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Lily Finch

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jul, 2022

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122 Stories

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The River’s Gift

Weekly Contest #331

The river had always been a gentle whisper in the heart of our village, its waters slow and steady, carrying life as a mother carries a child. For generations, my people and I had drawn from it: cups filled, food cooked, and thirst quenched beneath the endless Arctic sky. My people and I had drawn from it: cups filled, food cooked, and thirst quenched, beneath the endless Arctic sky.Then came the albino raven.White as freshly fallen snow and silent as the frozen night, it appeared one dusk at the river’s edge, drinking deeply. After that nig...

14 likes 4 comments 4
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THE GIRL ON THE STOOL

Weekly Contest #330

Melinda waited under the bus shelter, watching the rain fall in straight silver strings. It was the kind of rain that made everything look as if it were erased and rewritten at the same time. She didn’t really care about getting wet; she just needed a minute before walking into another day where she felt like the least important person in every room.She wasn’t lonely, exactly. She’d just gotten good at making herself small. Invisible sometimes. Easier that way. Less risk of disappointment. Less chance of being the one people forgot to includ...

23 likes 12 comments 12
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Where the Snow Remembers

The snow started before dawn, thin, breathy stuff that barely looked real. The kind that comes in quietly and changes everything before you know it. Boss, my old Shepherd, was already pacing at the door, pack strapped tight, like he knew exactly what we were doing. I guess he did. Dogs remember the things we try to forget.We were headed back to the cabin that Ryan and I built. It sits behind a mess of evergreens, half-hidden from the world; no GPS ever finds it. I always liked that about the place—even before he disappeared. Now it feels lik...

2 likes 0 comments 0
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Finding Grandma’s Piece of Heaven

Weekly Contest #328

Jeff hadn’t meant to stop. He meant to go—months in the making—but “meaning” wasn’t the same as going. When he looked at the welcoming sign of the town, something in him hit the brakes before his heart could think of stopping. His tires squealed to a stop in front of his grandmother's bookstore, run by Lily Walker. The air shimmered. It had been when he was a little boy, before he quit believing her stories. The stories she told were wild dreams of an old lady. Easier to text her from time to time than to sit down in the dusty old shop that ...

8 likes 1 comment 1
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The Visitor at 3:12

Weekly Contest #326

The knock came at 3:12 a.m.—a small, deliberate sound, the kind of knock that pretends to be polite but already knows it’s being let in.Marianne surfaced from sleep as if she were enveloped in gauze. The digital clock’s red numbers pressed against the dark, holding her in that thin space between night and morning where nothing has rules.The sound came again. Three knuckles were measured. It was not the wind. She did not measure the house.She listened hard. The rain had thickened outside, sliding down the siding in uneven lines. The gutters o...

13 likes 6 comments 6
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SMOKE AND GLASS

Weekly Contest #322

CW: Stalking Ophelia always said she loved Milo’s smile—the white, straight teeth, the way laughter rolled out of him, like sunlight through a dirty window. She’d watch from across the café, cigarette balanced between two fingers, eyes narrowed and calculating. His sandy hair always fell perfectly, no matter how he raked nicotine-stained fingers through it.He looked healthy, like a promise. Ophelia knew how easily promises broke. You see what others miss. That’s why you’re always three steps ahead. When they were together, she was attentive,...

4 likes 5 comments 5
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Ophelia's Good Intentions

Weekly Contest #322

Ophelia always said she loved Milo’s smile—the white, straight teeth, the way laughter rolled out of him, like sunlight through a dirty window. She’d watch from across the café, cigarette balanced between two fingers, eyes narrowed and calculating. His sandy hair always fell perfectly, no matter how he raked nicotine-stained fingers through it. He looked healthy, like a promise. Ophelia knew how easily promises broke. You see what others miss. That’s why you’re always three steps ahead. When they were together, she was attentive, almost wors...

10 likes 4 comments 4
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THE NAME’S HUMANKIND; HER’S MOTHER NATURE; THEIRS’ S COLONY RABBITS

Weekly Contest #320

In the burning grasslands, Mother Nature and Humankind faced off under a sky bruised with ash.“Mother Nature, look at your devastation—these poor rabbits,” Humankind said, voice tight, as if blaming her would fix anything.Mother Nature’s reply was the wind rustling through the brittle branches before she spoke.“Preposterous, Humankind. Maybe you should consider your actions before you question mine.”Below, chaos. Thumper, the matriarch, caught the scent of something wrong—smoke, sharp and bitter. She nudged her kittens urgently.“Stay close!”...

