Until Death Do Us Start – Image to Story

For this story I thought I would start with an image. The one above was created by Midjourney. I then put the image into Claude and asked, “Write a 200 word love story using this image as your prompt.“

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Until Death Do Us Start

Sarah found Marcus in the Gardens Between, where the newly dead learn to let go.

“I’ve been waiting,” he said, extending skeletal fingers she recognised instantly, the same hands that had held hers through forty-seven years of marriage.

“You promised you’d wait for me.” She took his hand, feeling the curious lightness of bones unencumbered by flesh.

“I did. I am.”

Around them, memorial dahlias bloomed in impossible profusion, each flower a moment they’d shared: their first kiss, their daughter’s birth, Sunday mornings with tea and crosswords. The blooms pulsed with warmth that living flowers could never achieve.

“I thought death would separate us,” Sarah whispered.

Marcus drew her close, and she discovered that without hearts, souls could still recognise each other’s rhythm. The concentric dome above them shimmered, a cosmic witness to their reunion.

“Separate us?” He laughed, the sound like wind chimes made of light. “My love, we’ve barely started. Now we have eternity.”

They walked together into the garden’s depths, leaving footprints of stardust, while behind them the dahlias continued blooming, orange against the dark, defiant and eternal.

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Why Did Claude Write This Particular Story?

I was curious as to what ‘thinking‘ Claude undertook in writing this simple story – so I asked it: “What in the image inspired you to write this story.”

Here is Claude’s reply…

Several elements in the image directly shaped the story:

The two skeletons holding hands – This was the emotional core. Their pose suggests tenderness and connection rather than anything macabre. The way they face each other, hands clasped, immediately suggested lovers reunited rather than separated by death.

The vibrant orange dahlias – These flowers are strikingly alive and abundant in what could otherwise be a deathly scene. The contrast between skeletal figures and blooming flowers suggested that death needn’t be an ending. I used them as “memorial flowers,” each bloom representing a shared memory, turning them into symbols of love’s persistence.

The luminous dome of concentric lines – This created a sense of sacred or liminal space, neither fully the world of the living nor a traditional afterlife. It felt like a threshold or meeting place, which inspired “The Gardens Between” as an in-between realm.

The colour palette – The warm oranges against cool teals created an unexpectedly beautiful, almost romantic atmosphere. It’s not grim or frightening despite the skeletal imagery.

The flowing golden waves at the bottom – These suggested movement, journey, or transition, reinforcing the idea that the couple is moving forward together into something new rather than being frozen in death.

The overall composition felt celebratory rather than mournful, which inspired a love story about continuation rather than loss.

A Closing Thought

I find myself increasingly going back to thee chatbots, whether it is Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini or Grok and trying to understand how and why it responded in the way it did to the prompt I gave it. Fascinating experiments.

I’d love to know what you think.