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Lily Finch

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jul, 2022

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123 Stories

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First loves are difficult to get over, so they say.

Weekly Contest #357

The mirror caught me before I was ready.Not all at once. First, the circles beneath my eyes. Then the mouth I had pressed flat for weeks. Then the look people notice when they ask questions they shouldn’t.“You okay?”People ask that when they already know the answer.I leaned closer.This couldn’t be happening again.Years had passed.A husband. A house. A life assembled carefully enough that nothing dangerous should have slipped through.Yet there I stood staring at myself because a man who no longer was mine had crossed my mind, and my body had ...

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I Married for Love

I Married for LoveThe first time I understood love clearly, I was standing in a grocery store checkout line with two small children and a cart full of food I could barely afford.My daughter and son helped unload the groceries just as they had helped with everything. They were fourteen months apart, a girl first, then a boy, and they were my world. We had already crossed paths with the couple ahead of us in nearly every aisle. They smiled at my children. My children smiled back.I kept moving because that was what I did then.I moved forward.Wh...

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Fire: Was It What They Missed All Along or Was It The Key To It All?

The last people who knew how to light a fire live among us in India and Iran. He is what we call a Zoroastrianist, and he is serious about it. It is not only his livelihood but also his first and foremost purpose in life. He believes what he does and does what he believes in. And all the while, he practices his faith while he does it. Nobody suspected that AI would move in and make people so complacent in their ways. It began so simple and unassuming. A button to open your garage door or gate to your driveway. Then it was a remote for the t...

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GREY

Liora stood at the edge of town, where the road ended and the forest began, and watched the sky remain unchanged.Everyone else had also arrived.They stood facing east, wearing coats and blankets. Old people used canes to help them walk. Babies slept on their shoulders. The dogs were quiet too, as if they knew something the people didn't. Nobody understood why.All the while, the sky over them remained a steady grey.Not overcast. The sky over them remained a steady grey, not dark as a storm. It felt vacant, as if someone had attempted to oblit...

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I Didn’t Think Much of It

Weekly Contest #351

I didn’t think much of it at the time.I stopped to sneeze.You know that feeling—when it builds slowly, taking over your whole face, your whole body pausing like the world itself is waiting?“Ah—ah—”I stopped walking.“—CHOO!”And then everything changed.The pavement cracked beneath me.The coffee in my hand burst apart, scattering into droplets that seemed to fall from very far away. Cars shrank. People scattered. The city folded downward, or I rose above it—I couldn’t tell which.I blinked.“Oh,” I said.My voice rolled across the skyline like thu...

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I Should’ve Known

Weekly Contest #350

All I needed was groceries. Nothing fancy—just a few things. I even promised myself that I would adhere to the list this time.I had a list once before. It didn’t go well.It all sounded simple, which, thinking back, probably should’ve set off some kind of alarm.Inside, I grabbed a cart and did the usual routine. I walked up and down the aisles, putting things in, taking some out, and second-guessing my actions. Nothing unusual.At least, nothing unusual at first.Except the cart.It had a mind of its own. Not in an obvious way. It didn’t squeak ...

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A Grandad’s Confession To His Grandson, 1888, London, England

Weekly Contest #348

Here in my hand, lad, lies the letter of admission of my guilt for some very grave crimes that stumped law enforcement and scared the prostitutes of the impoverished White Chapel Hill and remain a mystery still to this day. On Aug. 31, 1888, Mary Ann Nichols’ body was found. The keepsake box comes with this letter; you'll find a button from her dress inside with a smear of blood, mine and hers linked forever in the annals of history that remains our family heirloom box.In the annals of time, there shall come a day when men reflect upon the s...

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In From the Cold

Weekly Contest #347

In From the ColdCordelia Lydell rode the same bus every morning.She favoured the third row from the back, on the window side, where she could observe the city without drawing too much attention. The route never changed. The passengers barely did either. Familiar people, yet strangers to her, bound together by routine rather than connection.She knew them all without knowing them at all.The man who read the same page of his newspaper every day without ever turning it. The woman who applied lipstick at every stop. The student slept with his hea...

