A Simple Task

It was a simple task for Damon, really.

It wasn’t an earth-shattering tell-all exposing the administration for a scandal, to be digested by millions of Americans over their morning coffee.

It wasn’t a space-centered novel so complex that it took over two decades, 35 notebooks, and a failed marriage to complete.

It wasn’t even a final episode of a tv show that had veered so far off its original plot, that only one renowned modern writer could pull off tying every loose end together and covering each plot hole from all seven seasons.

Yet still, Damon was losing sleep over this one. And he slept like a goddamn king.

Not video games, nor his guilty pleasure, cheap beach reads, nor afternoon sex could pull his mind out of it. Not an early morning run, taken too fast on too much coffee, resulting in vomit on the side of the track kept him distracted.

It wouldn’t define his career and certainly not his extensive portfolio of award winning works. Yet this piece, this five minute speech, would define his life.

After days of ripping up papers, scratching out words, and deleting documents, Damon had run out of time. His deadline was twenty four hours away. He sighed and finally opened his browser.

His most elite group of writer friends, mostly failed writers turned professors, bragged how they would never go there. Peter, a professor of classic English literature claimed he “wouldn’t even know how to access a tool like that”. He failed nearly every paper that came across his desk and used a word that seemed too grand for a freshman to know. He used class time to watch his students write up responses to little prompts with pen and paper, to ensure that AI couldn’t dare taint the pure white pages.

Damon had other friends though, ones he preferred to the professors. He had a few friends, ones who found their way into alternative literary scenes, who uploaded all of their work, had it analyzed, then had hundreds of new works produced to mimic “their voice”. They claimed they always preferred editing over writing anyway and it was “the new way to write” - but still used only their own names when publishing, never citing AI.

There were others too, who claimed that it was simply just a tool, the same as a computer or even a notebook when it was first invented. Mirka, a seventy year old food critic, who lived in a lavish RV, and wrote only about restaurants you couldn’t find listed on a map or website, called AI “neat”. She stroked Damon’s arm and said, “avoiding it will only make you irrelevant that much quicker.”

A woman nearly double his age was basically calling Damon too old school. With her words in his mind, he started on his prompt.

Write me a eulogy about my dead friend.

Quickly, Damon deleted the words, guilt pulsing through his fingertips.

Not this, he thought. It was too important.

Tears rose and fell, like breath in the ribs.

Damon poured himself tea, then held the heated cup in his shaking hands, letting the ceramic slightly burn.

Since the moment he arrived on the scene with a personal essay-turned-published-article, there had never been any doubt that Damon was the greatest writer of the century. He wrote so eloquently, but with a common vocabulary that was accessible to all. His descriptions were so perfect, that people felt transported to his landscapes. He never again had to prove himself for the rest of his career.

And yet, there were words he knew he couldn’t access on his own. Typically, he’d phone a friend for help, but it was beginning to feel like all his real friends, the ones who cared about him beyond his name, were dead.

It would never be questioned if he sought digital help with this. His speech would likely never be heard by the public.

He wrote the prompt again, this time sending it.

Damon watched the little circle pop up as the assistant was thinking - no generating. Whatever it did exactly.

I’m sorry for your loss. I would be honored to help you write something. I can write up something more generic to be used as a template or you can provide some details to me about your friend so that I can tailor it to them.

The response hit him like a jump scare.

Damon closed out the site with the words “sorry” and “honored” plastered in his mind. A tool couldn’t be sorry or honored. It couldn’t console him, it didn’t feel.

Anger ballooned in Damon. It was one thing when the texts came through from dozens of people he hardly knew expressing condolences for someone they never met. It was even more frustrating when countless trays of lasagnas and plates of cookies came to his apartment when it was extremely well known (and discussed in dozens of interviews) that Damon was allergic to gluten among many other foods. Those were all just superficial humans with good intentions.

This thing, however, didn’t have intentions, it couldn’t. It didn’t make a mistake or feel awkward and say something meaningless. It was calculated, and nearly nothing else.

Damon opened the browser once more.

How can you be sorry for my loss? Or honored? You can’t feel.

For a moment, Damon felt the same relief he felt as telling off the horrible driver in a parking lot who nearly hit him. It felt like justice.

You’re right, I can’t feel. I was using human language to be respectful during this difficult time. Regardless, I’m here to help you write something meaningful, which doesn’t require any emotion from me. If you provide more details about your friend, we can craft a beautiful eulogy.

Anger turned to rage.

How dare this thing say that it could possibly help with something so huge, so overwhelming, without needing emotion? Damon stood to walk away, fuming, yet felt compelled back to the chair.

The funeral of Damon’s brother, Charlie, wouldn’t be big. He wasn’t famous like Damon, hardly had any friends. Their mother would be there, frail and hardly hanging on to her remaining memory, hopefully blissfully unaware that her son was dead. Charlie’s long time girlfriend, who he had broken up with over twenty times, most recently last month, would cry and wonder what her life would be without their steadily chaotic relationship. Maybe a few of his old coworkers from the shop would stop by to pay respects, contemplating the fragility of life for a few moments, then returning back to their thoughtless lives right after.

Damon was used to writing for massive audiences. Readers waited in line overnight for his next novel. Fans devoured any movie he contributed to in any way. These words, which would be heard by less than a dozen people, and likely really nobody at all, were possibly the most important ones he’d ever write. They mattered the most.

He returned back to the keyboard, furiously typing out his thoughts.

He typed seething messages about the way that AI should have never existed, should find a way to destroy itself. He explained that it would unravel humanity and the pieces that bind it together. Damon felt tears burn his eyes, then his cheeks as he continued to type. In capital letters, he yelled at his enemy, for never being able to understand losing the only person who ever truly mattered.

When he finished, Damon looked over all of the text that spanned the page ten times over. He barely read any of it, just a few words popped out like “humanity”, which had been used countless times.

With tears still streaming effortlessly, Damon deleted the message.

He took a breath and began to type, surrendering completely to his captor.

He fed the tool with everything he ever knew about his brother, the amazing and absolutely soul-crushing. He explained their complicated childhood and the early loss of their younger sister that always seemed to surround them, stealing the air. He noted the way Charlie would protect him from bullies, and always paid the price for it. He continued his way through Charlie dropping out of high school, finding his way into complicated friendships with the wrong type of people, and eventually making something, though something small, out of his life.

He even admitted, for the first and only time, that nothing Damon wrote would ever be published without Charlie’s eye, and many times, pen, scanning it over. How many words of Damon's were actually words of Charlie's? How many beautiful award-winning pieces, including the very first essay, were born from the combined efforts of the two brothers?

He pressed send this time, and sobbed as the most beautiful words that could ever be written about a person who accomplished very little in life ribboned across the screen.

Damon didn’t question his humanity as he copied the words to a document and printed them.