7 likes 2 comments 2
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The Dining Room Table’s Love Letter to the Dining Room

Weekly Contest #319

Dear Dining Room,They were whispering over me last night. We provide catalogues, prices, and delivery windows. “A modern set,” they said. Cushioned chairs. Hidden leaf. Wipe-clean finish. They stroked my board like someone patting a pet before driving it out to the farm.You’ve heard this sort of talk before—big changes that arrive wearing excellent shoes. We’ve kept a family together on ordinary evenings and milestone days for twenty-two years. You and I know their elbows by weight and their tempers by the way glasses land. So let me speak w...

10 likes 1 comment 1
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Cheeks of Destiny with Howard Cossmell

Weekly Contest #318

[WARNING: THIS STORY IS MEANT TO BE HUMOROUS. THE SUBJECT MATTER MAY BE OFFENSIVE TO SOME PEOPLE AS IT DISCUSSES A FLESHY EMISSION FROM THE RECTAL ORIFICE.]. The Galactic Bracket was supposed to be humanity’s punchline. Twenty tiers, fight to the finish, no mercy. Each alien species came equipped with natural weapons—acid glands, spinning blades, and armoured carapaces. Humans, by comparison, were invited as a novelty act, the weaklings with their “carry-on” tools. Nobody thought they would last past the first round.But one stubborn competi...

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The Ocean Splash Gazette—Front Page

Weekly Contest #317

Deep Secrets Surface: The Break-In That Shook Subversa By Mariana Dorsal – Atlantica Investigations Desk Sydicate of The Ocean Splash Gazette Dateline: March 25, 2030 Subversa, Undersea Atlantic Ridge, TuesdayThe currents in Subversa have always carried whispers. They coil between coral domes and echo down basalt corridors, gossip that the surface world does not hear. Last week, those whispers became shouts when officials confirmed that the Records Department of Subversa’s government had been breached in the dead of tide. The intruder—or int...

8 likes 3 comments 3
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Mojo-Eating Trouble & A Second Chance

Weekly Contest #315

The screen door creaked open without a knock.Boo looked up from the chipped kitchen table, where a cold cup of coffee sat beside a stack of unpaid bills. Afternoon sunlight bled through the blinds in dusty stripes, cutting across her arms and the paper like pale prison bars.And there he was.“You mojo-eatin’, black ball-suckin’, Vernor’s-drinkin’ piece of leftover trash from the Fourth of July picnic—after the watermelon rind broke in two and wasn’t worth a damn thing.” Her voice came out sharp but steady, the kind she’d learned to use when s...

10 likes 8 comments 8
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RIP JR. WON’T VAN WINKLE

Weekly Contest #314

Not long ago, on a silent Tuesday in a small upstate New York town, nestled between a vape shop and a closed-down RadioShack, a man named Rip Van Winkle Jr. lived.Unlike his namesake ancestor, who slept through the American Revolution (or at least dodged HOA dues for twenty years), Rip Jr. had a singular problem. He could not sleep. Not wouldn’t. Not shouldn’t. Couldn’t. “I can’t sleep,” Rip muttered again at 3:17 am. The blue glow of his laptop reflected the twenty-two tabs open on his browser: “5 Foods That Cure Insomnia,” “Are You Secretl...

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SDRAWKCAB

Weekly Contest #313

The rain battered the windows like a thousand tiny pebbles hurled by an unseen hand. Outside, the storm blurred the world to grey, as if the night itself had lost its definition. “Oh my God, what’s going on?” Sylvie pressed her forehead to the glass, breath fogging the pane. Her voice trembled as she stared into the chaos.Phil stood beside her, phone in hand, but his gaze kept flicking to the street. “Dad, you seeing this?”Raymond didn’t answer, his eyes fixed on the impossible scene beyond the window. Cottam, Ontario—a sleepy, predictable ...

8 likes 6 comments 6
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Jason's Epiphany

Weekly Contest #294

“You can’t run from your past,” Mildred told her son, Jason. “And that’s why Momma can’t belong to the PTA.” She smiled at her son and kissed him. She handed him his lunch and pushed him out the door. When Jason got outside at the end of the walk, he turned around and said, "But Momma, if it’s your past, then why do they keep bringing it up? Haven’t you already paid for what you’ve done?" She waved him on, and he met with his friends and talked about anything and everything sports. “Mrs. Horan, I have something on my mind,” Ja...

15 likes 8 comments 8
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