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 33: Having looked both east and west, he decided to see how far south the town went before he reached its limits.
Having looked both east and west, he decided to see how far south the town went before he reached its limits. James drove south and watched the city rise and fall around him. His apartment building was on the northern end of what he thought of as the city center. He was fairly certain that First Street, the main street he drove along was the central corridor running north to south.
‘At least it would make sense that it did,’ he figured. ‘I would start numbering roads with a one if I was going to number them.’
The area of apartment buildings gave way to smaller more traditional commercial buildings from the fifties and sixties. A little further on he hit buildings that looked a little older. One of the small buildings he passed was tiled in green and black glass and looked, to him like it came from the nineteen twenties or thirties. He wasn’t certain of the time frame. If there was anything older in the town, he couldn’t see it. After passing the small strip of older buildings, the buildings became substantially larger and newer. The small one and two story commercial structures turned into four and six story ones. He didn’t see any that were larger. As he drove he did see that the building where James Ferris was created was one of a block of several taller buildings. They huddled in a section of horizon as though they decided not to blend with the others. His path didn’t directly pass by them as they were a few streets over.
James decided he had no interest in visiting them and continued his journey south. The office buildings crowded the sides of the street and had a scattering of chain restaurants mixed in. There were clusters of them. James would pass a long stretch of office buildings, then like a signpost he would see a gas station. Then there would appear a cluster of restaurants followed by another gas station before another stretch of office buildings.
The pattern continued until the office buildings petered out and a larger gas station capable of servicing larger trucks came into view. Near that station clustered fast food restaurants of every variety he knew. There was no gas station to demark the end of that area, just an entrance to the interstate followed by an industrial area. At first there were self-storage areas. Then more professional warehouses appeared, followed by actual manufacturing facilities. Some of them looked like they were in use and others looked abandoned. Wondering what came after the industrial, James kept driving.
At the very edge of the industrial area he found another gas station. This one not only had the soaring roof allowing big rigs to slide under the portico, but shower facilities and a small motel. James kept driving.
Ten til Midnight 