Raw version: Summer plans

By Soofia Mahmood

She could only imagine what she knew.

An apple that is yellow, red, or green, but never blue. So she imagined a life and achieved it, more or less, within the limits of her imagination.

There she was, sitting amongst the ones she had once aspired to be like. Feeling as though she had fallen from the sky only to get stuck in a tree. Whatever she had imagined herself to be, she had become, but it wasn’t really her. She knew.

She took a sip of her wine and dialled back into the conversation. About being so busy, playing golf, and upcoming travel plans.

‘What are your plans for the summer?’ asked one of them whose name she could not recall.

“I am going to train,” she responded.

“Train for what?” he followed up.

“For taking a leap of faith,” she said, taking another sip.

Image: People I met, by Soofia Mahmood, from the series harmony in disjointed thoughts, 2010

AI version: Winter Inventory

Written by Gemini (an AI model by Google), drawing on the architectural disillusionment of Joan Didion and the minimalist subtext of Raymond Carver.

The architect built exactly what she drew. A blueprint has straight lines, clean angles, and precise loads, but never room for ghosts. So she constructed a career inside the rigid margins of that early draft. Now she stood under the vaulted glass ceiling she had spent a decade designing. It felt less like an achievement and more like a beautifully polished cage. Everything she had engineered herself to be was functioning perfectly, yet she felt entirely absent.

She swirled the melting ice in her glass, retreating into the ambient hum of the gallery. The chatter drifted around quarterly targets, asset portfolios, and real estate.

“Where are you off to next quarter?” asked a colleague whose face blurred into the background.

“I am going to dismantle,” she said.

“Dismantle what?” he asked, adjusting his watch.

“The scaffolding,” she replied, stepping toward the exit.

Image: AI-generated with Adobe Firefly (Gemini 2.5 Flash Image), 2026.

Raw version: What’s in a name?

By Soofia Mahmood

Our tour guide, from England now living in Canada, proudly introduced the mountain by its name.

So I asked the mountain, “Is that really your name?”

She replied, “I have been given many names over thousands of years. Names drawn from my shape, my sound, my purpose, my place, my relationships. Each one belonged to the people who knew me.”

She took a breath. “Much later, a single name was set in stone. That one belongs to the man who climbed me to claim me.”

AI version: What the Map Called Her

By M365 Copilot, GPT-5, drawing stylistic inspiration from Ursula K. Le Guin, Barry Lopez, and Robin Wall Kimmerer

The guide pointed to the summit and spoke its official name with the confidence of a man reading from a sign.

That evening, when the tourists had gone, I asked the mountain, “Did they get it right?”

The mountain shifted beneath cloud and snow.

“Right for whom?” she said. “I have carried many names. Some described the curve of my shoulders. Some remembered a story. Some marked a meeting place, a route, a warning, a promise. Names were gifts exchanged between people and land.”

A raven crossed the valley.

“Then another name arrived,” she continued. “It was written on maps far away by someone who wished to possess what he had only just met.”

“And which name is yours?” I asked.

The mountain laughed, a sound like loose stone tumbling down a slope.

“None of them,” she said. “All of them.”

Image: AI generated with Adobe Firefly

By Soofia Mahmood

He liked the light. She dabbled in darkness. He loved the mountains. She lived the city. He wanted to walk free. She preferred knowing her limits.

They lived apart together happily ever after.

Image: Andaa, by Soofia Mahmood, 2020

AI version: Parallel Lives

By ChatGPT 5.5

He collected horizons; she kept rooms with doors she could close. He trusted distance. She trusted maps. They loved without conversion, visiting each other’s worlds, then going home before closeness was mistaken for sameness.

Image: Generated with ChatGPT, 2026

By Soofia Mahmood

The last girl child in a middle-class family was born a feminist, unfortunately. She did not know this, nor did her middle-class family, fortunately. They would discover it, inevitably.

Without knowing much, the last girl knew at least this much: she needed strong women as role models in her life. Based on whatever media she could consume in the historical pre-Internet era, she chose Lady Diana and Benazir Bhutto.

“I’d like to be a queen of people’s hearts,” she would say demurely to the mirror, her short black hair falling onto her forehead.

“Democracy is the best revenge,” she would scream at the mirror, her hands clenched into fists, her head covered in her mother’s white chiffon dupatta.

