Six words and five minutes

I enrolled in a creative writing class, one of the many continuing ed classes offered by PCC. Our first assignment, completed in class, was to write a paragraph using six words we drew from three different envelopes; three nouns, two action verbs and one color. We were not given the option of selecting our words and we were only given five minutes to be creative.

My words were lantern, dwarf, small pox, frosted, slapped and green. I'm thankful an idea sparked immediately but I did a lot of writing and scratching out in that brief bit of time. This is what I wrote. (I realize my use of "dwarf" in my story is politically incorrect but hey, I only had five minutes!)

Through the frosted window, the flickering light beckoned the weary traveler to enter the hut. The room was sparsely furnished and dimly lit by one lantern on the table. Hiding in the shadows just beyond its glow sat a dwarf. As the traveler approached, he understood why the dwarf chose to sit cloaked in darkness. His face and body were covered by small pox sores, green and oozing. The traveler took a startled step back and slapped his thigh against the corner of the table. He cursed and muttered to himself, "Perhaps I should have heeded the quarantine notice on the door after all."

I'm going to have a ball in this class. Who knows, I might even get the courage to try writing a little poetry.