Flash Fiction / writing prompts

The Jade Camel #10

Chris Hall56 Comments

Previously

Joey shot across the road and hurtled down the narrow alleyway that divided the terrace of tall buildings ahead of him, the northerly aspect of the dank thoroughfare rarely allowed the sun’s rays to penetrate, and his feet slid on the slippery cobbles.

Hearing a shrill whistle behind him, Joey skidded around a corner into an even narrower passage and then another, losing himself in the maze of Victorian dereliction. Behind him, pounding feet were closing in, their speed more than a match for Joey’s; he swung around the edge of another building only to find himself faced by a huge, crumbling brick wall. He turned to face his pursuers – five unusually short, squat individuals crowded in, filling the width of the alleyway.

Joey spun round and launched himself at the wall, fingers and toes desperately scrabbling for purchase in the missing mortar between the bricks; finally, with a heroic effort, he hauled himself to the top and straddled the wall.

Joey peered down into the yard on the other side, where a bearded man leaned on the edge of an open doorway, smoking an unpretending cigar; the man stared back up at him and slowly raised an eyebrow.

next episode

Written in response to two challenges:

Di of Pensitivity 101’s Wednesday’s Three Things Challenge: HEROIC, PRETEND, ASPECT
Denise Farley of GirlieOnTheEdge’s Sunday’s Six Sentence Story Word Prompt: MATCH

Read more #SixSentenceStories here!

Three things challenge and six sentence stories logos

Photo credit: illustration from a book somewhere on my bookshelves which has mysteriously disappeared🐪

56 thoughts on “The Jade Camel #10”

  4. The fact alone that you managed to balance the double D’s challenges without missing a beat and, as Mrs Gauffreau said, add a raised eyebrow as a cliffhanger…is a feat worthy of all the praise to come!!
    👏👏👏
    🤨

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  11. I’m with Liz (above)… a simple, non-verbal gesture (the raised eyebrow) totally effective ending. (Like all good writing it leaves the Reader with a framework but an empty canvas…)
    and… and! trolls!*
    Excellent installment, yo

    *or dwarves or something, chasing Joey

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  14. I am sliding on those cobblestones – excellent imagery, Chris.
    Can’t help but wonder that Joey didn’t have a little help scaling that wall.
    “where a bearded man leaned on the edge of an open doorway”…know where this is going, right?😁
    Our bearded man stepping out for a smoke…’course he’d raise an eyebrow, lol

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  16. “I told you, didn’t I tell you? It’s just what the Bartender said, she totally said there’s a subtext and that Nick guy is Captain Nemo,” the sophomore stared off into upper-visual-mode-left as he felt the possibility of a slight, if not tenuous, connection being established between himself and the oddest member of a group of strange-in-a-cool-way people at the Café.

    A smile from the tall, thin man, like a key change in a lengthy musical improvisation, shunted the young man’s thinking off on a side track that wasn’t there a moment ago.

    “You’re right!” the college student continued in half of a conversation that, obvious to any observers, would more properly be categorized as a soliloquy… “Maybe Ahab… or hell, for that matter, Major Tom!”

    Looking back along his verbal trajectory, the sophomore watched as the dark wedge of a half-closed door swallowed itself and, with a laugh, went in search of Nick.

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  17. What an incredibly visual instalment, Chris! The moment I read, “the dank thoroughfare rarely allowed the sun’s rays to penetrate, and his feet slid on the slippery cobbles”, all I could see was the moss. Bravo! (Oh, and another new word for me–unpretending–thank you 🤗 )

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