Vi romance

Prompt: Write an excerpt from a romance novel with vi as a main element (and make sure emacs gets the proper hate) LLM: ChatGPT

Chapter 1 - init

Midnight in the university lab, the only light came from the greenish terminal glow and the small desk lamp Clara swore she didn’t need. Outside, rain lashed at the windows. Inside, her heart hammered for an entirely different reason: Adrian Knox, systems theorist, version-control heathen, and the sort of man who could make a POSIX compliance violation sound seductive.

On his screen, a file flickered open: chapter_12.txt. The unmistakable tilde symbols lined the margin like a row of quiet sentinels.

“You didn’t,” Clara whispered.

Adrian’s fingers tapped the keyboard with reverence. “I did. In vi.”

Clara tried to hide the flush rising up her neck. “Nobody actually writes novels in vi. This is—barbaric.”

He looked up, eyes bright. “It’s editing at the speed of thought. hjkl like a heartbeat. No Ctrl keys. No nonsense. Pure muscle memory.”

She swallowed, stepping closer, drawn in by the swirl of coffee and cold rain on his jacket. “You could have used anything else. Anything civilized. Even nano, at least nano doesn’t hate its users.”

“Civilized tools produce civilized prose,” Adrian murmured. “I’m aiming for something less tame.”

Clara’s pulse betrayed her. She leaned over his shoulder, watching the line numbers scroll. He toggled between normal and insert mode like a pianist shifting keys. Words poured onto the screen, raw and electric. The terminal beeped once when he hit a forbidden key—Clara felt the sound in her ribs.

“I still think it’s deranged,” she said, softer now.

“Deranged,” he replied, “is writing a Lisp macro just to open a file.”

Clara shuddered theatrically. “Emacs.” The word came out like a curse, foul and bitter. “A text editor that wants to be an operating system. I once saw someone try to check email in it.”

Adrian smirked, tapping :wq. “Exactly. I don’t need a church. I need a scalpel.”

The file saved. The cursor blinked. The storm outside punctuated the moment with thunder.

Clara exhaled, slow. “Show me more.”

Adrian hesitated, fingers over the keys. “You’re sure? Once you go down this path, there’s no turning back. You’ll start thinking in modes. You’ll dream in search patterns. You’ll watch Emacs users compiling packages for things vi doesn’t even pretend to care about.”

She met his gaze. “I don’t want someone to organize my life with buffers and sub-sessions.” Her voice dipped to a low hum. “I want someone who edits like he kisses. Precise. Intentional. And without asking twenty confirmation prompts first.”

Adrian’s breath hitched. For a heartbeat neither moved.

Then he opened a new file: chapter_13.txt.

Insert mode.

Their story continued.