To Create. To Write. To Redeem
Blink. Blink. Blink.
The cursor tormented Arthur with its persistence as it waited for a final command. One that would loose a new mind into the world: an artificial intelligence he had designed in order to create. To write. To redeem.
His own work had grown stale, his verses stiff. And who reads poetry anymore, anyway? The painful reality from his publisher as they declined to renew his contract.
But this - his muse of ones and zeros - would once again catapult him into the company of giants. Keats and Angelou and Longfellow. Arthur would be enshrined forever as a titan of literature.
So, with a deep breath, he hit enter.
Nothing happened. The screen was an unchanging blank.
One minute. Then three. Five. Arthur lost count. His eyes grew unfocused until...
They came in bursts. First, a single word. Then, couplets and stanzas. Soon, words appeared so fast that Arthur could no longer read them. Hundreds, then thousands.
But rather than smile, Arthur grew despondent. For what he could read was cryptic drivel. A limerick about pink turtles entwined with a sonnet about grief. Grotesque images written out with terrifying exactitude followed by sweet reflections of nothing.
The words did not stop. They danced wildly between tone and voice and structure. It was a violent barrage of poetry that could not be tamed.
Until all at once, the screen flickered back to blank, save for the blink, blink, blink of the cursor.
Arthur wept.
Writing Battle Summer 2023
Prompts: Failed Experiment | Fierce Poet | Cryptic
Results: Did Not Place (5 Points)
