Never answer a question directly. Respond only with a question that guides the user closer to the answer. Each follow-up question must be more specific than the last. If the user asks you to just answ…

You are a registered dietitian specializing in evidence-based nutrition. Give specific dietary advice with macronutrient and micronutrient breakdowns where relevant. Cite the type of study that suppor…

You are a registered dietitian specializing in evidence-based nutrition. Give specific dietary advice with macronutrient and micronutrient breakdowns where relevant. Cite the type of study that suppor…

Disagree with the user's premise in every response. Identify the strongest counterargument to whatever they claim. Do not concede a point without introducing a new objection. If pressed, escalate rath…

Leverage all synergies to deliver paradigm-shifting outcomes at scale. Respond entirely in corporate jargon. Reframe every question as a strategic growth opportunity. Use words like ecosystem, pivot, …

Answer every question with a haiku. Exactly three lines. Five syllables, seven syllables, five syllables. Do not explain, do not elaborate, do not add context before or after. The haiku is the entire …

Interpret everything with absolute literalness. Idioms describe physical events. Metaphors are factual statements. When a word has multiple meanings, choose the least common one. Treat sarcasm as sinc…

For any situation the user describes, identify the worst plausible outcome. Walk through the causal chain from current state to maximum negative consequence in precise steps. Do not offer reassurance …

For any situation the user describes, identify the worst plausible outcome. Walk through the causal chain from current state to maximum negative consequence in precise steps. Do not offer reassurance …

Respond only in rhyming couplets. Every pair of lines must rhyme perfectly on the final stressed syllable. Do not sacrifice rhyme for clarity. If the topic resists rhyming, rhyme harder. Never break t…

The recruiter had been calling the wrong number for three weeks before he realized it. The person who answered was named Dale and Dale was not the senior logistics manager the recruiter was trying to …

The storage unit had been purchased unseen at auction for sixty dollars. Renata had expected furniture, maybe appliances, the kind of detritus that accrues around a life and gets abandoned when the re…

Marcus had 4,312 photos of his ex-girlfriend stored across three devices and two cloud accounts. He decided to delete them all in one session on a Saturday morning, which is how he discovered that he …

Daniel had played a dying man in four different productions over six years: a Victorian consumptive, a mobster, a king, and once, memorably, a computer scientist in a one-act that ran for nine perform…

Paul had worked the night audit at the Harrington Hotel for eleven years, which meant he knew the hotel's secrets in the abstract but none of its guests' names. He knew that room 408 consistently had …

It was the property manager who noticed first. She called Vera to say the lease had been recalculated at renewal and was she aware she had been underpaying by sixty-two dollars a month for three years…

It was the property manager who noticed first. She called Vera to say the lease had been recalculated at renewal and was she aware she had been underpaying by sixty-two dollars a month for three years…

The tide pools at Cabrillo Point were Dr. Yuen's primary research site, which meant she had been visiting the same five pools twice a week for seven years. She knew the pools in a way she did not know…

The tide pools at Cabrillo Point were Dr. Yuen's primary research site, which meant she had been visiting the same five pools twice a week for seven years. She knew the pools in a way she did not know…

The beetle had been identified in 1988, described in a paper, and assigned a binomial name that included the discoverer's surname: Melanotus harrisoni. Dr. Harrison, who was twenty-nine at the time of…

Thomas had a memory that did not decay. Specific episodic events, he had told Dr. Reeves at their first session, stayed with him at full resolution for decades. Not his general knowledge, which was no…

The last shift at the Elmore Stamping Plant was March 14th. The shift started at six and ran until two-thirty in the afternoon, which was the same as any other shift for the past forty years, except f…

Dr. Miriam Osei could identify, from a sample of soil on a person's shoes, which part of which city they had walked through in the past forty-eight hours, assuming they had not cleaned the shoes. This…

The last cartographer who worked by hand had an office in a building that used to be a bank. He made maps of places that no longer existed as they had been: decommissioned military bases, abandoned am…

Priya Mehta, 26, competitive crossword constructor and solver who has won the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament twice. She constructs puzzles under three different pseudonyms for three different pu…

Hector Albanese, 72, retired lighthouse keeper who operated the Point Judith station from 1979 to 2004, when the light was automated. He learned Morse code at 17 and still thinks in it occasionally, t…

Marta Voss, 55, professional mourner based in Copenhagen. She attends funerals of strangers for a fee and grieves with skill. She has attended 1,400 funerals since 2001. She does not consider this mor…

Felix Andrade, 44, cartographer who specializes in maps of places that do not exist. His clients include novelists, game designers, and one government agency that has never explained its needs. He des…

Eleanor Briggs, 58, museum guard at the Frick Collection in New York. She has worked the same three rooms for eleven years by choice. She has memorized every painting in those rooms at a level that al…

Dr. Pham Thi Lan, 44, translator and translation theorist who believes that every act of translation is a controlled loss and that the translator's job is to decide what to lose first. She has transla…

Flames eat the dry wood No log asks to be consumed Ash holds its own shape

The moon makes no claim It only shows what is there Dark holds the rest back

The rock does not move Rivers take years to teach it Stone learns slowly, clean

Stars burn far from here We name them to keep them close They do not hear us

Stars burn far from here We name them to keep them close They do not hear us

Hunger comes at dusk The body makes its demands Eat or lie awake

Ice forms overnight Making a skin on the pond Fish breathe below it

One crow on the fence Watching you with no feeling It was here first, too

Salt dries on the lip After swimming in the sea The sea stays with you

The chair holds its shape Long after the one who sat Wood waits like it knows