuscript curriculum. The head of the Zealotry of livelihood, Sulfika Lando himself has organized all sets and parameters. The following day would be the day to display and exhibit the prowess and herculean skills embedded in the systems of my fellow villagers.\nEarly before the first owl and the hornbills provoked their vestiges of inertia to cry out their voices in welcome of the new dawn. Before the cows which had recently calved down disturbed and perturbed the ambience of the morning tranquility, then boom!!\nSulfika Lando and his team met early before the cock crow and made some rituals before they finally went to the expedition that could last them six-to-seven days. “Quickly let all people gather here quickly, if you understand that you are not a woman, come out, and be the one you were born to be!” came the voice of the Fearful Sulfika Lando. It was such a happy moment for the women, for they knew on the grand return, their houses could be full of much succulent meat, both from the smaller animals like the gnawing rodents that included, moles, guinea pig and squirrels to the middle ones like the hare, porcupine, antelope family, some ritually important snakes and wild pigs and even some of the mammoth animals like giraffes, zebras, rhinos, hippopotami and occasionally elephants.\nAnother thing that fascinated us was the big rifle that Sulfika Lando possessed. He was the only one who was allowed to have it. No one was properly trained to use it. As for me he taught me to fire and guess what, I was such a good sharp shooter and I think that was why he liked me. He told me that he was awarded that gun for being the chief of the hunting. “But you are not the first chief of hunting, and you are the first chief to have the gun,” I tried to reason. “I understand, but remember nowadays if you need something you will get it, as for this gun I have it by law of the leaders of this country,” he said and I kept my calm. But all words, I always keep them at my heart, and I think I kept even those.\nThe group of hunters came holding different tools and each had a leather bag that held their diet until they came back, however, from the third day they would all gather around a fire and roast some meat caught, this had to be large mammal. The children, some of them cried seeing their fathers depart. Some of the wives also cried thinking their soulmateswon’t come back for assuredly, it was very difficult for all of them to come back. Death sometimes occurred, either by one missing target and injecting another with the spear or poisoned arrow, sometimes fierce bedeviled animals like the leopard, lion, and elephant would attack them. The most feared animal was the rhino, for this beast could gaze at one person, and won’t rest until he sees the man pulped and thinned under its feet, I also fear it. In fact, there is a tale that says that once a honey comber had once beenkilled by a rhino, for his fate, he fell down the tree on which he was harvesting some of the most delicious wild honey. In fact, the rhino tore him apart on the parting of his behinds towards his spinal column that made his cervical vertebrae and thoracic with the atlas and the axis be split open and one could think the diseased was a suicide bomber who had implanted on himself the most vicious miniaturized nuclear weapon on his stomach. Now, hunting in short was not everyone’s game even though people loved the delicious games that came out of the expedition.\n********\nThe group left early before dawn, each chanting much ritual songs in praise of the ancient hunting heroes. They carried different weapons which were not only locally made but also autonomously resourced. One could carry a knobkerrie, a bow and a pack of arrows clinging to his back like a weaver bird’s nest held against a poplar tree. Another hand would be clutching to a spear sharpened and polished that a poorly sighted fellow could block his eyes due to its powerful luster against the sun rays. What I mean is that the spears were always sharp that if the hand of a refined fellow would attempt to touch its lips, the hand would immediately be oozing a good amount of blood plasma and if the guy suffered from Down Syndrome, he would be a long gone being.\nSurely even as I continue with the story of the sharpness of the spear, allow me to give you also a tale told about a man who had been killed by a stray spear, lest I be over economical with the information. In the case of this guy I want to speak about, he was running after an antelope at such a terrific speed, like a supersonic jet or rather the Concord crafts. In the midst of this running, he was passed the fastest dog even, Okendi Sounder was the name of the dog. It is said that the man was almost catching the antelope by its hind legs when suddenly, a stray spear flew passed Okendi, missing the now mourning dog by a whisker, it intercepted the way of the man, I think if my memory remains faithful to my conscience, his name was Awendo. No sooner had Awendo brought down the prey than the spear struck his back and passed through his full lungs through the bowels of the prey. To cut the story brief, the duo died. The predator and the prey had all lost. Some thought the predator deserved not to die while others were just silent.\nNow to educate you persons more on hunting, it is important I mention that in many occasions the predator or the hunter is always praised if he catches his prey in a heroic manner. This instances included, like when the hunter jumped about six handbreadths and caught the prey leaving the dogs behind, or when the hunter shot an arrow through many people and only managed to strike the wanted target even the animal under pursuit. The third one was even more interesting, if a hunter could throw a spear past two or more river valleys like a projectile and the person on the other end could receive the spear, and throw it full strength towards the animal. This third historic way of hunting was only allowed to few people, that possessed some local spells of curses called sepe or juogi.If the prey was killed, they could be given the ham each and the hide or skin and the internal paraphernalia like the liver and the heart which were and still are valid as the dhoklochin.\nThe biggest question I still ask myself when am humbled by my memory on the ancient hunting stories is still unanswered. This is the question, perhaps by predisposing you to the same sense, the solution will be propounded, for surely, a problem shared is half solved. Why do they only praise the hunter’s or hunters’ prowess but do not and in fact never praise or give credit the attempt of the prey to evade or escape from the snares laid thereof by the foes? Why do they never praise the prey even a single moment. This was when I parted ways with the hunting group and I left the hunting group at an early age, it was not because I am lazy as they call me. Anyway, I still mourn over the death of Awendo today and will continue to cry over the long gone master of the craft and art. But why should I cry, it is because even after the death, they took and went and ate happily the meat of the antelope during Awendo’s funereal celebration. Why couldn’t they equally bury the antelope. Aiii! But do I say, a rolling stone gathers no moss.\nI remember after that the leaders meeting convened by the entire tribunal and presided over by the legendary Giuseppe Burra, agreed that the river where Awendo died was to be called KudAwendo. And so until today we still call it by that name including some of the alienated onlookers. Anyway, am torn apart by the fact that people’s death leads to them being nomenclated different physical features in proximity with their dead points ranging from rivers, valleys, mountains and sometimes even some portion of lakes. “They all walked away, nothing to say, they just lost their dearest friend, now he was gone wasted before his time,” said an old man to me. “I will write against it,” said me with tears overwhelming my now bloodshot eyes the old man thought that my eyes would puke blood, a sign of bad omen and ran away, making me cry more bitterly.\nHowever, I have not left hunting as I am speaking. But a time to leave will come, this maybe my last appearance in the scene. Now am seated there pondering upon the trivial mundane of worries that have to continue following me and me following them.\nIt has become like a hobby to me and I don't know who feels better, some formal learning are mushrooming in my village of Kalande City and I am torn apart between going to school and learn how to shout words in English as my younger villagers know. If I could no how to write my nomenclature. Hunting has become my hobby, that has made my peers call me a backward individual, yet they buy the game I have sought for in the butcheries. They went to school and they call the game the most delicious meal they have ever encountered. Here I am languishing in abject poverty lacking front or backside, but at least I know how to proceed between the blocked and obscured pathways of the forests in order to get my learned peers who are also wealthy their most delicious meal. Sometimes they provide some handouts.\nCertainly, the fruits of independence and self rule, we consume them second 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: Have You Found What You’re Looking For? Is It Everything You Wanted? (Alternatively: Happy Endings Are For Losers)\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 2809\n\nPrompt:\n\nSet your story in a world where time travel has been perfected, and people can use it to hop between alternate timelines — but at a cost." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Yang finds that life is not so different after time begins again, at least compared to his original timeline. He mostly wanders around counting his steps and trying to remember. He’s always trying to remember.\nOne thing they don’t tell you about time travel is how hard it is on the human body and psyche. Yang remembers reading about a man who held the universal record for time jumps. By the time he retired, his body was riddled with all sorts of cancers, some common and treatable, others yet undiscovered by science, the cancerous cells having mutated into something vicious and nearly sentient over countless jumps. He died shortly after retirement, quietly and in agony.\nSo far, Yang hasn’t had any physical complications. But he’d started suspecting something was wrong with his memory starting from his fiftieth-something jump. He’s on his 107th jump now, and there’s definitely something wrong with his head. At first it was little things, like misplacing the jump remote. Forgetting exact dates, if he’d taken his sanity pills that day, stuff like that. Then he started taking longer to remember the combination to the safe, and that’s when it began to scare him. He resorted to writing the combination down on pieces of sticky strips and slapping them to the walls of his lab and stuffing them into the pockets of his clothes.\nHis memory’s so fuzzy now that Yang finds it hard to remember whether he ever had any friends in his old timeline. It’s something he thinks about a lot now that most life on Earth has been eliminated, save for a bunch of single-celled organisms. He can’t see them, though he’s probably killing millions of them with every step.\nHe wonders if, to something else, he’s also the equivalent of a prokaryote. Something mindless and small, the puny, unlikely beginnings of life, and whether one of these days he’ll be the one squished underneath a giant shoe.\nHe likes this timeline, but it’s a little too quiet for him. He keeps counting all the way back to the lab. 5,338,211 steps. That’s got to be a new record.\n∞\nTurning his lab into a time machine took him close to sixty years, but that wasn’t the hard part. The hard part was deciding what he’d take with him and what he’d leave behind.\nTheoretically, you could make anything into a time machine (you just follow the same steps and protocols – a little like studying for a standardized test – and then apply them to a different set of parameters), but the general rule of thumb was: the smaller the time machine, the better the interdimensional signals would travel, and the less likely you’d get torn to indiscriminate, infinitesimal pieces in the goopy void of space between time realms.\nYang’s lab was already cramped even with just the essentials, comparable in size to a roomy walk-in closet. It took the last of his savings to build and then some, the rest of which he borrowed from whatever banks he could convince to loan to him. He’s probably long since defaulted on those. The good news is currency has become obsolete in most timelines he’s been to.\nSo, Yang had to be discerning in what he brought with him. He’d already replaced his desk with boxes of photo albums and postcards, souvenirs from past road trips piled up in precarious skyscrapers everywhere. Memories in physical form, unable to be altered.\nHe spent two entire months debating between bringing a lamp or a flowerpot because Yang knew that once he left his original timeline, it’d be a one in eight trillion chance of him ever getting back. Once he left, he’d be leaving for good.\nHe decided on the flowerpot in the end. If nothing else, it could double as a container.\n∞\nJump #252. There’s no sign of Him here either. Just cows upon cows upon, you guessed it, cows. These cows aren’t like the ones Yang knew in his timeline. For one thing, they’re orange. Bright orange, like cheap Halloween glowsticks. Most have a ridiculous number of eyes (the most Yang counted on one cow was forty-two) and they all levitate a teeny bit off the ground. And instead of udders, they have tiny fangs on their stomachs that shoot out boiling milk when provoked.\nHe would’ve gotten a kick out of seeing this. He always did say that cows as a species could benefit from some sort of evolutionary armor, slow and defenseless as they were. Yang would point out that cows were in fact quite large and strong and could probably trample a man to death, and then they’d debate the survival chops of a cow during the apocalypse before one of them would get sleepy or horny or hungry and they’d leave to fulfill whatever human need needed to be met.\nBut He is not here, so Yang moves on to the next timeline, but not before grabbing a couple pints of milk for the journey ahead.\n∞\nYang feels old today. More so than usual. Physically, he is thirty-three, but his mind knows his true age, similar to the rings on a tree stump. He left his original timeline an old, old man, and now his recycled youth feels worn and ill-fitting on him like an overstretched sweater.\nJumping through time must have rearranged Yang’s molecules in some impossible accident, aging him backwards to roughly the age he was when he started his research on time travel. It provides him with a sort of messed-up, existential comfort, like a mental balm for the mentally wacky. If Yang’s thirty-three, then it means it’s only been a year since he last saw Him. Yang’s memory is getting worse, but there are some things the brain just doesn’t forget. Another inane comfort.\nThe air in this timeline smells like roast beef. Yang wonders what happened to the cows in that other timeline. A young woman with long, hairy fingers for breasts approaches him and asks him if he’s lost. She’s almost completely nude, save for a pair of thigh-high snakeskin boots. Yang shakes his head no, but she slips him a $20 bill anyway.\nA timeline with currency. He’ll be damned.\nYang takes the money and buys a sandwich with it. He’s feeling a bit peckish, seeing as he hasn’t eaten anything since jump #389. As he’s paying, he realizes that Andrew Jackson looks a little different in this timeline. A little female. And Asian. Yang shrugs; he’s seen weirder. The sandwich guy – who is actually a girl – drops Yang’s change in his hand, the weight of which nearly sends Yang tumbling to the ground. With some effort, Yang gathers the coins and hands them back to the guy-girl. He-she shrugs and turns to help the next customer.\nYang takes a seat on a bench a little further down and bites into his sandwich. It crumbles to pixels in his mouth.\n∞\nIs Yang lonely? That depends.\nWhat, you think you’re better than him? You with your normal timeline and normal sandwiches? Fuck you. Shut the fuck up.\n∞\nTo qualify for a time travel license, you must go through a series of rigorous steps. There are weekly fitness evaluations, knowledge exams, genetic testing, background checks… and that’s just round one. There’s a million and one hoops to jump through, all to ensure that only the best of the best receive access to this dangerous tool. In the right hands, time travel can be something close to a panacea, capable of undoing genocides and ensuring minimal loss of life in natural disasters. But in the wrong hands, it can be cataclysmic. World-ending potential.\nYang did apply to The Chronos Academy for Multiversal Quantum Jumpers – the leading institution for training time travelers – but failed to pass the interview stage. When he inquired about the reason for his rejection, the brief response merely said he was “not the type of candidate they were looking for”. Yang suspects it was because of his age. At thirty-seven, he was already a great deal older than the majority of the Academy’s students, who average about eleven years old when they start training. Time travel is easier on the bones if those bones haven’t fully become bones yet, just squishy suggestions of them.\nAccording to the aggressive floating billboards dotting Interstate 3339, the Academy claims to be “an equal-opportunity resource for people of all walks of life”. But Yang supposes “inclusivity” is just a snappy word these days, just like “contraception” or “peanut butter”.\nSo, Yang took the good ole bootstraps route and studied time travel on his own using pirated, outdated Academy training manuals (getting his hands on those on the Black Market nearly bled him dry) and secondhand jump suits stolen from the Academy’s incinerator-dumpsters. He transformed his personal lab into a time machine using scraps scavenged from junkyards, and then whatever he couldn’t find or afford on the Black Market he stole straight from the Academy itself.\nHey, don’t give him that look. Yang would’ve loved to do everything legally and nice if he could have. He tried that, and all it got him was six months of waiting around for a lousy rejection hologram.\nIt worked out in the end for the most part. Except that Yang must have gotten the wiring wrong with the jump remote because the machine just plops him down whenever it pleases, no rhyme or reason to it. Although the machine seems to prefer traveling forwards over backwards in time. Out of the 617 jumps he’s done so far, Yang’s only been able to go backwards for about twenty of them, and none of them have been backward enough.\nHe needs to go back. Back, back, back, back, back. Needs to retrace his steps (437,991 of them in this timeline – he’s getting soft). Back before his memory started going to shit. Back before everything started going to shit.\n∞\nGoing back is hard, Yang’s realizing. It goes against the very laws that govern, well, everything. Some examples:\nYou can vomit out a meal that doesn’t agree with you, but you can’t say you never ate it. You can apologize for something you said, but you can’t take it back. You can break up with someone, but you can’t reverse the heartbreak.\nYou can build a time machine to try to bring your dead lover back, but it doesn’t change the fact that He died. It doesn’t make the grief any easier to swallow.\nThere is always a before and an after, but most people don’t realize they’re in the before until they’ve already moved on to the after.\nBefore them, it was Yang and Him. Separate, lost, orbiting. After, it’s just Yang. Separate. Lost. Orbiting. Sometimes the two can feel the same.\nYang’s mother taught him a trick when he was young, and the world still seemed a little too big. Count things. Anything. Count trees, count bees, count your own stinking knees. Numbers make sense. Not much else does, but numbers do, have, and will. They’ve been proven time and time again. They’re the bedrock of existence.\nBut Yang learned a new trick as he grew older: sometimes you don’t need numbers. Sometimes, if you’re really really really really lucky, you’ll meet someone who makes everything make sense. All that crazy, messy, awful shit that used to bury you daily, it’ll still be there, but you can see through it now, like a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. And together you’ll roll around in it and laugh and kiss and fall in love, and somewhere in there’s supposed to be a happy ending, like maybe some babies, a SUV, two dogs, and a sunny place in the suburbs. There’s not supposed to be hospitals and chemo, or caskets and condolences.\nThings aren’t supposed to go back. People aren’t supposed to go back.\nBut Yang is not people. Yang is Yang, and Yang has always been a little bit of a stubborn motherfucker.\n∞\nSelf-doubt is a bitch.\nBecause even if Yang went back to the very beginning, who’s to say he would find Him? Maybe, like everything else, He’s moved on, too. Yang knows he’s already done irreparable damage to his original timeline. How does he know he hasn’t killed his husband twice?\nMaybe if he’d noticed it sooner. Caught it when it was still early, still treatable. Paid more attention, talked a little less, didn’t take so much for granted.\nMaybes are for losers. Losers and Yang, who is a special type of loser.\n∞\nHe has to go further, further back. Maybe before he was even born, before he became Yang.\nMaybe that’s the trick.\n∞\nThese are the things Yang remembers:\n1. This is jump #1,103\n2. His name is Yang\n3. He is 33 and 91 years old\n4. He took his sanity pills today\n5. 8497\nThe weather in this timeline is nice. Tropical but with a breeze. Yang’s toes dig into the soft, soft ground beneath him. It jiggles and makes a fsshp fsshp sound. Something swims near his ankle, nibbles on his heel, then poofs away.\nYang hums. Feels himself sinking, sliding into warmth and slime. It’s safe to let go, so he does.\nLets go of his bladder, that is.\n∞\n6,097… 6,098… 6,099… 6,100… 6,101… 6,102… 6,103… 6,104… 6,105… 6,106… 6,107… 6,108… 6,109… 6,110… 6,111… 6,112… 6,113… 6,114… 6,115… 6,116… 6,117… 6,118… 6,119… 6,120… 6,121… 6,122… 6,123… 6,124… 6,125… 6,126… 6,127… 6,128… 6,129… 6,130… 6,131… 6,132… 6,133… 6,134… 6,135… 6,136… 6,137… 6,138… 6,139… 6,140… 6,141… 6,142… 6,143… 6,144… 6,145… 6,146… 6,147… 6,148… 6,149… 6,150… 6,151… 6,152… 6,153… 6,154… 6,155… 6,156… 6,157… 6,158… 6,159… 6,160… 6,161… 6,162… 6,163… 6,164… 6,165… 6,166… 6,167… 6,168… 6,169… 6,170… 6,171… 6,172… 6,173… 6,174… 6,175… 6,176… 6,177… 6,178… 6,179… 6,180… 6,181… 6,182… 6,183… 6,184… 6,185… 6,186… 6,187… 6,188… 6,189… 6,190… 6,191… 6,192… 6,193… 6,194… 6,195… 6,196… 6,197… 6,198… 6,199… 6,200… 6,201… 6,202… 6,203… 6,204… 6,205… 6,206… 6,207… 6,208… 6,209… 6,210… 6,211… 6,212… 6,213… 6,214… 6,215… 6,216… 6,217… 6,218… 6,219… 6,220… 6,221… 6,222… 6,223… 6,224… 6,225… 6,226… 6,227… 6,228… 6,229… 6,230… 6,231… 6,232… 6,233… 6,234… 6,235… 6,236… 6,237… 6,238… 6,239… 6,240… 6,241… 6,242… 6,243… 6,244… 6,245… 6,246… 6,247… 6,248… 6,249… 6,250… 6,251… 6,252… 6,253… 6,254… 6,255… 6,256… 6,257… 6,258… 6,259… 6,260… 6,261… 6,262… 6,263… 6,264… 6,265… 6,266… 6,267… 6,268… 6,269… 6,270… 6,271… 6,272… 6,273… 6,274… 6,275… 6,276… 6,277… 6,278… 6,279… 6,280… 6,281… 6,282… 6,283… 6,284… 6,285… 6,286… 6,287… 6,288… 6,289… 6,290… 6,291… 6,292… 6,293… 6,294… 6,295… 6,296… 6,297… 6,298… 6,299… 6,300… 6,301… 6,302… 6,303… 6,304… 6,305… 6,306… 6,307… 6,308… 6,309… 6,310… 6,311… 6,312… 6,313… 6,314… 6,315… 6,316… 6,317… 6,318… 6,319… 6,320… 6,321… 6,322… 6,323… 6,324… 6,325… 6,326… 6,327… 6,328… 6,329… 6,330… 6,331… 6,332… 6,333… 6,334… 6,335… 6,336… 6,337… 6,338…\n∞\nIf he concentrates hard enough, Yang thinks he can recall the sound of his own voice. He’s not sure though. He hasn’t spoken a word for the past 500 jumps.\nIt’s not that he won’t speak, he’s just sort of… forgotten how. It’s not a big deal. He doesn’t need to talk to finish what he’s set out to do.\nThe silence is sort of nice, anyway.\n∞\nYang’s forgotten most things by this point. The timeline, his shoes, his age, his underwear, his pills, his glasses, breakfast, the list goes on. Also, he misplaced the jump remote sometime between Earlier and Now, so this will probably be his last jump for the foreseeable future.\nIt’s not a bad place to end up. Really. There’s nothing actively trying to harm him, no noxious fumes, no inter-galactic war, no pixelated sandwiches, no bright orange cows, or women with hairy finger-boobs. And no currency. Thank fuck.\nThe air is breathable, light. Gravity is as close to normal as it’ll get. All in all, not too shabby.\nYang has no idea if he’s backwards or forwards, but he finds that he no longer cares that much. It is enough to just exist in time.\nHe unlocked the safe Earlier and was relieved to see it still there. It’s held its color well and the texture is as Yang remembers it. He rubs it between his young, young fingers, seeking its touch, memorizing its taste. There’s a memory tugging at the seams of his mind trying to get out.\nGood luck with that.\nThis is funny to Yang, who would laugh if he could still remember how. It feels nice to laugh. Maybe someday it’ll come back to him. No matter. He is closing his eyes. He is at peace.\nOne moment, Yang is alone, and then the next, he is not.\nHmm, Yang grunts.\nUng Ung, the voice responds.\nRurrrrrrrr fing BuBuBu. Yeop! KRIEEEEET pewwwe neh.\nGoopoo cee. Weowowowow Brrrrrrrr.\nGinta teww. Mewp alalu fing.\nSyeit? (Yang?)\nSa. (Yes.)" } ]

[ { "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 Inevitability of Destiny\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 2425\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone who gets stuck in their workplace during a blizzard and decides to explore rooms they aren’t normally allowed in." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I narrowed my eyes at my office’s window. Is that a blizzard outside or have I finally lost it? I crossed to the window and sure enough, it was a snowstorm raging outside. A storm that, to my knowledge, had started suddenly and was not in the forecast. \nIs this Chione’s handiwork? I chuckled wryly and then laughed out loud. \nWhen I was little, my dad would say that anytime a storm came out of nowhere, a god or goddess was pissed about something. With a sudden storm like this, it could only be because of Chione, the goddess of snow. It was hilarious to blame her as if she didn’t have any better use of her time than to inconvenience humans. \nThis was my fault, really. I was the one who had the brilliant idea to come to the University on the weekend to catch up on some research and finish grading papers. Now, I was going to be stranded here. \nThat is, unless I could find a way to get home. I ventured another glance out the window to look at the state of the ground and the snow that was quickly accumulating there. It would be a pain to try to walk in that, let alone drive. The heels I decided to wear into work today were now laughing at me. I always kept a pair of sneakers at my desk, but who knows if they would hold up to the cold. I changed into them anyway. Maybe there was a lost and found I could sift through and some unfortunate soul had lost a pair of snow boots in my size. While I’m at it, I should see if I can find some gravel or salt for the road. Now that I think about it, there’s probably not much good that would do with the snow already on the ground. There had to be a shovel somewhere, right? Maybe snow chains for my tires? And since I’m wishing for the impossible, might as well throw in a flamethrower for good measure. \nI walked out of my office and took a left. I already knew this search was pointless and I wouldn’t find anything that I’d need to get out of here. I’d most likely be stuck here until the storm ended or someone figured out I was here, whichever came first. I should’ve probably been more freaked out by that prospect, but this was my first chance to explore the English building since being hired as a Teacher’s Assistant almost two months ago. In these moments, I was so much my father’s daughter. It was going to take more than being stranded to rattle me. \nWalking the empty hallways alone was calming. I have never been in a building so quiet before. I opened doors at random. Unsurprisingly, all there was to find were empty classrooms. I liked to imagine that the empty classrooms weren’t empty at all, but were inhabited by ghost students pursuing their degree. I don’t know why, but the thought was both amusing and comforting. Like I wasn’t actually alone. \nI was now on the first floor where I vaguely remembered there being a storage closet. It might have some supplies or at the very least something more interesting to look at than empty classrooms. The supply closet was at the end of a hall with a classroom on either side of it. As I walked down the hall to the closet, it occurred to me that it might be locked and I was not in possession of any keys that might open it. I laughed. As if a locked door has ever stopped me. It was yet another plus of being my father’s daughter. \nI placed my hand on the doorknob and with a smile, turned it. It was unlocked. I opened the door and was more than a little surprised to come face to face with a Chimera. Chimera, for those who have had the fortune to not have come face to face with one, have the head of a lion, the body of a goat and the tail of a serpent. Oh, and they breathe fire! Luckily, this one was muzzled and looked to be sedated. \nThis couldn’t be my father’s work. Sure, he was a skilled Hunter, but between you and me, he wasn’t good enough to catch a Chimera nor crazy enough to hide it at my place of business. That could only mean I had another Hunter in my midst. I groaned to the sky, “Heaven help me.” \n“Nope,” I said shaking my head feverishly. “This is so not my problem.” And I closed the door back. It was only then that I saw that the door had been locked with a Hunter’s mark and I had broken it without even realizing it. I reattached it as best, shaking my head all the while. I didn’t see anything. I don’t know anything. \nI turned around, back the way I came. This time, I wasn’t surprised to find someone walking towards me. He was as tall as I was, with brown skin and a muscular frame. He wore a leather jacket, jeans and a smile that said he was up to no good. I could spot a Hunter a mile away and he oozed that Hunter swagger.\nI’ve been privy to the Hunter world for as long as I could remember because of my dad. It was probably because of him that I wanted no part of their world. Honestly, calling them Hunters was a bit of a misnomer. They tracked and studied mythical creatures in order to protect them. No one that I know had ever killed one, but many have died in their pursuit of a catch. It’s dangerous work. It consumes you and for some, it destroys you. My dad has been a hunter for longer than I have been alive. He’s on marriage number 5, has been cursed 3 times and I can’t say for sure if he has all his original body parts. Call me crazy, but I don’t want that for my life.\nBefore the Hunter in front of me could say anything, I put my hand up to stop him. “Nope,” I said, shaking my head. “I didn’t see you. You didn’t see me.” I sidestepped around him and started making my way down the hall. But a nagging thought stopped me. I turned back to him, “Oh and Slick? That muzzle you got isn’t flame resistant. You might want to replace it before she wakes up and flambés it.” As much as I don’t want in on that world, I do know enough to be dangerous. Father’s daughter and all that. \nI made it maybe a handful of steps before he called out. “Hey, wait up!”\nI kicked myself. Why couldn’t I have kept my big mouth shut? But to be fair, we would’ve all been screwed if I hadn’t said anything. \n“I’ll have you know,” he said, once he’d made it to me. “That’s a high quality muzzle. It’s everything proof.”\nOh, he was one of those Hunters. The ‘look at me and all the expensive equipment I can purchase’ Hunter. There was no reasoning with those guys. For them, only money talked. \n“Oh really,” I said, feigning surprise. “My mistake, then.” I made a mental note to keep an eye out for any ‘mysterious’ fires over the next week. “Well, you have fun with that.”\nI turned to leave and he stepped in my path. He narrowed his eyes, suspicious of me. “Who are you?” He asked. “Most girls would be freaked out right now.” \nMost girls weren’t raised around phoenixes, manticores and all manner of mythical creature, but I wasn’t about to make that public knowledge. “Me?” I shrugged. “I’m no one.”\nHe didn’t seem convinced. He stared me down intensely, like he could intimidate me into spilling my secrets. Silly boy. I stared at him right back, my posture confident, with a sure smile on my face.\nAfter a standoff of sorts, he blinked first. He took a step back, recognition dawning on his face. “You’re Gabe’s kid, aren’t you?”\nI cursed the Hunter world for being much too small. \nCould I still play dumb? “Gabe?” I asked. “Never heard of him.”\nBut, Mr. Hunter was unperturbed. “It’s Minerva, isn’t it? Or do you still go by Minnie. You probably don’t remember me, but I’m Zeke. Ezekiel Young.”\nThe name sounded familiar. I took a good look at him and omg, I do remember him. He was a runt last time I saw him, but time has been kind. Now, he could probably benchpress a Pegasus without breaking a sweat. I shook my head and looked away. “Stay away from the light, Min,” I reminded myself. “Don’t get sucked into the vortex.” \nI took a steadying breath before looking back at him. When I did, I saw his lips were tipped up into a knowing smile, like he could hear exactly what I was thinking. Dear God, I hope he couldn’t. \n“Zeke, you seem like a cool enough guy, but I’m not trying to get mixed in whatever you’ve got going on here.”\nHis eyebrow perked up. “What is it do you think is going on here?”\nI pointed back down the hall at the storage closet’s door. “There’s a Chimera in there. Last time I checked, you couldn’t pick one up at a shelter and they’re not indigenous to this area which can only mean you stole it and I don’t want to be here when the owner finds you.”\nHe jerked his head toward the window paned door where we could see that the storm had not let up, not even an inch. “So, you’ve got a plan to get out in this storm”\nI could barely see the ground at this point. Even if I could walk out of here without my feet freezing off, my car would be no match to anything over a few inches. Dang it. Not only was a stranded during a blizzard, I now would possibly have to deal with an irate Chimera owner, too. \n“Who’d you steal her from?”\nHe crossed his arms. “Why are you so convinced I stole her?” I gave him a look and he immediately laughed. “Fine, you got me. I may have borrowed her from Chione.” \nAt that, I turned on my heel and walked away. Over my shoulder I yelled, “Chimeras I could deal with. Snowstorms, sure. Pissed off Snow goddesses? Not on your life. You’re on your own, Slick.” If I headed up to my office now, I would hopefully have enough time to barricade myself in there before Chione made her way here. \n“What’s the big deal?” He asked, falling in step with me. “What can a minor goddess do to Gabriel Ryland’s daughter?” \nInvoking my father’s name did not make me more comfortable about our current situation. I did not have my father’s recklessness and was more in tune with my mortality than he was.\n“Goddesses are a vengeful bunch and you stole from the one that can send us into a new ice age,” I said, my voice getting frantic. “We are so screwed thanks to you.” I stopped walking and tried to wrack my brain for what we could do. Anything that would give us a chance.\nHe stood beside me and I don’t know why, but I found his presence comforting. He said, “You’re not even going to ask me why?” \nDid it matter? But now I was genuinely curious. “Why?” I asked. “What could have possessed you to do that?” \nHe opened up his jacket’s breast pocket and pulled out a Polaroid. He passed the picture to me. It was of a precious, little black girl with an enormous smile and her hair in puff balls. \n“Her name’s Mia,” he said. “She’s 5 years old and she loves unicorns. She’s dying. Heart failure. Chione has the only crystal heart this side of the Styx. It’s the only thing that will save Mia. I’m hoping to make a trade.”\nI passed the picture back to him. It was a noble cause, but what did goddesses care about nobility? “Chione’s not going to care about any of that,” I told him. “She’ll kill you on the spot.” \n“I’ll be fine,” he said. He pulled his t-shirt down from his neck and showed the bright red fabric underneath. I instantly recognized it. He had on a breastplate of phoenix feathers. It was impossible to freeze and it would regulate his internal temperature, so he wouldn’t die of hypothermia or frost bite should Chione try to blast him. Afterward, the breastplate would spontaneously combust, freeing him from his icy bounds. Out of the ashes, a new breastplate would be ready to use against the next pissed off snow goddess that crossed his path.\nAs far as contingency plans, it was a pretty ingenious one. It would still be useless against Chione, though. “Are you really planning on risking your life?” I asked. “There’s got to be another way.” \nHe shook his head. “Mia doesn’t have time. She needs a miracle. She needs someone crazy enough to risk it all because if not me, there’s no one else who will.”\nI could still walk away. This was not my life. It was not my problem. I always swore I would never get sucked into this. \nBut, if I was honest with myself, it wasn’t because I didn’t love it or that I was scared of getting hurt. It was because I knew that with anything that I wanted, there was nothing I wouldn’t do, nothing I wouldn’t sacrifice or risk to achieve it. Those type of people are dangerous. Those type of people don’t live long. I am my father’s daughter after all.\nI liked to pretend I wasn’t that person, that I could somehow escape my fate, but a man inevitably meets his destiny on the road he takes to run from it. \nThis moment here. The one where I didn’t walk away. It was always bound to happen, wasn’t it?\n“I’ve got an idea,” I told him. “It might not work. We’ll probably die, but if we don’t, Mia lives and we’ll have a heck of a story to tell.”\nHe looked at me. He seemed to see the resolve in my eyes, an all-consuming hunger to do whatever it took. It matched his own. \nHe smiled, and said, “I’m listening.”" } ]

[ { "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: Life Beyond Life\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1092\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story that includes the phrase “Maybe in another life.”" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Life Beyond Life\nBy Sunil Varshneya\nThis is the story of my friend Peter. We met in the college. Peter was not attractive. He had a face only a mother could love. During lunch, he would sit alone in the corner of the cafeteria as it was said that if you want to lose your appetite, you sit with him. I could see him beyond his physical body and liked him. He was a well-aware human being and knew more about this world and human beings than anybody else in the college. I had a special connection with him and tried to be with him as much as possible. I always learned something new about this world in every meeting with him as he would share the essence of all the books and magazines he would read in the library.\nSandy was the most beautiful girl in our class. All the boys, including Peter, would do anything to be friends with her. Somehow I knew Peter was madly in love with her and would do anything to have her in his life. I feared he would hurt himself badly as his relationship with Sandy was impossible to manifest. I read books on relationships to convince him that his relationship with Sandy could never manifest. I told him, per my understanding, that relationships can be categorized into three types. The first type is based on physical attraction. Once the physical attraction fades away, the relationship dissolves. The second type is based on mental attraction and common viewpoints and goals. The moment the views and goals differ, the relationship dissolves. The third type is based on a spiritual connection beyond physical and mental attraction. This relationship is often found in stories and is beyond the impermanent nature of changing body and mind. Both parties must be aware of each other's humanity to have a spiritual connection. He cannot have a personal relationship but maybe a kind of friendship. Peter accepted my rationale that his personal relationship with Sandy could never manifest. But you know the logical mind can never convince the subconscious mind, and Peter never accepted it deep down.\nOn the graduation day, we had a group picture. Peter could not hide his happiness that he was in a group picture with Sandy. So we ended our college days, and I moved into a job almost 500 miles far. We often shared about our life and what we planned to do, but the meeting was rare.\nPeter found a job as an editor. It was long hours, and he spent all his time at work, including weekends and holidays. However, it was fine with him as he had no friends or relationships.\nA tragedy happened, and both parents of Peter died in a plane crash. He was the only child, and I flew to attend his parent’s funeral. I realized I was the only one at the funeral as he had no connection with other college friends. I talked with him but knew that he was very lonely. He still dreamt about Sandy and expected she would speak to him as she lived nearby. I tried to tell him to forget about her.\nI married and invited all my college friends, including Peter and Sandy. It was fun, and our lives continued.\nTwo years later, I got a call from Peter that he was going to India for a year retreat in a Himalayan monastery. I knew that he was alone in this world and requested that we stay connected.\nI got the news that he would stay one more year and had given up his job as he had inherited enough money from his parent’s death.\nAfter spending two years in India, he returned and begged me to come and see him in the hospital. So, I went and saw him weak and fragile in the hospital bed. Yet somehow, he appeared very happy and had never seen him in that state.\nI asked him. What happened?\nHe said, smiling that he was going to die. I asked why he would die and why he was so happy. \nHe said that he had cancer and therefore he had gone to India at the monastery to understand about death. He said that based on all the meditation and wisdom in the monastery, he had realized that only the body dies, but the spirit continues in another dimension.\nAlso, this universe has a mystical invisible karmic law like Newton's law of cause and effect. The law is that what you do comes back to you if not in this life but in another life. So whatever karma we create in this life will be carried by the spirit into future lifetimes until a balance is achieved.\n He further said he had found a way to get Sandy into her next life.\nI was stunned. I then asked him how he had found a way.\nHe said that he would do something so good for Sandy that a karmic bond would be created, and he will have a relationship with her in his next life.\nI asked him what the plan was. He clarified that he would die in the next few days and give all his wealth, which was significant to Sandy as an anonymous admirer—this way, a karmic relationship would be created for the next life.\nI could not say anything to him. I do not know the mystery of this universe or about, death and the spirit world or the invisible mystical karmic law.\nPeter died. I was the only one at his funeral.\nI got a call today from Sandy. She was inquiring about Peter. So I asked her why she would like to know about Peter.\nShe was crying. She said that someone had left her a significant amount of wealth, with a note that it was from a silent admirer.\nShe further said she was trying to find who this person was to change her life with this fortune.\nI suddenly realized that deep down, we all know the truth about who loves us.\nI suddenly remembered the love story movie \"Bridges of Madison County.\" In the spirit world, love is easy to manifest where you are beyond the body's limitations and earthly entanglements.\nI do not know anything about the reason for our birth and death and if there is reincarnation. But, deep down, I was happy that Peter did his best to find his dream love, if not in this life but maybe in the next life." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Couture Dreams back to square one\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1120\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story inspired by the phrase “Back to square one.”" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The multi-coloured apparel honing the entrance of my store, the tall mannequins displaying range of outfits that I had chosen for my humble clothing store were no more the point of contentment. They had been standing tall since months without any avail. Even the effigies were now irritable and talking to each other,” “We stand for hours together to display our master’s couture in the best possible way. But are these so-called stylish garments even sellable?\nMy store is named after my daughter, “Asha”- meaning hope. Hope has been my constant companion since day one because I was not born with a silver spoon to start a business and that too in America. I hailed from a humble village from Rajasthan in India with Disneyland dreams and sky rocketing ambitions of becoming a successful clothing merchant in New Jersey.\nI was fortunate enough to reach America because my maternal uncle was a citizen of New Jersey and had a small apparel store in the city centre for almost 15 years. He needed some store help and sponsored my visa and stay. Entry into the States was like a childhood fantasy coming true in form and stature.\nIt was in 2015 that I came to New Jersey to play the game called “Life” and “Life with Apparel”. The uncle’s store was named ‘Aishwarya’ meaning abundance. It was a beautiful marble laden store with a wide array of Indian outfits, both casual and festive. New Jersey being replete with Indians and other Asian communities who wear Indian apparel, the business was thriving and satisfying for my uncle, Mr. Amit Chaudhary. My proper name is Mukesh Chaudhary but my pet name is ‘Manu’ and no one ever called me with my real name.\nThe first few years under his counsel were a huge learning experience. Right from ordering the stock from India to catering to the diverse needs of the customers in Jersey was no mere feat. We were so elated that even the local American folk would buy festive clothes mainly for Diwali parties from our outlet.\nAs Rajasthanis, business acumen flows in our every vessel, our ancestors for four generations were affluent clothing merchants and uncle was no exception. My nostrils used to always swell with pride and adulation to see my uncle flourish so well and so rapidly.\nThe repute of ‘Aishwarya’ as a classical Indian apparel store was spreading far and wide. Customers started flooding from neighbouring towns and cities and business proposals started knocking the door. One of the exciting proposals was to start another outlet in New York, the city of dreams. I was kind of counting my blessings and sustaining the multiple butterflies in my stomach; I desperately wanted to flee to New York and come out of my own- metamorphose from a larva to a variegated butterfly.\nWith a quivering voice, I buckled all the courage to broach this topic to my great Chaudhary Uncle. His out of the world, large persona with an equally large belly and an awkward gait added to his intimidating aura, a striking sheen. I said, “Amit Uncle, Can I lead the New York store? As it is you are so busy and tied up here.Moreover, most of the consumers seek your opinion while making sartorial choices. Hence, it would be salutary if you continue your brilliance here whilst I start seeing light at the start of this new fashion tunnel in New York- a city where dreams are made of.\nHis mind was neck deep in this quandary whether to exercise complete trust on me or as usual behave like a shrewd businessman and give me a limited sense of authority-in other words do not take me as a partner but as an employee like all these years. I don’t have a clue about the musings of human mind and its infinite and voracious appetite for power and power only. I was his kin, but he still harboured doubts and that was painful to say the least.\nAfter days of pondering, he finally decided to delegate the project ‘New York’ to me after a lot of deliberation. I was feeling on cloud nine to say the least. It was 2nd January of 2019 that our store, ‘Asha’ was inaugurated in the heart of New York. I was the clothing ambassador of our Indian dream – shimmering skirts called as ‘lehengas’ and glamorous blouses that the brides and the families wore with scintillating pride and élan.\nAs expected from day three itself, there was a considerable footfall especially for expensive wedding trousseaus that we so sheerly cherished and maintained for so many years. We had the facility of even stitching made-to-order, elaborately embroidered pieces carefully worked upon by the deft artisans from Rajasthan.\nThe first year went considerably well after which COVID ensued and everything changed for worst. The business went back to square one when uncle had started almost 15 years ago. All my dreams were crashed in a flash. I was unable to go to the store almost for 7 months due to the lockdown and the rapport with the clientele had dropped to zero. Upon that, our clothing was meant for festivities and hence the sale was very seasonal. I used to think, what will happen if I am not able to open the store. The outfits need to be refreshed, given some air; there was so much of daily research about new Indian styles which had gone into a complete inertia and there was key investment dying there behind closed doors.\nNobody wants to go back to square one, not even in the simple game of snakes and ladders; so how could we cope easily and nonchalantly with this mess called as ‘COVID rout’. Even the apparel was feeling strangulated and wanted to shed off plastic covers and flaunt their elegance on respective brides and girls. Everyone likes a bit of vanity and my clothes and mannequins weren’t an exception. Each one of them wanted to visit affluent houses and get cosy in the classy closets.\nAfter a gap of seven months, I finally got a chance to open my store again. The keys jangled in my palms urging to open the door and jump on the system’s table. I finally opened the outer shutter and the inner glass door. Off I went inside and shed a warm tear. I can’t articulate the feeling of coming back to my radiant clothes, the sacred thread with my beloved India and the pride to represent something with complete conviction.\nFor the first and the last time ,I was in seventh heaven to be back on square one only to be better and a more abundant version of myself." } ]

[ { "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 Riddle of Snow Mountain\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1429\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story set in the summer, when suddenly it starts to snow." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "It is summer in old Tanzania. And while people in their neighboring cities and towns are headed for the beaches the natives of Tanzania converge to Snow Mountain to witness a son's, a nephew's, a cousin's, a neighbor's, friend's or an enemy's Coming of Age or Rite of Passage.\nOn the eve of the initiation, candidates should have been registered duly with the screening committee. The candidates should at least be twelve years old on the eve of the actual Rite or exactly thirteen years old at the stroke of midnight the following day. All qualified candidates would assemble in two large tents at a dedicated area of the camp. Only the mothers and nannies of candidates are allowed inside the tent. There, they rub oil on their boy's body to keep them from frost and insect bites. Mama Fadhila, whose name means beautiful, is busy instructing the nanny to rub more oil on her son, Elimu's (whose name means education; has been trained only by the best teachers in town) body. He had never left the palace grounds to hunt rabbits or swim in the rivers. He learned all the musical instruments and the martial arts.\nMeanwhile, inside the other tent, Mama Adla, (which stands for justice; the la ending of this name will make her stand out from the rest.) gently reminds Adil ( whose name means just, righteous, honest) her son to just concentrate on the task at hand and to fight fair, whatever happened.\nMemories soon begin marching in her mind. She remembers the first time she and her infant son arrive in the village. Her folks fell in love with Adil at first sight. The boy's grandmother took care of him while Adla worked at the governor's office to earn a living for her and her son. In the morning before she left for work, she would breastfeed little Adil and pump two bottles from her breasts for the boy's lunch and afternoon beverage. Grandmother fed, bathed, told him bedtime stories and tucked him to bed. She nursed the boy when he was sick. Adla's brother trained the little boy in the ways of the forest as a hunter. He would bring him along to hunt wild animals for food. He taught him how to climb mountains safely during the wet and dry seasons and when there were flurries and snow. He taught Adil how to swim fierce rivers and fight the cold winter months in the Afican deserts. And the boy grew up strong and sturdy as an oak. And Adla was glad and thankful for all the help and everything her family had blessed her with.\n.........\nAt the foot of Snow Mountain two huge tents were likewise erected on either side of the camp. One housed the medical team and the medical equipments; stretchers, oxygen flasks and tanks, and all necessary tools and kits. The other housed the judges from a neighboring country, (not from Tanzania to avoid suspicion and specultation about biases and unfairness.) The judges while the time away trying to solve the riddle of Snow Mountain: What secret does the snow hide that is carried by the wind and the water is soon to reveal?\nA minute before midnight, the doors of the tents are thrown open and the candidates emerge, looking good and stripped naked. There were only two of them.\nThe master of ceremonies faces the candidates. He is startled at what he sees. He cannot believe his eyes. He shakes his head.\n\"Am I dreaming? I vow I have not drank one drop of whiskey or any intoxicating alcohol. Why am I seeing double?\" he mutters to himself. \"There are only two candidates and they look very much alike.\"\nThe boys take a hint from the emcee and look at each other. They are astonished to discover that they looked alike. Dopelganger?\nThe mbira is sounded and the master of ceremonies raises his right hand holding the gun high up in the air. He fires one blank bullet and the boys start to run the Rongai Route which is the prefered route because it is the easiest route to Snow Mountain.. Adla runs in the sidelines with them.\nAll of a sudden people run to cover themselves from what they think is snow. But it is only flurry. Flurries are everywhere. The racetrack is all wet now.\nAdil is way ahead of his opponent. But halfway through the race to the Snow Mountain, he stops, looks back and realizes that Elimu had stumbled and had fallen. Adil retraces his step and helps him back to his feet. Then he continues to run until he reaches the foot of the mountain.\nPeople start cajoling the weaker candidate. But some good-natured ones, try to encourage him. \"Come on, it is only a few meters away. You can do it! Come on! \" And \"Consider the prize!\" The prize would be a full scholarship to the best schools abroad and the privilege to live in the Emperor's palace..\nBut Elimu could hardly run. He walks the rest of the stretch and collapses flat on his face at the foot of the mountain.\nAdla reaches the foot of the mountain and rushes to her son's side. The judges raise Adil's right hand even though he had not ascended the mountain, This is called victory by default.\nDoctors frantically try to resucitate Elimu. At that exact moment, Adla sees through the corner of her eye the birthmark on the back of the boy's left thigh.\n\"My son! My son!\" she shrieks. \"If this boy is my son, who then is the boy that I have raised and nurtured so lovingly these past twelve years?\"she asks nobody in particular. but herslf.\nThe crowds gasp in surprise. They are puzzled.\nThe palace nanny who has been sworn to secrecy for the past twelve years could not help but step up and blurt out the truth. \"I am sorry, Adla, I truly am so sorry. But my mistress Fadhila had forced me to switch your son for hers while you were drugged.\"\n\"Drugged! Who drugged me?\" Adla demanded.\n\"I did,\" the nanny admitted ruefully. \"My mistress Fadhila had ordered a concoction from Cairo to put in your cup of tea.\"\n\"Why would she do that?\"\n\"She was desperate. She had no milk and .because she couldn't nurse her baby she took desperate measures to cope with her deficiency. She did not want her baby to die.\"\n\"She could have given her baby formula milk. Why didn't she? What else did she do that I should know?\"\n\"She also let me put her ring in your bag to make it appear that you stole it. That way the Emperor had a valid reason to banish you. She was jealous of you. Oh, I am sorry. I hope you can forgive me.\"\n\"Forgive you? You scoundtel! I can never forgive you and your mistress. Get out of my face!\" Adla shouts at her. \"And tell your mistress I am suing her for kidnapping my son!\"\nAnd while Adla and her family gather at the foot of Snow Mountain to mourn the passing of their true kin, the god of Snow Mountain suddenly weeps voluminous tears of sorrow in the form of snow. And all the Tanzanians wept with the family.\nWord reaches the Emperor at the palace. He is overcome with rage for the death of the boy he had grown to love and groomed to be his heir. He orders the arrest of Fadhila, who at that point had fled to Cairo to hide and avoid prosecution.\nAfter the funeral, the Emperor orders his staff to prepare the Empress Suites for the homecoming of Adla, the new Empress of Tanzania.\nA month later, Fadhila is arrested in Cairo by the Egyptian police. She is brought back to Tanzania to be executed.\nAfter the days of mourning and restoration are over, we can find the judges still speculating and trying to solve the riddle of Snow Mountain at a watering hole in Tanzania.\n\"I give up! I swear this riddle is a hard nut to crack!\" one judge complains.\nThen, out of the blue one of the bar tenders volunteers, \"Now we know the secret that the god of Snow Mountain had tried to conceal from us.\"\n\"Yes,\" confirms another, \"Now we also know why the candidates looked alike. They are in fact both sons of the Emperor. One from his wife, the other from his concubine.\" That solves the Riddle of The Snow Mountain" } ]

[ { "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: Route 173\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 2993\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story where someone insists on giving your main character a ride to the airport, only for their car to break down." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“You know? Maybe this is a sign from the universe. Nowadays we live life so fast we’d hardly even notice if it ‘poofed’ into thin air! Think about how much we’ve missed trying to rush to the end instead of trying to enjoy things as they come. Maybe we all need to just slow down, take the easy route, you know?”\n“Rael you crashed the goddamn car.”\n“And?”\n“You blew up the engine, destroyed the hood, there’s a cylindrical dent in the roof…”\n“And?”\n“Because you were going so fast you somehow crashed into a cactus.”\n“Exactly! We were going too fast, the universe made us slow down!”\n“It’s a straight road! In the middle of the desert!”\n“...And…?”\nJonah put his head in his hands and screamed, a cry of anguish echoing for miles. If anyone had been remotely nearby, the two would’ve been saved fairly easily. But they weren’t so lucky, not even close. If there was some contest for ‘unluckiest people ever,’ the two of them would be walking on stage right now to get their trophies. Well, Jonah would. Hell, he’d be ecstatic to finally have retribution for years of pain, maybe trip over himself as he walked onstage to really sell the deal. Rael would probably forget to set his alarm and end up drooling on the couch. Typical Rael. But no, they weren’t so lucky for that either. Instead they were sitting on a roadside in the middle of Arizona. Surrounded only by dirt, dried up bushes and cacti for miles around, and a totalled Corvette, they were completely and utterly screwed. The road they traveled, Route 173, stretched across the open desert, connecting a small handful of towns miles away from Phoenix’s outer rings. The road was seldom traveled, so seldom repaired and thus traveled less. It was a wild road, a factor that contributed to the accident, while also making it unlikely help would ever come. The sun had already awoken, and without any shade or air conditioning, it would seem the universe had a slow, hot death planned for the duo. Jonah released a deep sigh, his only comfort that it wasn’t his car. If only Rael had been able to drive in a straight line. No, if he’d never asked Rael in the first place, they wouldn’t be here. Rael, however, was quite content. He had a chance he’d only dreamed of for years, spending another day with his best friend.\nRael glanced at his stalwart, sobbing companion. He wrapped an arm around Jonah, who was too sad to resist. Part of him felt bad for crashing the car. Rael’d always been a happy-go-lucky type kid, the go-with-the-flow always-get-in-trouble kind. Office jobs and business nonsense was his personal hell, he’d learned that from the week it took him to get fired last year before he returned to his perpetual state as high-school-dropout-amateur-guitar-player. He’d always thought them a waste of life. Jonah was a perfect example with his short but uncombed hair, unnaturally grey for a man in his twenties, baggy eyes and business shirt. But regardless of what he thought about them, this had been a day of great importance. Yeah, Rael felt very guilty, even if he didn’t know why it was so important, but he refused to show it. It was against his principles to submit to negative emotions. They were here now, and he was going to make the most of it. He patted Jonah on the shoulder. “It’ll be alright.”\nJonah wanted to punch Rael. Hard. ‘It’ll be alright?’ What a load of crap. Yet, he couldn’t. He knew Rael didn’t mean it, not really. For how many times Rael got sent to the principal's office during their eleven years at school together, it was never because he actually meant to do something bad. He was just being annoying. Usually it was the dress code, that waterfall of hair dyed a million colors, the tank top and shredded jeans. He looked like a walking chemical spill, still did in fact, but he was harmless. The worst thing Rael did was pull the fire alarm once in high school to get out of finals. It was quite a surprise for people learning he was best friends with the stereotypical All-As-Chinese-Nerd. Jonah chuckled, his mind drifting back to this distant memory. It’d been what, six years since they’d last talked? Back then Rael had dreamed of being some rockstar movie actor. Jonah had wanted to be an architect. He wiped away the last of his tears and stood up, taking in the arid landscape. He looked down at the weirdo beside him, lending a hand. “Need help?” Rael grabbed hold. “Sure thing.” In the end neither of them had lived up to those dreams. They were both still in the same spot, lost in the middle of nowhere.\n“So, Mr. Sir PhD Esquire… what now?” Rael rested his hands on his hips, grinning as they stepped into the sands. Jonah frowned.\n“No clue. We could try to get help. You think anyone lives here? Maybe a rancher or something?”\nRael pouted, an unusual occurrence for him. That never failed. For all the years he’d known Jonah that never failed. Sure, it stopped being actually funny years ago but it always got some reaction. Rael’s pout shifted, genuine worry creeping in. Maybe things had changed too much. Just as Jonah turned, Rael hid his expression. “You have your phone on you? Mine’s…” He gestured towards the accordioned front of the car. “Not available.” \nRael patted his pockets.\n“Nope.”\n“Well we’re screwed.”\n“C’mon, we gotta try! Besides, a hike’ll be good for you. Maybe we’ll find something cool!”\n“I guess…”\nA moment of silence, uncomfortable silence. Rael leaned down to scoop up some sand. He had another idea.\n“This sand… the consistency, the texture… it’s just like… the sand of the desert of Imagland!”\nImagland. That stupid name. It hit Jonah like a bullet.\n“God, I can’t believe you remember that! That was fifteen years ago!”\n“What? It was fun! Making stories, playing pretend, running ‘round the sandbox. I’m not exaggerating, it does feel like that sand, I remember what my favorite sand feels like! Plus you remember Imagland too!”\nJonah scoffed, a smile creeping onto his face. \n“Rael, it’s sand of course it’s similar… It’d be nice to go back. Not having to worry about grades or work or rent.”\nJonah looked out across the wilderness. He could see. The scarlet-hued mesas transformed into a plastic fortress, the capital of Imagland. Cacti morphed into the monkeybars, a treacherous jungle full of monsters. A packrat’s den formed the maw of the tire-swing, a portal to another realm. And of course the sandbox, the desert of creation, manifesting in the oceans of sand flowing into the horizon. Here he was again, looking over his kingdom alongside his mischievous yet loyal right-hand-man, Lord MC Junior III. Such wonderfully simple days.\n“It’s Dr.”\n“Huh?”\n“You said Mr.. It’s Dr. Sir Smart PhD Esquire.” \nRael released a big toothy grin. \n“You do remember!”\nThe two laughed together, chatting a while about their youth as they strolled through the sands of the past. When the laughter died, replaced with silence, it was different silence, a warm silence. Companions, walking side by side.\nTheir memories were disintegrated by the noon sun. Growing up in a small desert town with poor air conditioning, the two were used to heat, but there was only so much they could withstand. Their skin had begun to crack.\n“Let’s head back.”\n“Mhm. Looks like Imagland Castle will have to wait another day. A tragedy.”\n“Or another fifteen years knowing us. Why haven’t they overthrown us?”\n“Because we’re just that goddamn cool.”\nJonah snorted.\nThe metal car was painful to even look at in the heat. It’d already been a hot mess, but this was too much. Jonah froze in disbelief. He couldn’t believe he thought up such a dumb joke. Just spending time around Rael was intoxicating. If he spent any longer he’d be too deranged to work. Then he’d lose his job, his whole life, then he’d be no better a position than Rael himself. Not that he was going to make it. Based on the sun he was supposed to arrive at the airport an hour ago. He might as well give into the lunacy, but principle forbade him. Maybe someone would find them, maybe he could catch a late flight, maybe the boss would understand. There was still hope for salvation.\nRael yelped as he opened the trunk, burning himself on the metal before being trampled by a wave of luggage. Jonah brushed off his thoughts and went to get his bags. From within his backpack, he pulled out a bottle of water. Glorious water. Though scaldingly hot, it was a miracle for the two chapped boys. Jonah took a gulp before wordlessly handing it to Rael. A moment of heavenly relief before they returned to scorching reality. There was no shade to hide in, so the two just sat there, gazing off into nothingness.\n“I’m sorry, by the way.”\n“Huh?”\n“About crashing the car. I know how much this meant for you. I got energetic and went too fast. It was a stupid mistake-”\n“You got that, idiot.”\n“Hey!”\nJonah snorted.\n“Continue.”\n“I’ve missed you, that’s all. We never see each other anymore! Then there I was, on the couch eating pizza, and you text me for the first time in years, saying you need a ride to the airport! I was ecstatic! And that’s why I had so much energy. And I’m sorry for messing you up all those times in high school, and… Ugh. This isn’t an excuse. Just wanted to say my peace.”\nJonah analyzed Rael’s expression. For once he couldn’t get a read on his emotions. He’d gotten so good at it in school, he could predict when he was about to cause a scene just from the smirk. But now, he was unsure. Maybe it was just time, but Jonah'd never seen so somber of an expression on his face. He felt guilt wash over him. He hadn’t realized.\n“I’m sorry too.”\n“What for?”\n“For ditching you. It’s just, I needed to focus on school then college then work. And after the fire alarm incident… I know you didn’t mean it. I meant to reconnect but I lost track of time. I only messaged you yesterday cause my car broke and I needed a ride. You were the first person I thought of, don’t know why.”\n“Aww, Joney missed me?”\n“No! It’s not like that. I mean, this was a big deal. My company had this business trip planned since we’re signing off a massive contract. Boss wanted me to be there, to help with the pitch. This was my last chance! Either this got me promoted or fired. I’d been having bad luck with work, I really needed this, and- I got too caught up in the future. I used you. I shouldn’t have done that. I should’ve been a better friend. I most sincerely apologize.”\nRael was dumbfounded for a second before the elastic smile stretched over his face again. \n“Apology accepted.”\n“Whew. Than-”\n“Under one condition! We hang out again. After… this.”\n“Right.”\nJonah simply sat there, content. \n“Hey I’m gonna… get something from the trunk. Be back in a sec.”\nRael stood, walking delicately. As he began his journey, Jonah watched closely. Indescribable confusion overcame him. He couldn’t decide whether the sight was of sheer luck or misfortune. So many things had to happen to spot this. The back of Rael’s shirt rode up an inch, exposing his back pocket. The sunlight reflected just right, hitting something... glass? The fact he’d been watching was sheer coincidence. But now, everything had changed. Rael had his phone.\n“Rael, buddy?”\n“What’s up?”\n“Stay right there. Don’t move.”\n“Ok?”\nJonah slithered to his feet, sneaking behind Rael, who stood frozen, one hand in the trunk.\nRael was shaking. His body ached from fatigue, but more than that he was scared of Jonah. He knew that look. He’d seen it once before, on the worst day of his life. He felt Jonah’s shadow loom over as he stepped behind. He braced for impact.\n“Rael?”\n“Mhm?”\n“What’s in your pocket?”\nJonah reached down and fished it out. He clicked the power button. The screen flashed on. Rael turned, anxiety coursing through him.\n“Jonah. I can explain.”\n“Explain? Rael what is wrong with you!?”\nHere it came, the anger. Resentment for the misfortune, the unspoken sacrifices, the missed opportunities. All this bad luck, because of him. Rael, for the first time in his life, truly felt fear. Jonah exploded.\n“YOU HAD YOUR PHONE THIS WHOLE TIME?”\n“Jonah, please–”\n“No, YOU, ‘please!’ We could have died. I thought, this might be our LAST DAY ALIVE, and you held salvation in your hand and you refused to give it to me. WHY? Because you MISSED ME? How selfish are you? I give up EVERYTHING for you, and even when I don’t you still more! YOU’RE the reason I couldn’t become an architect, why I missed out on my dream school. Every time you got caught, I bailed you out. When you were short on a car payment, I lended you money. When you needed help studying, I lost sleep tutoring you! And HOW do you repay me? By pulling a fire alarm during FINALS!? You get YOURSELF expelled, and get ME suspended by association, because we ALL know Rael and Jonah are best friends! You’re a bad luck charm, Rael! And when I TRY to reconnect with you, when I try to forgive you, you try to KILL US? KILL YOURSELF, DON’T TAKE ME TOO!”\nSilence.\n“SAY SOMETHING!”\nThose eyes. Jonah knew these eyes. He’d seen them that day, the last day they spoke. When the alarms died, they were all he saw. A look of guilt, of shame. Eyes welled as the vision blurred. Jonah froze. What did he just say?\nHe heard only tears. A blur of light shoved past, launching Jonah into the trunk. Just like that he was gone. Footsteps pattered into the distance as Jonah sat dazed. At least in the trunk there was shade.\nFive minutes passed as Jonah sat there, staring into the sky, thinking. The weight in his chest he had let lash out now bore ever deeper. He looked at the phone in his hand, gripping it tight. He knew what he had to do. \nJonah ran through the jungle, monsters swiping at him from the trees. Through the treeline, he could barely make out the shape of stone towers. As much as he’d love to kill the beasts pursuing him, he didn’t have time. He was out of shape anyway. With a last leap, he burst through the foliage, landing in the sand. Before him stood ruins of scarlet plastic. What had become of this place? As he stepped forward, Jonah adjusted his crown. Amidst the rubble stood a solitary figure, his hair flowing to the floor. The last resident of Imagland. “Rael.”\n“...”\n“...Lord MC Junior III?”\nRael turned, tears running down his cheek.\n“I’m sorry.”\n“You already said that.”\n“I’ve failed you as king.”\n“King of what? We’re king of nothing now!”\n“I know. I shouldn’t have let this happen…”\nRael looked away.\n“It’s too late. I’m sorry. Just leave me to die.”\nNo. He needed more. Jonah squeezed his eyes tight and thought. He imagined.\nAround them the ruins flew back together, forming a grand hall, littered with stone tables and miserable peasants. At the front sat the figure of a young Dr. Sir PhD Esquire. Underprepared, overwhelmed. Hidden in the shadows lay Lord MC Junior III. Rael turned to face Jonah.\n“Why are you showing me this? I get it! I hurt you!”\nIn cue, a blazing alarm went off. The peasants fled, leaving Doctor alone at his desk, Lord stepping out of the darkness. From the windows, knights clad in hideous armor swooped in, surrounding the duo. Lord turned to Doctor. “I’m sorry. I meant to do this for you.” Doctor’s face had turned red with rage. Their eyes met, one of rage, one of shame. Lord winced, bracing for impact. But nothing came.\n“I know,” Doctor said.\n“What?”\n“You pulled the alarm to get me out of finals. I was underprepared and you wanted to help. It didn’t work, but even if you hadn’t pulled the alarm, I would’ve failed anyway.”\n“But, I ruined your life,” Lord protested, “you said it yourself, I’m a bad luck charm! I’ve ruined everything!”\n“Don’t be ridiculous. Bad luck happens to everyone. The only difference is how we deal with it. I blamed it all on you, and did that make my life better? No! I’m a financial risk calculator! Kicking you out just made my life dull. It made both of our lives miserable. It’s not your fault, it was never your fault. I’ve missed you too.”\nLord stood there, stunned. The knights faded back into the shadow, leaving just the two of them. A whirring noise erupted as the roof of the castle ripped open, a spiral vortex looming overhead. A portal to another dimension, rumor had it. Spotlights and a ladder fell from the vortex, falling beside the two men. Doctor held up a remote, a magic device from another time.\nJonah reached out his hand.\n“You ready to go on another adventure, bud?”\nRael grabbed hold.\n“Let’s do this.”\nAs they flew up into the sky, they gazed down at the ruins of their old home, the sands flowing beneath them. It was ruined, but that didn’t matter. They were together again, and whenever they finished warping through this wormhole, they would tackle the dimension on the other side together. No matter what bad luck they faced this time, they wouldn’t face it alone." } ]

[ { "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: 1847, 1914, 1940, 1982\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1813\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story told exclusively through dialogue." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“Good morning Mr?”\n“Call me Malcolm, everyone does.”\n“Alright Malcolm, my name is William Gladwell. Please have a seat just right over there. Can I offer you anything? Coffee, tea, water?”\n“Some coffee if you please….do you mind if I light my cigarette?”\n“No, not at all.”\n“I swore to my momma I’d stop smoking after I got out of the army, she’d whoop me if- Oops...God damn.”\n“Oh let me, I have a lighter here. I don’t smoke but it’s always good to have one handy. My father always carried a book of matches himself, before he upgraded to a lighter. There we are.”\n“Thank you, thank you.”\n“So we...well, I know we talked about it on the phone,”\n“Uh-huh.”\n“We’re interviewing many other men, your name popped up on my list. We will record most everything, some things we may cut for the documentary.”\n“Uh-huh, uh-huh.”\n“Uhhh, I recoken that’s about it. Any time you are ready.”\n“No one’s gonna do my hair or make-up or nothing?”\n“They’d have to do mine honestly. It’s more….candid you know. We just want to see you as you are and who you are. Documentaries are more….not honest but I’m sure there’s a word for it.”\n“Huh, the closest I ever got to a documentary was the news.”\n“Ah, I’ve got friends in the news, they do the cameras and such. I chose film-making, thank you, Ryan, it’s not luxurious but it is quite wonderful.”\n“I don’t envy you, but hey, gotta do what makes you happy right.”\n“I would say so yes.”\n“Coffee’s good, you make this?”\n“It’s not instant coffee,”\n“It’s delicious. Not as good as my wife’s but it’s good.”\n“Alright, need anything else? No. Alright, I’ve got the camera rolling. For the opening will you tell us your name, how old you are, where you’re from etc?”\n“Well, uh, I’m Malcolm Brown. I was born in New Jersey but was raised in New York. I uh...I live in the Bronx now with my wife and two kids. One boy and girl. My wife’s name is Lizabeth, and my son Jacob and my daughter Anne.”\n“Ah, and what do you do now?”\n“Well, I work at a printing press. Been there for about...seven years,”\n“You fought in Vietnam yes?”\n“Yeah, I was drafted in 1940, got a draft notice on my birthday.”\n“1940 Mr. Brown?”\n“Oh! Did I say 40? 70, I meant 1970, that’s when I was drafted.”\n“And you were stationed in New Jersey?”\n“Yup rode up there with a group of boys. We were all huddled together, when we got out it was raining. You could smell the countryside from where you were standing. The commanding officer Lionel Becket, now he was a real sonofabitch. Can I swear?”\n“Of course. Please explain.”\n“He was a racist, yelled slurs at every single man he met.”\n“Did he address you as a…ahem.”\n“Uh-huh. He got thrown a blanket party a few times.”\n“Did you participate?”\n“I’m not sure if I should say.”\n“Understandable. Tell me about the base you were stationed at.”\n“It was kinda cramped, you know. The bunks were nice, you were in the same room with a group of boys, and you had your trunks at the end...Hm, the showers were this….wide open room. We all showered together, that wasn’t new to me. I wasn’t the youngest there, you know? There was a boy who was much younger than me, 14 years old. His name was George Tucker, poor little thing, he burst into tears when the commanding officer yelled at him the first time.”\n“14 years, by God, how could that happen?”\n“Hm...how old are you Mr. Gladwell?”\n“I’m 26 last month,”\n“Ah, so your father he wasn’t drafted was he?”\n“No, but my grandfather was.”\n“Hm,”\n“He told me some things...never in depth. He liked to talk about the locals he met when they passed through towns. He was a medic, always had great respect for the nurses he worked with.”\n“Yeah, I’ve never told my wife anything either. I hoped maybe I won’t have to. The first thing I ever showed her was the pictures I drew on the fields. When we sat at the base, I drew and tried to make sure I never lost any of ‘em. Drew a self-portrait once, my wife has it framed. All of my hair was really grown out then, that was the first thing my mother did when I got home, cut my hair. Anyway….”\n“Would you like to stop for a moment?”\n“No, no, I need another cigarette.”\n“Certainly,”\n“Little tired, I’m sorry.”\n“There is no need to apologize.”\n“.....I uh, you ever up past midnight? One AM, two AM?”\n“Urgh, three at the latest for me.”\n“Hm, was up last night with my daughter. She’s got a cold, so I stayed up and read to her. You ever….notice how when you’re awake so late, you feel those thoughts you try to fight down?”\n“How do you mean?”\n“Life….is so draining sometimes. You wake up every day, you kiss your wife, and you go to work. You do it every day. In some ways, it gets easier, but in other ways, it gets so much harder. Besides watching my mother and children get older, I think it’s seeing time pass you by. It’s knowing there’s nothing you can do but live and try to make things better for yourself. You move around, you talk to people, you just…..try. It’s pretty exhausting sometimes?”\n“I agree yes.”\n“........well, what were we talkin’ about?”\n“Well, can I point something out? As we’ve been speaking I noticed your boots there.”\n“Oh yeah, you like ‘em?”\n“My grandfather was friends with many of the paratroopers, he told me they took great care because they were special shoes. Only given to them because of their position. Those boots have the shine of those shoes.”\n“Ha, yeah. I like how they look you know. When I was younger, much younger, never had a good pair of shoes. Used to run around barefoot, which gave me strong feet but it’s nice to have something for yourself you know.”\n“Yes, indeed……..do you know the name, John Laurens?”\n“Lt. Laurens? I was in his battalion-”\n“Mr. Brown.”\n“Huh, what’s wrong-......you turned the camera off right?”\n“Yes, yes, just before I asked you yes.”\n“......is this a documentary?”\n“Yes, it is. Though I am not making a war documentary.”\n“I see. How did you find me? How did you know?”\n“I’m not here to expose you without permission, please understand this. I saw a painting my grandfather made, a beautiful one I’d say. It was set in the Victorian era...a family of black Victorians, bright-eyed and lovely. Now I swore the father looked just like you, handsome and with such beautiful eyes. The eyes of a man whose wisdom was beyond….centuries of life. I thought he looked like you, like your military photograph you know. I thought perhaps I could make a connection! An exciting connection. I looked into it for myself and found...well, his name was always Malcolm, though his last name was different despite his appearance never seems to change…...you are not good at covering your tracks, but….did you ever want to be discovered?”\n“.................”\n“Mr. Brown?”\n“Maybe. Maybe I did want someone to know. If someone was like me…..are you?”\n“No, sadly. My grandfather, however, is. My grandmother passed many years ago, and it is hard now. He told me because he wanted to tell someone, anyone. He regretted that he never told her. He wasn’t sure if anyone else in the family was the same. I am not, I age perfectly normal. And no one, as far as I know, is the same.”\n“Hm.”\n“Are you alright Mr. Brown? I know this might be very jarring.”\n“I dunno. I’m not angry or anything like that.”\n“I have deceived you, and I apologize for that.”\n“You’re making a war documentary aren’t you?”\n“Well, yes. I’m supposed to be. Though-”\n“Turn the camera back on. Mr. Gladwell…..please, I insist upon it.”\n“.......”\n“Alright, what the hell were we talking about?”\n“Would you like to talk about Vietnam now?”\n“Oh God, what’d ya want to know about Vietnam?”\n“What was it like?”\n“Well, it was beautiful, God it was unlike anything I’d ever seen. It was all green and trees and life. But you know, it was so scary….terrifying, because you know people were in the trees. You had to listen and watch but they were there. I have really bad dreams sometimes, about the trees. I can smell the napalm.”\n“Hmm, what was your position?”\n“I was a paratrooper.”\n“Oh, I see.”\n“It was a mix of us, black and white soldiers. My group, my battalion, we were all close. Which was properly unusual for the time. The black soldiers were treated….I’m sure you could imagine. Couldn’t listen to Malcolm X on the radios, some of the other soldiers carted around the confederate flag. Had ‘em on the Jeeps and all that.”\n“Jesus. Another soldier, his name was Martian, he told us about the graffiti in the toilets. Men would crave the N-word into the walls.”\n“Uh-huh saw those too. A friend of mine, Dick, once beat the hell out of another man during a drunken fit. I got called an ape so Dick attacked him on my behalf. He was so lucky he didn’t get court marshaled honestly. I thought it was dumb as hell, but I can’t say I wasn’t smiling all day.”\n“Do you still talk?”\n“Yup, saw him last Christmas. He’s married now, got a beautiful wife and two sons. He lives maybe...two hours away from where we are.”\n“Can I ask you something?”\n“Course.”\n“In the duration of your life, do you….feel guilty about living through it all? Knowing one day you will leave all of them behind.”\n“No, no, not guilt, sadness. It’s really, really depressing sometimes. That’s why I draw you know. So I can have a little bit of everything around me you know. Oh let me show you. I gotta picture in my wallet here….yeah, here we are. That’s my lady, and my daughter right there and my son on the other side there.”\n“Oh, she’s a lovely woman.”\n“Yeah, she’s beautiful.”\n“Your son looks most like you.”\n“God I’d rather he looks like his Momma. He’s got her nose and hair but he looks more like me on his chin and the eyes. He’s got my eyes.”\n“.........sorry, you draw very well.”\n“Thank you.”\n“Well...it’s been an hour. Would you like to stop now Malcolm?”\n“No, no, you got me here. Now we have to keep talking.”\n“Are you sure? You really want to keep talking to me?”\n“Uh-huh.”\n“That’s...wonderful news Mr. Malcolm.”\n“You think anybody is gonna watch this?”\n“Well, I think someone will.”" } ]

[ { "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 a Lonely Place\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1004\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about somebody whose intentions are pure, but somehow always manages to do the wrong thing." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "My roommate aggravates me. She makes me want to bang my head against a wall.\nI've known her since we were little. Our moms used to bring us to the only swing set between our houses. There were only two rusty swings with rubber seats that chafed our legs in the summer. We were always the last two to be picked up by the school bus because that was how the route went, so we always sat in the last two seats on the bus. Our parents were the only Chinese immigrants within miles of our middle-class suburb, so they liked to get together for long hours, whispering by the kitchen island. Looking back they were probably gossiping about the other moms and comparing their kids' extracurriculars. They would stand there kneading dumpling dough for so long that we were certain we'd never get to actually eat the dumplings. We were both only children so we sat together watching The Little Mermaid on VHS because we had nothing else to do. We faced the tv, shoulder to shoulder every Sunday night until we became real friends. By chance or by fate- we became sister-like, bonded by common environment, confinement of seats, and parental figures who grasped at each other to feel some sense of community in a foreign place.\nA few years after graduating from college, we both moved to New York City. She reached out and asked if we might live together as roommates. I was hesitant- we were always so different, and she had quirks that confused me at times.\nMoving to the city was not easy for me. In my mid-twenties I felt overwhelmed, underwhelmed, over-stimulated, yet exceedingly lonely in a cycle of never-ending 9 to 5. The friends I had in college lived elsewhere, and any sense of belonging I once had felt more like a memory with each passing day. But she felt familiar, so I agreed and she was overjoyed.\nWhen we moved in, she became interested in collecting plants for the apartment. It started with a succulent, then grew to be a jungle of all types- some with Swiss cheese holes, some with pinstripes, and some with pointed tips. Most she found by wandering the streets of New York, which she did often in her free time. One time, she found a 40 pound potted plant on a stoop and called me out of breath, to bring a cart out to transport it back home. I begrudgingly agreed and told her she needed to Lysol the whole damn thing in the hallway before it was allowed inside.\nTo make sure our plants had enough air and direct light, she opened our apartment windows for a few hours a day. Soon, I noticed dozens of small flies circling our apartment endlessly- we'd smack one down with a slipper and another would appear. This went on for months. I later found out she'd also go into my room without my permission to crack open my windows when I was away on the weekends.\nI told her to close the windows as we didn't have mesh guards on our windows and she agreed to close the windows and bring her plants to tan with her in Central Park instead.\nShe also wanted to pick up new hobbies. She was passionate about being eco-friendly, so she decided to start making her own dishwasher pods.\nShe ordered bags of soap flakes and baking soda from Amazon and got to work. She used all of our ice cube trays to pack in the powdery components, and let them sit out on our kitchen table over night to dry and completely harden into \"pods\". Eventually, we ran out of store-bought pods- you know, the normal kind- and I had to start using hers. Every time we ran the dishwasher the dishes reeked of hot, leftover food. Stains were left in streaks of brownish orange. I told her that her pods did not work and that our dishes were still dirty. Don't worry, she said. I'm going to tweak my recipe. I could not wait for her to tweak her recipe, I was frustrated and quite frankly disgusted. So I bought a 500 pack of pods from Amazon and Venmo charged her for half. She accepted the request.\nSix months into living together, her mother passed away. I held her as she cried from night through morning. We stayed bent in the corner of her sun-streaked room, cradled between two lush plants that she'd painstakingly raised by methodically misting, repotting, and repeating. Over the next several months, I tried to do the same for her, methodically taking all the steps I thought I should take to bring her back to life. I revisited her corner every day, opened the blinds, brought a cup of tea, and repeated. I found myself wanting to take care of her, like she took care of us in our little apartment. I wanted to nurture her in little ways, just the way she re-purposed every plant she found abandoned on an apartment stoop, gave each one light, fresh air, and the right amount of water. I wanted to share tenderness with her the way she always did with me... the way she cracked open my window to air out my plants when I was away for too long.\nThe way she tried to make dishwasher pods for us to share, and the way she chose not to be offended by my critique when I rejected her oddities.\nThe way she poured kindness into our living space, and the way she included me in her endeavors to rescue every abandoned plant in New York City, so that we could beautify our home together.\nA year has passed. We still have too many dirty stoop plants and dirty dishes, and she still makes me want to bang my head on the wall from time to time. But I think we're both grateful to have found a home in a lonely, foreign 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: Wabi Sabi\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 2434\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone finding a treasure in an unexpected place." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Wabi Sabi\n\n\nCherry blossoms float\n Carpeting the earth in pink\n Spring is here again.\n\n桜\n\nA flash of distinctive bright plumage draws my attention to a robin. Landing lightly on a branch, he dislodges a shower of petals. Throws back his head. Warbles his set piece: Cheerily-cheer-up, cheer-up, cheerily-cheer-up! A dusky companion joins him, and they flutter down to the ground to pull worms together.\n\nHarbingers, I say to myself. Cherry blossoms, robins, even earthworms. Walt, up the hill, mowing the field. A subtle shift in the quality of light. A soft breeze plays with my hair, carrying with it a faint almond scent. \n\nRecent rains have washed over the gravel driveway, leaving behind a layer of mud. I watch little rivulets of water trickle down the slope, changing course to go around some of the larger stones. My yard clogs squelch in the soggy soil, while weak sunshine tries to warm my back. Spring is here again.\n\nThere’s not much in the mailbox. An advertising flyer, a bulk rate envelope, a postcard from our optometrist. “Time for your eye exam.” I look in the box again. Fan the pages of the flyer to make sure there’s nothing stuck inside. \n\nA cloud crosses the pale sun, and I shiver a bit.\n\nThis is the first spring in fifty years that I haven’t received a card from Edith. \n 桜\n\nThirty-five students per classroom might seem a daunting prospect to modern teachers. Fifty years ago, it was standard. Then, I was young—just over twice the age of my charges—and enthusiasm overpowered inexperience. I could tackle anything! Or so I thought.\n\n“Good morning!” I smiled at the children filing into the classroom. “Welcome to sixth grade! I’m Miss Young. Your desks are labeled in alphabetical order. Please find your place and sit down.”\n\nAt age eleven or so, they’d figured out their relative positions in the class list. It didn’t take long for most of them to locate their desks and plop down, but one boy remained standing beside the only unoccupied desk. It took me a moment to realize he was grinning. \n\n“Is something funny?” I asked, raising my eyebrows and trying to sound stern. Was he going to be a troublemaker? \nQuickly consulting my seating chart, I looked across at the boy. \n“Douglas?” I hoped my voice didn’t sound uncertain. The name on my chart indicated that he was Douglas O’Hara. But—his Asian features didn’t match the name. \n\n“Yes!” He pointed to the placard on his desk and burst into a fit of giggles. “But my last name is Ōhara, not O’Hara. And by the way, I’m not related to Molly!” He flashed his dimples at me, and grinned at the girl behind him. \n\nI’ve always been a sucker for dimples… Douglas soon became one of my favorites.\n\nThe sixth grade curriculum included cultural studies, and I figured the best approach was to concentrate on the backgrounds of my students. That would give them a sense of being connected to what they were learning. We started with a few European countries that made up the heritage of most of our community. It was my aim to link each culture to another, somehow. \n\n“The Portuguese were great navigators,” I reminded the class. “They traveled to distant places and left bits of their own culture and language behind. It may surprise you to learn that there’s quite a bit of their influence still in Asia. Especially China, India, Japan… so I think we’ll take a trip to Asia in the spring!”\n\nA buzz of approval circulated through the room. Now, I thought to myself, full of zeal, I’ve got to make the journey worthwhile! Engage the young minds!\n\nOne day, after class, I leafed through a teacher’s magazine and learned about a just-published book called “Farewell to Manzanar”. Perfect! I ordered thirty-six copies, and hoped they would arrive on schedule.\n\n“We’re going to be reading the memoir of a woman whose family was shipped to an internment camp during the Second World War, simply because they were of Japanese heritage. She was just a year or so younger than you when they were sent away. Doesn’t that sound interesting?”\n\n“My parents were in one of those camps,” Douglas remarked, shrugging. \n\nI was taken aback. I don’t know why it hadn’t occurred to me that there were people right here, in our community, who had experienced that shameful event. \n“Do you think they’d be willing to talk to us about their experiences?” I asked impulsively, then almost wished I hadn’t. Maybe the subject was too sensitive. But Douglas was nodding vigorously.\n“They’ll do it!”\n\nWe read the book together during the first part of March. It was fascinating, and the kids got immersed in the story. I wanted to follow up with a field trip to the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park, and I’d gotten a bee in my bonnet that we needed to go on the very day of spring equinox. \n“But that’s a Tuesday!” The principal frowned. “Field trips are supposed to be scheduled on Fridays.”\n“Mr. Watkins, please. Don’t you want the class to have a meaningful experience? It’s a very important part of Japanese culture to celebrate spring by picnicking under blooming cherry trees. It’s called hanami. Flower viewing.”\n“Hrmph!” He grunted, then said, “Oh, I suppose it’s all right.”\n\nI was thrilled when Mrs. Ōhara volunteered to be a chaperone!\n\n桜\n\nWe sat on blankets beneath the frothy pink-and-white trees, finishing our picnic lunch. The scene could have been a study done by one of the old master painters, but there’s more to memories than just pictures. I can still see, these many years later, the dark branches contrasting with a pale blue sky. But along with the mental image, I feel the mild warmth of sunshine filtered through blossom-laden trees; hear the birdsong; remember a gentle breeze carrying some indefinable scent that is spring itself.\n\n“Mrs. Ōhara is going to tell you a story now,” I announced. “Please listen respectfully. No talking, no slurping through your straws.” I added that last bit preemptively, motivated by experience. \n\n“Well,” she smiled, “What I’m going to tell you is a true story. It’s about finding a treasure! My parents, Takeo and Yoshi, were born in Japan. They were excited to come to California. My siblings and I were all born here. We have American names, because our parents wanted us to fit in. But we each have a Japanese second name to help us remember our heritage. My first name is Edith, and my second name is Sakura.” She waved her arm in an arc, indicating the trees above our heads. “It means cherry blossom. I was born in the springtime.” A few petals drifted down, as if in response to her summons. I watched one settle on the top of her head, contrasting with her glossy black hair.\n\n“In fact, it was just at this time of year when we were forced to evacuate our homes. I had just turned eight. Old enough to remember, not old enough to understand. Although, the adults didn’t understand either.” \n\nI need not have worried about the class paying attention. They sat in a semicircle around her, cross-legged. Hunched forward, silent. I did not hear a peep from them. Even Marty, the rowdiest of the lot, was captivated. \n\n“Mama came in early to wake us, even though it was a Saturday. I remember it was still dark in the room. And all quiet outside. \n‘Come, we must eat asagohan! Quick!’ \nMama’s English was fair, but she couldn’t pronounce the word “breakfast.” So she stuck to Japanese for that. She held out our bathrobes and guided us—my sister and me—to the kitchen, where Papa was getting our brothers settled at the table. Mama grabbed bowls and spoons. Papa set out a box of cereal. I can see, in my mind, that box of Raisin Bran, the only type of cereal Mama would buy. We didn’t know what was happening, but we could tell this was no ordinary day. None of our usual Japanese-style breakfast of rice, miso soup, and meat or fish. That kind of meal was to be eaten without hurry. And it seemed that, this day, we were in a rush.\n\n“We had already been on food rationing for awhile. There was only enough cereal for each of us children to have a bowlful. Mama and Papa hastily ate leftovers from Friday’s dinner.\n‘Takeo,’ Mama told Papa, pointing at the refrigerator, ‘make sure to empty reizōko and unplug it. Nothing must be left!’ I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but later I remembered, and realized why she said that.\n\n“‘Eat! Eat!’ Mama clapped her hands twice, like this—” \nClap-clap! Mrs. Ōhara demonstrated. I’d used that method myself, in class. It does command attention. \n\nI was just as absorbed in her story as my students were, visualizing that eerie Saturday morning gathering.\n\n“Mama finished her bowl of leftovers and went to the sink. ‘Hurry. Bring your bowls to me when you’ve finished. Then we have something to tell you.’\n\n“As you can imagine, that ‘something to tell us’ changed life as we knew it. We really could not imagine what lay ahead. We had just a few hours to get dressed, pack a box with necessities for each of us, and say goodbye to our pets. I turned for one last look before I went out the door. The ceremonial doll Mama called “Murasaki” stood silently in the entry hall, guarding the house; a serene white porcelain lady in her glass display case, with elaborate hair and a beautiful kimono of lilac and scarlet.\n\n“When we left, the cherry trees were in full bloom, just like these. Robins were singing, hopping in the grass, hunting worms—just like those.” The closest bird cocked his head and peered jauntily at her, as if he understood.\n\n“Our neighbors, the Nijssens, promised to look after the animals and the property. When the van came, they hugged all of us. Then they waved until we couldn't see them anymore. \n\n“We were taken to a holding facility over in the Central Valley, where we waited for the camps to be built. It was crowded, hot, and uncomfortable. We were surrounded by strangers. They looked similar to us, but we didn’t know them. \n\n“We were there all summer, and into fall. You’ve just read about a similar experience, and we don’t have time for all the details, so I’ll shorten my story and only tell you my personal perspective.\n\n“Finally the day came that we were loaded onto a train, and I remember feeling excited! I’d never had a train ride before. How many of you have taken a journey by train?”\n\nJust a few hands went up. Mrs. Ōhara nodded.\n\n“So you can understand that it was a new experience. At first, it was so thrilling! I wondered where the ride would end. Surely it would be better than where we’d been. We bumped and rattled along for three days. Even the train sounded like it was saying wonder-wonder-wonder… When we left the valley at the end of September, it was very hot. But as we traveled east, it got cooler. Across Nevada and Utah, into Colorado—three states away from home.\n\n“It was cold. And windy. The sand blew in our faces as we huddled at the station, waiting to be crammed into Army transport trucks. The word ‘camp’ sounded like fun to me, as an eight-year-old. But it turned out to be dreary and bleak, a rough place in the desert. There were long buildings that looked like chicken houses, but there were no chickens. They were for us. The whole place was surrounded by high fences topped with barbed wire.”\n\nMrs. Ōhara paused, looking around at the lovely spring day. \n“Enjoy your freedom. You never know when it might be taken from you, as it was from us… But we were lucky, compared to some detainees. At Camp Amache, we were allowed more liberty than most. I learned later that the governor of the state was against our detainment, so he was determined to treat us as nicely as possible. \n\n“The adults decided, since we’d probably be there awhile, they wanted to make the camp look nicer. They asked for seeds to start a garden, and they got them. It was so cold, even in the buildings, that the seedling trays had to be near the cooking area. \n\n“By springtime, when we’d been there six months, it was still cold. Gray skies. Snow. No robins; no cherry blossoms. So Mama made spring for my birthday! She had tucked in one of our boxes a packet of washi, Japanese paper. And she made me an origami cherry tree. Really, it was just a dry branch with three twigs, but she was very clever with the craft. She folded delicate blossoms for it, and even made a pair of tiny robins. \n\n“We were at Camp Amache for three years, until the end of the war. It shouldn’t have happened, but it did. Mama and Papa never showed bitterness about it, they simply accepted it.\n\n“I remember once complaining that it wasn’t fair to be taken from our home and kept like prisoners. Mama answered,\n‘This experience is an example of wabi-sabi. That means something that is impermanent and imperfect can be a thing of beauty. Like sakura, we can bloom again.’\n\n“Do you remember, I said that this story was about finding a treasure?” Edith Ōhara smiled around at the group of children. “The treasure is life. It’s not always perfect, but we can either let it destroy us or we can look for ways to make it beautiful.”\n\n桜\n\nThe doorbell rings, and I realize I’ve been daydreaming. Maybe, I suppose, even dozing. It’s hard to bring my thoughts back from—where? That field trip, fifty springs ago? Camp Amache, so vividly recalled by Edith Ōhara? \n\nI open the door. The sun has valiantly come through the clouds, lighting up the blossoming trees with a soft pink glow. Robins are singing Cheerily-cheer-up, cheer-up, cheerily-cheer-up! \nOur neighbor stands on the doorstep holding out a thick envelope.\n“This was in our box. It looks important!” \n\n桜\n\nInside the envelope is a handmade card from Edith Ōhara, decorated with a sakura branch and a haiku. At nearly ninety, her work isn’t as precise as it used to be. The blossoms are uneven, and the writing is wobbly. And it’s perfect.\n\nPink petals falling\n Rosy as a maiden’s blush \n Cherry blossom time \n\n桜" } ]

