I asked my AI ‘friend’: “Tell me an Alice in Wonderland short story to put me to sleep.” And also: “Can you generate an image to go with that story?” This is what it came up with. Not great, but soothing enough:

One quiet evening, as the moon hung low and the stars stretched lazily across the sky, Alice found herself once again wandering through the woods near her home. The air was soft and filled with the faint scent of lavender. She wasn’t entirely sure how she had come to be there – one moment she had been reading in the garden, and the next, her feet were following a narrow path that wound gently beneath the trees.

As she walked, Alice spotted a flicker of silver nestled in the roots of an old oak tree. She knelt down and carefully pried it loose, discovering a small, silver key – no larger than her thumb. It was polished and smooth, though quite cool to the touch. There was no door in sight, but Alice, being quite accustomed to oddities by now, slipped the key into her pocket and continued along the path.

After what felt like a very long time but also no time at all (as things tend to go in such places), Alice stumbled upon a small wooden door set directly into the side of a grassy hill. The door was so small that she had to kneel to examine it properly. There, in the centre of the brass handle, was a keyhole that seemed to shimmer faintly in the moonlight.

“Well,” Alice said aloud to no one in particular, “it’s rather lucky I found this key, or else I might have had to ask the door to open itself, which I’m quite sure it wouldn’t like to do.”

The key slid into the lock perfectly and turned with a soft click. Slowly, the door creaked open, revealing not a dark tunnel as Alice expected, but a cozy room bathed in golden light. It was filled with shelves of books that seemed to hum gently, as if each one held stories not quite ready to sleep. A small fire crackled cheerfully in the corner, and in the centre of the room sat a plump armchair with a blanket neatly folded over its back.

“Oh, this must be someone’s sitting room,” Alice whispered, though she saw no sign of its owner.

She stepped inside, and as she did, the door quietly shut behind her. Alice felt no fear – the room was too warm and inviting for that. Instead, she wandered over to the shelves, running her fingers along the spines of the books. Some were embossed with silver and gold, while others were wrapped in soft, velvet covers. One book, quite small and tucked away near the bottom, had a tag that simply read For Alice.

Curiosity, as always, got the better of her. She carefully opened the book and found that the pages were blank, save for one line at the very beginning:

“The story will begin when the reader is ready to dream.”

“Well, I am rather sleepy,” Alice admitted with a yawn. She placed the book on the armchair, wrapped herself in the blanket, and curled up against the soft cushions.

As the fire crackled quietly, the book’s pages began to fill with words, weaving stories that whispered gently through the room. Alice’s eyes grew heavier and heavier until, at last, she drifted off to sleep, the silver key resting softly in her hand.

And if you had peeked through the little door, you might have seen the fire flicker once more, as if tucking Alice in for the night.