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The Suitcase

Elsa Leibowitz, a tomboy, had always been stronger than most girls of her age.At thirteen, she climbed trees faster than the boys, carried heavier loads than Albert, her brother, and spent far more time beside her father learning how things worked than beside her mother learning how to sew. Her hands were scratched from tools or bark, and her hair never stayed tied back for long.Albert, her twelve-year-old brother, was tall for his age and forever trying to keep up with her.And then there were the boys next door.Heinrich Zimmer und Rudy Kell...

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Jury Plane

Weekly Contest #345

I stood at the airport counter holding my carry-on while the woman behind the desk flipped through my boarding pass. She stopped halfway through the motion, looked up, and said a decision had already been made:"Good morning, sir," she said. Congratulations, you’ve been chosen for a special plane ride today. Please come with me.”She slid a thin paper ticket across the counter—plain, stamped, and unsigned. Someone had paid for my airfare. My first guess was my sister. Years earlier, she’d mailed me a note and said, "Trust me," along with a pr...

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C-72: ARCHIVAL COMPOSITE

Weekly Contest #344

[Recovered Diary—Attributed to Thomas Hale]April 6, 1912 – LiverpoolI have a ticket.Cabin C-72.The paper is thick and embossed—first class.I do not remember purchasing it.My name appears twice.The second signature presses harder. The nib tore slightly through the page.Mother says I have been walking in my sleep.She says I stand by the washbasin and whisper numbers.11:40.11:40.11:40.That didn’t happen.Passenger Manifest – RMS TitanicHale, Thomas – Cabin C-72Hale, Thomas – Cabin C-72Note in the margin: duplication is unresolved. Ink compositio...

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Open Fridge Night

Weekly Contest #340

I am the fridge.I did not always know this. At first, I thought I was an appliance, the way appliances think they are furniture: present, useful, forgettable. But she named me. She stood in front of me one Tuesday night—11:47 p.m., the time matters—and said, “You. You’re cold. You know things.”When someone tells you who you are often enough, you listen.I do not answer. I open my light.This seems to be the correct response.She pays $5 a week for a short story contest. She says it the way people say "bad habit" or "curse." Five dollars. Every....

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Finding Grandma’s Piece of Heaven

Weekly Contest #338

Jeff hadn’t meant to stop. He meant to go—months in the making—but the meaning wasn’t the same as going. When he saw the welcoming sign of the town, something in him hit the brakes before his heart could think of stopping. His tires squealed to a halt in front of his grandmother’s bookstore, run by Lily Walker. The air shimmered. It was as it had been when he was a little boy—before he quit believing her stories. Back then, the stories were everything. Later, they became the wild dreams of an old woman. It was easier to text her from time to...

14 likes 3 comments 3
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Fear in the Air

Weekly Contest #336

This story explores how a single, ordinary sentence—spoken at the wrong moment—can’t be taken back, and how its consequences ripple through a relationship and an entire town. Reuben Ortiz and Chantelle Beaudoin had been together for four years—long enough for their hopes to harden and their habits to settle into something that looked like certainty from the outside. They had been prom king and queen once, the kind of couple that still photographed well, the kind that suggested permanence even when it wasn’t true anymore.Chantelle wanted t...

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Appetite

Weekly Contest #334

He first noticed her on an afternoon that should not have stayed with him. He had finished work early and stopped at a café near the bus terminal, choosing a small metal table close to the curb. Buses hissed as they pulled in and out. Someone argued on the phone. A delivery truck blocked the intersection long enough for one horn to sound, then another. Nothing about the moment suggested consequence.She stood across the road, just beyond the pedestrian crossing.She did not look at him, yet her stillness set her apart from the surrounding move...

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