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Jethro Pili

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Aug, 2021

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150 Stories

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Waiting For Redemption

The bell for Vespers had not yet rung.In the convent of Saint Brigid of the Wounds, late afternoon settled like pale gold dust across old stone walls. Beyond the cloister windows, summer bent toward evening. Lavender bushes stirred in the breeze. Bees drifted lazily among roses. Somewhere in the distance, someone was pruning hedges, the snip of shears echoing faintly against the silence.Young Sister Magdalene Mary stood at her window and looked down the path for the seventh time in ten minutes.Or perhaps the seventieth.She had lost count.Her...

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The Greatest Subversion of Expectations

Father Wayne McKnight’s room at St. Augustine Boarding School for Catholic Youngsters did not look like a priest’s room.That was what everyone said.Students said it.Teachers said it.Visitors said it.Even the bishop had once stood in the doorway, blinked twice, and said, “Wayne… are those… framed concert posters?”“They are reproductions,” Father Wayne had replied proudly. “The originals cost more than a used Honda Civic.”The walls of his quarters were lined not with icons or illuminated manuscripts but shelves of records and CDs.Thousands of ...

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Terran Exhibit

The first thing Daniel noticed when he woke up was sunlight.Golden morning sunlight spilled through the blinds and painted neat stripes across his bedroom wall. It landed on the dresser, the bookshelf, and the framed photograph of a beach he had never visited but always meant to.For a moment, he stayed beneath the blankets and listened.Silence.No traffic.No barking dogs.No neighbors mowing lawns.Just stillness.Perfect stillness.Daniel sighed happily.Saturday.No alarm clocks. No deadlines. No meetings. No obligations.Just an entire day to him...

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Maybe It’s You

“Have we met before?”Tom Whitman looked up from the clipboard he was filling out and found himself staring into a pair of familiar gray-blue eyes.The woman behind the reception desk tilted her head slightly.“I’m sorry,” she said with a small laugh. “That was probably a strange thing to ask. You just look awfully familiar.”Tom opened his mouth.Nothing came out.Because the moment their eyes met, the world lurched.Not physically.Not visibly.But somewhere deep inside him, something ancient cracked open.A church bell rang.A horse whinnied.Gunfire...

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If You Test Me, You Will Fail

I was absolutely certain Samuel Ihle was going to fail.Not struggle.Not stumble.Fail.Completely, spectacularly, publicly fail.Looking back, I realize that certainty was probably the first warning sign.People who are right tend to have evidence.People who are wrong tend to have certainty.My name is David Morse, Associate Professor of Journalism at Yale University.Half English. Half Choctaw.Owner of a ponytail that several generations of students described as "unexpected."For nearly four decades, I taught reporting, feature writing, investigat...

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One Of Us

"Nobody believed in me. That was their first mistake."Lisa Friesen tightened the leather strap on her borrowed vambrace and stared at her reflection in the washroom mirror of the university student center.The armor didn't fit particularly well.The breastplate had belonged to someone at least six inches taller. The gauntlets looked like metal oven mitts. The padded gambeson underneath smelled faintly of sweat, old grass, and history.She grinned.It was perfect.The twenty-year-old history major pushed her glasses back up her nose and adjusted t...

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Secret Victories

The bishop would never put it in a newsletter.There would be no article in the diocesan paper.No plaque.No commendation.No standing ovation after Mass.If things went well, no one would ever hear about it at all.And that, Father Tristan Greene reflected, was exactly the point.The rain tapped softly against the rectory windows as he sat at his desk shortly after midnight.The folder before him was thin.Too thin.Cases that ended up on his desk were usually thick with psychiatric evaluations, family testimonies, medical records, and pages of note...

