The diner’s unremarkable. Could be anywhere, and almost anywhen. But Shelly, she is remarkable—tough, with a head of hair like springs and a tongue like a buzz-saw. I’ve had a thing for Shelly for near on thirty years.
“You can get anything you want in Alice’s Restaurant, exceptin’ Alice,” as the song goes. That’s Shelly’s. I turned up once with a mariachi band and a convertible full of red roses, like that Richard Gere movie. Woman only sniffed and muttered, “damn fool boy.”
Suppose you might call me a stalker, except the relentless pursuit really tickles Shelly. One day she’ll succumb.
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Friday fictioneers is a weekly challenge set by Rochelle Wisoff Fields to write a 100-word story in response to a photo prompt. You can find other stories here
Others have walked this way before me, down the long processional. From the Land of the Living to the Land of the Dead we come, torches bright in the last curtain of the night. Happiness, awe, and fear walk with me, but I am one of a host, and the druids shield us as we enter the great circle.
The solstice sun stabs out through the dark and brushes a finger to the guide stone. A terrible brightness. I cannot look as the year is reborn.
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Friday fictioneers is a weekly challenge set by Rochelle Wisoff Fields to write a 100-word story in response to a photo prompt. You can find other stories here
You know the feeling: you’re reading and something seems important but you don’t get it; or there’s a scene with a character but you’ve forgotten who they are.
In the past, you might turn to summaries of the book or to literary analysis for help. You might, for instance, ask, “what does the green light in The Great Gatsby mean?” And literary analysis might answer, “ the green light symbolizes Jay Gatsby’s unattainable dreams, particularly his longing for Daisy Buchanan, and represents the broader themes of hope, ambition, and the elusive nature of the American Dream.”
Now things can be more seamless. Amazon is introducing a feature into Kindle called “Ask This Book.” This is not a summary or a redirect to the part of the book that relates to your query. It’s an AI-generated interpretation. Authors cannot opt out of this feature, which currently only runs in the US but will be rolled out more widely this year.
Is that an important change? It would be an issue for the reader if it were prone to generating spoilers or hallucinating false answers. Because, of course, you’re not asking the book, the book the author wrote; you’re asking Amazon’s AI. So far, tests by Kindlepreneur (What Amazon’s ‘Ask This Book’ Feature Means for Authors | Kindlepreneur) have not found such faults. For authors, the feature affords a more complex challenge. Amazon is arguably producing a new edition of the book (comparable to an annotated edition) without the author’s consent.
Yet even for readers, there might be concerns. A reading is the text produced by the interplay of the author and the reader. Readers bring their own interpretations and visualisations to what the author offers. If that interpretation is outsourced to Amazon’s AI, both the author and the reader may be the poorer.
Lest this seem an author’s carping, let me say that the understanding of the green light above comes from Microsoft’s Copilot AI and is in line with the common critical understanding of Gatsby. I have had to use the Copilot AI because Amazon’s Ask the Book feature is not yet launched in the UK. But consider Copilot’s response to the question “what does the mistletoe in William Golding’s The Spire mean?”: the AI’s answer is “The mistletoe in The Spire functions as a deeply symbolic element tied to pagan myth, death, and the corruption underlying Jocelin’s ‘holy’ project. Its meaning becomes clearest when read through the Norse myth of Balder, which Golding deliberately echoes.”
In fact, literary analysis is much less unanimous about Golding’s mistletoe than about Fitzgerald’s green light. Though mistletoe is, indeed, a clear pagan symbol, its function in the Spire may (or may not) be to signal that Pangall has been sacrificed by the Cathedral builders to ward off bad luck. Golding never tells us this explicitly. Pangall simply disappears. Copilot gives a nod to this in secondary commentary: “Pangall’s persecution and eventual death are symbolically linked to the mistletoe.” But this commentary omits the possible connection between Pangall’s disappearance and his death at the hands of the builders constructing the spire. Jocelin, Dean of the Cathedral, in his vanity and madness, insists the spire must be constructed, even though the builders warn him the foundations will not support it. The builders have good reason to fear bad luck.
If the AI fails to signal this reading, it narrows the possible comprehension of Golding’s work. I look forward to being able to test this in Amazon’s AI.