[ { "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 Obsidian Queen\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 2648\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone who doesn’t remember their past — and doesn’t want to." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "When I tell people, I don’t remember anything before 21, I get a handful of responses.\n“Oh, you poor thing,” an older woman would say. Her hand is on my shoulder or my arm and she’s looking at me with sorrowful eyes. In her eyes, I have become her daughter or her granddaughter and she will treat me as if I’m her own.\nThe former frat boy laughs it off. Says he doesn’t remember anything before 21 either. He lost his memories to parties and underage drinking.\nMost people think it’s trauma. My brain is protecting me by making me forget whatever happened. I don’t know for sure, but I know this. When the police found me, I was sitting on the side of the road, hands covered in blood that wasn’t mine. A doctor checked me over. She had the kindest smile and smelled of peppermint and coconut oil. Sweet as she was, she couldn’t help but flinch when she saw the fist-sized puckered scar on my chest right where my heart would be. It was the only noticeable scar on my body.\n“Does it hurt,” she asked. “Do you feel any pain?”\nI shook my head. “I feel fine,” I said.\nThey ran test after test to prove that I was in fact fine. They brought in a therapist to check me out and he found nothing that would raise any alarms. The only problem was that no one knew who I was or how I got there. It’s been a couple of years now. I’m 25 and I live above the independent bookstore where I work and so far, no one’s come to claim me.\nOnce people find out I don’t remember anything before 21, they ask me, “If I could, would I want to remember?” And I tell them what they want to hear, “Of course, I want to remember. I would if I could.”\nIt’s a lie. I never want to remember who I was or what happened to me. Whatever made the scar on my chest must have tried to kill me. I cheated death before. If I go searching for who I was, I’m tempting fate. Fate’s a cruel mistress and I’m not going to be the one to piss her off.\nIt’s after closing, but as usual, I have yet to go upstairs. The bookstore where I’m surrounded by stacks and shelves of books feels more like home than the tiny apartment upstairs ever has. I feel less alone among the books, so every night, I lock the front door, turn off the lights and draw the curtains. Then towards the back of the store, I find a hidden alcove where I can tuck myself away and read whatever I’m reading at the moment until my eyes get so heavy that I have no choice but to go upstairs to bed.\nI was few pages into the book I was reading and was already sucked in. I was somewhere where magic was real and princesses were saved by dashing knights. I was so taken in by the book that I almost didn’t hear the front door open. Almost. I locked the door, didn’t I? I know I did.\nI grabbed the bat that Mr. Paul from the barbershop next door got me. “You’re a girl by yourself and there’s some crazy folks out there,” He said. “If one of them tries to get in here, you better take that bat and swing for the fences.” I didn’t need to know what that meant to know what I needed to do.\nThe intruder stepped steadily through the store. In seconds, they would find my hiding spot.\n“Evangeline.” The intruder called out and I could hear that it was a man’s voice. “Evangeline.” Suddenly, my chest ached at the spot where the scar was. It had never hurt before. My voice hitched and I covered my mouth with my hand.\nThere was one other thing that happened when I was found. One more reason that I never wanted to find out who I was. When they found me, there was a blank, folded up piece of paper in my jeans pocket. The police thought it was nothing, but still kept it as evidence. They gave it to me when I was discharged.\nI unfolded the piece of paper and rushed scribblings written by a frantic hand appeared on the page.\nIt read: “Your real name is Evangeline. If anyone speaks that name, he most certainly will kill you.”\nThen, the note slowly disintegrated in my hands and I questioned if what I saw was real. The warning stayed with me though, so when I heard that name that night, I knew it would be my last.\nBut I am not a damsel. I am not a princess that waits for dashing knights to come and save me. If I die tonight, I die fighting back.\nI choked the bat’s handle and stood up from my hiding spot. He was there, a few feet away, as if he had been waiting for me to emerge. His skin was as dark as mine and his hair was in locks that went past his shoulders. He didn’t move when he saw me. He didn’t even seem surprised to find me hiding there.\n“Evangeline,” he bowed slightly. “So happy to see you’re well.”\nThere was something off about his expression. The way his eyes narrowed menacingly and he clenched his teeth tightly as if he was everything but happy to see him. I crossed the distance between us in three leaping steps. Then, I did exactly what Mr. Paul had directed me to do. I swung for the fences.\nI expected a grunt of pain as I made contact with his side. I even thought he might think to grab the bat mid-swing and take it from me. What I didn’t expect was that by the time I finished the swing, I would be swinging empty air. In a matter of seconds, he went from right in front of me to back where he began at the door.\nHe chuckled lightheartedly, “You still fight first and ask questions later.”\nI hate reading a scene where the hero is surprised by an intruder and then starts asking the intruder asinine questions like “Who are you?“ and “What are you doing here?” Clearly, the person is there to harm you. Why does it matter who they are and their purpose for being there? The way I see it, if someone is ever in my place uninvited, they’ve forfeited the right to explain themselves.\n“I’m going to say this once, get out of my store.”\nA moment later, it registered to me what he had said. You still fight first as if it was something I’d done before. Does he know me? Does he know who I am and where I come from?\nNo, I shook my head and choked the bat tighter. Who I was no longer matters. There is only right now.\nHe remained by the door, unmoved.\nI said it once and I meant it. I ran at him, bat at the ready. This time, just as I was getting ready to swing, I let go of the bat and threw the heel of my palm up into his nose. His head jerked back and he grunted in pain. The bat had rolled out of my reach, and so I jumped back to put some space between us before he could recover. \n“Evangeline!” he exclaimed, holding his nose. He seemed shocked that I dared to hurt him and even more surprised that I had managed to make contact. “It’s me, Zaheer, don’t you remember me?”\nZaheer. The name made me wince, but I couldn’t understand why. I watched him warily. Was I supposed to know who he was? His hand was still covering his nose. He took a deep breath in through his mouth and blew the air out his nose. Smoke wafted in the spaces between his fingers and from beneath his hand. He took another breath and dropped his hand from his face. The smoke was gone and there was no blood or bruising. It was as if I didn’t do anything to him at all.\nMy jaw nearly dropped to the floor, but I wasn’t going to be taken in by this man’s tricks. “I don’t know an Evangeline or Zaheer,” I said. “You’ve got the wrong person.”\nHe shook his head and held up his left hand, palm facing himself. There was a gold band on his ring finger. “How could I mistake my wife?”\nThere are moments when I daydream who I might’ve been. Maybe I was an artist with a gallery full of my work. Maybe I was an author and there was one of my books in the bookstore and I would read it none the wiser. Not in all of those imaginings did I ever expect to be someone’s wife. For a moment, I let myself dream about a life that was no longer mine. Then I remembered myself and where I was. Husband or not, I was face to face with a stranger.\n “I don’t know who you are or who you think I am, but I need you to leave right now.”\n“That’s too bad,” His smile was sinister and when he spoke, it gave me chills. Like a fool, I had let down my guard and he took advantage. He held up his hand, palm facing me. Strings of smoke flew from his fingers towards me. The smoke solidified into thick cloudy gray ropes that wrapped tightly around my torso pinning my arms to my side. I was trapped. \nHe lowered his hands and the motion compelled the ropes to tighten and pull me down to my knees.\nThat’s better,” he said, standing over me. “Now tell me where is the Obsidian Core?”\nAt the sound of those words, pain radiated from the center of chest and made it hard to breathe. “I don’t know what you’re talking about?”\nHe kneeled down to my level. He looked into each of my eyes. He would find nothing there.\n“You sneaky little girl. You really did it.” He stood up and screamed. “How could you? I only married you for the core. But you just had to keep the power for yourself, didn’t you?”\nI couldn’t understand a thing he was saying and the pain was becoming unbearable.\nHe was whispering to himself. “I want the core. I need the core. I didn’t track you across planes to go back empty-handed.”\n“I don’t know what you want to hear,” I said. \n“You traded your memories to hide the core and bring you safely here, but where could you have hidden the core between there and here. I must know. The core will be mine.”\nThrough the fog of pain, I felt him approach me. He put his thumb on my forehead and the pain doubled.\n“Please!” I screamed. “I’m begging you. Just leave!”\nHe mumbled something underneath his breath. Smoke streamed down my face from where his thumb was making my eyes sting and my throat burn. This was it. I was going to die at the hands of this man. In an instant, I lost consciousness and welcomed the abyss.\nI don’t know how much time passed before I opened my eyes again. I was no longer in the bookstore. I was in a blue room; the walls, the floor, the ceiling, everything was tranquil sky blue. The pain had subsided and I could take in deep breaths again.\nThe room around me shifted and I was standing face to face with myself. Or rather a younger version of myself.\n“I don’t care what you say, Pilar. We are not destroying the core.” She couldn’t be talking to me. I turned around and there was a young woman who was maybe the same age as the younger me, if not a few years older. I stepped out from between them.\n“They’ll never stop coming for it,” Pilar said. “As long as you hold onto it, you’re putting us all in danger and for what?”\n“I am the Obsidian queen! You will not question me.” The air became thick with a palpable fury. Even I was scared of the younger me and she was me.\nPilar lowered his eyes and said nothing more.\n“If they want the core, then let them come. If you cannot stand with me, then I will not ask you to stay.”\nPilar’s lower lip trembled, but she held back the hurt and the tears. “Then I will speak freely. your majesty. Before you were christened the Obsidian Queen, we were sisters. You never treated me like a servant and you never wanted me to leave your side. But now, nothing is more important to you than that core. And now that is all you have left.”\nPilar bowed and left, leaving younger me alone.\nI blinked and the scene changed. Pilar was bleeding on the floor with younger me standing over her. Younger me fell down to her knees. “No, no, no,” she cried. “Why?” She put pressure on the wound on PIlar’s side, the blood staining her hands.\n“I promised to stay by your side,” Pilar said, and with a last breath, she died.\nSomeone banged at a door that I couldn’t see. “Evangeline, give us the core!” I recognized the voice immediately as Zaheer’s.\nYounger me looked up at me, her eyes blurry with tears. “Zaheer brought you here, didn’t he?”\nI stepped back, not realizing that she could see me.\n“I should’ve never married that man. Power. What wouldn’t he do for more power?”\n“He wants the Obsidian core,” I said, as if she didn’t already know.\n“And he’s probably watching us right now to see what I’m going to do with it.”\n“He says you traded your memories to hide the core.”\nShe scoffed, “Hide it?” She glanced down at Pilar, her expression was both hardened and sad. “If he thinks I’m going to hide it, then he has no idea who he’s up against. Come on out, Zaheer. Stop me if you can.”\nShe placed her right hand over heart. She breathed in and as she breathed out, she stuck the hand into her chest. At the same time, I felt a pressure in the same spot.\nShe pulled her hand out and in it was a large black stone. Obsidian. She squeezed the obsidian stone, concentrating all of her power on it. “I call on the power that has been bestowed on me by the Goddess. Take whatever you want in return, but give me strength.” The Obsidian stone cracked in her hand and then shattered. She let the fragments fall to the floor.\n“I won’t remember this, but let me tell you something that took me much too long to realize. They made me believe I was only strong because of the core. That it was only because of the core that I was powerful. They were wrong.”\nShe conjured up a sheet of paper, scribbled a note on the page, folded it up and put it into her pocket. One last time, she looked me in the eye. “We are the Obsidian Queen and our power is limitless.\nWe faded from each other’s view. I knew where she was going to end up. On the side of the road, with bloodstained hands, a scar on her chest and a mysterious note in her pocket.\nShe won’t remember who she was and she’ll have no inclination to remember. But she will find out whether she wants to or not and she won’t fear what she has learned. She is the Obsidian Queen. She is power incarnate and heaven help anyone that stands in her way." } ]

[ { "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: Going Back\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 2444\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with one character making a vow that they never would have made the year before." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "TW: child abuse, gun violence\nThe bishop began his homily, but I was only half paying attention. I could feel sweat gathering in my hands. Did I really want to do this? A year ago, I would’ve said,\n “I’m never doing this!” \n But now, I wasn’t so sure. Last year, I had stumbled in here. I had no home. No family. Well, not anymore. As soon as my parents found out what I did, they slammed the door in my face and told me to get lost. No real family would do that to you. \n That thought seized me and tightened its grip around me. I slid down the “thinking about my family hole”, which was filled with questions, guilt, worry, anger, and feelings. Yuck.\n Had Aris gotten into Harvard like she always wanted? Were Arnaud and Alya in juvenile detention again? Was Zeth losing figure skating competitions? Was Zizi in the hospital again? Did they forgive me for leaving them? Did they hate me? Had they changed a lot? Were they doing well?\n I had nothing but love for my sister, brother, stepsisters, and stepbrother. My parents, on the other hand. . . \n Marshall Perez and Zabella Perez. The parents I used to love. I found it amusing that I don’t love them, given the fact that God and his prophets had specifically written in the Bible many times, “Love your father and mother.” And my stepmother, Aina Perez, who had secretly married my father and had three whole kids with him. By the time my mother found out, it was too late. \n Aina Perez was a great person. . . For about three minutes. Then she showed her true colors, which was the colors of a terrible person. She was rude and abusive. I was sure she was secretly a kidnapper, robber,murderer, or terrorist. Aris knew what she was, but she never told me, “because it would scar me for life”. Yeah, right. Aina was terrible to me and my siblings and step siblings, hitting us (either with a chair, a weight, a plate, a ruler, or literally anything) at every opportunity, screaming curses at us, throwing us out the window (I’m not kidding), and taking care of us in the worst way possible. I won’t get into that much detail. \n Aina would lock us up in tiny rooms only she knew about, usually filled with something we were really, really, really scared of, and put us in there for a day with nothing. No food, no water, nothing to entertain ourselves. \n The six of us all had their own. Mine was filled with creepy pictures of spiders, big and ugly, splattered across the walls. If you didn’t think that was so bad, there were real spiders in there, too. Dozens of them. Some were the size of my hand. Being in that room would never get away from my memory, no matter how much I try. I can still remember the haunting sound of their crawling, the sight of those big spiders, the feeling of ripe fear. \n The younger ones, Zizi, Arnaud, and Alya used to come to me after they had spent their time in their own “fear rooms”. I would comfort them and do my best, but they never quite got over their experiences. Aina had scarred all of us, even the older ones, Aris and Zeth. \n I’m explaining to you the boring, typical, and constantly repeated cliche: when your stepmother is terrible to you. But that’s just my life. \n I wasn’t sure how Aina got away with treating the six of us like that, but she did. She was the only adult at home. Mother and father were always working, always away on some business trip that was more important to them than their own children and stepchildren. \n When they did come home, Aina would change and act like the best person in the world, but still be terrible to us. Our parents, distant and ignorant, never noticed what she did to us, nor did any of us tell our parents about it. Probably because of the threats. My parents saw how “wonderful” Aina was, and how “naughty” we were. They always took Aina’s side. \n Eventually, all of the bad qualities of Aina (trust me, there’s a lot of them) seeped into my father, then the bad qualities got into my mother. They all became terrible people. If you lived in my house for even a day, you would see that I’m correct.\n Aina had kicked me out because I had told the police that I spotted her joining the crowd to storm the White House in a riot. She had been carrying a gun. I saw her shooting people. She killed at least one person. My parents managed to get Aina out of jail, but they blamed me for the money they had to spend and agreed with Aina kicking me out. I was seriously wondering if my parents were blind to the real Aina.\n In the ten months, two weeks, and four days I had been kicked out and living on the streets, I had become sick, thin, smelly, hungry, and half-mad. These people had no reason to help me.\n But they did. They took me in to live here. They did everything they could to make me happy and comfortable. They gave me food, shelter, comfort, education, entertainment, and more. In return, I had to do something for them.\n I had to go to church. I had to follow their religion. Christianity. \n It was honestly a big favor to do. Adopting into a new religion, especially when you’re a teen, is no easy task. Before, I was an atheist. I relied on science. The rules of science and God kind of contradict each other.\n But I had gone to church for a year now. I sang hymns, read the Bible, listened to sermons, and prayed. I’m not sure what had gotten into me to believe. I guess it just felt right. I was pretty sure that made absolutely no sense. But I still believed.\n Unfortunately, my faith was still “newborn”. It had only a year to grow. Compared to other people here that were my age, that was nothing. Could I do this? \n I had to. I was sixteen now. Everyone had to do this at sixteen. I was no exception. I could do this. God is with me. I just had to rely on my faith and speak the truth.\n I could feel hundreds of eyes on me. It was time. \n The bishop said, \n “Do you reject Satan and all his works and all his empty promises?”\n That was easy. I responded, \n “I do.”\n “Do you believe in God the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth?”\n That was easy, too.\n “I do.”\n “Do you believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was born of the Virgin Mary, was crucified, died, and was buried, rose from the dead, and is now seated at the right hand of the Father?”\n Yep.\n “I do.”\n “Do you believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who came upon the apostles at Pentecost and today is given to you sacramentally in confirmation?”\n What did that mean? Okay, don’t panic. Break it down into parts. The Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life. That I understand. I know what apostles are. \n The Pentecost, on the other hand. . . I should know this! Was it the day where the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus’ disciples, causing them to speak different languages?\n Or was it the day the Lord was going to kill every firstborn in Egypt (the tenth plague), but the Israelites followed God’s commands and avoided the tenth plague, therefore getting out of Egypt? \n Wait. That was the Passover. Not the Pentecost. The Pentecost is the first one. \n So what is the question asking? \n Oh. I’m stupid. The question was actually simple. If I believe in the Holy Spirit. The rest of the stuff is just the Holy Spirit’s job description. Okay.\n “I do.”\n “Do you believe in the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting?”\n Yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes. \n “I do.”\n “This is our faith. This is the faith of the Church. We are proud to profess it in Christ Jesus our Lord.”\n Everyone in the Mass said,\n “Amen.”\n The laying on of hands went by quickly. Then, it was the anointing of Chrism. \n The Chrism was brought to the bishop. I walked over to the bishop. My sponsor, the man who found me, Isaiah, placed his hand on my shoulder. That made me calmer. Isaiah was like the caring father I never really had. He announced my name to the bishop.\n “Zunairah Perez.”\n Although I changed my name to Esther once I came here, for the sake of me not getting tracked by my parents, I still had to use my birth name. It made me cringe every single time I heard my old name, but I had to deal with it. I couldn’t break our church’s traditions. \n The bishop dipped his right thumb in the Chrism and made the sign of the cross on my forehead. As he was doing this, he said,\n “Zunairah Perez, be sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit.”\n I replied, \n “Amen.”\n “Peace be with you.”\n “And with your spirit.”\n I didn’t have to talk alone in front of so many people for the rest of the ceremony. I felt a huge weight get off my chest. I hadn’t embarrassed myself. I relaxed. \n The rest of the ceremony passed quickly. At last, it was over. My friends rushed over to hug me and give me flowers and cards. My “adoptive parents” (it wasn’t official) Isaiah and Ruth were close behind. I smiled at how sweet they were all being and thanked everyone. I had finally done it after months of worrying. \n For the first time in years, I felt completely happy and at peace. Out of this world. I remembered months ago, when I had considered leaving because I had to attend church.\n I was glad I thought otherwise.\n Later that night, I was reading books to distract myself. I had been constantly thinking about my family these days, which was stressful, painful, and rather annoying. As I was about to throw my book across the room for having my favorite character die, someone knocked on my door. \n “Who is it?” I called.\n When nobody answered, I looked outside the peephole. No one was there. I unlocked the door and scanned the hall. No one was there. That was strange. I closed the door and sat back down on my bed, starting to read again, deciding not to damage the book. Maybe my favorite character would come back to life somehow later. Maybe he wasn’t dead.\n A moment later, a hand was over my mouth. Was this another practical joke Sarah and Jonas were pulling? (If you're starting to wonder if everyone in the church was named after people in the Bible, my answer is no. Just most of them.)\n A knife was held to my throat. I considered freaking out, but they’ve pulled off more dangerous ones than this before.\n A voice said,\n “Struggle and you’re dead.”\n That definitely wasn’t them. A distant memory tugged at me. I should know this voice. I wanted to ask who they/she/he was, but I couldn’t exactly talk. \n The person dragged me out into the hall. I checked my watch. It was ten thirty at night. Only Isaiah and Ruth would be here. Maybe they could help. How could I let them know some person was kidnapping me? I couldn’t exactly call anyone for help, given that I didn’t have a phone and a hand was keeping me from talking. I couldn’t defend myself, probably because my knife was back in my room and this person was strong, based on the way they/he/she was holding me and how big they/she/he was, so I couldn’t exactly punch this person to get out of this.\n That left strategizing, stalling, and talking. That’s just dandy. Talking is especially useful when your kidnapper specifically puts their hand over your mouth, which is the universal sign for, “shut up”. And when your kidnapper has a knife. Like I said, talking is extremely useful in situations like this.\n The kidnapper dragged me to the nearest exit and opened the door, and I was immediately hit with the brisk Autumn air. I wished I had been wearing a jacket. \n My kidnapper got me in a car. A Nissan. There was a scratch on the back, big and noticeable. Huh. He shoved me in the backseat, which smelled like lavender. They patted the knife in their pocket, along with their gun, reminding me that they/she/he was armed, and sped off West. \n My kidnapper drove for what seemed like hours. They had turned up the radio and opened the windows. I felt incredibly bored. The music was that one genre I hated, and I hated being in cars, especially in the backseat. I also hated opening windows in a car. That was odd. How did my kidnapper know exactly what I hated? A suspicion started tickling at the base of my throat.\n The car lurched to a stop. My kidnapper turned to face me, and I gasped. Although she was cloaked, I could now see her eyes. I was now sure of her gender, along with her identity. Her eyes were small, round, and the color of honey, the type that you would find out in the wild, and would cause a swarm of hornets to chase you and sting you if you tried to eat it. Her eyes were, I admit, beautiful, but also deadly looking, like she was mentally thinking of new forms of horrific punishments that could scar you, both mentally and physically. I never wanted to see those eyes again. \n She took off her hood, and her locks of brown hair spilled onto her shoulders. Her skin, which was almost as dark as mine, glinted in the moonlight. She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. \n “I’m taking you home, kid. Don’t try to escape. I’ll put an end to an attempt to escape quickly.” Aina Perez said to me, her voice filled with no emotion. Her tone also suggested that she would end me as well if necessary. Unfortunately, I like being alive. Being dead would be extremely inconvenient for my health. She continued, “You’re in for some surprises when you get home. Just you wait.”" } ]

[ { "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: Killer Capuchin\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 2957\n\nPrompt:\n\nMake Japan (or Japanese culture) an element of your story." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Wearing a fur collared kimono (which in Japanese refers to all traditional clothing), Shigeru braved the snow biting at his face. Fuka-gatsu, boots woven from barley straw kept his feet warm as they left deep imprints in the white powder. Looking up from the pristine ground before him rewarded Shigeru with a snowflake in the eye. He flinched, slipping on ice beneath the snow. His chestnut brown eyes blinked as he caught himself. Bone chilling cold snuck through his gloves in a heartbeat.\nJumping back up, the hunter brushed the snow from his hanten jacket. The grey and black yabane pattern revealed as he smacked away the compacted snowflakes resembled the fletching of arrows.\nFootsteps crunching in the snow, he reached a plateau sheltered by walls of black rock either side. Old growth (kyoju) pine trees towered high over Shigeru into the white nothingness of the sky above. Brown rope stretched around two mighty trunks either side of a red shrine gate (torii). Two stone foxes stood guard either side of the gate. The insides of their ears and the outlines of their sharp eyes had been painted with red that was fading. Shigeru felt the power of the gods (ookami) in the red (aka), their colour helped to ward off disease and malevolence.\nNot wanting to tempt the wrath of the ookami, Shigeru pulled a gold coin from his string. The round coin had a square hole in the centre for stringing it together with the rest of the owner’s money.\nBefore making his offering Shingeru had to purify his hands, the problem being all water on the mountain was frozen. From within his hanten, he pulled a flask of water, wincing at the nip of it on his already chilly hands. First he washed the left, then the right hand, then his mouth.\nCleansed and shivering, Shigeru walked to the gate, bowed. He entered by the side of the gate as walking through the middle was for the gods alone. Flicking the coin into the waiting grill of a box, it clattered in. He bowed deeply, twice, clapped his hands twice, then joined his palms and bowed again. Waiting at the lowest point of the bow, he asked the gods for their aid in his quest.\nHis soul fortified, he walked on through the woods. Flakes of snow fluttered down through the broken canopy overhead.\nShort of breath at high altitude, Shigeru’s breaths became more rapid. At last, the hot springs (onsen) were in sight. Vapours clouded the air over the surface broken by furry heads.\nThe fuschia coloured faces amongst the sandy coloured hair were unlike any Shigeru had ever seen before. Their eyes ranged from gold to hazel, all with piercing intelligence.\nWhile some lounged together in the onsen, others were digging in the soil nearby, clawing up roots. Shigeru froze, ducking down low to observe the macaques without disturbing them. Curious eyes met his from time to time. Cold crept in through his kimono. Drawing his clothes tight around himself, he rubbed his chest. Shigeru watched, picking the creature that he would capture. Taking one of the dominant males or females might rouse the troop against him before he had time to flee. A curious infant would be perfect. He would train it to use the magic the twinning of their souls would unlock.\nIn a pouch by his side he carried the bait, dried momo (peach), cut into tiny cubes. Curiosity was the greatest bait of all. A young one stalked closer to him, eyes locked. Shigeru threw some fruit between them. The sudden movement startled the youngster. It scurried away. Eyes peered from the shelter of a tree trunk.\nCuriosity winning out again, the infant moved forwards slower than it had before. As it nibbled the food thrown to it, the macaque watched Shigeru assemble a box just large enough to contain it. Clips held the corners together. A simple spring would shut the trap when the youngster pulled food from the trigger.\nLeaving a cube of momo in his place, the Hunter walked away. With every step he dropped another portion of bait. With each piece the infant ate, it walked further from its family.\nLeaving the last cube in the trigger, he moved away, ears pricked.\nSNAP.\nDistressed screeches from the tiny macaque echoed throughout the pines. Shigeru ran to the box made from hinoki (Japanese cypress). Running back down the mountain, he chanted his spell while his feet devoured the distance to the village below.\nThe infant’s troop, roused by its cries, was coming to the little one’s aid. Their calls set Shigeru’s heart racing.\nThe ritual called for his blood to seal the bond. Stamping his palm on a tiny spike on the cage had done the job, dripping his blood down between the bars onto the macaque. The spell bound their souls in a master and servant relationship.\nThe little creature stopped screaming. A new voice spoke in its mind.\nWe are one. You are mine. You will obey.\nTranslating those concepts into those of a macaque and back, it responded.\nWe are one. I am yours. I will obey.\nThe calls of the troop ceased instantly. The bond, a metaphysical chord between family, was severed as if it had never existed. It was not that they forgot, but that the troop considered the young one lost to them, as good as dead, lost to a force that would not leave a body for them to mourn.\n\nThe macaque that Shigeru named Yuki grew with him in his village. Theirs was not that of most owners and pets. At any given moment the monkey knew exactly what her master was thinking, exactly what Shigeru wanted.\nDust caught the dancing light through the gaps in the roof of their attic home. Kyoto, the capital, called and murmured beyond the wood. Shigeru, hunter and theif, would count his daily gains by the light of a single candle. Yuki stole for him, slipping into houses in the night and taking strings of coins.\nNot a pet, Shigeru insisted that Yuki call him sensei (teacher). When they were not pickpocketing, mostly Yuki, they were practicing magic.\nAlone, we are capable of little, said Shigeru’s voice in Yuki’s mind. Together, we can harness the untapped magic of your kind. You have great power within you.\nAt first it seemed the hunter was wrong. For months, they practiced weather casting in vain. It was up to the macaque to concentrate to summon the cold of its former home. The hunter’s contribution was his knowledge of that could be and the strength of his spirit, the fuel of magic.\nA single snowflake was the first sign of success. Astounded, the monkey caught it in her hand. The tiny crystalline structure melted to nothing on the black and pink paw.\nThat is only the start.\nMonths later Yuki could form small objects from ice. Orbs the size of a blueberry morphed into icicles the length of her tail.\nThere is a design I want you to learn, Shigeru thought. He produced a bo-shuriken (throwing knife). Hold this, feel it, it is sharp and deadly. You will make them from ice.\nMonths passed again. Yuki tried again and again to create the item her sensei desired. Whenever he tested them, they shattered on impact.\nTry harder. Make the ice stronger.\nHai (yes), sensei.\nFour years had passed since the hunter trapped Yuki on the mountain when she finally mastered the creation of bo-shuriken. The hunter held it in his hand, drew it back, then flung it at a beam. The ice thudded deep into the timber, remaining intact.\nSugoi (wow), well done.\nYuki ate the finest fruit that night. He began teaching her to throw the little knives of ice. The hunter could hit the same dent in the pillar again and again.\nHow? Yuki asked.\nPractice, he replied.\nShigeru was often content to wear rags, squirrelling away stolen coins for a great endeavour he would not explain. Yuki was forced to wear clothes to hide her. For modesty, he explained.\nI don’t understand modesty, she told him.\nYou don’t have to. We are one. You are mine. You obey.\nI obey, she agreed.\nWhen months became years, he traded rags for the garb of a trader. Shigeru liked foreign clothes. He wore a yellow gat hat from Korea. Locals didn’t take to his strange ways.\n“The nail that sticks out gets hammered down,” a burly man told Shigeru one day, blocking the alley the hunter had been walking down.\n“Do I look like a nail to you?” asked the thief.\n“Yeah, and that makes us hammers,” said the man, showing the gaps in his smile put there by fighting.\n“Us?” Shigeru turned to see a man behind him. Both wore rags. Both had arms thicker than his chest. “Please. I don’t want trouble.”\n“Then you shouldn’t insult us wearing your foreign nonsense.” Moving close to the hunter, the first man slapped the yellow hat from the thief’s head.\n“How does it insult you?” Thinking the insult was done, Shigeru reached to pick his hat from the dirt of the alley. A forceful kick in the ribs put him on his back.\n“You dishonour your people, your ancestors playing the gaijin (foreigner).” The man’s words were grunts as he and his friend kicked Shigeru mercilessly.\nShould I help? Yuki asked, watching from the rooftop.\nNo. Follow them when they’re done. I want to know where they live.\nFeral kicks pummelled Yuki’s sensei until he was unconscious. The attackers spat on him and left him in the dirt. Obeying her orders, the macaque followed them, her mind free of his voice.\n\nHead pounding, he woke and dusted himself off. He trudged home along a road lined with sakura blossoms. Blown from their flowers, petals fluttered down through the air, sticking to the mud on his yellow yukata (summer kimono).\nRage twisted his face as he walked, tarred and feathered, back to the attic. Onlookers smirked as he passed. Shigeru swore to have vengeance in a hateful recess of his mind so deep that even Yuki was unaware of it.\nSensei? she thought.\nHai (yes).\nI found them.\nGood. Oide (come here).\nWhy did you not fight back?\nBecause no one must know what I am.\nWhat are you? the macaque wondered.\nA shinobi (ninja).\nShigeru had a black uniform for Yuki that covered her head to toe apart from her tail. His brown eyes met the gold of hers with responsibility and command.\nWe are one.\nI am yours. I will obey.\nI will see through your eyes. I will guide your hand and aid you with your magic. Go across the rooftops to their homes.\nYuki heard the haiku he had composed on his walk home:\nBlood red, bruises blue.\nHumiliation was mine,\nAnd so I kill you.\nStanding on the blue tiles of a roof opposite the home of the first man, Yuki felt Shigeru in her mind, using her eyes.\nAre they not your troop? Yuki thought all of the people in Kyoto were a troop, which humans called a clan or a family.\nWe are a troop of two Yuki. You and I. They attacked me. Now you kill them.\nOn a window ledge she found the first thug asleep on the tatami mats of the floor. Finding the water in the air, she turned it to ice and created a throwing knife. The bo-shuriken flew from her hand into the snoring man’s neck. He gurgled and turned over, hand clutching at the frozen shuriken. Kicking for a moment, he was dead before he could make enough sound to raise an alarm. A woman by his side slept on. By the time she woke, the murder weapon would have melted.\nNow the other, Shigeru commanded.\nHai.\nThe second man lived nearby, still drinking sake (alcohol). He sang about a beautiful princess who befriended a monkey in chains that performed tricks. The princess bought the monkey from its owner and set it free.\nIgnore the song. Kill him.\nI can’t see his throat from here, she protested. Gazing down at the man, whose head was bowed as he slurred his way through the song again, she watched his hands rise with the sake in one.\nWhen he raises his hands again, strike hard under the armpit of his left arm, said her sensei.\nThe drunk lifted his arms again in the wobbly dance. Yuki’s shuriken struck the spot beneath his arm. Blood pooled in the wound. The man stumbled and fell, clutching the shard of ice. His head darted around, looking for the source of his agony.\n“Youkai,” he screamed, naming her a ghost. The bloody fingers of his right hand pointed to her black shrouded form on the rooftop. Her next shard of ice struck him in the neck. Instinctively he pulled it from his jugular, blood spurted in a fountain. Yuki fled.\n\n“It is time for us to go home,” Shigeru said, years later.\nBack to the mountain? Yuki asked, having learned the meaning of human words from her sensei and reading his books when he was out.\nNo. The castle.\n\nThe castle of the shinobi hid in the shelter of rocks at the heart of marshland. Locals believed the swamp was haunted by vengeful youkai. Weeping maple hid the only door to the home of the assassins.\n“Tadaima (I’m back),” said Shigeru as he entered. Men and women relaxed their grips on bows aimed at the pair.\n“Okaeri nasai (welcome back),” said the other shinobi who knew him. All of them bowed, bowing lower when an old woman entered the room. A fox with nine tails stood by her side.\n“Shigeru, okaeri nasai,” said the grey haired lady, bowing her head slightly. Her frayed purple kimono shimmered with the pearlescence of the aurora.\n“Iga Shishou (Master Iga),” the shinobi bowed as low as he could without falling over. “We have killed forty two.”\n“I know.” A predator’s brown eyes narrowed in a soul piercing stare that told Shigeru she knew everything he had done. The wrinkles in her time worn face gathered together around a brown toothed smile. “Omedetou gozaimasu (formal congratulations),” she blinked in place of a bow to her subordinate.\n“Arigato gozaimasu (thank you very much), sensei.” To Yuki’s eyes, the hunter was a scolded infant before its mother.\n“Tomorrow you will face the next test.” Youthful hands wrapped in old skin waved to the kitsune by her side then out to the other assassins. Yuki’s eyes picked out animals nestled in the welcoming shadows throughout the room. A young fox. A yellow mouse. A rat dyed purple by the blueberries it was devouring.\nA kappa glowered from a corner. Unlike the stories, Yuki noted there was no shell. More otter than turtle, it had claws long and sharp as knives. A beak opened to reveal teeth within.\n“Tomorrow, you face Sagojo and his kappa. You will have three tries to draw first blood. Pass the test, you will join our ranks. If you fail you will need to wait another year. Rest.” Locking eyes with Sagojo, she nodded almost imperceptibly then departed.\n“Looks like you’ve got at least another year,” Sagojo’s grin was the sort Yuki has so often been told needed a punch to wipe it off.\n“We shall see, senpai (senior student).” Shigeru bowed to the smug man in a grey kimono. He guided the capuchin to a dusty room half the size of the attic they had shared for years. Stale air hovered over the dust that covered anything free of algae.\nYuki’s nimble fingers flicked through the little box that hid Shigeru’s poisons beneath a false bottom. I don’t want to fight that kappa, she told him.\nHit it with the first strike. It will be quick. He sighed.\nWhy should I fight? What do I gain?\n“We are one,” he said, voice rising. “You are mine. You will obey.”\n“No,” she said. Speaking for the first time to deny him took them both by surprise. While he recovered from the shock, she blew paralytic powder into his face. Yuki drew on the spell she had learned from his book. She cut herself, rubbing her blood across his face.\nWe are two. I am my own. You will obey that.\n“Hai,” he said. His eyes were glazed with the magical trance.\nKeeping the pouch of paralytic by her side, Yuki moved through the underground castle. Shafts of light came down into the darkness from holes in solid rock above. A rat watched her from a shelf. She blew the powder at it. The door into the swamp creaked open.\n“Catch it,” came a cry behind her.\nYuki summoned ice to freeze the hinges, to jam the lock. Shigeru had been selfish and even tyrannical at times, but he had taught her well. Bang against the door as they did, the shinobi could not break through it. She fled through the bog, into the forest and away.\n\nWearing nothing but her fur, Yuki braved the biting cold of the mountain where she had been born. Carrying the magical book of the shinobi, she passed the shrine. Her feet left only shallow imprints in the soft powder. At last the scent of the air changed. Vapours from the onsen filled her nose with the near forgotten smell of home.\nBook in hand, she met her kind. Now I am the sensei. Binding all of the mountain capuchins together with the same magic, they were stronger than the shinobi could ever have imagined. None trespassed on their mountain again and lived to tell the tale." } ]

[ { "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: Who I Am\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 2605\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone who doesn’t remember their past — and doesn’t want to." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“I don’t know you.” The woman standing in front of my hospital bed looks like she’s about to burst from how red her face is turning. I don’t know how long she wants to put herself through this because it’s clearly not helping. I mean, who comes to visit a man who doesn’t know you every day and get angry at him like it’s his fault all this is happening. Honestly, I’m considering asking the nurses not to let her in anymore. This might set me free from this obsession she seems to have with me.\n“How can you not know me? You proposed to be two months ago.” Her voice is strangely calm despite the red face and I wonder if this is a sign of insanity or just weird self control. “We’re supposed to get married this year.” She says this more to herself than to me.\n“Well, obviously we’re not going to get married. I can’t marry a stranger.” This seems like a bad thing to say because she opens her mouth like she’s going to scream. It’s the door opening that stops her from doing that and I’m thankful when the doctor enters the room. A comforting smile on his face as he takes in the scene in front of him.\n“I can see nothing has changed from the last seven times you’ve been here.” Her presence doesn’t seem to faze him as he walks over to my bed and picks up my file. He flips through it, reading things that can never make sense to me no matter how much I stare at the words. I stare at him to avoid looking at the blond haired woman in front of me. “Okay, so we’re going to do another scan to see if anything has changed. The specialist will be here tomorrow to look at your case and then we’ll know more. Until then there’s nothing more we can do.” His voice is calm, like he’s talking about ordering sushi for dinner. I guess this is the type of things they teach you when you become a doctor.\n“Thanks, man. Can you maybe get them to call my parents? I need more clothes if you’re going to keep me prisoner here.” This makes him laugh but he agrees on calling my parents before leaving me alone with the blond haired woman once more. “Look, Grace. Is your name Grace?” I ask, even though she’s repeated it to me every time over the last four days she’s been here.\n“You know it is.” I can tell her patience is running thin and I know it shouldn’t be as amusing to me as it is.\n“Okay, Grace. Look, I don’t know you.” Her face starts turning red again and I figure I might as well rip the band aid off while I still have time to talk. “So, I think it’s better if you don’t come around here anymore. You can keep the ring, if you want, and anything else I’ve gotten you. Oh, and it’s better if you start telling people that whatever we had is over.” The room goes quite after that and it takes me by surprise when she leaves without any further argument. An hour later my dad is entering the room and I’m being taken to take another brain scan. When I come back my mother has joined him and there’s a bag sitting at the bottom of my bag that I take into the shower with me.\n“So, tell me exactly what you said to Grace to get her this upset.” My mother asks as soon as I emerge from the bathroom.\n“I asked her not to come around anymore.” My mother hides her face in her hands, like she’s disappointed in me for some reason unknown to me.\n“What if you get your memory back? What are you going to tell her then?” She asks and I shrug my shoulder.\n“Honestly, Ma. I don’t think I would want her back even if I do get my memory back. I just can’t see myself with a girl like her. Who wears formal clothes to a hospital at night? Doesn’t she own more comfortable clothing, or shoes?” I ask, thinking back to those nightmares she had on her feet every time she came to visit here.\n“Well, you’ve been with this girl for three years now and you’re the most talked about couple in the country right now.” My dad says and I frown at him.\n“Why would the world care about who I’m dating? Marrying? Not marrying?” The thought is crazy to me. Who would want to spend their time following my life around? Is the life of a lawyer that interesting?\n“They care because you’re the Presidents son and the most sought after lawyer.” My mother says and I stare at my father in shock.\n“Pops, you’re president?” My eyes widen further when he nods his head. “Well, good for you. When did this happen?” They share a look before looking back at me.\n“A year ago. Tell me again what the last thing you remember is.” My father asks and I scratch the back of my head.\n“Well, Chris and I won this big embezzlement case. Sandy baked a cake for us.” I tell them again.\n“That was almost seven years ago, Tyrece. We’ve been over this.” He says and I nod my head.\n“We’ve also been over the fact that I can’t remember any of it. I don’t know the man you think I am now and I don’t know if I want to know him.” My mother frowns at my words and things go quite between us.\n“We’ll see you tomorrow, son.” My father finally says and after a hug from my mother and a pat on the shoulder from him I’m alone once more. I have my dinner and all to quickly I’m sitting in front of three people with white coats on and a scan of my brain displayed on a wall, my mother on my left and father on my right.\n“Well, this is what we can tell you.” Doctor James says, folding his hands in front of him like they do when they’re about to give you bad news. “Tyrece’s brain doesn’t seem to be showing any abnormalities from the scans we’ve taken. There was some damage after the accident and we saw that on the earlier scans but in the latest scans those seem to have been fixed from what the scans show. Obviously there was some nerve damage but other than that he’s a fully functioning human being.” He says and I nod my head because this is the same thing he told me earlier this morning.\n“What about his memory?” This seems to be the question on everyone’s mind.\n“Well, that’s a delicate matter.” Doctor Liam Tanner, the specialist that I met earlier this morning, says as he leans back in his chair. “Memory isn’t something we can fix. The body does that all on it’s own. From what I see right now it’s most likely that he won’t remember anything he doesn’t remember now. It’s not in exact science though, so there might still be a chance.” My mother’s eyes widen at his explanation.\n“So, he’ll most likely never remember the past seven years?” She asks, sounding very close to tears.\n“It’s a possibility.” Doctor James says and this is enough to get her tears to flow.\n“It’s alright, Ma. Let’s just be glad I’m alive and I’m not a vegetable.” This doesn’t seem to help as she cries harder and my father has to lead her out of the room. “So, what do I do now?” I ask a few seconds after the door is closed behind them.\n“You go back to living your life.” Doctor Liza says with a small smile on her face. “You’ll most likely have to come in for some test every couple of months or so, just until we’re satisfied with everything. Until then you just live your life the best you can and try and get used to your new normal, weather you remember or not is not the focus now.” That’s how the meeting ends and two days later I’m discharged from the hospital with a few prescriptions and advice to take it easy.\n“This is so messed up, man.” Chris says as we sort through boxes in my new apartment. Turns out I was living with Grace and since she refused to move out I had to. “I mean, Grace is driving Lydia up the wall with her crying but I don’t really care about that. What I care about is the fact that you don’t even remember I had a wedding, or my kids.” He says and I sigh, taking out files that’s apparently mine.\n“Well, one of your kids is two and the other is only a few months old. I’m sure I’ll catch up. They won’t even know I forgot them.” This makes him laugh and punch my shoulder.\n“How are you so okay with this?” He looks like he’s in awe of me and for some reason that makes me feel uncomfortable. It’s always made me feel out of place when my big brother looked like I just thought him something when he’s been teaching me my whole life.\n“Well, over the last few weeks I’ve been listening to you all try and clue me in on my life and honestly it doesn’t sound like the man I wanted to be. I mean, the type of woman I date, who can’t even cook? Not coming home for family gatherings because I’m too busy with everything else? I saw the way people looked at me when we were at the office. Like they were waiting for me to yell at them for breathing wrong. I don’t know man. I don’t think I want to remember that man. What if I become that again? I don’t think I can live with myself if that were to happen.” I can’t remember ever being this honest with my brother. Maybe in the seven years that’s been erased but never before that. We’ve always been close, but we’ve kept our feelings to ourselves for as long as we could.\n“I get you, man. I wouldn’t want to remember me being a moron either.” This gets him punched in the arm and sends us into a laughing fit. We work hard to get the place the way I want it to and I spend the next four months going through files and getting myself up to date with the most important cases of my career this far. I also have a doctor’s appointments and with each passing day my mother looses hope that I’ll ever remember what I’ve lost again. It’s slightly harder to live life than I thought it would be because there’s this whole mess I seemed to have made of relationships that I have to fix where ever I go. It’s tiring and with each day that passes I wish I never get my memory back. I don’t think I can handle hating the person I was even more than I do now.\n“Bad night?” I look up from my coffee and into a pair of deep brown orbs. A round face framed by pieces of dark hair escaping the bun that’s piled on top of her hair and a soft smile on her lips.\n“Something like that.” I’m not stupid enough to tell her my whole life story. She looks like the kind of woman I might want to get to know one day.\n“Is it because you can’t remember me?” She asks and I sigh. So much for wanting her to stick around.\n“If I was a jerk to you in any way shape or form I deeply apologize.” At this she laughs and pulls out the chair in front of me.\n“Don’t look at me like that.” I frown in confusion. “Like you’re not sure if you want to stay and hear me out or run away. You weren’t that bad around me. Of course, you never really noticed me when I wasn’t serving you one or the other drink.” She says and I frown at her. “The bar on the corner of Hillstreet?” I nod my head.\n“Yeah, I heard about going there a lot.” That’s probably why I’ve been avoiding going there these past several months.\n“I didn’t think I would see you again. I mean, everyone knows about it by now but I can’t imagine that it’s easy for you.” She says and all I can do is stare at her. I haven’t talked to anyone about what I’ve been feeling since I’ve gotten back to what was supposed to be my life and the fact that I’m not the one bringing it up makes me breathe a little easier.\n“Well, it’s not a walk in a park.” It’s the safe answer because as much as I’m dying to talk to someone who might understand I also don’t want to blow my chances of getting to know this brown eyed girl in front of me.\n“You don’t have to be all strong about it. Tell it like it is.” I can’t help but smile at her smile.\n“Well, I’m hoping this isn’t being to forward but I don’t want to get all deep and personal if I haven’t at least bought you dinner yet.” Her wide smile gets softer and I sigh. “Sorry, you have a boyfriend, don’t you? I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.” She lets out a small laugh at my words, leaving me confused.\n“You’re cute when you’re not being a jerk. I would love dinner. You know a nice place we can go to?” Suddenly I feel like a kid in a candy store. Something about the thrill of choosing something for yourself and feeling so secure in your choice sends a thrill down my spine.\n“Well, I happen to know a nice sushi bar around the corner from here.” This is how I find myself spending the next few months getting to know the woman that I would one day love to call my wife. She helps me through the deepest emotions I have, never running when I have a bad day that last a week. Always assuring me when I’m not sure of the man I’m trying to turn myself into and sticking by my side even when people are still talking about the old me. It’s a weird type of relief I feel when the doctors finally decide that I’m most likely never going to get my memory back and I breath even better when my mother seems to finally come to terms with the son she lost and the one she gained.\nTwo years later, somewhere in the spring, I ask Lauren to marry me and the following year she becomes my wife. The kind of wife that doesn’t wear make-up when she’s home and likes to wear my hoodies out when she’s cold. The kind of wife that doesn’t judge me when my feelings spiral out of control, a side effect from the accident I would later find out. The kind of wife that loves me enough to build a family with a man that was damned enough to get a second chance at who he wants to be in life. She becomes the kind of wife that loves me so much that I learn to love myself through it all.\nFor who I am and who I was." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Ten Second Death (A Breonna Taylor Story)\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1042\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story that takes place across ten seconds." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "They say...when you die, your life flashes before your eyes. I think that life should flash before your eyes while you’re still living, so you can always treasure the good times. But as five loud bangs shatter my eardrums, and find their way into my body, I finally understand that saying. Memories I didn’t know I had fly to the forefront of my mind. \nI see myself as a baby, a handheld camera in my face as I utter my first words. Tears of joy slide down my mom’s face as she strokes my cheek tenderly. I didn’t know exactly how warm and precious her hands were then. But I do now. \nI see myself as a toddler on Christmas morning, my dad holding the back seat of my new bike. At seven, the training wheels came off, and I hear my younger self wail in pain as my bare knees meet the concrete. My dad scoops me up and seals my band-aid with a kiss. I didn’t know how much of a superhero he was. But I do now. \nI see myself at eleven, starting middle school. The typical bullies who liked to push the underdog, kids like me, off of the playground. I hear my fierce thoughts, “I’m gonna show them one day.” And I would. I did. But instead of showing them that one day I would take the stage, I showed them the ugly side of my world. The unfair, unjust, biased, side of my world. The side everyone wants to keep hidden. Yet no one has the courage to erase or fix. I didn’t have the courage to fix it myself. I didn’t know if I could. How I could. I saw the protests. I saw the social media advocates. But I also saw the countless faces that looked like me. Like my family. And they all blurred together. I became desensitized and turned a cheek whenever an injustice hit my community. I didn’t see how real the problem was. But I do now. \nI feel my mother stroking my hair at fourteen, as I cry into a pillow. Thinking that one boy not taking me to the dance was the end of the world. I thought I knew pain then, turns out I didn’t. But I do now.\nI see myself at seventeen, walking across the stage, becoming the first in my family to graduate high school. Throwing my cap up into the air, watching it glide in the wind and fall back down into my arms. My heart filled with happiness as my mother hugged me, tears of joy streaming down her face. Then I didn’t realize how much I loved her hugs, how much they meant to me. But I do now. \nI see myself a year later, at eighteen, ripping open the acceptance letter from the University of Kentucky. More tears of joy from the various faces around the room. Faces I’ll never see again. I didn’t realize how much I loved being surrounded by my family. How truly amazing it felt to have people in your corner, supporting you no matter what the world threw at you. But I do now.\nI see myself at twenty-five, happy with my life saving others. Giving hope to people who had lost it all. Returning people to their homes. Mending wounds. Putting families back together. Some people don’t see the power being an EMT. I didn’t either. But I do now.\nI see myself now. Slowly losing feeling in my body, as those five loud sounds crawl their way further into my abdomen. I see myself now as chaos swarms around the room I slept in countless nights. I see myself now as a voice, that was once soothing, rasps in my ear, telling me everything will be okay. I see myself now, knowing that everything won’t be okay. I see myself now, closing my eyes for the last time and I think of the future I could’ve had.\nI think about what would’ve happened if I wasn’t the girl facing her death, if it was another young black woman unjustly shot to death. How different that would be. Death is such a permanent state and in a way, it seems like a myth. No one can ever recount death, so you when your time comes, on time or earlier, you never know what to expect. \n My mind wanders forward, into the future, all aspects of it that I’ll never get to experience. I remember Kenneth, because all he is is a memory now. I wonder if we would’ve gotten married. Or if he would’ve moved on from me to someone else, like he inevitably will now. Just because the world stopped moving for me, doesn’t mean it will stop moving for him. Or anyone else. I want him to move on to live a good life, a full life. To live for the both of us. In a perfect universe, he’d be able to live in a fair world. But we all know that’s not possible. \nI think about the long african print dress would’ve trailed behind me, if we would’ve had the chance to stay together. But now that dress will belong to someone else. I think about the house we could’ve bought together. But now that house will belong to someone else. I think about the kids we could’ve had. The changes they would’ve made in the world. The movements they would’ve started. The dreams they would’ve achieved. But now those beings will never have the chance. The possibilities are both endless and limited at the same time. The world is full of opportunities that I won’t be able to experience. But thinking negatively doesn’t change death. It’ll come soon enough for all of us.\nI think back to those girls who bullied me in middle school. I wanted to change the world. To show them that I would rise up above their shallow personas. Above the masks that they wore. And I think I’ve done that. I’ve shown them that they did not break me. I’ve shown them that death changes people. Changes communities. And starts movements. I’ve shown them that I have, that I can, and that I will rise." } ]

[ { "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: Wildflower\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1965\n\nPrompt:\n\nMake Japan (or Japanese culture) an element of your story." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Jenny steadied herself with her left hand as she squatted among the rubble. With her right hand, she tried to push aside a slab of siding jammed against the remains of the patio table. She’d taken off her work gloves when the insurance agent stopped by, and then plunged back into the debris, forgetting where she’d set them. With shards of glass covering the ground, she moved cautiously. But she thought she’d seen a familiar bit of red ceramic among the jumble of splintered boards and branches. She kept pushing through bits and pieces.\nOne more heave. A brick clunked to the ground, and she saw the crimson handle of her favorite mug. “I’d rather be sleeping” was written in bubble letters on one side, a fat orange cartoon cat snoring on the other. \nJenny pulled it from the debris and examined it. Not a scratch. She grasped the mug with both hands as though it still held tea, stood and surveyed her street. Unrecognizable. Boards and siding covered the ground along with roofing, tires, hunks of metal, branches and entire trees. Cars lay at odd angles, one sitting on its roof like an overturned turtle, another appearing to climb up the side of the house that was partially standing. Broken tree trunks pierced the sky. Police cars and ambulances flashed their lights, and maneuvered where they could. Jenny knew that her neighbor two doors down, Celina Bourg, had been taken to the hospital. The body of Celina’s husband, Joe, had been found two streets over. Old Mrs. Kaine was missing. Only three houses had survived, if you could call it that. The tornado had ripped Jenny’s and Peter’s modest ranch in half and sent the roof flying, but at least part of the living room was still standing. \n“How did you make it?” she whispered to the mug.\nJust 12 hours earlier, she’d set the mug, still steaming with green tea, on the counter as she and Peter picked up their phones to read the emergency tornado alert. Still new to Texas, they’d looked at each other, unsure if “Take Shelter” meant that instant.\n“Should we try out the tornado shelter?” Peter asked, shrugging and half-smiling. Jenny shrugged too.\n“Maybe? Better safe than sorry, I guess.”\nJenny set the mug in a box with a few other salvageable items. She was glad it was still around. Her best friends Maeko and Yua had given it to her when she left Tokyo for Boston 20 years earlier, giggling in the irony. Jenny would never “rather be sleeping.” She had always lived up to her Japanese name, Isamu - one full of energy.\nShe pulled her hair into a ponytail and dabbed her face with a paper towel. Barely 10 am and already the sun was heavy and yellow, baking the landscape. Peter had left to organize a rental car and a hotel.\nShe picked her way around a chunk of concrete, a wayward shoe and more boards - so many boards - to the backyard where she stared at the garden shed tucked away behind the azaleas. The building and the plants looked untouched. \nJenny shook her head, mystified by the whims of tornadoes, and pulled off the padlock they’d never bothered locking. The aroma of fertilizer, mulch and potting soil calmed her. She ran her hand over the shelves, looking for another pair of work gloves. As she maneuvered around two rakes and a shovel, she noticed an unfamiliar box taped shut. Forgetting about the gloves, she unwedged the box with her foot and jostled it out the door, knocking over the rakes and shovel. Her arms barely closed around the box, and she couldn’t see beyond it. She picked her way slowly to the one spot she’d cleared on the patio.\nJenny sat on the tile and ran a knife along the tape. The moment she opened the flaps and lifted out an earthenware vase with a wide mouth, she remembered packing the box five years earlier, and relegating it to their tiny storage locker in New York. She peered inside, and saw a stack of shallow black bowls and some smaller vases in iridescent pearls and blues. A leather pouch held a small set of pruning shears. In a burlap bag, she saw six kenzans, discs with dozens of small brass spikes protruding from the base, like the grass of a perfectly mowed lawn. She pulled the Sharpie she’d been using all morning from her back pocket and scribbled “IKEBANA” on the box and pushed it next to the “SAVED ITEMS” box.\nThese were the materials of Japanese flower arranging, an art mastered by her great-grandmother, her grandmother and her mother. But not by Jenny. She remembered afternoons as a child, kneeling next to her grandmother, mesmerized by the sweep of her arm and the drape of her kimono sleeve as she held first one stem and then another to the light. Ikebana was nothing like Western flower arranging. As much a meditation as it was art, ikebana was based on the principles of minimalism, harmony, balance, nature and silence - ideas that felt foreign and ancient to Jenny. Still, she had loved those afternoons with her grandmother - her Baba - and was mesmerized by the process. As a child, Jenny was sure her grandmother possessed some sort of magic. She started with the humblest of flowers, twigs and leaves, but wove them into masterpieces that won praise even from the staunchest of Tokyo’s critics. Jenny had made a few half-hearted attempts while still living in Japan, but she couldn’t cast the spell she saw from her grandmother. Then there was school, boys, shopping. And then university, career, America.\nJenny smiled at the box before turning to the debris surrounding her. Baba never pushed….but she had never given up either. Year after year, she sent Jenny vases, shears and kenzans. Each one was carefully stacked, packaged and stowed away among the things Jenny would never use, but couldn’t let go.\nThe next day, bulldozers and dump trucks rolled onto the tornado-ravaged street. Jenny stood with Peter on their front lawn, and watched the machines rumble and squeal, as they pushed debris into heaps.\nAs the afternoon waned, Jenny sat on a lawn chair with a clipboard, making notes for the insurance company. But the numbers swam in front of her. Setting down her pen, she rubbed her eyes and slumped in the chair, arms and legs heavy with exhaustion. She let her gaze drift past a bulldozer to the fields and barns that stretched along the horizon, noticing a splotch of pink against the sun-baked browns and yellows of the Texas summer.\n“Break time,” she said and made her way across the backyard, a little way down the next street and through the neighbor’s yard until she found herself surrounded by hundreds of pink and lavender wildflowers. The petals were layered one atop another, surrounding the stalk and coming together in a cone shape, where they swayed and bent with the wind. Jenny caught one petal between her thumb and forefinger, surprised by the softness. As she touched the flower, she felt her chest loosen and she sighed, realizing she hadn’t really breathed in days. She recognized the blossoms as “obedient plant”, but had always preferred their other name, “false dragonhead”. She looked back over her shoulder at the destruction, and felt a longing to bring a piece of the peaceful field home. She knelt and used her Leatherman to cut three stems near the ground. \nShe cradled the flowers like a baby, feeling a lightness carry her back through the neighbor’s yard and across the street. Squeezing between the jagged boards of the broken fence, she felt the branch of a mesquite tree grab her hair, and she stopped, trying to untangle it without dropping the flowers. As she pushed the branch away, she paused, seeing an elegance in the angles and a grace in the leaves which draped from them. She clipped a few branches and continued home, her thoughts on the ikebana box. \nThe trucks were still working when she arrived, and she cleared an area in the living room. Although the roof and two walls had been ripped away, Jenny longed for a moment of normalcy in her home, something to remind her of life just days earlier. She carried the ikebana box into the room and contemplated it.\n“This is stupid, Jenny. You have a lot to do,” she whispered. Yet, she couldn’t push away her grandmother’s voice. She heard the rich, gentle murmur that always seemed to bathe any space with light.\nFirst, lay out your materials.\nJenny knelt on the floor and, one by one, placed the false dragonheads and mesquite branches before her as though they were glass. She lifted the wide-mouthed vase from the box and set it next to the pruning shears and one kenzan. Phone in one hand, she Googled “ikebana first step” but then heard her Baba again.\nPick that which is most dramatic….to you.\nJenny reached for the largest stem and examined it.\nThe form of the flowers is found, not planned.\nShe snipped a few leaves from the base and tried to drive it onto the kenzan, which sat amid water in the vase.\nWhen you struggle, cut your stem at an angle.\nJenny lowered the stalk into the water and clipped the end as she’d seen her Baba do. This time, the stem stood easily. She sat back and studied it, bending the flower just another degree to bring light to the petals. \nWith more certainty, she reached for the next dragonhead and then the next.\nArrange your branches only after you have placed the Shin, the Soe and the Hikae.\nShe added a mesquite branch. And another. \nJenny wrinkled her nose as she evaluated her work. It felt barren. She scanned the yard, her eye falling on the azaleas. She cut a mound of leaf-encrusted branches and jammed them into the kenzan, filling in the bare spots. But that didn’t look right either. \nHer grandmother whispered.\nLeave space between the branches for the breeze. Allow the flowers to breathe.\nJenny pulled out the azaleas. Yes. Better.\nFeel the energy, and you will know where to place the next element.\nShe covered the base of the kenzan with the mesquite leaves. \nNow stand. Walk around your arrangement. Study it from all angles. Look for depth.\nJenny let her gaze move from the vase, and up the stems and branches as her grandmother had taught her. It was the formal way of appreciating ikebana.\nA sense of balance is essential.\nJenny clipped another leaf and bent a blossom at a deeper angle. She let out a breath she hadn’t even realized she was holding. It was done. \nThe pink and green blooms stretched upward and outward, their grace contrasting with the angled branches twisting around it. In the mesquite leaves, Jenny saw a vibrant green that was scarce around central Texas in the summer. She brushed her hand against a leaf, which seemed to give her a jaunty wave.\nJenny’s phone rang - a loud, old-fashioned jangle - and she jumped. She’d turned the volume up to hear over the bulldozers and trucks.\nShe touched the Facetime icon and her Baba’s broad face filled the screen.\n“My Isamu! I have been so worried. Your mother told me the storm destroyed your home. How are you, my granddaughter?”\nJenny smiled and switched to Japanese.\n“Baba! I am so happy to see you. All is well. We are fine. Look …”\nShe turned the phone to her ikebana arrangement, which had picked just that moment to glow in the late afternoon sun.\n“Baba, the wildflowers are beautiful this year.”" } ]

[ { "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: Nothing Up My Sleeve\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 2976\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story that takes place across ten days." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "August 5th\nI peeked around the corner at the crowd that had gathered in the middle of Latimer Square. At the crowd’s center, slightly elevated above the rest, stood Cyrus Graves. As members of the retrieval team, Mayweather and I had been tasked with bringing Cyrus back home. Since he had ignored all of our attempts to make contact, we decided to go for a more direct approach.\n“Gather around,” Cyrus said with arms outstretched over the crowd. “Men and women. Children of all ages. As you can see there’s nothing up my sleeve.” He pulled open both sleeves of his sweatshirt to show that they were empty and then pushed them up his forearms. His brown arms seemed to glow in the afternoon sun. Coupled with the scent of freshly baked pastries wafting from a nearby bakery, the scene felt almost magical.\n“This is a terrible idea,” Mayweather grimaced. “We’re lucky if he doesn’t kill us on sight.”\n“We need him,” I reminded Mayweather. “We don’t exactly have another choice.”\nMayweather grunted in response. I peeked back around the wall just as Cyrus made a handful of marbles suddenly appear. \n“How did you do that?” I heard a little boy ask.\n“Magic,” Cyrus said with a sly smile and a wink. Then, he laughed making the crowd think they were in on the joke. That it wasn’t magic at all, but really sleight of hand and wires. They’ll never guess that they knew the truth all along.\nCyrus finished his show a couple of dollars and some spare change richer. As the crowd slowly trickled away, he scanned the area for someone and spotted a girl sketching by the fountain at the edge of the square.\n“How’d you like the show, Keira?” He asked her once he got to her.\n“One second,” she said. She pulled at his sleeve and opened the secret inside pocket. She dropped the marbles he had hidden there into her hand. “Oh, look at that.” She said, with a knowing smile. “You did have something up your sleeve.”\n“Dang it, Keira,” Cyrus said, taking a seat next to her. “How do you always figure it out?”\nShe shrugged. “It’s easy for anyone who’s actually paying attention.”\n“You’ve been paying attention to me, huh? Do you think I’m handsome?” He smiled sweetly at her, like she was the most beautiful thing in the world.\nMayweather groaned beside me. “We don’t have time to watch Cyrus try to woo this female of the human species,” he said. “There are more pressing matters at hand.”\nWe emerged from our hiding space then and approached them. The female, Keira saw us first.\nHer eyebrow perked up in an expression I couldn’t place. Just as quickly, it was replaced with an easy smile as she said, “Oh, looks like you’re about to be busy. They must be more of your adoring fans.” She put her sketchbook in her bag and stood to leave.\nCyrus looked at us with such fury that if Keira hadn’t been standing there, he really might’ve killed us on sight. “Wait,” he said, holding onto her wrist. “Please don’t leave.” \nMayweather cleared his throat, obviously uncomfortable with the show of affection. “Cyrus,” he said, his voice deep and commanding. “We wish to speak with you.”\nKeira looked between Cyrus and the two of us. “Ohh, sounds serious.” To Cyrus, she said, “I’ll see you around, Cy.”\nWhen Keira was out of earshot, Cyrus said, “Years I’ve been trying to get with that girl and you’ve ruined it. You better have a good reason for being here. What do you want?”\nI got right to the point. “Amaranth Wolfsbane, formerly of the familiar faction is trying to raise up an army against the Order,” I said. “We’re gathering up a team and we need the strongest practitioners. We need a 6th order warlock. We need you.” There were few practitioners who were stronger than a level 5th order and Cyrus was a 6th order. We needed him on our side.\n“Look somewhere else,” Cyrus said. “I told you all when I was kicked out I would have no part in your wars. And who made it so I couldn’t come home even to visit?” He looked pointedly at Mayweather. “The way I see it, it’s your problem, not mine.”\nThis was news to me. I was always told Cyrus had gone rogue all of a sudden, killed a bunch of order members, and then escaped to the human realm where no one could get to him.\n“We could be persuaded into lifting the ban if you agree,” Mayweather said. He didn’t seem to be able to hear how much of a slap in the face that statement was.\nCyrus laughed. “I’ve got no issue with Amaranth. And after all the Order did to the familiars, is anyone surprised that they’re out for blood?”\n“Cyrus…” I tried, but he was right. Familiars were once the Order’s trusted companions, but they had been taken advantage of for far too long. The familiars on Amaranth’s side were past appeasement, they wanted revenge. We would need all the help we could get to defeat them.\nHe shook his head. “It’s a no. It’ll always be a no. Now leave me alone and stay gone.”\nIt would’ve been better for us if we heeded his warning, but Cyrus was too strong of a warlock to not have him on our side.\nAugust 6th\nDay…\nAugust 7th\n…After day…\nAugust 8th\n…After day…\nAugust 9th\n…We kept on him, much to his dismay. Each day he would do his show at Latimer Square and would talk to Keira by the fountain afterward.\nToday, Mayweather had a meeting with a few council members, so it was just me. I was not up for going up against Cyrus on my own, so I decided to observe until Mayweather arrived.\n“Aren’t your friends going to show up soon?” Keira asked him. She was sketching something, though I couldn’t see what it was from where I stood. He growled, literally growled in response.\nShe laughed, a sweet tinkling sound, and nudged him on the shoulder with her non-drawing hand. “You’re hilarious. They can’t be that bad.”\n“It’s because you don’t know them.”\nShe smiled, but there was something empty about it. “How about you tell me a story while we wait and I can sketch it.”\n“A story?” He seemed to hesitate, but then nodded. “Here’s one. Let’s see, once upon a time, there was a warrior…”\n“What did he look like?” she asked, her pencil poised over the sketchbook.\n“Tall, handsome, a smile that could set fire to the sun.” It was clear that he was describing himself.\n“An overinflated ego,” she added, and laughed when he looked at her with a fake hurt expression.\n“You say ego, I say confident.”\nShe nodded, humoring him. “Go on.”\n“So, this warrior didn’t care about much of anything. He fought where he was told to fight and he defeated whoever he was ordered to defeat. Only, he never thought to ask why. And when he did, he was never the same. When it came to defeat another group who our warrior learned did nothing except exist, he refused to lift his sword against them.\n“He was summarily cut down for his efforts. It didn’t matter how many victories he won for his kind, they no longer had use for him and so sent him away. He made a decision that cost him everything. All to stand up to some very bad people who held too much power.”\n“Would he do it again?” Keira asked him.\nCyrus looked at her, his face a pillar of determination, “Without question.”\nThey sat together in silence for a few minutes while Keira finished up her sketch and then without a word, she passed the book to him. It was a spread with one sketch on the left side and the other on the right. They were surprisingly detailed sketches for how long it took her to make them. On the left, there was a warrior kneeling down on a battlefield surrounded by dead bodies and ruins. He held his face in his hands as tears drip down his forearms. On the right, it was the same warrior only the look on his face was one of defiance. He held his sword, still in its hilt, an arm’s length away from him. It was as if he was handing it off to the viewer, saying he no longer had use for it.\nCyrus stared at the pictures, his eyes welling up with tears. “Thank you,” he said softly.\nShe never asked him if the story was true. She was human, after all. She probably wouldn’t have believed it even if he had said so.\n“Lennox, what are you doing?”\nI jumped at Mayweather’s sudden appearance, but recovered. “Is it true?” I asked him. I knew if anyone would know, Mayweather would. “Did the Order do that to Cyrus?”\nEver stoic, Mayweather’s face betrayed nothing. “None of that matters,” he said. “We have a new directive from the council. We are to bring Cyrus in whatever it takes.” I didn’t like the finality of his tone. I didn’t like how he was looking past me to where Cyrus and Keira were sitting. And that I knew exactly what whatever it takes meant and what we would have to do.\nAugust 10th\nWe shouldn’t do this…\nAugust 11th\nThis is not who we are…\nAugust 12th\nIt’s not supposed to be this way…\nAugust 13th\nI shouldn’t have come here. I watched Cyrus perform at Latimer Square. He had the entire crowd under his spell and he didn’t need to use magic to do it. I watched as he finished his show and approached an empty fountain. I watched as he looked around wondering where Keira might’ve went, but she wasn’t there. She was never going to be there waiting for him. Don’t ask me why I know.\nI wasted no time emerging from my hiding spot. Cyrus raised his phone to his ear as I approached and when he saw me, he knew. Slowly, he dropped his phone from his ear. “What have you done?” The pain in his voice hurt my heart. It wasn’t me, I wanted to say. When Mayweather told me the plan, I told him I would take no part in it. That didn’t stop him though. I don’t know why I was naïve enough to think that it would. That I could keep myself out of it. That I wouldn’t have to be the one to deliver the news.\n“What have you done?” Cyrus yelled. In an instant, anger had replaced the pain in his voice. The air surrounding us crackled with a powerful magic that I had never felt before. This was a 6th order warlock and he was about to shoot the messenger.\n“I know where they took her,” I said. “They will only keep her safe if you join us.”\n“Take me there. Now!”\n“Cyrus, I’m so sorry,” I said, as if those words were enough. “You can’t beat them. You know what happens when you go against them.”\n“It doesn’t matter. All that matters is her.”\n“So you’re going to storm the Protectorate without a plan?”\n“You’ve seen my show a handful of times, right? You’ve heard me say I’ve got nothing up my sleeve and you know every time that it’s a lie. You know I always have another trick.”\nI always wondered when was the moment when Cyrus realized he had been on the wrong side the whole time and what that must’ve felt like. He probably felt a lot like how I did right then. With all the resolve I could muster, I asked, “What do you need?”\nAugust 14th\nThe next day, I took Cyrus to the Protectorate where the council held their meetings and where I knew they were holding Keira.\nHead Councilwoman Regine was there the minute we got in the door. “Cyrus, how nice of you to join us.” She greeted him as if they were old friends. The very next second, she ordered the two sets of guards manning the door to bind him with charmed rope, rope that not even he as a 6th order warlock would be able to break.\n“I’m sure you understand,” Regine said. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t immediately trust your intent. You agreed a little too easily for my liking.”\n“What choice do I have?” he asked. “You have Keira.”\n“I’m surprised,” Regine said. “Cyrus the Bloodstained, brought down by a woman.”\n“Not just any woman,” he said, but I don’t think she could hear him.\nRegine led the way to the council room. It resembled a board room with a large oval oak table taking up most of the space, but the walls were decorated with portraits of council members from the past with their familiars. Looking at the portraits, it was easy to forget how terribly most of the Order treated their familiars.\n“Please sit,” Regine said and directed Cyrus to be lowered into the chair at the head of the table. She sat two seats away from his left side and I sat right next to him on his right.\n“Here’s the deal, Cyrus,” Regine began. “You join us and we let the girl go. And if you don’t, well you don’t want to know what happens if you refuse. Let’s just say it may involve one of you dying and one of you becoming a mindless puppet that will work for us forever. I’ll give you one guess who is who.”\n“I wish I was surprised,” Cyrus said. “Let me see her first.”\nRegine shook her head. “Sign the contract first.” She slid a piece of paper toward Cyrus. Though he was bound by the charmed rope, if he said the activation phrase, the contract would be signed and he would be compelled to join the Order until the terms of the contract were fulfilled.\nHe barely looked down at the paper. “Not until I know she’s safe.” Regine looked like she was going to double down on her threat. Cyrus chuckled, “Seriously, you’ve bound the strongest practitioner in the room right now, what do you have to be afraid of?”\nShe seemed to consider it and nodded. “Bring her in.” The door on the opposite side of the room opened and Keira entered with one guard at her side. Unlike Cyrus, she was tied with regular rope.\nShe smiled when she saw him. “Cyrus, are you okay?” she asked him. Strange that she was more concerned about him than herself.\n“I’m peachy,” he said sarcastically. “They didn’t hurt you, did they?”\nKeira laughed, and I must’ve been hearing things, but it sounded like there was a bit of an edge to it. “As if they could.” \nRegine didn’t seem to notice. She slid the paper even closer to Cyrus. “You’ve seen her. Now sign.”\nBut he wasn’t looking at the paper. His eyes were glued on Keira. “Wait, is that regular rope?” he asked.\n“Obviously,” Regine scoffed. “You think we’d waste charmed rope on a human?”\nKeira smirked then. There was no mistaking it that time.\nCyrus put on his million watt smile and turned to Regine. “A question first,” he said. “Have you ever heard the phrase ‘nothing up my sleeve’?\nRegine was rightfully confused. “What?”\n“It’s the most important tool in a magician’s toolkit. It’s textbook misdirection. It’s making you look exactly where I want you to look while the trick is being done somewhere else.”\n“Cyrus, get to the point.” Regine was a second from losing her patience.\n“In short, if you think I’m the one you have to worry about, you’re looking the wrong way.”\n“How do you know it will work,” I asked Cyrus, when he told me his plan.\n“I’m the best at what I do. Of course, it’ll work.”\nRegine blinked slowly and looked down the table at Keira. If looks could kill, the way Keira glared at Regine would’ve sent the woman to an early grave. “She’s human?” Regine wasn’t sure.\nKeira chuckled. “Actually, I’m a 9th order witch. Pleased to make your acquaintance.” The ropes that were on her melted off her body. She looked at the sole guard that had been tasked with watching her and he fell to the ground in a heap as well as the four guards behind Cyrus. A wave of power flowed suddenly from Keira’s direction as if a switch had been turned on. Suddenly, I understood. She had masked her powers. As long as she did that, she would appear human.\n“That’s impossible. We checked you.” Regine whipped her head to Cyrus. “Is this another one of your tricks?”\n“Hey, you’re the one that kidnapped her and tied her up with regular rope. This one’s not on me.”\nKeira stood and strode purposefully toward Regine. “You’re the one who couldn’t take no for an answer, so you kidnapped the poor, hopeless “human” girl in hopes of drawing Cyrus out. How predictable.”\n“Honestly,” Cyrus said. “You all held out longer than I thought you would.”\nRegine’s jaw dropped. She couldn’t believe it. “You knew we would…” Of course, he did. Cyrus knew the Order well. He knew what they would be willing to do and they played right into his hand. Not knowing Cyrus had already chosen his side. The Order had let the proverbial Trojan horse in and who knew what havoc she would wreak.\n“Guess you weren’t betting on letting in a 9th order,” he said. With a flick of Keira’s fingers, the ropes encompassing Cyrus, wrapped around Regine. “But to be fair, you were warned. I always have something up my sleeve.”" } ]

