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Jethro Pili

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Aug, 2021

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33 Followers
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150 Stories

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Kahu

“Kahu” The Pacific stretched to the horizon in quiet bands of blue and silver, breathing in and out against the black lava rocks. The trade winds carried the scent of salt, plumeria, and rain that hadn't yet arrived. A pair of green sea turtles floated lazily beyond the reef, and somewhere farther down the shoreline a child laughed while chasing retreating waves. Noah Kealoha sat alone on the rocks with an old canvas leash looped around his hand. The leash no longer had a dog attached to it. Three months. Ninety-two days. He hadn't meant to ...

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Camp Bear Point

Randy noticed the silence first. Camp Bear Point was never truly quiet. Even before registration, there were birds arguing in the pines, squirrels racing through branches, and the distant splash of the lake against the docks. But this was different. It was the sort of silence that made every snapped twig sound like a shout. He shifted the duffel bag on his shoulder. "I still can't believe we got here this early." Esther laughed. "My dad wanted to beat traffic." "He beat it by almost four hours." James checked the paper map they had been give...

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Remember Me: An Allegory

The second floor break room had once been a cheerful place. At least, that was what Jesse Carpenter imagined. The faded walls still held the ghosts of motivational posters. Rusted lockers leaned against cracked cinderblock. Someone had painted a smiling coffee mug near the microwave decades earlier. The microwave itself was gone, stolen long before New Rome swallowed the former Kingdom of Gilboa whole. The vending machine stood like a museum piece. Empty. Broken. Its cracked glass reflected thirteen tired faces. Outside, rain drummed against...

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Tea and Cakes

It was Eleanor Ashcombe's third Thursday in the parish before she discovered that churches had a remarkable ability to invent jobs no seminary had ever prepared anyone for. Peter had warned her. "They'll ask strange things of us," he had said as they unpacked boxes in the vicarage kitchen. "Not bad things. Just... unexpected things." She had smiled while wrapping plates in newspaper. "Such as?" "Oh, you'll see." Now she stood in the parish hall staring at six elderly women who regarded her with expressions usually reserved for royalty and co...

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Where Everybody Knows Your Name

The Brass Longship was loud in the comfortable way only a favorite pub could be. It was June 30, the end of another frantic day at Viking News, and every booth seemed occupied by regulars escaping work, tourists admiring the carved dragon heads hanging from the rafters, and locals debating baseball, politics, and whether the fish and chips had somehow gotten even better since last week. The bartender, Liam, looked up as the newsroom crew filed through the door. "Here comes trouble." Patrick McKean, editor-in-chief, grinned. "You say that eve...

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Loving Jennifer

Father Lance Lake had long ago learned that exorcisms were not the hardest part of being a priest. Demons lied. People rarely did. The hardest battles were fought in silence, where no one applauded victory and no one saw the wounds. The chapel of St. Augustine Boarding School was empty except for the red sanctuary lamp burning beside the tabernacle. Evening sunlight spilled through stained glass, washing the marble floor with crimson, sapphire, and gold. Lance knelt in his accustomed place. "Lord..." His prayer stopped there. Some days words...

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Bacon Mac n’ Cheese

The first thing Father Tristan Greene did after locking the rectory door was set a pot of water on the stove. Not tea. Not coffee. Tonight called for something heavier. He reached into the refrigerator, retrieved a packet of thick-cut bacon, and laid the strips carefully into a cast-iron skillet. The familiar hiss filled the quiet kitchen almost immediately. Normal. Predictable. Blessedly ordinary. He loosened his Roman collar, rubbed at the red marks it had left on his neck, and watched the bacon slowly surrender its fat. Outside, rain tapp...

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Song For The Mira

I still remember that summer like it has its own weather system—its own tide that never fully went out. Back then, everything in Brookside felt too small to contain what we believed the world was. The houses sat neat and obedient on their streets, the school bells rang like commandments, and even the sky seemed folded too tightly over the town, like someone had ironed out the horizon. But we had found a crack in it. Or at least we thought we had. It started with Oak Island. Not the tourist version with ticket booths and polite guided tours, ...

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A Hundred Fireflies

Principal Joel Gehrig left Brookside High with the kind of quiet that only the last day of school can produce. Not the quiet of discipline or tension. Not the sharp silence of detention halls or assembly pauses. This was a hollow, relieved quiet—the kind that lingered in empty lockers and polished floors, in erased chalkboards and the faint smell of disinfectant trying too hard to cover a year of adolescent chaos. He walked the main corridor slowly, his messenger bag slung across his shoulder. Inside it were three binders he didn’t really ne...

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Return To Neverland

As the sun began to dip below the horizon, casting long shadows across the backyard, Jeremy sat on the porch steps, his fingers idly tracing the wood grain. The air was thick with the scent of freshly cut grass and the distant sound of laughter echoed from the nearby park where children played. It was the last evening of summer, and the weight of nostalgia hung heavy in the air. He glanced at his childhood friends scattered around the yard, each one lost in their own thoughts, yet tethered together by memories of carefree days and endless ad...

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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...

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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. Thous...

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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 entir...

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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 whinn...

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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,...

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