The Fifteen Minute Novel is a novel written fifteen minutes at a time with each week day’s section starting with the sentence from the previous day. At least it is attempting to be a novel. For now I am just aiming at one continuous story, worked on for fifteen minutes each day. Started Friday January 1st, 2021 (in case you want to search for the beginning. I can’t wait to see where it ends up. It could be good, or it could be a mess. We’ll have to see. For now, here is today’s fifteen minutes.
Day 12: Curious to see what it contained, James walked over and picked it up.
Curious to see what it contained, James walked over and picked it up. The box contained a bus pass and a set of schedules and routes. It contained a library card to the local library and a couple of notebooks and pens. There was also a cell phone and a charger.
James set it to the side and picked up the set of sheets. He took them out of the plastic and discarded the bits of cardboard tucked inside to keep them in shape during their packaging. James began making the bed. It wasn’t a skill he was terribly practiced in and the corners weren’t as sharp as he liked, but he thought he did okay. He disliked the creases on the sheets from the packaging, but knew he didn’t have time to wash and dry them before he went to sleep. Already he could feel fatigue sucking at him.
Thinking of washing his sheets reminded him of laundry and he stepped back into the hallway to check on it. As he made the bed the chugging of the machine stopped and James was able to transfer his clean but wet clothes to the dryer.
As he had become safety conscious in the past few months, James went to the front door and double checked that it was locked. He then walked back to the bedroom and shut out the soft thumping of the dryer by closing the door. As an extra precaution James locked the bedroom door. He then picked up the cell phone plugged it in so that he could check local time and set the bedroom clock so that it would stop flashing at him. Not knowing when his new and hopefully final agent would return for him, James set the alarm clock for six am. Task complete he undressed and hung his rumpled suit in the closet. He kicked his shoes into the bottom of the closet, more so that if he did have to get up and go to the bathroom in the middle of the night he wouldn’t trip over them in the unfamiliar room than for any innate sense of tidiness. His suit looked unaccountably lonely hanging there and James shut the closet door feeling a sense of relief when it was out of sight.
He had no wallet and his only keys were to the apartment and left in the living room. He took off his watch and set it on the night stand next to the alarm clock and climbed into bed wearing just his shorts. In the morning he would have a shower and put on freshly washed clothes. Then he could begin to see what the life of James Ferris would be like. At the moment, he just claimed the oblivion of sleep. Surely a man leaving one life behind deserved a moment between his old life and his new to simply be. James reached over and switched off the lamp. The room was unfamiliar and he felt the edges of it as though his subconscious was intent on mapping the room and its shadows before allowing him to sleep.
“Tomorrow we start fresh,” he promised himself.
Ten til Midnight 