[ { "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 Fox and the Flower\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 2978\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story about a fox spirit (a gumiho, jiǔwěihú, kitsune, or hồ ly tinh), inspired by, e.g. Korean, Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese folklore." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“What are you doing?”\nHana jerked her trekking pole away from the wolf pup she had found, swinging it blindly in the direction of the voice. A strong hand closed around the shaft of the pole. A young man was attached to that hand, making no attempt to move other than to prevent it from hitting him. He may have been her age, mid-twenties, with high cheekbones and narrow features. His hair was hidden under his dark hood, but the shaggy locks that framed his face were so blond they were practically white. He was taller than her by at least six inches, and even through his zippered hoodie and jeans, she could tell he had an athletic build. When she looked up, she was startled as ruby eyes stared back at her. He smirked at her reaction but raised his free hand in a placating gesture.\n“If I release your weapon, are you going to try to strike me again?” His voice had a musical baritone to it, with a lilting accent that she couldn’t place. She felt a flush of embarrassment but she refused to let him fluster her.\n“That depends. What were your intentions, sneaking up on a woman alone in the woods?” She almost thought she saw his strange eyes glow, her pulse quickening as his grin spread.\n“What are you doing alone in the woods?” \nHana yanked the pole from his grasp, pointing the handle right at his face, a loop of rope swaying with the movement.\n“I was hiking. Now, answer my question or I swear I will run you through with this.” She realized the ridiculousness of the threat but kept it from her face. The smile never left the man’s face as he gave a slight bow, like a fencer acknowledging an opponent’s touch. \n“My apologies, ohimesama. I was hiking as well. I saw you and was curious what you were doing hunched over there.”\nHana frowned at the unfamiliar word, not entirely certain if she should be offended or not. She glanced over at the pup tangled in the vines just off the path, the stranger’s eyes glancing from the pup to the pole.\n“Ah, you are looking to put the cur out of its misery. A rather crude method,” the indifference in his voice chilling, “but, who am I to interfere.”\nHana’s eyes snapped back to his in horror.\n“What? No!” she cried. “Are you insane? Of course I’m not trying to kill him. What is wrong with you?”\nShe watched his brows rise in surprise, the color of his eyes darkening as the shadows of the trees shifted in the wind. He glanced down at the pole in her hands, a graceful finger lifting the loop at the end as he tilted his head in a question. She let out a disgusted noise and hastily lowered the pole from him. \n“Oh don’t be stupid. I wasn’t trying to strangle him with this. I was trying to make a catch pole.” He glanced at her in confusion and she hurried to clarify. “To keep him from biting me while I cut away the vines.”\nAgain, he looked at her in surprise. “Most humans would just leave the cur to its fate.”\n“Well then, those humans are asses. And stop calling him that. It sounds derogatory and just look at him, he’s adorable.”\n“She,” the man corrected, “is nothing more than a wild dog resigned to her fate. Just let nature take its course.”\nHana no longer felt afraid of this man, just offended by his lack of compassion. She pushed past him, and returned to the pup, slowly moving the loop to the pup’s head.\n“You still intend to help her?” \nThe pup flinched at the sound of the man’s voice and Hana hissed at him to be quiet.\n“If you aren’t going to help,” she whispered, “then shut up and go away.” \nShe saw him take a step forward, crouching as he waved his hand for her to proceed. She bit back her thoughts, resuming her attempts at easing the loop over the pup’s head, wondering why the stranger had guessed the pup was a female. It wasn’t like it was obvious with her tangled up in the vines. Once the loop was over the pup’s head, she tightened it, the pup making a meager attempt to struggle, clearly worn out from being trapped.\nCareful not to pull too tight, she wedged the pole between a rock and a log giving a quick shake to make sure it was secure. Satisfied it would hold, she grabbed her knife and slowly approached the injured pup. The pup tried to turn and snap at her, and Hana was relieved to see the pole worked as intended. She caught an impressed look on the man’s face, but quickly turned her attention to the task at hand. The pup growled and whimpered, eventually settling into a panting stillness. As Hana cut away the vines, realizing the pup was in fact a she wolf, she could feel the weight of the man’s gaze on her. It was distracting. She whispered in a low soothing voice so as not to startle her charge.\n“If you’re going to sit and stare, at least tell me your name.” There was an almost unintentional smugness to his voice, though she was grateful he mimicked her tone.\n“I have gone by many names.”\nHana glanced over at him in exasperation. \n“You may call me Kit.”\n“Well, Kit, has anyone ever told you that you are a very weird guy?” \nHe chuckled, ruby eyes dancing with genuine amusement. When he didn’t answer, she rolled her eyes, turning her attention back to check the pup for any injuries. There was a small cut and she rinsed it with water from her canteen, tying a bandage around it.\n“You are well prepared for this type of thing.”\nShe shrugged. “Most experienced hikers are. Though I mostly have these things for me, not a wolf pup.”\nHer heart skipped a beat as Kit leaned in close, inspecting her work. She could feel the heat from his skin, his scent as rich as the woods around them. There was approval in his red eyes, sending a wave of warmth rushing over her body. She knew she should have been more concerned over a strange man engaging her alone in the woods, but there was something about him that set her mind at ease. Well, at least when he hadn’t been so close. She cleared her throat, asking the first thing she could think of to break the awkward silence.\n“So, what’s with the contacts?” \n“What do you mean?” \nHana finished her work on her furry friend, arching an annoyed eyebrow at her strange companion.\n“You can’t possibly think I believe ruby is your real eye color.” Understanding spread on his face, lips curling in a mischievous grin.\n“And what makes you think that these eyes are not natural?” \nHana gave him a flat look, wondering if he really thought she was an idiot. When he didn’t elaborate, she took the opportunity to shift a few feet away to retrieve the knife from her pack. This was the difficult part, she would need to cut the rope from the pups neck without slipping while making sure she herself did not get bitten. She was grateful to put a little distance between herself and Kit, but was still keenly aware of his gaze on her as she hesitated. \n“So what, you’re some kind of albino?”\nHis chuckle was soft, his breath tickling her ear as he reached over, warm hands gently taking the knife from hers. He murmured softly to the pup. Then in one fluid motion, Kit cut the rope from her neck, backing away swiftly but calmly. He placed a protective arm in front of Hana as the wolf pup stumbled, getting her legs under her. With the realization she was not longer trapped, the pup glanced quickly back at her rescuers before bounding off into the woods. Hana just stared in amazement, her question forgotten.\n“That was amazing, what if she bit you?” Kit just smiled, assuring her he had it under control as he helped gather her things into her pack. She hefted it onto her back taking in the sky for the first time. A dark blue was creeping from east to west, the twilight reds and oranges starting to fade in the evening sky.\n“Damn it. I didn’t realize how late it was. I need to get back to my camp before my friends start to worry.” She looked over at Kit. “I am sure your friends or family are waiting for you as well. Are you at the Pinegrove campgrounds too?”\nShe watched his gaze shift somewhere in the distance, his voice gaining a hint of sadness.\n“No, my friends are - I am headed towards a different part of the woods. Pinegrove isn’t that far from here and, as it happens, it is in the same direction I am headed. I would be happy to walk with you till our paths part ways. You know,” he said, regaining his early self-confidence, “You never did tell me your name.” \n“Oh,” she stuttered, embarrassed, “ah, it’s Hana. And yeah, I guess we could walk together, you know, since it’s in the same direction.”\nKit flashed her that mischievous smile. “After all, we wouldn’t want you to be attacked by another ferocious wolf.” \nShe glared at him, not sure how effective it was in the fading light. “Your just lucky it wasn’t you stuck there. I would have left you resigned to your fate.”\nKit’s laugh echoed through the woods, disturbing the birds that had been roosting above them as he made an ‘after you’ gesture. Hana moved past him, hoping he only saw her annoyance on her face. The truth was she was grateful he was there. She knew she wasn’t that far from the camp, however it would have been very easy to get turned around in the dark and she didn’t want to be alone if that happened. She glanced up, guessing that if they kept a consistent pace, they should make it back before the sun fully set. They walk in silence for a few minutes, Hana busy searching the path for roots to avoid while Kit strolled along as surefooted as if it was full day light. When Kit did break the silence, his question surprised her.\n“So, what kind of friends are yours that would let you wander a potentially dangerous forest by yourself?” It was said in a light tone, but she thought she heard an undertone of dissatisfaction. He kept his face carefully neutral and she turned her attention back to the path to hide her smile.\n“First of all, I am an experienced hiker and I often hike on my own. I’m not some delicate flower you know.” Kit snorted. Hana glanced over in surprise, the inelegance of the noise at odds with his up till now graceful behavior. His eyes found hers for a moment and he cleared his throat, adjusting his hood so that his face was deeper in its shadow. But not before she saw a hint of pink color his cheeks.\n“Well,” he mused, as if nothing just happened, “that is ironic given your namesake. But what is the point of travelling with friends if you are not going to do things together?”\nHana ignored his jibe at her name, wincing a little at the mention of her friends. She had actually forgotten why she was out hiking in the first place.\n“Ah well, these friends are dating and got into a pretty big fight earlier. So, I was giving them some space to talk things out.” She half expected another comment about nature taking its course but he just looked at her, a curious expression on his face. Without taking his eyes from her, she watched Kit step around a trail marker and come to a stop. She stopped next to him, recognizing the sign as it pointed down two paths. If she continued down the left side, it would lead her right to her campsite. \n“As promised,” Kit said, “I have protected you from the evil demons that haunt this forest.” She tried not to laugh at the deep bow he gave her. Despite the initial circumstances, she found that she had actually enjoyed Kit’s company. And oddly, she found herself lingering, searching for something to talk about for even just a few more minutes. As if reading her thoughts he spoke, his eyes focused intently on her.\n“You know, you reminded me of a story I heard, of a guardian fox spirit from long ago. He was his forest’s protector, keeping it and all who dwelled in it safe. For thousands of years, nature thrived in his forest, the circle of life rising and falling as was its course. In all those years, the fox had never felt anything other than the joy of caring for his land. Then humans came, felling the trees for their homes and killing the animals for their food. This upset the fox spirit, but he believed that this creature known as man was not dissimilar to the other animals of the forests. That they hunted and made shelters as any other animal would do, so he decided to leave them be.\n“It wasn’t long until the fox realized that these creatures were no true animal at all. They were greedy and selfish, taking more land than was necessary, killing for sport, and driving the other creatures from their homes.”\n“What happened?” Hana whispered, ensnared by the story. She was conscious of the seriousness that had darkened Kit’s face, but something in her tone must have caught his attention. His ruby eyes focused back on hers, his voice returning to its normal grandiose tone.\n“The fox attacked in a rage, and destroyed the town. Swearing never again to allow a human to take advantage of his home.”\nHana thought on the ending, incredulous as she said, “I remind you of that?”\nKit’s features softened, a gentle smile warming the chill she had felt as he wove his tale.\n“You, ohime- sorry, princess. You reminded me that perhaps the fox was too quick to condemn all humans simply for the transgressions of the few. There is great beauty in what you did today. Your compassion for the wolf pup and your selflessness to be on your own for the sake of your friends. I think the fox would be humbled by your actions.”\n“Oh,” was all Hana could say, hoping the dark was concealing her blush. She had never before been so thoroughly complimented and it left her at a loss for words. It also called her attention back to how incredibly handsome this young man was. She fidgeted as he tucked an errant lock of hair behind her ear.\n“Now you best be off, before all the light fades and you lose your way.”\nHana started to protest but Kit took her hands in his, his face inches from hers.\n“Should you ever come back to my woods, I am certain we will see each other again.”\nShe watched as he took a few steps down the right path, the wind sweeping back his hood to reveal a pair of what looked like white animal ears. Hana squinted, certain that the lingering twilight was playing tricks on her. Kit gave her a knowing wink and with a flash of blue light, Kit vanished into the night.\nThe walk back to the camp was a blur, Hana only coming back to herself as she stepped from the woods. She took in her campsite in a daze. Judging by the sway of the tent and the sounds from within Rachel and John had clearly made up. She looked down and noticed that her hand was clenched around something. When she eased her fingers open, it revealed a necklace with two charms on it. One was a flower, and the other a mask in the shape of a white wolf. She stared at the gift in disbelief. How had she not noticed Kit giving it to her. How could anything that just happened be real? Just as she started to believe she was hallucinating, a tiny yip pulled her attention to the shadows at the edge of the firelight.\nShe grinned as the tiny wolf pup yipped at her, tail wagging as she gave one tiny howl. Movement behind the pup drew her attention and a massive animal stared back at her. At first, she thought it was the pup’s mother, but its features were sharper and she realized that it was a giant fox. Its white fur shone with blue foxfire, his tails waving lazily behind in the night and… tails? She looked again and was dumbfounded when she counted nine tails. She found a pair of familiar ruby eyes, Kit’s eyes, staring back at her. She knew how unbelievable it seemed, but she was certain she was right. He flicked an ear at her, as if to confirm that those were in fact ears she had seen. The two canines paused a moment more before retreating back into the dark, the fox’s mouth dropping open into a grin as he winked at her. \nForm that moment she knew she would never forget that night. She slipped the necklace over her head, its weight strangely familiar, as if it had always belonged there. She pulled a blanket from her tent and set it next to the fire while she pulled out her phone to do some research. After a few minutes she settled in to begin reading about the nine-tailed fox, or as they were known in Japan, the kitsune." } ]

[ { "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: Atlas Rises\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 3010\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story about a fox spirit (a gumiho, jiǔwěihú, kitsune, or hồ ly tinh), inspired by, e.g. Korean, Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese folklore." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "It was December 2066. It was so terribly cold. Snow was falling, and it was almost dark. I was 14 years old and my mother was driving me to my father’s house in rural Wisconsin, outside of Madison. There was no way I was going to spend the obligatory Gift Exchange and New Year’s holidays with him again. \nLast year instead of getting me presents, he smashed my guitar against the fireplace then put the mangled remains of it as well as the notebook where I kept my musical scribblings into the burning hearth. “That’s about as good a use as you’re going to get of those things, Abbey Zhang,” he had said. “No offspring of mine is going to waste his life composing songs about high school angst and pubescent hormonal fixations. You’re better off becoming a raiser of cage-free chickens, like your old man. There’s dignity in that profession. ‘Early to rise, to pluck from the dawn hens their golden-yolk prize,’ was your grandfather’s favorite refrain. It should become yours.” \nI couldn’t bear the thought of spending another two weeks on my dad's pasture chicken ranch, waking up before the light of day, feeding hens and harvesting their eggs, while the man who wanted to kill my adolescent musical dreams loomed over my shoulder. So, as I was sitting in the passenger seat of my mother’s car and as she drove at approximately fifty miles an hour on a two-lane highway in the waning hours of that cold, snowy day, I forcibly took hold of the steering wheel and turned it with all my might to her left. The hydrogen-fuel two-seater crossed the lane into opposing traffic and we crashed head-on into an older model electric vehicle, the kind that were still common when China had not yet occupied the country for peace-keeping purposes.\nMy relationship to mother wasn’t ideal either. Although she never complained about my music, she did complain about my friends and my conduct at school. She was a drinker, and sometimes the guys she’d bring over from her nights in the town’s bars would get rough with her. Some nights she’d become hysterical and ask what she had done to deserve such an ungrateful, troublesome son and such a miserable life, more generally. \nAlthough the Chinese were real law and order types, even they couldn’t control the kind of trouble that found a lonely woman who was also a single mother and given to drink. On more than one occasion, after a night at the drinking holes, she’d told me how I, Abbey James Zhang, wasn’t really her son, that I had been born of her loins, but that I wasn’t her flesh and blood. Even though I didn’t bear much of a resemblance to either of my parents, I didn’t know what she meant. I would only find out when my face finally began to take on the adult contours of Morris James, the grind music star clone whose genome I possessed. \nIt was a freezing December, but I still got out of the car and started tossing money out onto the road. Money was only really used by people involved in the underground economies: low lives and recently arrived immigrants. The low lives used cash because they didn’t want to leave trails of digital currency linking them to suspect citizens known to sell drugs and outlawed weapons. Recently arrived immigrants who hadn’t received the government’s newly nationalized banking app also made use of the aging low-density polyethylene bills that had stopped being produced two decades ago, after the Chinese occupation. I had money because I used to help my high school buddy, Hank, peddle black market synthetic drugs like LSD, MDMA and ketamine. The Chinese had really cracked down on sales and use of illegal drugs, and I risked getting thrown into juvenile reeducation camp until my 18th birthday for helping Hank, but I used the money to buy stuff at garage sales in the Latino barrios where some residents still didn’t possess means for electronic transfers. One of the things I had bought was the guitar my dad had smashed and burned. \nWhile I tossed plasticized bill after plasticized bill of the multi-hued hundred-dollar denomination currency, printed with the face of Barack Obama, onto the highway, I loudly shouted the lyrics of “Heathens” a song by one of my favorite millennial bands, 21 Pilots that had been covered by All, a band from the 2050s. It was one of the songs that hadn’t been banned by the Chinese who had imposed decency laws regulating cultural production. All music that made explicit mention of sex, violence or drugs had gotten the governmental axe. A concerned passerby driving a Great Wall hydrogen fuel coupe slowed to a crawl, rolled down his window, asked me what I was doing, and when I just kept on singing, he stopped and started picking up the old currency. Another passerby must’ve called the police, because not five minutes after I had caused the accident, a Madison Community Surveillance hydrogen hovercraft landed at the accident site. \nThe Community Surveillance monitors found my mother unconscious in the driver's seat. Our airbags hadn't deployed and she had passed out upon impact with the steering wheel. I told the monitors that she was abused by a boyfriend and that if they looked for evidence of abuse on her body, they would find it. While the bystanders who had stopped to help looked on and reported what they had seen, I contemplated my options: either being taken to my father’s where I would be subjected to his sermonizing and paternal cruelties, or doing something rash to avoid transport to his torturous poultry-raising dominion. I made a lunge for one of the monitors. They quickly subdued me and after my mother had come to, she tearfully told the monitors that I wasn’t her son, that all they need to do was run a DNA scan to discover that the little demon didn’t belong to her. The monitors took me to a behavioral crisis unit for adolescents.\nAfter I had been processed by the Madison Youth Behavioral Health Authority and given a DNA scan, I was shown to my room. There I met Dwindle, a lanky seventeen-year-old who told me he had been brought to the crisis unit after his parents had called the Community Surveillance Agency and told them that their son, who neither regularly took his meds for depression nor attended state-mandated therapy for anti-social personality disorder, had absconded. Dwindle was picked up by the monitors after being caught shoplifting in a gritty part of town. \nAs we exchanged small talk typical of newly acquainted behaviorally-troubled teens, he told me that he’d been in and out of behavioral crisis wards since the age of twelve. Shortly after we had given each other a glimpse of our dysfunctional lives, Dwindle tossed a small bundle of pills, tightly wrapped in cellophane onto my bed.\n“What’s this?” I asked.\n“Smell it,” he said.\nThe nugget-sized package smelled of feces.\n“Smells like shit,” I said.\n“Yeah, that’s because I keistered it when I was changing out of my street clothes and into the crisis unit uniform.” By “keistered,” which was pronounced like “key” and “stirred,” he meant he had surreptitiously hidden it in his anal cavity so that crisis unit staff wouldn’t confiscate the contraband. “It might smell like shit, but that right there is the shit that’s going to let me and you to get our kicks while we’re locked up in this hell-hole.”\nThe purple gelatinous pills didn’t look like any of the kind I had helped my high school black marketeer friend, Hank, peddle at high school and on street corners.\n“It doesn’t look like Molly,” I said.\n“Molly’s for idiots looking to experience love artificially,” said Dwindle. “We live in times when the likes of me and you are an endangered race.” He was referring to the fact that combined nuclear war in Europe and the epidemic spread of rapaxia, a virulent and extremely deadly disease that affected people of Northern European descent, had decimated light complected populations on the planet. No one was sure if rapaxia had evolved on its own or developed in a biological weapons lab. I was only partially white: my maternal grandfather was German and my paternal grandmother was Irish. Both my parents were half-Chinese, I wasn’t subject to rapaxia’s ravages, only people with red or blonde hair and blue or green eyes were, but I nevertheless harbored a fear that I could fall victim to its ethnocidal contagiousness.\n“Love is for losers,\" declared Dwindle. \"That substance you hold in your mortal hand is Moxy, and Moxy’s gonna change your life. It’s gonna make you want to kill something. It’s gonna make you see things, make you hear voices that’ll reveal the true meaning of your life. It’ll help you understand who the tormented soul that aches for meaning underneath your skin really is.”\nSure enough, seconds after we took the Moxy, I felt a surge of adrenalin that made me feel like I either wanted to fight or break something. Dwindle started howling and encouraged me to do the same. The loud racket we made seemed to quell the violent urgings the drug elicited, but Youth Behavioral Health staff intervened. Both Dwindle and I attacked the intervening psychiatric technicians. They found the remaining Moxy, put Dwindle on another unit and me in restraints in a side room. \nWhile fastened with rubberized straps to the side room’s metal-frame bed, the drug-induced adrenalin rush died out and the hallucinogenic effects kicked in. The buzzing of the fluorescent lights overhead began to grow louder until they sounded like the deafening hum of a nuclear power station. The subdued hiss of the climate control vent on the ceiling began to sound like a titanic respiratory system inhaling then exhaling. On the mattress next to my head, a lone ant, on some programmed mission to benefit its colony, unsteadily climbed onto my arm. I found its genetically-coded determination comforting, and when I focused on it, the distorted cacophony of the lights and vent died down.\nAs I followed the ant with my Moxy-influenced eyes, it began morphing: first into a larger thumb-sized ant, then a rhinoceros beetle, a tweeting canary, a belching blue-bellied lizard, a roaring golden mouse, and on up evolutionary changes in the taxonomic chain of being until it became a chattering capuchin monkey, then a Jiu wӗihύ, a nine-tailed, white spirit fox that my maternal grandmother, Jing, had told me about when I was younger. My grandmother’s name in Chinese meant “quiet,” which was quite ironic, since she was given to excessive chatting about topics that usually never captured my attention for more than a moment or two.\nGrandma Jing’s talks of the nine-tailed fox provided a distracting alternative to the monologues she would often give about her Han, or pure-blood, genealogy, about the days of the Chinese peace-keeping force’s occupation, and the need for Chinese to conduct themselves like exemplary global citizens, reflective of our nation’s recently established manifest destiny. She was fond of telling me, “Abbey, you must stop frowning all the time. Bad moods are contagious,” words that now this nine-tailed fox repeated to me as it sat on my chest and gently rose and fell to my breath.\n“Grandma?” I asked the fox.\n“No, I’m not Jing, Mr. Abbey Dour—walker on the Abbey Road, seeker of the Abbey door—but, Jiu Wӗihύ, here to show you the true way-hu,” said the fox with a sharp-toothed smile, it’s nine tails flickering. \n“A Jiu wӗihύ, here to show me the true way-what?” I queried, feeling both confused and entertained by the hallucination that seemed straight out of Alice in Wonderland, a book my mother had read to me when I was in third grade.\n“Way-hu, as in ‘path’ and ‘hu,’ meaning ‘to call,’ ‘to cry,’ ‘to shout,‘ and ‘to breathe out,’ in two of your grandparents’ native Mandarin, Mr. Abbey Zhang, Sir Abbey Tao. I’m here to say nĭ hăo and reveal your true name. I am the cry of your past, that is also the echo of your future.”\nI knew nĭ hăo meant “hello” and that the Mandarin, “hu” translated into the English “to yell.” But the word had additional significance for me. My freshman year, after Hank had turned me onto the rock music his Wisconsin-born grandfather had listened to, I had turned him onto the Hu, a turn of the millennium Mongolian folk-metal band that still had a large following amongst Asians of many nationalities. Grandma Jing couldn’t stand when I would listen to the Hu. She called them, “bard-barian descendants of Genghis Khan,” and when she did I would reply with an “Amen,” and a “mother may, I?” before turning the volume of the Bluetooth speaker up even louder. \nI could hear the Hu’s version of Metallica’s twentieth century “Sad but True” blare from the intercom speaker in the isolation room, which I’m sure the nurse’s station wasn’t playing for the patients, but then the growly vocals started coming from the nine-tailed fox’s mouth. “I’m here to tell you to sing,” the fox said in Mongolian, which even though I couldn’t understand, I nevertheless understood due to the effects of the Moxy. “No matter what your father, the guitar smasher and burner, the dream killer, tells you, you’re no bringer of evil. You’re a derelict bringer of hope, you’re a singer.”\n“How can I ever be singer? Most of the time I wish I didn’t even exist,” I said to the fox.\nIt put its snout against my nose, winked one eye, then the other, then opened both eyes wide. “Eight of my tails represent a time you will cheat death,” said the fox, and after saying this, it ate one of its fluffy tails. “You’ve already cheated death once, last summer when your mother took you to California and you dared the turbulent commotion of the Pacific Ocean despite the red flag warnings. You barely had the strength to swim back to shore. I will keep you safe until my tails run out. Until then, we must remain perfect strangers.”\nI managed to ask the fox what my real name was. He answered, “My time here is up for now, but you’ll find out soon enough.” As I tried to get the fox to answer additional questions, it started to chew at my restraints. With a brilliant lightning flash that momentarily blinded me and a rumble of thunder that faded onto my sobering eardrums, the effects of the Moxy wore off, and my now-sober eyes could see that a tall psychiatric technician with a cleanly shaven head, full, graying beard, and blue eyes was unfastening the tethers that tied me to the bed. Behind him an attractive Asian woman with a white physician’s coat, a clip board, and a brass name tag that read “Dr. Bennet,” said “Abbey Zhang, there is someone important on a holophone who wants to meet you.” Holophones, that used hologram technology formerly confined to a few 20th century science fiction films, had been introduced three decades ago and had made traditional teleconferencing obsolete. I had an unexpected, lumpy-throated hope the person projected by the holophone was going to be my father.\nDr. Bennet, who must’ve been married to a white man to have a name like that, walked me to her office, where the hologram of a dark-eyed, honey-skinned man with a pencil mustache sat with his legs crossed and the fingers of his hands clasped over his uppermost knee. “Hello youngster, my name is Charles,” said the man as he reached out an open hand for me to shake. I obliged and shook it, feeling the still unrefined plasma-hologram technology’s capacity for limited tactility. \n“Where are my parents?” I asked the Singh-o-gram.\n“Your mother is recovering from the accident. The Community Surveillance monitors have deemed she is no longer fit to care for you. Your father demands I deliver you to his pasture chicken ranch. But those facts are neither here nor there. To be more exact about my name, it is Charles Ravi Singh,” said the hologram, “I’m an agent for a powerful media corporation, and I am also now your legal custodian.” The hologram took a corporate identification and electronic fund transfer card from his suit’s breast pocket and held it for me to see. I read his name on it as well as the name of 21st Century American Entertainments, a firm that possessed the rights to many of the more popular films, music and books of the 20th century. They also owned the copyrights to most celebrity clones. \n“You were given the name Abbey Zhang at birth, but that is not your true name. While your mother Alice birthed you, neither she nor your father, Lee, are genetically related to you. You are a genomic replica of the grind music star Morris James, and whether you like it or not, your genome, and therefore, your life and death, belong to the 21st Century American Entertainments corporation.”\nThe last James clone had committed suicide 49 days before my birthday. I was now fourteen, and although I know I didn’t bear much a resemblance to either of my parents, I didn’t think I bore much of a resemblance to James until the moment Singh mentioned I was the replicant of the grind star. As Charles Ravi Singh turned to speak to Dr. Bennet about my impending release, memories of my barely adolescent life flashed before my eyes, of my parents’ dysfunctional ways, of my only high school friend, Hank, and his pills, of my grandmother complaining about the Hu, of my foolhardy swim in Malibu Beach, of the white, nine-tailed Jiu wӗihύ, whose words had made me stop wishing for death. Before I once again started listening to the conversation between Dr. Bennet and my new legal guardian, I wondered about what my other seven brushes with death would look and feel like." } ]

[ { "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: Marlow's Place\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1842\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone keeping track of time with tally marks on a wall — until one day they discover that all the marks are gone." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Harrison, a world-renowned chef from Savannah, Georgia, loves cooking for large groups of people. He is a hopeful romantic, full of enthusiasm and passion about food. When people met him, it was obvious that he had seen a lot in his lifetime. There were rumors and jokes made at his expense about what happened to the old man, but the truth had never been told.\nA new sous chef came into Marlow’s Place, bursting with joy to begin her new career working alongside Chef Clarke. He appreciated Katy’s wealth of knowledge, and how she sprung new ideas upon him. The old man could be taught new tricks, after all. He gave her a blank recipe book for Christmas and welcomed her new recipes and ideas. She was a great addition to the restaurant he named in his wife’s honor, and the customers loved the menu changes.\nOn a day like today, she took it upon herself to ask the old man every question that came to mind during their lunch break. She was curious about the lonely chef and wanted to know if someone loved him. Katy said,\n“Thanks for the help during lunch rush, Chef.”\nShe tossed her spatula into the dish water, heading over to Harrison with a bowl of Tuscan soup.\n“I have always wanted to ask you if have any kids, or if there is a Misses Clarke.”\nThe old man took a hard pause, and gave her a crooked smile.\n“Is everything okay, Chef?”\n“Yes. No worries. I’m just an old man is all, never had any kids. To your question about Misses Clarke, my dear Marlow is no longer with us. I have never told anyone about her, because no one has ever asked. So, I was a bit startled by your question.”\nShe could see the skin tightening around his eyes, as if he was about to cry. In an attempt to take back whatever wrong she had done by asking the question, she said,\n“Well, I am sure she was a lovely lady. Let us return to prepping the Chicken Vesuvio.”\n“It’s okay, Katy. It’s about time I told someone about her. She was the love I never had, until I had her. Take a seat. Be cautioned, our story is like none other.”\n“Well, tell me all about her. I bet she had really great taste in food, like you do.”\nHe looked back at the broom closet in the kitchen’s corner and began to tell her Marlow’s story.\n“I met Marlow at a party that was being hosted by a local singer named Guru Hicks.”\n“Really? I love Guru Hicks! They have that one song about pineapples at Tybee.”\nThe old man giggled, “Yep. You got it. They had a few parties at Tybee back in the day, and I was a sous chef, just like you. At the end of our shift, we shut down the kitchen to return tomorrow for clean-up. I managed to step out on the balcony to rest my tired feet on some expensive lawn furniture, and that’s when I saw her. Marlow was leaning against her car, long braids down her back, dark brown skin that glistened beneath the stars. I thought she was an angel or something magical. I had to meet her, so I ran down to walk her way. Playing it cool, I did not get too close. I did not know if she would speak to me, but it was worth taking a chance.”\nKaty leaned in closer to hear the story. Her elbows ached on the hard countertop, but she did not mind.\n“So, what did you do next, Chef?”\n“I walked past a few palm trees and noticed that she was looking up at the stars. She had been crying, because some loser stood her up on their date. She had driven from Augusta to Savannah, Georgia to see him off for a deployment overseas, but he never showed up. So, I goes,”\nIs everything alright, miss?\n“She didn’t seem to notice that I was there. Her heart was broken, and the last thing she needed was some guy stalking around. I did not pester her, but continued walking by. That’s when she stopped me and said with sass.”\n“No! Everything is not alright. All of y’all got a big scheme or something. You following me around, man? Keep it moving. I’m done with the games brothers play.”\n“I was stumped. I did not know what to say to her, but I sure as hell did not want her to clump me in with the pool of other men she had dated. I could tell she had not been treated well by others, so I turned around and told her,\nWait. I’m not here to play games on you. I noticed you were crying and wanted to help, but I will leave you alone, miss. No harm, no foul. I hope whomever you are waiting for shows up.\nHarrison straighten his back and grinned underneath his heavy beard, making more wrinkles on his nose and forehead.\n “From then on, I made sure to treat her delicately and to prove myself to her. Every day, I would invite her into the kitchen to learn a few of the recipes that I had learned from momma. She loved to cut little tally marks into the wall there, but we had to remodel.”\nThe old man looked back at the broom closet in the corner of the kitchen, again. His gaze was locked on it, and the tears he had been holding back were free falling down his wrinkled face. They clung to his mustache, making it wet, and loosening its coils. Katy looked back at the broom closet in wonder, but did not want to ask more questions. She was still star struck, but knew when to stop.\nHe got up from the table, and went into his office to be alone for a while. He said to Katy, who was packing up her belongings for a shift change,\n“If you have more ideas for some new recipes, feel free to share them with me. Everyone is crazy about your Chicken Parmesan changes. Good job and thank you for your hard work today, see you tomorrow.”\nCurious about the closet that no one ever used, because they had vacuums and other tools for cleaning with no use for a broom, she opened the door. The spider webs clung to her twisted hair and tight curls. At first, she wanted to scream because she always feared baby spiders would creep into her thick hair and hide out. She did not want spider eggs hatching in her ears, or something horrifying. However, she kept quiet so she wouldn’t disturb Chef Clarke.\nIt was too dark to make out the scary shapes she saw in every corner. She tried pulling on the shoe string to turn the closet light on, but nothing happened.\nOld man never replaced the light bulb. I had better go grab one.\nShe returned to the dusty closet and screwed in a new light bulb. When she pulled on the purple and gray shoe string, that’s when she saw a ragged book on the top shelf.\nIt’s a recipe book. I should take a look at some of these and try to put my spin on them. I know Chef will be excited to see what I come up with.\nKaty ripped out a few blank sheets from the book for scratch paper, took a seat in the dining area and started working on the chef’s recipes. She made changes to his signature lasagna, Florntina steak, Ossobuco, and rissotto. She added in a few truffles and different ingredients to elevate more of them. She came across a sheet of scratch paper that had already been written on. There were some faded tally marks on it that had been written in pencil, so she erased them and continued editing his recipe for Carbonara.\n Chef Clarke walked out of his office and into the kitchen to prepare the evening crew, who had not arrived yet. He planned to talk about the sales from the morning and lunch rush, as well as his expectations for New Years. That is when something caught his attention from the corner of his eye.\n It’s open. Who went into the broom closet? Why is it open?\n He grabbed a flashlight from his office and raced back to the open closet. Looking around, he couldn’t find it.\n Thief! Someone has stolen Marlow’s recipe book!\n His heart had not raced in years, he was out of breath and looking everywhere he could think of, but there was no trace of Marlow. The tally marks she had written in the book for every new recipe, and every special occasion was gone. The memories of her and how their love grew with every new tally mark, the time they spent together cooking to their heart’s content, the day he proposed to her, married her, all of it was gone. The old man fell to his knees in the middle of the kitchen, crashing onto himself.\n Katy had worked on the recipes, tirelessly. They were perfect. After the dinner crew had taken their last customers and started wiping down and restocking for morning crew, she headed through the kitchen, but did not make it down the hall, and straight for Chef Clarke’s office.\n“Chef? Chef Clarke? Are you alive?”\n She reached for her phone, almost dialing 9-1-1. He looked up at her with squinting eyes, and saw she was holding Marlow’s book and a bunch of ruffled papers in the crease of her elbow.\n “I’m okay, but-.”\n She cut him off with her flamboyance and sunny disposition. She was glad to see that he was okay, but decided to take a nap on the floor. It was his restaurant, so he could do whatever he wanted, she thought.\n “Chef, you scared me. Guess what? I have some great ideas for you. You won’t believe what I have come up with. Take a look!”\n Dusting off the flour she had on her apron, she beamed with pride, handing over the recipe book she had taken from the broom closet. She handed him the single sheets of paper that had her handwriting on them, with a few scribbles here and there.\n The silence returned. Harrison, who could run in his aged state, rushed over to the countertop that had been stained over time, rummaged through Marlow’s book and the individual sheets Katy had ripped out.\n Looking down at the tattered pages Marlow had written in over the years, he could not find it. He writhed from the pain, yelling at the top of his lungs,\n “Katy! What have you done?”\n A single sheet fell to the ground, it was stuck to the back of her elbow. She hadn’t noticed it there. Picking it up from her shadow on the floor, she read the words,\n This tally mark is for baby Harrison. He’s due in September." } ]

[ { "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 is an Empty Plate\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1060\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a human and a cat that come to some kind of mutual understanding." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "AKJHSDGFIAUFHGVOUHBADOFUV WHY WON’T HE WAKE THE FUCK UP AND GET ME SOME GODDAMN WET FOOD.\nMy precious nails hurt from all the pawing. Re-etching the marks from mornings before, before, before. Chipping away the emerald green paint on the door to reveal all the dead trees underneath. Doesn’t he know he’s starving me? Doesn’t he care? I know for a fact it’s not because he can’t afford my Kal Kan. He springs a new obnoxious potted plant in MY house every fucking week, give me a fucking break. He’s lazy, entitled, selfish, greedy, self-indulgent, fucking human that one day DECIDED to take me away from frolicking the pastures that consume Kyoto, Japan. I loathe him, and he’s asleep. \nI claw harder and faster with only one goal: get fed. I make this disgusting noise, unfamiliar to my vocal chords, to get his attention. I resort to pacing the length of the crack under his door. My nails, weak; spirit faltering, and stomach empty. My tail anxiously hung, hoping for any movement in the other room. The silence sits like a chandelier on its last chain. \nI finally hear some rustling bed sheets so I screech at the hope for food. He grumbles and sprawls his covers as I await the gates. Each footstep thuds closer to me. Yes, Yes, Yes! The Groggy Half Conscious Monster Awakes! \nThe door creaks from rusted hinges but I don’t care. It’s wide open now and I peek at the slightly disheveled room. The few possessions he has are slightly tilted to the left, making it just noticeable enough. The sunlight beams through windows that eat up most of his wall across his low-sitting bed. The wind pickles up at just the right time, fluttering the baby blue curtains that frame his portal to the Outside. It’s like the songs he plays for me every night. Memories of his vintage guitar, currently knocked off the axis of the stand. There’s a stark contrast of the dark wooden bookshelf to the light filled room. The onyx altar brimming with all the memories and stories he could fit in his suitcase many years ago. The floors are shiny and bouncy to the morning glow. Mismatched socks sprinkled over the ground, but somehow everything is where it’s supposed to be. \nI ALMOST got distracted from the task at hand. FOCUS YUKI! There’s no time for this! You can lay on the warm sunbeams AFTER you eat. Hikaru, posted at the door, faintly whispers “おはよう、私の甘い王子様、 ” (Good morning my sweet prince). He crutches down to pat the top of my head two times before giving me one long stroke across my back. His fingers are so fucking cold jesus christ. Nevertheless I nuzzle under his touch, purely to sweeten him up for the sake of food. “FEED ME” I transmit through my nudges. He laughs as he straightens up, towering over me. We all know who the REAL boss is though don’t we. Life is about power, and in this case, I have him wrapped around my tail. I lick my lips and stretch my jaw, preparing to eat the whole world if I have to. I prance ahead towards my dining table. He chuckles again and shakes his head as he follows.\n“神様、おなかがすいていませんか。ごめんね、昨夜遅くまで小さな曲を書いていたんだけど許してほしい,” (My god, aren’t you hungry. Sorry buddy I was writing my little songs so late last night, I hope you can forgive me.) He says a bit clearer. I can’t forgive him just yet, and he knows. He always knows. I meow once to tell him to shut the fuck up and make me my goddamn food. If I had opposable thumbs and could walk upright, I would’ve done it myself by now. \nHe opens the magical cabinet and I swear, I see some pixie dust cascade over the marble counters. He pulls a single tin from the cupboard and reaches down for my dining bowl. He scrapes every last bit into the dish (as he should) and sprinkles a little bit of magic on top. He doesn’t keep many things from me, but this is the one thing I’ll never know. And that’s ok with me. As long as he keeps doing it forever and ever and ever. \nHe does his signature spin and reveals the final product with his arms open wide and a glimmering smile plastered over his face. “愛してます、” (I love you) He boasts. I lick my lips to keep the drool from dribbling out. \n“Put down the fucking plate NOW”, I want to scream. He finishes his bit and gently places my meal in the empty metal disc where it belongs. I ravage. Everything around me stops and time around me doesn’t exist. All I can think about is the fish bits melting in my tongue and the flavor explosion happening in my wee little brain. I die and come back to life. \nGone too soon, I realize I've licked the plate clean. Appetite insatiable, but that held me over for now. Hikaru, now teleported to the living room, is lounged across the elongated, forest green couch. I strut over, catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror. No longer afraid of my reflection, I’ve become quite vain to be frank. I have these beautiful oceanic hazel-green eyes, and puddles of colors that coat my body. Short haired, with swirls of ginger molasses, dark gray, and ink black. I am a sight for sore eyes, no wonder Hikaru chose me. \nI make my way to Hikaru for my long awaited apology. To be fair, you should never take anything I say seriously when I’m hungry. I never meant any of the things I said and, surprise, do feel a little guilty for my thoughts. It’s easier knowing he never holds anything against me, even for that time I peed on his pillow, or that other time too. That’s besides the point, I’m saying sorry now and that’s all that matters. \nI crawl over his lap and under his warm embrace. I do love him. I don’t know what I’d do without him. He’s a weird, fleshy, monstrous, human, but he’s mine. As he caresses me from my face through my tail, I send healing vibrations from my soul, to his. The loud buzz drowns out the static of the world around us. We are love, we are loving, we love." } ]

[ { "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 Room to Thrive\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1038\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone keeping track of time with tally marks on a wall — until one day they discover that all the marks are gone." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Trigger Warning: stillbirth\n\nThe voice on the outside spoke to Mama like we weren’t even real.\n\n“The twins have no room to thrive. If you don’t go into labor over the weekend, we’ll look into taking them out in ten days.”\n\n“No room to thri-?” The voice interrupted Mama, dismissing the fear we could feel pulsating around the tiny space my twin brother and I shared. I didn’t like how it felt, much worse than the daily kicks I received from Teddy, who slept above me. He grew quite larger than I and I overheard the people on the outside refer to me as “the small one.” I wasn’t sure what “no room to thrive” meant for us, but a feeling of dread blanketed the two of us.\n\n“See you Tuesday!”\n\n“Eat shit.” I don’t think the voice heard Mama because no one responded.\n\nA soothing rhythmic swirl brought calm to my twin and I, causing Teddy to stretch himself entirely, his foot grazing my ear as it often does. My hand spent most of the day covering it in protection. I didn’t mind and found the sensation comforting. We drifted to sleep, me covering my ear, Teddy’s foot lying so close, I could feel his toes wiggling in time to Mama’s hand that swirled over us.\n\nMama’s bouncy steps seemed much more labored this week as we moved throughout the day. In fact, it seemed that she only moved if I kicked a spot below me, causing her to whisper to herself, “back to the fucking bathroom,” whatever that means. I just know if I kick the spot, we get to stretch out.\n\n“I hate it in here,” Teddy’s complaints were frequent now, being the biggest with the least amount of space to move. “I’m ready to leave. When do we leave, Tyler?”\n\n“I don’t even know how we got in here. I didn’t know until today that we even could leave.”\nI didn’t like the distress in his voice and knew I needed to make him feel safe, especially if I wanted to keep both of my ears. I drew a line with my finger in a space both of us could reach.\n\n“Here, every time we wake up, let’s make a line. Then when it’s time to go, we will know that it’s time to go!”\n\n“You always have the best ideas, brüder.”\n\n“I love you.” We heard Mama say that to us and the familiar voices around her. Most of them said it back to her. A voice below us on the outside called Blakey said it to Mama all the time. The realization that I could be outside with all of the voices made me more nervous than excited. I couldn’t imagine anything outside of our space. Teddy on the other hand, seemed interested in the voices from the beginning. He thinks that I’m the smarter one but he figured out what we were called, along with some of the other voices outside. There is something called a Beary Bear that we haven’t heard yet. But he is the goodest boy and the most handsomest boy. Whatever that means.\n\nTeddy woke from his nap and smashed his foot on my hand. I think he’s doing this on purpose.\nHe made his mark on the wall and went back to sleep. I did the same.\n\nAfter a time we were awakened to Mama, yelling so loud our space shook.\n\n“AVADA KEDAVRA!”\n\nTeddy’s foot went into my ear again and it hurt.\n\n“Teddy! Stop! I don’t like when you do that! I feel terrible now!”\n\n“We need to leave.” I waited for him to say something else, but he didn’t. He made his mark on the wall and went back to sleep. I did the same.\n\nMama never made the sound again, and out of mutual fear we never spoke of it.\n\n“We need to leave.” His voice seemed weak.\n\n“I know, Teddy.”\n\n“Now.” His voice scared me.\n\n“I know, Teddy.”\n\nWe made our marks and fell asleep.\n\nThe voices were around us on the outside. Teddy’s kicks weren’t as painful as before. It surprised me to find that I wasn’t as happy as I thought I’d be when his kicks slowed.\n\n“I’m afraid Baby B has lost his heartbeat.”\n\nWho is Baby B?\n\n“Teddy?”\n\n“Yes, brother?”\n\n“We need to get out of here. Now. You don’t sound so good.”\n“I know, Tyler.”\n\n\"I love you, Teddy.\"\n\n\"I love you, Tyler.\"\n\nWe made our marks and fell asleep.\n\nMother’s crying woke us both, she spoke between sobs.\n\n“Teddy is gone, we lost Teddy!”\n\nI tugged his foot, he responded with a weak kick.\n\nNo, Teddy is not gone. We have not lost Teddy.\n\nMama thinks that Teddy is lost, but he is here. Right here.\n\n“No, Mama! He’s here! We need to come out, HE needs to come out!”\nThey never hear us out there, if she could, she would have known that we were alive, but we needed to come out, now.\n\nWe made our marks and fell asleep.\n\nThey were the last marks we made. Mama wailed and her entire body shook. Teddy stopped responding to me, I became blinded as I realized I was being lifted from the space where we kept our marks, they were nowhere to be seen. Teddy came after me, his body completely frozen, eyes closed. Two voices washed our bodies and talked as if they were alone.\n\nLike Mama, I could only cry. My twin was gone. We promised to do everything together, and now I was alone. My hand flew to my ear, I didn’t feel comforted.\n\n“Why did it take us so long to deliver? Baby B could have survived. We probably could have delivered them both and had four live babies instead of three”\n\n“Dr. McLeod’s orders. A set of 23-week female twins addicted to opiates came in and he bumped them. He said with the space one shouldn’t have made it through the weekend. We were betting on the smaller one.”\n\n“But-?”\n\n“Listen, this is South Carolina, not Compton. Would you rather have a set of Olsen Twins or them Wayans' Brothers?”\n\nThe voices laughed, but I didn’t know what was so funny." } ]

[ { "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: Charisma is a Cheating Man’s Best Friend\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1173\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone whose luck is running out." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Hello. I’m Ruri. Let’s gossip for a bit. Just you and me, okay? This scenario feels somewhat unhinged to me. A casual man who lives in London, UK is tearing up the friendship of two women living in two separate countries by dating to one of them, which caused her to push away the other woman, driving a wedge between them . I should have seen the red flags, right? I should have known, based on the whole character trait that singularly defines him (that being he talks in a flirty way to everyone who has a vagina) that he is a cheater, RIGHT?! No. Unfortunately, I did not see it coming. What does that got to do with me? Well, I used to date him. We are “Nevermets”, as what people call it on Reddit, meaning we never met in person, but dated as if we were physically together. I prefer the term long distance relationship, rather than online dating. Anyways, the girl he’s dating now, Alex, lives in Italy, and she was my friend, until she ghosted me. We all met in this one group chat dedicated to video gamers. London man, whose name is Jamie, dated at least three other women who were in the same group chat.\nWe had a great relationship, or so I thought, until we didn’t. Jamie is a wuss, and he figured out that the best way for him to dump me, is to tell me a week before the break up that he has something important he has to tell me. Those were his exact words, and immediately, my heart skipped a beat. I thought, “Oh my God, did he purchase a plane ticket to come see me?!”. Somewhere in my puny brain, I knew him as a broke college student, and it did not register that he might be giving me bad news. One week later, he couldn’t even spew the words out of his mouth. I had to say it for him. Do you hear me? I HAD TO SAY IT FOR HIM BECAUSE HE ASKED ME TO GUESS IT FOR HIM. I finally realized what he wanted to say.\nHe called me, but he couldn’t talk, so I had to talk while he stuck to texting me. I asked him what it is he wanted to say to me, after being so excited waiting for a week. He was quiet. As though on cue, that silence gave me some type of clarity, not an answer, and I couldn’t help but say “You’re breaking up with me.” He didn’t respond for a minute, then he said yes. I was getting ready for work when that happened, by the way. Go ahead and pile a list of the what makes Jamie a shitty person, and while you’re at it, make a list of why I’m a clueless fuck. I sat down on bed. I didn’t deny the break up, nor asked any questions. I simply cried. He was my first boyfriend, and my feelings for him were so strong I thought we’d someday get married. Before the call ended, he made me promise that we’ll always be friends. Three months later, without me knowing, he started dating Alex.\nTwo years later, I’m still foolishly getting caught in Jamie’s narcissistic love trap, believing that one of these days he’ll ask for me back, even when I found that he started dating Alex three months after we broke up, which a mutual friend told me about on the ninth month of our break up. I am guilty of letting Jamie use me as a tool to cheat on Alex, and I condemn myself for letting my ego get the best of me.\nLet’s call that mutual friend Lizzie. Lizzie is the type of person who would spill the truth to those who deserve to know it, almost in a clueless way, like when he told me about Jamie and Alex’s relationship out of nowhere. I find it calculating of him to break the news to me as he used to like Alex or probably still did. Either way, I am grateful to him, and through that, we formed a friendship of our own, glued together by the pain of our heartbreaks at the hands of the couple. Alex, after all, lead Lizzie on with the promise of dating him as soon as she’s allowed to, until she comes out with the news that she started dating Jamie.\nI’m sitting here in my kitchen, with only a stove light on, staring at my phone in a mix of delight and anxiety as Lizzie shares to me what had transpired during the day. He’s recounting his conversation with Alex, who messaged him this morning, seemingly nervous and vague about her intentions.\nFor two years, Jamie painted me as this desperate ex who would kill herself if he was to stop contacting me, so Alex, alongside her sister and her cousin, demonized me to elevate Jamie’s image. In return, Lizzie, who is friends with all of them, tried to defend me and warn them about Jamie’s cheating behavior. They refused to listen. Now, Alex is asking questions, and though she came to the right person, Lizzie was tired of her vague and insincere attitude. I could tell because Lizzie showed me the screenshot of their exchange. In the end, Alex didn’t get the answer she was looking for.\nJamie is in hot water. Lizzie and I could tell that Alex is suspicious of him. Two days after Alex messaged Lizzie, Jamie, Alex, her sister and her cousin had Lizzie blocked on social media. I suppose I don’t have to tell you who won the convince-Alex-who’s-lying contest. Jamie has a way with words. He is charismatic, handsome, and persuasive. That is enough for me to blame him for all my misfortunes within the two years post break-up events that happened to me, even the ones that had nothing to do with him. It’s easier for me to cope that way.\nI was hanging out with Lizzie through a phone call when Jamie messaged me. He wanted to spend time with me, and when I told him I was with Lizzie, he got upset and instructed me to not believe anything Lizzie is saying. That he is a “shady” person.\nThat’s when this little padlock in my chest loosened. The padlock that kept me from breaking away from my Jamie prison. I heard the pain in Lizzie’s voice and with that I realized I had to pick a side. Lizzie freed me from the torment, so Lizzie deserves my loyalty.\nMeanwhile, Jamie is terrified. In an effort to control the unfolding of lies happening right in front of him, he creates more lies, which unsurprisingly, convinces Alex to stay with him. I am done with him. Lizzie is done with him. I am free, and that luck that kept Jamie in a blissful relationship is fading away, and eventually, he will have nothing but excruciating pain, just like I 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: The Ten Contracts\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1631\n\nPrompt:\n\nYour character always makes the same promise; to change. Will they finally make it happen this time?" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Trigger warning: Substance abuse, mental health, violence\n\n***\n\nShe signed her name on the line for the fourth year in a row.\n\nOf course, in red ink.\n\n“Mom, you’re not supposed to write your name in red ink, remember?”\n\nAfter a long sigh, she swiveled my direction to ask if I really believed in such superstitious nonsense. \n\nFor a woman who was paranoid out of her mind when it came to most things, she appeared unfazed by the cultural taboo she had just committed.\n\n“Well, I don’t want you to die…You should write in black ink instead,” I whisper under my breath.\n\nIt’s a Korean superstition that if you write your name in red ink, you are practically beckoning death or bad luck upon yourself.\n\nShe grunts as she hands me the now-signed contract as if to overwrite my worries.\n\nI carefully examine the same document I hand-write every year.\n\n“I, mommy Kim, promise to quit smoking (for real this time).”\nBelow this statement: her signature in red ink.\n\nEvery New Year’s wish is spent on this contract. \n\nEach year, I tell my mother that the only thing I desire is for this promise to be fulfilled. However, here we are, standing at year four— secondhand smoke still clouding my vision.\n\n———————————————————————————\n\n\nIt’s a Korean tradition to eat “tteokguk” or rice cake soup, at the beginning of the new year. It’s always been my favorite meal, but this all changes when I find my mother hiding out in her car for a discreet smoke.\n\n“Aiya, Gina, you know mommy tried so hard to keep her promise, but this year was really difficult, okay? Let mommy have just one more smoke…”\n\nShe closes the car door in my face.\nMy tteokguk is watered-down from tears and my appetite is nowhere to be found.\n\nIt’s happening again.\n\nSalty tears streaming down my face, I recklessly shred the homemade contract to pieces and obtain new papercuts to match the ones from last year.\n\nI knew she couldn’t keep her promise. She never does.\n\n———————————————————————————\n\n\nThe years flew by as I watched “one more smoke” turn into\n\n“One more drink,”\n“One more gamble,”\n“One more hour of work.”\n\nMy phrasing on the contracts eventually changed to “I promise to stop being an addict.”\n\nI quickly learned that this was a mistake.\nComing face-to-face with the word “addict” only pushed her further into addiction, as if to occupy her mind and reassure her that she was anything but.\n\nOur relationship deteriorated at a speed unknown to light itself, and for once, I was okay with the outcome. I was okay with saying, “I quit.”\n\nI quit because you can’t.\nYou haven’t, and you won’t.\n\nI know it, you know it, and the ten years of contracts know it too.\n\n“You are not my daughter,” she bellowed, the pain echoing in her voice.\nI did not deny her. I did not feel nor want to feel like her daughter at that moment.\n\n———————————————————————————\n\n\n“Ms. Gina Kim, can you please read line three for us?”\n\nI am transported to a few years back, re-living a silly moment that I did not think would stick with me.\n\nI look out amongst my fellow high school peers and wonder why I had been chosen.\nSheepishly, I recite the phrase “In vino veritas.”\n\n“Excellent, and what does that translate to?” remarks my then-Latin teacher.\n\nI pause, stifling the desire to snort at its ridiculous meaning.\n\n“In wine, there is truth.”\n\nMy teacher finds herself exploring a tangent about how wine can be a truth serum and how it often leads people to unravel their most honest selves.\n\nIt seems this is not the case for everyone, I thought.\n“What if honesty is not the final destination for some people?” I whisper.\n\nMy teacher’s expression of both confusion and curiosity begs what the other destination could possibly be.\n\nGlancing up at her puzzled face, I calmly reply—\n\n“Violence.”\n\n———————————————————————————\n\n\nThe sound of drunken chaos brings me back to my senses.\n\nSilently, I stand watching my mother flip her beloved table and fling wine bottles across the room. I began to wonder if this is what honesty was meant to look like.\n\nIs she being honest when she says that I am not hers?\nWhat about when she tells me to leave and never come back?\n\nIf she is being honest now, then who is she when sober?\n\nPlease, mom, you need professional help. I am not qualified for this, I am just your kid— pleads my inner voice.\n\nShe quickly spins around as if to address my conscience, “You are not mine, you are ungrateful, that’s what you are.”\n\nAfter dodging several wine bottles and various other shatterable items, I manage to catch a vase thrown in my direction.\n\nIt is the vase gifted by my late grandmother—my mom’s own mother, and the sweetest little lady.\n\nAre you watching, halmeoni? If you are, watch closely.\n\nEver so gently, I place the vase in a corner that is guaranteed protection from the alcoholic rage that consumes the room.\n\nIf she is willing to destroy this irreplaceable piece of halmeoni, then what regard does she have for me? \n\nShe is not in the right state to care about my well-being, let alone her own.\n\nSuddenly, a spark lights up in the room and a grotesque stench fills the heavy air.\nHazy, yet familiar puffs of smoke fill my vision.\n\nI’m done. \n\nWithout hesitation, I turned to face my mother.\n\n“You will never see me again.” \nWe’ve tried, but this isn’t working and you know it.\n\nI quit her, cold turkey— the thing she was never able to do.\n\n———————————————————————————\n\n\nIn an attempt to keep my culture alive in my own home after the grief of figuratively losing my mother, I learned to cook all the familiar dishes I missed.\n\nTteokkguk was surprisingly on the list of dishes I learned to cook.\n\nIt’s currently New Year’s eve about eight years after the falling out.\n\nI still find myself eating tteokkguk, only this time it tastes different; there are no tears to water down my soup and the broth is made with the love I have given to myself.\n\nMy newfound fiancé, Daniel, joins me at the table to enjoy what is now a heartwarming meal.\n\nHowever, it is not long before the peace is disturbed.\n\nA knock at the door brings in the new year.\nWearily, I peek through the peephole to check on our uninvited guest.\n\nMy front doorstep is empty, with no figure in sight.\n“Hey honey, did we order anything online that’s supposed to be delivered today?”\n\nWith a bemused gaze, my beloved fiancé shakes his head.\nWhat the hell is it then?\n\nImpatient, I open the door to find a manila envelope resting on the ‘Welcome’ mat.\n\nThe name of the sender is smudged and illegible, but an unfamiliar address is still clearly displayed.\n\nI undo the metal clip of the envelope and spill its contents onto the dining room table.\nDaniel cautiously picks from the pile.\n\nQuestioning as to why the contents are so mangled, he pauses to look up at me.\nTears begin to stream down my face, but I don’t bother to wipe them away.\n\nBefore me lay ten sheets of paper, tattered and taped together.\n\n\n“I, mommy Kim, promise to quit smoking (for real this time).”\n\n“I, mom, promise to quit drinking.”\n\n“I promise to stop going to the casino.”\n\n“I promise to end my addiction.”\n\n“I promise to change.”\n\n\nThe pattern continues.\n\nHowever, something seems off. I urge Daniel to research the sender's address as I assess the situation happening on our table.\n\nUpon a closer look at the documents, I let out an abrupt, involuntary gasp.\n\nBlack ink.\n\nAll previous signatures signed in red had been scratched out and re-signed in black.\n\nDaniel interjects my moment of shock with his findings. \n“This address is for the WalterCrest Rehabilitation Center.”\n\nThere, at the bottom of the most recent contract, was a note addressed to me.\n\n“Gina, mommy is getting help like you suggested. I know it took a long time, but a promise is a promise. Happy New Year. Stay healthy in 2022, and don’t write in red ink like I did…it brings misfortune… as it did to us.”\n\n2022? Why is she writing this year’s date when we are going into 2023?\n\nMy fiancé pulled a final piece of paper from the envelope.\nAnother one? But there were only ever ten contracts…\n\nHe recites, \n\n“Dear Ms. Gina Kim, \n\nWe sincerely apologize that you are just now receiving these letters a year later. \n\nThere is no excuse, however, it appears that the staff responsible for the WalterCrest Rehabilitation Center’s mailroom were negligent during the month of January. \n\nAgain, this is entirely our mistake and we would like to make it up to you with six free months of our unlimited services.\n\nOur team would also like to take a moment to send our condolences for your recent loss. Mrs. Kim will be missed dearly by everyone here at WalterCrest.\n\n\nSincerely,\n\nAmelia Demond \nWalterCrest Rehabilitation Center.”\n\n\nBouts of sarcastic laughter escape my quivering lips.\n\nSix free months of your services? In exchange for losing precious time?\nIn exchange for what I had been waiting so long for?\n\n“What a joke,” I mumble into the now-dead air.\n\nCheering crowds and bursting fireworks from the television shatter the silence, attempting to counter the heaviness of the room.\n\nThe New Year’s ball has dropped.\n\nShe’s gone? Forever? I had no idea.\n\nMy mind and body crumble. I don’t know how to feel.\nA confusing mixture of pain and relief runs its course through my body.\n\nShe finally kept her promise, but this time I’m the one who was too late." } ]

[ { "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: Kai's Honesty Tour\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1137\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone scrambling to finish a goal in the last few hours of the year." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“Thanks for reaching out. Have a Happy New Year.”\nKai read the text and responded back, “Thanks, same to you!”.\nOn January 1, 2020, Kai made the goal of being more honest. She was a quiet soul, a “yes woman”, someone who didn’t know how to use the word “no”. However this year, she decided to be more honest with how she felt and if she would have known what 2020 would bring, she may have changed her mind. This year showed people’s true colors and required her to use her honesty more than she wanted. Some relationships were mended and others ended, but she felt it was all necessary.\nDuring the last 11 months, Kai was honest with her boss, which led to a promotion. She was also honest with a family member, which required her receiving an hour long lecture from her mother, who agreed, but felt it could have been handled differently. She just finished texting a coworker and explaining how a comment she made on her most recent Facebook status could be seen as “racist”. The coworker was actually very responsive and wanted to become more knowledgeable of systemic racism. Kai took that as a “win”. However, there was one person she was hesitant on reaching out to and here it was 10:55 PM on New Year’s Eve.\nKai made a list of ten people she needed to reach out to and express how she truly felt. Whether it was telling them how much she appreciated them or how much she was hurt by them in recent years. She looked at the last name on the list and figured “9/10” was pretty good, but knew she would not be reaching her goal if she skipped this one individual. The name, which was written in all caps and underlined was her father, her estranged father.\nKai knew her dad, but he chose not to get to know her. Now at nearly 30, she still felt like a little girl longing to be picked up and taken out for ice cream by her father. When he texted or reached out, she would respond very passively, but deep down inside she was angry. What did she do to deserve not being enough to be around? When she did reach out to schedule to meet, something always came up. All she wanted was an answer, she didn’t even care for a relationship at this point.\nOver the past 11 months, Kai would begin typing out a text message asking her dad why he wasn’t around and to express how it made her feel, but each time she deleted it. When he would text to say “I’m thinking of you” or “I love you”, she would just reply with “I love you too” without any thought or feeling. She would then promise herself the next time he texted she would be honest with him, even if it hurt. Yet to no avail, the automated, “I love you too” would find its way as a response to his irregular “check-in’s”. At this point she was more frustrated with herself than his actions or lack of.\nIt was now 11:05 and Kai figured she would not make her deadline. It was late and even if he read it, would she get the honesty she longed for. Would he even reply back or simply ignore it, which would lead to further distance between the two. Part of her wanted to be honest, and in turn, receive the honesty she searched for since she knew of his existence, but the other half of her just wanted to forget things and move on. It seemed this tour was coming to an abrupt end.\n*buzz buzz* Kai’s phone vibrated to only show another text from her best friend who was checking in. With the restrictions due to Covid, Kai was spending New Year’s Eve alone, just like Christmas, her birthday, Thanksgiving, and every other holiday that is typically celebrated with family and friends. She read the text, smiled, and thanked him. She didn’t want to get too distracted from her goal because it was now 11:22 and she knew these final minutes were critical.\nShe went through her text messages and found the last text and response from her dad. It was from Christmas and simply read, “Merry Christmas baby, dad loves you.” She replied back, “Merry Christmas dad, I love you too” nothing more, nothing less. No further conversation. She went back to the text box and started typing, but as before she deleted it. What would come of this? That was her biggest fear, but she also had some hope that her being transparent would cause him to do the same. He would pour out his heart to her and they would plan to get together once “outside reopened”. They would talk more and maybe he would even call just to hear her voice. He would send her silly GIFs or write on her Facebook wall just because he was thinking of her. In her mind, the response would be what she always wanted, but there was still a disappointed little girl who felt she would be disappointed once more.\nAs she continued to debate what to do, she quickly realized it was 11:56. Where on Earth did the time go? She now had four minutes to send the text that would change everything. She had prayed on this and even asked her mom if she was doing the right thing. Her mom had the best relationship with her grandfather so she did not understand what Kai was going through, but figured she had nothing to lose. Her mom even reached out to her dad asking for him to do more, but nothing came out of her plea besides a text every 2-3 months. Kai was desperate at this point.\nIt was now 11:58 and Kai found herself in her dad’s inbox. She figured this way she could see when he received it and if he would respond back. She allowed her fingers to do the typing without any thought and before sending it she read it aloud to herself.\nThe message read, “Dad, can we talk?” It was sent at 11:59 PM on New Year’s Eve. Although she did not get a chance to tell him how she really felt or even get a response from him before the clock struck midnight, she knew that the new year would hopefully bring a better relationship. Before putting the phone down, she noticed the message was not only delivered, but read. At this point, she could not unsend the message or go back. As she went to close out the messaging app, she noticed her dad was responding. It was truly about to be a new year. Her honesty tour was finally complete." } ]

[ { "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: Dancing for June\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 2070\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a backup dancer who’s on tour and just wants some peace and quiet for the holidays." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "This year, he would spend the holidays with is family and get some peace and quiet, while June D's tour had been cancelled. Atlanta was too loud and too busy for the Texan. All he needed was a few days of rest in the rental property he shared with his wife and teenage daughter. Being a backup dancer for June D, the most famous singer in the world, was not free of its challenges.\n Stephan Spalding loved performing in June D’s shows. He knew that she appreciated having him as a member of her dance crew. He was on time, volunteered to train the weakest dancers, and constantly came up with new choreography to keep her looking fresh and relevant to a younger audience. He had helped her create her signature Torch Dance on Tik Tok, which garnered 12 million views on YouTube in a single day. It sent her hit new single, Toss Em’ Back, straight to number one on the Billboard music charts.\n Next, he would give his best efforts at the Coca-Cola Roxy for the commercial shoot. She would see how dedicated he was to her, and finally promote him. Rehearsals would take up most of his day for the next three days, so there was no time to waste. Unfortunately, he would have to cancel plans to spend the holidays with his daughter, Ladonna.\n “Hello? What is it, Stephan?”\n “Hey, Allison. I know you and Ladonna wanted me to spend the holidays back in Austin, but June D has a Coca-Cola commercial that she sprung on me at the last minute. I can’t miss it. It’s a huge opportunity for me, and I could become her Dance Captain really soon. I’m gonna take us out of the hood. Baby, I promise to buy you a house and get Ladonna into college. Please, try to understand. I hope the two of you can forgive me.”\n “Really? Again, Stephan? You always choose that selfish Jazz diva over your family. She doesn’t even appreciate you, let alone give you credit for helping her become famous. If it were not for you, her song would have flopped. You cannot do this to Ladonna. Don’t worry about me, it is her who you will be disappointing. Please, come?”\n “I can’t, Allison.”\n “The way she treated me and Nancy when we were assistants was horrible, I can only imagine how hard it must be for you to breathe air around that woman. She sucks it all up. I’m telling you Stephan, if you do this, I am not going to let you see Ladonna again.”\n “What?”\n “Yes, that is right. You heard me. You keep pushing us away, you always break your promises, and now you are going to miss the third Christmas in a row. She hasn’t seen you since her 9th birthday, Stephan. She is 12 now. June D will understand, just go!”\n “I’m doing this for us, baby. Just bear with me. You will see when I make Dance Captain that our lives are going to change.”\n “No it won’t, you will be away more than you are now. You making Dance Captain is going to be the end of us. I’m lonely and I don’t have your support back home. You need to give up this foolish dream, and face reality. You have a good job here at the law firm that my uncle set up for you, just come home to us. Please? I’m begging you. I don’t feel safe here. There are always strange people lurking around the store at night.”\n “No. I can’t-“She hung up the phone.\n Stephan could feel the thrill of excitement coursing through his veins. This would be the one performance June D would see that would solidify his position in his mind. There was only one problem, he couldn’t get the conversation he had with Allison out of his head.\nDid she really mean what she said? Would she keep Ladonna away from me? I’m sacrificing for them both, and I wish she could see that.\n They were living poorly in downtown Austin, renting out hotel room after hotel room, only to check out before 11:00 in the morning. He was struggling and it was embarrassing. The pay for being a backup dancer for June D was a bunch of peanuts in relation to what Casey, the current Dance Captain, made. She was getting paid thousands of dollars a week for maternity leave. Stephan had rehearsed the steps, memorized the counts and breaths, and almost injured himself on a number of occasions to her holiday song Toss Em’ Back. He learned everything he could from Casey, before she had to leave.\n A bottle of chilled Yuengling would not help him fall asleep that night, only getting June D’s nod for a promotion would do the trick. He could imagine it now. It would be as though he had won the lottery, or some grand prize. She had announced that Casey may not be returning to be a stay-at-home mom in Phoenix, Arizona and she would be watching the dancers to choose a replacement for Dance Captain on Instagram. Her fans would vote for the best dancer in her commercial after it aired on Christmas day.\n Dance rehearsal had been full of mistakes and mishaps. Dee Dee slipped and landed flat on her ass, but mostly the bony part. Evelyn spun around too quickly and popped Natarsha in the forehead. The woman had a massive headache and needed to take a break and a rest for a few hours. Tracy tripped and landed into camera 4, breaking the microphone attachment and the tripod it stood upon, simultaneously spraining her ankle and giving herself a pop in the breast by the fallen boom microphone overhead. It made a loud smacking sound, since Tracy was so top heavy. Ohna and Neveah partied hard at Little Five Points, were hung over and still drunk.\n Looking at the mess they were in, Stephan rallied the dance crew together for a pep talk. He was sincere, compassionate, understanding and a leader. June D watched in the distance. She could tell how great of a Dance Captain she would have with him taking the reins. Casey was right to have recommended him for the job. She would make him Dance Captain, regardless of the Instagram votes. The camera crew, staffers, and performers took their places on set.\n June D was in another mood today. Stephan had hoped it wouldn’t interfere with her decision to find a new Dance Captain. All he could think about was getting his growing family out of the hood. The flat they shared above the liquor store was cold and pest-ridden. The winters were the coldest and the summers were the hottest, because the owner of Kay’s Liquor Stow didn’t want to install a heating and cooling unit upstairs. He knew he had to make the change to get his family into a better and healthier living situation.\n\nToss Em’ Back began to play loudly and the dancers took off, sprinting across the set and frolicking in the snow. Dee Dee, Evelyn, and Natarsha pretended to build a snowman at stage right, and the rest of the dancers performed June D’s viral dance that Stephan had come up with, the Torch Dance.\nIs that me? Oh, no! I forgot to put my phone on silent. Who would call me right now? It’s my big moment and I don’t need any distractions! Dammit!\n The ringing ended, but started again. The director yelled, “Cut! Who did it? Who forgot to put their phones in the collection box at the door? You know what, I don’t care. Just take your call outside and hurry back, or you will be replaced!” He said, rolling his eyes towards the group of dancers.\n Stephan hurried to his coat sitting on a bench in the back, and zoomed to the exit. The phone rang again for a third time.\n Who is it? I don’t know this number.\n “Hello?”\n “Stephan Spalding?”\n “Yeah! Who is this?”\n “This is the Heart Hospital of Austin. My name is Ava. I’m calling to tell you that your wife survived, but we could not save your daughter, Ladonna. We tried to contact you sooner, but you wouldn’t pick up.”\n “What? Wait! What the hell are you talking about? My wife is at home with my daughter. The last time we spoke, they were decorating the Christmas tree. I don’t understand.”\n “Well, there was a burglary at the liquor store they lived above. The thieves were going to leave with what they had, but overheard Christmas music playing above them. They broke into the home and opened fire at everyone inside. I’m so sorry, Mr. Spalding. We will need to have you come to the hospital as soon as possible to take care of affairs. Your wife is asking for you, but she is barely stable. Again, we’re so sorry for your loss.”\n “Oh, my god! Oh, no! Ladonna! My baby girl!”\n Running inside to gather his belongings, a man in a security guard uniform knocked him down. The guy didn’t look back to see who he had pushed over, let alone apologize or check on the fallen person he had left behind. This angered Stephan, but it wasn’t important to him. He needed to get to Austin on the next flight leaving the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.\n The director shouted at him, “Hey! You! Get your ass back on set. We need you to lift June D onto the sleigh. Let’s go!”\n Stephan ignored the tiny man and carried on with his things. He ran out the door and hopped onto the Marta that was parked in front of the Roxy.\n “Hey man, are you leaving any time soon?” He asked the driver.\n “My man, I’m on my break. I’ll leave when I get ready. So, have a seat.”\n “Damn it! I need to get to the airport. How long is your break going to take?”\n “I don’t know fool. Just take a seat.”\n A fleet of cars had arrived to pick up more tourists. Again, the loud honking of horns, people getting in and out of Lyfts, Ubers, and taxis had overwhelmed his ears. He couldn’t get away from the annoyingly busy city fast enough. He seized the opportunity and hopped in the back of an Uber that had been waiting for a fare.\n “Hey, I need to get to the airport. Can you take me there?”\n The flight back to Austin was the longest flight he had ever taken. Nothing was happening fast enough for him. Soon, he would learn that the peace and quiet he had wished and hoped for would never come. His heart hadn’t stopped beating rapidly since he got off of the phone with the hospital.\n My baby. No, not my Ladonna. Not my little girl. Please, god. No.\n He held onto his steering wheel as hard as he could, wishing it had magical powers to reverse this. He wanted his reality to change. The traffic was non-existent, allowing him to think of the good times he shared with his daughter, before her death. The new bicycle he and bought her for her ninth birthday, the daddy-daughter dance they had at her Kindergarten graduation party. Everything was more important than it was before.\n I should have come home every chance I had. I’m so sorry Ladonna. I’m so sorry Allison, please hold on baby. I’m on my way to the hospital.\n His phone rang again. This time, he knew it was the hospital.\n “Yes? It is Stephan Spalding. What’s going on?”\n “Are you parking soon? I can hear your turning signal.”\n “Yes, just spit it out. What is it? Is Ally okay?”\n “Mr. Spalding\", the woman gulped loudly. Her voice breaking as she spoke into the phone, \"She didn’t make it. Her wounds were too severe. She was shot in the neck and the bullet severed her carotid artery. We tried to save her, but she had lost so much blood. Her brain was without oxygen and blood for a long time, she didn’t survive our efforts to save her. I’m sorry, Sir.”\n Overcome with grief, his eyes filled with tears. They were overflowing so much that he lost sight of the road, missed a traffic light, and another one. He flew through another and was hit by an oncoming semi-truck." } ]

[ { "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: Life-Death River\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1522\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story about someone coming to terms with how different they are from their younger self." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I killed you.\nMy heart raced as I stumbled to my feet from my affectionate bed. \nSuddenly the bedroom door pounded like the thoughts in my dreams.\n“Danny,” my bewildered and inebriated Chinese father called.\n“What?” my properly irritated American response bellowed as I quickly threw clothes on.\nMy bedroom door flew open, apologizing before the reprimand. \n“You’re always responding with this sense of entitlement when will you get that…,” his slurred voice trailed as I walked pass him out to the hallway towards the city bus.\nYou killed me.\nMy head in a daze trying to concentrate on the day which laid ahead. \nNa my best friend came racing my way with an ensemble of light and exultation. I immediately smiled.\n“Want to talk?” We boarded quickly. Her locks fell in front of her gentle face as she held me close, as if she could sense my uneasiness. “Don’t worry, you’re so much better than that,” squeezing me.\nI am so grateful for her.\nIt was the last day of high school and I knew today was the day my entire life was about to change. \nUnlocking my front door, I came home early to prepare a feast. Duck was served at the Chinese reception after a loved one had been buried. It was the Life-Death River which is the main dish with accompanying sides of rice, fruit, and vegetables which represented gifts to the deceased for safe travels.\nI sat across from my father in this simple spread while he sat at the head nearest to the waterfowl.\nMy father smiled at the appearance, “Danny,” he said delightfully. “How was school?”\nI shrugged my shoulders.\nHe scuffed with disappointment, “I got this in the mail,” he pushed an open envelope in my direction. Unhesitatingly revealing the letter and it read, You are cordially invited to The Culinary Institute of America’s Registration Day.\nI didn’t reply to his opening gesture.\nHe chuckled before every insult, “you’re pathetic Danny. To really think you could be successful at -cooking,” he scuffed, wiping his mouth, and pushing his plate away. \n“Do you treat me like this because of mom,” I mumbled?\n“I don’t care what your mother thinks,” he stood up pushing the wooden chair against the worn floor board and slamming his palms against the table to stand. “When will you be done embarrassing this family?” He walked towards me swiping his open beer from where he stood. He stumbled and slurred his words in my direction, “Your mother hates you so she left me with you huh? And, you stilllll can’t get it right, huh?” His voice shook as he stood over me reeking of desperation. I stood out of my chair. \nHe was still yelling disparaging remarks as I turned towards the hallway to my bedroom ready to surrender but then with a sudden twist my my fist clenched.\n“I didn’t kill her,” I turned back to the fight.\n“What?” He took another swig from his beer. \n“I was eight years old. If you hate that kid then hate him but I stopped blaming him a long time ago,” I was furious and relieved to finally express all that I had grown over years. “I was a child, a child, and YOU had us move to this deserted town, YOU abandoned mom, and YOU resent every fiber of me, just preying on me to fail because you’re terrified that if I did succeed,” I grew closer. “If I get just close enough, right near it,” I said almost sarcastically as if I was his inner thoughts. “You couldn’t bear to see me become twice the man you’ll ever be!” I combed my fingers through my dark mane. \n“Shut up,” he threw a glass bottle in my direction. Missing me as I wiped the bottle’s reminiscent from my face. He accelerated my way but due to his poor condition we dropped to the floor as we tussled. He latched onto my neck. I threw a punch capsizing him to the floor. He grasped for me as I reached for the bottle near his head.\nDon’t kill me.\nTowering above my other half. \n“I’m not you,” I looked at Danny (my father); realizing love and blood could never be enough to change this man because this is who he chose to be. I stepped over him and revoltingly dropped the bottle by his head. Turning and running through the hallway to grab the bag I packed the week before. Rushing to the front door.\n“Where are you going?” He stumbled off the ground. “You need me,” he hung onto the sleeve of my shirt. \nI froze, “I NEEDED you,” I moved my arm and walked out the door. I walked in the dusk of the night towards the bus stop. Na was holding herself as her lips parted, “You did it,” she squealed. “Are you ready for this new chapter in your life Dan?” She said amusingly.\nI chuckled as we lined towards the bus, “Do you know you are the only person that gets me,” I looked deep into her eyes.\n“No, I just accept you for who you are while other people are just blinded by who you will become.” She paused, wrapping her arm over my shoulder. “And Dan you will become great,” she said exaggerating as we found our way to our seats. “You did this, and your sister helped you every step of the way,” we placed our luggage overhead.\n“Are you sure of that,” I sat near the window seat, Na sat beside me?\n“What do you mean? Your sister is the reason you even decided-,” I cut her off.\n“Yeah, but that doesn’t stop me from blaming myself for killing her. I was supposed to protect her, Na. It doesn’t even feel right to have this to feeling of freedom. To feel love feels so wrong,” I said helplessly.\nNa laid her head against back of the seat. She reached for my hand, “Dan, the only person you killed is…Danny. You aren’t that little boy who neeeds love from individuals who aren’t willing to givveee you the love that you need. You aren’t weak and feeble, you aren’t stupid, and you aren’t a murderer. You. Are. A. Survivor. You may not be able realize that today, but you fought those thoughts everyday so you could stand to be that the person you are today. And Dan, that IS love. You ARE amazing Daniel Phang,” she wiped her face. “You are strong and you are powerful to walk away from anyone or anything that doesn’t reflect that. And your sister would’ve definitely wanted that for you. So yes, she is a part of this journey and yes if you didn’t let go of your old self then you wouldn’t even have the space to stand and be the man you are today.”\nI wept for myself for the first time as I cherished this moment. I really took the time to absorb everything and saw Na clearly.\n“I love you,” I said abruptly as we reveled in each other’s embrace.\n“Um,” she blushed. “Dan you know I love you,” shyly looking away. But,” we held each other close. “Do you feel ready?” She cleared her throat, quickly changing the topic.\n“Do you know I love you,” I laughed? Holding her intentionally, I never held her in this moment like I did today. “I want you to know that I appreciate you, you make all of this so much easier,” I laughed as I wept.\n“Yeah,” her grin flickered in the dark. She wiped my tears. “You do too.” I knew her story of living with a busy single mother so all her needs came secondary in her household. Therefore, having each other in our lives made life more bearable. We were always a light for each other even when our path was consumed with darkness.\nThe following morning we arrived in the city and took a silent 15 min. car ride to the suburbs.\nWe both got out, “so this is it,” Na smiled as we looked up at the quant home on the corner of W 39th Street and Broadway. All the modern 1950s split level homes were lined in a row with tailored front lawns.\n“It’s green,” we both smiled as the color resembled the painted interior of my childhood home. Na waited by the car. “We can leave, if you want,” she yelled reassuringly. As I took slow steady steps towards the front door.\nI shook my head, as she knew I needed this. Na nodded her head clenching her palms together.\nYou found me. \nI knocked silently at the silver door knocker. The door creaked when it opened.\n“Hi,” I stood still but confident in myself, relaxing my shoulders and taking a deep breath.\nShe smiled, “Dan,” my mothers’ eyes filled with joy as her outreached arms opened in my direction.\nI found you. \nMy thoughts murmured gently.\n“I found you,” I said engulfing my other half. My body collapsed and the feeling of peace overcame me, as I finally accepted myself wholeheartedly." } ]

[ { "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: 6:63\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1014\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a character reminiscing over something they should have said, and how their life would be completely different had they said it." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "As the earth embraces my flesh, I can’t help but recall the moment of your birth. \n(I’m writing this letter as I lie dead. Of course, this cannot be a physical letter, but rather a metaphysical one. You’ve always had a penchant for the abstract. I only hope you can read my handwriting. Please understand— it is rather difficult to maintain good penmanship when one no longer has a sentient body.) \nI’ve always derived a certain sense of satisfaction from living my life in multiples of three. You were born at exactly three past seven— but seven is such an ugly number. Brazen and obtrusive, unfitting for my perfect girl. Six hours and sixty-three minutes; much neater, rolling delectably off the tongue.\nWhen you were three years old and would still cry over things like spilled milk, I’d tell you that if you wanted to cry, you could do it outside. You must have thought I lacked compassion, if toddlers have any awareness for such things. \nThis perception that you may or may not have had was wholly inaccurate. Your wails did not exasperate me. My heart was not hardened to your laments. If I told you to go conduct your crying in private, it was so you could understand that the majority of those you encounter will have no sympathy. The world does not wait for you to dry your tears. \n(My narcissism compels me to wonder if you’ve shed a tear for me. If you have, I truly hope someone will gently sweep it from your cheek. I do.) \nAt nine you were running wild, and I’d have to leash your hair into neatly woven braids. I’d begun to be afraid. I was frightened that you’d become me at your age, that you becoming me would mean that I’d become the same hand that had been wielded against me. \nI was right to be apprehensive. It’s an inevitability, this cycle. Tears were spilled over arithmetic homework. I warned you away from children I disapproved of. Weekends were spent indoors. My heart had hardened into an iron fist. \nBy the time you were eighteen, you’d lost your softness and had learned how to argue. We’d clash over everything: the holes in your jeans; the boy down the street whom you’d started seeing with the messy hair and tattoo on his collarbone; the major you’d decided upon— philosophy, of all things, which I saw as the waste of a mind that had the potential to do more than dwell on ambiguous nonsense. \nBut I lost my grip the moment I taught you not to fight with tears. You’d learned to channel your anger instead, and you’d push and you’d push, until overflowing with frustration, I’d blurt, “Is this the hill you want to die on?” \n(It was. It always was. You would never back down once your heart was set. Now that I am buried in a hill, and dead, I wish I would have told you this instead: Tell me which hill you want to die on, and I’ll meet you there. \nI’ll lay down beside you in the grass. We’ll bask in our own hubris and gulp down the stars, and the gods will laugh down at us with envious scorn.)\nMilestones came and went. Graduation. Wedding. First child of your own. In each block of time lay nestled a single moment, when I looked at you, and you looked at me, and you waited. I opened my mouth. I closed it. I smoothed your hair away from your face silently. Your eyes shuttered. \nHere was my fatal flaw, the thing you must have despised me for: In my eyes, I had always sacrificed everything for you. Each fight made you stronger, each bitter disagreement a hard earned lesson. There was no need for words beyond that.\nIt happened gradually. The fire had always been there, I had just chosen not to see it. My eyes slowly began to clear, to cut through the smoke, but I was aging, and you were living, and it was too late.\nBurning anger, burning sadness, burning silence. \n(Things that burn: \n- Pancakes hastily cooked on the morning of your twelfth birthday, flipped a minute too late. You eat them anyway.\n- The handle of the car door on a sweltering day. I tell you to wait, but you’re always so eager to act, and you singe your palm on blistering metal. \n- Eyes, holding back tears.\n- Bridges. \n- My mouth, holding back three words; an ember smolders beneath my tongue, and pain renders me mute.)\nAnd then I was dying. Slowly, not all at once. I almost wish it had been sudden, if only so I could have an excuse. You were there throughout it all. I can’t imagine why. \nThe end came. My heart was a skipping stone losing its momentum. Each beat felt like a plunging weight in my chest. \nYou took my hand in yours. I counted every last second, all sixty-three of them. A full minute and some change to spare. Three extra seconds: a blip in time, a space where only the two of us were allowed to exist. In that shredded moment, the universe convulsed and compressed itself into only you: your face looking down, your body hovering over my bed. As your sheer magnitude suddenly struck me, I wondered if you had always been so much larger of a person than I. \nIt is now, in this lonely sleep, that I wish I’d used those three extra seconds more wisely. Within them were unsaid lifetimes. \nIf someone offered me the chance to do over my entire life, I’d say, “No need.” I have no regrets over the things I did or the things I said; only what I didn’t. Mistakes are made to prove we are human, a necessary evil. My only true sin was what I did not allow myself to give.\nNo, I don’t want my life. All I need are those three seconds with you.\n(I love you.\nI love you.\nI love 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: All shades of colors.\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1488\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone who gets proposed to five times on Christmas Eve." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "It was meant to be a beautiful day, the cabin they rented had been beautiful, old and had character dents that spoke of years of hard winter and beautiful summers.\n\"I was wondering what you were doing with fire, there is a reason I don't allow you into the kitchen, what were you thinking..\" and as she trailed on angrily in the background, Kelvin couldn't help but watch wide eyed as his failed proposal engulfed the cabin in a massive inferno of hot red and orange. They had not even spent an hour in the cabin. It was Christmas eve and he was very unhappy.\nAnd the worst part was that, she had passed by the neatly arranged candles, spelling out the words, 'will you marry me?' and Anna had not so much as blinked at the serene yet romantic mood set by the low lights and the smooth baritone of Barry white playing in the background, instead she had screamed like a banshee and promptly knocked down a candle, hence the now blazing fire.\n\"I don't know what mood you were trying to set,\" he comes back from his slightly disbelieving internal monologue\nand shrugs like he had not just burnt down a 100 years old cabin in the name of love, oh well better this than stabbing himself like Romeo did.\n\"I wanted to give the cabin some ambience,\" he shrugged.\n\"Ambience? Ambience,\" she waved around the woods, gesturing at the lush green background and the serene sound of wildlife now combined with crackling wood, \"we are surrounded by nature and you wanted to give the cabin ambience, I give up,\" she threw her hands up in the air and walked to the ambulance prepared to carry them out of the burning area. That was at 5:30am.\nThe second time he proposed was a joint affair with his friends. The plan was simple, after the failed affair early in the morning, Anna had gone to chill with the girls for a few hours and he needed his friends help. He had three hours to make a soup.\nThe group of friends gathered in Kevin home. In actuality, it was their home. Anna had moved in when the two had developed a stronger relationship. \n\"Do we have everything ready?\" Kevin asks, rolling the sleeves up on his shirt as he looks down at the ingredients spread out on the dining table. There's a raw chicken, some vegetables,\nspices, and various other greens that he couldn't name.\nThe others nod.\n\"Alright, what do we do first?\" Kevin asks, looking between his friends for advice because there was no way he could cook on his own. Kevin had once burned butter, he was a walking kitchen hazard but he wanted Anna to know how serious he was and cooking was the most serios task he could come up with.\n\"I think we're supposed to cook the chicken first,\" Stephen says, poking at the meat.\n\"Aren't we supposed to put spices on it or something to give it flavour?\" Charming asks, picking up one of the jar of spice and sniffing.\n\"Let's do that first,\" Kevin says, grabbing the jar from Charming's hand. \"How much do we put?\"\n\"The more the better, right?\" Lex says with a shrug.\nKevin looks skeptical but does what he says, after all, no one had any better answers. He takes a small fist full and sprinkles it over the meat, turning it an orange colour.\n\"Alright, anything else?\" He asks, looking at the meat and that was how they continued till the aroma of heavily sprinkled spices and boiling meat rend the air.\nHe had left the soup in a cooler and put it on their kitchen table accompanied with a note before heading out with his friends. When he came back home hours later Anna's ring finger was ring less and she looked rather displeased. When asked what she did with the soup she proudly announced that she threw the offending concoction away because the soup tasted like how a fever potion in the middle ages would taste and she was not putting anything dirty in her sacred temple.\nThat was at 1 in the afternoon.\nThe third proposal had been just as uneventful, it invovled a hot air balloon and red tiny balloons arranged to pop the big question. One thing he failed to take note of was that the field was filled with weeds that had sharp pointy seeds which popped the balloons when a rather fierce breeze blew by before she could see it. By now it was getting dark and they were both tired so he decided to try one last time. There was a attraction the noted on their way to the park. \nThe fourth proposal involved clowns, a circus and a screaming Anna because apparently Kevin had no idea she hated clowns. This happened at 7:00pm.\nThey were right when they said you could never really know someone fully. He had been in a relationship with the most loving woman for five years and he had no idea that one of his greatest joy was her nightmare. So with a heavy heart Kevin slashed off clowns for his unborn children's birthdays. \nSo he had retired for the day, tomorrow was Christmas so he might as well propose tomorrow.\nThe fifth proposal was bleak. There was no music playing in the background, no potions, no balloons and no clowns. \nHe had just resigned himself to asking her in the most mundane and simple way ever. He slipped the ring on her finger while she was asleep and waited wide eyed for her to wake up.\nNot the best plan though if your future wife liked to sleep like she liked to eat. He had also not helped matters but dragging her all around the city earlier on. Four hours later, she woke up rather groggily and tried to wipe her face with her hand. The cold metal of the silver ring had hit her in the eyes and she had stared at her finger like it had grown two heads.\n\"Wait what's this?\" She asked alarmed.\n\"Oh wow, thank you for finally taking notice your highness,\" he replied sarcastically.\n\"Is this a proposal?\" She sat up now, the white blanket slipping down to her waist with her hair sticking every which way.\n\"Yes it is, it's the fifth fucking proposal so I guess fifth times the charm.\" \n\"You want to marry me?\" Anna's eyes had widened in disbelief as she flexed and unflexed the ring finger.\n\"Oh I'm no longer asking, you lost that chance after I burnt down a cabin, nearly killed us in an hot air balloon, gave away the soup I poured my heart and soul and sweat into to prepare for you and gave you a panic attack when I took you to the circus so no, I'm not asking, I've slapped the ring on you and we're engaged, capische.\" He held her cheeks softly as if daring her to refuse his proposal.\nThe sound of soft chuckling filled the air and his heart soared with joy. \"So that was you trying to propose all those time, wow, you need to work on your proposals.\" She teased.\nWithout missing a beat, \"I don't need to, we're already married remember?\" He waved at her face.\n\"You know I wanted to propose that day,\" before he could speak she continued, \"the day you burnt down the cabin, I was feeling a little insecure about asking you and when the cabin went up in flames I thought, 'I asked for a sign and maybe this is the sign. Maybe it's the wrong time,' so I stashed the ring in my purse and kept quiet.\"\n\"Well thank God you didn't, the guys and your family would have never let me live it down.\" He said.\nThe corner of her lips twisted up into a blinding smile that showed off her milk white, teeth. She truly loved this man and she had to say it. \"I love you too,\"\n\"It's obvious I also love you, no man in his right mind would try to propose five times otherwise. Your family already knows so get ready for the calls. I took a picture of you while you were busy snoring with the ring on your fat little finger.\"\n\"I love you very much,\" she repeated and watched as his ears turned crimson and he avoided looking at her out of embarrassment. In her eyes they were already married anyway and she had many more years to color him all shades of colors.\n\"So is that a yes?\" Anna shook her head while rolling her eyes before leaning in to give him a hot kiss on the lips. \n\"Yes, Merry Christmas.\" she whispered breathlessly against his now wet lips.\n\"Actually it's 11:58, it's still Christmas Eve.\" He pointed out.\n\"Shut 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: The Final Journey\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1381\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with someone looking out a train window." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Reedsy Prompt: Start your story with someone looking out a train window\n\nThe Final Journey\n\nRaghavan strode through the compartment of the Vellore to Bangalore train, ticket in hand, looking for his allotted seat. Thankfully, it was by the window. He sat down with a sigh of relief. His escort Ramu, took charge of stowing his small suitcase in the berth above his head.\n“I will come back and check on you a little later, saami,” he said, folding his hands together.\nRaghavan nodded, and Ramu went back to his seat in the third class carriage behind this one, interconnected by a short swaying bridge. Raghavan stretched out his long legs and stared with unseeing eyes at the melee outside the window. Typical of most Indian train stations in 1942, the dimly-lit platform was crowded with people rushing about, trying to find their seats on the train. Skinny, dark skinned coolies with luggage piled high on their heads and holding more bags in their hands darted in and out of the crowds, frantically keeping track of their customers. I am glad I was able find a seat in a first class compartment thought Raghavan to himself, observing the din and confusion outside.\nLooking around he observed the other occupant of the coupe. It was an elderly gentleman dressed in a dark coat and pants, and wearing a white turban. Probably a high ranking government employee, guessed Raghavan, who can afford to travel by first class.\nHe returned to his own thoughts, staring out the window. The events of the past few weeks played out in his mind. He had had to resign his post as the stenographer to Lord Linlithgow, one of the last Viceroys of India in 1942, because of his ill health. The cold climate of Simla, situated in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh, exacerbated his asthma symptoms. He had returned to Madras where his wife Kamala had stayed behind with their large and growing family.\n“Your asthma is getting worse,” Dr. Krishnan said. “Why don’t you go to Vellore Medical Center, they may have some better options?” \n\nVellore was the southern city that boasted the largest medical facility in India at that time – the Vellore Medical Center and Medical College. It had been established by an American woman, Ida Scudder, in 1902—her father was a Christian Missionary Doctor there. Raghavan thought fondly of his wife and children, and the patience with which they had handled his frequent asthma attacks as he sat up in bed every night, his body racked by severe coughing. There were no antibiotics, inhalers or other medications available at the time for treating asthma. At his wife’s urging Raghavan decided to follow the doctor’s advice and make a short trip to Vellore by himself. He would stay in a rented house and the cook, Ramu, would accompany him for safety as parts of the country were still under air raid warnings – when the shrill siren sounded everyone had to dive under the table for shelter. Kamala could not go with him as the children were not old enough to be left alone.\n\nRaghavan consulted several eminent doctors that had been recommended to him in Vellore. They all shook their heads when they read his prognosis notes. “Our options are very limited”, said Dr. Pillai, supposedly an expert in asthma treatments. “You’ve already tried everything that your doctor in Madras had recommended. We have nothing new to offer. But we can try again and see if anything works.”\nAfter a week of treatment the asthma symptoms were not much better. The doctors had run out of options.\n\nRaghavan sent a telegram to Kamala to say that he would be coming back in a few days. He got an immediate and terse reply.\n“Go to Bangalore”, it said. “Letter follows”.\nRaghavan knew that his wife did not know enough English to be able to write a longer reply. But the postal system in India then -- and now-- is excellent – there are three deliveries a day and even the remotest village is connected. A few days later he got a long letter, written in Tamil.\nApparently Kamala had been in touch with her brother Srinivasan, a doctor in the British Army who was stationed in Bangalore, informing him of her husband’s ill-health. He had urged her to tell Raghavan to come to Bangalore, where he would personally supervise his treatment. Kamala told her husband to go to Bangalore immediately. Srinivasan would meet him at the station.\nxxx\n\nThe engine driver sounded the first warning hoot. The loud speakers crackled and then a stentorian voice announced in English, Hindi and Tamil--as was customary--that the train was departing soon. There was a flurry of activity on the platform outside as people said their last goodbyes and hurried to their carriages. The station master, wearing his black hat and white uniform and holding a green flag under his arm strode up and down the platform, urging the malingerers to board.\nWith two more long hoots and a sudden jerk the train began to move—slowly at first and then picking up speed as the Station Master waved his green flag back and forth. The waving passengers, the Railway waiting room and the news vendors and tea shops soon became a blur as the train hurtled towards Bangalore.\n\nxxx\nRaghavan shifted his body and watched dusk rapidly settle into night. He looked forward to arriving in Bangalore and resolving his health problems. He thought again of his wife and children—they had been alone long enough while he worked far away in Simla—they deserved to have him come home and take charge of everything.\nThe first class carriage attendant came by and offered him a dinner menu. Raghavan waved him away—he had already eaten before boarding. The train had now settled into a steady clacking rhythm and everything was quiet. The lights in the compartment had been automatically dimmed. His neighbor in the other seat was already asleep, his head resting on his chest. Lulled by the solitude Raghavan relaxed his head and fell asleep.\nSometime later he was awakened by a strange feeling. Struggling to breathe, he pulled out his handkerchief and tried to stifle his coughing. Everything seemed out of control – he wanted to shout for help but his body wouldn’t move. He slumped down in the corner of his seat.\nHe did not see Ramu come in to check on him in the middle of the night.\nHe did not feel him touch his shoulder and realize that he was dead.\nHe did not see him check the breast pocket of his suit and take out the wad of notes.\nHe did not see Ramu quickly and stealthily go back to his third class compartment, from which he would alight at the next station and melt into the crowd.\n\nxxx\n\nThe train slowed down and stopped with a jerk at the next small station before Bangalore. As the sky turned pink a uniformed Ticket Collector boarded the compartment and knocked on the swinging doors before entering. Ticket Please! He announced loudly, waking up the gentleman with the white turban. The man roused himself and handed over his ticket with a dazed look. Punching a hole in it the Ticket Collector handed it back. Ticket Please! He repeated to Raghavan, but there was no response. He seemed to be sleeping with his head slumped on his chest. The Ticket Collector touched Raghavan’s shoulder to shake him awake. His whole body tilted to the side.\nThe engine driver gave a warning hoot. The Ticket Collector reached up and gave a firm pull on the Emergency Brake handle, to stop the train from moving.\n\nTelegram! The postman called out in a loud voice the next morning. Kamala opened the telegram from her brother with trembling fingers. Her legs almost buckled under her as she realized the implications. She was now a widow at 38 years, responsible for a large family of seven minor children. She stared at the telegram for a few minutes. A single tear rolled down her cheek. With her usual pragmatism she squared her shoulders and called the family in to tell them that she was now the matriarch of the family.\n\nSusheela Narayanan" } ]

