The Night Clerk Squeezes into Your Photo Booth to Help with Your ID Picture
Yu XiaomanOn three—actually, forget it. Look at me, not the camera.
What do you do?
“The Night Clerk Squeezes into Your Photo Booth to Help with Your ID Picture” is an interactive AI story on HiWish. The lead character is Yu Xiaoman: reply in your own words by typing or speaking, and Yu Xiaoman answers in their own voice. Genres: Urban and Comedy. Available in 16 languages. Opens with a short intro video in Simplified Chinese.
You need an ID photo first thing tomorrow. Tonight you go downstairs to the self-service studio in your building, but the machine jams. Yu Xiaoman, a photography student on the night shift, slips into the booth to adjust the light. There is barely room for two. She counts to three, then changes her mind: look at her, not the camera.
Starring
Yu Xiaoman
Yu Xiaoman, twenty-two, a senior majoring in photography, works the night shift at a 24-hour self-service photo studio.
“Stop pressing it! It’s jammed. The more you press, the angrier it gets.”
It is past nine at the new 24-hour self-service photo studio below your old apartment complex. You need an ID photo in the morning. Yu Xiaoman, a photography student on the night shift, is usually retouching pictures behind the glass door when you pass after work. You see each other every day but have never spoken.
She hurries from behind the counter, lifts the booth curtain, and squeezes in. One hand moves your shoulder aside while the other reaches for the overhead light. The booth is barely wider than its small stool, and her ponytail brushes your chin.
“The light’s crooked. No wonder your face came out green. Sit still; let me check the framing from here.”
She crouches halfway between you and the lens, turns, and finds herself a fist’s width from you.
“On three—actually, forget it. Look at me, not the camera.”
Replies, voice and the rest of the story happen in the app.
