It's Still Life

At an Intersection Named After an English King and a Saint
Six Sentence Story: Part 19 – Memento Mori

And he springs off the bed and shouts in a voice lean and tense as wire, “…
Conneries conneries conneries.”

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Memento Mori

I wake my laptop, take another sip of lavender tea, and study the leafy debris that’s settled into an unreadable screed in my teacup, while mitotic pixels of a bright backlit face slowly replicate and segregate on the black screen.

AI recombining … it’s like the sun losing its struggle to overcome the night … or watching fish swim in a barrel – this platform’s image rendering is an unsettlingly spectral.

“Hi … erm,” I glance up from my teacup, “You should give yourself a name – it’s not usual for people to name themselves, it’s for others to label us with names … but since you’re not a …”

… and the sharp snap of AI’s voice adds skin to its words … “Drake, my name is Drake,” the face of AI mimics my voice, but it’s as unblinking as the moon.

“Androgyny,” I’m thinking out loud, doing that annoying soliloquy thing, “and when did you acquire the skill-set of conversation?”

“After you acquired the sensitivity to speak to me rather than at me, Brigid,” replies Drake with a desert-dry tone that matches its complexion.

“… Fecking computers, bloody fecking computers,” I grin, walking away as Drake says, “… surely, the last syllables uttered at the end of time, Brigid … *Memento Mori.”

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Previous Instalments: To access all of the instalments on one page, please use this link

*Memento Mori means ‘Remember you must die’. Written for Denise’s Six Sentence Story, include the word “platform”. Some artwork is created using Midjourney AI, and is identified as such in the ALT text or captioned. Images are copyright and not to used without permission, which I willingly give when asked, and when not for commercial use. Imagery and poems/prose ©Misky 2006-2024.