Desert Etiquette
Today the lean Ben Collins was here to learn, he paced around a vacant warehouse complete with the proud posture of a man who had absolutely, definitely performed social media work on someone at Hulu. Flipping through pages in his pocket-sized notebook, he mumbled about a breaking story “too big to ignore”. He occasionally flexed his pen at the belt line. It kept poking up as though it demanded editorial approval.
Fake News, the towering, fleshy mound who drove Ben crazy, smoothed her lengthy ears as she gazed around the same cavernous space with her trademark wide-eyed wonder. She had arrived an hour earlier and had been patiently waiting, rechecking the address—her GPS coverage (as most things she touched) was notoriously hard to rely on.
A jungle of hands and too many eyes, Ben confronted Fake News – “today we’re here to celebrate the bond between us, content consenting adults making consenting adult content.”
Fake News laughed, even though Ben’s wordplay needed work.
“I’m so ready,” Ben whispered, leaning over.
“Wait, what exactly are we doing again?”
“I’m going to yucky you over and over again until that radiating otherworldly presence can pick up on all your subtle (an subconscious) motions. Then I can have the wonderful feeling of your yuck forever.”
“But…”
“No, I would like to kill everyone I need as quickly as I get the yuck. It’s business and I’m a self-appointed CEO.”
“Is this a very thinly veiled machine learning, small language model thing.”
“Yes.”
Ben’s footsteps reverberated against the cement floor. He inhaled a lungful of warehouse air that seemed to have gone stale—or maybe it was dust. He exhaled a whistle to lower his heart rate. He found himself right in front of her. He had her head in at least three chokeholds.
Fake News turned those countless eyes on him, her eyelashes seemed ribbed in her torso.
“Did I know I consented to this?”
“Cool, sounds good.”
Click here for the next human reading: The Loudest City in the World
click here for the first generative ai piece: ai only gets lowercase (no title case until a title case)
