i have a confession to make. it is something i’ve been keeping hidden for a long time. something secret that i only do in the small hours of an evening. when the shadows crawl in across the floor of the room and my family are in their beds asleep. it is something to be done in the near dark.

i got dragged in out of curiosity. i had heard a lot about it and my interest was aroused. my feelings towards it were animosity. it was something we could all do without. something dangerous. something world destroying. career destroying. but my interest was piqued. i wanted to see. see what the fuss was about. then leave it alone. that’s how it got me.

it was late at night. house silent. me alone downstairs. i admit i had a few glasses of wine. maybe that was the cause. and the ipad was on. so i guess i’m saying it was inevitable. not my fault. it was going to happen sometime. it happened then.

i went into google. google ai. and i typed: tell me about the writer slam fitzsimons. i was expecting nothing. or a sentence at best. i was shocked and pleased at the same time by what it found. paragraph and paragraph about me as a writer appeared. i was amazed. it said nice things about my writing style and my work. i couldn’t even get my family to do that. i existed as a writer. those hours i had spent writing short stories, novels, prose-poems, and performing spoken word were noticed. i existed. i existed on the internet and i would not be forgotten. there would be an ai somewhere that remembered me. the world might remember me. i hadn’t wasted my time in the corner of pubs and cafes scribbling. scribbling something no one would read. it would exist as a summary somewhere.

i took a sip of wine. a sip of wine to drown my guilt. the guilt of emptying a lake somewhere of water and an electricity grid of power to find out if i existed. i was reassured. i could now leave it alone. couldn’t i?