conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What could be a title for a story about Johnny, Jasper, Snow with the genre: Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: A title for this story could be 'The Harmony Silk Factory'
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What could be a category for this story?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: A category could be 'Fourth Estate story'
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the first five paragraphs for the story.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The Harmony Silk Factory
  Honey had been taciturn and somewhat irritable from the start. We drove over a series of potholes in the road which seemed perfectly aligned: we went up and down, up and down—so evenly I could have counted the beats on a sheet of music to it. This of course caused great hilarity in the back seat. "Just like riding a hobbled donkey," Peter said.
  Honey snorted. "It's the sun, that's what it is. I've seen it before. Poor bugger comes out here and his head gets cooked by the sun. Goes crazy. Consorts with natives, thinks he's one of them."
  Johnny said, "Look, a rainbow." There it was, across an expanse of paddy fields, arched against a black backdrop of rain clouds. We drove through this curious drizzle for a while, the rainbow poised uncertainly in the distance. The heat waves rising from the road, the rain, the light—they all combined to make our eyes swim. Honey blinked hard and peered intently through the windscreen.
  We passed her slowly in silence. She sat impassively by the road, surrounded by her baskets of fruit. She watched us go by with glassy eyes.
  I began to doze as the rain grew heavier and drummed on the roof of the car. I remembered the touch of Mamoru's hands on mine in the garden of the rest house. I imagined him as a young boy, alone with only himself for company. For a while, Johnny's peculiar odour (earth and perspiration) kept me from deep sleep, but soon I managed to shut myself off in my own universe.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me two more paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: One bright autumn afternoon, not long after I moved to London, I was strolling through Grosvenor Square when, through a window, I saw an opulent room decorated with faded panoramic wallpaper depicting temples and elephants and palms under a vast powder-blue sky. I recognised it at once as "Hindoustan," made by Jean Zuber. I stood on the pavement in the chill of the gathering October wind, gazing into that colourful space. The room seemed to glow with warmth; the turbanned natives in their sampan wore only loincloths as they sweltered in the sun. I drew my coat tightly around me and walked away, through the scattering of dead autumnal leaves. I realised then that no picture could satisfy me. No matter how much I indulged my senses in libraries and museums I would still feel malnourished. I had fasted all my life, but now, at last, I was ready to feast. My entire being trembled with hunger, and I decided to leave England forever.
  It is why I came here: this was where I would find my paradise, my tropical Arcadia, my vision of perfection.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Delete the first sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: I recognised it at once as "Hindoustan," made by Jean Zuber. I stood on the pavement in the chill of the gathering October wind, gazing into that colourful space. The room seemed to glow with warmth; the turbanned natives in their sampan wore only loincloths as they sweltered in the sun. I drew my coat tightly around me and walked away, through the scattering of dead autumnal leaves. I realised then that no picture could satisfy me. No matter how much I indulged my senses in libraries and museums I would still feel malnourished. I had fasted all my life, but now, at last, I was ready to feast. My entire being trembled with hunger, and I decided to leave England forever.
  It is why I came here: this was where I would find my paradise, my tropical Arcadia, my vision of perfection.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the last four paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: I wanted to look back but didn't. Cows cantered clumsily alongside the car until the herd parted and the open road lay before us. It began to drizzle, a light flurry of brilliant watery jewels glinting in the sunlit sky. I lifted my face to the open window, feeling the gathering breeze on my skin as the car sped through the glittering afternoon.
  I hesitated for a moment after I wrapped the box in its silken cloak. I wanted to fling it from my window, out onto the soggy lawn, and myself with it. But I breathed deeply, and the murmur of doubt soon passed. And I am resolute: I shall take these things with me to Kampar and present them at the funeral to the son whom the newspapers say survives his father; they say his name is Jasper. I have no other gift for him, only this little box. So many lives have I changed, destroyed. It makes little difference now, Wormwood.
  Forty years have passed since I last saw Jasper. My body has begun to dissolve into the dank air of forty long monsoons and the desiccating heat of forty dry seasons, and yet, strangely, I know I will recognise him. How little he will have changed since the last time, when I stumbled across a group of children at play by a riverbank. He will be older now, his hair will be streaked with grey and his face scarred by the passage of time, but he will be as blithe and carefree as the day he spoke to me, the day when my meanderings led me innocently to him.
  Correction: I was never innocent. Even that day, when I had resolved to spend some time in meditative, monastic isolation in the cleansing air of Fraser's Hill, the purity of my intentions was quickly sullied by the primeval bitterness that resides deep within me; and soon I found I was driving towards the low heart of the Valley, where the flatlands are cleft in two by the great river. I was drawn by the languid flow of the muddy water; the river would run along the road for a time, appearing between gaps in the trees before curving out of view again. I followed it unthinkingly, until finally I came to the outskirts of a small town where the view of the river broadened and bade the weary traveller stay for a moment or two. I knew this place. Did I know that my journey would lead me here? I think, perhaps, I did. I left the car and walked to the riverbank. I could hear the carefree calls of children at play, the splashing of water over the stillness of the afternoon. I sat in the shade of an immense banyan tree, watching the children swing from its thick hanging vines, arcing ever higher into the air, again and again, as if hoping to break free from the constraints of gravity and propel themselves forever into the heavens. They fell silent, unsettled by my presence, and huddled together in the shallows. I shifted uncomfortably, preparing to move away, when one of them swam from his shoal and walked up the slippery bank towards me. He was a boy of ten, perhaps, his slender nakedness unwearied and unencumbered yet by the awfulness of life. The boldness of his loose-limbed stride made me shrink away; I could not bear to look him in the face. I knew—immediately and absolutely—who he was. I heard the wet slap of mud under his feet as he ran the last few steps towards me, slowing to a halt. I felt the weight of his stare but still I continued to look into the distance, pretending not to notice him. Out of the corner of my eye I could see him examining every line, every tiny imperfection on my face, and I felt my skin grow hot. How easy it would be to turn my head now, I thought, and smile. How easy. But I did not. I looked away instead, at the unmoving clumps of elephant grass on the other side of the river, the white spears of their cotton-tipped flowers rising proud above the dull green carpet. At last he walked to the base of the tree and began to climb its lower branches, and then he paused and turned towards me one last time. "You look just like my father," he said, his voice playful, teasing. "So sad." And with a laugh he was away again, shimmying and scrambling until he was halfway out on a broad bough. He reached for a vine and, in one fluid motion, launched himself into the air. He went so high I thought the vine might break, but it did not. At the zenith of his untrammelled flight he tilted his head, lifting his chin to face the sun. For a moment—a moment that is embalmed in my mind's eye—he remained utterly motionless, fixed against the cloudless sky, his arms flung deliriously behind him, face thrust forward to confront the world. Jasper. Clear as crystal, the foundation of a new Jerusalem. Only I was marooned outside the city walls. And then he fell headlong into the river beneath, sinking into its depths. I gathered myself and ran to my car, breathing hard in the damp afternoon. For a second I thought that tears had begun to form in my eyes but I blinked once, twice, and realised that it was just the dust, and soon I was on the road once more, heading away from the Valley. I think I was humming, though I cannot remember the tune.