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 76: As he wished Carson a good night and slipped out of the car, he wondered if he was allowed to use the name out loud or if he needed to wait until Morris actually granted it to him personally.
As he wished Carson a good night and slipped out of the car, he wondered if he was allowed to use the name out loud or if he needed to wait until Morris actually granted it to him personally. “Best to wait,” he decided.
Carson waited until James began to climb the stairs before he backed out of the space and went wherever he went when he wasn’t watching James or those like him. James found himself with little interest as to where that was. He doubted he and James were destined to become bosom buddies.
‘And I guess he thinks I’m safe enough when out of my apartment,’ James thought as he climbed the flight of stairs. ‘It isn’t like he shadows me when I go to work.’
At the thought of the office, James wondered how untangling of the old issues would affect the new job. He suspected that he would maintain the new and just untangle the old around it.
‘Maybe I’ll clear it up this weekend and it won’t be an issue,’ James thought. Deciding it was a problem for another time, James let the thought slide away. He reached his door and heard not a peep from the other apartments he passed. He couldn’t tell if people were out or occupied quietly. Aside from the one neighborly sighting, he’d had no contact with anyone else who lived here. James shrugged and opened his door. The scent of the soup still lingered in the air and James felt his belly growl in anticipation.
He locked the door and threw the deadbolt. He tossed the keys onto the table and opened the bag. He carefully extracted the sandwich and set it to the side. The container of soup came next it was still slightly warm but James knew that it would need to be heated through again to be enjoyed properly. He poured it into a bowl and apologized for the indignity of the microwave as he placed the bowl inside the machine. As the soup reheated, James returned for the bag and found tucked inside a third paper wrapped package. As he hadn’t ordered anything else he picked it up wondering what it could be. He rolled it over and saw that someone had taken a sharpie to the paper and written Welcome. They added a smiley face after and James found himself smiling in return. He opened the package and found three sugar cookies inside. They were each as big as the center of his palm. The cookie had a circle of bright yellow icing on the top.
He set the cookies in their package on the table and went to the cupboard for a plate. The sandwich was unwrapped and set on the plate with the cookies right beside it. The microwave dinged and James carefully took the heated bowl from the machine, ferrying it to the table. He placed it beside the plate.
In reheating the soup, James made it a little too warm so he sat down and started his dinner with the sandwich. It was a fantastic sandwich. The bread was a honey wheat that had never seen the inside of a plastic bag and had been toasted so the soft bread could support the ingredients without bending under the pressure. The ingredients were layered so that every bite tasted the same. James relished every bite.
The rumbling in his belly quieted when the sandwich was gone, but he was not about to ignore the soup a second time. The soup tasted as though someone spent hours carefully babying it with whatever people babied soup with. He assumed it was something grandmothers did, or at least someone’s grandmother in a fictional story. When he pictured his grandmother he could only see her golfing and playing bridge. Any food at the house came curtesy of a catering company. As James lifted spoonful after spoonful to his lips he wondered what it was that people actually did to make soup become soup.
Ten til Midnight 