conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What could be a title for a book about America, Mximo, American with the genre: Literature & Fiction, Short Stories & Anthologies?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: A title for this book could be 'In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd'
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the first four paragraphs for this book.. End with the sentence ' He pulled the double nine from his row and laid it in the middle of the table, but the thud he intended was lost in the horns and curses of morning traffic on Eighth Street.'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd
  The park where the four men gathered was small. Before the city put it on its tourist maps, it was just a fenced rectangle of space that people missed on the way to their office jobs. The men came each morning to sit under the shifting shade of a banyan tree, and sometimes the way the wind moved through the leaves reminded them of home.
  One man carried a box of plastic dominos. His name was Máximo, and because he was a small man his grandiose name had inspired much amusement all his life. He liked to say that over the years he'd learned a thing or two about the physics of laughter and his friends took that to mean good humor could make a big man out of anyone. Now Maximo waited for the others to sit before turning the dominos out on the table. Judging the men to be in good spirits, he cleared his throat and began to tell the joke he had prepared for the day.
  Máximo stopped to demonstrate and Raúl and Carlos slapped their hands on the domino table and laughed. Máximo paused. Even Antonio had to smile. Máximo loved this moment when the men were warming to the joke and he still kept the punch line close to himself like a secret.
  Máximo looked at Raúl, but didn't say anything. He pulled the double nine from his row and laid it in the middle of the table, but the thud he intended was lost in the horns and curses of morning traffic on Eighth Street.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me five more paragraphs.. Start with the sentence 'The woman motions to the man'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The woman motions to the man. With one hand, he pushes back the pile of leaves from the table and with the other, he sets the tray down. He bows and leaves the room.
  She pours a cup for me and one for herself. I wait for her and then hold the cup to my lips, but I don't drink.
  After a while she says she will tell me a story so that I understand the songs in the grass, the structure of leaves.
  The woman puts her cup down and closes her eyes, as if a great fatigue had overtaken her. After a while she begins again.
  The woman stops and opens her eyes. She leans back in her chair. Her face is pale above the dark hollows.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the last five paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Outside by the gazebo, she slipped the letter into her pocket. She stood still to hear a peacock send its melancholy wail through the yard. A car passed the house slowly, its engine low and hungry. Tomorrow she would air the house out and the next day she would call the realtor, tell her she was in a hurry. She walked up the creaking wood steps and sat on the railing, looking out over the fraying yard. Her parents had thrown a party here after she'd returned from Cuba, all of them healthy and young, the orange trees in blossom, her cousin's daughters splashing in the pool. She'd looked up at the house, the palms framed against the sky.
  Only her mother was silent. She sat across from her, her hands in her lap. Lisette followed her gaze. The day was bright, shimmering above the water. Lisette spoke slowly. It was too bad, she began, that the soldier had taken her camera. There was so much to see. The road to the house that crossed a wooden bridge into a field of sugarcane. The narrow path flanked on both sides by royal palms. It was a late afternoon in summer and the men were coming in from the fields, their hats flopping softly in the breeze.
  Lisette paused, making a circle with her arms. She looked at her mother. Watched her hands turn in her lap.
  The children had stopped by the edge of the pool to listen. One by one they moved away to resume their game. Her father let his gaze fall. Lisette's mother looked up. She stood and Lisette watched her go. Her cousin came out with the guitar. The chatter of the afternoon resumed. Someone passed by and patted her on the head.
  Lisette closed her eyes. The guitar played a slow bolero and Lisette remembered Erminio, his Sunday poems; she saw him again against the light, pouring her morning coffee. He had wrapped his arms around her tight, held her steady against the day.