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Pekuach Nefesh

Every Friday afternoon, at precisely 4:37 p.m., the same conversation took place.And every Friday afternoon, Jeremy Piznarski gave the same answer.The offices of Fishman Schneider & Sobel were slowly emptying as attorneys gathered briefcases and laptops. Secretaries shut down computers. Lights clicked off one by one.The scent of challah drifted from somewhere.Jeremy remained hunched over a mountain of files.A mountain that had consumed eight years of his life."Jeremy."He looked up.Senior partner Aaron Fishman stood in the doorway.Gray be...

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Unlikely Truce

Unlikely Truce (Castles of Sand)The first time Charles Whitmore and Vincent Devereux shared a drink, it was because neither of them had anywhere else to go.That statement would have sounded absurd to anyone in New York.Charles Whitmore owned half a dozen steel mills, three newspapers, and a mansion on Fifth Avenue so large that tourists occasionally stopped outside its gates and asked if it was a museum.Vincent Devereux was the railroad king of the Eastern Seaboard. His summer estate on Long Island occupied nearly forty acres and boasted a b...

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Xena

The smell of smoke never frightened me.Not the good kind, anyway.Not the old familiar smell that clung to turnout coats hanging in lockers. Not the scent that lingered on boots after a long call. Not the smell that drifted through Fire Station 87 when the engines rolled home at three in the morning and tired firefighters stumbled through the bay doors looking like they'd wrestled dragons.That smell meant my people were home.My name is Xena.Retired firehouse mascot.Professional nap enthusiast.Part-time squirrel security officer.Full-time love...

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Burying The Hatchet

The first thing Dr. Fatima Sulaymani noticed was the sound.Not the thump-thump-thump of the helicopter blades cutting through the humid evening air above St. Catherine Mercy Hospital. Not the crackle of the trauma radio clipped to her scrub collar. Not even the distant chorus of ambulance sirens bleeding through the rain.It was the metallic clang of surgical instruments hitting a tray somewhere down the hall, followed by a voice sharp enough to cut bone.“You contaminated the field before you even draped him.”Fatima closed her eyes.Of course....

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Aardvark Grill

The smell hit first.Not one smell, but a hundred braided together beneath the low hum of ancient ceiling fans: fryer oil popping in the kitchen, garlic butter melting over steak fries, tomato soup steaming in ceramic bowls, burnt coffee from the self-serve station, cinnamon from fresh churros at the dessert counter, cheap cologne, expensive perfume, rain-damp denim, old books, warm plastic trays, and the faint electric smell of an overworked soda fountain.The Aardvark Grill at John Arthur University always became chaos after Professor Jeffer...

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Blue Light Is True Light

The town of Blackwater Crossing sat buried beneath January.Snow gathered in crooked heaps atop the roofs of old mining cabins that had somehow survived another year.Elias Mercer tugged his scarf higher and squinted against the wind as he trudged along the riverbank.He hated mornings.He hated winter more.But his landlord hated late rent most of all, which was why Elias was currently ankle-deep in snow checking fishing traps before dawn instead of sleeping beneath three blankets with his cat curled against his feet.“Remind me,” he muttered to ...

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Call It Kismet

Saturday mornings belonged to Trystan Lyons.Not to spreadsheets or tax codes or clients who emailed him at 11:43 p.m. with subject lines marked URGENT because they had suddenly discovered the IRS existed. Saturdays were sacred. Saturdays were for sleeping in until seven-thirty instead of six. Saturdays were for clean shirts, good coffee, and brunch at the same café he had been frequenting for nearly four years.The ritual mattered.In a profession where numbers had to reconcile perfectly and every decimal point carried consequence, rituals gro...

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The Waiting

The door slammed hard enough to rattle dust from the cedar beams overhead.Everyone in the Upper Room jumped.For one terrible instant, every soul there thought the soldiers had returned.But it was only Peter.He stood in the doorway breathing like a hunted beast, chest heaving beneath a torn outer cloak stained with dirt and sweat and streaks of someone else’s blood. His hair hung wild around his face. One sandal strap had snapped entirely, and the leather dragged behind him like a broken tether.No one spoke.Jerusalem outside groaned with Pass...

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