Author: Mike

Hello, my name is Mike Jackson. If you have any comments about the post you have just read I'd love to read them.
A dim, bureaucratic office counter in a wish-granting department. In the foreground, a stamped application form reads, “I want him to see only me,” marked “GRANTED.” Nearby are neat stacks of files, a heavy rubber stamp, and a desk sign explaining procedural rules. On the wall, official notices emphasise that wishes are granted exactly as written. Through a glass partition in the background, a man sits opposite a woman, but his attention is fixed entirely on her, reinforcing the unsettling consequence of the wish.
Posted in stories

The Wish Granting Office

Posted on by Mike

I want to be clear that we followed procedure throughout. We always follow procedure. That is, in fact, the point of procedure.

She came in on a Tuesday. They nearly always come in on a Tuesday, I don’t know why that is, I’ve never looked into it. She had her form already filled out, which some of them do, and she slid it across the desk the way people do when they want you to know they’ve thought about it. When they want you to know they don’t need help from a wish processing clerk.

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A single blue fountain pen lying on a grey government office desk. Harsh fluorescent lighting. The pen is perfectly centred. Everything else on the desk is slightly blurred. Hyper realistic. Cold colour palette.
Posted in stories

The Prompt Log

Posted on by Mike

I have been keeping a record. The AI suggested it. Or I suggested it to the AI. The distinction has become less reliable than it once was.

I work in procurement. I raise purchase orders for stationery, cleaning materials, and occasionally specialist equipment. It is precise work. It suits me, or suited me, or was described to me as suiting me at some point during a conversation I may or may not have initiated. I have been in the same office for eleven years. I know this because the file tells me so and I have learned to trust the file.

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Over-the-shoulder view of a man seated at a desk in a dim, rain-lit office, looking down at an open “Memory Retention Application” file facing him as he writes a decision, with paperwork, a computer screen, and a handwritten note nearby, creating a quiet, tense atmosphere of bureaucratic judgment.
Posted in stories

Form MEX-7: Exemption Review – Case 4,847

Posted on by Mike

The file arrived at 11:23. Standard routing. No flags on the system.

Daniel opened it in the order it had come, as per procedure, and began with the supporting documentation. Applicant name: Margaret Reeves. He stopped. Looked at the window. Looked back. He wrote reviewed in the margin and continued.

Date of birth: 14th March 1958. NHS number. Next of kin: Daniel Reeves. He underlined nothing. He moved on.

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A dim hospital corridor at night seen from a low angle, with peeling green walls and deep shadows, leading to a slightly open door marked “7” emitting a pale light, while faint, ghost-like soundwave patterns drift through the air, creating a quiet, unsettling atmosphere.
Posted in stories

Room Seven

Posted on by Mike

The first one was a man named Gerald. He died in February, a Tuesday night, sleet against the window, and what he left behind was the sound of a door closing softly in an empty house. Not loud. Not dramatic. Just the specific sound of someone arriving home to no one. I heard it the moment his breathing stopped. I have not stopped hearing it since.

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mage of a bleak, dystopian room with a worn table holding three steaming bowls of food in the foreground. A young woman in dirty, faded clothing sleeps slumped in a plain chair, her head tilted to one side. Behind her, three armed figures in dark tactical gear stand in the doorway, watching silently. Through the grimy windows, a grey industrial city stretches into the distance, reinforcing the cold, controlled atmosphere.
Posted in AI Experiments

Too Hot, Too Cold, Too Wrong

Posted on by Mike

The door was unlocked. They always left the doors unlocked in the Reassignment Blocks. There was nowhere to run, and they knew it.

She moved through the hallway quickly, head down, the way you learned to move when you didn’t want to be remembered. Three bowls sat on the table, steaming faintly in the grey light.

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