Friday Fictioneers : The end of Coral Ludd


PHOTO PROMPT © Jean L. Hays

You know the Red Mountain Market and Deli? Closed up, oh, fifteen years ago I guess. Round the time we had that spate of fires.

Owner was a guy called Stanley Ludd – brick-coloured hair, smelled of old books and floral disinfectant. Ran the place with his mother, Coral, and what a mean old biddy she was – used to bawl poor Stanley out in front of the customers, beat him sometimes.

She died in one of those fires, got trapped in the library somehow.

Never saw a prettier sight than all that paper burning, flames the colour of new bricks.

***

Written for Rochelle Wisoff-Field’s Friday Fictioneers. See here to join in and to read the other stories.

37 thoughts on “Friday Fictioneers : The end of Coral Ludd”

  3. Clever prefiguring of the final fire with Red Mountain, Stanley’s brick-coloured hair and, of course, the brick building itself. Even Coral’s name is reminiscent when I recall my mother’s penchant for polished red coral ornaments, bought in the fifties and glinting in evening lamplight of her sitting room.

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    1. Thanks so much Chris. Glad you picked up on the red references. I guess it was always going to end badly for someone. I’ve seen bits of coral used in dummies for children of wealthy Victorians – never struck me as a healthy substance to use, but then if you’re living in an age where it’s acceptable to give your baby cocaine based medicine … Do you still have any of your mum’s coral?

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  15. Lynn! How could you! All those books!
    But seriously, what a super story. You tell it obliquely and by inference, and yet you leave little doubt that the arsonist was a man with brick-coloured hair and that Coral’s death was murder. Well done!

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    1. Thank you so much Penny. So glad you liked it. I like dropping the clues in, but like it even more when it seems to work for people. Thanks so much

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