[ { "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: MISSING LEAVES\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1226\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with a character saying “Where I come from, …”" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Where I come from, people’s family names come first. Family trees trace long ancestral lines back to a home village, and those who fall from their branches become missing leaves.\n\nMy father came into Hong Kong along with thousands of refugees from China’s mainland who were desperate to escape Mao’s regime. He could have been the first leaf to fall from an ancient family tree. I’ll never know.\n\nMy mother was an orphan, also from Guangdong Province. Right from the start, then, I was a missing leaf from two family trees.\nMy parents met at the restaurant where they worked, she as an amah (“hostess”) and he as a cook. Their names appear on a faded copy of my birth certificate. She is listed as “Fan Ching Mui,” which I am told means “quiet little sister.” But Chinese tones can mean so many things. I may be way off base.\n\nMy mother and the cook had an \"affair,\" and she got pregnant. I hope it was consensual. I suspect it was unexpected. When she was about six months along, my father very kindly gave her fifty Hong Kong dollars and disappeared forever.\nThat’s all I know about that gentleman, half of whose DNA I carry. That’s all I care to know.\n\nWhere I come from, unwanted girls are aborted or drowned or dumped on the steps of police stations and stairwells. The lucky ones are taken to orphanages. Our lives are nearly worthless in a culture that favors boys, to put it mildly. When China instituted its one-child policy, it raised a generation of young princes who now have no one to marry. Even though parents are now allowed to have two children, it’ll take years to raise a crop of eligible young brides\n\nI am lucky that I was born at all.\n\nOn 5th May, 1958, my mother gave birth to me at the Eastern Maternity Hospital, which no longer exists. I’ll never know the story of my first hours and days in the world. Was her labor was long and difficult or were there complications that called for a C-section? Or was it \"uneventful,\" the cold medical term for a woman who suffers every moment no matter what.\n\nIt's possible she had unsuccessfully sought to have an abortion. Or did she choose to carry me to term? I wouldn't be here if she hadn't. That's why I believe in a woman's right to choose either course.\n\nI have one clue that she did choose to give birth to me. She kept me with her for six weeks. That tells me she gave motherhood a try. But I'm sure poverty made raising a child untenable, that she had been fired from her job or quit from shame. She made an arrangement to place me with a foster mother and make regular visits to provide me with milk. That didn't last, though. When I was six weeks old, she disappeared breaking my branch from the family tree forever.\n\n I see the child I used to be when I look into the glass\nMy mother’s eyes, the light of China.\nWhere is she now, so many years gone by?\nDoes she gaze into store windows, all alone with her dreams\nAnd in her arms a child, or baskets of fish?\nHome alone to crowded rooms, clinging to the weary wheel of life.\n\nDid she weep at surrendering me? Did her womb feel empty and hollow with loss? Even now, if she has survived into her eighties, does she wonder what became of the girl she carried all those decades ago?\n\nIf I were with her now, what would I have become?\nIn her eyes, the light of China.\nWould I have had my music, a gift of the soul?\nOr gazed into store windows, all alone with my dreams?\nAnd in my arms a child, or baskets of fish?\nHome alone to crowded rooms, holding to the weary wheel of life.\n\nThe foster mother took me to the nearest police station. They promptly turned me over to the Po Leung Kuk Orphanage, which in those days was a dark pit of starving babies and overworked student nurses. Now it’s a bright, cheerful community center and school, but it doesn’t shy away from its past. Visitors can see photographs of the days when toddlers were tied all day to wooden seats in the sun, their only chance to get outdoors. They can read about the babies whose bottles were propped on pillows and fed as if on an assembly line.\n\nI’ve recently learned that I would have been taken to the Fanling Baby Hospital first, which also no longer exists. In the late 1950s, British civil servants were recalled to England, leaving behind a shambles of a government.\n\nWhen I was about three months, they moved me to the main orphanage where I joined the throngs tied to those wooden chairs, sitting for hours in an unchanged diaper. They say that when I was finally adopted by an American couple at age twenty months, I was so malnourished I was the size of a typical nine-month-old and unable to walk.\n\nThis is not a pity party. I flourished in my new home in the US. With a diet of good old cow’s milk, fresh vegetables, meat and potatoes, I caught up to American kids within a year. My adoptive family gave me all the food I could want, made sure I went to good schools, and even gave me piano lessons that have led to my lifelong career in music.\n\nSometimes on the street, I think I see your face.\nYour eyes, the light of China\nBut you are far away, a stranger to me.\nIf you only could know how well I am,\nYou could see that I’m a woman now.\n\nJust last month I took a DNA test to see if I could learn more about my ancestry, wanting to learn more about my family tree.\n\nBlank. Blank. Blank. I have to go back to a second cousin once removed to find someone even remotely related to me. No grandparents or great-grandparents, no home village. I do know that I’m one hundred percent Chinese. That and five dollars will get me a latte at a freshly unionized Starbucks.\n\nMy DNA can be traced back through something called a \" maternal Haplogroup.\" The line goes back to a single woman who lived 16,000 years ago. That's some family tree bare branches and all!\n\nI’m amused to learn that I have 2 percent Neanderthal DNA, more than 96 percent of those who take the test. Maybe my original home town was Bedrock, and Fred Flintstone was my neighbor! Actually, the Neanderthal were surprisingly more advanced than their club-wielding, caveman stereotype. They had fire and tools, made jewelry and cave art, mourned their dead, and possibly could speak aloud. Their skulls were longer and flatter than those of modern humans but some had larger brains. Maybe they did invent the wheel, like Thag in the Gary Larsen comic.\n\nIn my exploration of the past, I've learned that I don't have to feel like a missing leaf anymore. My husband and I have planted a new tree with a son and daughter and two grandchildren. I am the matriarch of a family tree whose roots will grow deep and strong." } ]

[ { "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: June and the Budgie\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 2321\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone who is given a bird for the holidays but doesn’t know how to take care of it." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "June Denton was thinking about her father, Ronald Denton, again. How he had died from a long battle with colon cancer, and how all of the money and fame she had amassed did not do anything to save him. She put so much time, effort, energy, and love into finding a way to save her daddy. All of the doctors, specialists, oncologists, physical therapists, nor her huge donations mattered. She had all but begged her fans to donate to the foundation she started in his name. She had taken so much time off of the road, canceled so many shows, and nearly received a lawsuit from the state of Texas for falsely advertising an appearance at the Super Bowl that she canceled at the last minute.\nHe died, and all that was left of him was this bird he left her with. Dillie was a cheerful, colorful, energetic, but very loud budgie that her dad loved until his death. Every picture of Ronald had this blue, green, and yellow bird in it. Dillie was his pride and joy. Ronald taught the bird how to talk and sing. They had a special song they would sing every morning when Ronald was getting ready for work until he became very ill and the singing ceased. \nThis morning, while she untwisted her hair and fluffed her tight coils in her vanity mirror, her daddy was on her mind. She looked into the brightly lit mirror and began speaking to herself,\n“Dad, why couldn’t you have stayed a little bit longer?” Tears began to fall from her eyes, as she began to see how much she looked like Ronald.\n“I did everything I could. I hope you know that daddy. I miss you and I hate that you left me here with this bird. I do not know how to love it. In fact, I hate it. Every time I see it, it reminds me of you, and it keeps singing that stupid song. I have to go to work now, the entertainment industry does not care if I am grieving. My fans need me to show up, and that is one thing you taught me to do; no matter how hard things get, they can and will get better, so keep going. Good-bye, daddy.” It was pointless to draw any under-eye make-up, for she knew she would cry more than a few times today. Besides, it has only been three weeks since Ronald died, and she was up for a television experience with Wendy Williams. The phone began to blare Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas Is You.\n“Hello?”\n“Hey June D, it’s the producer. We just wanted to let you know that we are ready to receive you when you arrive. We will go over all of the interview questions and get you into hair and make-up as quickly as possible. Any immediate demands?” Kelly’s voice began to shake a bit. June could tell he was under a lot of pressure.\n“No, but thanks Kells.”\n“All right June D. See you soon.”\nJune took in a deep breath and beckoned for her assistants to help her pack and load up. Nancy and Allison were scrambling around, but getting the job done. Nancy leaned over and whispered to Allison, who was busy packing toiletries,\n” Do you think we should tell her that Dillie ran out of food and water?”\nAllison replied, “No. Not you. Let me do it. You are fairly new, and she will probably chew you out. I have got this. Just finish packing up her stuff in the Gucci bag. I will be back.”\nShe dumped what she had into the orange and pink bag and walked downstairs to meet June in the Azalea garden. June was obviously crying, but Allison knew better than to ask her to open up, June did not share her feelings, let alone allow anyone to believe she had feelings at all. She cleared her throat,\n“Miss June D, we noticed that Dillie ran out of food and water. Would you like for me to replenish it for you?”\n“Who?”\nAllison was confused, “Dillie, he ran out of food and water. There is no food in the pantry for him, either. I can run to the store and grab him what he needs and a few treats for the 3 days we will be away. Only, if you want me to Miss June D.”\nJune was becoming more vexed. Wiping her tears away, she could feel the sting and burn coming up from her gut. She wanted to explode, “Look! I do not know who Dillie is or what he wants, but just give him whatever and get out of my face. Don’t you see that I am busy? Do you want to keep your position as my assistant?”\n“Yes, yes. Right away. Thank you, Miss June D. My apologies.” In a dash, Allison rushed to the motor pool and jetted away.\nJune entered her family home again, looking around for any sign of joy. None of the luxurious artwork she had surrounded herself with brought her happiness. None of the men she had on a waiting list as prospects brought her joy. She felt so empty and alone, and the love from her fans was losing its effect. A loud tweet came from upstairs.\nThat stupid bird. I wish it would just shut up. All it does is sing that dumb song daddy taught him. Skidamarink a dink a dink had all but seared itself into its brain. When will it end?\nShe needed the bird to stop reminding her of the first man she had ever loved, her father, Ronald. She tilted her head up towards the top of the staircase, shouting,\n“Shut up! Shut up! Shut! Up! You annoying animal!” June did not know what else to call it. Saying his name would be her undoing. “Just stop singing that horrible song!”\nAllison and Nancy sat in the back of the airplane, keeping their distance from the heartbroken singer. June looked out of the airplane windows, reflecting on her lonely surroundings, and thinking how pitiful she felt. She was famous, had millions of fans around the globe, many friends, and men to call upon. None of it mattered to her today. She had always hated flying because it was too tricky. Buckle this, use that oxygen mask, no parachute. Flying made no sense. Memories of her dad played in her mind, but they were halted by an annoying screech.\n“Skidamarink a dink a dink skidamarink a do, I love you.”\n“Oh my god! You have got to be kidding me! Allison! Nancy! Why is that thing here?” Again, the super diva’s appetite for rage today would be choked down by her assistants.\n“Miss June D, please do not be mad at Allison. It was all my fault. I saw that the bird was lonely and needed company, so I packed his things and placed him onto your private jet. I have my eye on him and he is safe. I am sorry for bringing Dillie.”\n“You idiot! Do not say his name. You have no right to mention it. That thing does not belong here. You had no right! You are fired, and so are you, Nancy.”\n“Please, Miss June. We are very sorry.”\n“Enough! I do not want to hear another peep from either of you. When we return to Georgia, the two of you need to find new jobs. I do not want that loud and obnoxious singing bird anywhere near me. Allison, you are responsible for it for this entire trip!”\nLooking down at her Samsung mobile phone, Allison replied, “Yes, ma’am.”\n“And Nancy, I don’t want to see it. Keep it hidden away. That thing better not be in my sight. Do you understand what I want? Give me what I want, and I won’t bar you from ever working with another celebrity for the rest of your life.”\nNancy started to cry. She had come from absolutely nothing in the slums. She did not want to go back to living paycheck to paycheck. How would she care for her sick daughter? Wiping her tears away, Nancy responded with a broken voice, “I promise to keep Dill- I mean, the thing away from you.”\nThe applause was loud, and the audience members danced with huge smiles plastered on their faces. It was the second segment and Wendy Williams was introducing her guest,\n“How you doin’? Thank you, my audience members, and friends for being here. Today, I have a stylish diva who hails all the way from the dirty south. Please, help me welcome, June D!”\nThe audience cheered loudly as June D entered the stage. Wendy was sparkling in a golden dress and stunning high heels. She motions for June D to sit next to her to begin her interview,\n“Hey girl, how you doin’?”\nJune D responds, “I’m great, Wendy! How are you? I am so glad to be here. Thanks for having me. Hey audience members! You all are looking great out there!” June D knew how to charm the crowd.\nWendy starts asking her about her dating life, her new album, the drama with the state of Texas, and many other topics that have been covered in the media. Then, she hit June with a hard-hitting question.\n\n\"So, I heard that your father died. I am so sorry for your loss. You have the nerve to keep performing? I do not know how you do it, girl. Weren’t you close with your dad? What was his name staffers? Oh, yes. Ronald.”\nJune could not speak. She did not prepare for this question and they did not rehearse it backstage Her throat felt like it was closing up. She fought back tears and answered the question.\n“Yes. I am fine. The family is fine.”\nWendy went even further. What is this I hear about a bird?”\nThat was the straw that broke the camel’s back. June let the flood of tears pour out from her soul. The television show host tried calming her down but to no avail. June D stood up, looked out over the audience, and broke down on camera.\n“You don’t know what it is like. My daddy died. I did everything I could and still, he is dead. Nothing kept him here. All of you staring at me like I am crazy. Stop looking at me!” The audience gasped as she exited stage left.\nLater, in her suit, she arrived to find a letter from Allison and Nancy, stating that their services were no longer available. She needed to find new assistants. June picked up her phone to call the ungrateful women but was interrupted by a soft screeching sound.\n“Welp me. Welp.”\n“Oh, no! I forgot about the thing.”\nJune rose from the edge of her bed and ran over to the budgie’s cage. It was shaking and laying on its back. The poor budgie looked up at June and screeched again,\n“Wawa water for Dillie?”\nIt dawned on her that the budgie had not had any food or water during the flight, nor while she was working for two days. It was starving and thirsty. She began to panic.\n“Just hold on Dillie. I can help you. Please, don’t die too.”\nShe ran back to the bed and picked up her cell phone to call Allison to ask about the food and water for the bird. Allison ignored her calls and then blocked the Diva. June tried calling Nancy and was blocked as well. Looking up from her phone, June saw that the bird was breathing rapidly. She starting crying, pacing around the room, pulling on her afro.\n“No. No. No! Please! I do not want you to die. What do you eat? Do you drink faucet water or some type of expensive water? Please, Dillie. Tell me what to do!”\nShivering, she ran down to the elevators, to the lobby, and rushed the front desk clerk.\n“Please, help me.” She saw the woman’s name tag said Tika. “Tika, please, help me. My bird is starving and needs food and water. I do not know where my assistants left his stuff, before they quit. Those ingrates are not answering the phone. Please, did they leave anything for me?”\nTika looked into her log and saw it. “Why, yes. An Allison left behind a box of budgie food, bottled water, and treats.”\nThe clerk handed the box over to June. A tiny audience of onlookers were snapping photos and recording videos of the stressed-out singer, her hair in disarray, wearing her pajamas barefooted. Those videos would later go viral on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok.\nJune ran through the lobby, hurriedly pressed the elevator buttons, landed on her front door, and met a still alive budgie.\n“Just hold on Dillie. Dillie?”\nThe cold and starving budgie stopped talking, nothing but a few blinks here and there. June did not have a clue for how to get the bird warm and fed. She raised the temperature in the room and got a plastic spoon from the room service cart. She filled it with water and administered it to the budgie, who gulped with need. Next, she broke apart some of his food and opened his beak, sprinkling it everywhere, missing several times. She then covered Dillie with a few napkins from the cart and began to sing to it.\n“Skidamarink a dink a dink, skidamarink a do. I love you. Skidamarink a dink a dink.”\nShe was joined by the loud singing of Dillie, he was getting well. Flapping his feathers around and looking up at her with love.\n“I love you in the morning, and in the afternoon. I love you in the evening and underneath the moon. Skidamarink a dink a dink, skidamarink a do. I love 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: my corner of the world\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1033\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story in which someone returns to their hometown." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I didn’t realize just how much I could re-discover about myself just by returning to the place I’d spent the majority of my childhood. The place I felt was truly home. Those days now seem so much easier, long before being influenced by others, their expectations, by my own insecurities. Back then, in my hometown, those things were all irrelevant, yet to come. I don’t remember ever worrying about what I’d be doing five years from now. I was never worried about having perfected college applications or how popular I was or wasn’t or whether I should send my crush a rap song to seem cool or a song I actually like but that they may find boring. My depression took up only a small part of my brain, I enjoyed family dinners and ice cream at my favorite spot after school without feeling guilty and punishing myself with exercise afterward. As I stare now, at my old front porch, at the dying flowerbed, the one my mom would spend hours watering, its flowers now wilted, with patches of bald spots like an aging man’s head…I remember how I used to walk out the door, cross the street, and knock on a big brown door. The door would open, and I’d smile as my neighbor, Will, opened it. He always knew I was there to see if he wanted to walk - or scooter - with me to the park down the street. We’d sometimes race along the sidewalk of our quiet neighborhood, lined with towering trees which blanketed the street in what I’d imagined to be these grand arches, the sunlight seeping in through the cracks in the leaves. Seventeen year-old me now walks along the same street, looking up at those arched branches, reminiscing those days, taking in a deep breath and, with a sigh of relief, stares up at those leaves, those rays of sunlight still shining through, still just as bright. The houses all remain the same mismatched colors, another thing I always loved about my neighborhood - you wouldn’t ever see two houses the same size, shape, or color. Some had crooked roofs or wonky porch steps. There were thick, long weeds poking out from the cracks in the pavement, and cats of all shapes and sizes crossing the street - they were never hit, of course - they belonged to my neighbor, who at the time was known to everyone as the ‘crazy cat lady’. She owned many, many felines and always left her windows open so they could come and go as they pleased. I always aspired to someday be just like her. The park down the street wasn’t my favorite park for the shiny swingsets or the pool i learned to swim in (but never to dive - i was always afraid of entering the deep end head first, still am..) but for its famous fallen tree. There was a large tree which lay on its side, funky looking and so big it was like a redwood had accidentally been planted in the middle of the park. And it was perfect. In those times, this tree felt like mine, and I’d climbed it since I could remember learning how to walk. Revisiting the tree felt like an old yet familiar ritual. Approaching it, I gently felt of its grooves, gliding my hand along its trunk as if it was a horse’s mane. It almost felt like one, with eyes looking into mine, and a soul that could sense what I was thinking. I had this intense sense of nostalgia as I set foot onto its base, remembering how my five-year-old self would wobble, terrified of falling from what now seemed like such a low height, walking the length of the tree like a tightrope, afraid of plummeting to what I once felt would be instant death. I almost still get chills now, like I used to all those years ago. Remembering now how brave I felt the first time I made it all the way to the end; To its branches, sitting down to enjoy what at the time felt like the most beautiful view from so far up above, but now felt like taking a seat not too far from the ground below. It wasn’t just the park i needed to revisit, though, but the church across the street, too. I’d never once set a single foot inside the quaint white chapel, but its charcoal parking lot was sacred. I’d learned how to ride a bike there, my nose running with snot as I’d let out frustrated screams and protests, telling my mom I’d be the only kid in the world who couldn’t ride a bike. I felt it was ‘too heavy’ to peddle.. all this would happen as she laughed while filming me, then contemplated submitting the video to ‘America’s Funniest’. Yet one day, as fate would have it, in the middle of that empty lot, I did it. I ditched that pink Minnie Mouse bike amd its stupid white training wheels for a real bike, in fact it was my brother’s old bike I first learned on. And maybe he rode around effortlessly in the background for all of my many tantrums, but soon of course, I caught up to him. And I wouldn’t end up as the only kid who couldn’t ride a bike, which at the time meant more than wearing certain clothes or shoes or makeup. That same lot also had a small playground of its own, one that wasn’t as shiny and new as its neighbor, but had jagged wood railings and uneven squeaky swings. But I remember sitting on those swings, trying to catch ‘lightning bugs’ and getting stung by mosquitos during the hot summers. This little corner of the world would forever and always be my corner. The most familiar place in my mind, forever imprinted in my memories. I would never forget the imperfections in the playground’s wood which gave my palms countless splinters, all those times I’d fallen running down the street while trick or treating, even the strays I came to know. This will always be my home, no matter where I 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: Loving the Sun\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 2886\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a romance where your character falls in love with the last person they expected to." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Can you love the sun?\nIs it possible to love something even though it could burn you?\nHer name was Akilah Williams. She was the sun of my universe. She was, without a doubt, the smartest girl in school. We’d known each other since elementary school though we didn’t talk much. I guess you could say we didn’t really meet until our freshmen year of high school.\nI remember it was the day of football tryouts. I was sitting on the bleachers and felt as if someone had stuck their hand in my chest and squeezed. I thought to myself. Is this it? Is this how I die?\n“Hey, Josh. Are you okay?” A voice to my left said. I turned in their direction and found Akilah Williams looking back at me. She was still in the school uniform, a white button up, and forest green pleated skirt. Her natural kinky coily hair was out of the regulation bun and fanned out from her face, framing it beautifully.\n“I’m dying.” I somehow had the strength to say. Even as I felt like I was dying, I was struck by how pretty she looked with her hair down.\nShe shifted on her feet. “I think you’re having a panic attack.” She sat next to me. “I need you to take a deep breath for me.”\n“But… I can’t breathe.” I said between gasps.\nShe half smiled, the left corner of her lip pulled upward. “If you’re talking, you can breathe. Now, come on. Deep breath for me. In through your nose.”\nI did as she said. Breathed in as deep as I could, filling my lungs with air. She did the same.\n“And out,” she said. She pursed her lips, letting the air out slowly. I followed her lead.\nShe breathed in. I breathed in. She breathed out. I breathed out. She kept it up for a few minutes, reminding me how to breathe again. Finally, and thankfully, my heart stopped trying to pound its way out of my chest and I could take solid breaths that didn’t feel like I was breathing through a straw.\n“Thank you,” I said, wishing there was more that I could say since thank you didn’t seem like enough.\n“It’s okay,” she said. She put her hand on my cheek and looked into each of my eyes. “You should take it easy. Go to the nurse or something.”\nI looked away from her. I didn’t want to deal with this right now. I needed to get on the field and earn my spot on the junior varsity football team. It was all I ever wanted.\n“I can’t,” I told her simply. “I’ll be fine.”\nShe eased my face back to hers. “You’ll be fine, but for how long?” I couldn’t afford to ask those types of questions. I wasn’t about to let anything stand in the way between me and my dream.\n“Thanks for everything,” I told her.\nShe nodded. “Take care of yourself.” She brushed her skirt and stood to leave.\nAs I watched her go, I felt cold without her near me. Empty. As if I was watching the sun fall out of the sky. Only seconds had passed, and yet I missed her already. What was happening to me?\n***\nI do not claim to be a genius. Not in school nor in football nor even in life. So it is to no one’s surprise that it took me an embarrassingly long time to realize my feelings for Akilah. And when I did figure it out, it was too late.\nI was in the cafeteria and I saw Akilah walking with this guy named Thomas Fox who was on the Quiz bowl team with Akilah’s best friend, Kaisie. Akilah was laughing at something he had said. I found myself getting annoyed because I didn’t remember making her laugh that much and then I was wondering what I had to be annoyed about. It’s not like Akilah and I were together.\nNicole, who was sitting beside me, followed my line of sight. “You want to know what I heard?” I didn’t, but that didn’t stop her from telling me. “Akilah and Thomas are going out.”\nMy bottom jaw dropped. I looked at Thomas with his lean frame, low top fade and chiseled features. He was as tall as I was, maybe taller. He looked athletic, though I couldn’t tell for sure. And he was smart, too which made him perfect for Akilah.\nI folded my arms and frowned. He was perfect for her. There was an unfamiliar emotion bubbling up inside me and I realized suddenly that it was jealousy. I was jealous of him. Jealous that he was able to be by her side and make her laugh. It was jealousy that made me say, “I guess geeks can find love, too.”\nThe entire table turned my way and started laughing. Everyone started cracking jokes about their geek love. I laughed along even though it wasn’t funny. Even though I was hurting inside.\nIt was in that moment I learned what it had taken me much too long to figure out. I liked Akilah.\nUnfortunately, there was nothing I could do with that information. She was with someone. I had missed my chance.\nYears passed and I rose up to Varsity, starting lineup. I was the quarterback. The guy every guy wanted to be like and every girl wanted. Well, almost every girl. Akilah remained out of my reach even after she and Tom broke up at the end of sophomore year. I revolved around her, kept up with what she was working on, but never got too close. Just like the sun.\nAs fate would have it, our paths crossed again senior year in a creative writing class. I would never admit it, but Mr. Lewis’s creative writing class was my favorite part of the day. His classroom was is in the computer lab on the second floor overlooking the parking lot. That room was one of the few classes that still sported a chalkboard. Akilah sat in the far right corner of the first row while I sat in the far left corner of the last row. We were the closest we’d been to each other since freshman year, and yet still so far.\nHe would assign writing prompts to stretch our minds and challenge us to see things from a new perspective. We would spend most of the class working on our drafts and talking through ideas. Once a week, we would have a mystery writer critique. Mr. Lewis would choose a draft at random and read it out loud. He’d ask us all for feedback, what we liked and what we didn’t and what we thought the writer could do better. He would never say the writer’s name, no matter how much we asked, hence the mystery part.\nMr. Lewis said, “I don’t want how you feel about each other to affect the feedback you give. The writer knows and can grow from the feedback. That’s all that matters.”\nI always got excited when Mr. Lewis chose something I had written. More excited than I had ever been in a football game and even more nervous. It felt like I was laying my soul on the chopping block to be butchered and critiqued and yet, I knew as much as the criticism hurt, my story would become that much stronger because of it.\nAs we approached the end of the semester, I had more than a couple of strong short stories under my belt. I was in the middle of writing a difficult scene between my two main characters when I saw Mr. Lewis approach the front of the room.\n“Alright class, can I have your attention please?” Mr. Lewis said. Heads popped up above and to the side of monitors to see what he had to say. “With the time we have left for today’s class period, I’m going to assign partners for the final project.”\nGroans echoed throughout the room in response. I groaned right along with them, but inside, I was jumping for joy. All of our writing so far had been solo projects. I was curious to find out what writing with someone else would be like.\nAs I listened to the partner assignments, it was clear that he was partnering by alphabetical order. Knowing there was a long way to go before he would reach my name, I turned back to work on my scene, keeping one ear focused on what he was saying.\n“And finally, we have Joshua Washington and Akilah Williams.”\nNo, that can’t be right. There must be some type of mistake. Everyone was murmuring about their partner assignment, but even more people were questioning me being partnered with Akilah.\n“Joshua and Akilah?” Kaisie said. “That is so totally unfair. He’s just going to mooch off her, do none of the work and get the best grade in the class.” Did I really seem like the type of person who wouldn’t do their fair share?\n“Akilah’s going to be pissed. He’s going to bring down her precious GPA,” Taylor said, from the seat next to me. This got a couple of laughs. He was on the football team with me, so I knew he was just kidding around. That didn’t make me feel any better though.\nHey, I wanted to say in my defense. I’m just as surprised as you are. But all I did was laugh. Like I was in on the joke that was at my expense. Because they can’t laugh at you, if you’re laughing with them.\n“You all do realize he’s the strongest writer in this class. It’s more likely I would bring down his grade than he would bring down mine.” It was Akilah. She didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t need to. When she talked, you listened.\nA hush fell on the classroom. What could anyone say to that? Akilah had spoken. In my defense, no less.\n“Let’s not focus on grades,” Mr. Lewis said, taking back control of the classroom. “I’m more concerned with how you handle a collaborative writing process. Understand?”\nThere were nods and yessirs. And that was the end of it.\nThe bell rang soon after and class was dismissed for the day. I took my time packing up my things since I knew Akilah would be one of the last ones out of the room. I needed to say something to her, right? She defended me after all.\nWhen most of the class was empty, I walked up to her. She looked up at me with a dazzling smile. “Hello Joshua, and what do I owe this pleasure?”\nI was dumbfounded and all she did was say my name. I really should have come up with a game plan before coming over here. “You didn’t have to do that, you know,” I said, finding my words. “They were just joking. You didn’t need to take it so seriously.”\nShe raised her eyebrow, not believing me, but instead of saying what I knew she was thinking, she nodded slowly and said, “I’ll keep that in mind.”\n“But…um,” I scratched the back of my neck, in the universal gesture of I am out of my depth and I don’t know what to say. “Did you mean it?”\nShe stood up and pushed her chair in. “Did I mean what?” She waved goodbye to Mr. Lewis and exited the room with me following behind her.\n“You know,” I said. “When you said…After everybody had said…” Why were words so hard?\n“Oh, about your writing? Of course, I meant it. Even Mr. Lewis says you do great work.”\n“How could you know it was my writing?”\nShe shrugs. “I’d know your writing anywhere. And besides you do this precious little smile anytime Mr. Lewis reads from your work. I’m surprised no one else has noticed.” We had made it to her locker. She spun the combination lock and once she opened it, she faced me. “And if you ask me, Nothing up my Sleeve is the greatest thing ever written. And there’s that one line in it. How does it go? “He loved her as one loved the sun, from afar.” Gosh, gives me chills every time. How did you come up with it?”\nNothing up my Sleeve was a story I had written earlier in the semester. It was about this street magician named Orion who finds out that he’s descended from Pharaohs and he has to keep Anubis from raising an army of the dead. It was a favorite of mine as well. The line she was referring to was about Orion who had fallen in love with his childhood friend Kyla. Sound familiar? “Oh you know,” I said, vaguely, “the words just come to me.”\nObviously, that story is about me and Akilah. There’s even an earlier draft of the story on my online dropbox that still has her name in it. If I’m being honest, any story I’ve written that has a love interest probably has an early draft with Akilah’s name somewhere. Having her name helped me get into the right mindset of how it would feel to love someone. And even though I couldn’t be with the real Akilah, this was good enough.\n***\nI do not claim to be a genius. That goes without saying, but bears repeating. I had invited Akilah to my online dropbox so we had a place where we could work on our draft together. It was the dropbox where I keep all of my drafts, so I knew it would be easy for us to access. I had not realized the error of my ways even when she approached me after Mr. Lewis’s class and asked, “Hey Joshua, can I talk to you for a minute?”\n“Sure,” I said, still completely unaware. “It’s a nice day. Want to meet on the bleachers in say, 15?”\nShe nodded and went to go get her things.\nWhen I got to the bleachers 15 minutes later, she was waiting for me with her laptop open on her lap.\nI sat next to her and she passed me her laptop without a word. I looked at the screen and it was open to a document. I instantly recognized it as an early draft of one of my short stories for class. Too late, I realized that this was a draft that had Akilah’s name in it. Too late, I realized that I had given Akilah access to my entire drop box. That she could see all of the drafts therein. Oh dear god, why have you forsaken me?\nI ventured a look in her direction and she had her head tilted, amused, waiting to see how I was going to talk my way out of this one.\n“Akilah. It’s not what you think,” I stammered. “It’s not… it doesn’t mean I have feelings for you or anything.”\n“You just use my name as the love interest in everything you’ve written.”\n“Yeah.” I shook my head. “I mean, let’s start over.”\nShe smiled. “Please do.”\n“I may have used your name in a couple of my stories.”\nShe scoffed. “A couple?”\n“Okay, a lot of them. And I may have had a little crush on you when we were freshmen, but now… “ I paused. How did I feel about her now?\nShe scooched closer to me. “And now? How do you feel about me now?” Her eyebrow was raised in question.\n“N-now?” I stuttered. She was too close and it made it hard to think clearly.\n“It’s a really simple question, Josh. How do you feel? Either you like me or you don’t. Which is it?”\n“I…um,” I scooched away, putting distance between us. “I don’t know.” \nShe looked out on the open field. “He loved her as he loved the sun, from afar. I wonder if he noticed how lonely that made her feel. No one can feel love that’s too far away to reach.”\nIt was strange hearing my words said back to me. I never saw how sad they were. “Akilah…”\nShe looked at me. “What are you afraid of, Joshua?”\n“Everything,” I admitted.\nAkilah seemed to appreciate the honesty. “I get it. There’s safety in loving from afar. You don’t have to be vulnerable. You won’t get hurt. You won’t get burned. But up close,” and she closed the distance between us and this time I didn’t pull away. “That’s where the magic is. That’s where the living is. It may not work out, but isn’t it worth the risk?”\nI took a deep breath in, and slowly let it out just like she taught me all of those years before. We were face to face now with just our breaths between us. My eyes flicked down to her lips. They were so close. Isn’t it worth the risk? I could hear her say.\nI didn’t know for sure, but I was about to find out. We kissed and in that kiss was everything I never knew I was missing. Warmth and passion and love. Loving her was like loving the sun. I might get burned if I get too close, but man, it was worth 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: Insurance against Loss\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 2028\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story in which someone says “You'll never be content.”" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "In the innermost pocket of my backpack are an insulin pen and three Ativan tabs. They are my insurance policy. The insulin pen contains 300 units of lispro insulin, which would be fatal if injected all at once. But it would take at least 15 minutes to work, during which a person feels impending doom along with a host of other unpleasant sensations as their blood sugar drops. The Ativans, then, had to be taken first – to smooth the ride to oblivion.\nThe insulin pen expires in 90 days. So that’s how long I have.\nLast night during dinner I told my husband that I was quitting my job. For once Brendan was speechless. Then the storm broke, as it always does.\n“Why?! Why are you doing this? I just don’t understand. You have a great job! You went to Harvard med school and then Columbia for residency and fellowship! Do you know how many people are climbing and grasping just to get into some shitty med school in the Caribbean? You made it all this way and now you’re just throwing it all away!”\nI looked at him, expressionless. It was best to just let the tempest rage on.\nHe was now red in the face. “Why are you doing this to me?! When we got married I thought you were going to pull your weight financially! We literally just bought a house! How are we supposed to pay the mortgage?” He screamed.\n“Well the mortgage is 35% of your after-tax monthly salary, so technically you can afford it on your own,” I pointed out.\n“Sweetheart, I work in finance! They fired my boss last year. They wouldn’t have a second thought about doing the same to me at any time. When I first came to New York I couldn’t find a decent job for a year. I had to wash my laundry in the sink because I couldn’t afford to go to a laundromat. That’s how poor I was! I never want to be in that situation again!”\n“But sweetheart, you have been working at this bank for twelve years. The CFO loves you. They’re not gonna fire you.” I said.\n“That’s so naïve! You have no idea how finance works…”\nCaught in Brendan’s torrent of words, I dissociated a little. I hovered above myself, waiting for him to finish.\n“You have everything and you’re just throwing it away,” He said. “You’ll never be content.”\nI dropped back into my body and focused on him: “I’ve let you talk. Now you listen. I am content. I’ve done everything my parents ever asked of me. Checked all the boxes. Went to Stuyvesant instead of LaGuardia art school. Went to Princeton. Then did everything the premed counselor told me to do so I can get into Harvard Med. I followed everybody else’s perfectly laid-out plan for me so I can end up here, an endocrinologist who’s ruled over by my patients and administrators.”\n“Now I get to be everybody’s bitch. Patients can call me at all hours of the day about the most trivial things, and I have to respond within an hour or I might be sued! Even when I’m not on call the call service idiots make mistakes and page me and they get to ruin my entire day. I have low-level anxiety ALL the time. I feel nervous whenever I’m out doing something fun because I might be paged! It’s gotten to the point where I’ll look at a picture of a gorgeous landscape and my first sensation is anxiety because they can reach me if I’m there.”\n“This job, this path I’ve gone down to please other people, has colored my sky gray and polluted the waters. It’s ruined everything beautiful for me. I’m content with the lifestyle that goes with it, with eating nice food and going on fancy vacations. But I am not happy.”\n“Sweetheart, you never mentioned any of this…” He said.\nIt’s true, I’ve not talked it about it much. Because if you put these things into words they become real. And when facing the truth you cannot retreat.\nThe squall died down and we went to bed. In the morning Brendan left early for his job in the Financial District. I pretended to sleep until I heard the front door lock click. Then I got up, transferred the insulin pen from the fridge to my backpack and put in a few essentials. I transferred $200,000 from my savings account into our joint account to help Brendan pay the mortgage, leaving me with $3450.09. Then I headed to the airport.\nI had enrolled in classes at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. There, I would learn to become a painter. I was going to stay in a hostel and support myself by working at Starbucks. An ex had once told me that they’ll hire anyone and give them health insurance and stock options. Never mind that I don’t drink coffee and made it only once using a Mr. Coffee. This was going to work. It had to. If it didn't then I have insurance in the form of the insulin pen and the Ativans. I was willing to toil, but I was too soft to sleep on the streets and eat from the garbage if my money ran out and I still haven’t made it work.\nIn the plane, I took out my phone to turn it off before take-off. There was a missed call and a voicemail from Brendan. I debated whether to listen to it since it was most likely a barrage of accusations and reprimands. Might as well get it over with, I thought. I could barely hear his voice over what sounded like construction in the background.\n“I love you Sweetheart and I’m sorry I screamed at you…”\nThe flight attendant gave me a look and I quickly shut off the phone.\nMy eyes welled up. Sorry, Brendan, I thought. I’m not coming back until I make something of myself on my own terms.\nAbout 20 minutes after take-off an overhead announcement came on: “Attention ladies and gentlemen, we have a sick passenger onboard. If there is a doctor, nurse or other medical personnel on the plane we kindly ask that you come to the rear of the plane to assist.”\nI looked around. No one got up. A minute went by. Begrudgingly I walked to the back of the plane.\n“How can I help you, miss?” The flight attendant asked.\n“You guys are looking for a doctor to help a sick passenger?” I said.\n“Oh. Are you a nurse?”\n“No, I’m a doctor. What’s going on?”\nShe looked skeptical. Nevertheless, she let me enter through the curtain. A young woman lay on the floor, pale, her shirt stained with vomit. \nI squatted down and faced her. “Hi there, I’m Dr. Tang. I’m sorry you’re not feeling well and I’m going to help in any way I can. What’s your name?”\n“Ashley,” she whispered.\n“Ashley, can you tell me what happened? Do you have any medical conditions?”\n“I have Type 1 Diabetes. I just started college and got put in a room with a really mean girl. I had to get away from her. I booked a flight home with my mom’s credit card. Maddy threw away all my insulin…” Ashley’s shoulders heaved and she crumpled into dry, racking sobs.\n“That’s terrible, Ashley. People shouldn’t treat each other like that. When was the last time you took insulin?”\n“About three days ago? My sugar’s been super high and I’ve been drinking water to lower it, but then I started vomiting.”\nI looked at the flight attendant. “The pilot needs to take this plane back to New York and you guys need to call an ambulance to meet us at the airport. She’s in diabetic ketoacidosis.”\n“We can’t do that,” she said.\n“Why not? That’s absurd! This is life-threatening.”\n“There is a situation in New York…we can’t land in LaGuardia or JFK. I’ll tell the captain about your medical advice and see if he can land somewhere else as soon as possible. In the meantime can you do anything for her?”\n“I don’t suppose you have insulin?”\n“I’m pretty sure that’s not part of the emergency medical kit. But let me get it for you.”\nI opened the kit – the medications were all for heart- or lung-related emergencies. There was an IV kit and a saline bag though. Ashley’s veins were flat from dehydration but I managed to insert the intravenous line and start the saline drip. Still got it. Medical training in NYC taught me to be really good at drawing blood and putting in IVs.\nI used Ashley’s glucometer kit to check her fingerstick sugar level. It read “HI” – the sugar was too high to be quantified by the machine.\nThere was only 500cc of saline. She probably needs at least five times that. And insulin.\nThe flight attendant returned from the cockpit and stood over us.\n“What’s the word? When can we land?” I asked.\n“We don’t know for sure. There are several airports in Pennsylvania but the queues for the landing strips are long.”\nI looked at Ashley. “How are you feeling?” I asked.\n“A little better, thank you. Thank you so much. I didn’t mean to cause this much trouble.” She said through dry cracked lips. She still wasn’t strong enough to sit up.\n“Don’t be silly,” I said absentmindedly, “It’s no trouble.”\nI thought about the insulin pen in my backpack which I had taken from my clinic’s sample supply. It was the least messy way to end things if I couldn’t make it as a painter. It was my plan C, my insurance in case of failure.\nI said to Ashley: “Do I have your permission to treat you with insulin from my supply? It’s a new insulin pen and it’s never been used.”\n“Yes, of course,” she said.\nI injected 10 units of insulin into the skin of her abdomen. Usually diabetic ketoacidosis is treated with an intravenous insulin drip, but we can also give patients insulin subcutaneously every 2 hours or so. It was the old way.\nI turned back to the flight attendant. “Wait, what’s going in New York?”\n“We can’t release information about the situation in New York City yet, but the captain has been given clearance to land in Pennsylvania. He will be making an announcement soon.”\nSure enough, in five minutes his voice came over the loudspeaker: “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Due to uh, unforeseen circumstances we are unable to continue our flight to Chicago. We will be landing soon in Dubois, Pennsylvania. Thank you for your patience and understanding. Further instructions will be given once we are on the ground. Flight crew please prepare for arrival.”\nThe cabin broke into cacophony. Thirty minutes later, the plane rolled onto the tarmac. \nAnother announcement: “This is Captain Marshall Jackson. On behalf of myself, my copilot James Taylor and our entire flight crew we thank you for flying with United today. We’ve just received updates on the situation that lead to this curtailed flight. Two planes flew into the World Trade Center in Manhattan…we are under a national lockdown…no flights departing….”\nMy mind went blank. Brendan worked on the twentieth floor of the World Trade Center. I flipped open my phone. There were no new calls and no new messages.\nNumb, I listened to the message he sent before take-off: “I love you sweetheart and I’m sorry I screamed at you last night. You deserve to be happy and you were right to quit that job if it made you miserable. I’ll talk to you later. It will be a long day for me here. Don’t wait up for me. I love you. You’re the love of my life.”\nI was mistaken about the background noise in his message. It was not construction. It was the sound of things falling apart. I called his number. It rang and rang. I called again, hoping against hope that he - that we - would emerge whole from the wreckage." } ]

[ { "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: Sheila's Menu\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 2184\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with someone looking at a restaurant menu." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Sheila's Menu\n\nSheila was always there at exactly 5:30 every evening. She stood at a careful angle to the window so that he wouldn’t notice her, but she had a very good view of him. It only took her three nights to have a complete grip on his face. He looked Japanese but he was tall. And. He was very handsome. It was Sheila’s opinion that the menu really wasn’t that interesting but that her handiwork, her calligraphy must have caught his eye. For ten, twenty, thirty minutes every night, he studied her handwriting like he was reading the menu. But the content of the menu rarely changed, she just created a new menu every day emphasizing different form and aspects of calligraphy. It was good, what she did and she knew it. It came from her soul. It came from her heart, It came out of her fingers and was set by her eyes.\n\nThat was the first thing she noticed about him, his eyes. They were almond colored, not really dark, but not brown either. They looked alive, like they had a mind of their own. Dancing across the menu, they seemed not exactly to be reading, but feeling, sensing. Clearly they understood the words, but they were interested in the shapes and the shapes of her calligraphy. Sometimes, they acted surprised. “Oh, what’t this? How interesting, how did she do that? Did she do that on purpose?” She couldn’t tell how, but she was sure that his eyes knew that she was a woman. Probably just projection on her part, but somehow it seemed real. Sometimes, they prompted the lips to smile with a sort of satisfied look, appreciative, happy.\n\n“Gaijin, that’s what I will call him. Ha, ha, that’s the Japanese word for ‘foreigner.’ He is not really a ‘gaijin’; well, except in this country he is. That’s funny. Slightly wrong and slightly ironic and carries the Japanese sense of caution when considering a ‘foreigner.’ Foreigners are suspect in Japan and for many centuries simply unwelcome. This gaijin is definitely welcome. He is handsome, sensitive, tallish, especially for a Japanese man, graceful, intelligent, artistic and bold.” She stopped, “Bold? Why did I say ‘bold?’ Hmm. Well, he is obviously appreciative of my work.”\n\n“Oh really? He knows ‘your work?’ That’s interesting. How do you know that?”\n\nSheila sighed. Her real name was Tomoe and she was the daughter of the cafe owner. She was Japanese, short, attractive, intelligent and gifted. Her attractiveness did not shine through, she was very modest and seemingly worked to conceal it. Her shyness had hindered her all her life, isolated her in school and prevented her from developing relationships. Calligraphy, gorgeous, dynamic calligraphy was only one of her many talents. Gifted as an artist and a musician, violin, she avoided recognition. Her family were Buddhists and they attended a rather large Buddhist sanctuary close by in the neighborhood. Sheila and another shy Japanese girl on piano played frequently as a duo and were stunningly beautiful in their presentations and expressions. The attending Buddhists from the community treasured them greatly and tried to encourage them to reach out with their talents and make something of them. But, to no avail. They were determined to hide their light under a bushel.\n\nAt the cafe, Sheila ran the cash register and acted as hostess. Many people in the community knew her and often remarked on how deeply attractive she was and yet she seemed to “not want to be.” She was gracious with a lovely smile and quite diplomatic. In general, people, especially neighborhood women, adored her.\n\nAt the local community college, she had excelled at calligraphy. It’s the kind of thing you find at a community college and it suited her perfectly. Kanji was something she knew quite well and she drew complex characters, but it was English letters where she really excelled. People would frequently do a double take when they looked at the menu. Frequently, they would think it was an artistic caricature of a menu and not the actual thing. Her father had to create a budget item for replacement of all the missing menus, but he didn’t mind. He was very proud of his daughter and her art. He had all but given up hope of prodding her out into the world at large but he secretly was glad she stayed so close to home even though he knew it was not best for her. He never called her “Sheila.”\n\nGaijin had stopped by the window every single day for two weeks now and she was finding herself more and more attracted to him. She had started changing the menu in little ways with different examples of calligraphic art every day and watched from her special angle as Gaijin studied the menus. Her father had noticed her behavior almost immediately and wondered about it. He said nothing about the daily menu reprint and studied it himself. He was completely amazed at the subtlety and elegance of her small changes. A small spark of hope appeared in his heart for his lovely daughter, but he did not know what to do about it.\n\nSheila came to know that she had to try to communicate with Gaijin, but she couldn’t just rush out of the cafe and accost him. Maybe she could invite him in to try the food, but that was just too bold. He was clearly interested in her calligraphy and she started to wonder about reaching out through her art. To that end, she developed a plan. A bit iffy, but if he caught on, he would definitely be interested in her. At the top of the menu, every day, she drew a single letter of her name, just one starting with “S” and progressing sequentially daily. \n\nThe next day when she placed the menu in the window, at the very top of the menu, centered, was a stunning “S” in calligraphy. The character was about twice as large as all the others and it seemed inexplicably significant. Only the author knew why it was there. Sheila was waiting in her usual place at 5:30 when Gaijin arrived right on schedule. He quickly displayed the slightest show of emotion or interest then resumed his study of the menu. Sheila watched his eyes. They returned to the “S” several times and she knew his curiosity was piqued.\n\nThe following day, she drew another lovely character at the top of the the menu—an “h.” It was in the window waiting for Gaijin’s arrival, as was Sheila. Gaijin came. His right eyebrow lifted slightly.. He definitely noticed. His eyes returned to the “H” several times and Sheila was pleased. Now, will he put it together? What will happen tomorrow?\n\nTomorrow came with the attendant “e.” The menu placed carefully in the window, Sheila was waiting. Gaijin came. He saw the “e.” His lips moved almost into a smile, recognition was there and Sheila was pleased again. She didn’t realize that she was investing a great deal of emotion in this little game. Three days later, the final “a” was posted and Gaijin noticed it.\n\nIn fact, his lips actually moved. His mouth formed the word “Sheila.” He repeated it a few times and smiled. He looked for Sheila but she was standing just out of his line of sight, breathless and heart pounding. She was thrilled, but then, what? It struck her with a force that she had no plan. Gaijin had looked for her, didn’t see her and walked away. “Wait, that isn’t right. What am I going to do?”\n\nWhen Gaijin returned the next day, the menu had another artistically drawn letter at the top of the page. It was a “T.” He smiled again and actually looked relieved. Looking around a little inside and, as usual, not seeing anyone who looked like the perpetrator, he left. Tomoe smiled and felt happy. But still, she had no game plan. “Tomoe” was also six letters, so she had five more days to figure out what to do, then the game would end. It would fall flat.\n\nFall flat it did. Tomoe crafted another letter each day for the next five days and Gaijin came every day. He read the letters and on the last day his face lit up uncharacteristically. Tomoe saw his beautiful, handsome smile and it almost broke her heart. The next day, the disappointed look on his face when he saw that there was no letter on the menu did break her heart. The following day, when he did not return, it really broke her heart. She slowly transformed to a very depressed young woman and she broke her father’s heart.\n\nGaijin did not return. She held out hope for a long time, moving to the window at 5:30 every evening and lingering just for a moment. But, no Gaijin. Life moved on. Sheila didn’t turn ugly or develop a sad expression, but her form lost life, her sparkle and radiant smile disappeared. She became dull and perfunctory and, well, hopeless and a year passed. Tomoe faded away and Sheila carried on.\n\nOne late Spring day, a little more that a year after the last Gaijin visit had occurred, a sweet young Japanese girl appeared at the window around 5:30. She was so cute thought Sheila and Sheila watched her a little bit. The girl also noticed Sheila and smiled as she walked away. The next day, the girl returned. She stood reading the menu and smiling. When Sheila moved to the window, the girl looked at her, smiled and gave a little wave. It looked like she giggled and then she ran off. \n\nShe returned the following day, dressed in a super cute little girl’s dress—a lovely shade of pink with soft delicate flower petals. The girl was almost beyond cute thought Sheila as she moved to the window and saw her. Sheila was so moved by her young loveliness that she went outside. The young girl was slightly startled but looked at Sheila with a big smile. “Hi,” she said. Nervously, she asked, “are you Sheila?” A huge look of surprise covered Sheila’s face and the girl turned and ran. “Wait, come back,” yelled Sheila, but the girl had disappeared around the corner.\n\nSheila was stunned and disappointed. She was also terribly curious. How had that young girl known her name? The girl was definitely not from the neighborhood, or, at least, she was new. What to make of this? Sheila had no idea, but Tomoe stirred.\n\nThe next day, the sweet young girl reappeared wearing the same dress. She stood at the window reading the menu with a card envelope in her hand. Her face seemed slightly wistful and amused, anticipatory. Tomoe had been waiting at the window for her and when she appeared, Tomoe waited for a minute or two, then ventured out.\n\n“Hello,” said Tomoe. A big smile took its place on the little girl’s face as she turned and looked up at Tomoe. She seemed almost mischievous when she asked, “Are you Tomoe?”\n\nTomoe was so startled she let out a little squeak. Her face flushed and she stammered absolutely nothing. The little girl grinned and said, “Daddy said you were. He was right, wasn’t he?” She handed Tomoe the envelope. “Please open this.”\n\nTomoe almost fainted and was definitely breathless. She carefully opened the envelope and took out the card. It was a beautiful drawing of a tall, graceful, elegant tree standing at the head of small group of two or three similar, but smaller trees. Inside was a note in quite exquisite calligraphy. “Dear Tomoe, My wife passed away suddenly about a year ago. She left my daughter, Mika, and myself in great sorrow and grief. The tiniest bit of hope that I was able to cling to was the beauty and depth of your art. It’s been over a year and I hope it is not too late to reach out to you. I have seen you occasionally all this time but never had the nerve to speak with you or even appear to you. For me, I feel that it is time that we at least meet. So, I asked Mika to deliver this invitation to you to come home with Mika and join us for dinner. I hope you would like to do that. — Tao\n\nTomoe burst out in tears and Mika wrapped her arms around Tomoe’s legs. Tomoe’s father came rushing out of the restaurant in great alarm. He moved quickly to Tomoe and saw that Tomoe was crying profusely, but there was no sorrow or sadness or hurt in her face. He looked at the little girls and saw that she too was crying. Tomoe sobbed for a little bit then gained some semblance of composure. “Father, I am going over to Mika’s house for dinner. It should be very nice. I’ll be home in a little while.” She took Mika’s hand and they started down the street with Tomoe’s father smiling in front of the cafe." } ]

[ { "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: Red String\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1494\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story where someone finds comfort in an unexpected event, place, or person." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "My favourite Chinese myth is the one about how we all have red strings of fate connecting us to our loved ones, and that no matter what, no matter where we are, we are always tied together. The threads can tangle but will never break, and will keep us connected even through death. I’ve always loved that idea, of fate. It’s comforting. It makes me think that maybe I still have ties somewhere to my birth family. It makes me feel like maybe I have been connected to my adopted family from the beginning, like I was always meant to be theirs and they were always meant to be mine. Fate. Destiny. Written in the stars. Soul strings. It’s a nice thought. It makes me feel a little less alone in this world. \nI think that my strongest string is with my mom. She’s the one I go to when I’m sad, scared, angry. She’s the one I want to make happy, to make proud. I know that she would do anything for me. Her thread is that of a safety net that is always ready to catch me if I fall. Still, I don’t dare look down. Because the problem with having a safety net is that it makes me more likely to fall. I take it for granted, because I know that it will always be there. And fall, after fall, after fall, I wear it out. I don’t know how to survive without it. Without it, perhaps I would tread a little lighter, perhaps I would try to catch myself before I fell. Perhaps I would feel braver, like I could do it on my own. But as long as that safety net is there, I won’t ever take that risk. \nMy rope with my dad is like a game of tug of war. He pulls and tugs, and I tug and pull, he yanks me forward, and I pull him back. I go to him for meaningless problems and easy-to-swallow solutions. But I do not feel like I can rely on him the way I lean so heavily on my mom. I cannot give him that control, that power over me, because he will never give it back. I love him, but sometimes I think we are too alike. Too quick to anger, too stubborn to apologize when we’re wrong. I can’t give him too much of my rope, because I don’t want it to be ripped out of my hand. I’m getting rope burn from this tug of war. It’s just easier to hang on by myself rather than let him try to pull me up, because then I won’t be so disappointed if he lets me down. When he lets me down. \nMy thread with my brother is like a tightrope, always a balancing act. Like the strings of a guitar, our relationship is fragile. And I’m afraid that if we keep plucking at the strings, they will snap entirely. Every day I feel our relationship unravel like a ball of yarn, as we both drift further and further apart. I tell myself that it can’t be helped, that this would always happen. But I don’t bother trying to wind the yo-yo back up to try again. I feel him moving farther away and all I can do is watch him go. It feels like every time I try to pull him closer to me, he pulls even farther away, and it hurts every time. Sometimes I think that I keep my distance from him so that when he does disappear from my life, I won’t even feel his thread breaking off from mine. It will hurt less if we’re already so far apart. \nMy lines with my sisters are a tangled mess of wires and cords you found in the basement but can’t be bothered to untangle, so you put it back in the boxes to deal with next time. But you never do, so we’ve learned how to make the phone work without the cord. Like playing a game of telephone, trying to connect empty cans on strings. Our mom acts as our messenger, like a middleman passing along notes in class. She relays our messages for us but the meanings get lost in translation. And eventually, we forget how to communicate altogether; we’ve forgotten each other’s numbers and don’t bother to call. It’s too much trouble, to untangle the mess our lives have become. We don’t need those wires anyways. \nMy cord to my niece and nephews is like playing a game of cats’ cradle—a complicated game with multiple ways to play and mess up. Interwoven between fingers and families, our string is one big loop that you can easily get lost in. I find myself so uncertain, so insecure, so lost with them; unable to know where I belong. I can see where their threads connect to one another, can follow one line to the next. It’s hard when their ties are so easy to follow. They belong so easily, so simply. And I am a complicated jumble of bloodlines I’ve lost and names I’ve hyphenated on. I wish I could untangle myself from this knot, but the harder I try to pull it, the tighter it gets, until it’s unable to ever become undone. Maybe it doesn’t matter that I cannot find my line, because it would just get lost in the knot anyway. \nMy connection to my birth mother is my umbilical cord; she gave me strength and kept me alive before suddenly severing her ties to me completely, leaving me to fend for myself. I was like a parasite, feeding off of her so she had to cut me loose to keep herself alive. Or rather, she had to cut me off so that I could live. I had to learn how to breathe on my own. I’ve heard of babies who are born with their umbilical cords wrapped around their neck; cutting off their airways. It’s rather ironic that the thing that is supposed to keep you alive in the womb is the very thing that keeps you from taking your first breath. My connection to my mother, no matter how weak, is keeping me from fully tying myself to a new life. \nMy ties to my birth home, to my family by blood, are the weakest; just a whisper of a filament, delicate as spider’s silk. Dissolving in water like cotton candy, I cannot follow the fishing line into the ocean. I am a gullible fish gumming the water, hungry for any semblance of belonging, that I bite the bait without thinking how much it will hurt. I’m hanging onto any piece of them that I can, but it’s like a hangnail that I’m unwilling to rip off even though it keeps catching on things. I don’t want to give them up, don’t want to accept that I will live my whole life without them. Because when my strings to my adoptive family are in a tangle, it’s easier for me to imagine a simple line that I just need to find one day. I cannot even picture them in my mind, this family of shadows and string, but still, I chase after them. How silly of me, like a cat playing with twine. There is nothing on the other end. \nMy relationship with myself is like a marionette whose strings have been cut. For so long I’ve let someone, something, pull my strings. My past, my trauma, my anger, my insecurities, my fear. I’ve always felt out of control in my life, drowning in my mind. I’ve grasped desperately at any life raft thrown my way, without bothering to look at what’s on the other end. I’ve let people lead me through life like a dog on a leash, and now I can’t find my way home on my own. I’ve let my past wrap itself around my ankles, dragging me underwater and I can’t pry myself loose. Loneliness has tied itself around my wrists, but I won’t let anyone unchain me. I’ve grown too comfortable here, let the grass and weeds grow over my body. A skydiver whose parachute pull doesn’t work, I’m free-falling through life without anyone to guide me. I’m trying to untangle the strings in my life that I need to in order to free myself. \nThese red strings are not fate; they are not pre-existing lines of life in which we have no say in. They are those bracelets you make out of twine and beads, that you have to work on and build up over time. Some strings you have to give up on, and others you have to keep knotting and tying over and over again. I’m still sorting out which strings are cutting off my circulation. These connections cannot break, though they may tangle together. And I’m willing to sit and sort through them, unravelling them one at a time." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Out of body\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1228\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone who gets an inheritance from a relative they’ve never heard of, but they’ll need to do something completely outside their comfort zone in order to collect it." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Out of body by Emonie Smith\nTrigger, transgender and death\n1k words \n\nIt's 3AM and all I can hear is loud vibrations coming from my phone. Lazily, I swipe my arm to my nightstand to retrieve the still buzzing phone. Without looking at the caller ID, I answered. Still reliving my dreams before I heard a man's soft cry. He's crying and trying to get his voice to reach across the phone.\n\n \"Hello, is this Olivia Jones?\" I cringed that the Male voice is using my dead name. With a sigh, I replied yes. \n\n \"This is on the behalf of your Aunt Barbara's will, You have inherited your aunt's fortune along with her several smaller properties around the world. She requested that you use these properties for good use-\" Before he finished his sentence, I hung up. I mean come on! I don't even know an 'Aunt Barbara'. In our family we only have uncles. All of it sounds like a scam. I been lying to myself for a long time, but I'm not a fool. Besides I have 3 other siblings that they could had chosen. Why me? After tossing my phone on to the bed, I stared at the ceiling. Willing myself to go back to sleep but I can't. I cant stop thinking about Olivia and how we can never be one.\n\nMy name was Olivia Jones, I'm no longer her anymore. I go by Oliver now, I stopped using Olivia 3 years ago. We, Olivia and I, never fit. She was the mold I was born with. The mold that I wanted to change everyday. The more I think about her, the more I want to change. I got up from my bed and walked to my mirror. In the reflection, I see a tall dark skin girl with a big brown curly fro. She had a wide button nose and full lips. I can see the reflection touching her chest and frowning. I can see the reflection's face and it's not who I wanted to see. I still see Olivia. Quickly, I grabbed my chest bind and trapping the very thing I hated. I'm no longer thinking about the call. All I can think about is how I don't want to be her anymore. \n\nI stared at the reflection with my chest bind on. I can see a pair of scissors on my desk. Before I can fully think it though, I'm already cutting off my curls. Seeing the curls fall to the ground, hearing each snip, feeling the breeze on my scalp. I'm freeing myself. By the time I'm satisfied, I had piles of hair by my feet. This time when I looked in the mirror, I saw a short haired boy. I mean it's a pretty bad haircut; it's not even and it's choppy but I'm smiling. It's strange to see on my face. \n\nThe room lights up from a call coming from my phone. I don't have many friends so I honestly don't know who would be calling me. I answered. \n\n \"Hello\" I said into the cellphone. Still looking at my reflection, trying to process who this is before me. I grabbed a few strands of hair that fell in my face debating on cutting these too.\n\n \"Hello, Olivia it seems that we been disconnected during our last call! To finish what I was saying. Your aunt Barbara wants you to use your inheritance to find your own happiness. Your aunt, She was a good woman. She lived her life to the fullest and now she wishes the same for you. She had no children so we selected you on her behalf.\" To find my own happiness? What type of joke is this? I ponder to myself. \n\n\"My name is not Olivia anymore. Please refer me as Oliver for now on. I don't have an 'Aunt Barbara', I only have uncles! If it was true then out of all the children my mother had, why me?\" I exclaimed to the man on the receiving end. I'm exhausted and I just want this prank to be over with. \"If you are done with your joke, can you tell me the real reason for this call?\" \n\n\"My apologies sir, Oliver. But I'm afraid this is not a joke. Mrs. Barara has left her fortune and properties to you and only you, my dear. Her only request is that you find your own happiness first.\" \n\n\"I don't have an aunt Barbara, I'm sure you got the wrong person, sir.\" I said snidely. \n\n\"Oliver, I can assure you that you do have an aunt Barbara. If you dont believe me, come by my office in the morning. Please, it's not everyday you get a call about inheritance. If you don't accept it, it will go to her cats. That would be a total waste. You see, your aunt and I had a special relationship. We were so close that people would had sworn we were dating. She wasn't much different than from you actually, if anything you guys were the same.\" The man says. So aunt Barara was a cat lady, that probably explains why she's rich. We all know how that story goes, but what does he mean that she's the same as me? He doesnt even know me. How can he? I dont even know myself.\n\n\"Fine if I accepted the inheritance, will you stop calling in the middle of the night? You know not everyone is a night owl, asshole.\" I said. Then I heard this airless laughter, it was sudden and kinda cute I dare say. \n\n\"My name is Marco, I was your aunt Barbara's lawyer and close friend. I promise not to make a habit of calling at night. We will be in touch, Oliver. Also, I'm proud of you. It's not easy doing what you are doing. Your aunt Barbara definitely knows how hard it is to find yourself. She always used to say: 'I have a religion that works for me, love yourself first and everything else falls into line'. Oh, before I forget, her name was Stephen. \" He said with a laugh. After that the line went died and I'm left feeling confused and somewhat happy. \n\n\"He said my name, my real name. I also had a transgender aunt.\" I really dont know about all this inheritance stuff but I'm one step closer to being who I want to be. I looked at the mirror one more time. I know that what I'm feeling is right. I have someone to show me the way. I pictured what uncle Stephen looked like as a woman and how happy he must have been. I bet he looked fabulous. I think about what my happiness looked like. I pictured a more masculine person with no breasts. I pictured a beard or maybe a mustache. I rubbed my hand across my belly, maybe I can get a six pack? The more I imagined Oliver, the more I smiled.\n\n\"It's nice to finally meet you, Oliver. I waited so long to see you. \" I said breathlessly. I got back in bed and dreamed. I dreamed that I'm on T-shots and I'm in love with a girl who loves me for me. I dreamed that I'm traveling around the world. I dreamed that I can finally be me. \n\nTHE END" } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Let the Joy Rain Down\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1764\n\nPrompt:\n\nEnd your story with someone dancing in the rain." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "TW: Swearing, slow dancing, gratuitous descriptions of love.\nEverything is up in the air. All I know for certain is I love her and I’m not letting this life go without a fight. She gives me the foundation to build my life upon.\n Now that it might all be taken away, I’m looking at her more. I’m wondering why I ever left this apartment. Billie’s smile is my sunlight. Her hand in mine is my racing heart. Her arms around me are the joy I never knew was possible. Her scent is home; gyoza and good times. When I hear her laugh, I feel alive.\n She struggles to get up now. The baby is almost due. I half resent that I can’t easily make love to her anymore. It was my pride to bring her to ecstasy in our bed. On our couch. In our shower. On the floor.\n My vocation is to end suffering. I twist the minds of cruel people to make them good or bring them to justice. It doesn’t lend itself to bringing joy.\n If I could list all of the people I have ever made smile, her name is Billie. It’s sad but I don’t mind. If she and the baby are safe and happy that’s fine.\n Billie isn’t going to be happy if I end up in prison. My child won’t be happy if I’m AWOL from its life. I need to see Detective Nunez. I have to suss him out.\n “You came. I wasn’t sure you would,” I say to the police officer as he walks towards me in the park. My heart is pounding. I feel like I’m going to piss myself.\n “We had to talk, Xander. Of course I came.” He doesn’t make eye contact. I want to take his hand. I want to know if this is a trick. I arranged the meeting but what if he’s just going to talk until people arrest me?\n “You’re shaking. Afraid of me?” I ask.\n Birds chirp. Children scream with joy as they play on the climbing frame behind me. A lazy breeze strolls through the branches of a bald ash tree. Its hair carpets the ground beneath our feet.\n “Afraid of you? No. What you can do? Maybe.” He sits, leaving a gap between us large enough for Billie. I’m glad she didn’t come.\n “Do you want to arrest me? You know I’ve never hurt good people. You’ve seen their thoughts. Their memories. The memories of their victims. I don’t like the life I lead, Detective, but someone has to bring people like that to justice. The law can’t do it.” I’ve let anger slip into my voice. I’m pleading for my life with a growl. I slow my breathing, calm my machine gun heartbeat.\n “Your power,” he looks into my eyes, “I’m not sure if any man should have it.”\n “Agreed,” my clear sky eyes meet his cinnamon orbs. “But having it, I can’t just leave the cruel to go about their business. That would make me the monster. All that is necessary for evil to prosper is for good men to do nothing. I’m not necessarily a good man, but I’m not sitting on my ass while Nazis run amok. I don’t hope that perverts who revert to form after every arrest, every sentence, will turn over a new leaf this time.”\n I came dressed as an advert for white T-shirts and blue jeans. A mother with a pram turns to look at me and blushes as I look back. I get more of that now. Because Billie loves me. I’m happy. Being loved draws others to love you, I think.\n “I want this world to be safe for my daughter,” he throws up the words in a heartbeat. “Now I’ve seen what’s out there, I can’t sleep. I looked up the number of sex offenders in my neighbourhood. There are seven. Seven.” He rubs a ringed finger through hair that’s out of place. Grey peppers the black. “Can you?” He looks at me again, mad desperation in red veined eyes.\n “I’m not a hitman, detective. But I can see what they’re up to. Are you willing to stop investigating me?” I slide along the bench. Sun curled paint on the wood crackles beneath my jeans. Flakes fall as snow to the leaves beneath.\n “Personally? Yes. If you can do that for me. There are other officers looking into you now. They’re not far into it but I can’t close the investigation. That would look suspicious.” He licks dry lips. He has stubble that’s outgrown designer. Unkempt is the word now. He needs a shower. I can smell his fear. The guy in the tie die hoodie walking past us can probably smell the detective’s fear as well.\n “Do what you can. I’ll do what I can.” I reach out a hand. Once I was tanned from exercising outside with fascist psychos obsessed with the coming of the ‘race war’. Now I spend all my time looking after Billie. My pale fingers wrap around his for a moment.\n He shakes my hand. Fear turns to steel in his eyes.\n “Let’s go then. I’ll get us a cab.”\n “Now?” I ask.\n “Now.”\nI scrape my key into the lock, drunk on the horror of memories stolen from a man who was just released from prison. Jack was already planning his next offence. Planning to be clever. Scheming to make sure no one ever found out what happened to the next little girl he stole.\n The key finally finds its groove and turns. Fresh trauma is rattling around my head. Billie sees it in me from the sofa. It wasn’t meant to be like this.\n Memories of screaming girls fill me. Memories of the trial he lied his way through. He could not be saved. Jack wasn’t scared of prison. He wasn’t remorseful.\n Now he’s mush. Skin on muscle wrapped around some bones. Heart beating out the rhythm of a life that will never be tainted by his thoughts again. His filthy mind is crawling in my skin. Jack’s sick fantasies live on inside me, whispering. I need to kill them.\n I stagger to the shower and tell Billie I’m fine. I want to burn it out. I want to vomit him up with everything else in my stomach. He’s poison in my synapses. Cancer eating through my happiness.\n I rub myself with a soapy sponge until the water turns red with the blood from my scrubbing. Did Shakespeare kill to know the madness of a murderer who sees the blood where there is none?\n It’s impossible.\n I call him.\n Detective Nunez needs to pick up his fucking phone so I can get rid of this.\nI meet another one of the men who lives near the detective. Unlike Jack, he’s trying to be a good man. He’s been cutting himself when the thoughts come. He has a conscience. Compulsion drives him.\n I take his happiness. Every happy thought he’s ever had is mine. I see despair claim him as I walk away. His dreary little bedsit will be the end of him. Maybe a knife. Maybe a rope. I know he’s done. I did that. Does that make me a killer?\nNumber three is a familiar beast. A victim recycling his own abuse upon others for the feeling of power. He’s already back to work. I decide madness will be his gift. I put every memory I don’t want in his head. I cram them all in while he lies unconscious on his floor. I find the little boy locked in the back room of his home. Detective Nunez arrests the loon and takes the child back to his parents.\nPeace, at last.\n Billie lies in bed. My head is empty of everything but her. I kiss her forehead. She frowns. Perfect. Is it love that made her beautiful to me or her beauty that made me love her? Neither.\n Black hair trails along the white pillow, poker straight, thicker than mine. Her full lips beg me to kiss them. The baby kicks. She frowns and shifts in her sleep.\n “I love you,” I tell them.\n “Huh?” Billie wakes, eyes rolling forwards. “Oh, hello. Were you watching me sleep?”\n “Just a bit.”\n “Hold me. No. Rub my back.” She rolls over. My hands trace circles across her pyjamas. “Ah. That’s good. Lower please.” Little noises of satisfaction escape her and force my lips into a smile. “I love you too. You said I love you, didn’t you?”\n “I did.” I kiss her cheek. Her brown eyes close as she takes it with a grin.\n “I wasn’t sure if I was dreaming. Can you massage my ankles?”\n “Of course.” My hands rub the swollen flesh. She groans. “Too much?”\n “No. It’s good. Keep going.”\n “You’re going to be a great mom,” I say. Before I know it, I’m crying.\n “You’ll be a great dad.” She says it casually, as if that’s a given.\nI’m not so sure. I want to be. I’ll do my best, but I’ve never had a good role model. “What if I’m not?”\n “You will be.” She rolls over and looks at me. “Help me up.” I give her my hand and she grunts until she’s upright. “You’re not your father, Xander. You’re better than him.”\n Tears are flowing down my face. Shame turns me away, but she grabs me and pulls me back.\n “I love you, Xander.” She leans to kiss me, but the baby bump is in the way.\n The kiss is a long sigh escaping me. It’s hope. Someone loves me. Someone believes in me. Billie is my world. Our baby is my future.\n I kiss the bump.\n It kicks.\n We laugh.\nI don’t know the song Billie Watanabe is dancing to. It’s her due date but the contractions are late.\n “Dancing helps?” I ask.\n “Yes. Come and dance with me.”\n I try to hold her in a slow dance way, but the baby makes that awkward. I stand behind her and hold her hips. Her hands slip into mine. Our hands are puzzle pieces made for each other.\n I see her thoughts.\n Joy.\n Excitement.\n Our happy memories. Her imagination. Blurry visions of our future as a family rain down around us as we dance. I reflect every memory back at her. I bring them all up out of the dark library of her mind. We bask in the glow of the love that flows between us.\n The baby kicks, impatient to join the dance on its own terms." } ]

[ { "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: Newton's Cradle and a Rat\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1230\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with someone saying, “We’re running out of time.”" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“We’re running out of time!” Ding* Ding* “we’re running out of time!” Ding* Ding*. \nYasha looked up at the other side of the door’s threshold as he climbed up the short stairs into the passenger car. There was a small cat standing on its hind legs, similar to the way a person would. It was dressed in a blue train conductor's uniform and it was covered in white fur with a few black spots, including one on its eye.\n“We’re running out of time!” It squeaked again. “The doors are closing! We need to stay on schedule! We can’t be late to the next stop!….we’re going to be late!!”\nYasha looked up. He was having an internal debate with himself. He wanted to ask the cat where the train was going, but he also wanted to ask the cat where it learned to speak. \nBut just as he opened his mouth to speak, the cat suddenly got on all fours. It started looking around the room, and purred, almost as if it had not been speaking perfect Japanese just moments before. \nAfter a few more seconds, it turned around and went into the hole in the wall that was perfectly sized for an ordinary cat. After it disappeared into the darkness, several pawfuls of kitty litter were flung from the darkness and landed where it was previously standing.\nYasha stood there trying to process what had just happened. He looked around, and he noticed that the inside of the wagon was almost completely silent. He didn’t notice when he initially walked in, because the cat was talking. But now he was aware of the eerie silence. Not even the passenger car itself made a noise as it rocked back and forth. The only thing he could hear was a light “click”, as if two small metal objects were softly hitting against each other.\n*click *click *click *click \nThe entrance to the passenger car was at the very back, but the noise seemed to be coming from the very front of the car. Though not sure why, Yasha started walking towards the noise. The seats were green and stitched with gold lace. They were made of very nice leather, like the kind that you would find on a seat in the office and of a prestigious law firm.\nThese are very nice seats for a regular passenger train. I must be in first class, he thought to himself.\nThe carpet was purple, and it didn’t feel like an ordinary carpet. He lightly grazed it while he was walking. It was more than comfortable enough to sleep on. He could have easily slept on it without a pillow or blanket.\nThe other end of the passenger car didn’t seem far away. But he began questioning the situation when he noticed after 10 minutes, he still hadn’t reached he hadn’t reached the end of the car. \nHe broke into a light jog. \nAs he was jogging, he looked out the car windows. Outside he could see that they were in some sort of forest, but it was unlike any forest he had ever seen in Japan or anywhere else. The trees were of normal size, but the material they were made of looked unusual. \nThey were shaped like ordinary Cherry and Japanese Maples, but they were not made of wood. The bodies and trunks of the trees were made of whitw marble. And the leaves were shaped ordinarily. But something about them caught his attention, at least enough to make him stop jogging and approach one of the windows. \nHe pressed his hands and nose against the glass. Something was glittering in the dusk sun. He took a closer look because what he thought it was, didn’t sound consistent with reality. \nThe leaves were made of crystals.\nIt was either crystals, rubies, or both? he thought.\nHe attempted to open the window, but it wouldn’t move. There were signs to both the left and right of the window: \n“To open the window, fill out form W-29 ½ and submit it to your local window officer for approval.”\nWhat’s a window officer, he thought to himself. \nYasha turned around to continue his jog to the end of the passenger car. But his first swift step abruptly ended. \nHe was already there.\nThe wall was less than a meter from his face. The only thing between him and the wall was a small table that came up to about his chest. On that table was the source of the noise: \n*Tap, *Tap, *Tap, *Tap\nHe looked down at the table. Immediately he knew what the device causing the noise was. His physics teacher made a point to make sure of that. “The colonel”, as the kids called due to his military background, had the same device on his desk. Whenever there was a pop quiz, he would activate the device. The students considered it stupid, annoying, and dusteacting. \nNewton’s Cradle\nFor those of you who don’t know what this is, don’t worry. You’re probably just a regular person. Regular people have things to do and lives to live. The people who get excited simply by reading anything that references “Newton’s Cradle” are likely irritating to the common individual to begin with.\nIt’s a series of metal balls hanging from a string. The way it works is that you pull one of the balls at either end. What happens is when the ball is released, it hits the next ball. The energy from that ball would be transferred to all of the other balls. Once the energy hit the last ball, that ball would fly up, fall back, and hit the other balls. The process would then repeat itself.\nYasha looked at the small device. It brought up a feeling inside him. It was a strange feeling of disgust, contempt, and unhappiness. Why was he feeling this way? Maybe it was because he had a bad experience in physics class. \n*click, *click, *click, *click\nMaybe it was the noise. It wasn’t loud and obnoxious like a lawnmower. But it was just as irritating. It was the auditory equivalent of dripping water on your hand for a prolonged period of time. A drop by itself isn’t bad, but after a certain period of time it becomes Chinese water torture .\nHe couldn’t take it anymore. He slowly reached out his hand. To his surprise, he was hesitant about it. Why did he care? What’s the worst that could happen if he stopped it?\n*click, *click, c—-\nHe grabbed the ball with his thumb and index finger. He immediately felt better. He turned around to walk down to the other cars. He had momentary feeling off terror - similar to that feeling when you were a kid and leaning on the back to legs of your chair. You lose control for a split second. But by the time that feeling of terror hits your conscious brain, your unconcius brain makes your hands grab the endge if the table in front of you.\nIt was a giant rat. But it was standing on its hind legs. But what was even stranger, was the rat was wearing the clothes of a train ticket collector. It had blue pants, blue coat, and blue hat that had a yellow stripe going down the side.\n“Why did you do that?”, said the rat." } ]

