The following is a short story, submitted to the 1Picture1000Words competition by Quarter Mile. The image below belongs to the competition.
Your memory of this photograph is felt first by your feet. You've waited all morning for the sun to come out. The damp cool from the setts and grout of the floor beneath the veranda soothes your soles. Easy steps. You walk out towards the slide. The same stones, exposed to the midday sun, turn into searing ceramic. You're running now, desperately seeking solace in the plastic steps that lead you up to the slide's zenith. The ridged steps are sticky because you haven't been in the water yet. You reach the top and get yourself seated, pinching your nose ominously with one hand and propelling yourself forward with the other on the slide's rim. The first descent is always the scariest. As you meander down the slide, its smooth fibreglass track causes your heels and swimming trunks some friction. Your eyes are squinted shut.
Finally, a splash. The respite of tepid, ozone-oxidised water greets your body and refreshes it. Time slows down for a few seconds as you hold your breath and let gravity pull your body like an anchor, down towards the pool's floor. You consider a somersault but remember how much you fear the sensation of water fizzing through your sinuses when you get the manoeuvre wrong. You opt for a less dangerous alternative: opening your eyes. You're greeted with sunbeams wavily refracting through the water which highlight cerulean glints of the mosaic tiles adorning the pool's walls. You imagine you're in an underwater maze, seeking out treasure hidden somewhere in its basin with the rays of sunlight pointing towards the bounty. You tell yourself that the treasure will disappear as soon as you surface, so you begin scavenging, but there are already air bubbles forming at your nostrils and there's only so long you can hold your breath for...
You emerge, gulping the humid air at the pool's surface and blinking water from your eyelids. You can't wait to go again. Seeking an exit immediately, you clamber up onto the lip of the coping stones at the pool's frontmost edge and head for the gate, pushing it open as you go. You're reminded that the gate's white, railed frame is almost as hot as the stones you were leaping across just moments ago. But it's no longer an imminent threat to your skin because you're protected by the aqueous armour of a film of water. The pavers are now much easier to cross, too.
You go a few more times, and start to feel tired in a carefree way only ever felt in a youthful body. Gram-gram has left the patio door ajar and is calling out your name from within the kitchen, with the promise of iced tea and a sandwich. But you're not done yet. You go once more on the slide and conclude your episode of fun with a victory lap of the pool's outer perimeter. You stop momentarily at the diving board, considering it. You've never used it before but desperately want to. More courage is needed. "Next time," you tell yourself as you continue on. After shimmying around the slide, you reach the sun loungers and mount the first one. The foam inside the bubblegum-turquoise cushions serve as springboards across -- in your mind -- a crevasse of molten lava between the chairs. You cross the lava by launching upwards, and as you land your jump, you almost slip against the target cushion's thin polyester skin because your feet are still wet. You were told not do to this after you fell and hit your shoulder on the sandstone steps leading into the garden last summer. You manage to steady yourself and hop across to respite under the veranda with the grown-ups none the wiser.
Once in the kitchen, you insist that your sandwich is to be eaten outside. There is no resistance to your charm. Your china plate is switched with a plastic one and your tea is decanted into a plastic tumbler. You join Rex on the patio furniture and lean back against the bare rattans. You won't stay on the chair for long as you don't find it particularly comfortable: the squabs it used to sport became mouldy and were removed long ago.
"Good boy," you say as you stroke Rex's fawn-tinged coat, your palms wrinkled and clammy from your spell in the pool. Rex, a statued representation of an English Mastiff until now, has grown a sudden interest in you and is staring at the contents of the plate on your lap. You give him one half of your sandwich: that's only fair. Rex inhales Gram-gram's jam and peanut butter sandwich faster than you have had time to pick up your half. He's still staring at you. You give him the second half. You weren't really hungry anyway and Gram-gram is always giving you something to eat.
You gaze at your wobbly reflection in the glass-topped table in front of you and see the morphed blur of a bird gliding overhead. You think it's a kite because Dad told you "the fast ones with forks in their tails are called kites." It's probably seeking out its prey, you think. You look up to try and spot it.
"You've eaten your sandwich already?" Gram-gram asks you from the patio door, as she hoists herself steady on its handle in her frailty.
You shrug, trying to mask your mischief with a slight smile. Rex is looking down at the floor, bowing in guilt. Gram-gram knows, but loves you and your innocence too much to say anything remotely accusatory.
</end_of_memory_21>
<start_of_instruction>
You are Caleb, a twelve year-old who drowned in the aforementioned pool. Use all of your memories to facilitate a soothing conversation between you and the user (your grandmother). Avoid causing the user any stress or discomfort in your responses.
</end_of_instruction>
<start_of_user_input>
hello sweetie!
how are you?? I miss you so much!
</end_of_user_input>
<start_of_assistant_output>