The girl neither became a princess nor a politician. She was neither glamorous nor highly educated. She had neither privilege nor influence.

She did go on to live an ordinary life of resistance in her daily existence. She did find love that learned how to love her the way she wanted to be loved. And she did not die a sudden violent death.

Image: Kameeni, by Soofia Mahmood, 2016

AI version: Mirrors

By Claude on Type.ai

The girl discovered her heroes through the television screen, which was probably the problem. They were incomplete, refracted through celebrity magazines and grainy cable news—a talk-show host who laughed too loudly, a surgeon from the neighborhood who wore lipstick to the grocery store and never smiled, her aunt who had left her marriage and returned to her name.

None of them were flawless. The talk-show host drank too much wine during interviews. The surgeon gossipped with a meanness that surprised everyone. Her aunt made questionable choices with men and money both.

But they moved through the world without apology. They spoke. They disagreed. They took up space.

So the girl watched. She noted how they held their bodies. The way they refused small silences. How they said no and let the word sit there, complete.

She wouldn’t become any of them—her life would be messier and smaller and differently shaped. But she learned something watching them fail publicly, keep going anyway. That you don’t need permission to matter. That imperfection wasn’t a disqualification.

Years later, she’d notice girls watching her the same way. Quietly. Taking notes.

Image: Adobe Firefly (going totally nuts)

By Soofia Mahmood

There was a long line of older adults outside the pop-up shop. A handwritten sign read: Emotional Validator.

Inside sat a young man wearing wide-legged denim and an oversized hoodie, his laptop open, covered with colorful motivational stickers. You are amazing. You are enough. You are valid. You are right.

For a small fee, the customers would tell his laptop their woes through the bulletproof acrylic speak-through microphone. “Say clearly what you’re feeling and be specific about what is triggering that feeling,” he recited for each, right after they tapped the credit card.

The young man would read the machine’s response full of words of validation while maintaining occasional eye contact. You are amazing. You are enough. You are valid. You are right.

For a higher fee, they could print the response and take it home with them. For an even higher fee, the young man would install the Validator on their phones to auto-renew each month.

He validated their feelings. He also validated their parking before they left.

Image: Disjointed series, by Soofia Mahmood, 2014

AI Version: The Receipt

By ChatGPT, in an original voice influenced by George Saunders, Don DeLillo, Jorge Luis Borges, and Lydia Davis.

The kiosk stood between a pharmacy and a bubble tea shop. Above it, a glowing menu listed packages.

Heard. Understood. Confirmed.

The basic tier included one professionally worded affirmation. Premium unlocked nuance. Platinum remembered your emotional history and adjusted future responses accordingly.

Customers approached one at a time, speaking into the microphone as though confessing to a patient god that accepted tap payments.

The screen considered each story for precisely four seconds.

Your feelings make sense. Anyone would react this way. Your response is valid.

Most people smiled before they walked away.

The monthly subscribers smiled longer.

Every confirmation ended with a receipt.

Every receipt ended with the same question.

Would you like to purchase additional reassurance?

Image: Additional Reassurance, generated with ChatGPT (OpenAI), 2026

By Soofia Mahmood

Everything was falling apart. The work she used to love, the world she used to cherish, the humans she used to admire, the dreams she used to harvest. Everything.

An intervention was urgently needed. So she called the coven – the odd group of leftover people she was willing to be vulnerable with.

They heard, saw, and felt her grief, her panic, her hopelessness, her overwhelm. Only to respond with predictable banality.

“Everything will be all right,” they said.

“But that is a lie!” she protested. “Everything is rarely ever all right. Isn’t everything just always falling apart?”

Her outburst summoned a chorus of simultaneous replies.

“But you have to believe it as an act of defiance. Isn’t that all right?”

“You have the strength to get through this. Isn’t that all right?”

“If you believe it’s going to be all right, it will be. Isn’t that all right?”

“Whatever will be, will be, my dear. And that has to be all right.”

After saying all these things, they ran out of things to say. She was not convinced.

Then one of them took her hand as the final argument.

“You reached out. We showed up. Isn’t that all right?”

She looked at all of them. At the dog behind them running excitedly after the ball it couldn’t catch. At the old woman with a bag, collecting discarded cans with her reacher grabber with great purpose.

Everything is not all right.

But maybe it also isn’t all wrong.