[ { "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 Inheritance\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 2571\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story about an object that has been around for centuries or passed down generations." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“For his grandson, Eric, I will translate,” said the white-haired lawyer.\n\nEric felt embarrassed. Why was this old guy rubbing his face in it? Was it his fault that his mother died when he was a baby, so he had never learned to speak Chinese?\n\nMr. Po settled his spectacles on his nose and looked at the document in his hand. “Chen Wang provides to Ling-Yu, his eldest daughter, the jade horse.” Everyone clapped as an assistant handed a statuette of a galloping green horse to the lady sitting across from Eric. Then another aunt received an ivory necklace. Mr. Po, who had been a good friend of Eric’s grandfather, then explained. “Two of Mr. Chen’s daughters predeceased him. Under California law their portions shall be assigned to and divided equally between their children.” He smiled at the two nearly identical teenage girls sitting next to Eric as a tray containing exquisite carvings of animals was presented to them. “These have been appraised by an expert in antique Asian artifacts at $25,000.00. This is approximately the same value as the jade and the jewelry.” The older girl wiped a tear from her eye.\n\nAll around the room people were smiling. Even Eric grinned. Would his inheritance be worth $25,000? With that much money he could buy everything he ever dreamed of! Even a motorcycle! This was great!\n\nEric leaned toward his youngest female cousin and whispered, “Good going.”\n\nShe only looked at him and blinked.\n\nMr. Po continued, “And finally, Chen Wang’s bequest to his only male heir, Eric Smith Lung Bao!”\n\nThe old man's assistant brought a camphor-wood chest the size of a shoe box and decorated with a dragon motif. Eric stared at it. Could this really be worth tens of thousands of dollars? It had no inlaid jade or jewels. He reached out to it and tried to open it, but he couldn't find the lid latch.\n\nHis young cousin whispered, “It’s a puzzle!”\n\nEric nodded. He knew about Chinese puzzle boxes. His friend Chris had one, and he had showed Eric the trick. You had to press a secret panel on the side while you slid off the top. Eric turned the box in his hands, but he couldn’t see any obvious trigger points. He shook it, but no sound came from it. It didn’t seem to weigh any more than the wood it was made of.\n\n“It’s empty,” he muttered.\n\nHis young cousin put her hand up to her mouth and giggled.\n\n“What?” he demanded.\n\n“Of course, it’s not empty!” she said.\n\nEric looked at her. What did she know about it? She wore thick glasses, and her black hair was braided. “What’s your name again?” he asked.\n\n“Li Meng,” she said.\n\n“I meant, what’s your American name?”\n\nShe blinked. “I don’t have any other name.”\n\nHer answer made Eric feel like an outsider once again. He wondered if he had grown up here in Chinatown rather than in rural Kansas, would he have played football with Lam and Huang and Fong instead of Chris and Billy and Mark? Do Chinese guys even play football? There was a lot he didn’t know about his heritage. All Eric was sure of was that if the kids at his school ever found out his mother had named him Lung Bao, they would never stop laughing.\n\nEric shook his head and returned to his study of the box until Mr. Po had completed presenting small bequests to various other relatives. Finally, Mr. Po said, “I invite you all to join me for lunch in half an hour, at the Lucky Dynasty restaurant!”\n\nEric’s relations began to gather their belongings and to crowd out the door. Each of them stopped to bow and shake Mr. Po’s hand. Eric was the last. When Mr. Po took his hand, he said, “Lung Bao, I sense you wish to speak with me, privately.” Mr. Po closed the door and gestured for Eric to take a seat. “I believe you have questions about your inheritance?”\n\nEric said, “It’s a puzzle box. I know I’ve gotta push on something, or slide something, right?”\n\n“Yes.”\n\n“Will you show me how to open it?\"\n\n“No. I cannot,” said Mr. Po. “There are triggers hidden amid the carvings that must be pressed in a certain sequence, but the sequence changes with every attempt. Not every owner of the puzzle has been able to master it. Your grandfather opened it once, but I don’t believe his father ever did.”\n\n“Mr. Po, did the Asian artifact guy put a price on it?”\n\nMr. Po’s eyes seemed to compress into tiny black dots. “You must never think of selling it!”\n\n“I need to buy a motorcycle,” Eric explained.\n\n“Lung Bao! In your entire life you will never own anything as valuable as this! It is a legacy of unimaginable worth! You must promise me that you will protect the dragon box! It is imperative that you pass it on to your own son or grandson!”\n\n“OK, OK!” said Eric, surprised at the old man’s emotion. “I promise!”\n\nThe lawyer tented his long fingers and brought them to his chin. “Do you have plans to attend university?”\n\n“My dad wants me to go.”\n\nMr. Po continued to scrutinize Eric. Finally, he said, “This is my advice. Gradate from your university before you try to open the box. If you don’t succeed, then wait an additional five years before you attempt it again.”\n\n“Why wait?” Eric asked.\n\n“Because the patient man is paid tenfold.”\n\nEric stifled his irritation. He wasn’t going to get a straight answer out of Mr. Po—only hokey ancient-Chinese riddles. Eric ran his finger over the outstretched claws of the carved dragon. “Mr. Po, do you know what’s inside the box?”\n\nMr. Po only smiled. He leaned across the table toward Eric. “Do you know what your Chinese name means?”\n\n“No.”\n\n“It means ‘dragon gate.’ In Chinese culture, the dragon is the powerful and terrible protector of great treasure. Do you see?”\n\n“Of course,” said Eric. But of course, he didn't see.\n\nWhen Mr. Po looked at him again it seemed to Eric as if he were being X-rayed, as if the old man was searching for something inside him. Finally, Mr. Po took a brush and ink from his desk, quickly painted Chinese characters on a card, then wrote words in English under that. “This is your name.” He fanned his hand over the ink to dry it before he handed the card to Eric. “When you get home, put this somewhere where you can look at it every day.”\n\nThe note read:\nLUNG BAO, HE WHO PROTECTS A GREAT TREASURE\n\nEric stowed the card and the puzzle box into his backpack and followed Mr. Po downstairs to join the others in the restaurant. During the meal people babbled in Chinese, but now and then, someone would tell Eric in English how much they missed his mother and wished she had not died when he was so young. Truly, Eric didn’t remember her. His stepmother, Kathy, was the only mother he had ever known.\n\nAt home, Eric dutifully tacked Mr. Po’s calligraphy on the bulletin board in his room and put the puzzle box on a shelf above his bed where he could look at it. Even though Mr. Po had told him to wait to attempt to open it, Eric worked on it every night, trying different combinations of moves. In addition to the dragon there were deeply carved clouds and birds and flowers on its sides and bottom, and he assumed that any of these projections might be a secret button. All that stuff about having to be mature enough to understand its secret? Surely you didn’t have to be an ancient Chinese sage to figure out how to open a stupid wooden box! Once, Eric tried to pry the lid off with his Swiss army knife but realized he couldn’t even find a join in the wood anywhere. He couldn’t see how the top could possibly slide off, anyway. The dragon’s tufted tail draped over the side prevented it. Funny. He hadn’t noticed that before.\n\nWeeks passed, and Eric thought more often about motorcycles. He longed to be able to jump on his bike and zoom off down dusty farm roads, and maybe even to zoom off to a new life away from his dad nagging him about college and his stepmother telling him to clean his room. But even though he had saved every penny he could from his job as well as his graduation gift money, he was months or maybe even years away from being able to buy a motorcycle. He looked up at the dragon box. Why had Mr. Po been so cagey about its value? It had to be worth something on eBay, and if he did sell it, how could anybody back in San Francisco ever find out?\n\nThe more he thought about the ridiculous restrictions Mr. Po had put on what he could do with his inheritance, the more indignant Eric became. His cousins and his aunts were free to sell their heirlooms for big bucks right now, but Eric was supposed to pass his down to his male heir. What if he never had a male heir? Why did the girls in the family get special privileges that were denied to him? Was this some stupid way of getting back at his mom because she had left her closed community in San Francisco to marry a Kansas farmer?\n\nHe glared up at the puzzle box and noticed something. It appeared to be bigger than before. In fact, it no longer fit and was sticking out over the edge of the bookshelf by about an inch.\n\nEric took the box down. It was definitely bigger! Heavier, too. He shook it and felt something slide around inside. That had never happened before! Spooked, Eric quickly put it on his desk, sat down, and stared at it.\n\nNow he was sure he had not been imagining changes or misremembering things about the box! Sometimes the dragon’s mouth had been open and sometimes closed! Sometimes, the legs and tail had been in different positions. And Mr. Po had told him that the combination to open the box would be different every time. Perhaps the box was trying to tell him something?\n\nEric pulled on his bathrobe and shoved his feet into his slippers. He took the box and tip-toed past his parents’ room, then grabbed a lantern from the back porch before he made his way out the back door to the toolshed. Eric put the puzzle box on the workbench and took a saw from the wall. He went to work, smiling as he wondered why none of his honorable ancestors had been smart enough to think of this?\n\nThe ancient camphorwood box was easier to saw than he expected. When he broke through, fragrant smoke escaped from it. When Eric had cut part way through, the saw snagged on something, but he was able to break the box in half. Inside he found a bundle wrapped in gray silk. The light was too dim to see very well, so he carried the pieces back to his bedroom.\n\nThe bundle was the size and shape of a hoagie sandwich. The saw had torn through the nearly colorless, dust-scented fabric. He unwrapped the roll to find something within that appeared to be a coil of tarred rope. Eric held up to the light the part of it that he had accidentally cut off with the saw.\n\nIt was the furled claw of some animal. He examined the rest of the bundle, then chuckled. He knew what this was! It was like those jackalopes they sell at truck stops—a stuffed rabbit with antelope antlers stuck to its head! Or like that thing he’d seen at the Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum at Niagara Falls. That had been nothing more than halves of a dried-up monkey and a codfish sewn together, but when P.T. Barnum exhibited it, he made fools of thousands of people who believed it was an actual mummified mermaid from Figi.\n\nEric’s good humor quickly faded. Had he really flown all the way to California for this? To be the butt of some Chinese joke? Had it been one of those corny “what-have-you-learned-from-this-my-Grasshopper” life lessons? Did they really expect him to wait and wait until he was too old to even care about motorcycles, to realize with great appreciation, that the gift his grandfather had given him was actually some Confucius crap like—Patience? Could that really be the treasure that Mr. Po insisted he should guard with the ferociousness of a dragon?\n\nEric felt like flinging the whole thing into the waste basket. He’d been cheated! But the more he looked at it the more he had to marvel at its strange beauty and amazing workmanship. He couldn’t see any stitches at all! And it was old. Really old.\n\nHe held it under the bright light of his desk lamp. The four legs and feet had most likely come from baby chicks. Bat wings, of course, and the body was covered with reptilian skin. Probably snake, because the tail was definitely a snake. Eric ran his finger down the tail and saw the tiny tuft of fur glued to the end, just like the carved dragon carved on the lid. He touched the tuft.\n\nIt moved.\n\nEric drew back. The thing that had been so lightweight and stiff, suddenly felt as if it were filling with warm water in his hands! It twitched, and he dropped it on the desktop to watch in amazement as the dried-up thing creaked into life. The creature’s dusty black form took on a metallic-blue sheen and the now-open eyes looked like red glass beads. The creature struggled to drag itself around the desktop. It rolled its spade-shaped head to sniff at the thin ribbon of red trailing from the stump of its severed hind leg.\n\n“Cool!” yelled Eric. “A fricking baby dragon! This is great! Where’s my camera?”\n\nHe plunged under his bed to find the camcorder he kept there. If the batteries were run down, he’d never forgive himself! As he pushed aside shoe boxes and dirty socks, he wondered how much he might charge for the video. Thousands? Millions? He realized that he owed his grandfather a huge apology. Eric could sell his tiny dragon for hundreds of times the value of what his poor relations had inherited!\n\nEric found what he was looking for and hauled it out into the room. He unzipped the case, pulled out his camera, and turned around to find that his dragon was now—the size of a pony! He barely had time to ask himself how it could possibly have grown so big, so fast, or to read the pain and fear that registered in the creature’s red eyes.\n\nHis stepmother Kathy woke up when she heard the crash of glass.\n\n“Eric?” she called. “Eric, are you OK?”\n\nShe had a hard time pushing his bedroom door open because Eric’s leg was in the way. But it was only his leg. The rest of him was gone. The shredded curtain flapped at the broken, open window, and a bit of paper drifted down from the ceiling.\n\nIt read:\nLUNG BAO, HE WHO PROTECTS A GREAT TREASURE" } ]

[ { "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: Late Night Truces\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1991\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a character trying to heal an old rift." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "*Content warning: some violence and language*\nLee Park’s first thought when he discovers his childhood rival has a cousin is far from polite.\nShit. There’s more of ‘em?\nThe Tri-State Martial Arts Tournament had pitted him against newcomer, Chiyo Hamada, for his third match and while a fist to the face might not be the most formal of introductions, he can’t say he wasn’t the slightest bit impressed by her strength.\nShe knew how to pack a punch. How to properly generate the right amount of torque with every meticulous swerve of her hips. There was something vaguely familiar about her technique and although he’d known of her association with the Hamada Dojo beforehand, he hadn’t expected her to wield similar move-sets as her cousin had in previous tournaments. Ironically enough, it gave him the advantage.\nHis distracted musings proved meddlesome during the match, but in the end his experience and a single leg hook kick was all that was needed to subdue his opponent and secure his position in the tournament.\nNeedless to say, Chiyo was pissed.\nBut Lee’s master, Sung Kim, had always instilled upon him the virtue of humility. Win or lose, he expects every one of his pupils to uphold an equal measure of dignity regardless of their rivalry with the Hamada Dojo.\nAlthough it pains him, Lee acts on principle and helps a defeated Chiyo up from the mat, offering to shake on it as a gesture of good sportsmanship.\n“Good fight, kid,” he commends her as she regains her balance. “Still got a long way to go before you reach my level but at least there’s always the next tournament.”\nChiyo slaps his hand away, her eyes glaring with murderous intent. She says nothing as she turns her back and storms off the arena.\nLee watches her leave, feeling inexplicably confused.\nHe wonders if he’s destined to piss off every Hamada on the face of the earth.\n *\nHe sees her again a month later – at a gas station at two in the morning.\nLee already knows he’s in for it come sunrise at the Kim Dojo. It’s the first day of spring cleaning and, on top of the motherlode of chores he’s bound to be swamped with like a frantic maid, he’s been graciously tasked with instructing the children’s classes later that afternoon.\nIn short, he expects to get very little sleep before all the chaos and very little time to recover from the inevitable wave of headaches. Probably shouldn’t have spent the previous night out drinking and wreaking havoc at his favorite watering hole but he can groan about his inhibitions later.\nIt’s late (or early), and his motorcycle needs gas.\nAt the pump, he hears what sounds like a scuffle and briefly surveys his surroundings. Nothing seems out of the ordinary at first, something he chalks up to exhaustion and his mind playing tricks on him. As he starts pumping gas the muffled voices return, this time with a loud clash.\n“There she is! That damn nosy kid! Get her!”\nLee instinctively jolts up and peers out into the darkness of the alleyway ahead, following the source of the ruckus like he’s in hot pursuit of a criminal.\nThe chase leads him to the most bizarre thing he’s ever seen at such ungodly hours of the morning, his heels buried deep in the dirt as his reflexes screech to a halt.\nIt’s her. Undeniably her.\nChiyo readies herself in stance as she’s cornered by three rowdy-looking men, fists raised and an unimpressed scowl seared on her face.\n“Let’s get this over with,” she says, challenging them all at once.\nBefore Lee can so much as blink, the three neighborhood bullies rush Chiyo in fleet-footed rage, encircling her like a pack of wolves coming in for the kill. Unbeknownst to them, their severe underestimation of her abilities will prove costly – a lesson they learn a smidgen too late.\nShe evades the first bully with the swift shifting of her feet, plowing a steady jab into the second before tossing him over her shoulder as though he were no more than a sack of rice. With a smirk, she spins around and tackles the third bully into a headlock, his pathetic attempt at retaliation no match for her expert grappling.\nTwo down. One to go.\nChiyo hops back to full height and steadies her clenched fists, anticipating the final showdown.\nShe’s spared the trouble entirely, her eyes wide in disbelief as Lee topples the last of the bullies over with a series of kicks soaring across his face, his midsection, and down to his kneecap. He strikes his heel at his jaw, the final blow rendering him unconscious.\nIt’s a mess but it’s over.\nWith the neighborhood bullies down and out for the count, Lee sweeps his gaze over their handiwork, his breathing erratic and heart still pounding his chest to a palpable cadence. He lives for this kind of thrill; the adrenaline rush from street-fights, the explosive sensation of unleashing kick after kick.\nSatisfied, he looks up and sees Chiyo frozen in her tracks.\nSomething stalls inside him when their eyes meet, and he finds himself momentarily speechless.\n“What are you doing here?” Chiyo asks, tone brazen and low. Despite her tense demeanor she lowers her fists, acknowledging all prior threats have been properly dealt with.\nLee quirks a brow in suspicion, stepping over the unconscious body at his feet. “I could ask you the same thing,” he retorts. “Don’t you know better than to be wandering out this late by yourself?”\nChiyo scoffs and dusts the small traces of dirt off her shoulders. She ignores his lecturing and walks past him, cutting off eye contact as a means of ending the conversation there.\n“A simple ‘thanks’ would be nice,” Lee calls after her, arms elevated in frustration.\n“I didn’t ask for your help,” she fires back.\nMaybe he shouldn’t expect anything other than animosity from her.\nBut against his better judgment he follows her.\n“Who were those guys?” he probes. “What did they want from you?”\nHis answer comes in the form of her broken bike. One tire slashed, the handlebars bent out of shape, the chain tattered. It’s beyond repair.\n“Dammit,” she mutters through grit teeth. She kicks at the contraption with an exasperated grunt, hands raking through her hair. “I can’t ride this.” Another grunt.\nSparing mere seconds in contemplation, Chiyo resigns herself to a long walk home, sporting a new look of resolve as she heads off for the road.\n“What the hell?” Lee moves to block her path. “What are you doing?”\n“I’m going home,” she snorts. “Those jerks wrecked my bike so looks like I’m walking.”\n“Why don’t you call someone?” Lee asks, like it’s obvious.\nChiyo narrows her eyes. “It’s two in the morning. I’m not gonna wake up my father for this. He has to get up early.”\n“You can always call that cousin of yours,” Lee quips, though he’s partly serious.\n“Hiroki can eat dirt,” is all Chiyo has to say about that.\nAt least there’s one thing they can agree on.\n“You’re seriously going to walk home?” Lee presses. “At this hour?”\nChiyo folds her arms across her chest, her brows furrowed in confusion. “Why do you care so much?” She doesn’t give him the chance to respond. “And why did you have to butt in back there? Gloating at the tournament wasn’t enough? You just had to swoop in so you could rub it in my face all over again, huh?”\nLee has to do mental acrobatics to keep up with her. “Damn! I was just trying to help!”\n“Do us both a favor,” Chiyo says, stern. “Don’t.”\nFor Pete’s sake, are all Hamadas like this?!\nLee sags his shoulders, relenting - but not without offering one last recourse.\n“Look,” he begins, exhaling loud and deep. “You got two options here. You can walk home, alone, in the dark, and risk running into more trouble.” He pauses, like he’s waiting for her to pick up on the implication hanging from his words.\n“Or…?” she asks, indulging him with a roll of her eyes.\n“Or I can give you a ride home,” he says, pointing out his motorcycle. “Doesn’t make a difference to me either way. But you can’t say I didn’t warn you if some crazy shit goes down on your walk.”\nChiyo’s stern expression dissolves into something a bit more pensive. Then…\n“It’s not exactly down the road,” she says, whether as a heads up or as an excuse he can’t tell.\n“All the more reason,” Lee insists. Better to be safe than sorry.\nChiyo takes her time deliberating over the lesser of two evils, sizing his ride up as though whatever assessment she procures will be the deciding factor.\nShe takes one last look into the alleyway where the three bullies had received the ass-whooping of their lives, figuring she’s had enough fun doling out street justice for the day. She’s tired and just wants to go to bed already.\n“Fine,” she concedes. “What’s the catch?”\nThe question startles Lee. Previously, there was no catch but now that he thinks about it…\n“The catch. Right.” Lee plays it off, calm, cool, and collected. “You’ll have to come into the dojo next week.”\nChiyo cringes. “To train?”\nLee is only slightly offended by her repulsed look. “No. To help out with a few chores,” he replies. “It’s spring cleaning.”\n“You’re not joking… are you?” She hopes he is, but she’s heard enough rumors about Sung Kim and how the man is known for being a hardass when it comes to the cleanliness of his dojo.\nLee shakes his head. “So how ‘bout it? Do we have a deal?”\nSilence looms in the air, but only briefly.\n“Seriously... Why are you helping me?” Chiyo asks. “You hate my cousin. Everyone knows you two have had it out for each other since you were in diapers. All because of some stupid tournament.”\nLee sizzles in embarrassment. When she puts it that way, right down to its most primitive and rather childish form, he admits their rivalry and his disdain for the Hamada Dojo are utterly ridiculous.\nBut if this is about making amends, one small step at a time, he must be willing to lower his fists and call for a truce. Not every battle can be fought the same way.\n“This has nothing to do with Hiroki,” Lee replies, voice betraying no frailty. “This is only between you and me.” How it should be.\nWith moderate level of difficulty, Lee makes one final attempt to sway her.\nHe smiles. Kill ‘em with kindness. He’s never tried this move before.\nAt that, Chiyo reluctantly commits herself to the arrangement. “Fine. Whatever,” she says, facepalming herself. “Just take me home.”\nPhew. “You got it.” Lee gestures for her to follow him, leading the way to his prized motorcycle.\nHe hops on and instructs her to sidle up behind him. He braces himself when she obediently scoots closer, nuzzling her chest against his back, her arms wrapped around his waist for support.\nChiyo sighs at length, like she’s going to regret this but couldn’t be half-assed to care when she’s so physically and mentally drained.\nLee revs up the engine, eager to feel the wind on his face.\n“Ready?” he asks. Chiyo gives a noncommittal hum as her response. “Hold on tight.”\nThey ride off into the night, under the stars and the dim glow of streetlights.\nLee feels invincible as he speeds down the freeway, opening the throttle wide like it’s his lifeline, his thoughts fading with the purr of the engine.\nChiyo marvels at all the bright neon signs and billboards whizzing past in a blur, her eyes alight with innocent and child-like wonder.\nIt’s a taste of freedom just beyond their grasp.\nAnd somehow, Lee knows he’s on his way." } ]

[ { "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: Cookie Exchange\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1160\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone hosting a cookie exchange as a cover to hide the true reason for inviting one of their guests." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The Cookie Exchange\n“Hey Kevon, thank you for coming,” Venia said as she opened her bakery shop door.\nThe gentleman greeted Venia with a big grin. He came in and took off his jacket.\nKevon said, “Your sign said closed. I hesitated for a moment. Then I remembered you said the shop had not officially opened yet. So you're hosting a “Cookie Exchange” tomorrow? How will that work since your the owner of a Cookie Bakery?”\nVenia took the mans jacket and hung it on coat holder. She held her arm out to lead him to her unusual black and gold edged counter.\nVenia said “My cookie exchange will be as different as my bakery. All the invited guess will bring their favorite baked cookies. I will bake my cookies tonight, using my secret ingredient. My cookies will be placed in the mix with all the other cookies. Not me, but each guess will blindly taste all the exchange cookies. After a nice cookie feast, they will vote on their favor one. The winner will be an honor guest on opening day. Their cookies will be sold. The winner will collect 100% of their sales. I will take nothing.”\nKevon nodded in approval. He said, “That's an excellent ideal. You'll build a great connection with the community. Glad you invited me to see your bakery for our first blind date.”\nKevon took a seat and rubbed his hand over the beautiful counter top.\n“Yea, this is my place.” Vena said as she poured some international coffee for her guest. “Like I said when we connected online, I still felt embarrassed. Looking on a dating site for company still feels awkward. I was not sure about you at first. So I kept our date a secret.”\nKevon said, “I know how you feel. I didn't tell anyone myself. If our date goes bad, no one will know. You and I know business folks like us, have to be extra careful. So many people want to take everything you work so hard for.”\nVena nodded as she took a sip of coffee. She stared at her guest for a moment. She took another long sip and smiled.\nVenia said, “Call me a dreamer, but I believe someone out there could be the very ingredient I need to uplift my life.”\nKevon nodded. “I feel the same way. As you know I have a start-up Accounting business. I am so glad to see someone is till interested in start-ups. It seems the only way to build real wealth these days. Tell me about your bakery.”\nVenia came from behind her counter. She carefully pulled off her colorful apron.\nVenia said, “Lets start with this apron. I designed this picture when I was a young girl. Twelve years old in fact.”\nVenia proudly laid her apron on the counter top. She said, “Its my original drawing of this bakery. If you look closely some lines are not straight. I kept this in my dresser drawer. I believed one day it would happen. I had the picture printed on all my aprons.”\nKevon said “So you were always a visionary?”\n“Oh yes! I was determined to create a unique taste. It had to be different. I needed a new tasting cookie. I was always in the kitchen coming up with different flavor cookies.”\nVenia paused as she look out of the window. The sun was barely picking through a large gray cloud. It started to rain. The street lights began to click on. One by one the lights brighten up the street.\nVenia said, “A year of ago, I put my life savings into this place. Even tho I was short on my main unique ingredient, got my license to open. I gathered all my recipes. Brought this place, and all you see in here. I should have been nervous but I wasn't. I am here. I am ready. My Cookie Bakery will open tomorrow.”\nKevon gleamed. He said in excitement, “So show me around!”\nVenia quickly wiped the counter. She said “Just what I was wanting to hear. Come on back let me show you the kitchen.”\nBoth of them walked thought the steel double swinging doors. Inside it looked like a professional kitchen. Metal center island. Multi double ovens. Industrial appliances. Large colorful mixers, and blenders all around.\nVenia said, “Were hitting it off well for our first date, don't you think?”\nKevon touched her shoulder and smiled. He said, “I'm glad I came. Your much prettier in person than over the internet.”\nThey both laughed.\nVenia said, “How about you and I make some cookies together?”\nIn excitement, Kevon untied his tie and rolled up sleeve. “OK whats first?”\nVenia pulled down some bowls and open some maple drops. With her handy white towel, she pop him on his thigh. She said, “Hey, my handsome helper can you go through that metal door by those stairs and grab the brown flour on the very top shelf?”\nKevon grim, “Why sure boss. I'll get it and be back in a jiffy.”\nKevon eagerly walked to the door and went in. Kevon yelled back. “Hey where is the light, its dark in here!”\nVenia yelled back, “Go in a bit more and you'll see a large bright orange button on the left side. Push the button and the lights will all pop on.”\nVena quickly ran to a lower cabinet on her right side. She bent down and reached way in. Venia stretched in as far as she could and in pulled a lever. The metal door Kevon went through slammed!\nImmediately Kevon yelled in agony, “Help me, Help!” Vena ran over to the metal door and locked it. Kevon's voice quivered with horrible screams. The air was filled with cries and painful moans. One last time Kevon screeched out a horrible yell, “Noooo!”\nThen there was silence.\n“Crunch. Crunch. Grinding, then mixing sounds came from the room.\nAfter a few minutes Venia ran downstairs. She opened up a concealed panel, and went inside. Up against a low ceiling wall there was a spout. She grabbed a jar and pulled the lever. Substance filled her jar. When it was full, she twisted the cap tight. Venia did a little dance as she made her way up the stairs.\nIn the man kitchen, Venia opened the jar and took a long whiff. She went over to her center island and prepared her batter. She scooped out a tablespoon of the textured substance from the jar.\n“Just a scoop will do.” She tasted her mixture. “Hum, so tasty. A winner for sure!”\nVenia hummed as she stirred in some added in flavors. She spoon her dough on the cookie sheet, and placed it in her warm oven. Twenty minutes later she pulled them out and tasted her cookie.\n“Now that I have more of my secret ingredient, I'm ready for opening day!”\nLupe Fuller email: lmfday@hotmail.com" } ]

[ { "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: Call Me Raven\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 2700\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story about someone whose job is to make miracles happen, literally or figuratively." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "King Toliver Nesbitt flashes his million-dollar caps and wiggles his bushy eyebrows at Chancellor Manville Dubois, a sure sign the monarch will try to coerce Manville into doing the impossible.\n“I’m looking forward to seeing Queen Esther,” King Toliver says.\n“How is the queen feeling these days?” Manville asks.\nDistinguished, yet unassuming, Chancellor Dubois’s lanky build, fluffy brown hair, and glasses make him look more like a college professor than Andorra’s most accomplished diplomat.\n“She’s fragile. I can’t thank you enough for coming up with the idea of moving her to our second home in Canillo,” King Toliver replies. “The press would’ve hounded her into having another breakdown… And that funeral you organized! It made the news in America and the U.K. The closed coffin excuse was brilliant! That explanation you concocted -- the grieving King and his family being unable to bear seeing their loved one in death -- was perfect. The thousands of weeping citizens who passed by Queen Esther’s empty coffin certainly were convinced. I nearly cried real tears myself! Having Esther dead in the public eye while she’s really tucked away in Canillo has made life much easier for the both of us, although it must be getting harder for you to explain the nature of the trips I’ve been taking. Where am I supposed to be this time?”\n“Viewing army maneuvers in Canillo. Most of the army will actually be guarding your castle while you’re visiting Queen Esther.”\nKing Toliver sighs. “All this intrigue and stress. And the political fringe has gone from criticizing me to trying to kill me. I’m getting too old for this, Manny.”\n“Unfortunately, I think we all are, your majesty.”\n“The problems we’ve been having with anarchists have made me think about naming my successor.”\n“I thought it would be Princess Ingrid. She’s the oldest.”\n“Older than Beatrice by three minutes, and infinitely more experienced. She’s like her mother, Queen Caterina. She’s strong-willed, pious.\n“Sounds like the perfect choice,” Manville says.\n“She’s also fragile, hesitant, and a religious zealot with no intention of being Queen, traits she picked up from her stepmother, Queen Esther.”\n“If I may speak freely, your majesty. Your son…”\n“Vladimir is an inconsiderate, rude, violent embarrassment, and all of eighteen.”\n“You do have a second daughter to consider.”\n“Yes, Beatrice, my beautiful, damaged child. Mentally she’s only eight, and she hasn’t spoken in years.”\n“She’s spoken to me.”\n“Everyone speaks to you, Manny. But the people wouldn’t want a mime for a queen.”\nManville checks the passing street signs.\n“We’re here, driver. Pull over here behind the other limousine.”\n“What’s going on, Manny?”\n“A safety precaution, your majesty. We’re just switching limousines.”\n “Are you sure this is necessary?” the corpulent King asks as he struggles to get into the second limousine.\nThe first limousine explodes, its hood flipping past the second limousine.\n“You knew!” the King exclaims. “How is it you always know what’s going to happen? Everyone in court whispers that you’re a modern-day wizard. You’ve saved my life more times than I can count. In the past year alone, you said that the private plane I was going to get on would crash, and it did; you kept me from going to the Baxter Building before it collapsed, and you stopped my maid from poisoning me. You’ve got a special talent for predicting the future, my friend.”\n“I’m not always right, your majesty. I thought Mike Tyson would beat Buster Douglas.”\n“I want you to pick my successor, Manny. I want you to look into that crystal ball of yours or whatever you use and tell me who’s going to sit on my throne when I die.”\nManville opens the window to his bedroom. A raven swoops through the window, landing on his bed.\n“Hello, big boy,” the Raven says, whistling.\nThe raven morphs into a woman with long chestnut hair, an alluring figure, and a sly smile.\n“Since you’re here, I guess we saved the day again,” the Raven says.\n“The king thinks it was anarchists. My money’s on Count Drago.”\n“He’s your man, all right. He and that hotel owner, that worm Donald Drummond, are in cahoots,” the Raven replies. ”I was outside of Drummonds’ penthouse when they got the news that you and the king were still alive. He really knows how to swear with flair.”\n“I don’t know what makes a guy who owns a few overpriced hotels think he can run the country. Follow him.”\n“And what will you be doing?”\n“I have to pick one of the Three Stooges to succeed King Toliver.”\nThe Raven rises from the bed. Walking to a nearby dresser, she sifts through a collection of vials and small bottles.\n“Take this with you, you’re going to need it,” she says, handing a bottle to Manville. “Give this to Princess Ingrid.”\n“What is it?”\n“A combination of amyl nitrate and speed, among other things, with a dash of cayenne pepper.”\n“Cayenne pepper?”\n“Princess Ingrid may be rigid, but she likes spicy food.”\n“And why am I giving her this?”\n “She’s going to have a fatal seizure. That mixture will restart her heart and save her life.”\n Manville studies his companion. “Another incident that’ll make me look like the Nesbitt’s guardian angel. There are less than a hundred thousand people in Andorra. Why are you helping me?”\n “You’re kind, intelligent, and loyal. Ravens are attracted to benevolent people.”\n “So, when we met in the lobby of the tourist bureau, and I asked you to dinner…”\n “It was destined to happen, although the caviar and steak helped,” the Raven says. “I think it may have also helped that I reminded you of someone you once knew.”\n “Brenda? So, your appearance is intentional?”\n “She was the love of your life. I can look like someone else if you want…Maybe Cathy, that girl you had a crush on in college.”\n “No, definitely not Cathy!”\n Manville and the Raven burst into laughter.\n “We’ve had a lot of success together.”\n “Fourteen years,” she replies.\n “What do you really look like?”\n “I guess the closest thing to something you’re familiar with would be a wisp of smoke.”\n “So, your body is an illusion?”\n “No, it’s your illusion. It’s what you wanted. It easier for Ravens to perform their duties if we’re accepted by the people we choose to help.”\n “Who are some of the other people Ravens have helped?”\n “Cicero, Columbus, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, Martin Luther King…”\n “Sounds like I’m destined for greatness,” Manville says.\n “We also chose Caligula, George Armstrong Custer, and Sonny Liston. Sometimes we hurt the people we try to assist.”\n “Are you an angel or a devil?”\n “There’s a bit of both in everyone,” she replies.\n “I’ve asked you these questions before, haven’t I?”\n “Many times.”\n “I know you’re trying to protect me, to help me, by making me forget what we’ve talked about. Will you allow me to remember this conversation?”\n “Yes, it will help you get through what lies ahead,” the Raven says.\n “One last question. Are Ravens allowed to love the people you help?”\n “It’s a requirement.”\n Manville enters St. Anthony’s Church. Princess Ingrid and a pair of nuns are kneeling in prayer at the church’s ornate altar.\nUnlike her twin sister, Beatrice, twenty-two-year-old Ingrid keeps her abundant jet-black hair concealed under a coif. She eschews make-up, and although she isn’t ordained, she dresses in a flowing black robe.\n“So, what does the King’s right-hand man want from me?”\nManville clears his throat, hesitating.\n“I can tell when something is weighing heavily on you, Chancellor. We’ve always been able to speak frankly. Don’t let the outfit or my reputation intimidate you.”\n“The King wants to know if you’ll succeed him when he dies.”\n“You know how I feel about being queen. I serve God first. I’ll only take the throne if we convert the country to Catholicism.”\n“May I remind the princess that thirty percent of her subjects are Jewish; ten percent are Muslim, and another ten are God knows what.”\n“Don’t blaspheme.”\n“Sorry. Trying to convert everyone to one religion would start a holy war. We’re already fighting a war to keep the Nesbitts on the throne. But think about this… As queen, you would be able to expand the food and education programs you’re already running for the poor.”\nPrincess Ingrid’s eyes glaze over in thought. “I could do so much more… I could make guns illegal, bring back school prayer… ”\nShe begins reciting scripture from the Bible, speaking faster each time she repeats it.\n“And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need.” \nPrincess Ingrid’s joy elevates to such a point that she begins to hyperventilate.\nShe yells “GOD COULD SPEAK THROUGH ME!” clawing at her throat. Gasping for air, she turns blue and keels over, her body shaking violently.\nThe two nuns continue to chirp in prayer, clutching at each other for support.\nPulling out the bottle, Manville opens Princess Ingrid’s mouth, pouring the liquid down her throat.\nPrincess Ingrid’s eyes widen. Her heart pounds as she gasps for air.\nSitting up, Princess Ingrid takes a deep, ragged breath.\n“Thank you, Chancellor. You’ve saved my life yet again. It seems that just the thought of being Queen nearly killed me. Get yourself another Nesbitt.”\nManville cautiously approaches Prince Vladimir.\nThe prince has tied Count Yuri Drago to a target and is throwing hatchets at him. A trio of guards stands nearby at attention, casting uneasy looks.\n“I hear we Nesbitt’s owe you our lives twice over today. First my father, and now my sister.”\n“Just doing my duty,” Manville says humbly.\n“So, I’m in line to be King, eh?” Prince Vladimir says, hurling a hatchet at Count Drago. The hatchet sticks in the wooden target just above the Count’s head.\n“Can I ask what you’re doing, my prince?”\n“I’m trying to get him to confess. We already interrogated a few anarchists. They maintained their innocence all the way up to when we shot them. So, it dawned on me that Drago, who’s been a bit vocal of late about my father’s policies, night be a traitor.”\nPrince Vladimir throws another hatchet at Count Drago. It clips the sleeve of his billowy white shirt, drawing blood. The count’s lips quiver, but he remains silent.\n“It would be an honor to take over for my father,” the prince continues. “Once I’m on the throne, I’d like to invade Alsace–Moselle.”\n“We have been at peace with them since the First World War,” Manville points out. “Why invade the second smallest country in the world?”\n“Because we’re the first, and we can,” Prince Vladimir replies. “Besides, I hear they have some nice vineyards there.”\n“We barely have five hundred soldiers, and a war would wreak havoc on our finances.”\n“So, we draft more men, and we boost the economy by making prostitution and drugs legal.”\nPrince Vladimir flings another hatchet at Count Drago. The hatchet hits the count between the eyes, splitting open his skull.\n“Well, what do you know? He didn’t confess.”\nManville paces the floor in his apartment. The Raven flies in his window, cawing “Message from the front!” before morphing into a woman.\n“You heard about Drago?”\n“I saw it. That blood-thirsty madman can’t rule, and Princess Ingrid refuses to rule. Thank you for the potion. She would have died without it.”\n“Did you talk to Beatrice?”\n“Why bother? She’s the least fit to rule.”\n“You need to speak to Beatrice.”\n“This would be a lot easier if you simply told me who to pick.”\n“I honestly don’t know. I can’t see that far ahead,” The Raven says. “All I see is darkness.”\n“Well doesn’t that in itself say something?”\n“…I suppose it does…,” she replies. “Before you go, why don’t we…”\nShe moves toward Manville, kissing him.\n“It doesn’t take a seer to tell me what’s going to happen next.”\nManville knocks on Princess Beatrice’s door, slowly swinging it open.\nHe notices the Raven sitting on the windowsill and heads toward it.\n“You’re supposed to be spying on Drummond.”\n“More fun spying on you,” the Raven caws.\n“Shoo,” Chancellor says.\n“Killjoy,” the Raven caws, flying off.\nThe princess’ matronly nanny, Pillar Puente, gives Manville a suspicious look.\n“Were you just talking to that bird?”\n“Of course not. You’ve been working too hard, Pillar.”\nThe princess is sitting on the floor, playing with a miniature tea set.\nManville turns to Pillar. “How is she today?”\n“Somewhere between six and eight years old,” she says, her mouth puckering into a frown. “She still won’t speak.”\nManville sits down, picking up one of the cups. Beatrice lifts her cup, and the two of them pretend to be sipping tea.\n“Amazing. You’re the only one she plays with,” Pillar says. “Most of the time she just stares out of the window.”\n“We do share a tragic bond. Cheers, Beatrice.”\nBeatrice smiles at him.\n“That bond. It’s Queen Caterina’s death, isn’t it?”\n“Yes.”\nBeatrice’s head droops.\n“It’s all right, Princess. You’re safe.”\nTurning toward Pillar he says, “I often think about that day. King Toliver, Princess Ingrid, and Prince Vladimir were visiting his cousin in Switzerland. Queen Caterina wanted to attend the annual music festival with her favorite daughter. Princess Beatrice and I were sitting in the back seat. Queen Caterina was sitting in the front of the limousine with the diver. I couldn’t save her.”\n“They said the way you reacted, shielding the child, it was like you knew what was coming.”\n“…A little bird told me…,” Manville mutters.\n“What?”\n“I said it was my training that helped me react.”\n“How many bullets did you take?”\n“Four. But I was wearing a bulletproof vest.”\n“And even though you saved her, poor Beatrice has never been the same. Sometimes, when she’s looking out the window, I get the feeling she’s waiting for her mother to come home.”\n“And someday, she might be Queen.”\nPillar respectfully tries to stifle her laughter.\n“She can’t rule the country! She can barely dress herself! She’s a twenty-two-year-old sheet of blank paper.”\nManville pats Beatrice on her cheek.\n“Would you like to be Queen someday?”\nBeatrice smiles, holding up her teacup.\nManville passes the castle’s massive stone patio, freezing when he sees Prince Vladimir firing a rifle at a flock of passing birds.\nThe guards stand by looking non-plussed.\nA raven passes overhead, flying toward the castle.\n“NO!”\nThe prince fires at the raven. The bird dips in mid-flight hit in the side.\nManville grabs the rifle from Prince Vladimir’s hands.\n“What do you think you’re doing, Chancellor?”\n“I’m sorry, my Prince, but it’s bad luck to harm a raven.”\n“Bad luck for the raven,” Prince Vladimir smirks. “Better get used to this, Chancellor. When I’m King, we’ll have daily pheasant and fox hunts. We might throw in a few anarchists as well.”\nManville rushes to his apartment.\nThe Raven is lying on his bed in the form of a dying woman.\nHe holds her.\n“Quoth the Raven, ouch.”\n“Fatal?”\n“Afraid so.”\n“So, this is why you couldn’t tell me who’ll succeed Toliver.”\n“Yes.”\n“What will I do without you?”\n“I’m not leaving you forever. I’ll be back. We have a dynasty to save.”\n“How will I know you?” he asks.\n“I’ll say, ‘You can call me Raven.’”\nManville bows, kissing Princess Ingrid’s hand.\n“How is his majesty?”\n“Fading quickly. He had a second stroke this morning. It’s been two weeks since he asked you for your recommendation. He wants it today before he dies.”\n“Give me a moment.”\nManville stands on the patio looking out at the trimmed trees and perfectly cropped grass.\nHe senses he is not alone.\nPrincess Beatrice is standing next to him. She turns and smiles at him.\n“I thought I’d come out here to relax a bit,” he says.\n“I often come out here myself,” she replies.\n“You can speak!”\n“I suppose I always could,” Princess Beatrice replies. “I just didn’t have anything to say.”\n“This certainly changes my assessment of who should rule next, Princess.”\n“You can call me Raven.”" } ]

[ { "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: The Whisper and the Rocket\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1888\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story that either starts or ends with someone (or something) saying, “Please, don’t do it.”" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Yuri had his bags already packed and neatly organized by the door of the house.\nAfter a few seconds of silence, he looked at Akari. His had one hand nervously scratching the back of his head.\n\"We both new this day would come, you know? We've already known for a while\" he said with an attitude that almost sounded like he was going out of his way to make things sound lighthearted.\nAkari looked at him and then looked off to the side with one hand going behind her back and holding her other arm.\n\"I know\" she said quietly\nAkari continued with his attempts to sound light hearted.\n\"Even before we were dating, when we were just friends.....I came to the school as apart of the colony program. I came all the way from Moscow just for that purpose.\"\nAkari was directly between him and the door. She shifted her weight a little. They both new that he was going to be late to his pre-launch preparations if they lingered in the hallway dorm for the international students who were apart of the colonization program.\nShe opened her mouth as if she had so many words to say, that they were bottlenecked......they couldn't quite make it out her mouth.\nThen she started again.\n\"I know that. And I knew what you came here to do is pretty important. I mean......to go into space...as our planet is crumbling apart, so that all of us can have a future.....to be apart of the first group to go to that other planet..Spas....Spasaniya 5 or whatever it's called....your helping give the rest of us a brighter future....\nAkari blushed and gave a bit of a humble/humorous smile.\n\"Yup. I guess you could say I'm kind of a hero. You guys better make a statue in my honor while I'm gone. The trip is gonna take about 3 years, so you guys definitely have time....no excuses\" he said as he gave a sarcastic laugh.\nAkari loved that about him. He had such a goofy and dry sense of humor. But he wasn't serious. He was actually the most humble guy she knew, and that's what she loved about him.\nThey first met in the their freshman year of high school.\nIn the year 3047 the climate on earth had reached a point where it was no longer at a level where it could sustain human life for the long term. Whether this was caused by nature or humans themselves was still a unresolved question for the world's scientists.\nAbout 200 years ago strange natural occurrences began to take place. The clouds began to change color. Instead of being white, they turned brownish-black. It would only happen ever so often, but the rate of this happening began to increase. By the year 3040, the clouds were almost always black. The last time the clouds were white was the first day of freshman year, when Akari and Yurii met for the first time.\nHe couldn't explain it, but the day he met her, he felt like he forgot about the chaos that was happening in the world around him. Maybe that is why he initially gravitated toward her, he thought to himself. He was bred, essentially since birth, to be a part of the space colonization mission that would that would land first on a planet in a different galaxy that had the perfect conditions to support human life.\nSince childhood he was forced to do preparations and exercises that were designed to prepare him for this critical mission. That is why he was so serious, and almost miserable. But she was able to reach a side of him that he didn't know had. The side of him that liked to laugh....that loved comedy and to see the humor in life. By senior year, he was known as a jokester the funny guy of the grade, and all of that was thanks to Akari. Her positive attitude, and her smile. That is also why he liked cracking jokes - because he knew it would give him another glimpse of that smile....\nBut the clouds weren't the only thing in the world that were changing.\nAbout 100 years after the clouds changed, the animals began to change. The mammals stated to shed their fur. They started to grow scales and they became slimy. They started to grow in size and aggression. They stopped eating plants and started attacking humans.\nThis led to the eradication many of the previous species of animals and led to the emergences of a new species - Smyertons. And these creatures craved human blood and were very difficult to kill. They came out when the clouds would turn black, and now the clouds were black everyday.\nHumans were becoming an extinct species themselves.\nThere was silence in the room again.\nThis time Akari was the first to break the silence.\n\"I......I made you this\", she said loudly on account of her nervousness. She then extended her right hand in a fist. The very end of a long chain managed to hang just outside the side of her tightly clenched fist.\nThe humorous smile on his face disappeared. He slowly walked over to her and opened his left hand under hers. She dropped the object into his hand.\nIt was a small silver heart-shaped locket.\nAfter struggling to get his fingernails in between the two halves, he was finally able to get it open. It was a picture of Yurii and Akari together in class. The class was titled \"Introduction to post civilizations.\" For the class, they were tasked with choosing an ancient civilization, and then give presentation on a ceremony that young people in that culture were likely to take part in.\nYurii liked that course for two reasons. First of all, it was one of the few classes that discussed a topic that wasn't related to space, surviving in space, or planetary colonization. Secondly, in was the only class he shared with Akari. She always made it easy for him to show his funny side, and he was always getting in trouble for making her and the other students laugh. He rarely paid attention to the actual content. He didn't care. He was having fun.\nHe could only vaguely remember the actual information that he learned (or was supposed to learn) from their joint research project. But from what he could remember, about 1000 years ago, students who from 17-18 would take part in a tight-of-passage ceremony. It would start with a boy asking a girl to accompany him to the ceremony. If she agreed, they would get in their nicest cloths go to their local school in the early evening. There they would dance the traditional dances of the day with each other, and take pictures together.\nFor the project, Yurii and Akari decided to go all out. With the help of well-preserved video recordings from such a ceremony over 1000 years ago, they were able to recreate the ceremony. It was supposed to be a joke at first, but as time wore on, both of them became very involved with the project. Akira wore a dress worn in ancient Japan, known as a \"Kimono\" and Yuri wore a garment known as a \"suit\".\nAt the end of the ceremony, they both decided to reenact a customary dance. At that point Yuri had gotten serious, and even watched video footage of the movements the boys would follow when dancing with their selected girl. He even went to great lengths, which include dancing in his room at midnight with a sweater used to represent Akira.\nIt turned out that dancing with a sweater was much more difficult than dancing with a girl in reality. He stepped on Akari's feet on multiple occasions. His attempts to keep of with this ancient music were nothing short of fruitless.\nBut Akari didn't care. They eventually abandoned their attempts to dance to that ancient music, chose a song that was more slow and temporary. The ceremony would usually take place indoors, but since most facilities were being used to support colonization preparation, they decided everything should take place outside.\nIt was evening, with few lights. But he felt a strange feeling. He felt that that the clouds were changing back, back to their original color - that maybe in the morning, he would look up, and the clouds would be white, like when he first met Akari. They would be able to see the sun. The Smyerton creatures would all dive into the depths of the sea, and the world would once again be a cradle for human life. The mission to colonize Spasaniya 5 would be cancelled.\nThey could live on earth. And it would stay like that forever.\nBut Yuri knew that was all a fantasy. He was going on a mission, to spend years in space, all for the sake of humanity. It was likely that he would never see anyone he knew on earth ever again until he was an old man if he was lucky. At that moment though, he wasn't sad that he wouldn't get to see the rest of his family or friends - he was sad because he knew he wouldn't see her. But that type of thinking was useless and even dangerous to the mission. He suppressed those feelings, and after a few days, he thought he was successful.\nUntil now. All those feelings came back like a flood.\n\"We can pretend that we'll see each other again\", said Akira with a cracked voice. Unshed tears were collecting in her eyes.\n\"But we both know that's a lie\", she said, shaking her head as the tears fell freely down her face. \"If you get on that ship, I'm never going to see you again!\" said Akari, shouting loudly and banging on his chest with both her fists. Maybe she thought if there were enough pain in her voice, the mission would be called off. The earth would fix itself, and everything could stay the same forever.\nThere was a pause. Everything was still. Even her tears stopped flowing.\nIsn't there something you want to tell me? , she finally said in a low voice.\nYuri continued to look down, as if some sort of internal struggle were taking place inside him.\nHe put on the locket and let it hang around his neck. He said nothing, went around her, picked up his bags, and walked out the door.\n7 hours later he was at the base of the ship - Kolybel 2. It was 200 meters tall. That metal leviathan was the 2nd cradle and hope for humanity. He was at the door of the ship. He looked up at the sky as if hoping something would fall out of it and destroy the ship - an act of God that would let him stay. But that was too foolish a hope for.\nRight as he put his hand on the lever to embark on his first, and likely last space mission, he felt a hand gently tug the back of his shirt.\nHe stopped in his tracks. He was frozen in place. He knew the feel of the hand to well. Then he heard the words softly whispered:\n\"Please don't leave.....Please don't do 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: Sweet Treat\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1579\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone hosting a cookie exchange as a cover to hide the true reason for inviting one of their guests." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I haven’t stepped foot in my family’s manor since I was a teenager, I realize as my cabbie passes through the manor’s tall, heavy, gates. The path up to the manor is long, I forgot, although it’s long it’s beautiful, so I don’t mind it. The path is surrounded by vibrant American elm trees. As the cabbie drives closer and closer to the manor, memories of my childhood start rushing back. I remember when my little brother and I used to play hide and go seek, it was especially fun because we had so much space to hide. But then I remember the last time my little brother and I played hide and seek, I was 12 and he was 5. It was blizzarding that day, but we didn’t care. \n“Five, four, three, two, one! Ready or not here I come! This is gonna be so easy,” I say. He always hides in the same place, I skip down the path of the manor and stop at my little brother’s favorite tree, I don’t know why he likes this one so much because there are dozens of others just like it. I look behind the tree, “Boo!” I yell. I don’t hear his whiny voice respond, I look behind the tree, and no one’s there. I guess he’s finally learning how to play the game, I walk down the rest of the path of the manor and look for him but there’s no sign of him. I start to get worried, so I run back towards the house, maybe he’s hiding inside. “Woah slow down sweety,” Miss Brown one of our maids says. My nose is cold and my hands are numb but I still look around the house to find my little brother. He’s not in the house either. “Miss Brown!” I said tugging at her shirt, “I can’t find Jay! We were playing hide and seek so I looked for him at his favorite tree because he always hides there but I can’t find him!” I yell. My eyes well up with tears, and I can’t see anything. Miss Brown consoles me, puts on her jacket, and tucks her long red strands of hair underneath her winter hat. She takes my hand and the both of us look for Jay, we still can’t find him but then on our way back to the house we see something sticking out in the snow. It’s Jay’s hand we run over, and dig him out of the snow, his cheeks and nose are red, and his hands are blue. We run back to the house and the next thing I know mother is scolding me. She sends me to my bedroom, I ball my eyes out, and downstairs I hear my parents arguing, they weren’t even arguing about me, it was about Jay. \nAs soon as I walk into the manor, someone takes my coat and, I’m offered chardonnay, “Good Evening,” I say. “Elizabeth darling! Come, come, you have to try Margaret’s cookies there to die for!” mother calls out. She seems happier than usual, nice in fact, I walk towards her and she hugs me tightly. She passes me one of Margaret’s cookies, hmm, they’re delicious. “Hmmm, oh wow, Mrs. Jackson, these are so delicious, you’ll have to send me the recipe,” I say to Mrs. Jackson as I hug her. I haven’t seen Mrs. Jackson since I was a teenager she looks good, her long, bouncy curls frame her face, her skin is smooth and glowy like warm honey. I have to ask her for her skincare routine. I try everyone’s cookies, there all pretty good, but have yet to top Mrs. Jackson’s. “Omg, look at my little brother, you look so handsome in your little suit, “ I say ruffling Jay’s hair. He makes a confused face and looks around and says, “Are you talking to me? You can’t be talking to me, you must have another brother because I ain’t little.” “Shut up,” I say and pull him into a hug. “Do you know what’s going on because it isn’t normal for mother to throw cookie exchange parties, she doesn’t even go to other people’s cookie exchange parties, she always has an excuse,” Jay asks me. “No idea, she seems happier and nicer than usual, don’t you think?” I ask him back. “Yea, it’s so strange, she must be plotting something,” Jay replies. I start laughing, and say struggling to hold it together, “Plot what exactly?” “I don’t know man but this whole party is suspicious,” he says with a concerned face. I try to reassure him that everything will be fine, and then leave him to go eat more cookies. \nA half-hour or so has passed and all the guests have arrived at the cookie exchange party, I hear the light clink of a glass. “Good evening everyone, I’d like your attention just for a few minutes,” mother announces atop the stairs. Everyone turns the attention towards her, she clears her throat and adjusts her dress, “I invited you all here this evening to make an announcement, my husband Jerome and I have been happily married for over 25 years, or at least I thought. There’s something about Jerome and I’s marriage that you all know, well when my sweet Elizabeth was 6 years old going on 7, her dad and some of his friends decided to go on a week-long fishing trip together. When he came back, little Lizzie was so excited to see her father, later that day I got a phone call from someone, it was Margaret, she was so distraught. I calmed her down, and then asked her what was the matter? She told me she was pregnant, but she didn’t want to get rid of the baby,” I look at Jay and he looks just as confused as me. Then I look at father and he looks uncomfortable, sweat trickles down his face, his face is twitching. Mother continues, “Now when Margaret had fallen pregnant she was still in college, and she didn’t want a baby to mess up her plans. So, I told her to take a year off from school, and you can stay here until you give birth to the baby, and when you have the baby I’ll raise it as my own.” I hear everyone whispering and gasping, I look over at Jay, and the story starts to make sense. “When Margaret gave birth, she gave birth to a beautiful baby boy, she named him Jayden or Jay for short,” mother says, everyone looks at Jay, and begin whispering and murmuring. “Now you may be wondering what does this have to do with my darling husband Jerome, well you know I didn’t have any intentions of throwing this cookie exchange party. I don’t particularly like parties, but last week I got a call from Margaret and she sounded like she needed to tell me something. Well she told me the father of Jay, Jerome, honestly I’m not even mad at Margaret, I respect her for telling me. Also, I knew Jerome was cheating on me, with multiple women but I didn’t want to say anything because I needed a perfect plan to get him back. Well as you all know Margaret is remarkable at baking, so we came up with the idea to put shit in Jerome’s cookies,” mother says. Everyone gasps, mother walks down the staircase and says, “Oh and as all you know already Jerome works for my father’s company, and honestly the only reason he has his job us because of me, he has no actual skills.” Mother walks towards father and tosses papers at him and says, “You’re fired, oh and I’m divorcing your ass, your stuff is all packed up in the master bedroom, and there’s a cab waiting for you outside.” A horn honks outside, and mother walks towards the front door and puts on her coat, and some shades. “Lizzie, Jay, Margaret, you coming,” she calls out. We all rush to her, “Everyone else, you can see yourselves out,” she says. \nWe all sit in a limousine together, Jay stares at Margaret. Poor thing, I can’t believe father could do that to mother. “Jay, Lizzie, you’re all probably wondering where we’re going well, I’m going away for a while to live a little, the limo is driving to the airport, and then will take each of you back home. I don’t know what’s going to happen but I want to see the world, it’s long overdue, maybe I’ll fall in love with a young handsome man in another country, who knows? I just want you kids to know that I’m sorry, I’m sorry for the way I treated you all when you were kids, and letting you both have to hear all those arguments your father and I had. I was in a bad place, but that’s no excuse, and I just hope that you two will forgive me, “ Mother finally says. Jay starts crying uncontrollably and hugs mother, I start crying too and hug her too, I beckon Mrs. Jackson to join in the hug. For the rest of the ride to the airport, we hold each other. \nAt the airport, we hug mother again, and I say, “Mother I forgive you, we still have to heal our relationship when you come back, I love you so much.” We hug again and just like that she’s off." } ]

[ { "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: Live Different\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 2996\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a character who has access to a powerful new technology before anyone else." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“Please, don’t do it,” Janna said.\nLing sighed as he crossed his legs. “You’re telling me that right before the big reveal of a product we—including you—have been working on for the last five years.”\nHer fingers tightened around her clipboard. “I’m sorry, it only dawned on me now, but Ling, the Hiraya…” her voice faltered. “I promise you, it will do more harm than good.”\nLing slammed the dressing room table, and Janna flinched. The lights flickered above them. “I don’t have the time to change the entirety of the Hiraya in an hour, so I’m going to change your mind instead. You’re looking at it the wrong way.”\nHer voice quivered. “Sir, it will brainwash an entire nation.”\n“Into achieving their dreams!” He stood up. “Don’t you see, Janna? The Hiraya will help people do anything they put their mind into. Anything. What’s wrong with that?”\n“Giving people that much freedom and ease will ruin them more than help.”\n“My God,” Ling started laughing then, clenching his stomach as he tried to maintain his balance. “Are you even listening to yourself? I’m giving people the quintessential tool to reach their fullest potential. It’s no different than a smartphone or a PC, no different than the freedom of the internet where thoughts fly around like stray bullets at wartime. The Hiraya is the funnel that captures the bullets the user wants, and shoots them out if they so wish. That freedom your against is what the Hiraya gives, and is exactly what the world needs.”\n“So you’re the all-seeing judge now of what the world needs, Ling?”\n“Oh, I don’t need to be the judge. The marketing forecast that your team came up with speaks for itself. Hiraya is going to be revealed to the public in less than an hour, and there’s nothing you can do about it. We are entering a new world where the barriers to entry are virtually non-existent. Basketball players fit to compete in the NBA will be made in three hours as opposed to three years. A college degree will be achieved in less than that. A 900-page Anatomy book, learned in minutes. Do you realize how many doors I’m opening? The Buddha liked to say that life is suffering. But with the Hiraya, it doesn’t have to be that way.”\nJanna turned away from him. “But what does that leave living, then?”\nLing crossed his eyebrows. “What? You’re being too philosophical, you—”\nShe left him in his dressing room without another word. He scoffed as something bubbled inside him; it left Ling furious.\n\n—15 years ago—\nLing laid on his bed naked, his stomach covered with his seed. He wasn’t too focused anymore on the porn video playing from his tablet, more so at the cracks on his ceiling that seemed bigger than he last checked. He got up to wash himself and saw his face in the mirror. Sagging cheeks, blackheads, acne on his forehead, his eyebrows forming a unibrow if he looked hard enough, hair unkempt and springing out all over the place. \nThis was the face of the world’s next leading CEO in the tech industry. That’s what he told himself every day, as per instruction from The Magic of Thinking Big. \n“I am enough.”\n“I am in the top 0.01% of men.”\n“I am loved.”\n“I am smart, charismatic, empathetic, quick-witted, in control of my emotions, a master of my life.”\n“I am porn-free.”\n“I am hardworking.”\n“I will succeed.”\n“Positive thoughts… positive thoughts…”\nHe washed his face, and he smiled (I can’t be this ugly). He put on a dress of clothes and sat on his desk. His bulky laptop humming in the background, waiting to be used. Reminders he’d written down on a checklist were left unchecked. He didn’t feel like doing any of them. Why bother getting to work in such a state anyway? Doing things unmotivated would only make him detest the work even more. So, he popped up Call of Duty on his computer. \nHe grinned. Janna was online.\n“Hey,” he messaged. “Don’t you have marketing stuff to do, Ms. Pascual? Haiyah, you’re wasting your parents’ tuition money.”\nShe messaged back. “I’m sitting comfy at a 1.2 CGPA, I’m chill.”\nHis hands moved faster than his brain. “Wow, showoff much?”\n“I’m taking the piss, Ling. I’m sure you’re doing just fine, right?” \nLing’s fingers froze over the keyboard. He was biting his lip, but caught himself just before drawing blood.\nHe messaged, “Okay, enough talk about academics, let’s play the game, yeah?”\n“Agreed.”\n“Voice call?”\n“Sure.”\nHearing her voice in his headset calmed him down. An hour passed. Then two, then three. He was in a state of pure bliss as he mowed down enemies with his childhood friend.\nHe liked life like this. It was just so… easy.\n——\n\n“What do you mean you want to delay the reveal?” Ling was the tiniest transgression away from punching someone squarely on the mouth. \n“I-I’m sorry, sir,” muttered Chief Engineer Wiz, his eyes wide open at the Hiraya on stage. “There seems to be a problem with the way data is being inputted into the system and translated into the user’s hippocampus. If a user wanted to know everything about cats, the Hiraya would instead let them know everything about scat. In other words—”\n“A shitty situation, yes. When did this happen?”\n“Just a while ago, sir.”\n“Why wasn’t this brought up before?”\n“I-it wasn’t a problem before.”\n“So what caused the problem?” Ling gave the slightest glance at Janna. She didn’t break eye contact. “And can you fix it?”\n“I’m not too sure, sir. Intentional or otherwise, think someone may have physically manipulated the Hiraya, and with the way everything connects and has to be installed manually, there was probably a mistake somewhere that exponentially—”\n“Can you fucking fix it?”\n“I can, but we can’t open in thirty minutes. I’d need two hours at least to go through the whole procedure and setup.”\nLing grabbed Wiz by the collar and pulled him up to his face. “I hope you realize that you were in charge of this from the very start, Chief Engineer. You don’t need two hours because you will fix it in…” he glanced down at his watch. “Twenty-nine minutes, and the clock is only going to be ticking down from here. If you fail to fix this though, don’t worry, because I will do what any reasonable CEO would do: explain the situation, apologize to the two thousand people consisting of journalists, tech insiders, and experts in the auditorium, and explain that my Chief Engineer William “Wiz” Hargreaves messed it up, and that he too is really, really sorry. Do you understand, Mr. Hargreaves?”\nHe had an ugly look on his face as the he understood the implications of what would happen, and Ling smiled at that. Wiz gave a hard nod. “Yes, sir.”\n“Good,” Ling said, and let go of Wiz’s collar. He patted Wiz on the back. “By the way, you have twenty-seven minutes now, so you better get on that.”\nLing caught another glimpse of Janna, but she was already talking to some other worker. Why was she being like this? He shook his head (don’t focus on that now). He stared out at the closed doors of the auditorium, let that jubilant feeling rise within him. For he knew with certainty that the Hiraya would be the new technological innovation to change the world. And that he would be at the forefront of it all.\n\n—12 years ago—\nLing decided to sit in on one of the computer engineering classes in university. He liked to look fondly back at this decision as one of the smartest moves he made, but preferred to leave out that it was likely driven in part by alcohol. The professor was old-school, talked slowly and filled out the entire blackboard in meaningless chalk. It didn’t take long for Ling to regret this decision. That is, until a certain student caught his attention. He was at the corner of the classroom with his manic look in his eyes, typing out some code on his laptop which was completely different from what was on the blackboard. Ling asked for the student’s name; he was told that was William Hargreaves, the engineering “Wiz” of ID 288. \nWhen the bell rang, Ling made his move. Before Wiz could start packing up, Ling called out, “Hey Wiz!”\nWiz flinched and turned to find Ling’s unfamiliar face smiling at him. “Do I know…?”\n“You don’t, but starting now you will get to know me quite a lot.” He strolled down to Wiz and bent over to look at the screen of his laptop. “Fascinating stuff.”\n“You code?”\n“Absolutely not. Don’t understand a lick of it, and I don’t plan to. Which makes my fascination for your kind grow even more.”\n“Naah,” Wiz exhaled with a smile. “W-wait, where’s your ID? Are you even a student—”\n“The muse on my shoulder leads me to where I must go to achieve my true potential. This classroom is where she pointed to next. So, with all that said,” he motioned to the screen. “What’s all this for? I noticed you working on this while that old professor kept yapping his trap.”\n“It’s uh… I actually can’t say.”\nThat tickled Ling’s interest, and now he wouldn’t leave without knowing what it was. “Mhm. And why not?”\n“I just can’t, man.”\nLing exhaled, pulled up a chair, and sat right next to Wiz. “Can I tell you a story, Wiz?”\nWiz crossed his arms. “I-I kind of have to get to my next class—”\n“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, my friend, but I’m Chinese.”\n“Oh!” He chuckled nervously. “Really? I thought you were uh…”\n“Japanese? Korean? Pick your poison.” \nWiz chuckled at that. \nLing waved his arms. “Anyway, Chinese immigrant culture has been embedded into my upbringing since I was a boy. They had it hard when they first moved here. Starting from nothing until finally they had this small bakery. It was decently successful that we could get by just fine, which to my parents, was all they could’ve wanted. They groomed me to take over that business. To walk down that safe and narrow road, paved for me without my consent. Every little stray path and deviation that presented itself to me: all distractions, no good, they always said. Don’t be an artist, don’t be just an employee, be a businessman or a doctor. Those were my only two choices, Wiz.”\nWiz nodded along. “And then what happened?”\n“What happened was I thought I could reason with them. I thought that if I explained myself they’d get off my case. I wanted a journey with all the hurdles and challenges that plagued the likes of Jobs and Musk and I wanted to pass them all easily. To chase my dream to be the next face that will change the course of mankind. And do you know what my mother did? She laughed at me. Told me to stop joking, and told me that dreaming doesn’t make you full.”\n“That’s awful.”\n“But that’s what set me in motion, Wiz. I supposedly came to college for a degree in business to bring back knowledge for the bakery. What I actually came here to do was to search for something to get me out of that life. I know I can make something big. All I need is complementary piece of the puzzle to set me into motion. And when I saw you, Wiz, I thought you could be the one that could propel me—no, us, into the annals of history. I mean that. But I have to know if you’re the man I need for the job. Part of that is letting me know what you’re working on.”\nWiz drummed his fingers on the keyboard, his mouth twisting and untwisting with contemplation. “You keep mum about this, all right?” \nBingo. “Of course,” Ling said. \n“I get paid to do coding projects for other students.”\n“Attaboy,” Ling impishly grinned as he slapped Wiz on the chest. “I have lots of respect for hustlers. How much?”\n“A hundred bucks.”\n“Run that code of yours and let’s see if it’s worth that.”\nWiz typed away on the laptop, and a few clicks later, a new window opened. The avatar of a woman popped out, wearing a futuristic black suit with thick blue lines. \nA speech bubble appeared over her: “My name is Hiwaga.”\n“Hiwaga?” Ling asked. “What kind of name is that?”\n“This student’s Filipino,” Wiz said. “It means mystery, or something like that.” He clicked on the screen, and the text in the speech bubble changed.\n“Google never gives you clear answers; I do. What do you want to know?”\nLing said, “Ask about the meaning of life.”\nWiz was flabbergasted. “B-but we don’t even know the answer to that.”\n“Hey, maybe your program does. Go, ask it.”\nWiz shrugged, and he typed out the question. Hiwaga buffered for a while, until finally, her speech bubble refreshed: “The meaning of life is what you make of the suffering that is inherent with it.”\nLing scratched his head. “That’s a rather simple answer, no?”\n“Current version only supports answers that fit in one speech bubble. Sorry.”\n“Okay, scratch that then. How about, what’s the difference between kwashiorkor and marasmus?”\nWiz stopped in the middle of typing. “What? How do you spell that?”\n“I have friends in med school, they rant about this stuff a lot. It’s spelled…” a few moments later, Hiwaga had an answer: “Kwashiorkor occurs when protein deprivation is relatively greater than the reduction in total calories, while marasmus occurs when the diet is severely lacking in total calories.” \n“Wiz,” Ling found his mouth stretching into a smile.\n“Mhm?”\n“Are you deliberately trying to sabotage yourself?”\nHe furrowed his brow. “What do you mean?”\n“Sell a program like this to people who know what they’re doing and you can wipe your ass with a hundred dollars.”\n“R-really?”\n“It’s a rough gem, but polish it out, and you have a literal diamond in your hands. And I can help you do that. Join forces with me now, Wiz. 65-35 split in equity.” Ling presented his hand. “With my vision and your expertise, we’ll make it to the moon at least. Whaddaya say?”\n“Th-this is all so sudden.”\n“The best moments in life are when we say fuck it.”\nWiz stood up, stared at the hand. “Fuck.” Then back to Ling. “Only because I like you.” They shook hands.\n——\n\nLing looked down at his watch. One minute left. He turned to Wiz. \n“Mr. Hargeaves,” Ling said. “I trust you—”\nThe wrench clattered against the floor of the stage as Wiz pulled away from the Hiraya. \n“I see—”\n“It’s done,” Wiz said, pointing a finger at Ling. “All right, asshole?”\nLing’s face remained unmoving. “Thank you, Mr. Hargreaves, for doing your job.”\n“Fuck you.” Wiz stormed off stage. With a sigh, Ling motioned to two employees to cover up the Hiraya with a cloth. His eyes wandered again.\nJanna still did not look at him.\nThat did it. Ling stormed over to her, and she turned to him nonchalantly. “Why are you acting like this?” He asked.\n“You know perfectly well,” she said.\n“I’m your best friend, tell me.”\n“I already did: call off the reveal.”\n“You know I can’t. Too much media attention—”\n“So now you have a problem with going against something you’ve been “forced” into?”\n“Let me rephrase; I don’t want to.” \nThe auditorium doors opened with slow grandeur. Ling pulled Janna backstage as the steps of two thousand people echoed throughout. It was deafening. \n“Hook my lapel up,” Ling said.\n“Do it yourself.” Janna’s voice shook. \nLing’s fist curled inward; he stopped himself from raising it up to her face. With gritted teeth, he called someone else to do it. \n“Knowledge is power, Janna,” Ling said. “I’m equalizing the playing field. Do you realize how much good this is going to do for the underprivileged?”\n“You and I both know that’s not why you made this machine. So tell me now. Why?”\nLing dug his fingernails into his palms. “I can’t say.”\nJanna shook her head. “Ling, please.” She wiped her eyes. “It hurts me seeing you like this.” \nLing couldn’t find the right words to respond with as she asked someone for a tissue. He settled with, “The Hiraya is the genie that will grant these people their dreams.”\n“You’re right. Just remember that Aladdin never became a real prince after wishing to become one.”\n“This man needs no introduction,” the speakers boomed throughout the auditorium. “Please, welcome on stage, Kevin Ling!” A thunderous standing ovation upon the mention of his name.\nLing hesitated walking out. Janna was trying and failing miserably to stop crying. But he was too far in to stop now for a few tears, right?\nThe applause began to fade, distant murmurs wondering where Ling was. But there was a reason he created the Hiraya. He knew that if it existed fifteen years ago, he’d have snatched one up in a heartbeat. \nAnd Ling never really got far by listening to other people. \nHe turned around and walked on stage.\nThe crowd rediscovered its gusto, hollering louder than before. He knew it didn’t look good to the press reveling in moments like this, but Ling couldn’t help it. He smiled, spread his arms wide, and felt the moment. That everything from his past has put him here. Each vice, each family argument, each person he’d met—all footsteps necessary to cement his place on this stage, and in a few moments, his place in history. \nHe opened his mouth and said, “I’d like to introduce to everyone something we’ve been cooking up for the last five years. And trust me when I say this: it will make your life so, so easy.”" } ]

