Flash Fiction / writing prompts

The Jade Camel #13

Chris Hall66 Comments

Previously

As Joey stepped over the threshold, the music he’d heard from outside the building stopped abruptly; light filtered from the lofty windows, illuminating the dust-motes that danced in the large space before him, empty apart from a long wooden counter running along one wall with a dozen mis-matched chairs arranged at intervals along it.

Joey looked around, at the far side of the room was an imposing entrance door, topped with a fancy fanlight; Joey jogged over and drew aside the heavy steel bolts before twisting the night-latch; the door swung open easily. After pulling the door closed and hearing the latch click home, Joey sprinted up the three stone steps to street level. Suddenly the music started up again; Joey looked around, puzzled for a moment, before hurrying off up the narrow side street.

Emerging onto busy Bold Street, Joey ducked inside the nearest shop, its interior thick with cigarette smoke and lined with TV screens; the little camel statue in his pocket vibrated, pursuers forgotten, Joey approached the counter, ‘2.30 at Aintree, two quid on Oracle to win.’

Meanwhile, in the flat below Joey’s, Ceridwen turned over the Five of Swords: the tarot card predicting a cheap victory.

next chapter

Written in response to two challenges:

Di of Pensitivity 101’s Wednesday’s Three Things Challenge: ARRANGE, PREDICT, ORACLE
Denise Farley of GirlieOnTheEdge’s Sunday’s Six Sentence Story Word Prompt: TREE

Join the #SixSentenceStory readathon here

Three things challenge and Six Sentence Story logos

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

66 thoughts on “The Jade Camel #13”

  14. Nicely done capturing the vibe of a bookies back then, pre-smoking ban too! Was never a regular horses gambler, but used to enjoy the odd Saturday morning in Ladbrookes or Hills having a flutter. Hope Joey’s horse comes in!

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    • The old bookies were pretty dreadful – not that I spent much time in one. I always had a flutter on the Grand National though. I almost got the timing right too… pity a horse called Oracle didn’t win a couple of weeks ago!

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  20. surely one of the most curious of ‘effects’ in life, the impact of music heard continuously coming to an abrupt end…very loud transition, that.
    then, that thing about huge doors swinging like a feather… only on place I’m aware of would those two things be likely…. SSC&B
    like they say, ghosts don’t haunt the cafe, the cafe haunts the ghosts

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    • Spot on, Clark. There’s only one place that strange building could have been. I wonder how it came to make an appearance in a side street in Liverpool? But, hold on, everywhere is just a step away in fantasy.
      Like your comment about the ghosts…

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