First Person, Present Tense

by Pauline Yates

Eager to try the new AI Book Writer app, I download the program and enable the wireless imagination transfer function.

“Welcome to Book Writer,” a computer simulated voice says. “Please imagine scenes for text conversion and click upload.”

I imagine the scenes in “Murder By Moonlight”, the crime novel I started but never finished, and click upload.

“Images received. Enabling text conversion. Error. Crime detected. First-degree murder, punishable by law.”

“It’s fiction, you dumb computer.”

“Commencing jury deliberation. Guilty verdict received. Downloading penalty.”

“What? Cancel!”

“Appeal denied. Dispensing penance.”

An electric shock fries my brain.

 The computer beeps. “Termination complete.”

Pauline Yates

Pauline Yates lives in Australia and writes horror and dark speculative fiction. Links to her publications can be found here: https://linktr.ee/paulineyates