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 49: “I suppose that is his way of telling me shoes don’t match expectations.”
“I suppose that is his way of telling me shoes don’t match expectations.” James shook his head and set the shoes and their boxes to the side. In his run to the store the day before, James picked up a small grooming kit. He recalled there were nail scissors inside it. As they were his only scissors at the moment, he retrieved them from the bathroom and brought them to the couch. James lay out one of the plastic bags and leaned over it as one by one he cut the tags from the new clothes. The tags and the little plastic bits fell to the laid out bag.
Once they were all cut off, James pried his fingers out of the small holes for the scissors and promised his abused fingers an adult sized pair on his next shopping run. He gathered up all of the new clothing and took it to the washing machine. He put them all inside and then went to the bedroom to pick up his discarded clothing from the day before. His suit was dry clean only and it was the only thing that had yet to be purged of his time in the safe house.
At the moment he wasn’t up to looking for a dry cleaner. James gathered the worn clothing and closed the closet door with his foot. Once again blocking the sight of the suit from view. He dropped his worn clothing into the washer on top of the new, added a little bit of detergent and hoped that when everything emerged it would not only be clean, but that it the new clothes would look not quite so new. He didn’t mind new clothes but thought it might look a little suspicious if everything looked fresh out of the box.
James left the machine to chug away and went back to the living room. He gathered up the plastic bag and it’s little bits of plastic tags up carefully. He knew that the ends of tags easily became embedded in the carpet and would only be found when he walked around barefoot in the middle of the night. It was just the way of things.
James added the bag to his trash can and then went back for the shoes. They were divested of their boxes and their stiff paper inserts and cardboard heels. He could do nothing about making them look like anything but new shoes but he walked them back to his bedroom and placed them next to their more expensive cousins in the closet. He again shut the closet door and walked away.
‘I’ll shove the suit to the back and put the shoes as far back as they can go as well,’ James told himself as he once again returned to the living room. The suit and shoes currently reminded him of his testimony. If anyone were to peer inside, they would stand out as anomalous and need explaining.
“Not that anyone is going to look into my closet any time soon.” James added. “But it would be best if that wasn’t the first thing they saw.” He crossed the room to gather discarded bags and work on unpacking the rest and realized he didn’t pick up hangars.
“Well that is another thing on the ‘to be purchased’ list,” James decided. He ran a hand through his hair. It seemed like that list was never ending.
Ten til Midnight 