conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me a description for a book titled The Melody about Jonathan, South, Carolina with the genre: Literature & Fiction, Poetry.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: the author is a 24 year old African American male doing his best to make sense of the world around him. Jonathan discovered his passion for writing as a sophomore while attending Lakewood High School in Sumter, South Carolina. Jonathan graduated from the University of South Carolina in 2014 with his Bachelors in Accounting. When he isn't crunching numbers during the day, Jonathan is creating poetry and acting as a contributing editor for the urban arts magazine, Genre: Urban Arts.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the first four paragraphs for this book.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The Melody
  Restocking the Gardens "with little plants" would be easy and inexpensive but would appear charitable, Joseph explained to his colleagues and his partners at their weekly conclave in his first-floor offices in town. "What could it take? Three vans, four men, five days, at the most?" But their plans for The Grove would not be changed, not by a single twig. The buildings had priority. There'd be no paupers' hostels, certainly. The meeting room was full of men chortling at the very thought. And, of course, the trees of what had once been called the bosk would have to go. They shouldn't save a single one. A chainsaw, zip-zeep, zip-zeep; they were down. Let's not waste our sensibilities on them, he said. Their timber would be used for roof frames and for windows. That was the only continuity he could promise to "the lung lovers."
  But even this was not enough. Joseph planned to outwit Soubriquet in other, inexpensive ways. "Most people of this town really will not shed a tear for trees," he explained. "But they will always want to save an animal. It should be Wildlife before Plumbing, shouldn't it? Nobody truly cares about the plants." His proposal was that Pencillon and Co. would act as Noah and his Ark and round up "all the living beasts" out in the bosk for relocation somewhere more secure.
  So it was that one weekend in the September following Mr. Busi's elevation to the Avenue of Fame, Noah's Ark put ashore in our town just after dawn in the form of twenty or so motorized trucks and vans and several hundred joyful volunteers. I blush to admit I was among the students there who came to make a din and maybe see some of the creatures that up till then we'd only heard or read about. Why would I participate? Just curiosity, I think, and youthful innocence. I'd no idea this escapade would change the nature of our town for good. Many of us were not sober and none of us was rested. We'd passed the evening in the late bars and then spent the night in the early cafés, where, for a price, our coffee could be laced with alcohol. We had been asked to come equipped with stout shoes and gloves, thick trousers—for there were snakes and rodents to ensnare and thorns to avoid—and something metal to bash and bang.
  At dawn, and full of drink and high spirits, we made our way along the promenade, helping ourselves to anything that might make a noise if struck. The lids of rubbish bins were perfect for the task, and so were the enamel advertising signs that many shops and restaurants had swinging from chains. With a tug from several sturdy arms, they would snap free. I am ashamed to say I stole a distilling kettle and a spigot wrench from the deck of a parked delivery truck, telling myself that I would put them back on my way home. My father would have been turning in his grave, had he been dead. We walked along the seafront, banging what we had, not caring for the residents or sleepers on the beach, but hoping to shake the town awake. We wanted everyone to come to see the animals and take part in what could be the best adventure of their lives.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me five more paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Of one thing I am certain, though, because I witnessed it. The incident that everyone would talk about quite openly and with malicious glee occurred that morning not in the Gardens but in the bosk. We had gone forward through the trees and undergrowth in a line. I think every one of us was bleeding from the hands or face or had ripped his sleeves. And we were itching from the ticks that, once they got beneath our clothes, favored armpits, kneepits, and groins. It was a great relief to come out at the summit of the bosk, where there were rocks and open ground, with panoramic views across the ocean and the town, and where the Grove developers had set up their first-aid tent and a canteen with hot drinks and croque madames topped by lukewarm béchamel. Joseph never fails to oversell himself. I was waiting for the disinfectant and the salve for the gashes on my cheek—I cannot help but think of Mr. Busi and Katerine now—when Mr. Pencillon himself arrived. He had been lent an army general-purpose car, without glass windows or a roof, to force a way through foliage, and he was dressed to fit the part. He had fatigues in olive drab; he had a hunting rifle on his arm; he had a look of triumph on his face. The night had gone extremely well. He'd come to make a humble speech of thanks. We should not think we'd shed our blood or spoiled our clothes for something not worthwhile.
