This is a brave attempt at improvisational writing. The entirity of this story was written in 37 and a half minutes. Try it sometime. It's like your very own episode of "Who's Line is it, Anyway?" without Drew Carey, the funny guys, or the sketches.

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Once upon a time there was a girl named Riley, who was wandering down the streets of her city in search of a handle for the pommel horse rounding out the olympic gymnastics theme in her living room. It was cold outside, the middle of January, and she wrapped her warm, homemade scarf tighly around her neck and trugged along. Dirty slush covered the streets, and the fresh snow from the evening before had not been cleared from the sidewalk, and Riley's snowboots sloshed through it like ice breakers. It was four o' clock in the morning, more than enough time to walk to Walgreen's while it wasn't busy. Riley needed more than a pommel horse handle. She needed mascara. Suddenly Riley felt something grab the hood of her coat, letting a blast of cold air down her neck that sent shivers up her spine. She spun around, ready to attack.
"Woah! Watch it!" a booming voice hollered as Riley assumed her defensive stance.
"Who are you?" Riley demanded, her quickened breath sending puffs of steam into the air from the adrenaline rush.
The man she looked at was tall. Very tall. His broad shoulders cast a shadow on her from the street lamp, and suddenly Riley lost her nerve and tried to resist the urge to put her hands in front of her face and run.
"Are you Riley Adhemar?" He boomed once again.
Riley stood up straight, determined not to show her fear and to make up, unfulfillingly, for her height disadvantage.
"Who wants to know?"
"My name is Brockman Carswell. I work for the FBI," he flashed a badge at her that glinted in the street light. It could have been a child's toy for all she had seen of it. "And I'm here to protect you."
Riley laughed. "Protect me? What did I do?"
Her mind tried to gather any reason why she would need protecting, and unless the Iraqi guy who stalked her by sending her flowers and articles about his homeland and coming to every single one of her softball games in high school had come back to haunt her, she could not imagine why.
"....horse, ma'am?."
Riley snapped out of her thoughts and focused on the man before her.
"What?"
"I understand you have a pommel horse, ma'am?"
What the heck did her pommel horse have to do with anything?
"Maybe."
"Well, ma'am, that pommel horse was the one that cost the Russians the gold at the summer olympics in Sydney. They tried to maintain equipment malfunction when Vladimir Babushkina broke off the handle in the middle of his routine and cost the team the medal. The Russians cannot prove thier case if they don't have thier pommel horse-- and the handle."
Riley laughed, more ebuliently this time. "That's ridiculous!"
"The Russians don't seem to think so."
"Agent Carswell, listen to me. I bought that pommel horse from a gymnastics equipment warhouse in Skokee, Illinois. I don't think your regular Russian Joe Blow is a frequent visitor there. It's mine, fair and square!"
He held up a piece of paper. "This is a visiting customer list from Gym-Tastic Wholesale in Skokee, Illinois. Here, on three different occasions, is a Mr. Josef Blowinskaya. He inquired about a certain pommel horse in need of repair, namley without a handle. I happen to know that you bought it before he could conjure the funds. I don't want to frighten you, Miss Adhemar, but he is willing to do anything--" he leaned in close enough for Riley to smell the Altoid on his breath, "ANYTHING-- to get it back."
Okay. She had seen the movies. She wasn't going to run away from the nice guy trying to help her by spouting about how she could protect herself and all that crap. If her life was in danger, she wanted protecting. The last way Riley wanted to die was over a pommel horse.
"What do you want me to do?" she said.
"Come with me."
That being said, Agent Carswell grabbed her hand and led her through the snow. Riley had no idea what she had stumbled into. Her mind reeled at the tought of some greasy Russian mobster in a shiny pinstripe suit coming to kill her. Over a pommel horse! What a jerk, this Josef Blowinskaya.
They had been walking for some time when they came to the bright 24 hour lights of Walgreen's flashed before them. Agent Carswell stopped.
"I need to get something," he said, leading her towards the glass doors.
Mascara.
"Hey, me too."
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