AI Story

Miya

It was the middle of the night when the painting started moving, and she thought she was seeing things again. Then, because she was moving so fast, it seemed to be a hallucination. So she did a split-second glance and then came home to calm down.

For a few days, though, she would have her beautiful painting on the bedside table at night. She felt safe being alone with it, and each time she would walk past the room she didn't recognize, she would glance through the blinds. But she said she heard from a neighbor that the intruder had entered the house and was going to invade again.

"He's definitely still up there," an officer said.

As the years went by, her painting still sat on the bedside table, and then she would go outside and look at the houses she lived near. It changed; however, she always kept working until the very last. Occasionally she would call me to stop at her studio to take a photograph for a friend. She spent every evening of her life working on a book of monochrome images – mostly architecture.

When I visited her for the first time in twenty years, I found that her workshop was in complete disarray. Her desk was there, the painting on it, but the chairs, the work-bench, the objects, and the computers had been removed from their former locations, and taken away with her. It was a curious sight: in spite of being unable to work for any reason, her computer was intact and wasn't noticeably half-broken.

She seemed unperturbed. She sat at her desk, waiting for me to emerge from the apartment. A soft, yet purring sound woke me up. It was Dr. Nakai. I had a better understanding of what was going on. "Miya!" "It's been too long," I said. "I want to help you, Genevieve," she said. "I love you." "Do we have to sit here all day and listen to ourselves talk?" "No, Genevieve, we can do something, if you want. I've got my heart set on it." I smiled. "We all have our hearts set on something. Maybe we can get together tonight. Come out here. Let's make you girls dream again." "Let's do it," Genevieve said. She couldn't quite stop a yawning and moving from one ear to the other. I glanced up to make sure she wasn't pushing my chair away, but we'd gone across the room and now she was sitting down right in front of me. It made me feel incredibly uncomfortable. When she had the spell cast, I immediately realized that I had no idea what she wanted me to do. Was she going to heal me all at once? She asked me if I'd be willing to look for myself. I thought about it for a few minutes and told her no. I would find out if I wanted to. My younger self said she could probably find out. She seemed very optimistic. I imagined it would all be really fun and exciting, and would get me more acting experience. I said I was fine with that. She pulled her shorts down to her ankles and got out of them. I sat on the sofa with the recliner facing the TV, and pretended to watch TV while she took off her shorts.