Welcome to Fiction Fridays!
Every couple of weeks I use conversational AI to generate a new fiction prompt inspired by the changes and updates to my digital garden. By using conversational AI to generate the prompt, I’m tapping into the power of machine learning to come up with interesting and unexpected ideas that I might not have thought of otherwise. I work on these stories for a few weeks, publishing a new part every Friday.
The prompts are designed to be open-ended and flexible, allowing me to explore a wide range of themes and genres that are aligned with my interests and experiences. However, it is important to remember that these pieces are fictional.
But that’s not all, there is a piece of AI generated art to go with every weekly publication! And if you want to dive deeper, check out the updates to my digital garden.
The Prompt
In a misty village, a young woman haunted by her past meets an artist who seeks inspiration. Drawn to each other, they navigate their emotional landscapes, revealing secrets and confronting inner demons. When the artist disappears, the woman must find her own way forward, using her art to inspire others and confront their own fears and secrets.
The Story
It was an awkward affair. Henry spoke a language of the body that was hard for Adaile to understand. He envisioned her posing to the backdrop of the fields hidden beyond the fog, just outside the porch. Henry tried to show her what he wanted to see, using his own body. She tried to imitate him, and before she could make any posture adjustments herself, Henry was already carefully adjusting her hand around her thigh. You could tell Henry lost any respect for distance, he felt no boundaries when his object of fixation was bringing a hazy vision into the sharp world of reality. Finally, he graced her chin with both index and middle finger, ever so slightly tilting her head upwards. Adaile felt uncomfortable. She did not speak this language of the body. She could only try her best to obey his every instruction.
The way he let his brush fly over the empty canvas was unlike anything she had ever seen. He was dancing to the rhythm of his heart, bringing to life what he felt belonged here. The energy Henry harbored within, the way he carried himself, it was like he didn’t live in the same world. And when he called her over to see what he had seen, Henry opened the gates to heaven as a swoop of energy washed over her. The green grass, the blue sky, the field of sunflowers. She could smell the summer and see herself in it. But as her levels of serotonin normalized and the colors settled in the canvas, Henry could tell that the pain from a life, long-lost, was greater than the joy that came from being reminded of what once was. He saw a longing in her eyes that no amount of paint could satisfy.
He put his brush aside and listened. On a rational level, her pain was easy to understand. Before the fog, the village faced a drought. There was no water, no food. All the animals died first. It was a period characterized by acts of aggression, theft, and even cannibalism. These feral conditions brought out a darkness Adaile had never seen. The sun shined brighter than it ever had, but all it revealed was a land full of monsters. The fog concealed these transgressions. The fog allowed the villagers to maintain a resemblance of their humanity. You couldn’t see their faces, the clouds smoothed the wrinkles, and the pain. The sun, she told him, reveals everything, not just the green grass of the pasture.
Henry’s capacity for understanding had developed and evolved with every brushstroke. He knew who Adaile was. He could see her pain looming over her. Henry made people see things. He was a master of vision, bringing into reality the things that needed to be there. He held her hand as she cried and cried, giving her a sense of belonging that she had seldom felt. It was not the painting, or the colors, or the grape juice, it was the time he took to know her.
They went to bed, their minds entwined, their bodies arranged at a respectful distance. She lost her consciousness, drifting off into a restful slumber. As she awoke the next morning, the fog was gone. And so was Henry.
