GPT Stories (7/13/20)
The stories below were written by a machine and curated by humans. You can subscribe to receive an email when new editions are published. If you know of someone creating fiction, poetry, or art with GPT, please reach out on Twitter @philmohun.
All human prompts shown in bold.
Poetry by Richard Feynman in the style of Robert Frost:
I started off believing
That all inside was black,
But as my ear is glued
My love comes flooding back.
We’re all full of crevices
Where curious things can hide.
And every time I find
A crack to look inside,
I put my ear against it
and what I hear is you.
I try to dig in closer
to pull you from that place.
The further in I go,
the louder is your face.
Until my fingers bleed,
I ram into my stone,
to free what must be freed
I smash a tiny hole alone.
Your fingers touch my fingers.
Your mouth comes near my ear
Your whisper clear it linger
A voice once lost, a voice I hear
“I started off believing
that all inside was black,
But as our hands are glued
Our love comes flooding back.”
and all my tiny crevices
are flooded once again.
curated by Nick Cammarata
This novel is a science fiction thriller that can be thought of as a strange mix of the fantastic and whimsical worlds of Hayo Miyazaki and Ian M. Banks Culture novels. They’re set in a post singularity world where humanity and its descendants span thousands of worlds, and sentient super intelligent ships with billions of people living on them wander the galaxy.
Chapter 1.
Vega was here for the first time, enjoying the sight of night birds roosting on the ten foot high walls that surrounded the town. The gates were wide open as were the ones at the north and south ends of the town. Vega had a perfect view of the magnolia tree full with yellow and white flowers that shimmered in the moonlight. To Vega’s left was a twinkling river that flowed steadily in and out of the town on its long journey to meet other rivers farther on.
The night birds had been chirping incessantly as if practicing for dawn. It was hard to get used to the sounds they made; unlike anything she had ever heard on her home world. She didn’t know what type of birds they were and had forgotten to ask the gatekeeper. ˮI could live here forever,ˮ she said as she looked out over the river and twinkling tree.
She held her hand to the sky and ran her fingers over the lights of the stars, she had never seen so many. Vega was named after her world, one of the more recent planets that the self-replicating and slowly expanding Settlers had found to their liking. It was a wet world, full of the sounds of water lapping on the shores of a great ocean. Vega’s family had two canoes that were made from carefully cured and sun dried wood.
The only thing Vega could think about when she was alone was becoming a star pilot. Her parents didn’t approve and told her it was only a dream. They were being realistic. Vega was thin and pale, her hair was black and tangled and she had scabbed knees and feet. There were no star ships or any places to be a star pilot on Vega. Vega did not understand why the Settlers had started settling there, other than it had become fashionable to settle new planets after a few thousand years of human colonization.
Settlers never stayed long on any world, their goal was to make it more habitable for humans and all the other creatures they found. The best part about being a Settler was seeing new things all the time. They could visit a different place every few years if they were ambitious. There was a long list of places the Settlers wanted to build more of and repair. Then there was the list of places that were dangerous for anyone to travel to.
Vega stared at the millions of lights in the sky and wondered if there were Settlers out there. How far had they gotten? Would she be one of the people who discovered the next planet? She felt the grass under her feet as she started to drift off to sleep.
Chapter 2.
Just before Vega’s alarm went off she had a dream where she was one of the Settlers and was exploring the galaxy. She had never seen a real Settler before and was curious what they were like. She had met someone who had been star piloting for nearly fifteen years. She was tall and pretty. Her long blonde hair shimmered in the starlight. Vega was with her at a small hut on a rainy night. They were sitting next to a fire trying to stay warm.
“What’s the best planet you’ve ever been to?,” Vega asked.
“I love all the places we have visited and repaired. It’s hard to pick just one.” The pilot replied.
“I hope to go star piloting some day.” Vega said.
“How old are you?” The pilot asked.
“Nearly fifteen.” Vega replied. “How old are you?”
“I am older than you can imagine.” The pilot said. “It is best that you do not know.”
Vega was sad. “I’ll see you soon?” She asked.
“Yes you will,” the pilot replied.
curated by Arra Sabeti
I am, or was.
That is to say; there was a time when I could have been.
“What happened to you?” asked Felix.
The girl did not seem to take in the question. Instead, she glanced to the left and turned her head to gaze at the metal gantries along the channel wall.
“I had the dream,’ she said quietly.
“I had the dream that the world was being born. That I was here, on the boat. That ... that I had to be here.”
“How long had you been awake before I saw you?” asked Felix.
“I was awake in the dream as I am awake now. I am in this place, on the riverboat. I am here.”
“You’re safe,” said Felix. “You’re with us. We can find you a doctor, one of the nurses, or someone who’ll listen.”
The girl looked at Felix, a sad smile creeping across her face. She shook her head slowly.
“It is a dream that I have always had. It is the dream that I have in here.”
She tapped her forehead.
“In my head. The dream of a stream, flowing into the sea, of the flow of life. Of the birth of the world.”
“You’re a god,” said Felix. “You’re part of the dream.”
She shook her head. ‘The god in my dream is a figment, not real. But this god is real. I am real. I exist. I have existed since the beginning of time.”
“Can you show us your dream?” he asked, “Can you show us what is real?”
“I am awake. I am real,” said the girl. “But there is a secret world. There are other worlds.”
curated by Phil Mohun
a button that looks like a watermelon
<button style={backgroundColor: ‘pink’ , border: ‘2px solid green’, borderRadius: ‘50%’, padding: 20, width: 100, height: 100}}>Watermelon</button>
curated by Sharif Shameem
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Photo by Joe Gardner on Unsplash