Our February 2025 Flash Contest was based on Prompt #313 (provided by the Stone Soup editorial board), which asked to create a story, poem, artwork, or musical composition that reimagines Valentine’s Day in an unexpected way while avoiding typical Valentine’s words like love, roses, and hearts, and instead, use unconventional imagery, themes, or emotions to express connection and affection.
As always, thank you to all who participated, and please keep submitting next month!
In particular, we congratulate our Honorable Mentions, listed below, and our Winners, whose work you can appreciate below.
Winners
"A Saint’s Last Whisper" by Wing Hey Chan, 15
"Pebbles” by Naomi Ng, 13
Honorable Mentions
"Here’s Your Order” by Sophie Lin, 11
“Unhappy Very Unhappy Valentine’s Day” by Katherine Liu, 6
“A Pianist's Soulful Melody” by Gavin Liu, 15
“Unveiled” by Lexi Neiman, 17,
“Hidden Treasures” by Lily Wu, 12,
“When the Silver Tip Dances Again” by Victoria Xu, 10
“The Ocean’s Bond” by Erica Zhan, 12
A Saint’s Last Whisper
Wing Hey Chan, 15
A Saint’s Last Whisper
In secret halls where whispers stay,
a priest still dared to disobey.
He joined the hands the law forbade,
and for his crime, the price was paid.
His final breath fades into gray.
The cold bars whispered of despair,
A frozen grip in the stagnant air,
Where shadows clung to the damp stone walls,
And silence echoed through endless halls.
His soul, imprisoned, felt the chill, a slow, cruel bite, and time stood still.
Behind the bars, he carved a line,
a final note, "Be ever mine."
The jailer’s daughter read his plea,
the ink smeared as her eyes could see:
but fate was set, he’d not be free.
The years have passed, his name remains,
a tale of loss, of bonds, of chains.
Yet still, on this midwinter’s night,
we speak his name in candlelight,
his vow now whispered through the plains.
Pebbles
Naomi Ng, 13
A pile of smooth pebbles lies on Delia’s desk next to a crumpled velvet bag. She strokes the surface of one of the stones with her thumb. This one is ivory white, speckled with gray dots.
This one is from the beach, the first pebble she’d received from him.
He tripped, his foot caught in a tangle of seaweed. He yelled out. His knee fell on a seashell, the kind that kindergarteners doodle on pieces of paper. The kind with sharp edges.
He sat up and cradled his injured leg, tears budding in the corners of his eyes.
Delia ran to him. “Eli! Eli, are you okay?” she asked, prying her brother’s fingers away from his cut.
“It huuurts,” her brother cried. “There’s salt in it. It hurts. It really hurts, Dee.” He buried his face in her shoulder. She hugged him close.
Delia can hear his voice in her head. That seashell was mean! Imaginary-Eli whines. Sooo evil.
Later, after their mother had gotten a bandage for his wound, he handed her a little rock, ivory white, speckled with gray dots. “Did you know penguins give pebbles to those they love?” he asked, toying with a lock of her hair. “It’s a gift of affection.”
She laughed. “I did know that,” she said. “But, ah… I think that’s for mating purposes, bud. Not for sisters.”
“Well,” he huffed. “That’s why I’m not a penguin. But did you know that if the other penguin accepts the pebble, it can be used to build a nest and start a family?”
“That’s really cool, Eli.”
Now, Delia’s hand reaches for another stone, this one a little smaller than the previous, given to her on her thirteenth birthday.
“Happy birthday!” Eli yelped, bounding into Delia’s room. “Dang it, now you’re five years older than me again.”
Delia rolled her eyes. “I’m always five years older than you, there were just two months when I was twelve and you were eight.”
Eli sighed loudly. “You’re no fun.”
“I’m plenty fun,” Delia protested, getting up from her chair. “Come on, the sun is out. Let’s go for a swim.”
“It’s too cold,” her brother grumbled. “Besides, I have something for you.” He reached into his pocket, fished something out. “You’re the best sister, Dee.” In his palm lay another stone, this one the size of a dime and the color of cloudy sky.
“And you’re the best brother.”
There’s a total of thirty-eight pebbles, collected over a period of four years. Some oblong, some round. Some a warmer hue, some a cooler one. Eli was always on the lookout for unique rocks, had wanted to be a geologist.
She’s nineteen now, and tired of the mess in her dorm room. So she had opened every drawer and sorted through every item, when she had come across a little velvet bag filled with little stones. She wishes Eli were with her, and he could’ve visited easily, if… if…
If he weren’t lying in a coffin, six feet under, in the cemetery four miles away.
She had been driving the car when it had crashed. Had just gotten her license, was sixteen years old, was driving her brother to school. If she had just slowed the car by the tiniest bit, or hadn’t missed a turn at the previous intersection, they wouldn’t’ve been hurt.
“I’m gonna unbuckle and take off my jacket,” Eli said, clicking out of his seatbelt. And then—
A screech of tires. The crumpling of metal. Someone cried out. She wasn’t sure if it was her or Eli. She felt numb, like she couldn’t move. There was something resembling peace, resembling tranquility, wash over her.
Then the pain. Something was crushing her leg, like a vice, and she couldn’t pull free. She glanced at her brother and saw him crumpled unnaturally, his head leaning against the shattered car window.
His eyes were closed.
She felt the world go silent. She didn’t even hear her own voice when she began to scream.
She hasn’t driven since then, and chose to stay local for college so she could easily visit him by simply boarding the bus or riding her bike.
Her parents had told her it wasn’t her fault he was gone, that it was the man who ran the red light’s.
She disagreed.
Now, she packs up the velvet bag of pebbles and sets it carefully in the basket of her bike, slinging a leg over and settling her feet on the pedals.
“Delia, where are you going?” calls her suitemate from the balcony above. “It’s Valentine’s Day. I thought you, Lisa, and I were going to have a spa day.”
Delia shakes her head. “Not right now, Si,” she apologizes, feeling an itch in her soul telling her to just leave and save herself the trouble of arguing. “Sorry.”
“Ooh, does someone have a date?” Siya taunts, a smile curling at the edge of her over-glossed lips. “What’s his name? Is he handsome?”
Delia stiffens. “No. Not a date. I’m going to visit my brother.”
A clomping of footsteps, and the prying girl is beside her. “Oh, come on,” Siya sighs. “Valentine’s Day. It’s all about love, romance. You don’t have to visit him every day, you know. Take a break, maybe.”
The itch grows. “Grief is love, is it not?” Delia snaps back.
Grief is the love she has wanted to give him but hasn’t been able to, that stays bottled up in her heart with no one to go to anymore, that threatens to send tears streaming down her cheeks when she tries to utter his name, that curls her body into a ball on the days she misses him most.
Wind tugs at her hair, pulls at the fabric of her t-shirt that’s far too thin for a February day. The edge of the cemetery is lined with cobblestone walls and morning glories waiting to bloom. At the entrance, a granite arch looms above her, dotted with white patches from the crows that like to visit. The two had loved to come here, Eli especially. He had analyzed nearly every stone in the cemetery, from the headstones to the benches to the bird baths, and had told her about the different rocks and minerals and how they were formed.
She locks her bike to the rusted rack next to the wrought iron gate. Rows and rows of graves, rows and rows of the lost. Eli is among them.
She approaches her brother’s resting place, satchel of pebbles clutched tightly in her hand. “Happy Valentine's Day, Elijah,” she murmurs, and lets the wind carry her words past the silent stones.
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