Priceless

Written for the Daily Flash Fiction Challenge with a word limit of 300.

The prompts: This story must contain the words: amulet, ocean and giant

Priceless

Faraday couldn’t take his eyes off of near-dead camel lying next to him.

I have made a giant mistake, he thought.

Three days earlier, it had all been going so well. He had planned the perfect crime. The countess was there as planned; a picture of royalty amongst royals. He moved invisibly amongst the throng of elites. His only disguise was a white jacket and a tray full of champagne.

It had been a perfectly executed bump-and-snatch maneuver. One moment the amulet was around her neck and then it was gone. He was out on the street sixty seconds later, strolling casually as if on an evening walk. The tray of champagne lay covered with a white jacket at the bottom of a trash bin.

His getaway car had made it five blocks before the flat tire. He’d barely gotten the tire off when the approaching sirens sent him off in search of alternative means of transport. An hour later, he was on the back of a truck headed, east – or so he thought. He had been awoken by a screaming Bedouin female who disapproved of his unauthorized presence in the back of the truck. The nomadic tribe ignored his pleas for water and transportation until he offered up his watch and wallet. Soon, he was on his way atop a camel that was apparently well beyond its factory warranty.

Now, he lay back against his camel-turned-desert-recliner and tried to lick his dried and cracked lips. He chuckled to himself at the idea of being stranded in an ocean of sand, without a drop to drink.

Faraday leaned into his hoofed lumbar support and took out the amulet.

Was it worth it? he thought.

Absolutely!

Faraday laughed defiantly at the sun as it rose ever higher into the desert sky.


Word count 300