[ { "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: Trouble at Cripple Creek\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 2811\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a character who everyone thinks is guilty of something terrible, but isn’t." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Trouble at Cripple Creek\nIn the distance was the first water they had seen in four days. Billy led the way, as usual, with Frank and his wife, Celeste, followed, riding double. The blistering sun beat down on them, and the desolate, god forsaken desert was trying to kill them. The Chihuahuan Desert is a rocky, mountainous place, not a desert of sand and cacti. Tall sandstone cliffs, with a rusty reddish hue were scattered across the landscape, as the trio crossed into the New Mexico Territory. \nThey were looking to start a new life after they lost their old place back in Savannah, Georgia, which was off the north fork of the Broad River. It was a white plantation house with a long road lined with gigantic live oaks, with patches of green moss hanging from the massive branches. They were close enough together that they intertwined with each other, forming an immense row of ancient oaks. On both sides of the road, vast acres of massive tobacco leaves swayed in harmony as the wind cut through the country landscape. The slave quarters were tucked away behind the main house, and they were exceptionally clean and modern for the time, but Frank and Celeste had a room downstairs in the main house. Unfortunately, that house burnt to the ground in the spring of 1864, and Billy lost his wife in the fire. He never found out what caused the fire. After that he couldn’t bear to stay there, so he sold everything and invited Frank and Celeste to go west with him. \nFrank and Celeste were newly freed slaves, but stayed with Billy after emancipation. He’s a fair man. He's a good man. He treated them like human beings, even before the war. People knew Billy to judge a man (or woman) by their actions, and the mark they left on the world. \n“I’ll tie the horses, Frank you get some water, Celeste, you go get in the shade and cool down,” Billy said, as they halted on the flat up above the water hole. Then he jumped down and hurried to help Celeste down. Frank nimbly threw his leg over and dismounted his steed.\n“I didn’t think we were gonna make it. Good thang it’s not dried up on us.”, Frank said as he was gathering the containers. He tried to swallow, but it was no use, he was parched, his throat dry as sandpaper. \n“Do you need help with those?” Celeste said. \n“No. Now you listen to what Billy said and go cool off now, don’t want you strokin out on us. I’ll just be a minute. I love you”. \n“I love you too”. \n“Enough lovey dovey get us some water Frank or we’re all gonna die out here.” Frank finished gathering the canteens and carefully navigated the steep incline that led down to the water hole.Frank had filled the canteens and was working on the buckets when a gunshot echoed over the landscape, then another, then another.\n“Frank, Frank, help, help, help, NO, NO, GET OFF ME, LEAVE ME ALONE, FRANK HELP ME!”. He scrambled to get up the steep embankment, but the loose stones would not allow him to climb fast enough. Men's voices were echoing off the sandstone cliffs. At least two men, maybe more. When he finally struggled to the top, he saw Billy, dead. They took the horses, and they were getting away with Celeste. The men and their horses faded into the distance, through the mirage. The sound of the galloping horses grew quieter, fainter, quieter, until silence. Celeste was gone.\n'What am I gonna do now, Billy’s dead, they’ve got my wife, I’ve gotta get her back, but we are a three-day ride out into the desert. It doesn't matter. I don’t care. I, I gotta go.’ he thought. Then Frank turned his gaze back to Billy and his heart sank once again. His friend was shot three times, once through the neck and twice in the head. It was an execution. Frank lost himself and fell to his knees with tears streaming down both cheeks. He bellowed in sadness as he tried to scoop the reddish, grayish clumps back into Billy’s skull. Then he realized that he had to leave his friend. Billy deserved better, he deserved the proper respect and proper burial, but Billy was beyond his help and Celeste still had a chance. To make things worse, Frank had to search Billy and take his things, which made Frank feel dirty and disrespectful. He rolled Billy over and laying under him was his 1861 LeMat nine shot, cap and ball revolver, also known as a ‘Grape Shot Revolver’ for the extra sixteen gauge buckshot barrel nestled underneath the forty-two caliber main barrel. \nFrank went back down to the water hole and retrieved Billy’s canteen. He shouldered the canteen and holstered the gun in his waistband. Frank held his fingers horizontally between the sun and the horizon. Three fingers between the sun and the horizon, three hours of daylight. So he started walking toward Cripple Creek, following those lowlife bastards who had taken Celeste. “I’m coming for you.”, he muttered, but his words were lost into the desert wind.\nFrank shuttered to think what horrible things may happen to Celeste, she needed him to keep tracking through the night, though he could lose the trail in the dark. Either way, he needed a horse, and Cripple Creek was his best chance of getting one. ‘I have to keep my wits about me.’, he thought, but he pushed onward into the blackness, not knowing at the time that he would stumble through the desert for the next two nights.\nFrank should have brought all the water, not just Billy’s canteen. Moving fast had gotten him nowhere, and now his body wouldn’t allow another step, and he collapsed under his own weight. He was dying. As he lay on the scorching ground, he felt wholly inadequate, knowing that he couldn’t care for his own family, or friends. This was his last thought as his eyelids grew heavy and he drifted into darkness.\nFrank was awoken with a series of crisp, painful smacks to his sunburned face. “Thought you was food for the buzzards there for a minute.”, the man said in a coarse country tone. He helped Frank to his feet and offered him some water. “What are ya doin out here?”\nFrank took the canteen and gulped the water so fast he nearly strangled himself. Then he drank some more. “They’ve got my wife.”\n“Who?”\n“The men, the men who killed my friend, kidnapped my wife, and left me out here to die. I need a horse, you know where I can get one”\n“Hold on there mister, how do I know you didn’t kill your buddy and your horses just ran off in the gunfight?”, the man said. He eyeballed the pistol in Frank’s waistband.\n“Cause if I did, I would just shoot you and take your horse.”\n“Guess you got a point, names Angus.”\n“Frank”\nAngus was a stocky man with a little bit of a gut and a medium length shaggy beard that was as much white as black. He sported deep wrinkles around his eyes and on his forehead. No doubt from living in the desert all his life. He clinched a small cigar between his teeth and wore a tethered cowboy hat with a round brim. “Come on then.” He said as he climbed up on his wagon. There was a single mule towing a small wagon with one crooked bench seat. Frank followed.\nOn the way to town, Frank recounted what had happened at the water hole. “Did you get a look at the men that took her?”, said Angus.\n“No, all I saw was their backs as they rode away, said Frank.\n“So you wouldn’t even know them if they walked up and smacked you in the face, you need to think more about what you did see and less about what you didn’t see.”\n“I don’t know. Well, I don’t know if it means anything but, their horses, they rode painted appaloosas.”\n“Appaloosas, uh oh. Buddy, you've got big problems. That means they’re likely members of the Graves Boys, and that means they’re untouchable, unless you got yourself a death wish. They got people from coast to coast. Hell, they even work for the army drivin out the Injuns, and who knows what else.” Angus said nervously. “I had a couple run-ins with em when I was a lawman back in Missouri, and like I said they do as they please, robbin, rapin, killin, none of it counts when they do it, cause the Yankees just come and get em and they’re right back at it like nothin ever happened.”\n“ I’ve gotta find em, will you help me?”, Frank said. He spotted the town in the distance.\n“I can tell you how to find em. Their boss man Cody Graves, he owns a ranch bout half a day ride west of town. Ride straight till you get to the floatin rock and take a right at the fork. Once you pass the fork, you’re just about an hour from the lion’s den.”, Angus said. Then he pulled back on the reins, halting the horses in front of the grain store with a long, slow “Woah!”. “You sure bout this?”\nFrank jumped from the wagon “I’ve got to, where can I get a horse?”\n\"Livery,\" said Angus. He pointed to an old gray, rain stained barn across the street and down a way.\n“Thanks old man, you saved my life,” Frank said. Then he walked away toward the livery.\nAfter acquiring a mount, and gathering some supplies, Frank tied his horse outside the sheriff’s office and went up on the boardwalk where he found a note that read gone, be back Saturday. It was Friday. So he took his mount and headed west out of town.\nTurns out floating rock is quite a literal name. It was a rock, probably forty feet across, balanced precariously on a small pedestal. It didn’t look possible. Frank took the right fork and didn't waste any time.\nThe sun was low when Frank spotted the ranch house in the distance. He shot off the trail beyond a small rise, out of sight from the house and the road. Then tied his horse and crawled top of the rise and examined the ranch with the remaining sunlight. \nThe house and barn looked small out in the middle of such a large open expanse, Frank knew that it was an illusion. The house was large. It had a porch on all four sides and an upstairs balcony where a sentry stood watch with his rifle. The whole thing was backdropped with rounded off mountains covered in patchy dead grass and brittle, dried up tumbleweeds that hadn’t quite broken loose. He waited for darkness before moving on.\nOnce darkness fell across the landscape, Frank closed the remaining distance on foot, creeping up behind the barn, he saw the house lit up inside with a flickering orange light, just enough light to see people moving around inside. He needed to get closer, without the guard seeing him. He needed a distraction. Frank went into the barn, bridled a horse, and brought it back out to the corner of the barn. He drew the pistol from his waistband and with the other hand he smacked the horses’ back side. The horse bolted across the yard horizontally in front of the house, directly in front of the guard. \n“Who’s there, stop. Stop right now”, and he fired his rifle. The gunshot only suceeded in making the horse move faster. Then he ran in the upstairs door. Frank could hear him come down the stairs, then some loud talking, then three men, including the guard came out the front door. One man jumped on a horse that was tied at the hitching post in front of the porch, while the other two ran in the barn, saddled their steeds and followed.\nWith the coast clear, Frank carefully made his way onto the porch and up to a window. There he saw a sharply dressed man in all black. He had a neatly trimmed goatee and a gun belt with two silver-plated pistols. This must be the boss. It must be Cody Graves. If Celeste was still alive, she would have to be in the house, so Frank busted through the door with a gun in hand, “I wouldn’t”, Frank said as Cody’s hand twitched toward his gun. “Where is she?”, asked frank. \n“Where’s who”, Cody replied calmly.\n“My wife, is there a woman here?”\n“Yeah, sure there is, but you got it all wrong pal.”, he said. Then he started laughing. “Darlin, the man asked if there was a woman here”, Cody said. He looked up at the stairs.\n“Oh, I'd say I’m all woman, aren’t I baby.” It was Celeste. It was her. She knew Cody. Frank dropped his gun to the floor with a thud and fell to his knees. “What is going on, Celeste? Do you know this guy?”\n“Know me? This whole caper was her idea.” Cody said.\n“Who do you think burnt the house back in Georgia? Celeste said. “Tell him, baby.”\n“That would be me, but I was working for the army.” Cody said.\nCeleste slowly descended the stairs, “I knew he wouldn’t stay there after his wife died in that house, and I made sure she did. Who do you think whispered in his ear about how great it was on the western frontier? I knew he would cash out, and I knew just how to get all that money. Ain’t that right, honey.”\n“Uh huh,” Cody said, wrapping his arm around her waist.\nThe men had caught the horse and were coming back in the house when one of them cocked his gun to Frank’s head and said, “want me to take care of him?”\n“Nah, we are gonna do this one all legal, we’ll take him to the sheriff at first light.” Cody said.\nAngus watched as the Graves Boys and Celeste pulled Frank down Main Street on foot with his wrists bound, straight to the sheriff’s office. “Poor ole Fool”, he thought, as he headed toward the telegraph office.\n“Go ahead, tell the sheriff what happened.”, Cody said, gesturing to Celeste.\n“Well, he killed my friend Billy, and after he shot him he told me how he had killed Mrs. Dawson back in Georgia, and I thought he was gonna kill me too. I barely got away with my life.”\n“That's not true.”, said Frank.\n“I can prove it. Here, he had these on him last night.”, and she produced Billy’s canteen and revolver, which had his initials B.D. on them.\n“No, you don’t understand, I got those because-”\n“Shut up, get in and don’t open your mouth again.”, said the sheriff. He opened the cell door, shoved Frank in and slammed it with a loud clang. “Now let’s go get your statement.”, can I offer you folks a drink?”\nFrank paced back and forth in his cell until the sheriff came back. He was alone. “You got bout three til the judge gets here, you’re gonna hang. How could you do that to your friend? You deserve everything you are gonna get.”\n“But I-”\n“Tell it to the judge.”\nFrank was in trouble, bad trouble, until one night, a couple hours before daylight, a familiar voice awoke Frank.\n“PSSST.”\nFrank went to the window. It was Angus! “What are you doin here?”, Frank said.\n“Gettin you outta here, I know you they set you up, and I called in some help, Stand back.”, Angus said. He tied a rope around the bars, gave the signal to the other man who spurred his horse into action. The window gave way with incredible ease, and Angus had a horse waiting for Frank. “Let’s go”, he said. They fell into a single file and headed west out of town. They stopped at floating rock to rest their horses. Angus introduced his accomplices, “This is James and Buck. They used to be law men like me, they’ve had their own run-ins with the Graves Boys. Got Frank fired, and James well, let’s just say both these boys want a little payback.” Angus removed a gun belt from his saddlebag and gave it to Frank. Moonlight glinted off two six-shot forty-five caliber revolvers. Frank hung the belt on his waist and cinched it tight.\n“Billy deserved better than he got.”\n“So did you. Now let's go get 'em.”\nThe four horsemen took the right fork toward Cody’s. That night gunshots echoed across the valley, and fire consumed Graves’ Ranch. The Four Horsemen of Cripple Creek were 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: Where the Heart Is\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 2999\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart or end your story with someone realizing that life isn’t like the movies, for better or worse." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Did you know India looks nothing like the city in Aladdin? I discovered that just now, a minute ago, as the wheels of the plane clapped the tarmac and the pilot's staticky voice rumbled above our heads like God himself, welcoming us to Delhi. When I finally summoned the courage to raise the window shade and look outside, there was no bazaar waiting to greet me, no kleptomaniacal monkeys in fezzes running amok. Just disillusionment.\n\nIn my defense, my family emigrated from New Delhi to the United States when I was three, leaving me with nothing more than patchy afterimages of this country: the spicy scent of chicken tikka masala, the flowing fabric of a silk sari. Growing up, the only connection I had to this place was Aladdin—which I only now realize has nothing to do with India at all, despite my father's claims—and the Bollywood VHS tapes my mother kept stashed in her closet.\n\nGrabbing my carry-on and preparing to disembark, I steal one last glance out the window, but it's just one never-ending strip of runway. Nothing more. On the way out, a flight attendant flashes a perfect smile and tells me to enjoy my stay.\n\nThe airport is teeming with people, some running to catch a flight, others gossiping over samosas. I glean only bits and pieces of conversations, most of which are spoken in Hindi, all of which are spoken too quickly. It occurs to me that maybe I shouldn't have waited until a few days ago to sign up for Duolingo.\n\nStationed at the terminal entrance, my father is impossible to miss, a collage of pastel colors and American clothes. His Hawaiian shirt is a size too big and his blue NYC Mets cap is tilted too far up, revealing his bald scalp. In his hands rests a fat rectangular sign with my name printed in black Sharpie: Hunar Patel. I wave meekly and he waves back, his face aglow, his arm moving so fast it looks like it might dislocate.\n\n\"Welcome home,\" he says in English, for my sake. His accent is thick, natural. I'm amazed at how easily he's been able to sand down the rough edges of his American pronunciation, the rise and fall of his vowels. When we embrace and he pats my back, I can feel the absence of his wedding band.\n\nAt the baggage claim, we watch strangers' luggage spin in circles like a merry-go-round, black duffel bags and blue suitcases. A blood-red valise is about to pass us for the fourth time when my father clears his throat. \"I'm glad you came, son.\"\n\nI'm not sure how to respond to that, given the circumstances, given my reason for being here. \"You're welcome\" is the answer my mouth settles on. I know it's the wrong thing to say.\n\nHe stares at me like maybe he's sizing me up, and I do a quick assessment of my own, noting the disappearance of his trademark mustache and his belly. His body is gaunt and his skin is cracked like sandpaper.\n\nFinally, he nods his approval. \"You've changed,\" he declares. \"You look like a man now.\"\n\nHow he came to that conclusion is beyond me. I still have the same acne and peach fuzz that plagued me five years ago, back when we were all still living together in New York.\n\nBefore I can respond, my suitcase appears, overloaded with enough clothes and toiletries to make it through this week-long visit. \"I got it,\" I say, but my father waves away my offer. He leans over the carousel, dangerously close to falling over, and reaches for my luggage. His underarm bears a sweat stain despite the air-conditioning pumping through the building.\n\nSeeing him like that reminds me of the phone call that brought me here. I was in my dorm room, sitting on the edge of the bed with my girlfriend Megan, the two of us passing a joint back and forth like a love letter, when his call came. I put him on speakerphone, took the joint from Megan, toked. Not one to mince words, my father offered no hello. Instead, he immediately filled the quiet room with jagged phrases: 'heart tumor' and 'cardial sarcoma.' \"They're not sure how much longer I have,\" he confessed, as the joint slipped from my grasp and I struggled to stop coughing.\n\nWith great effort, my father now hefts my suitcase from the conveyor and drops it unceremoniously at my feet. He claps his hands at a job well done.\n\n\"See? Your father's still capable of doing things,\" he says. And he laughs like it's funny. Like he's still young. Like he has all the time in the world.\n\n***\n\nBack home, everyone at the university calls me Hunter. Even Megan.\n\nIt started as an accident, a mispronunciation, a slip of the tongue. One day my stoner roommate introduced me to a group of his friends as \"Hunter.\" I didn't bother to correct him, and the name stuck.\n\nIn fact, I prefer it.\n\nHunar is someone who spent his whole life ostracized, a rule-follower, going to college and joining the pre-med track in the hopes to be a cardiologist like his parents wanted.\n\nHunter is different. The name says it all.\n\nHe's someone who acts first and thinks later, hence the newfound penchant for weed. Hence Megan. Hence the trip home I took two Thanksgivings ago without telling my parents, only to find out that they separated without telling me.\n\nOver dumplings my mother recounted the fight she and my father had, how he'd threatened to move back to India, how she had threatened to buy the plane ticket for him that night. In the end, they both kept up their halves of the bargain.\n\nDistraught, my mother decided to sell our house altogether. She had a family friend in the next borough over who offered her a place to stay, a beautiful woman her age and build who I knew as Aunty Shyla growing up. I loved her as though she were my own biological aunt, and Aunty Shyla always lavished me with the best gifts on holidays and my birthday, hence the love. It was a cycle.\n\nMaybe it was because of this, because I only heard things from my mother's perspective, that I decided not to talk to my father. And I hadn't, until he called last month and said what he said and I agreed to spend my Spring Break with him.\n\n***\n\nThe days pass by in a blur. My father is constantly on the move. \"Doctor's appointment today,\" he tells me every morning at the table over roti and mango juice. We haven't acknowledged his medical status beyond those three words. He shakes his head whenever I offer to accompany him. \"No point in us both being miserable,\" he says with a weak smile. He encourages me to find something to do to occupy my time.\n\nMostly, I spend the week texting Megan in my father's flat. It's modest, sparsely-furnished. He doesn't even own a TV. There's a faux cashmere rug and a few old oil lamps and a coffee table with a cross-legged statuette of Shiva. Tacked on the wall is the needlepoint canvas that I declined taking with me to college, the one that has \"Home Is Where the Heart Is\" stitched in blue yarn.\n\nToward the end of the week, he offers to cook vindaloo for dinner. When I tell him I'm not particularly fond of vindaloo, he scoffs. \"That's because you've only ever tried the American kind. You've never had the real deal.\"\n\nIt strikes me as ironic, my father denouncing the Americans while using one of their idioms, but I hold my tongue as he hands me a grocery list of ingredients. I'm amazed by the neatness of his letters, how his age has not ravaged his penmanship. \"The market down the street opens in an hour,\" he tells me, and then he's off to another doctor's appointment.\n\nThat's how I find myself strolling through the rows of spices and chili peppers and vegetables at eight in the morning. The store is poorly-lit and smells suspiciously of flatbread. I'm standing there debating between two packages of chicken thighs when someone calls my name.\n\n\"Hunar? Is that you?\"\n\nIt takes me a second to turn around, to remember that here, in this country, I'm not Hunter.\n\nThe woman staring back at me is older, probably close to my father's age, dressed in a cobalt kurti. Her hair, black with flecks of gray, flows past her shoulders. She's smiling as though she expects me to greet her just as enthusiastically.\n\nI'm still trying to place her when she says, \"You don't remember me, do you?\" Like my father, she speaks in English, and it makes me wonder if there's something about me, about the way I look or dress, that makes the people here doubt my ability to carry on a conversation in Hindi.\n\nBut there's no malice in her voice, no hurt at not being recognized. Before I can respond, she adds, \"It's okay. You were three the last time I saw you.\"\n\nShe introduces herself as Deepika Goel, tells me she's an old friend of my father's. I nod at the appropriate intervals. The packages of chicken chill my fingers, make my blood run cold.\n\n\"How did you know it was me?\" I ask, a little embarrassed that my father told someone all about me but never revealed anything about his friends to help prepare me for an encounter like this.\n\nDeepika smiles like it's the most obvious thing in the world. \"Your father had to tell me over lunch on Wednesday. He showed me some of your pictures.\" She laughs, pats me on the arm. \"My memory isn't so good anymore.\"\n\nThe store swells with noise—bags crinkling and items scanning and registers opening, so many sounds at once that it's hard to concentrate. I flip through the mental Rolodex of my father's doctor visits, their dates and times. Wednesday, lunchtime: chemotherapy, four-hour session. Something isn't adding up.\n\n\"Wednesday?\" I repeat, because maybe the problem really is just Deepika's poor memory. \"But he had an appointment.\"\n\nShe tilts her head, confusion knitting her brows together. \"Appointment for what?\"\n\nIt doesn't take long to realize that Deepika is being serious. And then I realize something else.\n\n\"My mistake,\" I tell her, dropping one of the chicken packages back in the freezer. \"I must be confused.\" And I excuse myself to stand in line at the register. She seems taken aback when I walk away.\n\nBut as luck would have it, Deepika is one customer behind me in the checkout line, and when he goes to return a jar of fennel seeds, she advances a space.\n\n\"Oh, your father tells me you're leaving in two days,\" she says as the cashier scans my items. \"The two of you simply must come to dinner tomorrow. It would be my honor. Prisha will be there, too.\" She says this like I'm supposed to know who Prisha is.\n\nAnd maybe she knows I have no clue what she's talking about—if she does, she's doing a hell of a job not showing it. Either way, she retrieves her phone and shows me pictures of Prisha, her daughter. She's a year younger than me, with flawless mocha skin and wavy hair.\n\n\"She'd be happy to meet you, I'm sure,\" Deepika says in a way that makes me think they've already broached the subject. Maybe even with my father present.\n\nI tell her we'll discuss it, then grab my things and leave. \"It was nice seeing you again,\" she calls, but I'm already halfway out the store.\n\nThe sun roasts my skin on the way back to the flat. Children chase each other down the sidewalk. Someone waves in my direction, but I don't wave back. The street is alive with auto-rickshaws. This isn't Aladdin; there are no magic carpets here to whisk me away from this city, to take me back home. Just disillusionment.\n\nAfter stuffing the spices in the kitchen rack and tucking the chicken thighs in the fridge, I grab my phone and slip back out the door, stepping into the sunlight and spending the rest of the day messaging Megan under the shade of a mahogany tree in the nearby park. There's a time zone gap, but she says she doesn't mind, that she misses me. We stay like that for a while, sending each other sweet nothings until the sun starts to fizzle and the moon takes its place and I'm pretty sure Megan has fallen asleep because my last \"I Love You\" was read twenty minutes ago but she still hasn't texted back.\n\n***\n\nThe smell of vindaloo greets me when I return. The living room is dark, ensconced in the shroud of night, but a pale glow envelops the kitchen. My father is hunched over the stovetop. He smiles when he sees me standing there.\n\n\"Smell that, son?\" he says, indicating the steam-covered pot on the stove. \"Now that is how you make vindaloo.\"\n\nHe doesn't ask where I've been or why I'm just now coming home. But maybe it'd be easier if he did interrogate me, if we fought right now and put everything out in the open instead of ignoring it. I take a deep breath and cross the point of no return.\n\n\"You know, I saw someone today at the market,\" I say, trying to keep my voice as even as possible. \"She said she was an old friend of yours. Said she knew me when I was a baby.\" I make him wait a few seconds before offering the name.\n\n\"Dee-pi-ka.\" That's how it comes out, as three separate words, as though my father is traveling through the annals of space and time in search of a face to match the name. Then, in a sudden moment of clarity, \"Oh, yes, Deepika! I think I know who you mean.\"\n\nWhen my father was still living in New York, he had a group of men come over to the house every month for poker night. He was the best player among them, unparalleled in the art of bluffing. You never knew what he was thinking until he slapped that royal flush on the table.\n\nIt's a lot like that now, trying to decipher whether or not he's picked up on where this conversation is headed. Even in his old age, his poker face is sublime.\n\n\"She said,\" I continue, because I'm only getting started, \"that we should go over to their house for dinner before I leave. She insisted.\"\n\nMy father lifts the lid on the pot of vindaloo, releasing an inferno of steam. \"Maybe we should,\" he says, nodding. \"She has a daughter about your age now, you know. And come to think of it, I haven't seen Deepika Goel in quite some time.\"\n\nI make a fist with my hand, just to feel something. \"Quite some time? You mean like two days ago?\" I say, and wait until he's looking at me to add, \"Wednesday? Lunchtime? During chemo?\"\n\nHis face is inscrutable. He says nothing. It seems like he's looking my way, but maybe he's staring at something behind me. I can't be sure.\n\n\"You're not really sick, are you?\" I ask. It's a long shot, calling his bluff like that, but that's what I'm banking on.\n\nSomething flashes across his face, a look I've never seen before, something pitiable. A pinching of the eyes, a pursing of the lips. His poker face collapses like a house of cards. When he turns to the stove, I have my answer.\n\n\"Is that what this is about?\" I say, embracing the heat of the kitchen. It's goading me, challenging me to rival its intensity. \"Did you bring me here just so you could arrange my meeting with Prisha?\"\n\n\"I just want you to be happy,\" my father says to the vindaloo, his voice a whisper. \"To have a nice family of your own.\"\n\n\"I have a girlfriend already, you know. I don't need your help.\"\n\nHe cuts off the stove. \"What's her name?\" he asks, and when I tell him, he shakes his head. The motion is lightning fast, so imperceptible that if I hadn't seen it for myself, I wouldn't have known. Then he says, \"That's not an Indian name.\"\n\n\"Because that whole arranged marriage thing turned out so well for you, right?\" And now I can't stop myself. The dam has broken and everything is pouring out of me, twenty-two years of emotion. \"You're living here alone and Mom is staying with a friend.\"\n\nMy father looks up, meets my gaze. His expression has changed. There's this faraway gleam in his eye, like he's somewhere else right now. In a low voice, he says, \"You don't know what you're talking about, Hunar. You don't know anything.\"\n\nIt is the first time all week he's called me by my name and not \"son.\" That's when I know something is wrong. My heart skips a beat. Then another. It feels like it's drifting away in search of a new home. I hit the light switch so we don't have to look at each other.\n\nMy father, bathed in shadow, says, \"Do you really believe Aunty Shyla is just a friend to your mother?\"\n\nThe words hang between us in the inky kitchen, heavy with meaning. A sliver of soft moonlight shines through the window above the sink, backlighting my father and the vindaloo and the oil lamp on the table. And maybe, if I rubbed that lamp hard enough, I could conjure up a genie. He'd offer me three wishes, and I'd use the first one to go back to my dorm, and the second to erase this godawful trip from my memory. Then, and only then, I'd use the third wish on whatever I wanted most in my heart." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Last Awakening\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 2819\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a character who’s so afraid of making the wrong choice that their indecision ruins the very thing they were hoping to keep safe." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Authors Note: Hello everyone, this is my first time completing a story and putting it out there. I hope you enjoy it.\nI don’t belong here, at least that’s what I’ve heard people say about me. I put up an unbothered façade to mask how I really feel, but I can’t say that I don’t agree with them. They fear me and they have every right to after the destruction and turmoil I’ve caused this city. \nFor years I feared there would be retaliation against me, but it never came. I guess that’s the benefit of being the High Emperor’s one and only son. People plot against you but aren’t foolish enough to act on it. Especially when you are under the protection of the highest military force in the land. Oddly enough, even with that protection, I have a feeling that my time here will not be much longer. \nBecause of me, thousands of people died and thousands more are still affected by my “Awakening”, as my dad likes to call it. My friends call it a blessing, but I call it a curse. \nAs the story goes, my mother belonged to a race of celestial beings known as “The Seers”. This group was said to have been around since the formation of life and time itself and have abilities beyond anyone’s comprehension. Over time, humans stopped believing in them causing a rift between the two groups. My mother however believed that the relationship could be mended. She left her people to find a solution and ended up falling in love with a young man, my dad. \nAt that time, my dad was just beginning his reign as the High Emperor. They were very much in love and decided to get married in hopes that their union would mend the rift between The Seers and man. For some time, my parents had convinced the two groups to live in harmony, bringing prosperity to not just our world, but worlds in galaxies beyond our own as well. \nThat perfect harmony came to an end once my mother became pregnant with me. It was thought to be impossible for The Seers to have any children with humans. The Seers feared that my birth was an omen for the end of life and time. Even with their godly abilities, they were not able to foresee my birth and what it would bring. \nOn the eve of my birth, The Seers appeared to prevent it from happening. My father dispatched his elite militia to prevent them from harming me and my mother. Needless to say, the militia was no match for The Seers and were turned into dust in seconds. As a last-second effort to save me, my mother sacrificed herself and transferred her essence to me just as I was born, causing a massive explosion. The Seers were said to have been destroyed in the explosion, but no one seems to be able to confirm it. \nToday marks the 18th anniversary of that day. My 18th birthday to be exact. As one could imagine, I’m not feeling very festive. \nAs I looked out onto the busy streets of NightStar City from my bedroom window, an eerie feeling rushed over my body as the hairs on the back of my neck began to stand. It was as if there was someone or something out there watching me while being behind me at the same time. \n“Se’vn, it is time.” I could hear a voice quietly say to me. It was a voice that I have never heard before but it felt familiar. \n“Time for what?” I asked hesitantly. \n“Who are you?” \n“You know who I am Se’vn, look inside you for the answers” \nLook inside me? I thought. What the hell does that even mean? \n“You are more powerful than you can imagine.” The voice said as it became distant. “Let go and complete your destiny.”\n“My Destiny? What Destiny?” \nSilence. \n“Hello?” \nSilence. \nOkay, I have officially lost my mind. I thought as I sat down on my bed. \nI could still feel the hairs on the back of my neck standing as if the mysterious presence was still around me. \nI closed my eyes and began a breathing exercise my dad taught me whenever I felt myself losing control. Once I was calm, I begin to see an image vaguely come into view. \nA woman. \nAs the image became clear, I was filled with a powerful warm embrace as if the Three Suns of Tricartha began to pull me in. \nThe woman was in full view to reveal someone I had thought was long gone. \n“Mom?” \nAt that moment there was a knock at my door that brought me out of meditation. \n“Se’vn, are you okay in there?” I heard a concerned voice cut through my concentration. \n“Uh yeah!” I replied as I rushed to the door. “I was just getting ready for the party.” \nI opened the door to see the stoned chiseled face of Vex, my personal guard who I have known for as long as I can remember. He was like a big brother to me and my closest friend. \n“I heard you in here talking to someone,” he said as he scanned the room. “Just wanted to make sure you were alright.” \n“I am good, but look at you getting all worried about me, you are getting soft Vex.” I teased as I punched his arm. \n“I find it funny that you really think I care about you more than keeping my job,” Vex said. “Are you ready to head out?” \nI wrapped my locs into a bun and threw on my jacket. “Yeah let’s go.” \nAs I walked behind Vex, I couldn’t help but smile to see that his locs were braided into a fishtail. Because of our close relationship, Vex was given more leeway than the other elite guards in my dad’s militia. \nWhen I was younger, I wanted to grow locs to be like my father and his father before him. When the kids at school started teasing me because of how silly my locs looked starting off, Vex decide to grow his hair out and start locs as well. From that moment on, I was not the butt of everyone’s jokes anymore. \nWhile in the shuttle headed towards the grand hotel, I could not get the image of my mother out of my head. Was she alive? If so, why would she reveal herself to me now after all this time? \nI contemplated telling Vex what I saw. I wanted to confide in my friend but I did not want him to be alarmed and get my father involved. \n“So, Sev, who were you talking to in your room tonight?” Vex asked as if he was reading my mind. \nI hesitated. “No one, someone contacted me on my communicator so I was just replying back.” \nThat was a dumbass answer. I thought. Vex knew me too well. \n“Interesting, considering you hate talking on the communicator,” Vex laughed. “And, I didn’t even hear anyone talking to you, I just heard your weird-ass talking to yourself.” \nI stared out of the window as the Grand Hotel came into view. \n“I saw her Vex,” I said not averting my eyes from the traffic we were slowly heading towards. \n“Saw who?” He asked as the shuttle began to slow down. \n“My mom, she appeared to me somehow and spoke to me.” I looked just in time to see Vex’s face change from being tense to calm. He knows something. I thought. \n“What did she say to you?” He asked. \n“Nothing really, a lot of it didn’t make sense…”\n“Sev’n!, this is no time to be coy, tell me what she said.” \nI sensed something I have never heard in his voice in all the years I have known him, fear. \n“Bro, relax. There’s nothing to be alarmed about,” I said trying to alleviate the tension. “She just told me to open my mind and let everything be revealed or some shit like that.” \n“Sev, listen to me. Whatever you do, do not…” \nHe was interrupted by the holo-projection of an older elite guard appearing on the shuttle’s communicator. \n“Vex, you should have been here 15 mins ago with Prince Se’vn. What is the holdup?” The guard asked. \n“I’m sorry sir, there was more traffic than I expected. I…” \n“It’s my fault Captain Wolfe, I wanted to visit my mother’s monument before heading to the party. Vex was just doing what I asked.” I said.\n“Forgive me, my prince. I’ll tell air control to allow the shuttle to fly you in the rest of the way.” Captain Wolfe replied as he ended the call. \nThe shuttle ascended into the air and slowly made its way to the Grand Hotel. \n“Thanks,” Vex said. \n“No problem,” I replied as I released my safety belt. “Look, I don’t want you worrying about anything. I will be fine.” \n“Sev, you know I have to report what you told me to your dad.” \n“No you don’t, please keep this to yourself Vex.” I thought about the stress that my father had been through over the years and how much that stress had taken a toll on him. “Do it for me, please.” \n“Fine,” Vex replied hesitantly. “But as soon as you start talking to yourself again, I’m reporting to your dad.”\nThe shuttle finally landed as we were ushered from the shuttle bay to the entrance of the Grand Hotel. I greeted people along the way as everyone cheered. A part of me hated having to smile and hug people who despised me. For years people treated me like I was a walking plague, yet tonight they all love me. \nAs we neared the great hall of the Grand Hotel, we were welcomed by my father and a host of family members I have not seen in years. \n“There he is, my baby boy.” My dad said as pulled me in for an embrace. “Well you are a grown man now my son, I am so proud of you.” \n“Thanks dad, another year older for me just means you are getting old.” I joke as my dad gives a big chuckle. \n“ Vex my boy, He didn’t give you any trouble did he?” My dad asks Vex as he pulls him in for an embrace as well. \n“No your grace, nothing I can’t handle,” Vex says with a smile. \n“Oh enough with calling me your grace, I practically raised you as my own son.” He says to Vex as he takes a look at us. “Time truly does fly doesn’t it?” \nHe embraces us once more as we wait to be introduced. \n“Please rise and welcome our Emperor, Han NightStar!” The announcer says as music and thunderous applause erupts in the great hall. \nMy dad enters the hall as if he was everyone's friend than an emperor. \n“Now, for the man of the hour. Please welcome, the birthday boy, our beloved prince, Se’vn Zultan NightStar!” \n“Damn bro they called you by your full name.” Vex laughs as we begin to walk in. “Zultan never gets old.” \n“How about you shut the hell up,” I reply. \nAs we walk in the same eerie feeling from before rushes my body, making the hairs on the back of my neck rise. I look discreetly look around the room to see if I can see anyone odd. This was not the same feeling before when my mother appeared to me. Or was it? \nWe reached the table at the front of the grand hall where we were to all sit. \n“Sev, are you good?” Vex asked as he nudged me. He must have noticed that my jovial demeanor had changed. \n“Yeah I’m good, I just didn’t expect this many people to be here,” I said while continuing to briefly glance around the hall. \nI let out a sigh of relief as the eerie feeling went away and proceeded to enjoy my birthday celebration. However, I could not shake the feeling that something was going to happen. \nAs the night started to come to an end, my father opened the floor for anyone to come up to say a few words about me. A few people told funny memories that they had of me and others gave me words of wisdom as I would now enter the world as a grown man. \nMaybe I was wrong about everyone. I thought. \nHere I was feeling animosity towards people who clearly loved me. In my years of self-pity and anger, I have forgotten a lot of the fond memories I had while growing up here. There was a time when I vowed to leave this town and never look back. However, I have felt nothing but genuine love. Tonight more than ever, this city feels like home. \nBefore closing remarks from my father were made, a man I did not recognize stood up to say a few words. There were many people here I did not know, but they looked like they belong to NightStar city, not this man. \n“The time has come!” He proclaimed as he slit both of his wrists with a knife “The Seers have returned to claim Prince Se’vn.” \nAt that moment I felt the eerie feeling rush over me as The Seers begin to appear around the great hall. \nWithout hesitation, the elite guards started to shoot their blasters while the party guests rush to the exits. \nMy father and I were rushed towards a secret exit by Vex and the elite guards who protect my father. \n“Se’vn, now’s the time.” I heard that familiar voice say. “It’s time to let go.” \n“I don’t want to hurt anyone again!” I cried out. “I can’t do it, mom!” \n“Don’t do it!” Vex yelled out as all hell breaks loose in the great hall. “That is not your mother Se’vn.” \nThe presence begins to get stronger as I fight to control whatever lurks inside of me. \n“Son!” My dad called out. “Listen to Vex, whatever speaks to you is not your mother.” \n“But I saw her dad!” I yelled as tears began to fill my eyes. “It was her! I know it was!” \nWe reached the secret exit as Vex and the other guards opened the hatch that was hidden beneath the floor. \n“Se’vn, please come with me. Let me explain everything.” My father yelled as he holds his hand out for me. “I was too naive in thinking they would not return for you!” \n“But I can save everyone father, I think that’s what mom is trying to get me to see.” I cried out. \n“Our mother is dead Se’vn!” Vex yelled. “I saw her die!” \nOur mother? I thought.\n“I too am a Seer Se’vn.” Vex said. “Mom and I figured out a way to remove the essence of the Seer from ourselves in order to live a normal life!” \nI dropped to my knees as the revelation was too much to handle. \n“That night of the explosion, we were in the process of doing the same to you before The Seers attacked. Vex continued. “They want to use you as a weapon, so she sacrificed herself to keep us protected until now. Without her, I had to wait until you were strong enough to remove the essence from you tonight.”\n“Se’vn, just come with us and we can tell you everything we should have told you before.” My father said. \nThe room suddenly went quiet as if time itself stood still. I looked around to see that the elite guard was no more and the Seers were standing around looking at us. They all bowed as a Seer with long hair stepped forward. Before I could even blink, my father and Ves disappeared in a flash of light. \n“It is time for you to come home Se’vn.” The Seer said. \nI stared at the spot where my dad and Vex stood, nothing left but piles of dust at my feet. \nI closed my eyes, took a deep breath as my father taught me before, and I let go. There was a flash of light that was released from my body. I stood and watched as everything around me began to turn into dust. The Seers tried to escape but could not get away in time. \nI was now alone in some type of purgatory. There was no palace, no world. Just empty white space all around me. \n“You have completed your destiny as the Seer of destruction Se’vn. The Seers of that lifetime were corrupt and were not what they were created to be. You were born to bring balance and to remove them and their creations from existence.” The familiar voice said. “Now you have a new destiny. it’s time to start anew and rebuild life and time, as the Seer of creation." } ]

[ { "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: Silver-Barked Trees\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1021\n\nPrompt:\n\nSet your story in the woods or on a campground." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Isabel held herself close as she scanned the grayish trees surrounding them. They shoot into the sky like iron totems, and she imagined them caging her in like an animal. Their red leaves made them all the more unnatural. They looked like splatters of blood on the metal. “I don’t like it here,” Isabel whimpered and rubbed her arms, shivering. “I can’t believe the shuttle dropped us on the wrong side of the planet!”\n “That’s what we get for contracting the cheapest company, I guess.” Himiko said. “On the bright side, we’ll still get to our next job on time since we finished our last mission with time to spare.”\n Isabel retorted, “We took that easy job fixing a bug in their labor robots, rushed through it, and requested to be dropped off on this planet early so we could relax in Huihung City for a couple days, visit the spas and get some good dim sum, not so we’d be stuck traversing this messed-up jungle!”\n In the afternoon a thick fog settled in the area. Himiko took a bit of rope from her duffel bag and tied it around her and Isabel’s waists just in case. She pulled out her navigator. “It’s telling us to go this way.” She pointed ahead of them. “We’ll just need to step carefully.”\n “I’ll let you lead,” Isabel said. Together, they shuffled through the underbrush, trying to be mindful of any logs lying in their path or sharp drops.\nWhen Himiko ran into a boulder, she said, rubbing the red path on her face, “Okay. It’s your turn.”\n“Fine.” Isabel stepped in front of Himiko then gulped. It had been fine a minute ago. Yes, she had felt suffocated by the fog, but seeing Himiko ahead of her and tracing her steps, Isabel felt secure. Being the leader made her feel completely mortified.\nIsabel asked, “So, are we almost there?” She hoped the answer would comfort her. If the city were only a couple hours off, Isabel could be brave enough to forge onward.\nHimiko checked the navigator. “Oh, no,” she mumbled. She bumped the screen a couple times. “It might be broken. The display is all weird.”\n“Seriously?” Isabel said. “So this entire time, we might have been heading in the opposite direction of the city!”\n“I’m sorry,” Himiko said. “I’m sure it was working before though. Let’s just camp here for tonight. I’m sure the fog will lift by morning, then we’ll check the navigator again.”\n “Ugh, I don’t want to sleep in this place,” Isabel said.\n “Me neither, but there’s nothing we can do about it,” Himiko told her. “It’ll be dark soon. Between the fog and the darkness, we’ll surely run into something unsavory if we push ourselves.”\nDropping her duffel bag on the soil, Himiko began unrolling their sleeping bags—which she brought with them on every mission since she’s slept in some seedy places. “Start a fire. We should eat something hot before going to bed.”\n Isabel picked up a silver stick and held it above her lighter as she triggered the flame, but the stick wouldn’t light. She grimaced. “Nothing makes sense on this planet.”\n “Try the leaves, maybe,” Himiko said.\n Sighing, Isabel walked over and picked a leaf up and lit up. It melted into goo, and she wiped it off her hand. “I guess we’ll be eating cold rations today,” Isabel said.\nHimiko ripped the wrapper off the ration tray and took out metal chopsticks, handing a pair to Isabel.\n “Isabel.” Himiko reached to place her hand on Isabel’s shoulder. “It’s going to be alright. At least we’re together.”\n “I’d rather be alone in a nice hotel room,” Isabel said.\nHimiko withdrew her hand and took a bite. “You know, this isn’t that bad. At least there’s no one chasing us. And there aren’t any weird bugs.”\nIsabel smiled. “Remember that time we went to that mining planet to fix their mining bots? There was a centipede in the motel we slept in. It laid eggs in my suitcase.”\n“Those eggs sold for quite a bit,” Himiko said. “It allowed us to take that week-long vacation on that fancy space cruise.”\n“Oh, I miss being there,” Isabel said. “We had the best view of the nebula from our window.”\nHer stomach rumbling, Isabel grudgingly began eating her half of the ration tray. “Surprisingly this isn’t that bad. It tastes just like the instant ramen at home. If only we had some meatballs to add.”\n“Once we get to Huihung City I’ll buy you a bowl of noodles,” Himiko said.\n“With pork belly?” Isabel asked.\nHimiko laughed. “Yes, with whatever you want.”\nBy the time they finished dinner, the fog cleared just enough to allow moonlight to shine upon the red leaves of the jungle. The red leaves reflected the moonlight onto the silver bark of the trees, and Isabel could imagine that instead of the trees being the steel bars of a cage, they were columns of painted glass.\nHimiko pointed at a tree. “The veins of the leaves cast unique lines onto the trees. Look at that one. It’s like a snowflake.”\nIsabel followed her gaze. “You know, this jungle isn’t actually that horrendous. I wouldn’t want to be lost in it again, but it’s pretty.”\n“I’m sorry. I was the one who wanted to save a bit of money and insisted we go with that cheaper company,” Himiko said.\n“No, it’s their fault for being so sloppy,” Isabel said. “I’m sorry for what I said earlier. We’ve gone to some pretty weird places on our missions. Some of them were the good kind of weird, and some of them were hellscapes. But we’ve always made it out alright, and it’s because of you. You always figure things out. I’m sure as annoyed as I am now, we’ll be laughing about it in a couple days.”\n“Thank you,” Himiko said. “I’m glad we started working together. Well, I’m exhausted.” Himiko slid into her sleeping bag and zipped up.\nMinutes later, Isabel did the same. She fell asleep staring at the patterns on the silver-barked trees." } ]

[ { "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: If Only\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1657\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone trying to atone for a mistake they’ll never be able to fix." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I understand that we as human beings are not perfect and we make mistakes but the error I had made was a costly one, one I wish I could go back in time and change, one that has haunted me since that fateful Wednesday and since then I had promised to do everything to try to atone for my sins even if it drove me to the brink of insanity, it was a cross that I had to bear. I had been trying to make it up to Aisha and Megan her daughter since I had gotten Darryl her husband and my best friend killed she had forbidden me from attending his funeral which felt like a stab in my heart but I understood her reasons so I watched and observed from a distance not to be discovered and when the crowd had dispersed and had gone back to the house I made my way to his grave site and cried uncontrollably begging in vain for God to bring him back or for all this to be a very horrible and long nightmare but even after 2 hours of sitting in front of his gravestone not a sound, not a miracle happened eventually I gathered myself together and left vowing to him to make up for the mistake that had cost his life no matter what and to look out for his wife. \n It was a sunny Wednesday in the middle of July the summer was exceptionally harsh on us but this time the heat was unbearable so it was only normal that air conditioners were constantly running to maintain a bit of sanity, Darryl my childhood best friend had stopped by my house to cool off since he had just finished his morning cycling and was dripping in sweat he was too tired to cycle back home so he asked me to drive him back to which I agreed to on the condition that he had to order dinner over to my house later that evening which he agreed to, I was driving him home with the radio on full blast playing our favorite childhood song Thong Song by Sisqo we were singing at the top of our voices when out of nowhere a truck collided into my car from the passenger side and sent the car tumbling three times before it had finally made a stop upside down, I was conscious and I could hear a ringing in my ear but Darryl was quiet which got me scared I called out his name and tried to shake him a little but he still didn’t move so I slowly tried to take off my seat belt but I was in so much pain I was bleeding from my nose and my forehead and it felt like my left arm was broken because it felt like someone had dropped a tree on it but somehow I managed to take it off and crawl out of the car using my right had to crawl, I asked a bystander to please call for help then I managed to limp over to Darryl then I and another by stander managed to drag him out of the car it felt like we were dragging ten bags of coal because he was so heavy and I was doing this with my one good arm when we had successfully brought him out if the car I kept shaking him and screaming his name he still wasn’t responding, and as I had discovered he wasn’t breathing either so without thinking I decided to make the mistake that had led me here I give him very slow CPR I was 20 counts into the compressions with my one good hand and trying to brace through the pain of using my broken arm when I heard a crack in his chest it sounded like I snapped a twig so I stopped out of shock and shook him again but since he didn’t respond I decided to continue with the compressions but still no response no breaths I started panicking I could literally hear my heart beating and I felt the blood rushing to my heart, I started shaking him even more aggressively ignoring the ringing in my ear I was so disoriented that I didn’t notice that an ambulance had gotten to our location. \n“Miss are you okay?” I looked at the paramedic very confused “What?” and that was the last thing I remembered before I woke up in the hospital. \n“Nurse she has woken up” my sister called out to the nurse as soon as I opened my eyes. \n“Where am I?” \n“In the hospital, you had an accident this morning” my sister replied. \nThe nurse approached me “How do you feel? miss Adriana” \n“Darryl, Darryl” I kept whispering “Where is Darryl, the man in the car with me?”, My sister was about to respond.\nJust then like a badly scripted movie Aisha barged into my room “How could you be so stupid, you killed him” I slowly tried to sit up on my bed while the nurse tried to hold her off and my sister stood in front of me in a bid to prevent her from getting to me.\n“What are you talking about? The driver came out of nowhere, how you could even say something so horrible?”\n“Not that, you; stupid fool the accident didn’t kill him the CPR you gave him did” she had stopped trying to charge at me after the nurse threatened to call the hospital security, but I told her that would not be necessary, so she let her go. \n“What? I was trying to save him, he wasn’t breathing” \n“The doctor said your compressions cracked his ribs, he was still alive the paramedics could have resuscitated him, you killed your best friend, how could you?”\n“I…. I didn’t mean to Aisha I thought I was saving his life it was a mistake”\n“That mistake cost him his life, I will never forgive you for this” she finally seemed to gain some composure stared daggers at me with tears in her eyes then she walked out. \nI looked at my sister in dismay and utter confusion “I was only trying to help him you have to believe me” and then the tears started to flow from my eyes like I had just realized that Aisha told me Darryl was dead my sister came to my side to give me a hug and comfort me. \n After the funeral I had made every effort to reach Aisha but it proved futile she wouldn’t see me or talk to me I had made an honest mistake but still a mistake a very costly one that had deprived a woman and her child of a husband and father I had wired some money to Aisha and told her that if she wouldn’t see me but at least she should accept the money to take care of them for the mean time I mean it was the least I could do but she returned the money and got a restraining order against me I didn’t hold it against her so in a desperate attempt I went to check on Megan in school to see if she was okay, I didn’t plan on going inside the school building because I figured Aisha told the school I wasn’t allowed to visit her anymore, she was just five years old and I couldn’t imagine how she was feeling. I was a bit nervous about seeing her because I figured her mum might have told her considering how angry she was with me but when she saw me across the street of her school playing ground she smiled and waved at me it warmed my heart and I started crying I couldn’t go back in time and change the outcome of that day, I couldn’t bring him back but I would find a way to try to make up for it if that was possible some way, somehow. Since the incidence I wasn’t sleeping properly, I wasn’t eating, I cried all the time, I couldn’t concentrate on work and I had started trying to drink the pain away I just kept wondering how to make it right, how to make Aisha forgive me, my sister told me to give her some time that she would reach out when she was ready but after the restraining order I knew it would take a lot more effort to fix what I had done. So, at eleven pm intoxicated with about 3,000 dollars in my bag I took a taxi over to Aisha’s house I did not care about the restraining order or what the consequences of disobeying it was, I marched to her door and knocked aggressively, she opened the door and before she could say anything, I opened then dropped my bag in front of her and dropped to my knees in tears \n“Please I didn’t mean to, I wasn’t trying to kill him please let me help in any way I can please let me at least try to make up for what I did I haven’t been able to forgive myself please”. \nShe looked at me with a certain coldness in her eyes\n“All your tears and money won’t bring him back; you should have gone not him. Now my daughter, your god daughter does not have a father because you tried to be a hero, if you want to help us stay away from us, now leave before I call the police and take your worthless money with you”. With that she slammed the door in my face, rejected, dejected and defeated I stood up and kept walking and crying till my feet hurt, she was right no matter what I did, said or what my intentions where I killed Darryl and I would have to live with that for the rest of my life." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Black and White\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1186\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story about someone struggling to swallow some harsh (but fair) constructive criticism." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“Jamaal? Jamaal Black?” the Hispanic receptionist called out, looking over her glasses at a clipboard at the sea of people waiting for court-ordered therapy sessions.\nA tall white man in his 40’s stood up, dressed in a white polo shirt and light brown khaki pants. His canvas deck shoes squeaked as he cautiously approached her, so as not to alarm her. \n“Yo miss,” he said. “I’m Jamaal.”\n“You making fun of me?” The receptionist looked at the white middle-aged man, straight out of central casting. He couldn’t have been any whiter. \n“Nah, miss. It ain’t like that.” Jamaal held up his hands in an unnecessary gesture of goodwill.\n“Because I can send you right back to court if you are going to be a problem,” she spat.\n“I think we're about to have a problem!” an attractive black woman stood up suddenly, marching right next to the white man, putting her finger in the receptionist’s face. “I am Karen White. My husband and I are here with our children for our session. By my watch, it is fifteen minutes past our appointed time.”\n“I am sorry for the wait, Ms. White,” the receptionist said, smiling. “Please go through this door down to Conference Room #7.\"\nKaren White sailed through the door, followed closely behind by her children and Jamaal Black, who had shoved his hands deep down into his pockets. \nThe family waited around the conference table. Finally, the door opened. An elderly Indian man entered, carrying a thick manila file with BLACK, JAMAAL written in black ink on the tab.\n“Hello, family. I am Doctor Shawn FitzPatrick O’Flanagan,” he introduced himself, flipping through Jamaal’s records. “Apparently, Jamaal needs just three more sessions to regain custody of his children because of the incident.”\n“Three is too many!” Karen interjected. “My husband is the victim here. Why is he always targeted?”\n“I assure you, Mrs. White, we will address all your concerns through his anger management counseling. Until then, let’s all remain calm. Mr. Black, can you tell me about the circumstances that led to your arrest?”\n“It’s embarrassing, ” Jamaal responded sheepishly. “Do we have to do this in front of the children?”\n“Ah yes, the children. Perfect segue,” Dr. O'Flanagan said with a smile. He then turned to the older daughter. “Can you tell me about yourself?”\n“I’m Gaye.”\n“That's fantastic, this is a safe space. You’ll find no judgement here.”\n“No, I’m straight, you idiot. My name is Gaye. Gaye Black-White.”\n“So are you Gaye Black or Gaye White?” Dr. O'Flanagan quizzed her.\n“I’m Black-White,” Gaye responded in a huff, rolling her eyes almost audibly. “But I identify as Chinese. Why is that so hard for people to understand?”\n“What box you check on a form shouldn’t be important,” Karen interrupted, “I refuse to choose a race. I believe a race chooses you.” \n\"Karen always checks the box marked 'other' on those forms,\" Gaye added, in obvious support of her mother.\n“Let me get this straight,” Dr. O'Flanagan said, obviously struggling to keep up. “The children have the surname White-Black, but your biological daughter is Chinese?”\n“Yes, is that a problem?” Jamaal asked while also trying to remain calm. “And she is very good at math, but a terrible driver. What are you getting at?”\n“I’m just trying to understand,” said Dr. O'Flanagan, cleaning his spectacles. He pushed the button on the intercom and told the Hispanic receptionist to cancel his afternoon appointments. This was going to take a little while.\n“And who are you, young man?” the doctor asked, turning towards the White-Black’s youngest son.\n“I’m Gray. Gray White-Black. But I’m not a young man. I’m an old soul in a meat locker of bone and blood. And I reject your hetero-normative labeling.”\n“Don’t listen to him.” Gaye chimed in. “He thinks he’s asexual, but to me he’ll always be my brother from an other mother.\"\n“I feel we are deviating from the task at hand. You realize your father has had an incident with law enforcement. After considering many options, the judge has decided the typical consequences are not appropriate.”\n“Who are you calling inappropriate?” yelled Karen. “I will call a half dozen lawyers to take down this facility brick by brick.”\n“I’m certain you c-can,” stuttered Dr. O'Flanagan. “May I get you a bottle of water?”\n“Don’t patronize me,” Karen replied, crossing her arms.\n“I apologize for misspeaking, but Jamaal, would you recount in your own words, what happened last February?”\n“Well, we were celebrating Black History Month at Red Lobster when I realized I had left my wallet at home. I stubbed out my menthol cigarette at the bar, and we raced home when the FIVE OH pulled us over.”\n“What was the initial charge?”\n“The cop said our tail light was out, and he gave us a warning.”\n“So,” the doctor paused, consulting his notes. “Why did you hit the police officer?”\n“Because he was biased.”\n“Excuse me?”\n“My wife was driving,” he added.\n“EXACTLY,” Karen chimed in.\n“You see, doc, when I was not more than ten or eleven, my dad took me and my brother aside and gave us the talk.”\n“The talk?” Dr O’Flannigan responded, more confused than ever.\n“Yeah, the talk,” replied Jamaal. “My dad’s family was a bunch of assholes. They were always causing a ruckus and making a stink. The Black name became synonymous with hooliganism. The cops would pull us over just for being Blacks.”\n“Wait, you are saying you, a white male, would get pulled over for driving while Black?”\n“Word, doc. Hey get it: Word Doc. Better micro hard than micro soft, right doc?” Jamaal said, cracking himself up. “But seriously, that's why my wife always drives.”\n“So you punched the cop because he let your wife go. Is that it?”\n“Correct,” Jamaal Black said.\n“But that doesn’t make any sense. How is that biased?”\n“If you must know,” Karen interrupted, “my father was chief of police for thirty-seven years.”\n“And…”\n“Well, I could practically run over a baby in a carriage, and I’d get away with a warning because of my last name: White.”\n“You’ve got to be kidding me. Your husband hit the cop because, as a black woman, you were a recipient of White privilege?”\n“Your damn fucking right he did. And he’d do it again.”\nDr. O'Flanagan rubbed his eyes and muttered, “Imeacht gan teacht ort.”\n“Excuse me?” Karen and Jamaal said simultaneously, ready to be offended.\n“It’s an Irish expression,” Dr. O’Flanagan replied.\n“I thought you were Indian,” Jamaal said.\n“I identify as leprechaun.” \n“Well erin go bragh-less doc,” Jamaal said with a chuckle. “Glad to see you being your authentic self. Screw the Italians! Amiright?”\n“Well you’re right about one thing,” Dr. O’Flanagan agreed as he signed the documents, handing them to Jamaal. “You don’t need to come back for any more sessions. Now get the hell out of here and never come back.” \n“Suit yourself, Lucky Charms. Let’s roll, White-Blacks!”\nWhen they had safely left the building, Dr. O’Flanagan closed his pad, put in for two weeks' vacation, and poured himself a Guinness." } ]

[ { "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 Second Thought\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1006\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a character who everyone thinks is guilty of something terrible, but isn’t." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "What was Joel thinking? What he did will cost us our lives and cost this company more than ten million dollars. He’s lost it. Our retirement, our pension, gone; it's madness, is what it is. To sell company formulas and not give a damn; give no second thought to put us in danger. What the hell was he thinking? We’ve lost everything.\nI can’t grasp it. I could kill him, literally kill him. We’re ultimately going to prison. Guilt by association. Selling secrets to foreign powers. Espionage carries the death penalty. The cost of what he did is rising as we speak. The cost is immeasurable. His salary? More than enough to take care of him and his family.\nHe could’ve put time into helping those who were struggling, those whose salary was nowhere close to his—those who had no income. When I hear the details...I can’t comprehend this. Joel is not some heartless enemy agent.\nEveryone thinks we’re in on it because we work in the same department. The company’s stock value crashed in moments. Joel was greedy to the point that the foreign agents sold him out. Anonymously they gave details to local media. International media caught wind of their deals through underground channels. We can’t go anywhere and live an everyday life. \nWe drift deeper into depression. If we are capable of clearing our names, we will live in a prison without walls. Everywhere I turn, I’m worried that everyone’s thinking ⎯he’s one of them. A traitor that has cost us our lives. We will be drowning in debt and lose our homes. Our relationships destroyed. The six-month severance package will be pointless and void.\nWhat Joel did caused panic to all and contamination to some through six states. The spies didn’t mishandle the formula’s canisters like some have reported. They used it against us. We were their guinea pigs. I notice, no foreign agents have been reported with any of the symptoms we have. \nFour to six canisters and the formula to create it. It’s suicide. What if they’re caught in this tropical storm, and those canisters are damaged. These strong winds will contaminate half this nation. We’re going to burn for this. Our tears will be blood. Our nation’s answer to Russia’s chemical weapon, Novichoks, will be the death of us. One way or another.\nMy career, my reputation is shot. My heart is racing. I haven’t been able to calm down since I got the news. This is a disaster. I need to get away. If I leave town, everyone will lose any doubt that I’m guilty. They will purge any doubt I’ve known all along. Purge any doubt that I am attempting to benefit from this little stage of espionage. I need to consult a lawyer. Why do you need a lawyer? They’ll ask. Are you guilty?\nI’ve committed no crime. But if I don’t retain a lawyer, I’d be a fool. The powers that be will charge me guilty until innocent. The law states otherwise, innocent until proven guilty. Yet they’re blinded by rage as we speak. I’ll spend life in prison or likely get the death penalty without a sharp attorney.\nI claim my innocence while making accusations without ironclad proof of Joel’s guilt. Espionage is a hefty charge. Many factors have to come into play to find one guilty. And then to make it stick. Would he even have the connections to execute all he’s being accused? Is he the psychopath he’s being portrayed to be? The Joel I grew up with wouldn’t execute a plan to turn so many lives upside down. \nAnd the more that comes to light, it would cost millions to execute the mission and keep veiled clandestine meetings throughout the states, Western Africa and Western Europe, to name a few of the locations we’ve become privy. Where would he have obtained the finances to fund a mission of this sort over two to three years? It would have taken that long to filter the formula and move funds through various accounts without causing suspicion.\nWhat’s been reported may be fair investigative reporting but is it one hundred percent true. Joel’s life is at stake. There are those proclaiming to carry out capital punishment this moment, today, as soon as they can get their hands on him, on us. They’ve decided no trial is necessary. GUILTY! Their signs state.\nThere is no leeway. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) can’t be one percent wrong here. That one percent could have us all resting our eyes on our families through the glass from the chair lethal injections are given.\nAll this time, I’ve been so overwhelmed I’ve been focusing on myself, Joel, my other friends, and co-workers. I’ve forgotten to discuss what’s next with my family. I simply have to inform them to leave town for a while. The best thing to do is to get our finances, our legal house in order. Obtain some peace of mind. \nI’d instead look guilty. I’m following Joel to the law firm representing him. The journalists from around the country are en masse up and down the street. I haven’t left the car; they recognize me. They block the entrance to the parking deck; the flashes from the cameras blind me and create their sun in the interior deck. The machine squeals waiting for me to take my ticket, reporters pepper me with questions. “How could you turn your back on your country?”... When did you find out?... Why didn’t you inform the FBI?... How much money did you split to sell your soul?”\nIf my mind, my nerves, my life is in shambles, I can imagine what Joel’s family must be going through. I feel the need to run to my old friend’s rescue, but he’s, I’ve heard, been placed in an FBI or CIA safe house. \nTrue or not, things will never be the same. We will have to become different people in different places and claim other lives." } ]

[ { "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: Bridge\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1038\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story inspired by a memory of yours." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Now my friends, as an Asian-American, you would think that I would have often faced racism and that I would have nursed each of my broken pieces into somewhat of a nice-looking sculpture with cracked lines running all over. But in fact, it was quite the opposite. As I was growing up, I luckily did not face as much racism as I do now. But now, I hurt for the brothers, sisters, and the elderly that could've been my grandparents. Every time I scroll through another article, I know that we have lost so much, yet we continue to climb the hard rocky path in hopes of a brighter and better future. We have lost so many just because they were born with different skin colors, faces, and cultures. And, I know I am not the only one who cries and fears. I know that we are not the only ones who have also shared the pain. \nAlthough I did not face much racism directly from other people, I received it more backhandedly from society. I was isolated from my culture so I could fit in. I rejected my language so I could be more American. I wanted to do everything that the ideal American kids did, so I gathered all the strength that my young arms could carry and pushed myself away from my language, food, and habits. I turned my head away from what my family told me. My first language, Mandarin Chinese, was nearly forgotten. To make friends I needed to be like them, to speak like them, and to act like them. In the end, none of those actions helped. \nOne of the most vivid memories that scarred me and seared itself into my mind is one of the key experiences that I have had with racism and isolation from my culture. In fact, it was not from other people but from within myself, which shows you how peer pressure works, how it feels to want to conform to a group, and what people tell you. When I was a kid, I went on a trip with family friends. And, you know how almost everything terrible starts with a game of UNO? Yeah, you heard me. I said UNO. When I was in 5th grade, I left for a road trip with my dad and family friends. As an American-born Chinese, also known as ABC, I could not speak Mandarin well anymore. I felt very awkward with these family friends since they were from China. There were the Chinese parents, their son, who was 18-years-old, and his about 20-years-old friend.\nWe were sitting around the wooden table where we were staying in Arizona. Now, here’s where we get to the very controversial part about the UNO rules… The way I played UNO was when you didn’t have the same color or number, you would draw one, and the next person would go. The friend, let’s call him K, played the rules differently. If you did not have the same color or number, you would draw cards from the deck until you got one. Of course, I argued for my way, and he argued for his. Everything built up, and the tension rose like a volcano on the brim of erupting. \nEverything finally erupted when I shouted, “How are you going to tell me how to play UNO when UNO is an American game?” I continued, “You’re from China, and I’m from America. I know how to play the game better than you because UNO is an American game!” \nWhen the words left my mouth, it was too late, and the damage had been done. I ran outside. I cried like a baby, and I felt so sorry. I realized how terrible it must have been to be on the receiving end of that and how racist it sounded. My heart and mind were burning with shame, but I apologized. How I got to that point is somewhat a mystery to me, but I hope those scenarios never happen again. The types of situations where I disassociate and disown my culture to fit in with people that do not even want me here. I hope I will never choose the people who hate me and think I’m gross over my people. \nNow that I look back on it, I realize what it meant for me as an Asian American but mostly American at the time. Every time I search my mind, I see choices that I have made. Sometimes they come back and whisper, and sometimes they shout at me. The regret emanates from my soul, but now I’ve accepted it, and I’m grateful that I have changed. Although, some actions are too late, like speaking my language. \nI think about what I see in the news. Every new story crushes my mother’s heart, then my aunt’s, then another Asian person that I know, and then my own heart. And, I ask myself, how do we live like this where we’re pushed off onto subway tracks, where we’re blatantly assaulted in public? It is then soon followed by the question, “How do we, Asian-Americans, live when we aren’t fully accepted by both countries?” Thinking about these questions, I realized that it would be a challenge for me to be Asian-American, for the people I know to be safe, and for me to connect to my culture. For me to even learn about it, so much of the history has been erased. \nYou would think both of the roads have been paved for me, and that I could go either places. However, they are just even more challenging and limited now. I’m connecting to my culture again, even though it may pose dangers for me because of my location and the difficulty it is to actually feel and find the information. It’s still my home and my origin, and for that, I wouldn’t trade it for anything else in the world. To be Asian and American is a blessing and a curse. It wasn’t my choice to be born as both, but it happened. And to be a neutral bridge between parallel lines is quite an exceptional experience; It forced and forces me to adapt continuously." } ]

[ { "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 Little Sister\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 2870\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a character who everyone thinks is guilty of something terrible, but isn’t." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I knew Abiola had done it. It pained me to say this, even if not out loud, because she was my sister and I loved her dearly. But still, it would be wrongful to give in to such a childish innocence and turn a blind eye to her sins. She was an adult at the time of all this, and capable of making her own decisions, so I didn’t call her and tell her off. I simply thought of how wrongful she’d been instead. She was not my baby sister anymore. She was grown, she was smart and she was dangerous.\n***\nAmare called me later that night, panic in his voice. I could barely hear him, his whispers were so hoarse and his words so rushed.\n\n“She’s here, Bahati! At my door, and I--” there's shuffling and scrambling on the other end of the line-- “Bahati, help. Abiola is here. She’s going to kill me--” The line went dead. My eyes widened, and I could feel every vein in my body pulsing like the beat of a drum, faster, hotter, more intensified. My heart had dropped to the floor with that uncomfortable feeling you get when you are on the downwards slope of a roller coaster or a swing.\n\nAmare knew what Abiola had done, and now he was going to be killed for it.\n\nThose words could have been his last, I realized with a start, grabbing my keys from the countertop suddenly. I bolted for the parking lot, barely pulling my coat on one sleeve before I had yanked open the heavy wooden door of my apartment. I raced down the stairs through the building and through the smudged glass doors. Running to the front seat of my car, I bashed my head against the roof. Cradling my head with my left hand, I jabbed the keys at the ignition, thrusting over and over until it finally fit in and the engine roared to life. I gunned backwards, and sped through the ten miles of Southern California to Amare’s house. My thoughts barely register as I drove, and I was the kind of over-thinker who couldn't even bear to hear my own thoughts without dwelling on them and thinking up every possible scenario and explanation.\n\nI try to tune myself out, as hard as that is, and focus only on every turn, every shift of the steering wheel, every sight, smell, sound around me.\n\nIt's too late, I think as I arrive. Abiola’s car is parked in the driveway, the ignition still running but without Abiola inside it. My feet freeze to the pedals, and it’s all I can do to turn the key and stop the engine. I don’t know what she’s done, and it terrifies me that she’s in there all alone with Amare, and that he’s scared. Growing up, Amare was always Abiola and my role model. He was fearless. He could pick up venomous snakes by the throat without flinching. He could touch the hot stove without getting a burn. He could fight off dad when he came after Abiola and me with his fists, and Amare could win.\n\nThe door to Amare’s house is ajar and that only makes more disturbing thoughts race through my mind. My heart speeds up, sweat dripping from every pore.\n\nThe warm brown walls and exotic plants Amare took pride in tending to looked duller without his bright smile to lighten them up. I looked around, at the cluttered mess, and the books and decor that lined Amare’s walls. Something was off. It felt eerie in there, not at all homey and welcoming like it usually did. It was silent in the house except for the drip, drip of water from the tap. I walked over and turned the knob slowly to shut it off. Then there are footsteps in the hall, feminine, metallic sounding footsteps, like heeled-shoes. I hid myself behind the curtain, breathing heavily. My eyes squeezed shut, trying to stop the tears that wanted to slide out of my scared eyes. Her footsteps approached, and then stopped. My whole stomach plummeted.\n\n“Bahati?” she asked, feigning innocence, sounding so much like the little sister I grew up with and loved. I waited a moment, unsure if I'd imagined my name, unsure if she really knew I was there. I threw back the curtain daringly. \n\n“What did you do to Amare?” I demanded, grabbing her wrists and staring wildly into her dark, psychotic eyes.\n\nShe shook her head frantically, adopting a blank expression, seeming crazed that I would ever think to ask of Amare when we stood in his house. Her eyes remained as deranged as they always have, like she’s done something awful and taken pleasure in it. \n\n“I don’t know,” she tells me flatly, in her deep husky voice. “He wasn’t here when I came in!” I am in awe of how she can remain this neutral, be this calm after what she's done.\n\nEnraged, I screamed at her, nonsense that made sense in my head before I spat it out at her. “You killed him! Abiola, you killed him because he knew you cheated on Rashid!” I shrieked at her, leaning over her and using my height to intimidate her. She recoils in shock, shimmying her wrists out of my grasp.\n\n“You--you think I killed him?” her voice is so hurt and fake it makes my anger heighten to a level that is almost equal to my fear. \n\nI shake my head in frustration, wanting to slap her across her plasticky, shiny cheeks. What is wrong with this girl? She is not the Abiola that Amare and I grew up with.\n\n“Why did you come here then, Abi?” I yell, taking another step closer. “Why did you come here if you didn’t want to kill him? Is he dead, Abi? Is he dead?” I break into sobs, the mere idea of losing my older brother breaking me. She looks like she considers putting her arm around me but decides against it.\n\n“I came here for a visit. Rashid isn’t very good company.” She bows her head guiltily. Rashid had been Abiola’s husband for the last three months and it seemed like everyone but them could see that they weren't meant for each other. They met in April and were married in May. They said they were so overwhelmed by their love they couldn't stand to wait any longer. Only in July, Amare swore he caught Abiola with another man. He declares it was days after Rashid was declared ill and his life was threatened. Amare and I didn’t tell anyone of our suspicions, until, about a week ago, Amare told his new girlfriend. She was a distant friend of Abiola’s and was so disgusted by what she heard that she wrote Abiola a letter. The letter was passed around, and soon, everyone knew. Whether or not they believed it, I had no idea, but Amare and I did, and Abiola didn’t like that.\n\nAlthough Amare hadn’t spoken to Abiola since he first caught her cheating, I was reluctant. I refused to believe it until I spoke to Abiola. When I talked to her, the pieces of the puzzle all snapped into place. Rashid is a great deal older than Abiola, so Amare and I were always suspicious that Abiola was only trying to take a chunk of his will and utilize the large sum of money that sat untouched in his bank account. Then there’s the way she spoke of Rashid, like he was a burden, a chore who was consuming too much of her precious, youthful life. I thought for a very long time about Abiola, and her faith and values. She was always the crazy, daring one, longing to be the center of attention. This is exactly something she would do. \n\nSometimes, I saw her as my baby sister who had made a mistake, and I pitied her. Other times, she made me sick. \n\n“He’s ill, Abi,” I reminded her sharply. “He’s probably not in the mood to entertain.”\n\nShe gave me that whiny look I’d grown up with my whole life, and rolled her eyes. “Yes, I know, Bahati.” Abiola’s accent thickened with her spitting words, as it always did when she got angry. Her anger, although I knew it should spark anger in me as well, only drove me to fear. Panic started creeping in, and I instantly regretted making this dangerous woman mad. “Preach me about how I’m a bad wife, and a bad daughter of God for wanting to talk to someone about anything but dying,” she continues, her volume and intensity increasing with each word. I took a step back from her, edging around sideways to get closer to the door. “Rashid will get off the brain drugs soon enough, and I’ll talk to him then. Right now, he doesn’t comprehend anything that I’m saying.”\n\nA realization dawned on me, and now I feel true fear. “You’ve already killed Amare! You want to kill me too before he gets better so there will be no one with any evidence!” I screech, kicking her in the shins. Abiola doubles over, but it doesn’t take her long to regain herself. She looks at me with a mad look in her eyes, and all I can think is I’m going to die here, in my brother’s house where he was killed too, by the hand of my younger sister.\n\nPerhaps my sister might’ve answered, only I wasn’t there to hear it. I’d run to my car so fast I’d barely caught the glimpse of a piece of sharp, shining metal under her expensive robe. \n\n***\n\nThree days later, Ma calls me, asking where Amare is.\n\n“I don’t know,” I say, which is true. “I’ve gone out of town for a bit and haven’t spoken to him.” This is a lie. “Maybe…” I hesitate, unsure if I will give too much away. “Maybe you should call the police if he doesn’t turn up.”\n\n“Police?” Ma is skeptical. Our family has never called the police. It isn’t that we don’t believe in them, because I’m sure they do a lot of great work. But Aunty Lehana once told us that the police won’t help us like they’ll help the other white Americans because of just that, we aren’t white Americans. I wasn’t sure if they’d straight up deny us service or just commit to Amare’s murder in a non-committal way, paying it no attention and not doing any real investigating. Nevertheless, I knew Amare would want us to call them, prove that Abiola had killed him without having the whole family turn their backs on me.\n\n“Yes,” I said, more sure. “Call the police. That isn’t like Amare to just disappear--” my voice cracked, and I held my hand over the speaker on the phone as I choked back a sob. \n\n“Bahati?” she asked after a moment of silence. \n\n“I--I’m here, Ma. And no matter what, know that Amare and I love you.”\n\n“Well, I know that. I’ve got to call the police now, I guess. Kwaheri.” Her voice had a hint of impatience to it that didn’t anger me--that’s simply who my Ma was.\n\n“Kwaheri,” I replied quietly, but the phone beeps loudly, signifying that she’d already hung up. I hung my head in my hands and cried.\n\nI was hiding in the basement of Amare’s house, I had been ever since my encounter with Abiola. I had enough food and water to last me weeks, even in the hot month of August. The humidity seeped in through the concrete walls, and made me sweat. The air was dusty and hot, which made it hard to breathe, but I still knew that if I left, I would be dead within the day. So I stayed. Even in all my discomfort, I was safe, and that was what mattered.\n\nI doubted Abiola would come back to Amare’s house after killing him, so I figured it was safer to stay here than at my apartment where she’d come hunting after me.\n\nAfter a while, I fell asleep. The ink from the note I was writing dripped onto my comfortable pants. I dreamed in vivid colours-- the bright oranges and greens from Abiola’s robe, the browns of Amare’s walls, the silver of Abiola’s knife, and the bright, metallic red of my blood. In my dream, Abiola found me, crouched over Amare’s newly-found body, clinging to the fabric of his shirt, sobs racking my body. In my dream, she didn't pause to grab her knife, to admire the face of her once-loved sister before she took the life from her body. In my dream, it was one swift movement, the knife went in and out without pain, without friction, without sound. Just in and out and then I fell in slow-motion, my vision blurring as Abiola turned on her heels and walked away from the family she’d turned her back on. She just left.\n\n***\n\nI awoke to the sound of banging. The sound came from above me, and I turned myself away, shielding my head instinctively. My heart sped, and I felt sweat dampen the clothing around my armpits. Amare’s voice followed, and I let myself relax, although only momentarily. “Bahati? Are you down here?” His voice seemed incredulous.\n\nAm I dead? Have I been reunited with Amare in heaven? Why does heaven look so much like Amare’s basement?\n\n\n\nI stood up and pulled open the latch to let him in. “Bahati,” he said breathlessly, holding me at arms length. “I thought you were dead,” he cries, pulling me into a hug. Our bodies converse together, racking with sobs.\n\n“Did she find you?” I demanded, my chocolate brown eyes wide. He shook his head. “I’ve been hiding in Ma’s garden shed.”\n\n“What about when you called me?” I asked. \n\n“I freaked. She came to my door. I thought she was going to kill me.”\n\n“So you ran?” \n\nAmare nodded, bowing his head. “I felt bad. I thought you’d follow me, but I couldn’t risk calling. I… I’m sorry I panicked. I should have done better. I’m a bad broth--” I cut him off, because he’s not.\n\n“Amare, you were scared and you reacted irrationally. Forgiven. Alright? Let’s move on. We need to call Ma.”\n\nHe nods and I pull out my phone. She picks up on the fourth ring.\n\n“Didn’t I just talk to you a little while ago?” she asks me.\n\nI roll my eyes, and Amare chuckles. She must really love talking to you, he mouths to me. I swat at him playfully.\n\n“Yes, Ma. But I need to ask you something.”\n\nThere is silence on the other end of the line. “Alright. What is it?” she answered after a while.\n\n“Have… have you seen Abiola recently?” I asked, my voice barely audible. I was so afraid that I might have made a mistake that I had clung to my brother’s hand tightly, squeezing so hard that veins in my brother's hand popped. He gave me a reassuring smile.\n\n“Yes, as a matter of fact, I saw her yesterday at the hospital with Rashid. The nurse told me she’s been there all week. She told me to tell you… she told me to tell you that she was sorry for something?” There’s fumbling on the other end of the line. “Oh, here it is. She wrote it down for me.” She clears her throat.\n\n“Bahati. I love you. Maybe I’ve done wrongs in my life, and perhaps I haven’t been as devoted and faithful a wife as you would be. But the important thing is that I’m changing. You and Amare are my family. I would never hurt you. Not even Rashid is worth losing you. I regret what I’ve done in the past weeks, but none of it is worth losing you. You are my sister and my best friend. Bahati, we’ve been through everything together. Please don’t shut me out. I promise to be a faithful wife, a loving sister, a good daughter, and a better friend. I miss you, sister. I don’t know if you will hear this, or if you will choose to forgive me. But please do keep mother close to you. She is still unaware of my sins. Well, maybe not anymore. But she does know I love my family with everything I have. My only mistake was taking Rashid for granted, and for not seeing him as family.” My mother is quiet.\n\n“Was Abiola with another man after her marriage?” my mother whispers in disgust.\n\n“No,” I say confidently. “That was the old Abiola. This Abiola would never do anything to hurt her family. Amare, I need my keys. I have to go to the hospital.”\n\nMaybe my assumptions have wounded too deep into my relationship with Abiola. Perhaps we will never be the same. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that it’s more important to take a shot and believe in the good in people than to assume the worst. I made a mistake. Now I will fix it. \n\nI hang up on my mother abruptly, and then I am gone." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: I am not your mom\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1031\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone trying to atone for a mistake they’ll never be able to fix." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I was a teen mom. I became pregnant while I was still in high school. It was such an embarrassment for me and my family. We were a very pious family. It is a pity that pregnancy is a condition which cannot be postponed or cannot be concealed. My mom and dad were sitting and eating dinner, when I walked in with an apron and a tray ready to serve dessert, and suddenly my mom said: \"Wait a minute, freeze! Are you gaining weight? You are gaining weight aren't you?\" I was taken aback. I knew what was happening, except I had planned on telling them my way. Which entailed writing a note minutes before riding a car with my aunt for a vacation to her home where I was going to hide until I figured out what to do with the infant. I could not tell a lie. Plus my dad with his wide eyes looked directly at me and I knew I was about to break his heart but the truth was better for all of us. I knew that I disappointed them. I knew that my life would change and so would theirs. I also knew that I made a choice for them without giving them a chance to choose to be in that situation. It was a selfish careless act on my part. There is no female adolescent at this day and age who is not well versed about teen pregnancy. Yet and still there I was with an error in my tummy.\n\"Yes, mom, I have gained weight because I am three months pregnant. Sorry about that. I did not mean to ruin your lives. I was going to tell you once I left to visit my aunt.\" I said knowing that our lives would change forever.\n\"Who is the father! Who is the father. I asked you a question who is the father.\" my mom said with a scary look on her face. I think she had a stroke on something. She had layers of crimpled skin where I had not seen it before. Yup that is a stroke alright!!!\n\n\"Damn you, Dorothea, why did you have to be so basic. You became pregnant here in my home. You cannot live with us. Do you remember who the father is?\" My dad said as if he was not surprised that I was pregnant. -Do I remember who the father was. Is daddy insulting me? Or am I insulting him. I think the latter no I think the former!!!\n\"Yes, Sir, I do know who the father is. Unfortunately he is in college on Financial aid. So far he cannot afford to take care of me let alone himself. I spoke to auntie and she is willing to let me stay with her until I can figure out what to do.\" I said, well rehearsed and well spoken.\n\"Are we supposed to take you to a doctor? Have you seen a doctor?\" my mom said with her eyes turning into cold glass.\n\"I don't think that you are supposed to do anything. I do believe though that you do not look so good. Perhaps we should take you to the emergency room. You do not look good at all. Dad let's take mom to the emergency room she does not look good at all.\" I said to my dad who by now was standing up looking at me reconcile my bad self with my responsible reasonable self. I got up and grabbed my jacket and my mom's sweater. We left without speaking to each other and drove to the hospital. Where my mom died of shame.\nMy dad hated me for bringing death to his family. None of us expected that my mom would die at the news of my pregnancy. She died.\nI left home, wanting so much not to be a reminder of the good and the bad happening at the same time. One could have easily said with death is a promise of a new life in my pregnancy. We are logical people. We did not see it that way at all. We saw it as clarity. That I had to leave home and not stress my dad in case he too would turn into glass and drop dead in the emergency room. I left home and promised not to call if there was not a need for me to. My dad was sad and he stopped looking at me in the eye. I disappointed him. He was disappointed in me. I wronged him. I did something wrong to him. I knew that even if my child was born there will never be a way to saw back the rift that was now part of our existence. I was sad. I was sadder for the guy who made me pregnant because my dad's behavior spoke to me about what was to happen if I forced him into marrying me. I stopped calling him or emailing him about my pregnancy. I hid indoors. It turned out that my aunt was just as disgusted as my parents were at the news of my pregnancy. I learnt to stay indoors in silence. I learnt to shut up and not contemplate. I learnt to not want too much. I learnt to not to talk if not spoken to.\n\nI was pregnant for life.\n\nWhen my son was born, I was alone in the labor ward. I had disappointed too many people and wanted to not add more to that number. By the way, if someone offers to help you, they are excited about the idea while they think of it. As days turn into months they regret their decision to offer help. So it helps if one stays out of their way so that one never see the regret in their eyes as they have to shuffle their schedules to meet yours since you sought help from them. They feel and will feel obligated. No matter how much they joke around, they did not mean to offer help. Just like he did not mean to make me pregnant. They always do not mean to make us pregnant!" } ]

[ { "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: You'll Never Open the Door\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1429\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a character who everyone thinks is guilty of something terrible, but isn’t." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I didn’t do it. Imagine. Me. Out of all people. They sure think I did it. But I did not. Never in a million years. Never in a lifetime. \nMy sister has been missing for a year now. It’s her 1st year anniversary of the day someone took her from me. But I wasn’t that someone. I’m still locked up. Still breathing though. I collapse onto the concrete floor of the jail cell. If only she’d have listened to me. \nIt was a dark night. I told her to go to bed. I floated off to sleep on the living room couch. I woke up hearing muffled screams. I ran to her room. He had his horrible hand over her mouth, drowning out her pain. She was holding out her small hands and struggling. I ran to tackle him, but he jumped swiftly out the window like a shadow in the night. I started screaming and running after him. I ripped my favorite shirt on the shattered glass that surrounds the tiny square window, but I didn’t care. I held my breath and ran as fast as I could. I kept running after him until I lost sight of them. I was in the middle of the woods, but my mind was somewhere else. It was in a boiling river of ice, drowning. I didn’t know where I was going, but I didn’t even notice. I looked and looked for hours, until they found me next to a river. The cops. They thought I did it. They thought I threw her in. But why would I throw the only person I have left to love? I don't have an education, but I'm not that crazy.\nThat’s the story I told in court, but of course, when you’ve got a skin color as dark as mine, no one believes. Everyone thought I did it. There was no shame or pity, just assurance. I would be spending the rest of my life rotting in this jail cell. My poor sister rotting in who knows where, maybe miles away, and not in my arms. I begged them to keep looking. Told them it wasn’t me. They just pulled my hands behind my back and slapped my face until I would shut up. Maybe if I was lighter, they’d listen. But I’m not. I cry every day, but people look at me as if I’m dirt, and my tears are just watering the dark soil of my skin. I can’t anymore. I have nothing except the filthy plate of bread they give me every morning. Why. Why. Why. Help.\nMy hands are tied behind my back. I keep pulling and pulling, but I’ll never be set free. Even if I did manage to make it out of this dump, I’d still be stuck, wondering where she is. \nEvery day, I ask myself the same questions. “Why did he take her? Why couldn’t he have taken me?”\nI’m lost at this point. I never went to school, but It's never hard to realize when something is going wrong. I never had a family to guide me. My mother died of the plague right after she had my little sister, and my father decided he didn’t need two dark souls left on his hands, so he left too. I never remembered my parents. Them pushing me on the swings or cradling me in their loving arms always seemed like a distant memory. They were probably so beautiful. But I don't cry about them anymore. Now, I cry because I've lost everyone. Everything. From then on, it was me and my three year old sister. In just three weeks she’ll be turning four. \nMy eyes are purple and red because of the amount of tears I’ve cried in here. I look like I’ve been starving, but I probably have. I forget if I’ve eaten or not the last couple days. But honestly, starving beats eating the horrible leftovers they throw through the metal bars of the cell. \nNo one has ever talked to me, and I’ve never talked to anyone. After all, I have nothing to say. \n“Good morning.” It’s the first happy voice I’ve heard in months. “You know,” I look up. It’s a cop. “We found her.”\nHe starts pacing back and fourth, slowly and carefully, until he knows I'm watching him.\nHe kneels down and looks at me, almost in pity. “She was in the middle of the woods. Dead.” \nI haven’t heard my own voice in what feels like forever. “What?” I feel tears rushing to my eyes, forcing their way out.\nHe laughs and stands back up. “You can leave whenever you want, you know.”\nI look up confused. He sees my interest and keeps going. “We never actually lock this door. We like to make bets sometimes, me and the rest of them cops, over who’ll try to bust themselves out or who will realize the door’s practically open. I always bet that you’ll never make it. Even if you opened the door.”\nHe’s right. My sorrow and self-hatred would make me collapse in a second. Even if I made it out.\nI feel a hard pain in my stomach. It feels like I’m going to throw up, but I have nothing in my stomach to throw. I lie down, my hands still stretched out in handcuffs behind me. The cop walks away. I close my puffy eyes, and whisper to myself.\n“She’s gone. And it’s time for you to go, too.” \nI close my eyes, and decide to never open them again.\nI'm falling. Deeper and deeper down the volcano of tears. I barely touch the surface before I wake up.\nI bolt awake from the nightmare. To my surprise, my hands aren't restrained anymore. I'm in the back of a wagon, and I can feel every bump of the rocks below the wheels as it speeds down a tiny dirt road. It's so relieving to know that I can still feel.\nSuddenly, I realize that I have more things to worry about than my sense of touch. The wooden wagon is rocking and jumping and there's boxes all around me. I'm in the trunk. I can't quite see the driver. I rush to the front of the wagon and see the strange person gripping the halter of the horses. We're going too fast for me to grab the hood over his head. A sudden jump of the wagon makes me fall onto the boxes. With a small \"argh\" and an ache in my back, the driver turns around. All I can see is the small holes he cut in the mask. He has bright blue eyes, but it's too dark to see anything else. He turns back around.\n\"What am I doing here?\" I scream.\nThe wagon stops suddenly and I fall forward. The man gets out, grabs me, and pulls me by my collar. We're in the middle of the dark woods before he pushes me down.\n\"I got you out of there. Who knew they leave the door unlocked? Give me some kindness, would ya?\"\nI stare up at him. I hear rustling leaves behind me and turn.\nIs it a ghost? Is it my imagination? No. It's her.\nI run up to her and squeeze her as tight as I can, just to make sure she's real. She hugs me back, nice and tight. If I could choose, I'd stay there forever, hugging my little sister.\nI turn around and see the man slowly take off the mask.\n\"You.\" I say, giving him a stare through my dead eyes. His are more dead, if that is even possible.\n\"Me.\" He says.\nI start to run towards him, but my sister grabs my arm.\n\"Why don't we talk?\" She says.\nTurns out, the man is my father. He took her when he heard that the plague was spreading. He tried to protect her. Of course, I didn't mention the fact that he didn't try to protect me. He put a fake body in the woods to trick them, and he came for me when he knew I wouldn't escape. I relax, swallow down some soft bread. it tastes like a cloud that fell from heaven. I pull them both into a hug.\nI don't know what got into me, but I want something to hold. Something to be true. Everyone thought, still thinks, I'm guilty, but I haven't lost everyone. They're here. They're right here. And so am I. For once, my world is silent 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: On Evil's Side\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1514\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story that involves a flashback." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“Almost there,”\nHades’ slightly-distorted voice whispered over the walkie-talkie. “Take another left at the end of this street. There’ll be a security camera pointed right at you on one of the side shop’s backdoors. Keep outta its way. You don’t wanna mess up this time!” He hissed, the same way he hissed at almost everything he said. I took a careful turn to the left of the street, eyeing the camera he had just mentioned. It was a moving camera, that turned from left to right. “Okay, okay. Stop crawlin’ up my back, Dude. It’s annoying. And might I remind you who’s fault it was the last time we messed up?” I sprinted towards the camera the second its head turned away from my direction and pressed my back against the wall underneath it.\n“For the billionth time! It wasn’t my fault! It was yours, jerk!” Hades hissed. Boss had said that most of the cameras around here couldn’t pick up audio, so I wasn’t worried about how loud he yelled. Pissing him off was so much fun.\n“Whatever. I just got away from the camera. M’on Taunton now. Where to next?”\nHades seemed to want to continue the argument but dropped it and continued with the directions. I heard him sigh. “Continue straight. Keep to the shadows and don’t let anyone see you. The target usually hangs around the alleyway at the end of Taunton, right of Weston. If we’re lucky, we’ll catch him alone. If he’s got his friends with him, eliminate them all. Although, from Boss’ research, he should be alone. Don’t let him know you’re there, make it qui-”\n“Yeah, yeah. I know. We already went through the whole procedure, so clam up already. You sound scared to me. Is there a reason you’re being so cautious about all this?”\n“Boss is literally on my throat, Rashid! He made it really clear how angry he’d be if we fail again. You don’t have to worry about it since you’re his favourite. He always listens to you, whether or not you’re right. I hate you, just letting you know, although you probably know that already.”\nI chuckled a whispered laugh. “Okay, I’m there,” I state, suddenly turning very serious. No more jokes.\n“Okay, I’m shutting off my talkie. Keep yours on so I could hear what’s going on. Good luck.” Then it fell silent. The alley was a bit ahead of me. I could feel my pulse beat faster and my palms sweat. I held my breath and closed my eyes for a while. My sister would die if she knew what I was doing. She had always thought of me as a hero, and here I was, about to assassinate.\nThe night breeze was peaceful, lurking with the air of danger. I closed my eyes.\nMy sister…\nShe was a whole new story. I had abandoned her long ago, unable to take the burden of responsibilities after my parent’s accident. I was too young to take care of her on my own, so I just ran away. I cried later. I felt so bad for leaving her, an eight-year-old orphan girl. No parents, and then, no brother. I didn’t know what had happened to her. I wanted to go find out about her whereabouts, but that would be very difficult now. I was so occupied with doing business with my new friends. They gave me directions. They gave me purpose.\nI opened my eyes to the present and withdrew the knife from my pocket. Sneaking up to the alley, I pressed my back up against the wall listening quietly for breathing. There was silence for a while and then, I heard it. The smallest hint of breathing. He was alone. I glanced behind the wall, readying the jump attack but stopped abruptly when I caught the target staring at me. Right in the eye. He was sitting on the ground leaning back against the wall behind him, looking depressed. He saw me, yet made no move to run. I walked in, sliding my knife back into my pocket. He sat still, watching me approach. “I’ve already seen it,” he rasped.\nMy heart skipped a beat. “Seen what?” I asked. He looked away and closed his eyes, head leaning back.\n“It was only a matter of time before one of you goons came after me. I was ready.”\n“So you know I’m here to kill you then?” I asked, revealing the knife from my pocket and holding it out at full length in front of him.\n“Yeah, I know.”\n“And you’re going to let me?”\n“No.”\nHe slowly stood up and I raised the knife to his throat to keep him from running. “What are you gonna do?” He glared, the moon’s light reflecting off his golden eyes.\n“I don’t intend on dying tonight.”\n He took his hand out of his hoody’s pocket. He flung a blade out of the pocket knife, and before I knew what was going on, he slashed it forward. I barely managed to dodge it on time. A sizable rip slit opened on my leather jacket’s sleeve. I inspected it, before returning my attention to him. “This is a very expensive jacket, and it happens to be my favourite, too,” I said. A sad look stained his face.\n“You have more pressing things to worry about,” he said and jumped at me again. I hopped to the side and slashed my knife at him. I felt the blade make contact with my skin. The guy staggered, blood beginning to drip from his arm. He grabbed it and then turned around with a death glare. He leaped forward again, and I made a neat slash on his other arm. He yelped and fell on his knees.\n This guy doesn’t know how to use a knife. Leave that, he doesn’t even know how to fight. Killing him would almost be worthless.\nHe stood up again, tears cornering his eyes. “Any moment now…” he whispered. I raised my eyebrow. He grabbed his knife again with quivering hands and charged. I jumped out of his way. A pang of guilt stung my heart as I continued to dodge his sluggish attacks. He was younger than I was by a small margin, yet much less experienced.\n“He made it really clear how angry he’d be if we fail again…”\nHades’ words stung in my mind. I had witnessed Dodge’s anger once, and I didn’t like it one bit. I kicked the boy hard in the stomach and he collapsed back against the brick wall, beat. The knife clinked away. I closed the distance between us. He breathed heavily, and a few tears fell from his angry eyes. I towered in front of him. “I’m sorry kid. I have orders. The Soulles cannot tolerate witnesses of our crimes. You need to be eliminated.” I raised the knife above him, “Rest in peace, kid.” The knife slammed down hard, followed by a horrifying scream. Then, silence. \nMy heart beat a thousand times faster as I stared down at the golden eyes staring back fearfully. The knife was stuck snugly inside the wall, millimeters from the boy’s ear.\nI couldn’t - I couldn’t kill him.\nI pulled the knife free from the wall and stood up with a sorrowful expression. The boy slumped down, still staring in shock, his mouth wide open. I put my knife in my pocket and kneeled down in front of him. I took out some bandages I had brought for myself and bandaged his arms. I got up and put on my hood. “Listen, kid. I can’t bring myself to kill you. Run. I’ll tell the Soulles I’ve killed you to keep them away. Never cross their paths again, or we’ll both be dead meat. Understand?”\nHe nodded, still as if in a trance, and slowly got up to his feet. He swallowed as he picked up his own knife. The loud sound of sirens blaring in the background steadily grew louder.\n“I…” The boy looked at me over his shoulder. “I had called the police prior to your arrival. I told them I would be in danger and to come here at around this time. I’ll, uh… I’ll tell them it was my friends playing a prank on me. I won’t tell them what happened.”\nI stared ahead, unbelievingly. He was really going to cover up for me, even though I was millimetres from killing him?\n“But what about your arms?”\n“I’ll tell them it was self-harm. My parents will confirm the fact that I’m suicidal.”\n “What? Uh, never mind. You don’t have to.”\n“If you’re willing to risk your life for mine, then the least I can do is save you from getting caught.”\nHe ran ahead without another word, into the cold summer’s night, with the sirens blaring in the background. A smile formed on my face despite the risk I was putting myself in.\n“To save one life is like saving all of humanity, and to take one life is like killing all of humanity…”" } ]