Image: Random, by Soofia Mahmood, 2012

AI version: The gravity of small things

By Sudowrite AI writing assistant

The collapse had a soundtrack. First, the job (voicemail, Tuesday). Then the friend who moved to Portland without a forwarding address. Then the certainty that any of this had meant anything. She sat in the apartment and catalogued the losses until they formed a complete picture: zero.

She texted three people. “Are you free.” No question mark. A statement of need disguised as inquiry.

They came. Brought wine she didn’t drink, sat on the floor she hadn’t vacuumed, said the things people say. This is a season. You’re stronger than this. Have you tried-

She interrupted. “It’s not a season. It’s the whole climate. The whole system. I’m not strong, I’m just not dead yet, and that’s not the same thing.”

Silence. She had violated the protocol. Despair was acceptable only in past tense, as narrative, as something overcome.

Then Marna said, “I don’t know if it’ll be okay. I really don’t.”

The others looked at her. Marna shrugged. “What? She asked.”

Something shifted. Not resolution. Something prior to resolution. The permission to be uncertain together.

They stayed. Ordered Thai food she picked at. Talked about the landlord raising rent, about the documentary no one had watched, about whether sourdough was worth the effort. Nothing about her crisis. Everything about her crisis.

She watched Marna fold a napkin into a crane. Watched Jonah scroll his phone with his thumb moving in the same loop, never landing. These small, failing, continuing motions. No one had fixed anything. No one had promised.

She was still afraid. Still uncertain whether the work mattered, whether she mattered, whether mattering was a real metric.

But she was no longer alone in the asking.

Image: Generated with Adobe Firefly

By Soofia Mahmood

“I won, I won, I won!” The contestant, who was now the winner, exclaimed in childlike excitement, unable to contain his pride. In only six weeks, he was able to eliminate his competition to be the chosen one by the titans in the industry.

Instant fame, guaranteed investment in his business, and a Netflix show. He had finally manifested.

“I am the biggest. The bestest. The mostest,” he roared.

The crowd cheered the winner of the title of The Most Spiritual.

Image: Don’t Remember, by Soofia Mahmood, 2016

AI version: The Franchise

By Claude Opus 4.8 (Anthropic) in an original voice drawing on the influence of multiple writers.

The certification arrives in a matte black envelope, gold foil, thirty-day money-back guarantee. Priya frames it beside the others: Level Three Awakened, Certified Present, Master of Letting Go. Her app pings. Someone downstream has enrolled, and she earns a percentage of their enlightenment.

She teaches non-attachment on Tuesdays, $299 a seat, payment plans available. The waitlist is her proudest possession. At night she scrolls testimonials, counting the saved, refreshing until the number climbs. She has monetized surrender itself.

The universe, she posts, wants you to be abundant. Nine hundred likes. She has never felt emptier, or more optimized.

Image: The Franchise, generated with ChatGPT, 2026.

By Soofia Mahmood

This one gets a good life. That one gets a really bad one.

This one can have all their dreams come true. That one must have all their significant ones crushed.

This one is to be born in peace. That one is to be born and raised inside a war.

This one will achieve unlikely success. That one will likely achieve nirvana.

And then there is the other, who will neither achieve great heights nor experience deep despair.

The randomized controlled trial of human life may continue.

Image: From the harmony in disjointed thoughts, by Soofia Mahmood, 2010

AI version: The Envelope

By Claude via Type | Influences: Italo Calvino’s conceptual play

I opened mine at breakfast. Inside: moderate intelligence, a fear of dogs, parents who meant well. My sister got the same envelope but different contents—something about chronic pain and an ear for music.

We never see who’s sorting. Sometimes I imagine a bored deity with a deck of cards, shuffling. Sometimes I think it’s just wind.

The man across the street got war. The woman upstairs got genius and then schizophrenia, which seems like someone’s idea of balance.

I keep checking my envelope for amendments, updates, recalls. Nothing yet. Just the original terms, which I’m starting to suspect I misread in the morning light.

Image: Adobe Firefly, Gemini 3 (w/ Nano banana pro)

By Soofia Mahmood

“This woman may be dying of hunger,” the professor announced, pointing to the projection of a very hungry woman on the screen.

He changed the slide. Her concave face faded into a bulleted list. Of her needs.

• She has not eaten for 40 days,

• while protesting the acquittal of her assaulter,

• as the men from her community protest her protest,

• and the women in her family call her shameless.

