She turned the corner of the park and jogged down her usual path and stopped. It was her favorite part of the entire park. Every time she jogged down the path, there’s always something different
about the scenery, as if someone’d redecorated the scene just for her.
Perhaps something or someone was waiting for her…
The scene today was once again different from yesterday. The path was full of red and yellow leaves yesterday. Today, it’s all in a pile on the side of the path. Maintenance must had cleaned up the path with a leaf blower. She shrugged and kept jogging.
Traversing the curves down to a secluded river that not many people knew about, she sat down on a rock and brought her water bottle to her lips.
Snap…
She anxiously looked around and stood up, heart pounding. Quickly, she hurried up the hill back to her usual path but she bumped a tree. Something fell on her, she yelped. It was a bouquet of red roses with a note, “You come here often?”
(~175 words)
I am participating in Priceless Joy’s fairly-new flash fiction challenge, Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writer, where we write a piece between 100 and 150 words (more or less 25 words) in length inspired by the photo prompt above.
This is Another Story 
You’re very perceptive. There is a river close by. 😀 Loved this story Yinglan. I also loved the ending. Now, who is this mystery person??
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Thanks! Really? The picture just reminded me of a park I used to go when I lived in Austin.
As for the mystery person, I’m thinking, secret admirer???
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Yes, in fact, the path is actually called the River Walk because it is a path right next to the Animas River.
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That’s a good surprise! Unless there from some creep. I can just imagine some creepy guy stepping off the trail to talk to her and her being like ” help me”
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There’s always that possibility.
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My thoughts exactly! I was left wondering “Is this good or bad?” The flowers could definitely be from a romantic stalker — maybe one she should be concerned about. And did the flowers fall from that exact tree that she accidentally bumped into or did her admirer toss them over (to land on her)? Dun, dun, dunnnnnnnnn. (Lol).
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I really liked your story. Not sure if it’s romantic or creepy. Could be my cynicism speaking. 🙂
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Thanks! I think it just depends on your interpretation.
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A lovely romantic little story, Yinglan, with a nice surprise for her at the end. I like the way you make us wander whether there’s something creepy going on first, too.
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Thanks.
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Yinglan, nice take on the prompt. It sounded all a little creepy to me, but the twist at the end was a surprise.
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Thanks! Surprise was what I was going for; as for creepy, well that’s for reader to interpret.
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OH interesting twist. It’s almost a little creepy. I sure hope there was someone she was hoping it would be. I thought you did a good job of setting up the atmosphere, almost so much so that if you’re looking to gain some words to add other details and character background you could probably cut some of the description in the first few sections. The great thing about flash fiction is you can chop up sentences and skip minor details to focus on the build of the piece. Nice job! Now I want to know who her secret admirer is.
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I hope you don’t mind Yinglan, but Robyn with WP is trying to help me get my avatar right so it will show up on comments and likes. I am using this as a test.
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I loved the mystery embeded in this story Yinlan ~ Your descriptive powers are excellent 🙂
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Thanks.
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This could go either way, I reckon. It’s either the man of her dreams or a stalker. Good job 🙂
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Yes, it can go either way. It just depend on one’s interpretation. Thanks for reading.
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