Writing with AI – Page 5

A dystopian shop interior where a young child in a worn green jacket stands at a counter, placing coins beside a bruised apple on a glowing digital scale that reads 20. A tired shopkeeper looks at a computer screen while a silent queue stretches outside towards tall grey tower blocks. A wall display behind the counter shows vertical crops under purple light, suggesting controlled food production and rationing.

The Cost of an Apple: A Story of Transactions

Posted on February 13, 2026March 19, 2026 by Mike

The child places the coins on the counter. Copper, not credit. The shopkeeper doesn’t look up from her screen.

‘Just this,’ the child says.

The apple sits between them, bruised along one side. Through the window, the grey towers catch the afternoon light, their upper floors bright with panels that drink the sun. Down here, the queue stretches into the street. Nobody speaks. The shopkeeper’s fingers move across her screen, logging, calculating.

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Landscape photograph of a medical waiting room where seven people sit beneath a digital clock frozen at 10:47. An elderly woman watches a cloudy fish tank with three goldfish circling. A woman in a purple cardigan stands with a handbag, a child kneels on the floor with a wooden block, a man in paint-spattered overalls enters Room 3, and a magazine lies on the floor while others scroll on their phones.

stories

The Queue At 10:47

Posted on February 12, 2026March 20, 2026 by Mike

One Prompt, One Story, One Thought

Every now and again I give an AI a single prompt and let it write a short story. I do not edit the result. I simply choose one worth keeping. Below you will find the exact prompt, the story it produced, and one brief thought that stayed with me after reading. Nothing more.

One Prompt – Claude

Write a short story of about 300 words set entirely in a doctors waiting room that never seems to empty. Do not explain why the queue exists. Focus on small actions and overheard fragments of conversation.

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wo skeletal figures face each other beneath a luminous dome of concentric lines, their bony hands clasped together. Orange dahlias bloom abundantly around them against a dark teal background, while flowing golden-orange waves ripple across the foreground.

stories

Until Death Do Us Start – Image to Story

Posted on February 11, 2026March 19, 2026 by Mike

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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stories

Seventeen Minutes: The Weight of Waiting

Posted on February 2, 2026March 19, 2026 by Mike

The queue moved one pace forward every seventeen minutes. I counted. Always seventeen. Never sixteen, never eighteen. The woman in front of me wore a grey coat too large for her frame; the sleeves swallowed her hands. She kept them tucked inside anyway.

A child, perhaps seven, stood two places ahead. His mother held his wrist so tightly the skin around her fingers turned white. He did not cry. None of them cried any longer. The sound had been removed from them before they reached the gate.

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