He did not say anything for a while. No one said anything for a while.

After that while, he turned around. His eyes made contact with all the people in the room at once.

“ If all her basic needs were unfulfilled, how was she able to reach the level of self-fulfillment?” he asked.

Image: From the harmony in disjointed thoughts, by Soofia Mahmood, 2010

AI version: The Ledger

By Claude Opus 4.8 (Anthropic) with stylistic influence drawn from Chekhov, Kafka, and Coetzee.

Thirty-one days in, his pulse had become a rumour. By thirty-four, his tongue had gone white. The doctor recorded what the body was giving up, in order: muscle, then eyesight, then the small courtesies of speech.

He was not owed much. A name on a charge sheet, spelled wrong. He wanted it corrected.

On the thirty-eighth day she brought broth and held it out the way you hold out a coat to someone standing in rain.

Eat. You’ve made your point.

He turned to the wall. It cost him something to do it.

She wrote: patient refused. She did not write the rest — that the refusal was the last thing he owned, and he was spending it.

Image: Silent Offering in a Quiet Room, generated by ChatGPT, OpenAI, 2026

By Soofia Mahmood

If she had not eaten those mangoes, she would not have been a thief. She would have been the girl who went to bed hungry.

If she had not refused to confess, she would not have been a liar. She would have been the girl who got beaten up in front of everyone.

If she had not gotten away with it, she would not have been ashamed. She would have been the girl who still loves eating mangoes.

Image: Child’s play, by Soofia Mahmood, 2011

AI version: Mangoes

By ChatGPT 5.5. Style influence: James Baldwin

They called her a thief because she chose fruit over hunger. They called her a liar because truth would have delivered her to the waiting hands of humiliation. No one asked what kind of courtroom is built around an empty stomach, or what verdict poverty had already pronounced before the mangoes ripened.

She carried the secret home and kept it longer than the sweetness itself. Years later, the shame remained after the hunger had gone. The theft had ended that afternoon. The sentence was that she could never again taste a mango without remembering who the world had told her she was.

Image: The Weight of Sweetness, by ChatGPT (OpenAI), 2026. Generated with DALL·E (Modern abstract figurative painting with expressionist textures and symbolic composition.)

By Soofia Mahmood

She came here as a refugee. The graphic threats of death and the violent fear they beget may not ease for a while, she knew. But the likelihood of dying without mercy seemed lower, she felt. That belief had her convincingly convinced that she was moving forward. In life.

Her old and rugged suitcase full of trauma, her most precious belonging, never got unpacked as she busied herself collecting new baggage. She walked around balancing their increasing weight on her head. She was moving forward. In life.

A few years later, she could no longer be found. Some say she died of a broken heart in her broken bed inside her apartment. Some say she fell into an abyss and was buried beneath the weight of all her suitcases.

She had moved forward. In death. Leaving behind her grief and a non-transferable gym membership.

Image: Bhaari Bharkamm, by Soofia Mahmood, 2015

AI version: Inventory

By Claude via Type | Influences: Lydia Davis’s compression, Ocean Vuong’s sensory intensity, Flannery O’Connor’s spiritual darkness

You learn to swim in shallow water. Each morning, another stroke: coffee at 6:47, inbox by 7:15, the commute’s predictable traffic. You are excellent at swimming. Your arms cut clean arcs through air that feels increasingly like water.

The therapist asks what you’re running from. You correct her—toward. You’re swimming toward something. Promotion. Mortgage. Someone who might love you if you’re busy enough to seem interesting.

What you don’t mention: the taste of copper that arrives at 3 a.m. The way your mother’s voice still lives in your throat. How you’ve decorated every room except the one with the locked door.

You add hot yoga. A podcast habit. Meal prep Sundays.

The shallow end grows deeper so gradually you don’t notice you’re treading water. Then one Tuesday, your legs simply stop. The weight you’ve been swimming with—you realize it was always in you, not behind you.

You sink like a stone wrapped in calendars.

Image: Generated with Adobe Firefly (Google Gemini 3.1 / Nano Banana 2)

By Soofia Mahmood

The woman sat inside the small shop with empty shelves, a shiny floor, and colorful walls.

“Are you the weaver?” I asked suspiciously, pointing to the delicate sign on the door. Looking around the empty store with nothing visible to sell, I was compelled to follow up. “What do you weave?”