If you are in the US and use Amazon’s Kindle iOS app, I’d love it if you’d ask it about the meaning of the mistletoe in The Spire and let me know the answer.
I am the very model of a modern, civic gentleman. Bestriding the world like a colossus, honour and power are mine. I dine with the rich and famous.
These people understand me and I understand them. To coin a phrase, we have an understanding. Between friends, I share state confidences, and they reciprocate with offerings. This is the oil that keeps the wheels of the real world turning. The little folk we serve would never comprehend. So, far better they never know. And I trust you as always, to keep my secrets.
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Friday fictioneers is a weekly challenge set by Rochelle Wisoff Fields to write a 100-word story in response to a photo prompt. You can find other stories here
The setting was perfect. Candlelight sparked on the elegant wine glasses and smugly heavy cutlery. Waiters in long aprons glided effortlessly between the tables with impossible numbers of plates balanced on their arms, as if they were walking some unseen tightrope.
My waiter placed a bowl in the centre of the exquisitely geometric place setting. Inside the bowl, a crust of ginger fur respired slowly, rising and falling.
I can take a joke as well as the next man. Crouching low, I bit into the succulence of the waiter’s leg.
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Friday fictioneers is a weekly challenge set by Rochelle Wisoff Fieldsto write a 100-word story in response to a photo prompt. You can find other stories here
The sun hid behind a cloud, casting the gorge into deep shadow. The rushing river laughed because it was now invisible. Ansna could no longer see the bull thundering towards her, but her ears spoke to her, and her legs knew when to begin the run. She’d trained her feet well.
“Alright, great bull,” her voice called. “Let’s dance.”
She raced towards the booming hooves, calculating closeness, dug her pole into the ground and took off.
As she sailed over the beast’s back, the sun sidled back into the valley. The hillsides hooted back the hunters cry. “Ansna, Bull Leaper.”
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Friday fictioneers is a weekly challenge set by Rochelle Wisoff Fields to write a 100-word story in response to a photo prompt. You can find other stories here
I’ve had a brilliant idea! To write music with words as notes. This will be the making of me. Yes, scales—seven notes and then a repeat at higher pitch—chords, transpositions.
“The cat lightly on the mat sat.”
They’ll shower me with awards and offers.
“On the mat, deviously skulked the panther.”
Hmm, I’m not sure this is quite working yet.
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Friday fictioneers is a weekly challenge set by Rochelle Wisoff Fields to write a 100-word story in response to a photo prompt. You can find other stories here
Something with tiny legs crawls over my sprawled hand, a thrush chitters, and water chuckles nearby. I know myself connected by a thousand tiny threads to this place, a part of its rich loam, a piece of the tracery of roots and branches. Somewhere a woodpecker jackhammers and the roots pulse with alarm. The water and my heart confess to one another in the same ancient tongue.
I am content. Here, there will be rest, and I will become something else. The good earth suckles at my wound, and the sounds of the battle dim. Today is a good day to die.
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Friday fictioneers is a weekly challenge set by Rochelle Wisoff Fields to write a 100-word story in response to a photo prompt. You can find other stories here
We are so very tired. Half a world we’ve walked, through snow, rain, and baking sun. And everywhere they say, go back. The unwanted—that’s what we are.
The border post looms ahead. There are men there with dogs—hard men with grim faces. Even at this time of year, when they’re celebrating the birth of a baby to a refugee couple. Bells toll and sirens blare.
Am I not a person too? But of course I am not. I am just a problem, without face or history. And there is nobody to part the Red Sea for us.
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Friday fictioneers is a weekly challenge set by Rochelle Wisoff Fieldsto write a 100-word story in response to a photo prompt. You can find other stories here
There are mirrors bouncing light back and forth. Some reflect doors, or what seem to be doors, though they may just be other mirrors.
Space expands explosive to infinity. Time slows to treacle as I turn and turn. A chorus of selves, perfectly synchronised, pirouette with me.
After a time that may have been aeons, I make to leave. Approaching the door, another me steps up to bar my way. Trapped! But I know how to get round myself.
“Would you be so kind as to step aside?” I ask meekly.
“Sorry, not a chance,” replies the mirror self.
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Friday fictioneers is a weekly challenge set by Rochelle Wisoff Fields to write a 100-word story in response to a photo prompt. You can find other stories here
Neil MacDonald Author 