#77 Machinessence!

Ok, this is great.  Or what I've been looking for, at least.  Check it:

This is a still from a site that will "psychoanalyze" your written work for you.

Here's what they have to say for themselves:

"The program tries to pick out the sentences of an input text that are most representative of the text as a whole; that is to say, find the essence of a text."


Excellent, no?

So here is the machine-distilled essence of a short story I wrote this morning:

We were at a bar called Tarantula and my friend brought in a tarantula he’d found in the street.  

My friend passed me toothpick after toothpick, pulling them from the bar when he needed more.

 

The Tarantula is a bar but it’s also a thing I ate one time.

 

My friend passed me toothpick after toothpick, a fresh morsel on each tip.

 

We drove and we drove and we drove and my stomach began to turn.

  

I said I can’t believe I ate that fucking tarantula and he said nothing.

  

The bartender doesn’t own a bike, but he could steal one if he wanted.

 

He sat in the passenger seat and I kept driving because he wanted to hit me.

  

I drove on for what felt like forever because as soon as I stopped he could hit me if he wanted.  

He wound up back down by the televisions at the far end of the bar.

  

When we were nearing my apartment, I asked if he wanted to stay the night and he got quiet.

  

And that’s not to say fuck you, it’s just the fastest way of doing things.

  

We got in my car and he looked around at it and said nice car.

  

My friend handed me another toothpick.

  

I didn’t need the beer anymore, but I sipped it because it was nice.

 


Here's the essence of a story I wrote a little while ago:

You acquired the rabbit’s foot by accident – abandoned on a subway seat – and therefore know it was not the framework of ambition or desperation, nor the desire for change, or any shift in your susceptibility to superstition, none of this led to the recent landslide of fortune, the loves you’ve found, the money promised you, the desires you once had, now bled and emptied, pockets along your arms, shoulders and chest in which your new optimism will flow, fattening your face into a delighted grin.  

They are free, more or less, or resigned to their restraints, philosophical about it, maybe, and free in that way.

 

The rabbits do not flinch at the sight of your rabbit’s foot.

 

The rabbits rabbit and you move your eyes and you are so so inexplicably happy.

 

The foot stays with you too, until you abandon it.

 

The rabbits move .

 

They watch your still face, your eyes drifting dreamily.

 

They rabbit.

 

They go back about their rabbit business.

 

They move about in their rabbit light.

 

They’re uninterested, too, in your recent luck.

 

The grin stays with you, for however long.

 

The rabbits do notice your grin, though, nibbling.

 

They go back about their business.

 


Ha!  That essence is weakkkkkk.  Needs more tarantula.  But, chapbook of prose poems, here I come!