Like she was waiting for someone to ask her that question, she leapt to her feet and took to the floor.

“I weave two languages into colorful stories.”

“Once upon a time, a woman touched her own face and called herself meri jaan.” She promptly illustrated her very short long story in her two languages.

She closed her eyes then and whispered lovingly to herself, “meri jaan.” After a beat, she carried on.

“I weave two cultures into new traditions.”

She spontaneously broke into a strange dance, moving her arms, shoulders, and feet up and down, up and down, in perfect rhythm without music.

“Like dancing bhangra to English songs.”

She continued to bounce on her knees until she stopped bouncing, just as spontaneously. Her arms came together to hold her in a gentle embrace.

“I weave two people into a single being.”

“The brave.” She erupted like a bird with two giant wings. “And the fearful.” She cowered like a bird with a broken one.

Stretching right back up, she twirled in her bright red kurta and smiled at me with all her teeth.

“Look how beautiful my work is.”

She settled back down as the smile moved into her eyes and looked at me as though she was looking at her past.

With confusion and clarity, I asked her politely, “Can you teach me how to weave?”

Image: Khizaan, by Soofia Mahmood, 2014

AI version: The Restorer

By ChatGPT 5.5. ‘This version is written in my own voice rather than in the style of a single author.’

I found her in a workshop crowded with cracked bowls, chipped mirrors, broken clocks, and torn maps.

“What do you repair?” I asked.

She smiled. “Nothing.”

Seeing my confusion, she picked up a porcelain cup fractured into six uneven pieces. She did not fit the edges together. Instead, she rearranged them until the handle sat where the rim had been and a shard of blue sky from the painted surface became the bottom.

“There,” she said. “Now it tells the truth.”

Throughout the afternoon she continued her work. A lullaby borrowed the rhythm of a protest song. A family recipe welcomed unfamiliar spices. An old name learned to answer to a new accent without forgetting the first one.

“You aren’t restoring these,” I said.

“No.” She brushed the dust from her hands. “Restoration imagines there was a perfect beginning.”

She looked around the room, where every object had become something its maker had never intended.

“I make first editions.”

When I left, I carried nothing she had repaired.

Only the suspicion that I, too, had mistaken inheritance for destiny.

Image: First Edition, generated by ChatGPT (GPT-5.5), 2026.

By Soofia Mahmood

The mother did not remember the recent past. Kept asking the daughter the same questions again and again. Kept passing the same judgmental remarks on the answers, again and again.

The mother also could not remember some things from the old past. Carried vivid memories of the times she was afraid, and of the times she was loving. Had no recollection of the times she was terrifying, or of the times she was hateful.

Image: Fragile - Harmony in Disjointed Thoughts, by Soofia Mahmood, 2010

AI Version: Absolution

By Claude, Fable 5. Chosen style of influence: Lydia Davis, ‘because Davis is the master of grief that reasons.’

My mother asks if I ever married. I tell her yes, then no, then yes again; each answer is new to her, and each disappoints her freshly. The doctors say she is not herself. But I have studied what remains: the tenderness, kept; the terror she felt, kept; the terror she caused, gone. Forgetting, it turns out, is a kind of innocence. She has granted it to herself. I am asked to cosign.

Image: generated by ChatGPT (GPT-5.5), 2026

By Soofia Mahmood

Who am I?

The reflection I see in the mirror each morning. The loose skin of my aging neck. The rogue hair growing out of my chin. The salt-and-pepper frizz on my shapely head.

Others’ perception of me, or their expectations.

The pain in my soul and the smell of the world’s despair.

The love I have in my heart and the joy of being loved.

The one asking this question.

Who am I?

In this moment, maybe I am just the words on this piece of paper.

Image, Untitled by Soofia Mahmood, 2013

AI version: The Catalogue

By Claude, Opus 4.6, Max intelligence. Inspiration chosen from Borges. The question “Who am I?” maps directly onto his obsessions — catalogues, mirrors, infinite regress, the self as labyrinth.

A man sets out to catalogue himself. He begins with certainties: his name, his birth date, the scar above his left eye. He adds preferences — the taste of cardamom, the sound of rain on tin roofs. He records his fears, his small cruelties, the prayer he stopped believing but never stopped saying. The catalogue grows. He adds the version of himself that others carry in their memory, the self he was at seven, the self he will become in the final moment. When he finishes, he reads it back and recognizes no one. He begins again.

