I went back to the Six Sentence Cafe & Bistro and found the tall, thin man setting the automaton up in the foyer as Doctor Zoltan Mystic and Seer who apparently could answer any question for 25 cents though he specialized in fortunes.
Finding a quarter in my pocket, I asked Zoltan, “What does a poem consist of?” and Zoltan raised up a card upon which I read: RHYME, METER AND HEART, BUT YOU BETTER USE THE PROMPT WORD FOIL SOMEWHERE IN THIS TALL TALE OF YOURS BEFORE YOU RUN OUT OF SENTENCES.
Wow, I thought, that was a more accurate answer than AI would have given me.
Perhaps reading my mind Zoltan gratuitously raised up another card upon which I read: I CAN EVEN WRITE THAT POEM FOR YOU AND FAKE THE HEART JUST LIKE YOU WOULD.
Wondering now if he was any better than AI, I inserted another quarter to ask him if he ever ran out of cardboard stock upon which he wrote those messages.
Up popped another card which read: HOW WOULD I KNOW?
Denise offers the prompt word “foil” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.
Poetry, Short Prose and Walking 
The automaton is starting to come to life and get a mind of its own.
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Zoltan has a good point. And was he AI before AI became a thing?
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Hmmm…didn’t know I’d be anonymous….which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But this is Dawn King from Change is Hard.
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nice!
Full Disclosure: for the first three sentae, I began to feel concerned that a Reader might not realize it was the automaton (in a turban) in the foyer, trying out jobs at the Cafe
… then came his second (and third lines) and I smiled and laughed.
Yep, that’s the (currently) nameless automaton from Room 215!
Excellent Six
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