By Jim Shimabukuro (assisted by ChatGPT and Claude)
Editor
Summary: This article presents a creative writing experiment using ChatGPT to generate a 3,000-word story beginning titled “Homeless Awakening.” The narrative follows a homeless Asian man sitting motionless on Ala Moana Boulevard near Honolulu Harbor, who gradually awakens from a catatonic state. The story chronicles his slow emergence from silence through small interactions with Mr. Leung and his daughter Mei from the nearby Golden Lily restaurant. As the man begins helping at the restaurant, hints emerge of his wealthy past and family betrayal in China. The narrative ends with mystery surrounding his true identity and circumstances. (Claude)
I repeated the experiment presented earlier, “The Awakening” — A Story Beginning by Claude (ChatBot), in this post, using the same prompt with ChatGPT. I was impressed with this story, too. ChatGPT seems to hit more of the instructions and data points in the prompt and more accurately. Please share your thoughts in the discussion attached to this post. If you’re a first-time commenter or if your ID is unfamiliar to this site, your comment will await approval before publication. Otherwise, your comment will be published immediately.
Prompt: Write a 3000-word narrative that serves as the beginning of a short story of a homeless man sitting cross-legged in the hot sun on a sidewalk [on the viaduct] on Ala Moana Blvd [Nimitz Hwy], close to River Street, facing Honolulu Harbor and the steady flow of traffic, at the hottest midday point. He remains still with little or no movement, with head bowed slightly as if dozing. Filthy, clothes in tatters, barefoot, unkempt hair and beard. Age difficult to determine but anywhere from late twenties to late forties. Asian in origin, but gaunt and deeply sunburned. Survives on small offerings of bottled water and food provided by passers-by and workers from businesses close by. Foot traffic on this sidewalk is light so he doesn’t invite harassment. Doesn’t make eye contact and neither speaks nor acknowledges others’ attempts to communicate. Doesn’t thank those who give him food and water. They simply place the offerings on the ground close to him. Doesn’t seek shelter when it rains. Remains as is. At night, he moves to a spot under a bridge [viaduct] close by that spans Nuuanu Stream. Doesn’t seem to own anything except the rags he wears. No one knows where he came from or who he is. He appears to have no ID or wallet or money. He has no friends or acquaintances. He doesn’t seek the companionship of other homeless individuals. This narrative should capture the nearly imperceptible moment when he’s slowly becoming aware of the sensory information around him and his growing sense of being alive and capable of interacting with his environment. It’s as though he’s slowly emerging from the dead. Extrapolate a storyline that shows him gradually making contact with workers and the owner of a nearby Chinese restaurant and how he eventually begins to help out at the restaurant in exchange for a place to sleep in the restaurant when it’s closed. Plant seeds in the narrative that point to a possible history of family conspiracy in China to steal his wealth. Use a 3rd-person limited omniscience persona who is able to objectively observe him but not see into his mind. Use vivid sensory imagery to capture the texture of him and his environment. At the end of this 3,000-word narrative, the reader should be left wanting to learn more about him.
The story ChatGPT created based on my prompt
The sun had already passed its apex, casting a sharp, high glare down Ala Moana Boulevard. Heat shimmered off the asphalt, distorting the air around a hunched, unmoving figure stationed just a few feet from the corner where River Street met the busy thoroughfare.
He sat cross-legged on the blistering concrete, unmoving except for the occasional twitch of a callused toe. His skin had darkened under months of tropical sun, mottled and cracking in places where the exposure was longest. Flakes clung to the crook of his elbows, the back of his neck, and the long, bony bridge of his nose. His head hung forward, limp, as if held only by a fraying thread from his spine. He neither asked for help nor shooed it away.
People passed. Most didn’t look.
Some, mostly from nearby businesses—a FedEx drop center, a hair salon, a narrow Chinese restaurant called Golden Lily—paused to set a small water bottle or a wrapped musubi on the sidewalk beside him. Their hands moved gently, uncertainly, as though afraid he might spring to life. But he never did. He made no sound, didn’t nod or glance. Only the flies swarmed in response, tracing the damp outlines on his tattered pants and the fringes of his sun-bleached shirt.
There were no bags, no sign of possessions. Not even a cardboard scrap with words. Only the man.
Gaunt and silent, he could’ve been twenty-nine or forty-nine. His features bore a distant Asian cast beneath the overgrowth of beard and grime, but his eyes, when they opened slightly—very slightly—were sunken and unreadable.
He didn’t leave when the rains came. When they poured without warning, hammering the pavement with a drumming roar, he remained where he sat, soaked through, unmoved. Only when darkness fell did he rise stiffly and drift, almost spectrally, north across Nimitz Highway, into the shadows under a concrete bridge spanning the slow-moving Nuuanu Stream.
No one knew his name. The city’s homeless outreach workers passed him by, noting his presence but never making contact. Other houseless residents sometimes nodded toward him when asked, but none claimed to know him. He never mingled. He didn’t speak.
He was a fixture, like the rusted railings or the discarded traffic cone lodged in the grass nearby. Yet unlike inanimate objects, he changed—though imperceptibly.
The change began in summer.
That day, the sun was especially cruel, and a breeze from the harbor brought with it the scent of brine and rotting seaweed. A delivery van rumbled past, music blaring through half-closed windows, the beat momentarily thudding against the chest.
The man stirred.
It was small. A shift. His left hand—dirt-caked, long-nailed—lifted half an inch off his knee before dropping again. One eye opened. Closed. Opened again.
For a moment, he blinked at the light. Not a reaction to discomfort, but as though he were remembering what sunlight was.
The beat from the van faded. The smell of garlic and soy sauce wafted out from the Golden Lily’s rear alley. A kitchen worker had propped open a door to let the heat out. Something sizzled loudly in oil. Another eye blinked open.