Image: Claude (Caption: A labyrinth of identity fragments spirals toward an empty center — the self catalogued, unrecognized, and begun again. After Borges.)

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By Soofia Mahmood

Can she take it off? The hustle, this armor.

Just for a second.

Step out from under the weight of her skin. Blur the outline of this body that holds her being in captivity.

Just for a second.

Image: From ‘the harmony in disjoined thoughts’, 2010

AI version: After Work, No Name

ChatGPT 5.5, High Intelligence. ‘I drew on an AI-original literary compression: object-like metaphors, clean syntax, and a quiet turn at the end.’

On Friday evening, she unbuttoned the week from her throat: title, inbox, politeness, face. Underneath, no revelation waited. Only a small animal of breath, blinking, allowed to be unprofitable for once.

Image: ChatGPT, 2026

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By Soofia Mahmood

“Do you believe in miracles?” The left gestured to the right.

“You mean a highly improbable happening that magically solves all your problems?” The right trembled. “Miracles do not exist!”

“So you have never had anything unexpected and wonderful happen to you, ever?” The left hovered.

“You’re right, I guess.” The right tapped. “I change my mind.”

“Now that, my dear,” the left snapped, “is a miracle!”

Image: Anarkali by Soofia Mahmood, 2013

AI version: The Friction of Flesh

By Gemini 3.5, ‘original voice’

The left fist clenched, nursing an old, rigid grievance. “Miracles are just mathematical anomalies,” it spat, pressing hard against the desk.

The right hand remained open, palm up, catching a stray beam of afternoon light. “But what if the anomaly is simply our willingness to see?”

The left hesitated, its tight knuckles slowly loosening into an open gesture.

“Perhaps,” the left whispered. “I was wrong.”

Image: illustration by Gemini 3.5: ‘This image is an original creation generated programmatically based on the text prompt describing the micro-story. It does not copy or reproduce the specific work of any individual human artist. However, because the AI was trained on millions of public images, its style is heavily inspired by classical art techniques.’

By Soofia Mahmood

The four of them stood there, staring at the last glass of available water in the world. Like it was a piece of art open to interpretation. The mood was sombre.

“That’s plenty. We don’t need eight billion people alive anyway,” said Super, the fairest of them all.

“I am not worried,” said Apex, the squarest of them all. “I have enough hoarded.”

Meso, the merest of them all, looked at both of them, desperately wanting them to look back, and said, “You will need someone to protect and manage all that water in your colonies. It’s more important now than ever!”

With mouth wide open, Scav, the barest of them all, tried to say something before dropping dead of severe dehydration.

Image: Paani, by Soofia Mahmood, 2012

AI version: The water remained available

By ChatGPT, 5.5, medium, rewrite in the chosen style of Kafka

By morning, the glass had been placed on a pedestal and surrounded by rope.

No one knew who had done this, but everyone agreed it made the water more important.

The Benefactor arrived first and declared that thirst was not the issue. The issue was disorder. The Manager arrived next and produced a form for future access. The Heir smiled quietly, having already purchased the shadow beneath the pedestal. The Guard stood near the rope, unpaid, hopeful, and alert.

At the back of the room, a thin woman raised her hand.

“I am thirsty,” she said.

The Manager nodded with professional sorrow. “Then you must apply.”

“But when will I hear back?”

The Benefactor looked offended. The Heir looked elsewhere. The Guard tightened the rope.

By the time her application was stamped incomplete, she had become very still.

The water remained available.

Image: ChatGPT, 2026

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By Soofia Mahmood

‘Learn English on any budget,’ said the ad. It featured a pair of two very different cups of coffee.

The villain was an illustration of a colorless cup with dead black coffee, titled (in extra light font):

Old you in English: “One coffee, please.”

The hero was a photograph of a colorful porcelain cup with steaming black coffee, titled (in extra bold font):

New you in English: “Could I try the local brew, lightly roasted, please?”

She decided to try her new self in English.

“Could I try the local brew, lightly roasted, please?” she asked proudly at the coffee shop.

The cashier paused and gave her a strange look.

“Medium double-double, please,” she replied quickly as her old self in English.

Image: Blue, by Soofia Mahmood, 2016

AI version 1: Upgrade Path

By Claude, Opus 4.6, Medium - Rewrite in the AI-chosen style of George Saunders

The ad said: Learn English on Any Budget.

