conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know the first five paragraphs for a book with the title 'Cities of the Red Night'? Start with the sentence 'Cities of the Red Night
  Marching day and night without sleep, on opium and yoka, we were five miles south of the city at dawn of the third day'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Cities of the Red Night
  Marching day and night without sleep, on opium and yoka, we were five miles south of the city at dawn of the third day. A warm mist enveloped us and I was reminded of the steam bath in my little Michigan lake town and found myself walking with an erection. Suddenly we heard a terrific explosion from the direction of Panama City and stopped, our faces lifted to the rising sun.
  Shortly thereafter, a runner informed us that Captain Strobe had been rescued and was heading south in a fishing boat towards one of our Pacific bases opposite the Pearl Islands. We instructed the runner to inform the Spanish garrison that the pirates who had engineered the destruction of the armory and the escape of Captain Strobe were just south of the city, that they were few in number and almost out of powder. As we had hoped, the Spanish fell into our trap and immediately dispatched a column of soldiers in pursuit, leaving only a hundred to guard the city.
  The country here is low hills with outcroppings of limestone, ideally suited for ambush. We select a narrow valley between slopes strewn with limestone boulders. Rocky terrain is the best for mortar attacks. We dispose twenty men on each slope, about fifty yards from the path the Spanish column will take. The remaining ten will serve as decoys, fleeing as the soldiers approach. Once the concealed riflemen open up on the enemy flanks, they will seek cover and fire directly into the Spanish column, who will then be caught in a three-way fire. Concealed behind boulders, we settle down to wait.
  It is not long before the Spanish appear. There are about two hundred men in the column, with four officers on horseback. As they catch sight of the decoys, the officers urge their horses on, shouting to the men to follow. The lead officer, a major, is leaning forward in the saddle, his sword raised, his teeth bared under a bristling black mustache. Using a rifle with contact mortar, I take careful aim, leading the horse by four feet to allow for forward speed. Even so, I miscalculate slightly, and the mortar hits the horse in the withers instead of in the shoulder as I had intended. The explosion blows the major out of the saddle and over the horse's head. His sword flies out of his severed right hand in a glittering arc. The horse rears, screaming and kicking, entrails spilling from a gaping hole.
  My shot is the signal for the others to open up, bouncing mortars off boulders by the foot soldiers and under the horses. One officer whirls and gallops back towards the city. After two rounds of mortar fire, we shift to the double-barreled rifles. In a few minutes, all but a handful are dead or dying and the survivors are fleeing back to the city in a blind panic. I give the signal to hold fire, since the accounts carried by the fugitives will place our number at five to eight hundred. The rumor of a large force of well-armed privateers, probably English, will spread panic in the city, whose defenders are now reduced to a scant hundred men.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know three more paragraphs?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: He steps warily into the room like a strange cat and I feel a shock of alien contact. He twitches his face into a smile and jerks a thumb at his chest.
  He throws open his slicker. He is naked except for boots and a black Stetson. He has a hard-on straight up against his stomach. He turns bright red all over, even his teeth and nails, an idiot demon from some alien hell, raw, skinned, exposed, abandoned yet joyless and painful like a prisoner holding up his manacles, or a leper showing his sores. A musky rotten smell steams off him and fills the room. I know that he is trying to show us something and this is his only way to communicate.
  The rain stopped in the late afternoon and we walked down to the inlet in a gray twilight and shot two wood pigeons from a dripping tree.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Delete the last sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: He steps warily into the room like a strange cat and I feel a shock of alien contact. He twitches his face into a smile and jerks a thumb at his chest.
  He throws open his slicker. He is naked except for boots and a black Stetson. He has a hard-on straight up against his stomach. He turns bright red all over, even his teeth and nails, an idiot demon from some alien hell, raw, skinned, exposed, abandoned yet joyless and painful like a prisoner holding up his manacles, or a leper showing his sores. A musky rotten smell steams off him and fills the room. I know that he is trying to show us something and this is his only way to communicate.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know the last five paragraphs?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: I didn't want to write about this or what followed. Guayaquil, Lima, Santiago and all the others I didn't see. The easiest victories are the most costly in the end.
  I have blown a hole in time with a firecracker. Let others step through. Into what bigger and bigger firecrackers? Better weapons lead to better and better weapons, until the earth is a grenade with the fuse burning.
  I remember a dream of my childhood. I am in a beautiful garden. As I reach out to touch the flowers they wither under my hands. A nightmare feeling of foreboding and desolation comes over me as a great mushroom-shaped cloud darkens the earth. A few may get through the gate in time. Like Spain, I am bound to the past.
  For information on Picador Reading Group Guides, as well as ordering, please contact the Trade Marketing department at St. Martin's Press.
  Grateful acknowledgment is made for use of a portion of "The Too Fat Polka" by Ross MacLean and Arthur Richardson. Copyright 1947, renewed by Shapiro, Bernstein and Co., Inc., New York, New York. Used by permission.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Reverse the sentences.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Used by permission.., New York, New York., Inc. Copyright 1947, renewed by Shapiro, Bernstein and Co.
  Grateful acknowledgment is made for use of a portion of "The Too Fat Polka" by Ross MacLean and Arthur Richardson. Martin's Press.
  For information on Picador Reading Group Guides, as well as ordering, please contact the Trade Marketing department at St. Like Spain, I am bound to the past. A few may get through the gate in time. A nightmare feeling of foreboding and desolation comes over me as a great mushroom-shaped cloud darkens the earth. As I reach out to touch the flowers they wither under my hands. I am in a beautiful garden.
  I remember a dream of my childhood. Into what bigger and bigger firecrackers? Better weapons lead to better and better weapons, until the earth is a grenade with the fuse burning. Let others step through.
  I have blown a hole in time with a firecracker. The easiest victories are the most costly in the end. Guayaquil, Lima, Santiago and all the others I didn't see.I didn't want to write about this or what followed