The Picture I Never Took.

How AI gave me back a mother, then told me what I wasn't allowed to remember.

There is no photograph of this moment.

There couldn't be. Nobody was standing outside the Edinburgh Castle on the Caledonian Road with a camera when I was eight years old, watching me talk to the woman who, for a while at least, was the closest thing I had to a mum.

Yet somehow, nearly fifty years later, I have the picture.

I say somehow, what I mean is AI made it for me .

I don’t have photos of those days .

No one does.

All the photos I ever owned were ripped up and burned by a merciless little cunt who was a girlfriend of my brother's, but we ain’t here to talk about that rather unfortunate looking bastard of a woman.

We're here to talk about love, something that was in desperately short supply in my world in the 70’s.

TC was the closest thing to a mother I ever had. If you’ve read the book , you’ll know her, but I’ll tell you a bit about her anyway, because I love writing about her , so indulge me a while .

Back in the late 70s and very early 80s, I was a very skinny, underweight and stinky little bastard. Life had been incredibly cruel to me, parents-wise.

Life in Wood Green was bleak, you know. I could handle most of it , kids do, somehow. What I didn't have was anyone to go to when I couldn't.

Then there was TC.

Cathy was her real name, but anyone who was anyone knew her as TC.

She was a huge solid woman from Glasgow and as hard as  coffin nails.

She worked as a bouncer in a few of the pubs on the Cally Road and even minded a kebab shop, she had a seat by the door and would calmly talk people down when they got a little excited , rude or just plain out of order. If she had to she would slap the men down if they started throwing their weight around .

There were a few stories of blokes coming round on the pavement after raising a fist to her.

She never thought twice about going toe to toe with me Dad when they were pissed, he once told me in later years she was a nasty, dirty fighter and a quick handed banger. I’ll never forget him rubbing his nose as he told me ‘you had to really mind her putting in the nut’

Charming .

Although she was an imposing figure, tall and solid looking with her hair always tied back in a ponytail and dressed constantly in a black roll neck jumper and black jeans I have absolutely no memory of her being anything but lovely.

She always listened to anything I had to say to her and was full of praise for me .

If I helped her around her flat with washing up etc she always made a point of telling me she appreciated it.  She would comb my hair or do the spit on a hankie thing to clean me up , and I truly loved her .

Nearly fifty years later, I was telling an AI much the same story I've just told you.

I wasn't trying to resurrect TC. I wasn't even looking for anything particularly clever. I needed a picture for my website.

If you've spent any time on Dayglowman.com, you'll know that's become part of the routine. I write something, then me and my artificial mate knock ideas backwards and forwards until eventually an image appears that somehow belongs with the words I’ve written.

Eight-year-old me, standing outside the Edinburgh Castle, looking up at TC.

A moment nobody photographed.

A photograph that doesn't exist.

And I cried.

I’m not exaggerating when I say that either.

I mean it.

Look at the picture.

I described this rough diamond, with fingers full of really chunky rings, meant to cut and slash, and two thumbnails she'd grown long and sharp for gouging if things got nasty.

But also a lovely kind , compassionate woman who gave me many more hugs than my own mother ever did .

I described a scruffy kid outside a pub in north London

Talking to her and bang.

That happened.

It was as if the machine really understood what I described .

This long lost woman from a past nobody else cares about had been reborn. A recollection in pixels made to look like a picture I would definitely have painted if I only had the skills.

And that's where things get complicated.

You see AI can do magic like that but also it can fuck what you're trying to paint completely.

My stories can contain , abuse , blood , self harm ,and all sorts of physical and mental violence . Not to shock. Not to gain clicks or visitors to the website (Tho God knows I could do with em)

But to try to show the real world.

When I wrote the piece ‘Control’ I had a fucking nightmare trying to get what I wanted past the Restrictions of the machine.

No matter how hard I tried I could not show you a picture of a girl full of self made cuts holding a razor blade.

Not glamorous. Not sensational. Just uncomfortable.

Because the story was uncomfortable.

But the machine wouldn't paint it.

And that's where I started to struggle with the whole thing.

The machine is capable of bringing a person I loved like its magic. But not willing to show a teenage girl I knew in terrible pain the way I remember it.

I understand why the restrictions are there.

Of course I do.

There are some properly fucked-up people in the world and giving them a machine capable of painting absolutely anything they can imagine probably ain’t the greatest idea mankind has ever had.

But sometimes I wish the machine could understand the difference between wanting to glorify something horrible and wanting to tell the truth about it.

Because that's all I've ever tried to do with Dayglowman.

Tell you what happened.

The funny bits. The beautiful bits. And occasionally the absolutely fucking awful bits.

Maybe one day AI will become clever enough to understand the difference.

Until then, I suppose we'll argue about it.

I'll swear at it.

It'll tell me no.

I'll try explaining myself again.

And between us, every now and then, we'll make something magical.

Like TC.

There is no photograph of that moment outside the Edinburgh Castle.

But now there is a picture.

And I'm very glad there is.