Regret (A Very Short Story by ChatGPT with Commentary After)

The sun was setting over the small town of Millfield, casting a warm glow over the streets and houses. As Mary sat on her porch, staring out at the scene before her, she couldn't help but feel a sense of regret wash over her.

She had lived in Millfield her entire life, never venturing more than a few miles from her childhood home. She'd always dreamed of seeing the world, of experiencing new cultures and making a name for herself. But as the years passed, she found herself too scared to take the plunge, too comfortable in the familiar surroundings of her small town.

Now, as she approached her 50th birthday, Mary realized that it was too late for her to chase her dreams. She had missed her chance at adventure, at living a life that was truly her own.

Tears welled up in Mary's eyes as she thought about all the opportunities she had let slip through her fingers. She had always played it safe, following the expectations of others instead of following her own heart.

But as the sun set on another day, Mary made a decision. She wasn't going to let her regrets consume her. She was going to start living for herself, even if it meant leaving the safety and comfort of her small town behind.

And so, the next day, Mary packed her bags and set off on a journey of self-discovery. She traveled to far-off lands, experiencing new cultures and making a life for herself that was full of purpose and meaning.

Years passed, and Mary never looked back. She had finally found the courage to chase her dreams, and she had no regrets about the life she had built for herself. She knew that it was never too late to start living for yourself, and she was grateful for the second chance she had been given.

* * * * 

OK, so I asked ChatGPT, the AI writing program that has gone over-the-top viral, to write a 300-word story about Regret. The preceding story is the product of our gifted thinking machine, unedited. 

As I read it, I had a problem when Mary made a decision to "set off on a journey of self-discovery" and was heading off the next day in pursuit of her dreams. 

Why was this a problem? Well, there are too many unanswered questions. First, how many people do you know who can pack their bags and leave overnight? It just didn't seem plausible. If she owns the house, who will sell it for her? If she's just renting, who will empty the place and put her things in storage? 

Was she a widow? Divorced? I'd like to know more, but then again... I asked for a 300 word story, not a novel.

Does she live alone? One would assume that is the case, but the story doesn't really say this. If she's able to leave the next day, perhaps her parents are still alive and living there. On the hand, it's possible her father died a few years earlier and Mary was taking care of her mother until she died two weeks ago, thereby freeing her of the responsibility she felt was her to bear. With the funeral now behind she stares at a whole new future landscape for her life.

Actually, I've seen this small town phenomenon. People can feel safe in the small towns they grew up in. A number of years ago I met a woman who grew up in a small Wisconsin town. When she went off to college in Madison she was intimidated by the scale of the school and dropped out to return home. I'm curious if she had any regrets like Mary. 

I also remember a young woman who gave me a haircut here in Duluth and said she had never been out of the state. "Not even Wisconsin? It's five minutes away?" (You can actually see Superior from half the houses on Duluth's 30 mile hillside.)

"Not even Wisconsin," she said.

With regards to Mary, I was curious where her fears came from that kept her in Millfield. What do you think she found when she set off to find herself?

Illustration created by DreamAI

Ishiguro Again Shows His Mastery: Never Let Me Go

This past week I've been wholly captivated by yet another Ishiguro marvel, Never Let Me Go.

What is it that gives Kazuo Ishiguro's writing such power? Perhaps it's his patience in laying out the story and developing such vivid characters. Perhaps it's the gravity, though we as readers are not even certain what that force behind the story really is. Perhaps it's the manner in which the stories are told, in which you know that there are things the characters don't know, but then you don't really know either.

The above paragraph reminds me of an exercise in John Gardner's On Becoming A Novelist in which the writer is asked to describe a pond. There is a dead body hidden from view, so it is a serious scene, but the writer has to create the feeling only through describing what is seen.

Ishiguro clearly has become masterful at conveying this kind of undertone without ever explicitly stating it. "Show, don't tell" is one of the first dictum's fiction writers hear at writer's conferences, and this author does it ever so well.

Perhaps its the manner in which these situations he creates unearth painful revelations within ourselves is another aspect of his writing that makes it so potent. I think that right there is a big part of it. Or at least for me. As our narrator Kath tells the story, which consists of strings of interconnected narratives about various people, it seems as if she is striving to resolve what was really going on, things she'd not fully grasped as she experienced them.

So it is that I have remembrances come to mind, instances in which I behaved badly, or failed to speak up, or spoke and should have kept silent. Little did I know that some of these moments would become critical turning points in relationships that once were meaningful.

Friendship and loss, memories and revelations, loneliness and meaning--these are key themes in Never Let Me Go.

SPOILER ALERT

There's something special about the students living at Hailsham, a boarding school in England. At first we don't know what's so special about this school, and neither do the children who grow up there, but eventually a little light streams in and we learn that these children are here for a purpose.

The three main characters in Never Let Me Go are Kath, Tommy and Ruth. These characters are drawn with such detail that you can almost hear them breathing and recognize their fingerprints. Ruth's manipulations are ever so annoying, and Tommy's struggles create such empathy that you lose yourself in Kathy's meandering reflections on the key moments they have shared both at Hailsham and afterwards.

Any number of thoughts come to mind here, one of them being the manner in which a family secret comes to light after it has been suppressed for many years. I'm thinking of a child born of incest, who never realizes why he has no father but eventually senses, then learns, that it's his grandfather.

In this story, the children of Hailsham were part of a program to clone humans who would grow up to become organ donors. As young adults they give until they do not survive. It can be two, three or four, but eventually you give your body parts till you are "complete," which is a euphemism for death.

It's no wonder that a pall hangs over everyone's tale of self-discovery. How the characters respond to these revelations, often nothing more than rumors because the teachers of Hailsham are limited in what they can openly disclose, is the heart of this story.

Eventually the students leave Hailsham and move to the Cottages. From here they become Carers, and then Donors. Some lucky ones will have a chance to get deferrals for a couple years before entering that Donor stage. This is another undercurrent in the story of this threesome.

* * * *

The title of the novel, "Never Let Me Go," is taken from a late 1950's song by Judy Bridgewater, recorded on her album Songs After Dark. Judy Bridgewater and this song recur several times as events unfold involving Tommy, Ruth and Kath.

I love Ishiguro's writing. There's a beauty in the way he digs into the nuances of relationships. Here's a sentence that illustrates this. Kath is reflecting on an incident which seemed insignificant at thee time, but was not.

It was like when you make a move in chess and just as you take your finger off the piece, you see the mistake you've made, and there's this panic because you don't know yet the scale of disaster you've left yourself open to.

Hailsham seem's like an interesting choice for the name of the school. The student clones are shams, not real humans in a sense. This particular school, though, is an elite version of this system of cloning humans to become organs donors, so it is "hailed" by clones who went to other schools. Some time after Kathy, Ruth and Tommy have graduated, however, the school gets closed, no doubt for a sea change in public opinion about the ethics of this business.

Lots of food for thought throughout, and an engaging read as well. 5 stars out of 5.

* * * *

Related Links
Ishiguro’s The Unconsoled Is an Achievement of the First Order
In Awe of Ishiguro's The Buried Giant
Throwback Thursday: Ishiguro On Dylan
  For what it's worth, here's a link to the Judy Bridgewater song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UX6tzE7P44

Wordless Wednesday: Selfies (A Story of Self-Discovery)