Welcome to Flash Fiction Fridays! Every Friday I use conversational AI to generate a new flash fiction prompt inspired by the changes and updates to my digital garden.
Flash fiction is a unique and challenging form of writing that requires creativity, brevity, and skill. 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 use the weekly changes and updates to my digital garden as a starting point for the AI to generate the prompt. 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 story as well! If you want to dive deeper, check out the updates to my digital garden.
The Prompt
Write a story about a person who is addicted to extreme experiences as a way to escape from the mundane. But one day, during a particularly dangerous stunt, they experience something unexpected – a moment of profound clarity and connection with the world around them.
The Story
She approached the tunnel with hesitation. She had done just about everything up to that point. From bungee jumping to skydiving down the deadliest cliff east of the Mississippi. But somehow, the elaborate paperwork required to step into this room unsettled her. She couldn’t help but wonder how many Harvard lawyers it took to concoct this mountain of legal documents, all aimed at protecting the company from any possible liability. And yet, these documents seemed to reveal nothing about what the company could actually be held accountable for. But those hypnotic billboards all over town. There was nothing quite like it. She just had to try it.
The room was pitch black. She was instructed to walk forwards, being reassured that she wasn’t going to trip, fall, or run against a wall. She would know when to stop. At first, there was nothing, but after a while, a beacon of light flickered into view and moved closer. Time seemed to accelerate as the lights drifted towards her, morphing into clear shapes. These slick bands of color formed the entrance to one of the most unbelievable things she had ever seen.
A rich and detailed environment built in front of her very eyes. Multicolored fungal vegetation populated the linings of this layered space. Shafts of light illuminated the scene from above. She stepped into this world and admired this blend of multiple different biomes. This was natures magnum opus. It had to be. The palace of life. Everything seemed so sharp, with defined, sparkling edges, drenched in an attractive, glossy finish. There was no time to question whether this had been worth it. There was no time for doubt, not even for thought. The work in front of her was so evocative, so overwhelmingly compelling, it defied human capacity in every way. Is this true perfection?
But it would not last. It started as a small pitch black dot, like a speck of dirt on an otherwise glistening lens, growing, filling more of her consciousness as time moved forward. Like a black whole, its appetite could not be satiated. The walls disappeared and, slowly, she went with them. That change, from nothing, to something, to nothing. It unsettled her, it released within her an ever expanding sense of discomfort. Something that seemed like it would last forever did not. It was a moment, an iota of light in the darkness. An instant, subjectively so worthy of being remembered, but doomed to remain inconceivable. As she left the premise knowing things could never be the same, her gaze was met with a small warning sign as she was about to step through the exit door: "The tunnel is different for everyone, but the ending is always the same."
