Yes, I know. "Daily" writing. Bite me. Today's assignment:
Write something using the following words: Crystal, Lemon, Mob, Mosaic, Pension, Plastic, Revolving, Skeleton, Striped, and Water.
Well, the first thing to come to mind is...
"This was not at all like the brochure." Wil thought.
It was getting towards the end of the year and Wil had to either use his vacation days or lose them. Never an outdoorsman, he tended towards more urban vacation spots. But that had begun to lose its charm and after visiting Washington D.C. for the third time in a row, he had decided to get something abut more rustic this time. So he had contacted a vacation rental service nearby and arranged to stay in a quiet, wooded cabin.
Even for someone who avoided nature whenever possible, the pictures he had found online were compelling. They showed a small, but charming, cabin set on the edge of a clearing with the rear almost to the tree line. A good-sized creek ran past the side of the house less than twenty yards from the building. The photos had obviously been taken in the autumn because the ground was a mosaic of colors -- red, orange, brown, yellow, and everything in between. There was even a front porch in clearly good repair that ran the entire width of the house and hooked around to one side. It featured several ceiling fans, rocking chairs, and some scattered tables. Wil pictured himself rocking lazily on the porch under the slowly revolving fans, maybe with a cold glass of iced tea with lemon by his elbow while he looked out over the crystal-clear water of the creek.
Though he had never fished before in his life, Wil has stocked up on fishing equipment on his drive to the cabin. He had left the store with six plastic bags stuffed with gear. The brochure had indicated that the creek was home to a great number of striped bass and he has picked up some lures in the store specially made for them.
The infestation of hornets was the first hint that all was not as advertised. Wil wasn't prepared for them but he made do with shaving cream and a needle to at least incapacitate them while he was there. Then he found out that the kitchen sink was broken. Apparently the water supply to it had just been shut off without any attempts at repairing it. And while the ground might have been nicely littered with colored leaves a few months ago, in early December the ground was a brown mush of dirt and decaying leaves.
But none of that compared to what Wil found when he decided to try out his new fishing equipment. After unpacking all of his new gear and leaving blister packs all over the front porch, he pulled the most stable-looking rocking chair (most looked near collapse) by the lake and cast his line in. And then he waited. And waited.
The creek was narrow but still quite deep and he kept snagging branches and litter. But no fish. So when he tried to reel in his line and felt a strong resistance, he just sighed resignedly and stood up to peer into the murky water.
The sight of a human skeleton leering up at him caused his heart to begin pounding wildly and he felt weak. When he saw that the skeleton was being held under water with a bundle of chains, he remembered the stories of that mob lawyer that had been involved in a pension scam and then suddenly disappeared.
Wil quietly cut his line and resolved to spend the rest of his "restful" vacation inside.