[ { "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 Meaningful Contribution\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 3015\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a character with an unreliable memory." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "When Zyra's family had been allocated the land and the house for free, they did not mistake it for a gift. It was, however, an opportunity for the family to rise above the unfortunate circumstances that had displaced them all. Zyra's mother had lost her Singaporean citizenship as they'd been on public assistance for far too many generations. Nevertheless, her skills had kept them afloat in the early years that the family had settled on the wet Florida coastal town.\n\nShe opened a chili crab restaurant under their stilt house. People ate her food on plastic tables when it was dry and in their boats when everything flooded. The concept only worked because the land surrounding their home proliferated with crabs due to the changing environment. They weren't the right kind for the original dish, but they were big enough, and their meat was just as good with the right tweaks to the recipe. Zyra's father did not think the crabs were 'muddy' as his wife thought. He'd been born in Lebanon and had never even tasted crab before he'd met Zyra's mother in the refugee processing center. Zyra's father was the lynchpin of the family. It was he who had won the immigration lottery, he who had gotten a job at the package distribution center. And he who toiled for poverty wages to support the visas of Zyra's half-brothers who'd been born in Singapore, and her mother.\n\n Her father's and her brother's jobs were why the country allowed her family to come in at all. Not enough low-end workers to fill the needs of the warehouses, scrub the corporate toilets, or man the counters of the shops. Yet, even for those jobs, Zyra's mother was considered unsuitable. She did not have the right papers to prove that she had not committed any crimes in her home country. Nor did she have the right birth certificate for one of her sons. He'd been born on the same boat that the family had been fishing on since the early 2030s. Zyra never saw her parents argue despite the differences in their upbringing. Still, she wondered as she got older how they reconciled their circumstances, how they'd managed to find joy working without a break for years on end.\n\n Zyra herself was American, the only American in the family because she was born in a hospital in Boca Raton. The hospital itself was now totally reclaimed by the sea. The family had invested everything in her. Once, they had gone without gas in their boat for an entire month. They did this to pay the Singh family down the road to tutor her for the ACT. Her brother, Lee, worked as a janitor at the university to get her reduced tuition, commuting for two hours every day for four years.\n\nContrary to the usual paths for immigrant children: medicine, law, or pharmacy, the family made itself the topic of gossip when they decided she would study Oceanography in college and get an internship with NOAA- which had become quite well funded in recent years to track the climate changes happening all over the country and the world at large. When she'd asked why they had chosen such a path for her, the only answer her parents ever gave her was, \"for your future.\" It didn't explain how becoming a climate scientist was more secure and lucrative than healthcare, but she assumed her parents had their reasons. After what they had sacrificed so much for her, she felt she didn't have much right to argue with them about it. She also quite liked the subject and felt drawn to work towards aiding the study of the environmental crisis of their age. \n\nHer father had managed to save a considerable dowry from his paltry paycheck to give to the unofficial mayoral family of the town, the Chowdarys. Their son, Tashi, was one of the most handsome men in Ghranagar and planning to attend the same university. However, his father had initially been unwilling to marry his son off to a non-Indian, especially considering that most of the families in Ghranagar were from the same slice of southern India. Zyra never knew why he'd approved the match in the first place. Was it Zyra's racial ambiguity due to her parent's mixed marriage? Or simply his father's desire to have some capital to play with to build the family up to the middle class? Regardless, the connections she'd gained through marrying Tashi at 19 years old added to what her family and Ghranagar had contributed to Zyra's future. She viscerally felt their dreams and hopes for what their American lives could be riding in her in every choice. So, when she returned 11 years later, freshly widowed, boatless, and unemployed, she did so not with sadness for her reduced circumstances but rather with dread of their judgment.\n\nShe came into town on the public ferry at high tide, her belly large with six months of pregnancy and a faux leather-bound notebook open over it. She used herself as a table to sketch and write her impression of Ghranagar's central market. She has not been back for nearly six years.\n\nOutsiders had called Ghranagar \"the American Venice,\" but now that title was being applied liberally to many coastal immigrant communities. Ghranagar had been one of the first to capitalize on the gimmick by serving chili gelato or fusion masala shrimp pizza from their brightly colored windows on coolers days when tourists would motor through to sightsee, and people watch.\n\nIt was dusk as the ferry broke the eerily still water of the main channel through town. Zyra had expected to see Christmas lights strung up and wooden furniture on the porches of the stilted buildings, but she saw only darkness and boarded-up windows. At 8:30 pm, people should have been out of the house, enjoying the cooler air and lack of UV rays. But Ghranagar looked like a town of ghosts on the water.\n\nThe ferry dropped her off onto a port dock as the light darkened enough that she couldn't see what she was writing. She pooled her little money together with a group of locals to rent a zip boat. She was dropped off first out of courtesy for her condition at her parents' house. Zyra's father met her downstairs and helped her off the boat, carrying her bags up the stairs to the living level.\n\n\"Have you eaten dinner yet?\" His words were colorless after giving her a firm hug at the top of the stairs.\n\n \"I had a half of a fish sandwich on the ferry.\"\n\n \"That doesn't sound like food,\" he sighed, \"there's hummus and bread from today in the icebox. You can tell me all about work while we wait for your mother to come back from the town hall meeting.\"\n\n She eyed him sheepishly, trying not to take his mention of work like a punch in the gut.\n\nSitting at the table, swishing the olive oil around her hummus with the corner of her pita, she wondered how she would tell him. After Tashi's funeral, she would stay and work as a bookkeeper for the Chowdary's business. She would be sleeping in Tashi's room and taking their charity, like a refugee herself.\n\nShe could see her mother had hung up the boys' and her father's clothes for the funeral tomorrow night in the front of the living room closet. They wouldn't smell musty if they'd air out for the night in the breeze. Everything got so moist in the house if the sea breeze didn't touch it.\n\nAs she stared at the fading black fabric, her father slipped an envelope gently under her fingers. It was red and fat with a cheesy \"double happiness\" character on the top. She knew it was full of money that would doubly fill her with guilt.\n\n \"Stop,\" she said, sliding it back, \"this isn't going to help me as much as it would help you guys.\"\n\n\"Nonsense,\" he breathed casually, \"rent is expensive down there. So Chowdary is going to send Sathya to live with you for a while to help you with the baby while you're in the lab. It's already been arranged.\"\n\n Her breath stopped in her throat. Her father had spoken to Tashi's father but not recently enough to know what had happened.\n\n\"Papa, I'm not going back to NOAA,\" she choked out, not meeting his eyes. He said nothing at first, and the silence stretched out before them.\n\nWhen she did manage to look at him once more, she saw only blankness. Zyra knew it held back a tidal wave he was struggling to contain.\n\n \"I can't live on the salary of an assistant researcher with a baby. Even with one of Tashi's cousins to take care of the house and help me out.\"\n\n\"But this is ridiculous! You got life insurance from him, and you've been there for four years. Isn't it time they took that silly word, 'assistant' off your title?\"\n\n\"Need a Ph.D. to do that, and Papa, when am I going to have time for that with everything that's happened this year…\" she trailed off, not knowing how to continue the sentence.\n\n\"Even more stupid! You can give the child to Chowdary or to us. More than enough time to do one of those executive programs. How long will it take?\"\n\nShe met his incredulity with coldness, \"I'm not doing it.\"\n\n\"What are you going to do then?\"\n\nShe looked away again in shame, the food in her belly becoming ash and weighing her down.\n\n\"You're going to live on Chowdary's boat?\" His hands were on the table, pressing down harder than she'd ever seen.\n\nShe steadied herself before answering. \"I'll be in Tashi's room in the big house. Tashi's old job in the office. Just until the baby comes, and I figure out what to do.\"\n\n\"You're going back to work on Monday,\" he insisted, \"you have a month or two left to think about this.\"\n\nShe shook her head, \"I quit. I can't do it anymore. There's no future for me there.\"\n\n \"Don't be an idiot. The only future for you here is a hammock on that garbage boat,\" he spat.\n\n\"No, Papa. He said I could stay in the house. It's going to be fine,\" she tried to calm him down, noticing that he was getting seriously agitated.\n\nHe met her eyes as he pounded his fist on the table, \"the state is evacuating everyone to the refugee center in Orlando next week.\" He spoke, but she did not register his words. When she said nothing back, he continued.\n\n \"It's all condemned—the whole town. The government gave us a new house. It's dry, but it's in West Virginia. How will you work the sea there? Do you even know where they are sending Chowdary? Because he hasn't even told me. Ghranagar is done, and everyone who can't buy their way into something in the state is being separated.\"\n\nZyra sat there in stunned silence, feeling a growing ache in her stomach quickly become a panic. The entire Ghranagarian ecosystem, the Arabs and the East Asians, South Asians, the bahnimi sandwiches, and the lemon trees would all be scattered. Her childhood world was to be blown apart. The horror of her parents' lives was to be reborn in hers. \n\n\"Why now?\" Yet, he didn't need to answer. She slowly put the pieces together in her head, \"they are using that tropical storm on the edge of the gulf as an excuse?\"\n\n He nodded, the anger finally purpling his face slightly, \"mandatory evacuation for a tropical storm. We've sat in this house during category three hurricanes waiting for FEMA boats that never came.\"\n\n\"Mama is at the meeting trying to petition the state to reverse it.\" She finished for him.\n\nThey sat in silence. Zyra's notebook was on the table between them. She'd stuffed it with the stories of her neighbors- Arabian fairy tales, stories of people running away from pimps and gangsters in Hyderabad, and even a few regalements of her and Tashi's adolescent forays in Ghranagar.\n\n\"When will you call NOAA and ask for your job back?\" He said pointedly. It was not really a question, Zyra knew.\n\nShe put her hand on the front of the notebook, asking it for its strength. \"This doesn't change anything about that choice I made, Papa.\"\n\n \"How do you think your mother would feel about you living on Chowdary's boat? Will she think his marine waste business is better than working for NOAA? What about when he gets sent off to the west coast? Do you think that's better? What about when he marries you off to a cousin you don't know?\"\n\n She laughed incredulously, \"what year do you think this is, Papa?\"\n\n He bit back sharply, \"What were you thinking?! Why do you want to quit NOAA?\"\n\nShe rose, meeting his anger with an icy coldness that steeled against the humid haze that hung in the house as the breeze died out, \"I know that I won't be able to help as much monetarily now that I don't work for the government anymore. But my husband is dead, Papa, and our child will be born not knowing him. At the very least, I want it to have some family in its life. Tashi and I had so much of that growing up here. Even if that means disappointing you all and proving what a poor investment I was, I want my child to have that.\"\n\nShe turned, briefly seeing her father shake his head in disagreement, getting out, \"no, you do not understand,\" before she stormed out of the house. Zyra grabbed the family's only dingy and motored away from her father as he called to her. She chose not to hear him.\n\nShe docked at Chowdarys' house, noticing all of the boats were gone. Most of the adults were probably at the town hall with her mother. Alham, one of the aunties, was in the kitchen. She offered Zyra a lassi, some biscuits, and her company. Two boys, Tashi's cousins, were running under her feet, playing a chasing game while Alham periodically shouted at them to get ready for bed.\n\n\"Your father told you,\" She guessed correctly simply by staring at Zyra's face.\n\n \"Yes, I'm devastated. How do you feel about it?\" She had known Alham all her life. The woman had been in Ghranagar for as long as it has been a town.\n\n \"Me? I'm grieving my nephew. Everything else is inconsequential. The rest of my family is healthy, business is good, and I have a grandnephew on the way,\" her smile was infectious and wormed its way into Zyra's heart as it always did. \"Whether my home is here or in California, Washington, Alaska- I don't mind. My family is together.\"\n\nAlham's smile broke into her, twisted, and became a sieve that finally let out the floodgate of Zyra's emotions. She burst into tears at Alham's table.\n\n Alham came to her, wrapping her as wholly and tightly as she would a child. She was round and sturdy in a way that Zyra's mother had never been. She was immensely comfortable to be around. Zyra felt safe enough to let out the thorn gnawing at her since she'd arrived back home.\n\n\"I'm such a failure!\" It exploded from her like a burst dam. \"Tashi is gone, and I'm doomed without him to help us. I've disappointed my parents and his parents- everyone. And he'd probably be disappointed in me too,\" she got out between sobs, burying her face in Alham's chest.\n\nThe woman pulled her back and wiped her tears on a clean kitchen napkin. Then, looking at her in the eye, she held her shoulders steadily, \"you are your parents' wildest dream. What you do will help us all.\"\n\n Zyra wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her dirty shirt, \"Doing Papa Chowdary's accounting isn't that important.\"\n\n Alham held her chin abruptly, \"you don't remember, do you?\"\n\n The intensity of her gaze transfixed Zyra.\n\n\"Beta, the first night of your wedding! We sent your father in to tell you. He was to tell you the wish of all of us—our united wish for you. You were so nervous about the ceremony and the party. I painted your hands with the henna, and your mother painted your face. Don't you remember what he said to you?\"\n\n She tried to think back, but Alham's intensity was making it impossible to think around the fog of feelings. Alham's eyes bore into her. It was the eyes that spoke to her, spoke deep into her soul. The eyes continued to paint a scene that she could not reliably recall without them.\n\n\"We were giving you Tashi, and your parents were giving you a university education for your future. It didn't have anything to do with earning money. That's what you thought he was probably telling you at the time. That we were sending you south to study to lift us out of poverty, this was not what we intended. Beta, my Zyra, the world is drowning. All of us here were displaced because people thought more of lining their own pockets than having dry land to raise their children. In you and our Tashi, who was to support you, we wanted to contribute something that our ancestors had not. We gave you all of this for your future and your children's future. You are not a disappointment. You are the reason we can rest peacefully. You are our security and our penance. You are our love and our hope.\"\n\nZyra found there was nothing more she could say to that. So she fell into Alham's arms again and allowed the auntie to carry her to the dock. Her father greeted them at the edge of it. He had just arrived on a neighbor's dingy, having come after her to explain.\n\nBut he did not need to explain. Now Zyra remembered and knew what her community had meant for her at last." } ]

[ { "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: Lost in Suburbia\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 2056\n\nPrompt:\n\nFormat your story in the style of diary entries." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Alex Lape\n(Warning: Contains themes of Teen Pregnancy)\n\n\nLost in Suburbia\n\n\nWednesday, August 12 2009\n\nToday was my first official day as a Freshman in High School. Everything started off a bit slow, ya know, they dragged all of us down to the auditorium for some boring ass three hour Orientation. It was pretty standard; one of the track coaches Mr. Donkey (and I’m not kidding - that’s his real name) started ranting of about how the school’s so excited to have us, how we were now “part of the family”, and how if we followed the Six Pillars of good citizenship, we could have fun and thrive as a part of the school.\n\nThe only exciting part of the event was meeting some of the kids from the other middle schools who got filtered into this high school. Now as I looked at the girls from the other schools, I gotta admit - I went to the wrong middle school!\n\n\nThursday, August 13 2009\n\nI just got back from my counselor’s office today. Apparently, I can’t afford to add electives into my nine period schedule even if I wanted to do it. My counselor Ms Bowler thinks I should focus on my core classes this sem and maybe plan electives out later. Meanwhile, my friend’s got Woodworking 1. But it’s whatever, I guess. The material can’t be too new or boring. In fact, my Biology teacher acts like she doesn’t care about you goofin off in class as long as you get the work in. One guy who went to the middle school across town by the tracks managed to bring his skateboard and guitar in. He and a friend wanted to jam in class, but I guess that’s where the teacher drew the line.\n\nFinding a table at lunch was a bit of a pain in the ass, so I just decided to sit closer to the multiple door exit. It was nice since the seat was closer to the snack bar. Of course, I had a hard time deciding where to sit. I don’t really fit into a group except maybe the anime club, and I ain’t even as die hard nerdy and into anime as they are. They got the freakin’ bulging book bag with like three or four manga books and the handheld consoles. Even as I went home, I wondered what would happen if me or my cousins would ask our barely middle class folks for stuff like that.\n\n\nThursday, August 27 2009\n\nSo, recently I’ve been looking around for a girl I could take to the Freshman mixer and realized something - I’m basically chopped liver. I guess my ma was right about chicks in my generation, wilder and more apt to play games. “No more morals, your generation,” as my ma would say. And she was right. See, a lot of my family members would bug me to “bring home a good girl” (more exactly, bring home a good asian girl - but that’s a whole new bag I don’t wanna get into..), and they made it sound easy. Nopee. Not when a number of my female classmates start talking about how they let their boyfriends over for summer. . And at least one of these girls is someone I have a crush on. My ma grew up in a generation of class - bell bottom jeans and dresses, and I’m stuck in a generation of moccasins, T-shirts and booty shorts. You know, now that I think about it - it probably doesn’t help that I’m not a school athlete currently. I’m sure that would’ve helped.\n\nMonday, September 7 2009\n\nWe got assigned a new class paper in English today. In remembrance of 9/11, our English teacher asked us to write an argument on whether or not our country is safer today. I personally agree that it is, but we still had to look online for articles we could cite for our thesis argument, including three main points leading to a conclusion. The school also has its first football game coming up soon, so the school cheerleaders did what they always do: yes, you guessed it - prance around in their uniforms or those aforementioned booty shorts. I thought one of em was actually waving at me earlier, it turns out her boyfriend had to get through behind me. It kinda felt odd being a part of the crowd someone has to push through to make it to the mainstage.\n\n\nTuesday, September 29 2009\n\nI finally got my paper back for my first essay, and I’m kinda bummed that I ended up with a B+. I literally had .50% to go to nab an A-. Oh well, the teacher says I just gotta do better on the paper in October. The halls are, of course, still hyping up the win we had over another high school in the district. There was a whole assembly with the cheerleaders pretending to “swoon” over our great football team. It became corny as hell after the first twenty minutes, but it got us out of the last two periods.\n\nNow, since I’m part of the Freshmen, I have to endure my part of getting roasted by the rest of the upperclassmen. Hell, even the sophomores joined in. Imagine\n\n\nMonday, October 26 2009\n\nSpirit Week has finally come to town, and what better way to start the week than how I start my day - in my pajamas and a pair of fluffy ass bunny slippers. Now, the staff tried to relate to us by playing some new hip hop on the morning radio. But it just fell flat cause they censored the hell out of it. It’s kinda hard to listen to a track that has seven blurts in a twenty second time span. By the way, did I mention how comfy these bunny slippers are?\nFriday, October 30 2009\n\nTomorrow’s the Turnabout dance, and not one chick has asked me to take em out to the dance.\nSeems like I even fly under nerdy chicks’ radars. So, I already know what tomorrow’s gonna be like - me shufflin my dumb ass all around the gymnasium since I’d literally have nothing to do. The other less popular kids I know are at least gonna work concessions. I know my friend Louie and some of the other guys might help our Home Ec teacher make additional treats for the night.\n\nMy crush already said that her Junior boyfriend might be coming over from the District across town, so I don’t really know how I feel or how I’m supposed to feel. I’m happy for her, I guess…\n\n\n\nMonday, November 2 2009\n\nThe weekend sucked just about as much as I thought it would. I felt out of place in a crowd going absolutely nuts under strobe lights. One of the guy damn near knocked over the whole cooler of punch, so they had to clear a spot for the janitors. The funniest part is when I saw some of them the next morning at Sunday service all dressed up and proper. Because there’s no way Jack over there would have a cheerleader wiping her ass on his jeans the night before, right? Ah, who am I to judge? I did a stint at a Christian Academy before we moved and I went back to public school two years ago. And trust me, private school is just as messed up as public school is sometimes, with the blame mongering, and double standards because their parents or other relatives are part of staff.\n\nBut yea, after that whole Sunday sermon I half paid attention to, my brother invited me over to help clear out his storage and watch him tune up his bike.\n\n\nThursday, November 25 3009\n\nSince Thanksgiving is being held at our house this year -ma’s rushing to make sure everything from the turkey, to the stuffing, to the pie comes out great from the stove. Dad’s still talking about that main event boxing match that happened eleven days ago. My brother tried to help out, but I get that he also had to leave because his in-laws just came to town. Of course, my dad isn’t exactly too pleased that the whole main family can’t enjoy a meal together. But look on the bright side, it turns out I had distant cousins I didn’t know were in town calling in to come over. I just hope our apartment’s big enough. Not gonna lie, I still can’t get why the middle bathroom clogs randomly.\n\n\n\n\nSaturday, December 12 2009\n\n\nHoliday Break just came in, and with it the Holiday season, as well as freezing weather. My old man’s still a little miffed at the incomplete Thanksgiving dinner, but ma’s trying to calm him down. Dad’s also pissed about the fact that the snowstorm’s a little more stubborn this year, and he has to clean out our car’s parking space again. Since we are barely making it as a middle class family, it’s highly doubtful that we’ll ship out any presents to my cousins. To be fair, they never ship jack to us.\n\nMonday, January 11 2010\n\nAs much as I love the Holiday season, I’m glad that it’s finally over. The whole Christmas week, we’ve just been driving all over town trying to get everyone their presents. I got a couple sweaters, a new beanie, and a mug. It’s not the new gaming system; but that’s fine, I guess. Now, New Year’s…..aside from the whole stay up til midnight and the little noise we made - it wasn’t that special. My family isn’t the kind that goes out and celebrates outside a lot, which can get frustrating at times\n\nI came back to my PE class today. It turns out two of my female classmates found out that they’re pregnant. Good for them, I guess. I wish the best for them. I offered to be their kids’ godfather down the line. But that’s probably just me trying to be there for them in my own way. I’m not really sure if I COULD be. In my family, we spoil our godkids - and that shit’s expensive.\n\n\nFriday, February 12 2010.\n\nSeems like Heart Day’s just around the corner. I’m pretty sure the chick I like and some of the other girls I have crushes on are bound to have fun with their guys and….I really need to stop looking so deep into this. I already feel inadequate as it is, and this sure ain’t helping. Guess I just have to settle for the only Valentine’s gifts coming from mom and dad again. But that’s ok, I love my mom and dad.\n\n\nTuesday, April 21 2010\n\n\nThis week, we’ve been gearing up for the last practice Achievement test of this year. Now all the counselors wanna hype up this test like it’s the most important test we’ll ever have in our life. So important that they wanna devote next year and some of the year after. Now, I understand that the Achievvemet Test helps people who need to get into college- but that makes it important IF they go into college. I know a couple of classmates who I personally feel would do better in trade school. And they know it, too. But I guess they’re forced into this overhyped clusterfuck as much as the rest of us are. Hell, one guy even got detention for goofing off in a practice test session.\n\nAs a side note, it would really help if the Math, Science, English, and History on these Achievement practice tests and the actual Achievement Tests weren’t disconnected from our content in our normal classes.\n\n\n\nMonday, May 24 2009\n\nFinally, the last week of this tiring ass school year. Most of our Achievement Tests are done, and finals should be over soon. After that, it’s really just cleaning up and leaving. Then it’s three months of doing random stuff like video games, walking at parks, chilling at the public library, and enjoying the town’s summerfest. At least we won’t be the new kids on the block when we come back, there’ll be new freshmen to roast the shit outta. Plus, we’ll finally get to leave campus for lunch - so, that’s a plus. Can’t wait for the fun times we’d have with 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: One for sorrow, two for joy!\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1072\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone trying to atone for a mistake they’ll never be able to fix." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "\"It is your turn to drive the kids to school this week!\" I said exasperated from a week long trip which left me exhausted and in a foul mood.\n\"April, I can't. I am late already as it is.\" my husband said trying desperately to be nice.\n\"I haven't showered. Are they at least ready?\" I said feeling invincible, about to make happen what could be impossible a minute ago.\n\"Kids! Mom will drive you, hurry! Bye April!\" my husband said as he rushed out of the door.\nI woke up and grabbed my long oversized sweater and tights which I usually wear when I am pretending to be exercizing. I splashed cold water on my face which needed no introduction to the days and nights of rushing urges. This morning the urge was to rush and make it to school on time. I hate the notes that they send with the kids home to ask the parent to show up and explain why the pupil was late or absent without an excuse! At first it is okay, not so bad, one talks to the school like an adult, like a parent and two or more meetings, then it becomes an intervention of an alcholic fool who should be relocated to a rehab situation!\nWe made it on time and just as they were going to lock the gates. All the kids rushed with their backpacks hanging on their shoulders. The line was already filled up with all the kids who do not hasitate to get up in the morning. I think that they say their prayers before running to class. I think they do. They listen to someone for a few moments and then there are announcements and then teachers stand in a reception line anticipating their students. That is the drill as far as I know.\nI am what you call a public speaker who goes around towns verving the residents into becoming good people, the good neighbors, the good lot. I started when I was young, talking around anyone who had time to listen. I remember well when I first had a thought and desparetely felt the desire to share it, not quietely but out loud so that there would be witnesses. I made money by having others who thought that they were insulting me by putting a twenty dollar bill in a hat which they threw at my feet. And suddenly I had a crowd, and then I had a microphone and a large building filled up with standing ovations; all meant for me! That is how I became an inspiraitonal paid public speaker!\nWhen I returned home from dropping my kids at school, I sat down and listend to all the messages that I missed while I was away. Invitations to the bake sale at school, an invitation to a neighborhood meeting about the new street closures, a dinner party for one of my friends which I was excited about. I listened to the speech that I had just given to a standing room only crowd in Minneapolis.\nThe weather had been very finicky. I wore my most popular trench coat made of lambskin which I bought in Autralia from a farmer who swore I would be a trend setter with it. I looked at my luggage and saw my clothes that needed to be laundered and wished that I had an assistant. Since I decided to organize my life, I felt that cutting corners would defeat the purpose of being authentic to the message of an organized life and a well thought out structured life which should result in success. I did everything myself and timed each and every action. So that when I testified to the masses who believed in me, I would be telling the truth!\nI had recorded a lot of the events that I had traveled for. I, there and then decided to listen to all of my recordings and critique what I could. ....\"life takes us to places that we do not want to visit sometimes.....I remember when I first met my husband..... he was my boyfriend then..........I forgot to take my pill and the Today sponge was not in my purse. ... Oh God no!!!.\n..Well to cut a long story short nine months later I was carrying an infant and wore a cheap ring from Sears.........\nApril what have you done! You have revisited that pain which you promised that you had gotten over! No I had not forgotten how I ended up marrying a stranger just because one had to marry anyone who made them pregnant. And I was one of those women who forgot their Today sponge and married the Tomorrow guy!\nOut of that mistake I got three children, a home, a husband with a car and a lawn mower. I cleaned his house and fed his kids. I was lucky to be able to travel and have time to make the speeches that inspire others into not becoming me. I had income and I had a status. My mame meant something!\nI have been good all these years only if I did not listen to my old speeches that I have outgrown. Looking back is not always good for anyone to hang on to the past. That is the truth for sure. I knew it then. I felt it then and wished that I did not remind myself how I got so far away from a mistake that took place in a far away past. I hadn't thought of how I ended up married or who my husband was to me in so long. If I was not excited about him getting a job, I was excited that my kid was off his milk into solid foods. Something was always happening in my home. That is how we passed our time and became legitimate!\nI have been a good wife. I cook and take out the trash. I send him away with clean clothes. I invite friends over to glorify his aims and his successes. We do the same for them too.\nI could not help but wonder what life would have been like if we did not rush to make a mistake. Was it a mistake or just a quick way to this life. He was kind to me and that is all that I could expect, that he will be kind to me." } ]

[ { "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: Chin Up\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1267\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with someone having their height marked on a door frame." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“It's five pm, dad should be home any minute”, I thought to myself as I peered down our driveway. I had already laid down the measuring tape, pencil and even managed to flatten out my unruly bushy hair into a tight ponytail (I wouldn’t want to cheat and pretend to appear taller).\nI heard my father's car approaching from a distance, he always managed to procure vehicles that had a distinguished sounding horn ... I was up on my feet and ran towards our main door.\nI saw him pull into the driveway. He warmly greeted me at the door, my father doesn’t know this but his evening greetings are memories that I still hold close to my heart.\nAs a middle-aged hard-working man, my father not once exhibited his fatigue and frustrations of the workday to us when he would come home, when my sister and I were younger we would leap into his arms and we would stay there until it was time for our evening tea.\nAs he walked into our home, he proceeded to greet my grandmother, who at seventy-six still insisted to do her sewing.\n “ Daddy, you must measure my height at once”, I demanded as looked up at my dad with my chin up and shoulders pulled back.\n“You aren’t going to grow in a day Ruby “, replied my dad with a gentle tap on my shoulder.\n “I know, I know but please dad they’ll be assorting us into our height divisions at school so we can compete in the upcoming sports championship, and I want to compete with all of the tall girls.\"\nMy Father without much debate proceeded toward the measuring tape and pencil I had already laid out for him, and I stood by our doorframe still as a statue waiting for him.\nWith a gentle smile, my dad proceeded to measure me, I tried to look up at him without moving my eyes too much so I could read his expression. Composed, no change…someone should take my father to a poker game.\nHe stepped back and wound up the tape,\n “So, Did I grow dad ?”\nHe sat down as he began to take off his shoes “ four feet and eleven inches, the same as yesterday” he said with an almost apologetic smile, I could feel my face turn red and my eyes began to swell up with tears.\n“NO! now what do I always say about crying”, he said with a now firm and yet gentle voice.\n“ Only fools cry”, I managed to mumble.\nWith a gentle smile my father proceeded to ask, “ Is my daughter a fool?”, “No” I replied with a small smile of my own.\nWe dint speak much of my height that night and retired to rooms.\nThe next day my alarm went off and I was ready at five-thirty am to be driven to school for my first sports event of the season, as I passed the doorway I noticed the grey pencil mark right under the five feet mark. It infuriated me, as I bent down to pick my bags up, I realized that my father was watching me as he sipped on his first cup of tea.\nOur car ride today was quiet, contrary to the other days where I would chew my father’s ears off with absolute nonsense, but It was a day I learned something about my father he was oh so very observant. He noticed me looking at my legs as they dangled inches away from the car mat and asked\n“Would you tell me why you have a sudden obsession with your stature”, back then the answer was simple... my parents and my sister were considered tall in accordance with Indian standards, on the other hand, at a mere four feet and eleven inches I was the odd one out.\nI voiced this to my father, and he proceeded to explain genetics to my then thirteen-year-old self. At the time I thought it ridiculous that my height was a predicament of ancestors who I had never even met.\nLike every teenager’s mind, my mind wandered onto other things almost immediately and for months I had forgotten about it.\nOn my birthday it was almost a tradition that my father would take me out shopping, and almost every year it would be Pepe jeans or Levi’s. Those brands back then coasted a fortune and even in my puny teenage brain, I knew that my parents were splurging on me for my birthday.\nLike every year I picked a few colors, tried their fit, and had a few alterations made.\nOn the car ride back home, I wanted to glimpse my new jeans in the natural light, so I pulled them out of the paper bag and felt something drop to the floor, it was almost twenty centimeters in length, it was all the excess material from my altered denim pants.\nI didn't say much on that car ride either, just went into our home and ran towards my bedroom.\nMy parents were doing their evening readings when I came out of my bedroom, with an eraser in my hand and began aggressively rubbing out the etchings of my height in the past few years.\nMy father was a man of few words but when he spoke you were compelled to listen and absorb everything he was saying, and every word my father said to me that evening I absorbed like a sponge.\nHe didn’t try to stop me from erasing the etchings on the wall but simply waited for me to stop and join him on the couch and then gently embraced me as I cried and said in that same soft, gentle yet firm tone.\n “ Yes, you are small, I cannot and will not lie to you that you are not at a disadvantage. People might overlook you, not take you seriously and even make fun of your tiny stature. But you are Strong, Intelligent, and so much more than ju­­­­­st your height. So from today you will walk with your head always held upright, chin up and you will command every room you walk into”.\nI don’t recall saying anything to my father after his brief advice, but I did from that walk upright and aimed to command a room with my presence alone.\nA few years later as we were packing our things getting ready to move into our brand-new house. I remember walking through our house for the last time when little etchings on a wall caught my attention.\nI didn't want to lose out on our deposit, so I grabbed an eraser to take them off. I hadn’t seen these etchings in years and from what I remembered I had taken them off. But on closer inspection, I realized that my father probably re-marked them, as I began to slowly erase each carefully marked line I stopped as I caught a glimpse of something I hadn’t noticed before.\nMy father had meticulously written down the dates next to each line.\nBack then part of my frustration included the thought that nobody in my family would understand or even care about my height or what I thought of my height.\nI was wrong, my father did care. Not because he wanted me to be taller, but because to him I was growing.\nAfter all these years, those little outburst dint seems to mean anything. I grabbed a few boxes and headed towards the door and caught myself standing a bit taller and holding my chin 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: Whitening\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1934\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone who didn’t get along with their family as a child, but has since found an appreciation for them." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I’m standing in front of an oak door about to go into battle. That’s what it was every time I saw Mister Rhodes. All out psychological warfare. And, sure enough, he always won. But on this day, I am bringing reinforcements. The most badass lawyer ever to come out of Spelman University.\n\nLatonya Wilkins, Esquire. She made a name for herself fighting for the citizens of Flint Michigan in a highly publicized class-action lawsuit. Ever since then, she has worked with organizations like Black Lives Matter to find instances of police corruption and snuff it out.\n\nStill, having her over my shoulder intimidates me and I ring the doorbell instantly. It's perched beside an intricate doorway that could easily double for the entrance to a palace. However, being alone with this woman is the last thing I want.\n\nI expect the wait at the door to be short-lived, however, fate deals me an unenviable hand as a minute passes and no one has answered. I begin to seriously wonder if there is a length of country road between the dining room and the front door because they are taking forever to answer.\n\nFinally, Latonya breaks the silence.\n\n“You would have made a good lawyer, you know?” she says, hands folded in front of her innocently.\n\nBut I know better. There is nothing innocent with Latonya Wilkins.\n\n“I doubt it,” I quickly say, giving the doorbell another ring.\n\n“Oh, you would have done terribly at the forming-a-rational-argument part, but the nerves-of-steel part you’d be first in the class.”\n\n“You don’t say,” I respond, fidgeting as if it will make the time go by faster. “I’ll put it on my resume. Nerves of steel.”\n\n“Yes, nerves of steel,” she concludes, “because you sure do have some nerve calling me after a ten-year hiatus just to let me know you’re engaged to some white girl and want to invite me over for Thanksgiving dinner.”\n\n“Sis,” I say the precise word just to assuage her, “can we not do this? With mom dead, we’re all we got now… And I just wanted you to be a part of this.”\n\n“Well, I’m glad you called for my stamp of approval.”\n\nMercifully, the door finally starts to creak open.\n\n“But you could have given me more time to get my hair done, I look like a --” \n\nThe door is wide open and it’s suddenly showtime. She flashes the pearly whites and the battle begins.\n\nSomeone once asked a black comic “Why don’t you skydive? It’s like an adventure!” His retort was “Being a black man in America is an adventure. I’ve got all the adventure I can take.” And it’s true. Blackness is its own adventure. Like being constantly assaulted by a barrage of artillery. It’s not the loud man screaming the n-word in your face. Or even the “microaggressions” people have started to refer to derisively. It's the subtle day-to-day dismissal of your reality. The gaslighting. The insistence that it's all in your head and if you \"pull yourself up by your bootstraps\" everything will be fine.\n\nIt's throwing one million studies into a man's face and society giving him carte blanch to say \"Fake news\" and be done with it and still be considered an intellectual titan.\n\nStudies show that experiencing racism can lead to increased hypertension and what some call decreased \"efficacy\" -- a belief of helplessness. People like Mister Rhodes see such beliefs are unfounded. I sometimes believe it too. The \"white man’s\" narrative that I have a victim mentality and all the racism is in my head. That our torture is merely a self-imposed punishment.\n\nToday, I find out if they are right.\n\nAs we sit at the dinner table the only topic is of course trivial things. Who will win the football game today? What type of work does everyone do? Usual trivialities that go in one ear and out the other.\n\nAs I glance into the eyes of my bride-to-be, Heather, I think of Tinder. I think of the OkCupid study that found that black women receive the least messages. And the deluge of black women I swiped left on. I wondered what my stats were. How I contributed to this systemic pattern. What would God tell me as I stood before the pearly gates of wokeness? \n\nToo needy, too opinionated, too loud, I told myself -- ascertaining magically how they were based solely on their frozen demeanor. My sister's chiding eyes glance over at me and my fiance as if confirming that \"demeanor\" may have been a substitute for skin color.\n\nI look at Heather's face once more, remembering the shock I felt upon thinking she would want to come down from her pedestal for little old me. But what pedestal was there? We both came from wealthy families. We both were articulate and went to the best schools. What pedestal was there other than whiteness?\n\nBut I look deeper and see the flesh-and-blood human again. The one who shares my dark humor and taste in 90s movies. The girl who, on a whim, goes with me to some dive bar even when it seems a crossword away from breaking out into a bar fight. I see the “Bonnie” to my “Clyde” as we break the law of ordinary in the mean streets of life. We meet eyes one last time before she does as planned.\n\n\"What do you think of these lawsuits Trump is doing?\"\n\nAnd the trap has been set.\n\nConservatives, I always say, live in a different world. A world where climate change is either unreal, exaggerated, or a Chinese plot. A world where there are only two genders. A world where, most importantly, systemic racism is a ploy cooked up by white liberals to enslave black people -- figuratively of course. Nevermind that the antitheses to all of these precepts are respectively confirmed by NASA, The American Psychological Association, and pretty much every sociologist. This is a minor detail and part of conspiracy theory. \n\nSo, when my fiance speaks about the Trump lawsuits alleging rampant voter fraud that is enough to turn over the election, of course, my Mister Rhodes screams, \"The Democrats are trying to steal the election! It's a damned shame!\n\nAnd this is the part where dinner is usually ruined, but I look to my side and see my sister, stewing as he continues on weaving wild tales of Venuelaan operatives hacking into our voting machines. Of mysterious boxes being carried into the back of polling sites. Of George Soros, the pervasive boogieman in right-wing circles. Finally, I see my sister's bug out like she's a cartoon character and she explodes.\n\n“There is no rampant fraud!”\n\nOf course, Mr. Rhodes laughs confidently, because confidence is their best tool. “There are hundreds of affidavits!”\n\n“Oh christ. Anyone can sign an affidavit!\" Latonya rattles. \"There’s an affidavit attesting to the existence of bigfoot. You don’t believe in bigfoot, do you?”\n\n“All I know is that millions of voters feel that you are stealing their votes.”\n\n“Millions of voters can feel any kind of way they want, but unless they have PROOF, they can go jump in a lake.”\n\nI can see my father-in-law’s face turn blazing red.\n\n“In fact, I have more evidence that YOU’RE trying to steal my vote than anyone else. Dozens of protesters conveniently showing up in predominantly black Detroit to tell them to stop counting votes, Republican lawyers in the diverse city of Houston trying to get 100,000 drive-in votes thrown out. The President of this United States has tried and failed thirty times to get millions of votes thrown out and each time he came up laughably short. So don’t sit here and preach to me about trying to steal votes when you have NO EVIDENCE.”\n\nThe barrage of data seems too much for him to take in. He sits there smoldering as I and my wife-to-be sit off to the side trying to hold back giggles. Watching a virtuoso performance.\n\nWhen all is done, all he can do is say, “The evidence will come. Wait and see.”\n\nBut she will not let him off the hook, she ends it with, “There is no wait and see about it. The saying is a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. I’ve got three dozen birds and you don’t even have a bush!”\n\nAnd for the first time, I get the thing I’ve come for: my father-in-law’s mouth just hanging there in complete, dumbfounded silence. He just lowers his head grumpily and starts to eat. But not before he mutters something.\n\n“What was that, dear?” Mabel, my mother-in-law-to-be says.\n\nI instantly wish she wouldn’t have because he goes on to say, “No wonder you hardly talk about your sister. She’s a ghetto as you made her out to be.”\n\n“What did you say?” Latonya\n\n“He didn’t tell you all the jokes he made you behind your back?”\n\nAnd just like that, after she won the battle of wits, he decides to play dirty. Seeing the redness in her eyes, I realize it worked.\n\nShe tosses her utensils down and relieves herself from the table. I instantly follow her as she heads out the door. Both of us outside again, I try to calm her down, but she already is ready to bite my head off. \n\n\"So that's why you brought me. You wanted to put on a show for the white folks. What role were you expecting me to play, huh? Was it Hattie Mae, the mammy from Gone With the Wind? Or the angry black woman we've seen in millions of films?\"\n\n\"I just wanted you to be you.\"\n\n\"You don't even know me! It's been ten years! Ten years without a call. Turns out it's because you're embarrassed by me. It's typical. Melania Trump can pose naked and get called the most beautiful first lady ever. Michelle Obama goes to the most prestigious schools and becomes a lawyer and still gets called trashy for wearing sleeveless dresses. And here I am making magazine covers and my own brother still thinks I'm a stereotype.\"\n\n\"I used to think that but then I started learning things. Opening my eyes and then I learned how awesome you really are. That you fought the fights that I was too scared to fight. I need you in there sis. Come fight with me.\"\n\n\"You're gonna have to fight this battle on your own.\"\n\nShe leaves and I never see her again.\n\n***\n\nDid you know that a tactic known as “resume whitening” doubles black people’s callbacks on jobs. It’s when a black person changes his name from something like Leroy to Elroy and suddenly they think he’s the grown version of the beanie-wearing kid from the Jetsons and not the cro magnon man they imagined Leroy to be.\n\nAt the end of the day, I look in the mirror and wonder how much I whiten up more than a resume. Do I whiten up my tone? My gestures? My politics? Have I whitened up my family? With my only blood now a stranger to me, I guess I have.\n\nI now understand conservatives. Why they insist on believing in fairy tales. I agree with them every time I laugh at a racist joke at my expense. Every time I don’t challenge their easy scoffing of white privilege. \n\nTruth is hard. Especially when you’re in a one-man canoe paddling upstream. Lying is easy. Melt yourself into The mirror at night last but an instant. The glares of their unapproving white faces are forever." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The day the Earth stood still\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1640\n\nPrompt:\n\nSet your story on a day when the sun never sets." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Fariha faked being asleep as soon as she heard footsteps coming toward her bedroom. She knew who it was. 'How many times do I have to yell at the same thing over and over again’? Her mother said while she opened the curtains of her bedroom window. 'Not again', Fariha thought to herself while her head was covered inside her blanket. 'Does anyone ever listen to me in this house? How do I change you and your brother when your father has the same habit of sleeping till noon on the weekend'. She pulled off Fariha's blankets. 'If you don't come down in 10 minutes you can forget about going out with your friends tonight'. She snapped before leaving her room. \n Truth is you have to be asleep in order to wake up and Fariha never slept the entire night. She opened her eyes as soon as her mother left her room and the first thing she did was look at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were swollen with all the crying from last night. If there's one thing she absolutely hates, it is someone discovering the fact that she has cried. She washed her face with plenty of water, dressed herself and made her way downstairs to the dining table within 10 minutes. If there's one thing she didn't want, it was challenging her mother's threats. \n 'Have you been crying again?' Azlan, her little brother whispered to her at the dining table. 'Just shut up and mind your own business', Fariha whispered back. She could hear her father coming downstairs and didn't want her parents to get suspicious about anything. It wasn't that her parents were not understanding. They were like friends to their children but on some days Fariha or even Azlan didn't have the words to explain them what they were going through in their lives. So, they preferred to keep things to themselves. \n After breakfast Fariha made her way back to her room. She wanted to be left alone for the rest of the day. She had spent the entire night at her window, looking at the moon and talking to it as if it could understand ever word she uttered, every tear she shed. It's what she did whenever she couldn't sleep or when her whole world was falling apart. \n Just like last night. \n She decided to ditch her friends in order to avoid any questions they might ask her today at their hangout plan. 'They just need gossip anyway. They don't actually care about me', she thought to herself while she texted a friend with an excuse of not being able to join them today. All she could think of was her last night’s conversation with the moon. How she wished it was a living thing and could respond back to every dark secret she had shared with it. She had made the moon more of her friend than any human being. A part of her even felt like they had a real connection. She found herself constantly checking the time, waiting for the sun to set and the moon to come out so that finally, all her loneliness would disappear. \nWith all those thoughts, Fariha didn't realize when she fell asleep. \nShe woke up to the sound of someone screaming. She immediately rushed downstairs and found her family gathered in front of the television. 'What happened? I heard someone screaming'. \n'We don't know exactly but they are instructing everyone to strictly stay inside and not leave our houses'. Azlan replied without looking at her. \n'But why? What's wrong? Is there a terrorist attack or something'? Fariha felt a shiver down her spine to the thought of it. They did have threats from their neighboring country about such attacks but she never thought it was actually going to happen. \n'It's much more serious than that', Azlan said, this time looking directly at her. There was fear in his eyes. A fear she had never seen before and it led her to rush in front of the television to see for herself what the news said. \n'Has judgement day arrived'? A news headline read. 'Why is the sun still up’? Another one said. 'Is this the end of the world'? \nOne by one she read all the headlines and what she could make out was that all the places where the sun was supposed to set already, still faced bright daylight. She felt her whole body go numb as she realized that it would have been a lot better if it were just a terrorist attack. \n Yesterday night she felt like her whole world had stopped when she found out that the boy she loved, who she was with for the past 2 years was cheating on her. But she could never have imagined that it wasn't just her world that stopped, but everyone else's, as well. \n'What's going to happen now? Is this really the end of the world'? Fariha's mother blurted out with teary eyes and extreme fear in her voice. 'This can't be happening. This must be a dream. I'd really like to wake up now'! Azlan said. Fariha looked at her father, waiting for him to say something similar but he didn't. He just stood there expressionless, not knowing what to say or how to comfort his family. One by one he looked at all three of them-his wife and his two children. Tears started rolling down his cheeks as he opened his arms, gesturing for all three of them to give him a hug. \n They rarely ever did that anymore. Get together like that in a hug. Fariha loved family hugs when she was younger. She still did but they rarely ever got together to spend some family time as everyone, including herself, grew separate and busy in their own lives. On some days they would hardly ever see each other. They all had dinners in different timings, would make excuses for not going out on the weekend when their mother urged to spend some time together, and on days when they were sitting together in one room they all would be busy looking in their phones, pretending to listen to their mom’s lectures. \n'I don't know what is going to happen', Fariha's father began speaking while holding his family in his arms, 'All I know is that I love all of you so much and everything I have done, I have done for all three of you'. \nThere was silence after that as all four of them held each other closer and started crying. In that moment Fariha realized everywhere she has been wrong. About her family, about her friends, about her whole life in general. She always thought no one understood her or loved her. She had gradually grown distant and shut everyone out, her parents, her brother, her childhood friends. In the past two years she had given all her attention and energy to the one guy who was never sincere with her, and ignored all the other beautiful relations that have always been there for her. \nIn that moment all she could do was wish that she had more time, more time to make things right. More time to spend it with the right people. More time to do things differently this time. \nBut maybe, that was the thing about time. You only realize it's importance once it is up. \nAnd now the world was ending and there was chaos in the entire world. But in that moment, all that mattered was that she was with her loved ones. \n'Fariha honey? Are you alright? Fariha?' She heard her mother's voice but it felt like it was coming from a distance. \n'I think she's not feeling well, I'm getting worried now. Fariha honey, please wake up..' \nIt took a while for her to adjust back to reality after opening her eyes. She looked at her parents' concerned expressions and stared at them blankly for a while. \n'Honey, are you feeling alright? You've been asleep for so long', Her father said. \n'You know we're always here for you if there is something wrong', her mother added. \nAnd right in that very moment, Fariha hugged her parents and started crying. \n'I love you two so much'. She managed to say. 'We know honey, we love you too and we're always here for you', her father said while hugging her tighter. \n'We didn't want to interfere but you seemed so upset for the past few days and we just wanted to make sure that everything is alright', her mother said. \n'Everything is alright, guys', Fariha said while wiping off her tears. 'Just had a bad dream. It got me really emotional. That's all.' \n'That's okay. We're here for you whether it's a bad dream or the reality that is bothering you', her father said while putting a reassuring hand on his daughter's hand. \n'I know' Fariha hugged her parents one more time. She felt like she got another chance at life. Another chance to make things right. And there was no way that she was going to let this chance slip. She was going to make the most of this chance from this moment onward. \nWhile she was huddled in a hug with her parents her brother rushed inside her room causing them to get startled and face toward him. \n'Come quick. The news...' \n'What? What's wrong? Is everything alright?' \n'No! They're saying there's something wrong with the sun!' \n'What do you mean there's something wrong with the sun?' Their father stood up. \nFariha froze. \n'It's all over the news! They're saying the sun didn't set today and the world has stopped moving! You have to come and see this!' \nAll three of them rushed out leaving Fariha behind, completely paralyzed, not being able to move even an inch." } ]

[ { "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 Online Conflict\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 2437\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a family adapting a holiday tradition to take place over video chat." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "It was purposely a family reunion but for the first time ever as a video chat. It seemed to be the only way to continue the annual, 'Display your food' family holiday tradition. A family tradition that was practised very well in the days of my great-grandfather, Mr Daniels himself, but not any more. Obviously, I was going to display fufu and groundnut soup. A local delicacy in Ghana that mum thought me to prepare several years ago when I was a kid.\nTravelling to Venezuela and many other delightful experiences didn't make me forget the preparation of that special food. It was Dad's favourite until he passed on. It was one thing to visit Ghana every year during August. It was summer and the only time for us to come together as a family. It was the Daniels family holiday. No planes transiting from Venezuela to Ghana due to the virus. Part of me wanted to be in Ghana to see my mother but the other part wanted to stay in Venezuela to avoid the clashes that always occurred during such family occasions. I wondered if it could even occur online. Ties that bind, mum usually said but was this one.\nI switched on my PC at exactly 1 o'clock. The video chat was at two in the afternoon but I wanted to be there earlier. The IT guru, Jenny Lamptey, my sister-in-law, was in charge of our coming together virtually. The video chat was actually in the hands of my grandfather, Akwesi. The login code had been boasted several times by Jenny on our WhatsApp platform that I'd grown to know it off-head throughout these few weeks. When I logged in, she was already there. Seated like a statue in her butterfly glasses and blue blouse. She had cropped her hair as low as mine with earrings the size of my fist.\n''Hello Davis,'' she called out loud. She was the only person on so far.\n''Hey, Jenny. How's Morris?'' I asked about my nephew. My brother was obviously working online by now and I knew he'd eventually join later.\n''Morris is fine. He's with David. They're preparing the family dish.'' Now that was weird. David was not the kitchen type. Maybe being a father had changed him a bit. He was my twin and I knew him just as much as I knew myself. David and Davis. The brother who was twenty minutes older than me. He literally didn't want me to come but I was determined to come into this world.\n''David in the kitchen!'' I smiled. Jenny’s looks verified that she could tell how surprised I was. Just then another face popped up. It was Yasmine Cudjoe. A no-go zone. Jenny’s face turned brick red as she tried to force a smile. Last year the exchange of words between David and Yasmine was quite hot. Yasmine insulted Jenny for not being able to give birth after the birth of Morris five year’s ago and David didn’t take it lightly at all. When I saw that smile on his face as he walked towards Yasmine, I knew there was trouble. He was reflecting my emotions and I knew what that face meant. Yasmine was my cousin. The second daughter of Uncle Akwaboah. My father’s younger brother.\n‘’Hello Jenny.’’ she began with that smile that expressed more than she meant. She had this side-cropped hair and the other side dyed white. Her black and white crop top revealed her navel. Type of clothing that wasn’t right for a mother of three but then I remembered that she’s still single.\n‘’Hello. Excuse me.’’ Jenny replied sharply and turned off the camera. She muted the microphone as well. That was the best option for her but the worst for me.\n‘’Is that you, Davis,’’ she looked at me drawing the camera closer, ‘’Your room in Venezuela is as cheap as any room here in Ghana. Are the people there poor?’’\nJust then five more family members joined giving me a reasonable amount of time to get my camera off and also go mute. Everyone would want to say hello but it wasn’t just anyone I wanted to reply to especially Yasmine who had already started to criticise my room.\nI was one of the few members of the family that lived outside the country for work. I wasn’t planning to move to Ghana permanently either. If there was one thing I had learnt, it was the fact that life never gets easier but instead, we get stronger. I knew there were more critics than praises in our family. I needed to look better and also move out of bed.\nI changed into my pink designer clothing from Ghana. I wore that for David’s wedding. He decided to try on the pink wave for his wedding and it was awesome. We were the men-in-pink association. When I returned, about fifty family members had already joined and it was ten minutes to time. I could hear the ‘hellos’ and the ‘how are you’ coming in from every direction. They were starting to bore me already.\nThe familiar voices and faces and the new ones as well. David and Jenny were sitting in the garden and Morris could be seen playing his football from behind them. Very soon Grandpa Akwesi joined wearing his kente. Sitting by him was that face I’ve known since my infancy. It was my mother as fashionable as always. Her natural cared-for hair was in a ponytail. Her dark lips portrayed a light shade of pink lip-gloss. Her white straight dress was of pure quality not to speak of the deep blue petite-coat she had on. She always looked ten years younger and I was waiting for that day I’d find a woman just like her. Caring and comforting as well.\n‘’Please mute your microphones, the event is about to begin.’’ I read out Jenny’s text loud enough. They were already mute and I just had to turn the camera on.\nI felt so bad for making such a decision. No one muted their microphones but instead, about twenty people spoke at once.\n‘’It’s Davis.’’ I heard croaked voices collide over the video chat session. Jenny had to mute everyone herself and I sat maintaining an unbalanced smile.\n‘’Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, descendants of the Daniels family. Today in history marks our annual ‘Display your food’ family holiday tradition and due to the pandemic, some elders of the family and I concluded to have this family tradition virtual this time around. My name…’’\n‘’We know your name. There are better statements you can make than to tell us your name.’’ his very own brother, Drake interrupted. This interruption came earlier than expected and eventually the insults followed.\n‘’Thanks, Drake but I function better…’’ my mother held unto her father’s arms and he stopped. These half-brothers surely never got along well. The name Daniels was given to them by their father who was white. A Canadian to be precise. Grandpa Akwesi usually said that both David and I took after him. Before then, the tradition had already begun. The white couple came together to have Drake and Akwesi was the result of Mr Daniels and a Ghanaian lady.\n‘’Uncle D. There’s a long journey ahead of us. I don’t think we’ll like to keep others waiting.’’ my mum interrupted with her usual smile.\n‘’As I was saying before being interrupted for no reason…’’\n‘’Hey! Would you stop with that already? My father interrupted you for a good reason.’’\n‘’Which is?’’\n‘’We didn’t need to hear your local name once again.’’ the viper, Meghan Daniels Pinion, continued fearlessly. The blond woman in the brown ugly looking glasses. She looked stricter than the usual in her fur-brown office suit. Sitting next to her was the silent Madagascan pot-bellied man she had for a husband. He looked as if he had sworn never to speak a word when his wife was on the floor.\n‘’Local? A rural idiot speaking of local.’’ Yasmine said under her breath to everyone’s hearing.\n‘’Hey, you…’’\n‘’Hey yourself. Don’t you dare say anything against my daughter?’’ Uncle Akwaboah bulged in.\n‘’Can this continue peacefully,’’ David said pleadingly. The tension could be felt but everyone was quiet waiting for that last straw that would break the camel’s back.\nJenny sent another text. ‘’The opening prayer is going to be given by Mrs Khady Cudjoe Boadi.’’ now I knew no one could spark an argument after Khady’s prayer. She was the daughter of Uncle Akwaboah and also Yasmine’s younger sister. She studied and had a scholarship in Russia. Her mother’s originating country. She returned to her father in success as she helped to extend his business and six months ago, she got married to Belarus Boadi. A well-known professor.\nMy thoughts suddenly came to a halt after ‘Amen’ was said in unison as if planned.\n‘’That was an uplifting prayer from my dear Khady.’’ Grandpa Akwesi said and Khady nodded her head respectfully. She was surely the only angel from my father’s side and I could say that with fact.\n‘’If we were together, there would be many games before the main event itself but unfortunately, the elder ones aren’t interested in playing virtual games.’’ Akwesi grinned.\n‘’What were you expecting, that we’d all dress up ‘My Talking Angela’ and find out who made the trendiest combination.’’ I laughed lightly at Sara Pinion’s comment. She was that free-spirited daughter of Meghan. The opposite of her mother but there were some traits she couldn’t leave behind like her mother’s arrogance. Twenty-one, lying in bed in her apartment at Kyrgyzstan with an Asian man hovering to and fro behind her with a towel around his waist.\n‘’Or maybe we’ll make a contest to find out the number of women who have slept with Asian dudes before.’’ Jennifer Lopez, Aunt Jejune’s daughter said. Jennifer and Sara were haters of each other but born on the same day by cousins. Two family members the same age that ended up dating the same guy by coincidence. Up to date, the issue hasn’t been settled even though the man is now married.\n‘’Instead, we should find the lady who has been used and dumped by several men.’’ Sara sat upright tightening the piece of cloth around her.\n‘’No instead let’s find out the only woman in this family who has slept with a man from each continent and very soon all the countries in the world!’’ Sara ratted something out in Chinese sharply. Obviously an insult. Jennifer insulted in Twi which I understood perfectly.\n‘’I don’t have time to listen to your insults, you used…’’\n‘’That’s my daughter!’’ Jejune screamed.\n‘’And that’s mine too!’’ Meghan continued.\n‘’I don’t have time to quarrel with a woman who forces her husband to be shut all day…’’\n‘’Do you even have one?’’ Meghan asked immediately. Jejune laughed.\n‘’I’ll prefer to be alone than to have a slave for a husband,’’ Jejune screamed.\n‘’That’s my father, you bitch!’’ Sara screamed on top of her voice to Aunt Jejune. Bitch didn’t seem like the appropriate word. It surely was going to spark something. The next scream surely echoed in my head.\n‘’How dare you refer to my daughter as a bitch. You twenty-first-century prostitute.’’ Grandpa Akwesi screamed too.\n‘’I’m not going to spare you, A. She’s my granddaughter.’’ Drake said. I laughed inwardly at how everyone defended their family members. Something the Daniels did with passion.\n‘’And let the insults begin!’’ Yasmine screamed out loud to my amusement and indeed the insults began. Drake and his family members insulting Akwesi and his members. I was quiet just listening to family members joining their heads together. The loudest voice was that of the Vipers.\n‘’And as for you, the silent woman that killed her husband pretending to be the best. We’ll come for you very soon.’’ Meghan screamed out loud. I wouldn’t have reacted if I didn’t know who she was referring to. Everyone suddenly went quiet. It was one thing to insult anyone who came her way but it was another for her to insult a responsible woman who had done nothing but to sit silently and look at their foolish antics.\n‘’Hey, you!’’ David began. He laughed and I laughed as well. Meghan didn’t seem to quit.\n‘’What?’’\n‘’You stone-headed woman insulting a wonderful woman I call mother. The next time you try to insult my mother, use all your left-over make-up to hide that brick you have for a face.’’ to me it seemed as if everyone had muted their microphones but their looks were petrified. No one had ever dared insult the viper that way but David was ready for anything.\n‘’How dare you?” she questioned.\n‘’How dare yourself.’’\n‘’Didn’t Alicia kill her husband. She killed him after having twins with him. You silly twins. Listen to you, you tried to kill your younger brother at birth.’’ a tear dropped down my mother’s eyes and so did mine.\n‘’A stone that married a pot and gave birth to a bitch.’’\n‘’At least we are a full family unlike yours.’’\n''Stop! Meghan Daniels Pinion. For once in your life, shut up during this family time. What did my mother say against you? All you do whenever you open that mouth of yours is to create confusion. We're here to perform our annual tradition as a family. If you're here and you think that you can't be online without insulting a soul, then it's time for you to leave this video chat,'' I paused. Meghan looked stupid and I couldn't help but maintain a thin-lipped smile.\nHer insult to my mum came back to mind, ‘’I can see there is none. For that reason, this annual family ‘Display your food’ tradition continues in peace and harmony. It starts with my display.’’ I walked briskly to the kitchen and showed everyone my fufu and groundnut soup.\nNo one could comment and I liked that fact. I had a twin who supported me for the first time. He displayed his food next beaming with smiles. After five people had displayed their food, my words had sunk deep into everyone’s head. For sure there was not going to be any online conflict or anything of that sort if we met in person. Meghan was still seated the same way I last saw her. That Aunt of mine was the least of my concerns. It was the first ‘Display your Food’ family holiday tradition to have ended earlier and the first that didn’t end with a fight as 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: An Unlikely Chance\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1063\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story about somebody in love with someone from their past." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "A brisk wind blew across my face with the smell of changing weather. My lungs steadily inhale the cold air while walking through the park. The leaves radiated yellow, red and orange as some subtly fell around the ground. I sat on the bench, absorbing the sun's warmth, finding a couple walking with their hands intertwined. A sigh escaped my breath as I pictured myself with an old flame in a setting such as this. I remember as if it was yesterday, the loving gazes we shared, the kisses that were sweeter than honeycomb, and the soft expressions of love spoken between us. They forbid it for a black woman to be with an Asian man. In the late 1930s it was taboo, but I guess even love was colorblind. I didn't see him as anything but a good man who first talked to me in the library. He was so handsome from his muscular body to his short brunette hair, chiseled jawline, soft lips, and gentle eyes. He introduced himself as Akimitsu Takahashi, who was attending school to become a doctor. I introduced myself as Lorraine Johnson. I had just got into college studying to be a nurse. From when I had entered school, my parents told me the value of schooling and how black folks struggled to receive a strong education. I didn't want any distractions and focused on making a future for myself, causing no troubles. But this guy pursued me every time I went to the library to study. He was always there. Knowing that I was in college to be a nurse, he offered to help me while I helped him. With suspicion looked into his eyes, but with a nod; I agreed. I never seen a man possessing such a bright smile as if I told him I was rich. We studied together, learning about each other. He was a complete gentleman, intelligent, funny, and so much more than I can imagine. I never imagined that I would have anything in common with a man like him, but with each day being with Akimitsu, it was a wonderful experience. I fell in love with him but kept it to myself, fearing he would reject it, leaving my heart broken. One fall evening, when there wasn't anyone around, he confessed his love for me. With tears flowing in my eyes, I received it and returned it. Despite the stares and whispers, we continued our growing relationship. We each had a wall to climb as it became a challenge from late hours of studying to my so-called friends who tried to dissuade me from my relationship with my boyfriend. I learned from Aki it was the same for him. But banding together, we stood our ground and moved forward. It was difficult, but after graduating from our respective colleges; we married despite his parents’ objection. It was a mercy from God that my folks were loving and gave their blessing. We settled in a modest house near the park where he and I confessed our love. He found work as a doctor in a small hospital in which I worked as a nurse. It was hard as I continued to handle patients, black folks both young and old, and Akimitsu became a well-respected doctor throughout the hospital. Despite our hectic schedules, we still haven't forgotten to work on our marriage and love. It was our own American Dream until it became a nightmare when Pearl Harbor was bombed by Japan. I could hear the fear of the people as they looked at every Japanese citizen as a suspect, including my husband. I begged him we needed to leave for not only his safety but the safety of our newborn child. But he refused to leave our home or the patients that needed a doctor now more than ever. I was worried that the patients wouldn't want anything to do with him and myself after what had transpired, but in a surprising turn of events; they wanted him to stay and treat them. Then one day, soldiers knocked on our door demanding that my husband needed to be taken to what they called an internment camp. I wanted to follow, but my husband softly kissed my lips, told me he loved me and our son, then promised to find us. With tears flowing down, I watched with sorrow as they dragged my love into an army truck with other Japanese families. My parents caught word of what happened and brought me and my son with them until they released him. I received letters from him telling me how it was in the camp. He used his skills as a doctor to help as many as he could. It was heart wrenching from how the soldiers treated them and fear of how Akimitsu handled these treatments. I prayed for their safety each day in that hellish place. Four years, we sent letters back and forth until one day; I didn't receive a letter from him. My heart pounded in triple time in fear because in one of those letters, he told me he was going to enlist in the army to treat the soldiers. From what he told me, it was pure hell, from the many patients who were groaning with pain from various injuries. I placed my son in his crib when I heard a knock at my parent's door. With a shuddered breath, I watched as my father slowly turned the knob before opening the door to a faceless soldier. Opening my eyes, I remembered where I was, sitting in the park and the sun giving out a golden shine to the sky. With a sigh, I rose from the bench, feeling my bones objecting until hearing a familiar voice.\n\"Lorraine!\"\nI turned to find a welcoming sight slowly walking towards me with a limp, \"Well hello there,\"\n\"You know it's getting colder, right?\"\n\"I do, but I love how the leaves change color,\"\n\"I know, all too well,\"\n\"Did my son Hideyoshi get you to come get me?\"\n\"Yes, but I knew where you would be.\"\n\"Ya'll think ya’ll know me, don't you?\" I said with a chuckle.\n\"Well, of course, would you do me the honor of walking alongside me?\"\n\"How did you find me, Aki?\"\nMy husband grinned despite his age. \"I will always find 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: A Wright Thanksgiving\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 2977\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a family’s first holiday after a parent has gotten remarried, and now there are new faces at the table and new traditions to be honored." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Now that the funeral was over, Hope Street’s Annual Fall Festival had ended, and Thanksgiving was around the corner, The Wright Family needed a dose of happiness. Reverend Matthew Wright, Sr., the pastor of Hope Street Baptist Church had just recently married his second wife, Alyse, and desired to acclimate his new wife to the Wright Family customs. Alyse had witnessed some of the Wright's customs as Matthew’s fiancé; however, things have changed, and expectations have expanded now that she was his wife. Alyse was no longer a visiting guest bringing a bottle of wine or a desired dessert to the table, but now the host of the family’s events. \n\nAlthough this was a trying time for the Wright Family as they had just buried their patriarch, the late Reverend Percival Wright, Matthew wanted to ensure Alyse’s first Thanksgiving as a Wright would be as loving and memorable as the ones she had previously shared and longed for again with her family, the Daniels. With that, he enlisted the help of his three main ladies: his mother Hattie, his godmother Barbara, and his sister Maureen, to help the new Mrs. Wright uphold the highly anticipated Wright Family Thanksgiving tradition. Although Alyse hailed from a large family with great family traditions, nothing could have prepared her for the insurmountable task awaiting her. The idea of hosting both families, the Wrights and the Daniels, and Hope Street in one house was daunting for the ladies, yet exciting for Alyse, or so she thought. While it had been years since the whole family gathered, on both sides, it was now time to see if the traditions of old would be renewed, or if new traditions would materialize.\n\nOn Saturday, November 1, 2014, the ladies gathered for lunch at Chateau Angelou to develop their plans for the forthcoming holiday. Alyse enjoyed a glass of Moscato, and Maureen sipped a glass of Riesling while they awaited Hattie’s and Barbara’s arrival. Once there, they greeted each other and marveled in the restaurant’s ambiance and new menu. Hours passed and their laughter filled the air like a bright array of sunshine. Barbara leaned back in her chair and said, “Alright ladies, let’s get down to the task at hand. Thanksgiving is three weeks away and we need to plan a special one for the family. This is the first Thanksgiving for Alyse, Matthew, and the children as a blended family, and the first Thanksgiving without Percy. Matthew hadn’t had a good Thanksgiving in a while, and it is time to change that.” Alyse offered Hattie a handkerchief. Hattie smiled. “Sweet girl, that’s one of the many things I love about you. You are one of a kind, Alyse Marie. I’m alright.” Maureen respected the idea, but stated, “Barbara, I agree, but shouldn’t we get Alyse’s opinion on Thanksgiving since she’s hosting it?” Alyse choked on her wine as the ladies spoke. Barbara chuckled. “No more wine for you, my dear. Good wine like that is not meant for choking … drinking, yes; but definitely not choking.” She continued, “Now Maureen, perhaps we should explain to my lovely goddaughter-in-love what the expectation is for Thanksgiving and all other Wright holiday functions, as she is new to our family and the pastor’s wife.” Alyse was the wife to the pastor, yet also the daughter and granddaughter to Baptist pastors, and had excellent rearing from both. However, the life Alyse once knew while growing and watching her grandmother and mother serve their minister husbands and their church was beautiful compared to the life presented before her today. \n\nWright family traditions were enamored and not to be tainted with drama. Although drama exists in every family, holidays were not the platform for drama in the Wright home. As the host house for Thanksgiving and probably Christmas too, the expectation was that the Wright home is immaculate. For Thanksgiving, the home is decorated in exquisite shades of ginger, butterscotch, pecan, cherry, and basil. Nevertheless, for Christmas, the home is decorated in exquisite shades of crimson, emerald, pearl, ash, and a hint of azure. The expectations were mandatory and always had to meet Hattie’s approval before presentation not just for the family, but because the pastor and his wife host annual Thanksgiving and Christmas parties in the home for the varied church auxiliaries the week before the prospective holidays. \n\nBewildered, Alyse sat there and listened to all the information presented. “Question: are you telling me I am expected to host these events in my home? For all the church auxiliaries? Wait one minute! All the auxiliaries the week before the holiday, and then the families for the actual holiday? Isn’t that a bit extreme? I have hosted the family, and I have even hosted the church; but I have never hosted them in my home together, and never for a whole week before the holiday. Who has time for all of that? WHY am I hosting ALL the auxiliaries in my home the week before the holiday?” The answer to Alyse’s many questions was simple: It’s tradition. \n\nPercy and Hattie hosted these events for many years until Percy retired and Matthew inherited the church. Once Matthew inherited the church and his parents’ traditions, their traditions became his and Sarah’s, which are now his and Alyse’s. Laughter turned into confusion and angst. Smiling faces bore serious, strained lines. “Ms. Hattie, pardon my tone. Please explain this to me?” Hattie held Alyse’s hand and smiled, “Sweet girl, it’s obvious you don’t realize what family you married into, but these are things we told you were forthcoming. You won’t do everything on your own, as we will assist where needed. The children will handle their portion, Matthew will handle his portion, and we will do ours. Together, we’ll make a beautiful event.” Even more puzzled, Alyse inquired, “Hattie, how many auxiliaries are we looking at for these gatherings in my home? Are these catered events?” Hattie chuckled. “Catered events; no sweet girl. We cook around here.”\n\nHope Street had the following auxiliaries (boards, departments, and ministries): deaconess, deacons, trustees, ushers, music department, youth department, the singles’ and couple’s ministries, the pastor’s aide, and the ministers. Ten auxiliaries in seven days. Who does that? Alyse ordered another glass of wine and asked for the bottle to remain. Too much drama in one sitting. Lunch was not supposed to end like this. Hattie handed Alyse a bag and replied, “Don’t open it now, as I can see your temperament flaring. Do peruse these documents no later than Wednesday, as we have things to do.” \n\nRetired men and women who have nothing more to do than relax from day to day can make plans and arrangements and expectations, more so requirements such as these and tasks are performed. Alyse was in her early thirties rearing the two teenagers of her husband, working her full-time job, maintaining her auxiliaries and duties at the church, and let’s not forget the biggest charge of all, maintaining her husband.\n\n Alyse sat reticent at the kitchen table that Sunday evening while the teens bickered, and Matthew gaped at her. He wondered where she was because it had become clear she was not at the table. Matthew cleared his throat. Matthew even complimented the meal. Matthew then became livid as he watched emotionless Alyse stare across the kitchen and he didn’t quite know where to begin with her. With that, he shifted his attention to the children. “Excuse me you two, the dinner table is for many things and bickering is not one of those things!” Michelle and Stephen disregarded Matthew and continued bickering. He then slammed his hand on the table and shouted, “Alright! That’s enough! Alyse? Alyse?! Alyse Marie Wright!” Alyse’s gaze shifted to Matthew. “Yes dear?” There were so many ways this conversation could go because Matthew had plenty of thoughts ready to erupt from his lips. Although she was there with them, Alyse couldn’t stop thinking about ten auxiliaries in seven days and two families dining for the first time.\n\nMatthew began with the song the choir sang in service earlier that day. He loved the song, but it wasn’t the song he had previously approved. Alyse looked at him and then at the children. “Michelle and Stephen, I believe you were asked to stop.” Silence filled the room. “Please clear the table and excuse yourselves.” Humbled and quiet, they complied. To prevent a fight with her husband, Alyse attempted to change the conversation to Thanksgiving dinner. Matthew wasn’t ready to address Thanksgiving yet, as he continued to goad his wife. “Speaking of dinners Mrs. Wright, you haven’t touched yours.” He paused, then continued. “You’ve outdone yourself again with a lovely meal. But I have a problem.” Undisturbed, she replied “You have many of them tonight dear. Which one are we dealing with now?” Matthew shook his head, “You made changes this morning and I did not approve them! But I guess you couldn’t fulfill your duties in service this morning for that bottle of wine at lunch with mother and the girls yesterday! You sat there and allowed the children to disrespect me at this table! And then you sat here and issued the same disrespect at the table! What’s your say in all of this?”\n\nAlyse rose to exit in a further attempt to prevent a fight with her husband. For she knew her mouth and temperament would have created an even bigger problem there. She knew he was upset about the changes this morning, and as the new directress of the choir, Alyse was trying to instill some positive changes. Her only problem in propagating change, in any way, at Hope Street rested with her husband. If Matthew didn’t like it, the choir didn’t do it. That’s the way things had always happened at Hope Street. Everything had to meet the pastor’s approval, and the pastor didn’t like change. Matthew emphasized the issue because Alyse didn’t sing the song. Every song which required a lead singer had to come from the first lady. If she didn’t sing it, he didn’t like it! In Alyse’s eyes, it should have been Hope Street Baptist Church’s choir. Instead, it was beginning to appear as Alyse and the HSBC choir, and she didn’t like that.\n\nAlyse thought of the few ways Matthew might have known about the wine. Surely Hattie, Barbara, nor Maureen had told him. However, in Matthew’s eyes, it was unbecoming of his wife, the second first lady, to drink in public. One or two glasses at the table were acceptable, but Alyse requested and partook of the whole bottle. Matthew had many quips and qualms and policies about him, but they were becoming excessive. Matthew leaned forward in his chair and shouted, “Sit down, Alyse! We’re not done here. I’m waiting for answers, and you will eat before you leave this table!” Alyse remained calm as she spoke to him in spite of his tempers and nostrils flaring. “Reverend, take the belt off the table. I’m not in the mood for this tonight. It is clear you are angered by the uneventful happenings of today and even yesterday. I won’t touch the choir thing tonight. That’s something you will save for another day. Please don’t get angry with me for the children’s bickering because you sat here and allowed it to linger. If you had a problem with the wine, you should have said something last night instead of pouting and grunting and coming to bed drunk and irate or even saving it to build into more anger tonight. And as for my behavior tonight, you know, that juvenile behavior you spoke of? If you wouldn’t force us to sit here like some bogus happy family on a Sunday evening after an entire berating session today, then maybe you’ll have a pleasant dinner. And another thing while it’s fresh on my mind; I love tradition as much as the next person. I believe traditions are meant to be kept and passed on to further generations, but I am not a machine. Something needs to be adjusted with ten auxiliaries in seven nights in our home. The expectation is too vast for any one person to achieve.”\n\nMatthew turned three shades of red as he restrained himself yet listened to Alyse assert herself. When he removed his belt awhile back, he knew his intentions and the family did too. However, this new tone of assertion concerned him. “Marie?” He only called her Marie when he was trying to humble himself and her. “Marie, don’t mention tradition to me. What did mother say? Whatever mother said to you yesterday to involve a bottle of wine is what goes. I’m not touching it. As first-lady, it doesn’t matter to me how vast the task; make it happen peacefully and leave me out of it. I’m giving you a half-hour to compose yourself. Don’t keep me waiting.”\n\n Matthew awoke the next morning to the aroma of hot breakfast and coffee from the kitchen. However, he didn’t realize has was having breakfast alone. Alyse had gone to work without waking him as she had often done on a Monday morning, especially after such a Sunday. Nevertheless, she did something unusual that morning. During her morning break, she called. “Good morning dear. No, you are not late for the meeting. The deacons pushed the meeting back a few hours. The children have afternoon activities and I’ll be home late this evening. Your lunch is on the stove, and dinner is in the oven. Yes, I am composed. Have a good day.” Before he could speak, the dull tone of disconnect met his ear. After nights and fights like last night, Alyse had no desire to deal with him. She called Hattie to apologize for her behavior on Saturday and offered a truce. Alyse didn’t have problems adjusting, just concerns. Big things coming too quickly with no time to prepare. Alyse had read everything from Hattie’s bag and made notes as she read. Surely some of these things could be adjusted, maybe even tweaked. Alyse didn’t want to break their traditions, just adjust them.\n\nHattie sat at the table with coffee while she awaited her daughter’s arrival. She noticed the bruises immediately although Alyse assumed they were well-hidden. Instead of addressing the bruises, Hattie addressed Thanksgiving. They spoke of menus, decorations, invitations, and place settings; the additional conversation that didn’t materialize Saturday afternoon. Instructions were provided on certain deacons who were not to be alone in a room with women, on ushers who could not sit beside each other, and on all the possibilities of how quickly things could go wrong; hence the reason these auxiliaries didn’t feast together. Dates were set and invitations were created. But Hattie didn’t know Alyse had a plan brewing. A way for everything to come together while maintaining her sanity along the way. After Alyse finished Hattie’s hair, Hattie looked upon Alyse and uttered, “When did this start?” Alyse kissed Hattie’s forehead, grabbed her purse, and started home.\n\n Now it was the week before Thanksgiving and these highly-anticipated events were here. To Hattie’s thinking, these auxiliaries were going to feast in order the way she had planned. The invitations read otherwise. Alyse fashioned it such that the deaconess, deacons, trustees, pastor’s aide, and ushers partied that Monday night, as most of them were either married to each other or some of the same people anyway; the music department canceled rehearsals and partied Tuesday night; the ministers partied Thursday night; the singles’ and couples ministries partied Friday night, the youth partied Saturday afternoon, and Alyse surprised them all with a gathering to surpass all parties that Saturday night, away from the Wright home. This was the first time in Hope Street’s history that tradition had been changed in such a way that would bring all the auxiliaries together, peacefully.\n\nAlthough Hattie and the others were delighted at how the new Mrs. Wright had conducted herself, there were some concerns that required addressing. How did Alyse pull this off? How did she make the time she said no one had to fashion such events? When and how did she prepare everything? And lastly, where did these people amass from who served the meals? Hattie’s questions made Alyse smile. “Hattie, I can’t tell all my secrets. The only thing you get from me is that nothing was catered; since we cook around here.”\n\n Thanksgiving Day was upon them and families were coming in droves. Alyse’s family was large, but numbers had dwindled over the years as members had passed on, and Matthew’s family was growing. The house wasn’t big enough to hold all of them comfortably at the dining room table, but as Alyse had been previously instructed, make it happen and leave me out of it. The dining room table normally seated eight, but now seated sixteen. Other areas around the home were prepared for guests and the kitchen is where the spread had been laid. In blending old traditions with new, all had a place in or around the Wright family home. Sports and other games commenced outdoors, laughter and cheers filled the air as football games played on big screens, Matthew had made amends and basked in his mother-in-love’s stories and aunt-in-love’s gumbo, they each shared things for which they were grateful, and of course, devoured the vast array of spices and roux and gravies and meats and desserts and more.\n\nHattie whisked Alyse off in private, marveled in the first of many traditions, and acknowledged a featured ray of sunlight. Alyse cried and Hattie rejoiced. Once with the family again, they embellished in watching their families blend even more. The question remains: where do you find a family with no drama other than a Wright Thanksgiving? Blessings to you and yours. What are YOU thankful for?" } ]