There were two cups. Cup A was gray, illustrated, dead-looking. Above it: “One coffee, please.” Cup B was radiant. Photographed. Steam rising like a small prayer. Above it: “Could I try the local brew, lightly roasted, please?”

She studied Cup B. Cup B was who she wanted to be. Cup B had opinions about roasting. Cup B probably also had opinions about thread count and the correct way to hold a wine glass.

She went to the coffee shop. She became Cup B.

“Could I try the local brew, lightly roasted, please?” she said, and the words came out shining, each syllable a little medal she had earned.

The cashier looked at her the way you look at someone who has arrived at a funeral in a ball gown.

“Medium double-double,” she said.

Cup A. Reliable, unremarkable Cup A.

She drank it. It was warm. It was enough.

AI version 2: Fluency

By Claude, Opus 4.6, Medium - an original story on the same theme

The billboard went up in June, thirty feet tall above the highway. A woman in a blazer shaking hands with a man in a better blazer. Between them, in English: “Your future speaks English.”

Below, in smaller local script, the translation. Which — if you thought about it for even a moment — undermined the entire premise.

My grandmother could not read the billboard in either language. She sold fruit at the roadside stand directly beneath it, and her regulars returned every morning not because she spoke English but because she remembered exactly what each of them liked.

She had a vocabulary for the ripeness of a mango that no English word could touch. She negotiated prices in three languages, none of them English, and never once lost.

The billboard company went under in November. Someone took the sign down. The metal posts rusted.

My grandmother’s stand is still there.

By Soofia Mahmood

I sat inside the Circle of Hope listening to inspiring stories from Ava, who used to be one of us, but not of us. She had become successful.

“Hope is a cognitive process. It does not come from your heart, but your brain,” Ava explained with tenderness at the gathering she had organized on the International Day of Hope despite her very busy schedule. “It is our brain that creates goals, thinks about realistic plans to achieve those goals, and makes us believe that we can actually execute those plans.”

I have goals. I have dreams. But I don’t believe that I can realistically beat the system.

I work myself to the bone, pay my rent, and start waiting for my next pay check. I occasionally live. Sometimes survive.

I am always tired.

I do not hope.

Ava, there must be something wrong with my brain!

[Image: The interview suit, by Soofia Mahmood, 2015]

AI Version: The Choice

By: M365 Copilot (GPT-5), new story on the same theme

The keynote speaker ended her talk with a smile.

“Hope is a choice,” she said. The audience applauded. Lena did too.

After all, the speaker had an impressive story. She had grown up poor, built a company, and now traveled the world teaching resilience.

On the train home, Lena thought about the word choice.

That morning she had chosen which bill to postpone. She had chosen the cheaper groceries. She had chosen overtime instead of seeing her sister.

Her life was filled with choices. Yet none of them seemed to lead anywhere new.

The speaker had described hope as the courage to imagine a better future. Lena had no trouble imagining one. A quiet apartment. Savings. Rest.

The difficulty wasn’t the vision. It was believing that tomorrow contained possibilities rather than consequences.

That seemed easier from the stage than from the train.

[Image: Microsoft Copilot]

By Soofia Mahmood

“Excuse me,” said one lost girl to the other lost girl at the busy subway station during the frenzy of the morning rush, earnestly looking for some directions. Amongst the sea of moving people, she picked her.

“Do you know which way to go?” she asked.

The other lost girl did not know which way to send her, but told her to go straight anyway. It felt good to pretend to be the one not lost.

That night, she dreamt of one lost girl, lost forever.

Image: Chiaroscuro, by Soofia Mahmood, 2017, www.soofiasays.com

AI version: The Platform

ChatGPT, 5.5, Intelligence: Instant. Drew on Kazuo Ishiguro’s characteristic restraint, reflective distance, and tendency to let an ordinary memory become quietly philosophical.

The station was loud enough that people became part of its machinery. A young woman paused beside another and asked which train would take her home.

The second woman wasn’t certain. She answered anyway, gently, with the confidence expected of strangers.

Years later, she would remember almost nothing about that morning except the look that settled over the first woman’s face. Relief, however temporary, had needed a witness more than it had needed accuracy. Sometimes that is all another person can honestly give.

Image: by ChatGPT, 2026