A fly landed on the man’s cheek. This time, he raised a hand and brushed it away.
The motion was slight. Slow. But different. Deliberate.
Later that week, something even stranger happened.
The owner of the Golden Lily, a round man in his early sixties known only as Mr. Leung, stepped out back to smoke. He was short, brisk, and sharp-eyed. He’d seen the man from a distance before—everyone on this block had—but never up close. On this day, the man was sitting upright. Not just sitting—watching.
Mr. Leung paused, cigarette halfway to his lips.
The man’s eyes were open, following a mynah bird hopping along the gutter. His head tracked it slightly.
“You hungry?” Mr. Leung asked, his English heavy with Cantonese rhythm.
The man didn’t answer. His gaze didn’t move. But he wasn’t asleep.
Mr. Leung flicked his ash and returned inside. A few minutes later, he sent one of his younger workers out with a styrofoam box—rice, stir-fried greens, two egg rolls. The worker placed it on the ground near the man and backed away.
The man didn’t move at first.
Then, twenty minutes later, he did.
A passing bus shielded the view momentarily. When it was gone, the box was open. The food, half-gone. Not devoured. Picked apart. Eaten with fingers. Rice stuck to his knuckles.
Mr. Leung noted it.
He began sending food out every few days. Always basic, always fresh. The man never acknowledged it, but he always ate. Always cleaned the container, even licked his fingers.
He began drinking the water more quickly, too. And one day, he startled a passerby by taking the bottle as it was being placed, hand touching hand, brief but alive.
Still, he said nothing.
Then came the storm.
Late August. A tropical system skirting the islands brought hours of relentless rain. Thunder echoed off the high-rises. Most people sought shelter or stayed indoors.
But he didn’t move.
Drenched, with his head still bowed, he sat through the worst of it until even the sidewalk began to flood. At some point, he rose and staggered—unsteady now—toward the bridge. He slipped once on the wet pavement and lay there for a long while.
That was when Mei, the teenage daughter of Mr. Leung, spotted him from the restaurant’s rear window.
“Bàba,” she said. “He fell.”
Mr. Leung peered out. Frowned. Opened the back door.
“Hey!” he shouted. “You okay?”
The man didn’t respond.
Against better judgment, Mr. Leung stepped into the rain and approached. Up close, the man smelled of mildew, salt, and something faintly metallic. His eyes were open, staring at the curb.
“You sick?”
No response.
“You want come inside? Dry?”
Nothing.
But when Mr. Leung turned to go, he felt it—a tug. Barely perceptible. A touch at his pant leg. Not a grip, not even a full grasp. Just… contact.
That night, after the storm passed, the man was gone from his spot. Mr. Leung found him huddled under the narrow back awning of the Golden Lily, sitting against the door.
He didn’t ask to stay. Didn’t speak. But when Mr. Leung unlocked the door the next morning, the man stood up. Just stood. Waiting.
He smelled. He was filthy. But his eyes were more alert now, following motion. And when Mei brought him a bowl of congee, he nodded. Just once.
Over the following week, he began sweeping. At first, only the back alley, with a borrowed broom. Then the small dining room. Then the kitchen, timidly. He avoided touching anyone, but he watched.
One afternoon, Mr. Leung handed him a rag and pointed at the window glass.
The man took the rag. Began wiping.
He never spoke. But he stayed. Night after night, he slept on a mat in the corner of the storeroom, curled tightly, eyes open far longer now.
They began calling him Mr. Wu.
No one knew why. It just fit. When Mr. Leung said it aloud, the man didn’t object.
He began watching Mei with a particular attentiveness—not inappropriate, but curious. She spoke fluent Cantonese and English. Once, she said something softly while handing him a steamed bun. Something in Chinese.
He froze.
His lips parted. Something passed over his face. Not recognition, but a stir. An echo.
That night, he took one of the order pads and a pen from the front counter and disappeared into the storeroom.
In the morning, Mr. Leung found a single sheet torn and left on the floor.
It held a name—written in elegant, traditional Chinese calligraphy—and two characters beside it that meant: “betrayed.”
Mr. Leung said nothing, but tucked the sheet into his apron.
From then on, Wu seemed more engaged. He began watching how dumplings were made, how the register was handled, how deliveries were logged. Though he still never spoke, his motions were more purposeful. He remembered where things went. He helped carry stock. When Mei showed him how to make tea eggs, he listened, then repeated the process perfectly the next day.
More than once, customers glanced at him and looked away quickly. His appearance was still startling. Mr. Leung offered to buy him clothes. Wu refused.
But he washed his hands more often. He began combing his beard. Mei trimmed his hair.
He remained silent. Always.
But once, Mei caught him standing at the back door, staring toward the harbor, eyes fixed.
In the distance, a large container ship was moving slowly out to sea. The sky was streaked with violet, and the air was thick with salt.
She stepped beside him.
“You were rich once,” she said, barely audible.
He blinked. Then turned his face to her. And for the first time, nodded.
There were rumors, of course. Mei dug through old forums, message boards, even dark corners of the Chinese internet. She found whispers of a family in Fujian—wealthy, powerful—whose youngest son had vanished after a scandal. Rumors of embezzlement. A staged suicide. A brother who suddenly rose in the company.
No proof. Just hints. Names that matched.
But she kept these to herself. Not yet.
Wu continued his silent life within the Golden Lily. He worked. He watched. He remembered.
And always, his eyes turned—eventually—toward the sea.
[End of Part 1 | 2,960 words]
Next chapters will uncover the truth behind Wu’s fall from wealth, his brother’s betrayal, and how his reawakening ties him to an old, unfinished life. His story is only beginning.
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