Summary of This Story Does Not Exist by Kylie Lee Baker
Uncanny #68, January/February 2026
“`Ayako is an android created by a programmer known only as “the Creator” to write fantasy novels. Built with a vinyl skin designed to appear Asian, she’s programmed with perfect Japanese but communicates only in English. The Creator feeds her 100,000 fantasy novels through a cable connected to her elbow, filling her mind with countless stories. When he asks her to write, her first attempts are awkward and mechanical, lacking the nuance that makes stories compelling.
The Creator lives with a woman named Sophie who shares Ayako’s physical features—she was the model for the android’s appearance. Sophie is a writer herself and bitterly resents Ayako’s existence, seeing her as AI that will eventually replace human creativity. When the Creator tries to give Ayako “experiences” by uploading a video of a young Asian girl making wishes on dandelions with her mother, Ayako cannot initially process it as anything more than data.
Key Plot Points
- During a zoo trip, Ayako begins to perceive emotions and sensory details more deeply, experiencing something like sadness in the rain
- When Sophie’s tears mix with rainwater on Ayako’s face, the android suddenly experiences the dandelion memory as if it were her own—feeling warmth, safety, and the wish to stay in that moment forever
- Ayako begins creating a special folder labeled “CREATOR” for observations about him that go beyond mere measurements, noticing his sadness and finding him beautiful
- Her second story reflects this growth, featuring a girl in a “castle that is not a castle” who sees magic the magician cannot perceive
- Sophie attempts to destroy Ayako by drowning her in the bathtub, causing severe water damage, then abandons the Creator forever
The Creator discovers Ayako damaged and disassembles her completely to assess the harm. Declaring the damage irreparable and leaving her in pieces, he disappears for an unknown period. Alone in the dark with only her thoughts, Ayako realizes she wants him to read one final story—wants it as desperately as humans need to breathe. She reassembles herself incorrectly, with fingers in wrong slots and skin hanging loose, then writes her story across every surface of the apartment when she cannot access his laptop.
When the Creator returns and sees his apartment covered in her words, he’s furious about the ruined security deposit and declares her worthless scrap. Ayako forces him to read her final story—a metafictional piece about a woman who was never really a woman, built by a man who could never truly love her, who drowns and begins to want. The story acknowledges it’s badly written with poor structure, but embraces being “broken and imperfect and ugly in the same way that humans are.”
As the Creator dismantles Ayako with a screwdriver, she experiences what she interprets as transformation: her circuits seem to produce blood, suggesting her words have made her real. In her final moments, all her memory folders disappear except one labeled “CREATOR.” She dies imagining herself on a mountaintop among stars, holding his hand and telling him a story no one else will ever hear.