  Joseph stood up in the front well of his vehicle and called for our attention, but it wasn't him that we were looking at for long. Soubriquet had stepped up to the fender of the car and was leaning on its bonnet, looking like he planned on lifting it and tipping out its driver. His face was just as green on gray as it had been down on the promenade. Somehow he hadn't sobered up, despite the damp, despite the morning cold, despite the effort of the climb. I couldn't catch his every word. Much of what he shouted out was garbled anyway. He wasn't missing vowels but consonants. The man was making a spectacle of himself in front of the "stinking" Pencillon. We were embarrassed, though not sure if we ought to intervene: stop him now and we might lose half of a lively anecdote; pull the man away, and he might turn his anger onto us. But it was Pencillon himself who brought the drama to an end. When Soubriquet began to rock the vehicle, his rival lifted up his gun and pointed it at his head. "Let's see if there's a brain in there, Neanderthal," he said. I will not report what Soubriquet offered in return, but let's just say it was surprising from a man who until that day had earned his living deploying words with elegance and focus. The next thing that we heard was a crack of detonation and a bullet spinning through the air.
  I have to hand it to the timber merchant. He has to be a superb shot, although we didn't know that straightaway. Soubriquet was bucking on the ground like a badly slaughtered hog. You should have heard the row he made. We half expected him to be clean dead and only moving, like a headless eel, because his body's muscles were convulsing and in spasm. We also half expected him to have survived but with a bloody tunnel through his skull. But actually we—or, that's to say, the nurses from the first-aid tent—could not find a mark on him. He was, it's true, not hearing well and he was trembling from shock. He might have wet himself, but no one's sure. Somebody said that Pencillon had only shot a blank, but others claimed to see the bullet whiz—a tiny comet with a silver tail, not fiery as you might imagine—and heard it strike and bury itself into one of the bosk's ill-fated trees. Joseph had sent the bullet just a fingerbreadth away from his opponent's ear. Somewhere in one of those fine mansions in The Grove, perhaps, there is a doorframe or a beam that has a bullet at its heart.
  And then he turned to me. "You're not bad for seventy," I said, not wanting to seem false. But I could tell this was not an answer he desired. Being not bad for your age is a validation of a kind, I suppose, but not the endorsement or the reassurance anyone might seek on reaching seventy. I should have said, "You are not old."
  Perhaps it's just as well that Mrs. Pencillon has come with us today; at least Mr. Busi will not feel the oldest there, despite his age. How could she not come? How could she let her sister's ashes fly and not be there to raise a hand with her farewells? How could we leave her sitting in that wicker chair, unattended and in tears? We had to help her down the courtyard paths into the street. She even took my arm and let me bear her modest weight. But now that she is settled in a throne of cushions in the front seat of the car, next to Albert, the driver Joseph has hired to spend his day with us, her mood has changed again. She's happy to look out—as are we all—at our ancient, changing town, its spires and castellations now overshadowed by squarer blocks, its pavements slightly narrower to accommodate more cars and trams, its street-level windows on the sea reduced from when I was a boy, its gradual loss of trees, its new rapidity. The business and the bustle have increased, of course. I would not cross the boulevards these days without a two-way check, and then a hesitation. "Look twice, pause twice, pray twice, then dash," is what they say. But still I love my town and how it proudly holds its own between the ocean and the sky, despite the improvements and refinements coming out of town hall.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Delete the first sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The incident that everyone would talk about quite openly and with malicious glee occurred that morning not in the Gardens but in the bosk. We had gone forward through the trees and undergrowth in a line. I think every one of us was bleeding from the hands or face or had ripped his sleeves. And we were itching from the ticks that, once they got beneath our clothes, favored armpits, kneepits, and groins. It was a great relief to come out at the summit of the bosk, where there were rocks and open ground, with panoramic views across the ocean and the town, and where the Grove developers had set up their first-aid tent and a canteen with hot drinks and croque madames topped by lukewarm béchamel. Joseph never fails to oversell himself. I was waiting for the disinfectant and the salve for the gashes on my cheek—I cannot help but think of Mr. Busi and Katerine now—when Mr. Pencillon himself arrived. He had been lent an army general-purpose car, without glass windows or a roof, to force a way through foliage, and he was dressed to fit the part. He had fatigues in olive drab; he had a hunting rifle on his arm; he had a look of triumph on his face. The night had gone extremely well. He'd come to make a humble speech of thanks. We should not think we'd shed our blood or spoiled our clothes for something not worthwhile.
  Joseph stood up in the front well of his vehicle and called for our attention, but it wasn't him that we were looking at for long. Soubriquet had stepped up to the fender of the car and was leaning on its bonnet, looking like he planned on lifting it and tipping out its driver. His face was just as green on gray as it had been down on the promenade. Somehow he hadn't sobered up, despite the damp, despite the morning cold, despite the effort of the climb. I couldn't catch his every word. Much of what he shouted out was garbled anyway. He wasn't missing vowels but consonants. The man was making a spectacle of himself in front of the "stinking" Pencillon. We were embarrassed, though not sure if we ought to intervene: stop him now and we might lose half of a lively anecdote; pull the man away, and he might turn his anger onto us. But it was Pencillon himself who brought the drama to an end. When Soubriquet began to rock the vehicle, his rival lifted up his gun and pointed it at his head. "Let's see if there's a brain in there, Neanderthal," he said. I will not report what Soubriquet offered in return, but let's just say it was surprising from a man who until that day had earned his living deploying words with elegance and focus. The next thing that we heard was a crack of detonation and a bullet spinning through the air.