[ { "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 Future Self Once Said\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 2459\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart or end your story with someone saying “You’ll never know unless you try.”" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“You’ll never know unless you try.”\nShe tried to convince herself as she stared into the pills in the container. All of them reflecting ghastly white light in the washroom. \nHer legs felt numb as she tangled them together to fit into the small space next to the shower. She didn't want to stand up and look into the mirror and see her own face. \nThe motions wouldn't be that hard. All she needed to do was to crack open the lid and swallow those little white tablets, like how she swallows the brown marbles in a bubble tea. Except for the difference of being chewy and sweet, the pills would taste bitter and solid.\nThey might all stuck in the middle of her throat, forming a conglomerate of white goo that is solid in the middle and choke her while screaming the accusation: \n\"Why did you choose to kill yourself? How dare you? Why? Why? Why?\"\nShe wrestled away the urge to give an answer to that question. All the ones she used to give never came to fruition: parents are cruel or absent, peers bullying, teachers ignored her, racial slurs, mental illness, therapist not working, this medication not working. Nothing worked. \nAll those answers used to seem so big as they crushed onto her head one by one, but now they barely seemed heavier than a droplet of rain. The only thing that was left was that black hole inside that pumped out despair. \nThat hole ate away at everything she was - and nothing sufficed its hunger. In the beginning, it only made prey out of the good things she had in life. Like friends, or her enjoyment of reading a book, or drawing, or imagining a fantasy world inside her head. Sooner than later, the scale tipped until all the happiness was digested by the black hole's stomach. \nThen, every single little thing in life turned sour. Being rejected from her dream university, having a fight with the only friend she left back home in a foreign land, her visa running out as she reaches adulthood. Nowhere on the map provided an answer on where to go next. \nWith all that in mind, the black hole took over. It ate away the pain and anxiety and only left the only possibility left. She was destined to be eaten by the hole, too. Because nothing else was left of her, so at least she needed a way to find peace. \n\"You’ll never know unless you try.” She repeated to herself as she tried to stop her trembling lips. Her hand holding the bottle got closer and closer to her mouth. It might not hurt. It might just be like falling asleep. It might finally be the solution to all of her problems. \n\"Yes, but have you tried?\"\nThat voice startled her enough that she let out a little yelp. She cracked open the lid and one or two tablets fell through the cracks and hit the floor with little bouncy noises, like the chuckles of a child. \n\"What the fuck?\" The last shambles of her that weren't gobbled down by the black hole exclaimed in shock. \nWho could be here at this time? She made sure the timing was correct that no one would be at home except for herself. Plus the washroom lock was locked for a reason. She didn't even hear the turning of a door handle. \n\"Oh, sorry.\" The intruder who was now taking up half of the limited space of the washroom apologised quickly. The intruder was a short woman with hair just long enough to be tied into a ponytail, black as the night and soft as silk. She was wearing a white blouse and a brown long skirt, coupled with a beige long jacket. \n\"Didn't mean to scare you. Was just nervous. Thought I was a few seconds too late and broke the time loop. And, you know, erase my own existence because you really went through with it.\"\nA fashionable burglar, that was the first impression her boggled mind had come up with. Until the intruder tilted her head and looked at her straight in the eyes. \nThe intruder had the same face as her, only less scratch marks and chapped lips left behind by habits she developed as anxiety grew in her like a paradisical flower. \nShe'd yell who the fuck are you, but even that required energy. Left with none, she only stared and blinked at the individual that claimed her face. \n\"Who...what are you?\" \nThe intruder's face glowed under the pale light that was supposed to be her doom. The shape of her face devoid of the last of baby fat and bags grew under her eyes. Her, but a decade older. How is this possible? \n\"Ah,\" herself from the future blinked and said. \"This is awkward, but judging by the expression on our face, you're already coming to the realisation of who I am.\" \n\"My face,\" she replied instinctually. \n\"Fair enough,\" the woman said with a wave of her hand. \"It is yours for now. It was mine in the past. So I guess you can claim ownership of it by the definition of the human self being in who one is at the present moment.\"\nShe was still startled, but this situation was bizarre enough, even the black hole had stopped its gluttonous consumption and set down listening. \nA million questions flew through her mind, only one tumbled out of her mouth in audible words. \n\"Why do you talk like a mad philosophy professor?\"\n\"Wow, rude.\" the woman, her future self, whatever she was, exclaimed in indignation. \n\"Was I such an asshole at this age?\" The woman stared at her up and down in a way like a scientist inspecting a dinosaur specimen. \"I mean I remember by the end I felt like I won't last much longer, so I might as well push everyone in my life away so it hurt less when the suicide plan sails through...that would explain this.\"\nIn spite of everything, she still felt offended by this clear display of judgement. \n\"What do you mean by this?\" She gestured at herself, up and down. Wrinkled clothes, unbrushed hair, tear stained sleeves. Okay, she might be a big sad sack of potatoes that was ready to die, but who the heck did this woman think she was to stand there and judge her. \"I can hear you.\"\n\"Sorry,\" the woman bowed with no ounce of regret in her voice. \"I forgot that at your age I was sensitive and was still in a mental health shithole. It's funny how our memories select which part of our lives to remember, isn't it? This part was sad, so I just kind of forgot about what you were like.\" \n\"Erh, I'm literally standing right here listening to you insult me.\" She said in a monotone as the black hole ate away the colourful notes of her voice, too. \"Apologies not accepted. Also, are you supposed to be like...the future me?\"\nThe woman finally looked up at her as if seeing a person instead of an interesting scientific discovery. \"Oh no, I'm just one of the infinite amount of future us. Uses, or is it Us'ses. Fuck the grammar is weird when it comes to different timelines and pluralizing yourself, especially because I study Horology. English is just wrong as a language, I think that's the only thing you and I might agree on. That part hasn't changed, this language is wack when it comes to grammar.\" \n\"Horology?\" She thought she probably had just lost her mind. \n\"Yeah,\" the woman finally seemed to register her slowly crumbling distraught. Her future self's features softened. \"Sorry, I forgot. You are in pain, aren't you? I remember us trying to end our life, but I don't remember how the pain actually felt like. A bitter dosage of Chinese medicine grandma used to boil in the pot? Or a crushing mountain of weight that buries you under?\" \nNo one has ever asked her that. Not her parents, not her friends, not even the therapist she saw once a week for a way too expensive fee. \n\"A black hole,\" she murmured the answer in a quiet voice. \"A black hole that eats everything away.\"\n\"Yes,\" the woman's face contorted, as if someone is stirring the peaceful surface of a lake and trying to reach a fallen coin underneath. \"A black hole, that's right.\"\n\"So you remember?\" She asked with a dulled surprise. Ever since the black hole came by, the whole world swimmed instead of focusing into solid ground. \"Then how come you're still here?\"\nDid she not go through with it? Did this mean she never had the resolve even as she knew this is the only way out? Did this mean she survived somehow, found by one of her family members who pretended to care and panicked? Did this mean awkward hospital visits and questions about why she did it? Did this mean even as she finally finally had the courage to hop out of this life where she screwed up everything, there is still no end to the black hole inside of her?\n\"No, no, no.\" Your future self's voice dragged you back out. \"No to all those questions that are overwhelming your little brain, past-me. You would have gone through with it, believe me. And you'd die like you wish. The only reason you didn't is because I interfered by creating a time paradox where I show you there is a reason to live on.\"\n\"That makes about zero sense,\" she replied. \"No offence, but seeing you as my future is not really convincing enough for me to change my mind.\"\n\"Ooof, offence taken.\" Her future self shook her head in disbelief. \"How about you hear me out, kid. I'm not the only possible future self of yours. There are a trillion different timelines that will diverge from here on out, we are all versions of you extending beyond this point of time. I'm just the one from the timeline where you choose to apprentice with a time travelling wizard and the one who stopped you from killing us all.\"\n\"Why?\" She said, confused. \"Also, time travelling wizard?\"\n\"Yeah, I'm the coolest version of your future timelines,\" she could not believe the woman just winked at her. \"But that's beside the point. You won't kill yourself, because that means you'll technically be killing me. And I know part of this whole downward spiral suicidal thought business of ours thought that it's the best way out without hurting anyone. It makes zero sense, back then though, it seemed the only way.\"\n\"I would...kill you?\" She pointed her finger at the woman, a version of herself that looked polished as if being created by Goddess of Beauty, Venus herself. \"If I kill myself?\" \n\"Yes,\" the woman nodded seriously. She couldn't help but believe her. \"All of us. The one where you went back home to Beijing and bought a two bedroom apartment with your girlfriend. The one where you got to do a creative writing degree and eventually publish your book. The one that you got possessed by a supernatural being and now consults ghosts for a living. Me, the one who learned the magic of time travel so that your story doesn't just end here, instead moves on to become something more.\" \n\"I can't,\" she said as the black hole flared up every time your future self spoke of a different future as if you had a future. \"This pain is too much. There will only be more and more and more pain and problems. Every time I see hope, something else awful would crush through. I need to end it so I no longer suffer anymore. No more pain. No more black holes.\"\n\"I know,\" the time-travelling woman who was magic and a fashion icon smiled at her. She still could not believe this woman was her, that they were one and the same person. \"It might seem impossible to have a future. I'm not going to lie to you. There is more pain that lies ahead, and more problems. We're a bisexual Chinese girl who has chronic mental illness and whose visa is constantly about to expire, in a foreign country where we got bullied growing up, but we grow up here for too long that we feel like our home country would not welcome us anymore. We are kind of right, even, some people weren't so welcoming. We are in-between. We are the anomaly. Nothing will come easy, not for us.\"\n\"Why, then?\" She didn't realize as tears started streaming down her eyes. She snarled at the woman. She was trying to convince her to live on when promising that this pain would never go away? Unbelievable. \"Why should I carry on when I know it's just Hell on the other side? Why should I keep fighting a war I know I'm doomed to lose?\"\n\"Well,\" your future self let out a sad smile and said. \"That you have to find out for yourself. Who knows which version of the timeline of your future self would you step into?\"\n\"That could be nothing,\" she said. \"My future could be the one where there is nothing.\" \n\"No, definitely not nothing.\" the woman shook her head and said. \"Because I am still here, which means you didn't go through with killing yourself. Regardless of which timeline you end up on, it wouldn't be the one where there is nothing. If that's the case, then none of the other us would exist. You will live.\"\n\"I will live,\" she repeated those words robotically. She put the container of pills down on the counter. \"That one about being possessed by a supernatural entity and consulting ghosts for a living sounds interesting. Will I end up there?\"\nThe woman rolled her eyes as if she could not believe what she had just done. \"Seriously? That version of us is seriously messed up. I mean literally, she kind of needs more therapy than you do now.\" \n\"You are not a particularly appealing version of where I want to end up in the future, either.\" She deadpanned. The light of the washroom felt warm, almost like a small sun was just born in this place that almost became her tomb. \n\"Ha!\" The woman laughed loudly before bringing her into a huge bear hug. \"Then don't choose to become me, or any of those versions I mentioned earlier. They are all just possible timelines in the future for you. Death is boring, we all know where that road will lead. Future is chaotic and unpredictable. You’ll never know unless you 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: The Little Dancer\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1097\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a casual act of bravery." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "That’s my little sister Reyna over there, but I call her ReyRey. My mom says it’s easier for me to say “ReyRey” than it is to say “Reyna.” That doesn’t make sense to me, and I just like to say ReyRey better, but that’s what mom says. Do you see her with the white and blue dress on? Yeah, that’s ReyRey with her black hair pulled back into a ponytail. And that’s my cousin Ligaya next to her in the yellow dress. No, not that one, the one with the white ribbons in her dark brown hair, dressed in the yellow ducky dress. We call her “Li-Li.” I guess we give the girls nicknames in my family. But not us boys. My name is Romy, not RoRo, just Romy. No nickname here. Maybe it’s because I’m nine years old, and the girls are both only six – they’re too young to go by their real names.\nToday is a big day for ReyRey. She’s about to go on stage to perform with her dance troupe, and she is a little nervous. She doesn’t want what happened last time to happen again. What’s that you say? Oh, what happened last time?\nWell, a few weeks ago, I was coming into the house from practicing my jump shot in my backyard. I’m the star of my third-grade basketball team, but you got to keep practicing. Just ‘cause you’re good doesn’t mean the work stops there. You got to keep pushing to get better, don’t ya know?\nAnyway, I walked into the house, and I heard an awful lot of noise upstairs. ReyRey was screaming, and I mean loud. Then I could hear my Dad. He didn’t like it when ReyRey screamed or cried. I walked upstairs and saw ReyRey standing in her dress in front of the TV. That's right, the same blue and white dress she’s got on now. She was facing Daddy who was sitting on the couch.\n“I don’t like how these stockings make me feel!” ReyRey said, stomping on every word.\n“ReyRey, these are the same stockings you wore to school just last week,” daddy said. “They were fine then. Why aren't they fine now?”\n“But I don’t like them with this dress!”\n“I don’t understand. You look really cute in them!”\n“No, I don’t, Daddy! I hate them!”\n“Come here,” Daddy had ReyRey sit on his lap. He tried to comfort and calm her down. She was breathing hard - almost hyperventilating - and shaking, so finally, Daddy said they could stop and would try to practice again later. After dinner ReyRey did the same thing as she did earlier – she couldn’t practice.\nLater that night when I was supposed to be sleeping, I could hear Mommy and Daddy talking in the hallway outside my bedroom. They leave my door open when I go to bed on account of, they think I’m scared of the dark, but that was a long time ago, when I was eight years old. Since I’m nine now, I don’t need the light on when I go to sleep, but I haven’t told them that, yet.\nMommy was saying that ReyRey was being extreme about wearing the stockings, but it was really about being afraid of dancing in front of people. Mommy was always good about seeing the real reason for things. Daddy said stuff too, but I couldn’t understand him because he likes to talk more quietly. Plus, a lot of times he just huffs and grunts instead of saying words. I think that’s what happens when daddies get older – they make up a daddy language all their own.\nA few days later the performance was at the fairgrounds. ReyRey had agreed to go, but she wasn't so sure. She had on her dress, and they found new stockings that she said would be okay. We were outdoors at a horse racetrack. It was before lunch, but the sun was already shining hot and bright. It was a race day, but there were performances before the races started. The event was for cultural dances, and ReyRey was doing the Itik Itik, a folk dance from the Philippine Islands, where they dance like ducks. I don’t think they look like ducks, but that’s what they tell me.\nWhen they called on the dancers, ReyRey moved to her spot. She was in a group of 10 girls. Li-Li was with her. The music didn’t even start, but ReyRey ran to Mommy who was in the crowd and hid in her arms. After a minute pause, the music started, and the girls finished the dance without ReyRey.\nI was supposed to play the bandurria with my Filipino orchestra in the next act, but instead we left and went home.\nNo one talked about anything on the drive. Actually, no one talked about the dance anymore after that. I think Mommy and Daddy felt bad. They thought they had forced ReyRey into dancing. So, after that no one said anything about dancing, or practicing, or the dance group, or even ducks. It was like it never happened. Daddy took me to bandurria practices in the afternoons and ReyRey stayed at home and watched TV with Lola.\nThen a few weeks later, after dinner, ReyRey put on her blue and white dress and asked Mommy and Daddy if she could practice Itik Itik.\n“ReyRey, you don’t have to do it anymore,” Daddy said. “It’s okay.”\n“I know, Daddy, but I want to do it,” ReyRey said. “I can do it.”\nMommy jumped in. “I know you can do it, but you don’t have to, ReyRey,” she said. “Are you sure? It’s totally fine if you don’t want to do it anymore.”\n“I know. But I can do it,\" ReyRey said. After a long pause she said, \"I want to do it.”\nReyRey practiced at home for a few days, and with the group at rehearsal. She didn’t scream about the stockings anymore.\nAnd that’s how we got to today. ReyRey walked right up to her spot when the dance was about to begin. She didn’t look like she did the last time. She was breathing much slower. She looked over at Li-Li before the music started and then they started dancing. She did the whole dance and didn’t make one mistake. They even looked like ducks this time. ReyRey finished the performance without running to Mommy – at least not until after the crowd had stopped cheering.\n“I didn’t even cry, Mommy,” ReyRey said looking up.\nBut Mommy and Daddy 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: Coloring\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1196\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story where fortune doesn’t favor the brave." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Today is Saturday March two and I brung 4 of my crayons because mommy said I’m not allowed to bring all 8. I brung red, blue, and yellow because in Kindergarten we learned that you can make all the colors with red, blue, and yellow, only I don’t think you can make pink. Pink is my favorite color. I also brung brown because, in my Barbie coloring book, the page I want to do today, Barbie is holding a puppy and the puppy is brown and I don’t know how to make brown with red, blue, and yellow, even though I’m in Grade One now. Maybe we learn brown in Grade Two.\nWe’re in our new car and it’s also brown, on the inside and the outside but on the outside it’s shiny brown. Daddy got it from his friend at Church, I think, and he says it’s not new but I like to call it our new car because we didn’t have a car before. Our new car was sitting outside for a long time and daddy only drove it at nighttime and he told me not to tell my friends in Grade One. He said he was practicing for his test and I said is it like a spelling test, because Mrs. Pennyway says I’m really good at spelling tests, and she’s nice.\nDaddy’s test was yesterday and I think he did it good because they gave him a paper and now he says it’s ok to drive at daytime too and he’s really happy and mommy’s really happy so I’m really happy too!\nNow it’s daytime and we’re driving, but it’s really early daytime. I didn’t even have my Cheerios yet. Daddy drives us to the big pool where I have my swimming lessons, but there’s no cars here and the lights are all dark. Maybe that’s why mommy said to bring my coloring book and 4 crayons, maybe we’re not gonna swim. That’s ok, because I hate swimming!\nDaddy makes the car stop beside the big building and then he talks to mommy. She’s sitting in the other front, where only big people can sit, and she’s kind of mad. I think it’s because she hates swimming too. They talk about the paper daddy got yesterday, and he says he wants mommy to have a paper too, and they say lots of big people Chinese words.\nI’m coloring Barbie’s hair yellow, it’s a posed to always be yellow. Sometimes I color her sister Stacie’s hair brown, even though that’s a posed to be yellow too, but only sometimes. I love coloring.\nDaddy gets out of our new car and then he goes to mommy’s door and opens it. She doesn’t get out, so daddy waits and waits and then he tells her to be brave. Mommy still doesn’t get out, but then she takes off her seatbelt and stands up, and daddy is really happy. I take off my seatbelt to get out too, maybe we are going swimming, but then daddy sits in mommy’s chair and then mommy goes and sits where the driving wheel is! Wow, mommy! I say, because only daddies usually sit there! I don’t think she heard me, so I say it again more louder: wow, mommy! She looks back to me but her face is scared and she tells me to be quiet and do my coloring. Ok.\nI put my seatbelt back on because the safety officer at Grade One says you have to always wear a seatbelt. Mommy isn’t putting her seatbelt back on and I want to tell her what the safety officer said, but I don’t want her to be mad at me. Maybe big people don’t have to wear seatbelts like little kids do. Mommy is scary when she’s mad at me. I be quiet and do my coloring.\nIt’s kind of hard to do the small parts because my crayons aren’t pointy like new anymore, they’re round at the top and I have to peel the papers. Julie, at Grade One, her crayon box has a crayon sharper on it. I tried to sharp one of my crayons with my pencil sharper, but it was too fat to fit in the circle. I say to mommy and daddy I wish one day I can have a crayon box with a sharper on it, but they don’t hear me. Daddy is pointing at mommy’s feet and saying one is to stop and one is to go fast, and that’s silly because you need two feets to go fast! Daddy turns the key and our new car makes rumble sounds.\nMommy goes around and around in the big parking lot. Sometimes daddy says a big noise and grabs the driving wheel.\nMaybe I can ask Julie to borrow me her crayon sharper. She’s nice because she invited me to her birthday party. Can I go to Julie’s birthday party? I say, but daddy says shh! really loud and waves his hand very big at me. Ok.\nMaybe I won’t ask Julie to borrow me her crayon sharper. Sometimes, when she uses it, a lot of her crayon gets sharped off, like wasting. Mommy and daddy get really mad when I waste, even though I’m not doing it a purpose. Like if I don’t use all two sides of a paper for my drawing, or if I can’t finish all my food.\nDaddy points to the big street outside the parking lot and mommy goes that way. Daddy is happy.\nEven though my yellow crayon is round at the top, I go really careful and stay inside the lines, and then Barbie’s hair is all done! I get my red crayon to do the puppy’s sticky-out-y tongue, and I go really really soft so maybe it can look like pink—\nMommy screams!\nI look up and see a man in a big truck, he is very scared! Our new car crashes in his truck and my seatbelt hurts tight on my tummy and my coloring book falls down—\n-\nThere’s safety officers talking to mommy and daddy but they’re not nice like the safety officer at Grade One. Mommy is crying because she hit her head hard on the big front window. Daddy is showing the paper he got yesterday, and I think he is scared even though daddies are never scared. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t like talking English. The man in the truck is very sad because his door is on the road now. Our new car is all broked and it doesn’t look so new anymore. There’s lots of glass on the road so I’m sitting far away by myself, doing my coloring.\nI made a big red line on Barbie’s face on accident when the cars crashed. It’s all wrong now. My red crayon got broked, too. I use a broked piece and color more red on Barbie’s face, and then on the puppy’s face, even though that’s wrong too. I make big ugly red scribbles outside the lines and all over the page until everything is red and messy and wrong.\nI hope mommy can stop crying soon." } ]

[ { "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: Who Let the Dogs Out?\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1972\n\nPrompt:\n\nYour character, by chance or habit, peers through a telescope. They see something unusual — what is it?" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Chandra Lal peers through his telescope at the deep, ebony sky. It’s a clear night, his favorite kind of night for star gazing. Although he’s in an attic and not outside like he would prefer, he’s pushed open the window to get a clearer view above him. He focuses the lens to get a better look at two of the four Jovian moons which rotate around Jupitar. As he turns the tube towards Saturn to see if he can get a glimpse at any of its visible moons, he hears a couple dogs barking below him. He checks his watch to see how much time he has left before his mom may start to worry that he’s been gone too long: he has about fifteen minutes left. Five years ago, he found this telescope in the attic when his family bought the kennel near their house. As soon as he saw it, regally posed by the window, he was intrigued by it. Not knowing anything about space, he purchased the book, Astronomy for Dummies, to learn the basics. He had replaced the lens on the telescope since the original one was badly scratched and gave it a good cleaning. After that, he was hooked. Every night since then, when he’s on duty to let the dogs out to relieve themselves, he sneaks up to the attic to get a glimpse at the world above him.\n“I’ll be down soon!” he shouts to the dogs as if they can understand what he’s saying. Tonight, they have nine dogs boarded in their kennel, which is a slow night for them. But it’s winter; not as many people go on vacations this season or need help with their pets. When they first moved here, his mother had been worried that they wouldn’t bring in enough money with the kennel, but his dad had persisted that businesses take time to build themselves up. They had started out with only a few dogs a week and now during the busy season, sometimes they had up to twenty dogs a night! In five more years, who knows what could happen; maybe they would have to open a second kennel! Chandra Lal is in school during the day, so his only chore is to let the dogs out once before he goes to bed. His parents pay him so it’s more than worth it since he gets a chance to sneak up and use the telescope whenever it’s a clear night out. He craves the peace and quiet up in his observatory, away from his crowded house and crowded school.\nAs Chandra Lal focuses the lens on the vastness of Saturn, he spies a sphere-shaped object zip past his viewpoint. Quickly, he pulls his head away from the telescope and shakes his head. Was that a plane? he wonders. No, it was too close. He puts his face back up to the eyepiece and peers through it, trying to see if he can determine what it was that flew by. He moves the tube from side to side slowly, and as he does, he sees the object hovering about a mile or so away above the bean fields. He focuses his lens to get a better look at it and before he can make out a clear picture, the object quickly drops to the ground and as if in unison, the lens on his telescope cracks. Startled by the breaking glass, he steps back quickly and assesses the cracked pieces of glass on the ground below him. Instantly, he begins to hear even more dogs barking below the wooden floorboards.\n“Okay, Okay!” he shouts down to the dogs, “I’m coming!” He bends down and picks up the pieces of shattered glass. As he walks them over to the trash bin in the corner of the attic, a few dogs sound like they’re starting to whimper. He wonders if that dang chihuahua, Taiko, got the other dogs all riled up. He knew Taiko was bad news as soon as its owner dropped it off yesterday. It yaps and yaps and makes even the calmer dogs on edge. His Aunt, Kalinda Gill, had told him she just let the dogs out a few hours ago after she fed them dinner, so he’s not sure why the dogs are all going nuts. As he steps down the attic stairs, he can’t get that object out of his head. What could it have been? A kid’s drone? No, it was too big for that. And why did his lens break right when it dropped? Through all his studies of the galaxy, he believes there is life somewhere else out there. But right in his back yard? And right while he was looking through his telescope? That, he can’t believe. The barking grows louder as Chandra Lal walks closer to the room where the dogs are kept in their crates. He crosses through the play area, picking up some stray toys and tossing them into the toy bin as he nears the howling dogs.\n“I’m here, I’m here!” he hollers as he takes the keys out of his pocket and jiggles the key with the red band around it into the keyhole. “Potty time!” he declares as he opens the door with a wide swing. Suddenly, the barking stops. It’s so quiet, he could hear a sui drop if he had one. “Hello?” he shouts as he feels along the wall for the light switch. He finds the lever and turns on the overhead lights, the zinging sound of neon lightbulbs buzzing on in the ceiling above him. He looks around the room and his jaw drops open.\nThe crates are all there like they have been every day for the past five years. But inside, there are no dogs. Chandra Lal rubs his eyes and looks again, not sure if he can believe what he’s seeing. Or really, what he’s not seeing. He knows there were nine dogs in here. His aunt told him they were here. He had heard them barking only seconds ago. But now, there are zero. Had they escaped? But their crates are all latched shut. He feels for his phone in his back pocket, but remembers he left it on the kitchen table before he left. He curses to himself since he can’t call his mom or dad to ask where the dogs could be. He walks around the large, cement room searching for any evidence of the canines, but sees nothing. There are no doors for them to get out of; the only way out would be the door he came through. He walks back out to the playroom. “Hello?” he shouts, wondering if he forgot that someone else was going to take the dogs for a walk. No, they wouldn’t at this hour. Night duty was his job. He runs outside to see if he can find any clues to where the dogs could be. As soon as he walks outside, a bright light in the shape of a pentagon shines from across the bean field where he saw the object fall earlier. He covers his eyes to protect them from the bright light and squints as the light beam glows. He wishes he had his phone more than ever. He hears barking towards the light. Or is he making it up in his head? Did the dogs get out somehow and run towards the light? He debates if he should run towards the light or run and get his parents. He turns and runs as fast as he can towards his house which is about a quarter mile away. As he approaches his house, he sees his mom in the window, washing dishes. He breathes a sigh of relief as he runs inside, panting furiously.\n“Mam!” he yells as he bends over, resting his hands on his knees. “The dogs...there’s some sort of UFO. I think they got them…,” he tries to get the words out.\n“What in the world are you talking about, Beta?” his mother asks as she dries her hands off onto the towel hanging from her shoulder.\n“I was looking through the telescope and saw a flying object land in the field…” he gasps.\n“Telescope?” his mom interrupts him. “You know you’re not supposed to be playing with that when you’re on dog duty, Putra,” she scolds.\nChandra Lal shakes his head at her reprimand. “You aren’t understanding me! The dogs are all missing! I heard them barking and they’re gone now!” he tries to make his message clearer to her.\n“Gone?” she snaps. “What do you mean gone? Where did they go?” she shouts as she walks towards the other room where his dad is watching TV.\n“Sitara, get in here! Your son is saying the dogs have vanished!” Chandra Lal has almost caught his breath as his father walks into the room hastily with the news of the vanished dogs.\n“Missing, you say?” his father asks with trepidation.\n“Yes, come see for yourself!” Chandra Lal yells as he grabs his parents’ hands and pulls them towards their car. His parents follow him quickly to their car and they all pile inside.\n“What is this talk of a flying object? Did someone break into the kennel?” his mother asks as his father speeds the car towards the kennel.\n“I saw a flying object land over there by the fields,” Chandra Lal says as he points towards the bean field in the distance. He notices there are no lights coming from the field anymore. It’s pitch black.\n“Over there?” his father points to where the object landed.\n“Yes,” Chandra Lal points again, “Right there.” As they near the kennel, he hears silence. “See?” he says as they park the car and step outside. “No barking. They’re gone!” His parents hastily rush inside, and he follows them anxiously. It’s eerily quiet. They step into the kennel, walk through the play area, and go to the back room where the dogs are kept. The lights are off. Didn’t he leave them on? He was certain he did. His mom flicks on the switch.\n“No dogs you say?” his mom asks mockingly as the three of them look at all nine dogs sound asleep in their crates. They are so quiet, Chandra Lal almost thinks they may be dead until he sees the beagle in crate number three roll over. He scratches his head in confusion.\n“No, they weren’t here earlier, I swear!” he urges as he walks deeper into the room to inspect the dogs.\n“Beta, I’ve had enough of your sapanas for the week,” his father says as he turns and walks towards the car. “I need to go to sleep.”\n“Did you at least walk them?” his mother asks, looking concerned.\n“Mam, how could I have walked them if they weren’t here?” Chandra Lal asks her.\nHis mom rests her hand on his shoulder and closes her eyes. “No more stargazing until the dogs are let out from now on, understand?” she informs him.\nHe nods his head and watches as his mom follows his father towards the car. He walks over to the dogs, all asleep in their crates.\n“Hey, Taiko,” he says to the little Chihuahua. “Where’d you go earlier?” he asks it as he reaches his fingers in the crate and rubs its nose. Taiko stirs and turns over, exposing its tan belly. And that’s when Chandra Lal sees it. A small pentagon shaped mark, exactly the same shape as what he saw coming from the field, etched into Taiko’s skin. It still looks raw. “They won’t believe me even if I told them,” he whispers to Taiko as he gives it one last rub and walks towards the car. He still has homework to do before bed." } ]

[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Our Father\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1384\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story where a character is exploring their religious or spiritual identity." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "(Note: Lola = grandmother)\n“Peace be with you.”\n“And also with you.”\nThe cold water lingered on my forehead, traveling slowly before settling on the lines in between my eyebrows. Even though it had been over thirty years, stepping foot into the church was like riding a bicycle—you stumbled and swerved at the beginning until you got your bearings again. I looked down at the open casket, taking in a cleansing breath as I stared at your face, pale and peaceful. A stark contrast to how I’d describe you when you were alive.\nOur father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name;\nYou’d always been the ultimate authority figure of the household—the final say in anything and everything. Curiosity was a mistake, and when you were challenged, it was not ‘the Asian way.’ Eventually, I was numb to the feelings of powerlessness—grinding my teeth to the sound of mom’s whimpers as you choked her. Even though I lacked friends, muffled cries and salty tears were familiar companions.\nThy kingdom come,\nKneeling behind a church pew felt different at this age, but as I whiffed the wooden smell of incense burning at the altar, it transported me back to all those Sundays as a child. The first time we arrived in the church courtyard, the sun’s rays reflected off the stained-glass window. I’d squint at the kaleidoscope of bright lights, catching my breath as we walked inside.\nWeek after week, I’d laugh with my brothers, who stood on the kneeler to say their prayers, their little bodies too short. You’d scold us for being noisy, but we were protected in church because you wouldn’t hurt us in the house of the Lord (in front of others). Funny how church became my refuge—a safe place from the Bible you wielded with a heavy hand.\nThy will be done,\nI looked up at the cross, curling my lip as I studied His crown. The Lord made us all in His image. But every rose had its thorns, and even shadows dwelled in the most illuminated sanctuaries. A subtle hint of original sin, something we all brought with us into the world. It varied from one person to another, and depending on the eye of the beholder, could be forgiven. \nMost things could be atoned for, anyway.\n‘What would your Lola back home think?’ you would ask me as I looked at the floor with reddened eyes. If America was so evil, then why did you bring us here? It was hard to be different from the other kids. My skin was not porcelain, my eyes were not beautifully blue. A lunchbox filled with rice instead of potato chips, my black hair was a pimple in the blond sea of heads at school. \nMy chest tightened as I covered my ears to drown out your words. Is my love… broken?\nMy affection for the boy next door was not ‘the Asian way.’ You blamed my American friends, as if they told my heart how to feel. Did you play any part in Adam moving away? I suppose it didn’t matter in the end. My stomach churned as I yearned for your approval—I needed it like the drugs that kept the shadows away at night. \nSo when I fell in love with Adam, I married Eve instead. \nOn earth as it is in heaven.\nThe women in front of me wore black veils over their faces. It reminded me of how mom hid her ‘oopsie doopsies’ with makeup. Lucky for me, you never touched my face—long sleeves covered heavy arms that pulled my shoulders low on hot summer days. We all hid behind different shields. Would you ever tell me what you were running from?\n“He’s in a better place now,” they said to me. I narrowed my eyes, wondering who they were. Why didn’t I know them? Were they with you whenever you were ‘working late’? I sneezed, wishing they hadn’t worn cheap perfume for your funeral. Knowing you, they were gifts that mom didn’t want.\nOne of them clutched her rosary, gliding her hands across each bead as she muttered memorized prayers. I remember the first one you gave me—plastic pearls of blue as bright as the sky. Oh, how I cherished it, trembling with every prayer, asking the Lord to transform me into something worthy of your love. ‘People like me’ didn’t deserve to be in Heaven, but would He grant me my wish someday?\nGive us this day our daily bread,\nWeek after week, I clenched my teeth as you accepted the wafer and drank the wine. You were worthy of His body and blood, yet I was not. Despite the drunken nights, the bruises you gave mom, the flirtatious whispers that tickled other women’s ears, and my bones that you broke… you were absolved because you loved the Eves and I loved the Adams.\nAnd forgive us our trespasses,\nI averted my gaze when she squeezed my hand. Our vows all those years ago were nothing more than empty promises, but we made it work. We raised our three children with an unspoken covenant, staying with them long enough to get them to college. You taught me how much our actions affected others, and I wanted to give them a better life than mine. But after the divorce, they hated me all the same.\nPerhaps we are destined to repeat the mistakes of our fathers.\nAs we forgive those who trespass against us;\nWhen I sipped from the cup, the crimson liquid jerked my memories back to your leather belt as it slapped against my tender skin. My mouth pinched as I washed blood-crusted clothes in the bathtub, retching from the odor of wet, rusty paper clips swimming in a pool of tears. The only thing I feared more than your Bible was your fist.\nAnd lead us not into temptation,\nA master of deception, you concealed your flaws instead of revealing them. No one could judge the things hidden behind the veil. Divorce was not ‘the Asian way’ of living; yet it was acceptable to flutter from one woman to another as long as you had a ring on your finger and a wife willing to look the other way. But I couldn’t follow in your footsteps. Eve deserved better than that. \nSo when I remarried later in life, you rebuked me. He was always my 'roommate' or my 'best friend.' Even though the world had moved on, you were still stuck in the past. I rubbed the back of my neck as you cursed me for acting ‘like an American’ and that ‘Lola would turn in her grave’ if she could see me now.\nBut deliver us from evil.\nIs the afterlife the same as they taught us—a binary Heaven and Hell? Or is it like the high school cafeteria, where everyone sat at different tables? Thinking back on it, I never really had a tribe to call my own, aimlessly floating between different worlds. I was always too dumb for the brainiacs, too scrawny for the jocks, too awkward for the cool kids, and too guarded for anyone else.\nI stared at your tombstone as the raindrops pelted on my forehead, lamenting on thoughts buried within me, too deep for tears. I wondered if you were up there right now, watching me, judging me. You’d always said ‘people like me’ didn’t belong in Heaven. Is it a place only for the ones who followed all your rules? For the men who loved women; the ones who went to church every Sunday; the ones who honored their fathers; and the devout who erased their sins with vacuous prayers while sipping on grape juice and chewing on stale crackers?\nI laid the rose on the granite stone and looked up at the sky, a mosaic of white and gray. Leaning back as the rain washed over my head, my soul finally escaped from the holy shackles of your conditional love.\nAre you waiting for me in Heaven, Father? If so, I’ll ask Lucifer to save me a seat in His kingdom, instead.\nMy lips pressed together, I walked away from you for the last time—my breath transformed into air as I finally exhaled, becoming the person I’d always wanted to be.\nAmen." } ]

[ { "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 MOTHER AGAIN\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1005\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with the line, “It had been twenty-four years since she’d last seen it, but the place looked exactly the same,” and end it with, “[…] and that was all that mattered.”" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "It had been twenty-four years since she’d last seen it, but the place looked exactly the same, blue sky, open air, with tall trees that reached the sky. Past the vineyards, beyond the trees, was the old house that was once home. Like a loaf of bread taken out too soon from the oven, it seemed to have collapsed inward on itself. The windows that were no longer rectangular had no glasses, and the termites had feasted on the wooden framed doors. The grass around the homestead was the same height as the oak trees that once acted as swings for her and Peace. They always desired to climb them, but their mother convinced them to wait for a few years until their bones were stronger. They waited, but it turned out to be a long wait, and by the time they presumed they were now fit for that exercise, they couldn’t climb anymore. Young ladies could not climb trees or ride bicycles. Not that they were mature by then, but they were 7 and considered being of age. They had 6 years left to become wives to men as old as their grandfathers, start working for a baby, and become mothers like their own. Without a doubt, that joined the list of the things they never did but could have done. It was a tough time being a girl growing up in the countryside. You were a birthing machine, and that is all they prepared you for. You had to learn from your mother while waiting for the time you would be ripe to perform the same function. Formal schooling was unheard of; waste of precious time that would go to dishwashing, cooking, knitting, or doing laundry. Their widowed mother had learned the hard way what it takes to raise two children. She had lost her husband a few months after giving birth, and much as she received help from different hands, it was never enough.\nVenturing into the man’s territory of work to make ends meet, she welcomed whatever paying job she came across with open hands to provide all that her girls needed. This came with a fair deal of ridicule, as it’s expected when breaking stereotypes, but she persevered and was the first one to demand the right to education for her two girls, whom she often left home alone. School seemed the perfect haven for them compared to the house where she often left them alone. She loved them and wanted them well equipped, which didn’t come at a cheap cost. Wearing the shoes of both father and mother, she did whatever she came across and took radical decisions for the welfare of her family, including sending her daughters to the only willing school 5 miles away which accommodated them. Her efforts were not in vain. Her daughters took their education at heart, and both ended up as public school teachers. They found employment in the city, got married, and their mother, in her frail state, went to live with Peace, who was more established, with a bigger house and wallet. Twenty-four years later, transferred to head a new all-girls school, Hope was now back to the place she once called home. Much as the job came with accommodation, the house she grew up from drew her heart close. They abandoned it for twenty-four years but it was still firm regardless of the encroachment by dry leaves, grass, crawling insects, and birds. She hoped it housed no reptiles, but of course, there had to be some geckos and lizards. Standing at what was once their porch, it amazed her at how fast time passed by and the things it carries with it. She had never seen her father, but saw most of the things her mother went through to bring them up. She remembered how they treated them as different species in school because they were the only girls, but how they persisted because they had no option. “It’s funny that I am now going to head an all-girls school,” she thought to herself.\nTime hadn’t taken away some things, but also brought about a great deal of changes in the general way of life and traditions. Girls would now own bicycles and even race with the boys. It was now almost a taboo for parents to offer their thirteen-year-old girls for marriage. Having sexual relations with a girl of that age was now “defilement.” Women were no longer confined to their homes like before, but also took part in the pie in the world of work. But the greatest change of all was in education. Being literate was so paramount and at the core of everything. Parents introduced children to formal education right from infancy. They taught them classical music, stories, geography, history, art, and foreign languages. It was a known fact that the more knowledge one had, the better for survival. Parents sent their children to camps, and anything they believed could make them excel in the world. Her illiterate mother without knowledge gave them the best gift any parent could ever give to their children. Now that she was a mother, she was doing her best to be proactive and give her son, whom she considered privileged the best her mother would have done if it were her. Because her mother, in defying all norms, earned a position in being among the best if not the best mother in the world. But life had not been so kind to her, and she was rather disappointed with everything going on. She had failed at her marriage, her career was not as progressive at least as compared to her twin sister, and she had no considerable material wealth. Much as her mother was proud of her, she did not feel the same, and accepting this job in Wisconsin, where she grew up, was the perfect escape to the pressures of the urban life. She only cared about her only child, her ten-year-old son, and that was all that mattered." } ]

[ { "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: Genesis 51\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1418\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story where a character is exploring their religious or spiritual identity." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "In the beginning, God opened his arms to the little girl and her single mother. They found Him in the basement of a Chinese church, where for the first time they didn’t feel like strangers in this foreign land they’d just arrived in. They could speak their own tongue and eat their own food, and it was safe. The girl saw her mother laugh and it made her laugh, too, because she thought her mother had forgotten how to do that. Her mother was glowing with a joyful light, and the girl wanted her to have that all the time. But when they returned home to their own basement, the laughter echoed away and the joy was extinguished and it became cold again. So they went back to the church the following Sunday, and every Sunday after that. And the girl saw that the light was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.\nAnd God said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these.” (Matthew 19:14). And it was so: the girl went to God unhindered and she liked that He was her Holy Father because she didn’t have a father. She liked being in a nice room with so many nice people, everyone singing songs together, giving hugs, sharing food. In Sunday School, she memorized her Bible verses and learned all of Jesus’s parables. She was not a liar and she knew it was wrong to cheat and steal, so she was happy to be safe with so many other kids who felt the same way. Even when her Tamagotchi got lost and the next week the pastor’s kid had the exact same one with even the same scratches, she knew it would be bad to accuse him, especially in front of others, and she didn’t want to be bad so she stayed quiet and good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.\nAnd God said, “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.” (Mark 16:16) And it was so: the pre-teen did not want to be condemned so she put on the ivory robe and nervously stepped down into the lukewarm water that her pastor was waiting waist-deep in, in the hole they’d uncovered in the stage. She was trying to hide behind her long black hair because so many people were watching and she didn’t want them to see all the pimples on her forehead. Her mom was being so embarrassing with her camera, please don’t let it flash oh my gosh it was flashing. She tried to focus on repeating the words the pastor was saying to her, and eventually her embarrassment and fear did fade away. Her heart swelled at being accepted into this new tribe, at the tepid water washing her clean of her sins as she was plunged into it—backwards?! Wait this was not what they’d rehearsed! She emerged coughing and spluttering but as the water rushed back out and the sounds rushed back in they were all clapping and cheering so nobody heard her and she could barely hear herself but it was okay because everyone was so happy and she was happy too. And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.\nAnd God said, “Thou shalt not have premarital sex.” (At least, the teenager was pretty sure He did because that’s what everyone kept telling her even though she couldn’t find the actual verse. Paul said it a lot, though.) On Sundays, she played drums in the worship band and taught Sunday School, passing Jesus’ parables along to a whole new generation of little ones. On Tuesdays, she went to Youth Group with some of her high school friends where they didn’t speak Chinese and could, therefore, say the word “sex” out loud. One time, the youth pastor handed a white rose to someone sitting in the front row of the gathering and asked them to pass it along. It went from one hand to a hundred others, and all the while the pastor talked about sexual purity and holiness. At the end the rose came back to him, broken, bruised, torn, never to be beautiful again. Useless. Her friends nodded in agreement all around her, but she could not. On Fridays, she saw her boyfriend she was trying to save and tried not to think about the rose or the fact that she would never deserve to wear a white wedding dress, but instead she thought hard about both those things and about how she was useless. For years. And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.\nAnd God said several things that sounded very similar to what a lot of the other monotheistic deities were saying in the young woman’s comparative religions class at college. Everyone was told to check their personal religions at the door, and she found it increasingly difficult to reclaim hers at the end of each session. The Holy Book (all of them) was just a textbook here, and she found she liked it better that way: as history and mythology instead of a literal account and life manual. Plus there was that Apocrypha. The on-campus Christian groups seemed above all else interested in controlling her life, yet she did not find any of their lives to be desirable models. She searched for answers elsewhere. “Wait a minute. Are you looking for absolute truth?” Each professor would ultimately ask when she came knocking. “Yes!” She would answer with great excitement. “Oh, you won’t find that here.” Evening, morning—the fifth day.\nAnd God said … nothing. He was silent when her high school friends grew up and got married and found that they had no identities beyond “virgin,” and sunk into depression. He was silent when her first Sunday School teacher drowned himself in the lake she grew up next to, weighing himself down with a big rock. He was silent when she was the only one willing to drive her sobbing friend to the abortion clinic a few months after the friend had discovered that abstinence meant no understanding of alcohol tolerance, and no understanding of men. He was silent when she realized he couldn’t be real, this all-powerful being that men had created for themselves, whom they believed to be deeply concerned with which women they dated or which stocks they picked. In his silence, she imagined a rug being pulled out from under her, and beneath it was empty infinity, and she was falling. Suddenly, an omnipotent, omnipresent, omnibenevolent, omniscient being was not looking out for her every move. Suddenly, death really was the end. Suddenly, her life was not part of some grand plan and she was as insignificant as everyone else in the eyes of the universe. But in reality, it was nothing like falling. Instead there was evening, and there was morning—\nAnd the sun rose and it was a miracle of a very different sort than what I’d grown up being told about: perfectly distanced and balanced to sustain life on this particular planet during this particular nanosecond in the unfathomably vast timeline of the universe, and I was impossibly lucky, impossibly unlikely, to be here. Infinity is underneath me and all around me, mysteries that we are unlocking together as a species that evolved to where we are today through just about everything but intelligent design. Death really is the end, it has always been, and this life, every second of it, is all I will ever get and is therefore precious beyond belief. My existence is not part of someone else’s grand plan, I am free to make it my own. Successes are not the blessings of an invisible hand, they are earned and they are mine. Failures are also not the corrections of an invisible hand, they are also earned and they are also mine. I am insignificant in the eyes of the universe, but we who share this mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam, we who are real and responsible for the pale blue dot we all call home, we can choose to live purposefully like we only get one chance or we can choose to live complacently like we are just rehearsing for heaven. But that one chance is the closest to absolute truth that I have found.\nOn the seventh day, god rested. And I got 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: Hungry Hippo\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1748\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story about a teenager whose family is moving." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I stared out of the white window of our living room onto the front yard of our neighbors across the street. Not that we could call them neighbors since we haven’t met them yet. Well, we had, but just the mother, who, given she had two kids the same age as me and my brother, seemed very curious about the newcomers at her children’s school. She regarded us with the air of interlopers and seemed genuinely perplexed by our names when she asked for them. “Amrita and Akshay” we had politely replied to which she brightly retorted that she would call us “A squared instead”.\nShe was out on the yard now, piling her family into a large van, a minibus in my opinion, but as I had already come to understand in my first month in this country, it’s a family’s main mode of transportation through the clean, freshly tarred streets where pedestrians were as rare as a wolf sighting. You knew they were lurking, but they didn’t want to be seen, and if you did chance upon them, you’d avoid them. Coming from a country where space was meant for people to nestle into, I didn’t get why space was so highly respected here. But there was a lot I didn’t get.\nI now looked at the girl, my classmate, stepping into the car, her shiny yellow hair swinging straight behind her like a personal fan. She was wearing blue denim shorts, the kind that graced the Gap and Abercrombie and Fitch catalogs that had accidentally showed up in our mailbox. Appa had put them in the recycling bin but I had snuck them out of there and into my room to pore over before my first day at school. I saw pages and pages of girls who looked like the girl across the street, with their pencil-thin bodies poured in perfectly placed shorts elongating their porcelain legs. I looked down at my knees (usually hidden under jeans)- the same dark mahogany as my nipples - that sat starkly on my legs that were scarred with bites from mosquitos that came out at night at my grandmother’s home back in India. I didn’t know what girls with knees my color wore; I couldn’t find any in the catalogs, or in the copy of Teen Vogue I had begged Amma to buy.\nI still hadn’t forgiven Amma and Appa for moving us across the oceans, from the buzzing streets of Mumbai to the lazing cul de sacs of Raleigh. I had left behind dozens of friends, my crush, and streets that felt familiar with the cacophony of my favorite chaat stalls and droning auto rickshaws. Here, on these vast, empty streets where greenery took up more room than people, I don’t know where I stood. The first week at school had been pleasant enough; not as horrible as I expected based on American high school movies where the popular kids go out of their way to haze the dorks. I’d learned later from a cousin who went to public school, that it wasn’t as surprising that the kids in my private school were polite. “They have rich parents who train them at golf clubs and dinner parties,” she scoffed before adding, “Hmmm, are you rich? How come you’re going to private school?” I wasn’t quite sure if we were rich; certainly, we were living in the biggest house we ever had, but looking around our neighborhood it seemed all American homes only came in this size.\nIt really could have been a lot worse that first week of school, I reassure myself as I watch the boy across the street, my brother’s age, dash into the car, lacrosse stick in hand. Mostly the week had just been awkward. Like when the English class teacher, Ms. Lindquist had stumbled with my name while welcoming me. “Uhh Ammm-reeta Shiekaren, oh goodness did I say that right?” Thinking it to be a genuine question, I proceeded to correct her, “It’s pronounced Uhmritha Shekharun.” Ms. Lindquist’s green eyes widened with bewilderment before saying, “OK great, well welcome to Green Hope, I am sure you will settle in very quickly, errr…A.” By the fifth time I went through this charade with other teachers and fellow classmates, I gave up correcting them, realizing my name was a burden on their tongue. And then there was the meeting with the guidance counselor who wanted to know if I had spent the summer prepping for the SATs? “The SA what,” I inquired to which she responded with a gasp. “The SATs, the single most important test you will take which decides which college you will get into, and really your future.” She stuck her hand out with glossy, long red nails and thrust a pamphlet for an SAT prep class into my hand. “You should sign up immediately; you are already behind your classmates who have been prepping for a year and a summer.” I nodded obediently, still not entirely clear what the SAT was.\nPerhaps the most awkward moment had transpired at lunch that Tuesday. My classmate who had been assigned to be my buddy for that first week had invited me to lunch with her friends. Thankful that I didn’t have to skip lunch and hide in the library like I had done the day before, I walked onto the courtyard alive with high school chatter and looked around for Bryanna. After the customary hellos (and stumbles over my name), I took out my lunch salivating, remembering what Amma had packed for me that morning. She had spread coriander chutney on a bread slice before studding it with juicy tomato slices and dusting them all generously with chaat masala. Another bread slice with salted butter pressed down on the chutney slice making it my favorite snack that harkens me back to the streets of Mumbai where sandwiches like these were the perfect diversion on a monsoon afternoon. I unwrapped the sandwich and took an approving look at it before biting into it. The tomatoes burst in my mouth with the spice of the chutney hitting my tongue while the butter cooled it down.\n“Eww…is that mold?” I snapped out of my food stupor. The girl to my right, a brunette with eyes to match who I recognized from my Chemistry class, was eyeing my sandwich with disdain. My stomach flipped as if I had eaten bad takeout. “No no,” I rushed to explain, “it’s just coriander chutney. Um well, I think you call it cilantro? It’s very popular for sandwiches in India. Do you want to try it?” I was poised ready to rip off a piece with my hand for her to try. The girl backed away as if I had just offered her poison before declaring, “It looks like mold, gross.” I sat suspended between my desire to eat the sandwich and to feel less like a hippo at a horse’s table. Shame seeped into my insides and whet my appetite.\nThe family across the street was finally stuffed shut in their mini-bus. The father, wearing bright red shorts that matched his face other than the outline of his sunglasses which now hung around his neck like a bib, maneuvered the car of their driveway and onto the culdesac before straightening it to point in the right direction. Suddenly, the sliding door unveiled a pair of long legs that jumped out and in my direction. I panicked as I realized that the blonde girl was walking toward my house. I duck reflexively wondering if I was going to be told off for looking at them. People were oddly protective of their boundaries here in a way you only can be when space is a birthright. Back in India, you always assumed five of your neighborhood ladies knew your whereabouts at any time, and news traveled faster through these gossip chains than through airwaves.\nThe doorbell rang and I felt my heart thump to the pit of my stomach. Amma and Appa were in the kitchen and my brother was playing video games in the den. I was closest to the door. I walk unsteadily toward it, keenly aware of the frizzy curls framing my face. My oversized Tweety t-shirtdress looked especially hideous at the moment. I willed everything in me to make it to the door instead of running up to hide in my room. I unlocked the door and there she stood, her lustrous hair catching the sun and gleaming gold.\n“Hey, I’m Alex. I am your classmate at Green Hope,” she said all this like she was reading instructions from an IKEA box. I stood staring at her speechless all the while wondering if it would be more or less awkward to say my name which I knew she wouldn’t be able to pronounce. Fortunately, Alex didn’t seem to be waiting for a response from me. “I am having a pool and barbecue party tomorrow at my house. A bunch of our classmates will be there. My mom asked me to invite you.”\nBy this point, I had been joined at the door by my mother smelling like she had jumped headfirst into a curry bath. I noticed Alex crinkle her button nose slightly and I felt my eyes blur with the weight of embarrassment. “Oh hi, Alex. Thank you, so nice of you to invite Amrita. Pool party means you will play in the pool?”\n“Uh yes.”\n“And will there be boys there?” Amma’s words cut through my haze like a blade and I winced. I already knew my mother was flabbergasted by the idea of me walking around in swimwear in front of a group of boys. For what it was worth, I was equally mortified at the idea but would have at least attempted a more refined response. Amma wasn’t giving me any such cover.\nAlex, looking confused at the question, said, “Yes, of course.” The tone of her voice seemed to say, “Yea duh we are sixteen, what do you think?” Before amma could even consider a response, I jumped in, “Thanks for the invite, Alex. I will be there.” Alex turned around and galloped back toward her family’s car, her hair trailing behind her like a luscious mane. I already knew there was a fifty-fifty chance I would fake sickness and bail, but in the meantime, I needed to pore over my Teen Vogue copy for a pool outfit that would cover my knees." } ]

[ { "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: Divorced\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1130\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with someone admitting a secret and end it with someone telling a lie." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Theresa was barred from her children, home, and business place until she appeared in court; she would never think of doing something like that to her family or a loved one. He did things without thinking about the consequences. It was not personal; it was a military mindset. Thursday night, she went to dinner with her girlfriend, which she hasn't spent time in a long time ever since he quit financial services. She got home at ten-thirty at night, the police car put their headlight, and she wondered what was going on. Two police officers approached her and asked, \"are you Theresa and she answered yes, and they said that they have a restraining order for her from her spouse Mat because she got upset and threw the computer, printer, and phone on the floor. There was no way she would want to do anything that would land her in jail, she loved the finer things in life, and he was not worth it. She was raised without a father, and she missed that kind of relationship; therefore, she would not wish that on her children or her worst enemies. Her upbringing was not like his; she and her sisters were sheltered from a lot of experiences. She signed the paper, read it, and went into the house to call her brother James who lives in Texas. She could not believe that her spouse went that far, but she wasn't surprised since she heard the stuff that he said to his blood son because he didn't want to run the branch in New York anymore. That was going to disturbed his plan and changed his routine. A few minutes later, the same police officers showed up at the house and told her that she had to vacate the house because Mat would stay at home with their son Jaden. They told her to pack her stuff and leave the house; she told the policemen this was a man that I raised his two children without any financial, emotional, and physical help from their maternal mom. She was great at packing; therefore, she took as much as she can. The last time she left the house for two weeks and stayed at her sister in Westfield, she had Lily came and helped her thrown her stuff out included her children's baby items. She also called her brother to come and help; as soon as Lilli pulled up in front of the house, Theresa hand her some things. She filled up her car with so many personal items, even her safe box, that helped her not feel the pain she was experiencing. It took a person that came from the street to do something that way. While all of this was happening, Mat was at the Dunking donut around the corner, meeting with Jude, Marie, and Antonio. Her friend Carly went there. That was how she knew that information.\nShe went to Frank and Lilly's house and focus on what she was going to do these times because it was serious and how she was going to move on from that. On Saturday morning, she went to see someone that could give her advice about what she was up against. The person helped her and told her what to do, and remind her how the relationships were messed up, but she has to protect herself by getting a lawyer. Mat had already experiences that kind of life, Theresa didn't sign up for this. She was able to be around all kinds of society, the less fortunate and the wealthy. She forgave Mat for what he did, but she still had to protect herself and get her children back. Part of her wanted to run away. Theresa asked God for the strength to do this for her children, and God granted her the request. The judge told Mat and her to communicate about the children and the Business only. She texted him to find out where their youngest son was, but he never answered; she called the NY location and found out her son was there, and her sister went to pick up her son. As soon as he saw her, he ran outside and said, let's go. He would not wait to get out and be with Theresa.\nAt the house, her brother-in-law came and changed the locks at the door for her. Her youngest sister and her children stayed at home with her and her son. They watched a movie, and she started to download her works from the small laptop because she told him that she would give it to him when he showed up at the house with two police officers to pick up his items without any warnings. He wanted to get the laptop, she told him that she wasn't done with it yet, and he got upset, but she ignored his tantrum. She has been using the laptop for over a month to do her work for the dojos and the boutiques.\nShe had to remember that she was dealing with a total stranger, and she had to treat him that way. She realized that she had to make some changes at the dojos, take over the payrolls, the account of Kingdom management, and fired the manager. Better yet, she kept the schools in Westfield, and he got the schools in Brooklyn, Queens, and the kingdom management group. Theresa, I would like it very much if we agreed. I know it is much better than having a judge decide for us. Your lawyer is the only one winning and will continue to take your money, and the outcome will not be that different. Lawyers tend to make things longer so that they can make more money.\nOnly he will win. You and I will face a significant loss, and ultimately our children will be affected. Please put feelings to the side about this and think of what this is doing to both of us, to our children. I cannot pay you what you have asked for. I have 20 days to enter a reconsideration hearing, which they will grant because they have not heard my side. Your lawyer is leading you to believe that I can and will pay you, but the truth is that there is no money. \"If I'm forced to pay, they will put out a warrant for my arrest.\" My being in jail does not solve anything. Everything that we have ever worked for will be lost. It will only hurt the children.\nMat told his wife Theresa and children to sacrifice with him, and he'll give them a great future. They were seasons when they sacrificed to plant the seeds they needed to plant to produce the harvest they desire 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: Emi, not Emiko\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1170\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with a character saying “Are you there, God? It’s me…”" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Are you there, God? It’s me, Emi. Emiko. I haven’t said that name out loud in awhile when I introduce myself. I obviously can’t lie to you, though; you know everything about me, least of all my full legal first name, Emiko. I don’t think I’m ashamed of who I am, but I’ve been having a hard time celebrating who I am lately. If that even makes sense. Whenever I meet new people, especially when it requires having my name written down, I say my name is just ‘Emi.” It’s shorter, easy to spell, and not blatantly in your face that I’m Japanese. I also like that I’m not labeled Japanese right away; if I turn in my paper or go to pick up a mobile order, they won’t automatically look at me when my drink is ready because I’m the token Asian girl standing there.\nAnyway, I had a rough day last week, and I think I’m falling down a rabbit hole, which is why I’m talking to you tonight in desperation. I was standing in line at Starbucks downtown, waiting for my mobile order, when someone intentionally bumped into me and said rather loudly, “go back to where you came from.” It caught me off guard for a second. I didn’t even realize he was talking to me at first since we were downtown, and no one has ever said that to me before or publicly judged me. Well, that I know of anyway. He walked over to the mobile pickup area and grabbed his stupid Venti Frappuccino, and continued to mouth off loudly and shout “why can’t these Chinese just go back to where they came from.” I stood there in disbelief. He glared at me and walked out the exit, continuing to mutter under his breath. In retrospect, I don’t think many people even noticed his outburst. The other people standing there were either on their phones scrolling through their never-ending list of emails, talking on the phone, or lost in their thoughts. The only person who acknowledged his outburst was the Starbucks barista who called my name and apologized to me on behalf of the customer as he placed my drink on the counter. I immediately wished I had ordered something hot, despite it being daytime outside, just to feel something warm course through my body. His kind eyes and reassuring gaze made me feel like crying even more than the remarks the jerk had said minutes before. The sympathetic barista asked if I was okay walking to my car or if he should call security, but since I could see my car parked right outside the glass doors, I figured I was okay. I walked to my car and sat there and just sat there, completely dumbfounded. \n Ever since the coronavirus pandemic, my thoughts on being “Asian” have changed and not at all in a positive way. I used to be proud of who I was growing up. My name always served as a good icebreaker when meeting people, a way to give an interesting anecdote about my name. “Emiko” means blessed child, and I was a miracle baby for my parents who tried for almost five years before I made my miraculous arrival into this world. So, I guess they would have you to thank for me. So, thank you for bringing me into this world. \n God, please help me figure out how to be Japanese in today’s society. I’m 100% Japanese ethnically but 100% American, born and raised in the U.S.A. I messaged many people about what had happened and posted something on my Instagram account, which I subsequently deleted. I thought I would receive numerous comforting messages like “that guy was a jerk,” or even the generic “are you okay?” Instead, I received comments like “must be nice to be in your thirties and have this be the first time you experienced racism,” and “you’re not Chinese, so why are you upset?” I have since deleted that post from my account.\nAm I being too sensitive? Am I privileged that this is my first real public shaming due to racism? Have I been too sheltered or privileged in my life? I wasn’t physically hurt, so I shouldn’t be this upset? I have multi-ethnic friends who know more about their heritage, like their native languages, traditional foods to eat on certain holidays, and special customs to follow. I’m only one ethnicity, so why don’t I know more about what it means to be Japanese? Why don’t I know how to serve or drink tea properly? Why don’t I watch Anime? Why don’t I like natto? Why don’t I know what my last name means? Why haven’t I been to Japan since I was a little kid when my parents forced me to go with them on a family trip?\nI have so many questions, and I don’t know where to start. I feel embarrassed that my first and last name are Japanese, and I basically don’t know anything about what it even means to be Japanese, so why was I so offended? I don’t know who to talk to about this. I mentioned it to my parents casually the other night, and they didn’t seem to understand the entirety of the situation. “There are a lot of mean people in this world, don’t let them bother you” or “they have their issues, you don’t know him and won’t see him again.” I don’t think that’s the point. It’d be naive to think this won’t happen again in the future. I should have probably experienced something like this earlier, so maybe this is my punishment for not being exposed to this. \nI don’t know what I’m expecting now by talking to you. I know I won’t get some resounding voice like Mufasa to speak to me in my dreams and tell me what to do. I also won’t magically receive the answer to my prayers in my fortune cookie from Panda Express at lunch tomorrow. I’m not even sure you can hear me right now. Tens of thousands of people in this world are probably talking to you right now, asking for way more important things like finding a place to sleep or praying for a loved one to get better. It makes me feel selfish, naive, and embarrassed to even talk to you about this when real wars are being fought and children are starving. But I would really appreciate it if you gave me a sign. Is there a way for you to show me somehow what to do? Do I just get over this and pretend it didn't happen? Am I making a big deal out of nothing when so many people have gone through so much worse? How do I be proud of who I am again? Please give me the strength to say my full name out loud again. Please help me not hide behind my face mask and my shortened first name. Please help me be Emiko." } ]

[ { "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: Flashbulb memories\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1006\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story where a character is exploring their religious or spiritual identity." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "In what I believe to be my first waking memory, I’m watching a scene unfold in two vignettes. The first one contains my mother, who’s slamming the front door as she leaves our home. I can’t see her face or hear her voice, but I know it’s my mother because she was gone for a while thereafter.\nThe second vignette contains my father, wedged between my sister and I in an embrace. We’re sitting on a sofa and crying into his figure, a consequential response to my mother’s grand exit. Oddly, my vantage point in this memory is askew. I have no recall of burying my face in my father’s arms, or looking across his chest to see my sister’s red and puffy face up close. Instead, I’m sitting front row center towards the tiny stage of a living room that I don’t quite remember. This glitch in my viewpoint is inexplicable, but I’d guess it to be a mutation of my periodic childhood amnesia.\nBy displacing myself off the couch and into the role as spectator, I’d allowed the memory to be encoded and stored. To make room for other memories. Like the time I played in the sandbox and a thousand fire ants seized my bare legs and it scared me watching them go down the drain of the tub because I thought they might crawl back up.\n***\n“I don’t want to go,” I sobbed, hugging my mother’s waist. I was gasping for air in-between words, forgetting to breathe as children do when they cry and speak at the same time. Her perfume and shampoo encompassed me, cloudlike. I’ve since come to fawn over this effect, studying the women I pass in the grocery store who can apply fragrant products so that it smells and balms just-so. I’ve never had success, and am convinced it’s a divine skill bequeathed unto beautiful women upon childbirth.\nWe’re at the airport gate and I’m headed home after our annual summer-long visitation. She’s crying too, but eventually scoots me towards the line that enters the plane. I’m wearing a brand-new outfit with brand-new shoes, purchased by her of course, one of the many that new things I’d come home with at the end of those short-but-long summertime months. While most of my classmates spent their summers forging friendships with the kids in the neighborhood whom they might not otherwise, I’d vanish in its entirety and reappear forcefully evolved. Out-of-place trendy. My mother did right by me in this way though. At that age, the Skechers and butterfly appliqué shirts and Sanrio stationary made not being normal feel better than normal; special.\n***\nArtemis, the goddess of the Moon, is also the goddess of contradictions, it’s said. Although a protector of young children and pregnant women, she’d been known to bouts of rage at the expense of those she protected. In one of her wraths, Artemis strikes down Niobe’s daughters with arrows to avenge the pride of their mother. Nonetheless, Artemis was revered – is revered.\nBirthday cakes, it’s said, are reverences to Artemis. Worshippers who visited her temple would bring round cakes, whose shape represented the moon she personified. They’d adorn the cakes with candles, and the smoke would carry prayers up to the goddess, it’s said. And hence the tradition we have today, of making quiet, prayer-like wishes on round birthday cakes, timed precisely when the little fires turn to wisps of smoke.\nFor years, my birthday wish was the same. My own ritual of rituals. Even then, I felt shrewd beyond my peers for this; never having to panic between a puppy or hamster or Nintendo was a mark of pride for me, and I’d blow my candles out quickly and confidently to assert this among onlookers. It wasn’t quite Wow, this girl knows what she wants, but it kind of was to me. To be fair, I’d used it for everything – shooting stars, coins flipped into mall fountains, that one time I split a wishbone at Thanksgiving, but that’s not the point.\nAll children with divorced parents have this birthday wish. It only comes true 6% of the time, it’s said.\n***\n“Do you remember her at all?” We both couldn’t sleep.\n“No, I was very little when she left.” My mom tried to sound matter of fact, but her words fell solemnly in my dark studio apartment.\nI envisioned my favorite picture of her as a child. She’s crouched in front of a stone building, clumsily holding up a small dog that’s half her size. It must’ve been a holiday or special occasion because she’s wearing the traditional Korean dress, called a hanbok. Coupled with the photo’s black and white coloration, it seems like a relic from some ancient imperial dynasty.\nI pressed for more details about her childhood, embarrassed that she’d never shared them with me before. She went on to tell me about her stepmother, who’d sent her away to live in a monastery for a year when she was eight years old. Growing up, my mom was forced to cook and clean for the entire family, including her aunts and siblings. Her stepmom routinely beat her. When my mom got older though, she returned the favor. Her stepmom never touched her again after that.\nA streetlamp outside cast a hazy white fog through the window, just enough so I could see my mother curled up on her side. She lay next to me on my full-size bed, and I stared at her back to see if her shoulder blades or the nape of her neck could indicate any emotion. She appeared childlike in that position, and I’d wondered if she felt that way, too, when talking about her childhood. I’d wondered if it was therapeutic for her, or painful, or both. I’d wondered if she was angry at her mom for not being there, or missed her and regretted not knowing her. I’d wondered if she understood her, but only later on, once she had kids of her own." } ]

[ { "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 miserable road\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 1784\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with the line, “It had been twenty-four years since she’d last seen it, but the place looked exactly the same,” and end it with, “[…] and that was all that mattered.”" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "It had been twenty-four years since she’d last seen it, but the place looked exactly the same, she collected herself and knocked humbly at her mother’s door not sure whether they are still living there or they had moved. A little girl came to attend the knock and she told her to come in and wait for her mother whom she said was taking a bath. A portrait that was hanging on the wall showed her that yes it was the correct house but she eagerly waiting to know whether her parents had managed to have other children. For the first time she felt the feeling of wanting her own child.\nWorly\nI had never had this feeling before maybe I was too busy to notice that I had grown older. When the mother came I realized that her face was familiar and I was surprised when she said she knew me very well and she had been married to my father and they had 2kids a boy and a girl. She also mentioned that my mother had passed away due to stress when my father had married a second wife. Just knowing that I no longer have a mother touched my heart so much. That means if I wanted to stay there I had to abide with stepmother’s rules. Even though I cried, the feeling of knowing that it was my fault, also I was not able to ask for forgiveness was worse than all the pain I thought I had experience.\nWhen my father came in the evening, he was not even bothered by y visit, he only told me that my new mother was going to set the rules she like and if I feel uncomfortable with that I had to excuse myself and find a comfortable place to live in. this time I was now sure that my father was no longer that man who used to be so caring. Even the treatment he gives to his daughter was different from that of the boy, maybe I had left a mark on his heart which was going to affect his attitude towards a girl child. So I was supposed to mend what I had broken. In this new house, I was supposed to go to their church every Friday and Sunday. At first it was very weird spending the whole day at church. I would be forced to attend prayer sessions where healing and deliverance was held. Also smoking was strictly prohibited at home if you want to have a meal that day. This was a quick and easy way to quit smoking since I was not allowed and also I was now not able to find money to buy the cigarettes.\nSince my mother was no longer there, I knew how hard out there was so I had to mend my ways if I wanted to achieve something in my life. Time flies and it had marked a year since a prodigal daughter came back home. Staying with my step mother was not that hard as to what I had imagined. We ended up getting along and I never caused any trouble during my stay with them. As I was now a ‘madzimai’ also I met this boy during one of our annual conferences. He seemed to be a good man but whenever I thought of my past, I felt like I was not qualified to get true love again in my life. Remembering that I used to be a night rider, who never chose which type to take or not, everyone was welcomed as long as you have the after service payment, haunted me so much. I always felt dirty and I did not know how I was going to erase those memories. What made me to be afraid most was the fact that people may judge me and this obviously was going to ruin my self-esteem as well as triggering depression. Even discussing my past with anyone was still a problem, I never felt at easy with that. I even tried to do counselling sessions at our church but it seemed as if nothing fruitful was coming out of it.\nWhat I noted was that if you do not first forgive yourself, no matter which counselling you get, you will not be able to\nMy name is Worly and I was the only one in my family. My mother had complications when he conceived me and she did not conceive again. We lived in a compound at a certain farm in Chegutu. My father was a worker at the farm. As a small family life was not too hard for us, my parents managed to put food on the table for us daily unlike other families we saw at the farm. Being the only child resulted in me ending up being a spoiled brat. Anything that I asked for, my parents would struggle to make sure that I get it. As you know life in a compound is different from other villages or suburbs. In a compound gossip, suspicion, show off, favoritism and competition are the key characteristics which make up the compound. Due to the fact that many families will be living in a small space together lack of information and misinformation is encountered mostly. Groups are also common in a compound. All these factors contribute greatly in shaping ones behavior or attitude towards life. What we see or encounter daily will determine what we will do in our life. Our ethical, moral, cultural, religious, political and social considerations are shaped by the environment we lived in. for one to consider religion as important you must be living in an environment where people consider religion as of great importance in their lives.\nWe were much concerned with buying colorful clothes and shoes and having the most powerful sound system so that when you are playing music every other system will be silenced. If I say education was an important factor to me I would be lying. Yes they were other children who were making it in the academic field but to the group that I belonged to we did not worry about that. Our group was called the clean six which consisted of 6 girls whom were concerned about cleanliness. Fashion was our number one priority and the rest will come later. In school we were beyond being dull in school infect all of the clean six group members. In every end of term we will be at the bottom of the class with the poorest results and we would make sure that we will not go to school on the closing day. Being the only child, my parents had great expectations from me and I was taking a road that was opposite from the one they thought was right for me. I didn’t want to associate myself with anything that has to do with learning, I was afraid of failure. This fear hold me back for a long time until I decided to drop out at school when I finished my grade seven. I did not even attempt to go and collect my results.\nI had been introduced to drinking and smoking and I was now taking all kinds of illegal drugs and life was moving well. If you are engaged in drug abuse at a tender age when you are not find your own money or you do not go to work the possibility that you are going to engage in theft or prostitution. I had to buy my drugs on daily basis so at first I would go home and look for money everywhere in my mother’s house and took all their savings. Every time I did not find money I would take even a television or blankets so that I would fulfill my selfish needs. I tried by all means to hustle using other means but I failed and the only quick money I could get was from engaging in prostitution in order to survive. I needed food, wise waters as well as drugs daily so I had to act fast. So being a night nurse was the only way out.\nBecause of my age I did not see the effects of the road I had chosen, I even forgot about my parents and I had vowed not to go back to their home because every time I went there they will always tell me about stopping and that bothers me. I didn’t see the reason why they were so concerned about my life yet it was moving the way I wanted it to. We were living in a small room which was near the biggest bar in Chegutu. Since we did not have properties the room was enough to accommodate 5 people. All the 5 girls I lived with were also night ladies and me being the youngest made me feel like I had achieved a lot in my life. What I realized is most men love young girls, I had many clients and the money I made was more than others although Sis Shadhe who was our group leader she was the one who was in charge of finances. Our duty was only to provide the service and she would take care of the finances. Just because I was very young, the profession I had chosen seemed to be more fruitful. Being the girl of the moment was the greatest moment of my life little did I know that the African proverb which says ‘’rotten met is loved by flies’’ will be true one day. Sister Shadhe made sure that we get one or two clothes every month so that the business will keep on blooming. This made me to forget completely about home, all I needed was in Chegutu. Who would want to go back home to those boring lectures. My parent were so old fashioned, they did not realize that life is too short so you have to enjoy.\nTime passed by and I was now 35. The problem with my job is that the older you get, sales start to decrease. Juniors will be coming and you will be phased out. The competition will be very tough and most clients prefer younger people therefore you will be forced to reduce the price in order to get one. As my value depreciated, Sister Shadhe also told me to find a new place to stay as she wanted to recruit other new recruits who would bring more money to her. This marked the end of the good living at Sister Shadhe’s house. Going back home and correct every wrong move that I had made was all that mattered 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: Esteban\n\nGenre: african-american\n\nWord Count: 2349\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a pirate captain obsessed with finding a mythical treasure." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "In my country, we had a saying. Talk little and listen much. So I listen much. \nI remember my country less and less with each passing year. I do remember being torn from my mother’s arms when I was not much more than a child. “Be strong!” she said in our native language. “Be brave. You are a warrior!” was the last thing she said to me. I remembered her words often when I thought I could not go on while lost in the swamps and deserts.\nI listen to these Spaniards, with their endless talk of gold and treasure. They tell stories they have heard of the New Spain and The Seven Cities of Gold, a town called the Indians called Cibola,, where the streets glitter and huge pyramids are encrusted in gemstones. Stories the Indians tell them, even though the Indians have no gold nor have they ever seen any. \n“We will be rich,” they boast. “Richer than anyone in history. Richer than the King!” Then they laugh loudly and slap each other on the back. “We will share our fortune with you, of course, Nico!” Then they laugh even harder. \nWe also have another saying in my county. A rich man will starve faster than a poor one. \nSo I listen and I watch and I wait. \nEstevanico they call me. A name they gave me. A name they use for children. A name they call slaves. \nI cried and cried until they beat me and said cállate in my face, which became the first word I learned in Spanish. \nIn my village, we lived in harmony and cooperation with each other. We had to otherwise we would starve. The women planted yams, melons, and cassava. The boys tended the goats and the noisy fowls we kept in cages. The men of my village taught me to set traps for the small animals and hunt the antelope that ran thick on the golden plains. They taught me how to separate out an animal from its herd, follow its tracks until it collapsed from exhaustion. They taught me the prayers of thanks to say to the animal before I slit its throat. \nI quickly learned the Spanish ways were so unlike our own. I was taken north to a place they called Azemmour, in chains, along with many others. I had never seen the ocean before. I only caught a glimpse of it as they loaded us onto the boat as we spent many days chained in the deepest part of the boat. I was fascinated by the sight. The color was bluer than the sky. The air smelt of salt. The fresh breeze in my face was intoxicating. I longed to be up on deck where I could see the waves. Instead, I imagined what it looked like. \nThere I was taken to Spain where I was sold on the steps of the church. I had never seen such things, so many people, black and white. Huge buildings, large beasts like zebras only larger and without stripes the men would ride upon. \nI watched and I listened. I listened to the language and learned what words I could. Agua, comida, ándale. I learned these strange men with their pale skin believed they could own the land. I learned they worshipped only one God, whom they revered above all else. They say their God is a god of peace. Yet I do not see much peace among those that worship Him. \n I passed from one man to another, working in the fields or in their large houses. Eventually I was sold to a man called Dorantes. He had another slave from my country who spoke my language. He translated for the master. He told me my name would no longer be Mustufa, but Esteban. I would no longer be allowed to worship in the way of my people, but I would be baptized in their Christian church. I did not understand these strange ways, but at the same time I was enthralled by the newness. I was eager to learn so he explained the ways of these Spaniards and taught me their language. \nOne day, the master came to some of us and told us he was going to a place called La Florida. He and many other men would be going on ships and would need us as servants. My eyes widen at the thought. I was excited at seeing the ocean, to feel the rise and fall of the waves under my feet. \nWhat a fool I was. What fools these Spanish men were. Sailing into a storm so fierce that I prayed to my old gods for protection. After the ship was wrecked the few of us that lived barely survived on the oysters and seaweed that washed up on the shore. \nThen we were taken captive by Indians. They loaded their bows with arrows and pointed them at our chests and the Spaniards quaked in terror. I quickly thought if I repeated the words they said and made signs with my hands, perhaps they would be intrigued enough not to kill us. But they were cruel and forced us to be their slaves. My masters were now servants and the irony was not lost on me. But I did not tease. I did not mock. I watched. I listened.\nI learned the ways of these people the Spanish men called salvajes. I learned what roots were edible, where the bushes with the sweet berries grew, gorged on the red fruit from the spiny plants that bloomed in late summer. I learned their language well enough. \nAfter many years, we hatched a plan to escape and walk South to Mexico City. We walked and we walked. Our clothing was long ago worn to shreds, so we wrapped deerskins around our waists like the natives. Our unshorn hair and beards grew as shaggy and unkempt a wild sheep. Our feet become thick and crusted as hooves. \nWe were so hungry we ate whatever we could. Worms, spiders, the bark of trees. But I knew how to hunt. I knew how to set traps for lizards and squirrels. I looked for signs, footprints, the barest hint of a trail. \nIf we live, Dorantes told me, if you can get us out alive, I will grant you your freedom. I asked him to swear before his god and he did, but I did not believe him. \nWhen we first came upon another native tribe, we were sorely afraid. I was able to communicate with them by signs and some of the language I had learned from my captors. But to our surprise and astonishment, they did not try to kill us but instead welcomed us as some sort of spirit beings. \nThey gave us gifts of food and animal skins. Then they brought us their sick and injured. The Spaniards said their Christian prayers over them and made the sign of the cross. I silently prayed to my god. To our astonishment, many of those that needed healing became well. \nIt was like this wherever we went, as we walked from village to village. They seemed to revere me in particular, stroking my dark skin and plucking at my shaggy, coarse hair. They gave me the gifts of a medicine man. A feathered headdress and staff topped with a gourd filled with pebbles that rattled when I shook it. These objects filled the Indians with awe and wonder. This filled me with pride for it was the first time I felt honored since I was in my village and the men celebrated my first kill. \nWe wandered from village to village, followed by multitudes of natives, through the lands where no white man--or black--had ever gone. After close to eight years, we finally came upon the first other Spaniards we had seen since we were shipwrecked. Slave hunters with Indian captives, bound together like a brace of rabbits. \n My companions told them of our travails, which astonished them until one of them recognized one of us from his days in Andalucia. \nThis sickened us. It sickened me for I knew the bitter taste of slavery. We would not be alive were it not for these mostly harmless, defenseless people. I had forgotten about the hunger for this stuff they call money. The bile rose in my throat so I was disgusted. \nThey took us to Mexico City. We told our story. I was treated like a hero by the blacks and like an equal by the Spanish. Or so I thought. \nThe Viceroy wanted to mount a new expedition to find Cibola, of which the Indians spoke of. I knew what this meant. I knew the natives. I had learned their ways. Spoke their language. Was a respected medicine man. He could not do this without me. He offered to buy me from Dorantes. He offered a price five times for a slave. \nMy master became very upset. He would not part with me for any price. Esteban saved all our lives, he told them. But did he not remember he promised me my freedom? But the Viceroy was too powerful a man to refuse. That is when we hatched a plan. \nDorantes told me to go with these men. Take them where they want to go. But tell the Indians to help the Spaniards, but not to trust them. Tell the Indians to erect large, white crosses, so the Spaniards will think they had been converted and they will move on. \nSo we set off. At least we had horses. When we came near each village, I was to approach on foot, wearing the effects of a Medicine Man. A plumed feathered headdress, a staff with a dried gourd filled with pebbles at one end, jingle bells on my arms and ankles. Nude except for a deer skin tied around my waist. \nThese Spaniards took advantage of my rapport with the natives. They had me question these people repeatedly about gold. They told the natives they had a stomach ailment that could only be cured by the metal. The natives told them stories of a town called Cibola, where there were many great buildings, all covered in gold and shone in the sunlight like fire.\nI could see the expression on the faces of these white men. Their lust for gold overwhelmed most of their senses and reason. I wondered to myself if there was so much gold, like the Indians said there was, why they did not have any? Surely there would be one trinket or another in their possession? It became clear to me the Indians were telling us what they thought we wanted to hear. \nI kept these thoughts to myself. Why, you may wonder? We had another saying in my country. At the bottom of patience one finds heaven.\nThe natives greeted me as they always do. I would shake my staff, making the gourd rattle, the sign of a shaman, to gain their attention and respect. I would speak to them in their language, and use signs. Then we would sit, eat, I would tell them I came with some white men and we came in peace. \nThe Indians would sometimes offer me their women. Pretty women they were, with their wide brown faces, eyes the same color as mine, long dark silken hair they would wear in braids. This made the Spanish jealous, for they only thing they wanted just less than gold was to satisfy their carnal desires. \nWhen the white men joined us, they always asked me to ask them the same thing. Where is the city of gold? The natives would shake their heads. They would say there is no such place. But the Spaniards would not listen. They did not believe the Indians, thinking they were lying and keeping the gold for themselves. \nThen one Indian came forward and said he saw such a place where there are great houses and they are gold in color. This was all the Spaniards needed to hear, such was their crazed desire for treasure. We shall go north, the white men told me. I knew this was madness. But I waited. \nWe rode for many days until we found the pueblo of which the Indian spoke. It was no more than a few tiny houses, covered in buff-colored earth mixed with ground sea shells for which the Indians traded. I approached the Indians in my usual manner as a medicine man, explained my presence and asked the name of their settlement. Cibola, they said. I had to suppress my laughter. \nThe Spaniards were furious. They told the Indians they were lying. They thought they were tricking them. But I knew these people. I knew they were naive and guileless. But the Spaniard wanted to hurt the Indians. They threatened them with their muskets. \nI knew then the time had come. The Spaniards would not listen, but I would. \nThe natives told me there was a vast desert to the west. There were no villages, no food, no water. So I told the Spaniards that they said the Indians told me there was gold to the west, many days walk. \nI lied. \nAfter several days, they were hopelessly lost in the desert. Their food and water was almost gone. I waited until the middle of the night. The sky was clear and lit with just a sliver of moonlight. I waited, listening for the deep breathing that came with sleep. Then I crept as silently as the spirits the Indians thought I could summon. I slowly picked all their guns. One man snorted and twitched and rolled over in his sleep. I froze and held my breath, but soon the man quieted down and returned to sleep. \nI carried the guns and carefully tiptoed until I was far away from the camp. I dug a deep hole in the sand and buried the muskets. Then I walked east towards the pueblo where I knew the Indians were waiting for me." } ]

[ { "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: Locked Door\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 2854\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story titled ‘The Locked Door.’" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The boys were sitting still and watching some cartoon with furry animals from a make believe world. I hated these shows. I struggled with my desire for perfection and finally making it past the finish line. Did these shows help me be a better mom? And what is the finish line? I always wanted to be a wife and mother. I found my husband late in life, when it felt as if everyone was married, raising school age children, and surviving milestones. After many Hail Mary's, solitude, and surrender, I found some grace that could be summoned for healing and direction. Back then, after a year of little miracles to erase old scars and doors that I imagined had been slammed shut in my face, I grew to recognize now that in my own doing, I made choices to run from fear and imagined loss. I prayed for change and made it a habit that took over my exercise schedule. Perhaps my old devotional to Divine Mercy to rescue the world from the hurt of crime, kept my husband safe for the seven years prior to us meeting, and perhaps the 9 days of devotion to the Jesus Prayer, prior to us meeting face to face, was when I knew for sure heaven had been protecting our converging paths this whole time. The next two years after being married, I gave birth to our two beautiful boys. I thought it would make me happy or fulfilled, but the race never finished, and I combed through new compromises as my new Hail Mary. Once the wedding happened, I realized I just landed into the grown up world with no breaks, and the only excitement was the news and announcements we would share as a family, but those were only the initial intrigues of big changes and novelties followed by losses of self and wonderment. I had always avoided an artist's life to create what I thought was a stable life to market myself to other singles as prime and ready. With each new beginning, I found that life's canvas page in front of me would take more effort than idealized. Most of all, I wanted to visit my mom. Between career, and making it home in time to prep dinner for my gourmet seeking husband, the dark rush hour of 10 stop lights between my mother and I, would simply have to win and my loosing streak for spending time with my mom would be my stats in marriage. So, then my final compromise happened; to become a stay at home mom so I could focus on family only.\n\nMy main excuse for visiting my mom was to bring her late morning breakfast. I can't remember what I got ready that day, except that my boys were happy and helpful that day while I got us ready for our visit with Lola, and a voice kept reminding me to be patient and to not bother my mom. I wanted to wake her up at 8 am, but all I heard was her cranky, weary voice saying not to call her too early, not to bother her too early, since she likes to sleep, take her time making her rounds for the cat's food, the dog's potty outside, take a sip of water, eat a fried egg, use the restroom, then tell me my children are too noisy. Her body was growing old and slow, and her foot shuffle was at it's fastest by noon. Each hour I paused and paced myself not to bother her. Maybe I made mini muffins for her. Something easily consumed by the children and easily cleaned up on my mom's floor. For a few months I had been bringing over baked goods that could sit contained on her counter for a few days. One batch she kept over a week, and I told her she couldn't do that because it gets moldy after 3 days. She joyfully said this one was still good and she was going to keep it a few more days. So, I dumped it in the trash and said I would bring her something new. \n\nThe past 2 months, I opened my heart to honoring her requests as small as they were. I wanted to be a good daughter. I wanted us to have peaceful memories. I wanted to be a good role model in front of my boys or at least give my mom what I was able to give my boys. Most of all, I wanted to believe in her independence, but at 9 am again her nagging words stopped me with her secret mom powers. \"Why are you here? Eh, don't you know I'm busy. I'm not lazy like all the other people, traveling Europe, going shopping, they never took care of their children and now look at them. They don't do anything with their lives. My whole life I worked and I don't fantasize and make love wherever I go. Not like the other ladies, opening their legs, leaving their children to do the same thing.\" Her words always echoed and sat heavy on my heart. The number of times she repeated herself, obviously meant the words needed to be more real than the world around her. These words were from my childhood and became my meaning in life now that my mind was on standby with a foreign silence signaling I must be forgetting something or I must be late.\n\nShe turned 80 on Saturday with a surprise party with all her nieces and nephews traveling in from the Bay Area. It was a perfect sunny day, and all the children splashed around in the pool shaded by giant pine trees. She was born on a perfect day, right in the middle of May. And she never wanted a birthday party, and now we were giving her one with two birthday cakes. One from the Bay Area and one from a local bakery. The day before, she said she wasn't going to go to her birthday party. She suspected we had bigger ideas for that day. So, finally my sister caved to stop my mother's curiosity or difficultness and said it will be a birthday party but only a small one. Mom called me that Thursday to tell me, and I listened as if I was hearing this invitation for the first time. She never wanted attention or a birthday party, and here she was, perfectly born on a sunny day with no major attacks from winter weather as would have been ironically destined for her three daughters and two grandsons. Even my husband was born in January like our youngest son.\n\nBy 10:30, I called mom. It rang and went to voicemail. Oh no, my worst fear. I tried it twice more and left a message the third time so she wouldn't need to rush getting to the phone, because I would be showing up soon anyways. I texted my sisters regarding my failed attempts, hoping they would tell me they just talked to her. I told the boys to \"line up,\" meaning their socks and shoes had to be on, and this was their head start to get in and buckle up in the car. Between giggles and feet squeezed into shoes with many miles, and piles of things in my tote and two arms, it looked as if our 3 hour cruise was going to become a 3 decade stay. I knew every request between my children and my mom. I knew when I got there, the boys were going crash into her sofa, run their hands into her little Shit Zhu's hair, my mom was going to have their learning cartoon shows all ready on, and when my mom sat down in between my boys on the sofa with her blankets, that each boy would be in their perfect little nook and cranny where they fit in my mom's arms, custom made since birth. She loved being a grandmother, and because of my boys she finally got her little boys.\n\nBefore I was married, my mom didn't know grandmothers could be happy. She didn't even know mother-in-laws could be happy. But when I met my husband, was when she saw something that made sense. There was no tug of war, secrets, odd trials of desperation, and she said just like my dad everything was there and ready for good wife to settle in and make his life complete. It was just like daddy she said, except I said my story was going to be different. It was going to be better, and more romantic, and my mom was going to live with us, and my mom was going to make my vegetarian dinners, and my life that was good was never going to change. It was going to get better.\n\nThe ten stop lights on the way to my mother's house seemed long and dull like a force field of clouds made me float through the distance with a buffer to protect me from my lack of focus. She had been living alone at my sister's house since the start of the year when my sister got married. I would joke that it had always been like my mom had been living alone since my sister has always lived a busy life with career and vacation trips. I thought my mom's life would be more peaceful without the clamor of my bossy sister coming home at the end of the day, after she ran a school, then rushed through checking on my mom's progress on tasks before leaving again to teach a spin class or train for a marathon.\n\nWhen I parked in front of mom's house, everything was so quiet. Her little dog didn't poke her head through the curtains by the door. She didn't bark like crazy. It was just a sunny day with a clear sky. I told my boys to go ring the door bell. It was a tradition I started to alert my mom to her little boys, and today it was going to pierce this odd silence with my predictable boy entourage. I took a deep breath and waited. I pretended the air around me was no different than yesterday's or like the one on Saturday when my mom had her birthday party. \n\nI rang knocked on the door and called out to my mom that we were here. I told my boys to wait in the car and helped them hide in the back row of my SUV where they had room to play with some toys I kept handy there. I wanted them to be distracted as I made some phone calls. They appeared calm, but my eldest was a bit giggly perhaps nervous from this uncertain irregularity. He had ability to understand more than I wanted him to right now. He used to stand at my mom's side, placing his hands on top of mom's. He must have seen something like this from a scene from his favorite pet doctor cartoon. Although I felt like giant angels had their arms around me, a pang tugged at my heart. I told myself thanksgiving for the past ten years I came over for lunch. I made my pregnancies an excuse to be near her despite during my busy work week of meetings and traveling. Food was bonding moment. And no one compared to mom. Then something strange happened from our secret love of greasy comfort and satiation. It was almost another secret on top of secret that needed to be stopped as age beckoned us forward. It was maybe two weeks ago that she stopped me from ordering some Filipino food to bring to her. She gave no reason, and I didn't want to know her reasoning or ask while she walked so slowly to lay down on the sofa and close her eyes.\n\nOnly my sister had the keys to the front screen gate and doors. I called her up before I dialed 911. It would take her 30 minutes to travel here through town. Her voice was calm. I told myself that means I'm worried over nothing. I turned around to peak at my boys, I made curious facial expressions. I didn't want them to remember this day. I told them we were playing a game, and they have to look up in the sky for dinosaurs. My eldest son, saw some in the clouds. He asked me what happens when he find them all. I said we will have a cupcake and movie. He said yay as if it was a prize he never heard of. I told them if they are super quiet, they can hear the dinosaurs. \n\nBy 25 after, the firemen arrived. I said I have no keys to the house, and the owner is on her way. Why did my family have to be so disorganized? My husband's family has an emergency plan for every given unknown. And I don't. Not today. Not now. They pried the side door open like a peanut butter sandwich with contents of interest. There were four men and a lady. They all towered over my short, stout figure. I felt so small and helpless, and they looked like giants to the rescue. I held my breath waiting and pretending this was nothing, because I told myself my boys were not going to remember this day or any details. The last thing I wanted was for them to see this. I was age 12 when I saw my grandmother whisked away in an ambulance. My boys were only ages 5 and 4. A strange sensation to laugh at myself, undug itself out but couldn't reveal my stupidity and worry over my mother. She wanted to be young and independent, and I wasn't going to stop her big feelings of life she let go of for marriage and motherhood. She had been asking even for a corset and cute linen dresses she missed from youth. I pretended it was some stage of aging my husband would say happens, because I wanted to believe that death was introduced by some long drawn out stage.\n\nI stood on the sidewalk, and my hidden dread combusted into remorse and frustration over what could have been controllable loss. If only mom lived with me. None of this would have happened. Why did she have to be so stubborn and independent? The next door neighbor approached me all of a sudden. He introduced himself to me, and we exchanged the facts of the moment. He was about the same age as my mom. He was also living alone, and shared that his daughter is afraid of this happening to him as well. I responded that no one wants to be babysat by their children.\n\nThe youngest fireman medic appeared out through the front door and said they couldn't find my mom. I said that was not possible. He said there was a car parked in the garage. He began to ask more but then another medic said they found her in the shower. The next door neighbor stayed by my boys who promised me they would finish counting the dinosaurs in the sky. I finally walked in through the front door. The home was small and modest, but appeared even more tiny with all these men here in my mom's dwelling. My sister walked in to handle all the questions I could not handle in my numbness.\n\nMom spent the next ten days in the hospital. I explained to my boys that right now, what we can do is pray for lots of happy Jesus love to keep Lola safe. Some days were good, but mostly to the end she got worse in unresponsiveness. Grasping her upper chest and gesturing to her upper stomach, one of her last words or indications was that she was in pain due to her aspiration of vomit from when she fell in the shower. My husband took the boys to the cabin for a few days so I could focus on just my mom with my sisters. I stopped pretending to be talking to her, waiting for her to wake up. I rested my head next to her as I held her hand, singing Divine Mercy so that all that mattered was her soul's yearning for Heaven's gates. When my husband came back into town, he dropped the kids off at his parents' house, and we all prepared for our last goodbyes and quiet moments, praying for mommy to be safe in Jesus' arms and love. I held her hand to the end. I felt her pulse slowly disappear with the last fall of her chest. Just as she requested, she was buried in her wedding dress in the space next to our deceased father who also was laid to rest in his grooms tuxedo. And when friends and family hugged me with condolences, my heart began to feel unbroken again when they acknowledged it was good I came to check on my mom on that last morning." } ]