Take a romantic stroll into the woods in this new funny flash fiction story from Daniel Craig Roche. Several of Daniel's short stories have appeared in print through Tough Lit Magazine and Idea Gems Magazine. Many more of his stories, poems, articles and memoirs have been published in several online magazines, including Ariel Chart (a signatory of Poets and Writers.)

There’s a large stone that overlooks that trail I take for my daily jog. It’s like any other stone, all rock-like and unnoticeable, but today there was some graphite written across the stone’s smooth surface.

It read, “I fucked your mom,” in large white lettering.

This remark left a sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach, so I stopped jogging long enough to call the large stone out on its lies.

“You’re full of shit,” I said to the rock.

It took the cowardly way out by ignoring me.

“How dare you talk about my mom,” I screamed. “You don’t know me! “I’ll fucking kill you!”

The stone sat there not saying a word. I swear I saw it trembling.

“That’s what I thought,” I said while turning away.

Having the last word, I continued with my jog.

As I continued down the path, my thoughts drifted, and I began wondering if there were any truth to the stone’s claims. Did my mother really wander out here into the woods to make sweet love to the stone?

Maybe the rock went to her?

The answer to my second question seemed obvious. As far as I know, stones are immobile. There’s no way it could make it all the way to my mother’s house in the middle of the night, especially unnoticed. Surely someone would stop it, perhaps an officer of the law - maybe even give it a field sobriety test.

So that left my first question: Did my mother come out here into the woods to make sweet love to the stone?

I jogged around a bend and came upon a young boy who was busy spray painting swear words on a tree. He appeared to be one of the locals, so maybe he spent a fair amount of time out here in the woods.

“Excuse me,” I said. “Have you noticed any sweet little old ladies wandering along this path lately?”

“Fuck you,” he said. “I haven’t seen shit.”

This kid was useless, so I jogged back to the rock to check for any abnormal protrusions, maybe something a woman could use to pleasure herself with, but I saw nothing. Just smooth, un-fuckable surface.

I hated to get my mother involved, but there wasn’t much choice. I pulled out my cell phone and called her. When she answered, I told her where I was and I explained the situation.

“Oh, honey,” she said, “don’t be silly. You know I only fuck trees.”

The relief that came over me nearly knock me over. I told her I loved her and hung up, but before jogging away, I flipped the stone off and told it to eat shit. I jogged around the bend again and came upon the area where I had seen the boy spray painting the tree.

On the tree, I saw the words ‘I fucked your mom.’

“I know,” I said, and gave the tree a high five as I jogged past.




Photo by kazuend on Unsplash. Edited by David Gregory.