  I have to hand it to the timber merchant. He has to be a superb shot, although we didn't know that straightaway. Soubriquet was bucking on the ground like a badly slaughtered hog. You should have heard the row he made. We half expected him to be clean dead and only moving, like a headless eel, because his body's muscles were convulsing and in spasm. We also half expected him to have survived but with a bloody tunnel through his skull. But actually we—or, that's to say, the nurses from the first-aid tent—could not find a mark on him. He was, it's true, not hearing well and he was trembling from shock. He might have wet himself, but no one's sure. Somebody said that Pencillon had only shot a blank, but others claimed to see the bullet whiz—a tiny comet with a silver tail, not fiery as you might imagine—and heard it strike and bury itself into one of the bosk's ill-fated trees. Joseph had sent the bullet just a fingerbreadth away from his opponent's ear. Somewhere in one of those fine mansions in The Grove, perhaps, there is a doorframe or a beam that has a bullet at its heart.
  And then he turned to me. "You're not bad for seventy," I said, not wanting to seem false. But I could tell this was not an answer he desired. Being not bad for your age is a validation of a kind, I suppose, but not the endorsement or the reassurance anyone might seek on reaching seventy. I should have said, "You are not old."
  Perhaps it's just as well that Mrs. Pencillon has come with us today; at least Mr. Busi will not feel the oldest there, despite his age. How could she not come? How could she let her sister's ashes fly and not be there to raise a hand with her farewells? How could we leave her sitting in that wicker chair, unattended and in tears? We had to help her down the courtyard paths into the street. She even took my arm and let me bear her modest weight. But now that she is settled in a throne of cushions in the front seat of the car, next to Albert, the driver Joseph has hired to spend his day with us, her mood has changed again. She's happy to look out—as are we all—at our ancient, changing town, its spires and castellations now overshadowed by squarer blocks, its pavements slightly narrower to accommodate more cars and trams, its street-level windows on the sea reduced from when I was a boy, its gradual loss of trees, its new rapidity. The business and the bustle have increased, of course. I would not cross the boulevards these days without a two-way check, and then a hesitation. "Look twice, pause twice, pray twice, then dash," is what they say. But still I love my town and how it proudly holds its own between the ocean and the sky, despite the improvements and refinements coming out of town hall.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the last four paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Now Lex has found a tree to climb. You'd think, to witness it, she clambered in the forest frequently, that in some secret life she was arboreal. She clearly finds it easy to transfer her weight between the branches, using all four limbs in a rotation that seems both natural and risky. She wants to reach the elbow of a high branch that loops directly over the burial hole she's made below. She has to reach far out and stretch, holding on with one hand to a throttle vine, which has wrapped around the trunk but could easily snap, it seems to me. It bends to her weight, and creaks. She holds the Persian bells by her other fingertips and has to swing them several times before she snags them on the nub of a twig.
  So she has to free them from the twig and try again, taking even greater risks to tie them round the branch with their own chain, so that no animal or bird can claim them as a trophy without the help of fingers or the aid of tools. At last, she's satisfied. She draws back to the trunk and, using only her upper limbs, lowers herself to the ground. The Persian bells are swinging under their own weight and tinkling in the summer breeze. "That's it," she says, cleaning her hands on her skirts. "Let's start."
  The sun is sinking into the forest already, and at our backs we hear our driver, Albert, and his car arrive in the clearings. He switches off his engine but leaves his headlamps on, to let us know that he is there and ready to return us to the town. Mr. Busi is dry-eyed, unlike his sister-in-law, but I can tell how moved he is and satisfied. I find the courage, seeing he is so close to me, to reach across and rest a hand on his shoulder, like a son. Then Mrs. Pencillon does the same, at his other shoulder, like a sister, like a friend. He has epaulettes of hands to take the place of all those medals he has parted with.
  Joseph might have overcatered for the human four of us, but nobody can overcater for the hunger in the Park. There are dainty sandwiches and cheese, slices of cold meats and salmon, the contents of six costly jars, hardly touched by us, pâté, olives, and foie gras. And of course there are the pastries and the cakes, the fancy breads and slices. We go back to the car, where it is safe, and—wondering, just wondering, what we will witness at the forest edge—we wait there in its headlamp beams for creatures to appear and dine.