ROUGH SEAS AHEAD

(This short story is an assignment I completed recently for the Literary Club, for which we were given a long list of seemingly unrelated words, ie: coterminous, hysteria, drunken, impious, Scooter, etc., to be included in any imaginative tale we could come up with, making sure to include all the words.)

"What a great day to get to know your mother better!", yelled Chumbucket Bob, (known as "Chum" to his friends), over the roar of the outboard motor to Scooter, his ever-flatulent sidekick and fishing-boathand. Scooter didn't reply, but raised his hounddog face slightly and began to pick his nose with his longest finger.

"Ah--you despicable cur! Don't play with me with your boisterous repartee! We'll have to scrape this hull soon. It's beginning to look like your hungover mug!" Chum's hyena laugh bounced off the cold mist that covered the early morning sea of green glass, before a disturbing thought cut it off:

Scooter, that pitiful sot, had foolishly made a drunken and impious suggestion to Sharon the barmaid at the Rusty Cleat Bar last night, something regarding a coterminous sleeping arrangement,. Known to be frugal with conversations, Sharon promptly responded with a fishclub to the top of Scooter's head, sending him off to sideswipe a parked car before driving his rattletrap truck into the bay where it sank like a stone. He swam free and just made it to Chum's boathouse, falling on his mangy bunk and completely crashing an hour before Chum arrived. Now, the only vestiges of Scooter's misadventure were his still damp clothes, a slight limp as he tromped about the tackle and rigging, and a certain confused hysteria about the eyes, more so than usual--almost dangerous looking.

'No reason to rile him in this state,' thought Chum. He turned his back, stealthfully removed his handgun from the wheelhouse holster, and slid it into the front pocket of his coveralls.