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 115: “It was definitely August 19th,” James repeated.
“It was definitely August 19th,” James repeated.
“We can work with that,” Morris told him. “August 19th.” He paused in thought and looked to James as though he was trying to place the date on his own mental timeline. Finally he shook his head. “It doesn’t match anything,” he finally said. “But it could have been planning. Before things were set into motion.”
So those aren’t the missing files?” James said when Morris said no more about his time line. “Since they never sent them over.”
“Right, no,” Morris said. He lifted one of the files and held it out to him. James stood up, walked over to the hospital bed, took the file and returned to his chair. Seated once again, James opened the file. A picture of Ernie looked up at him. This wasn’t the glossy version that sat in Mikes office and a few subsequent meetings. It wasn’t even the casual off work businessman who came into the bar tonight. This man looked hard and dangerous.
‘Although that could just be because it is a mug shot,’ James thought. He had never taken a mug shot, in fact his experience with photographers was limited to school photos and the pictures taken for the company directory. Despite lack of personal experience, he was pretty sure no one asked the people in front of the camera to either smile pretty for mom or to radiate confidence for clients.
He doubted the moment of a mug shot was a happy one for anyone and suggestions of smiling would make everyone grumpier. ‘Although I don’t think anyone can look grumpier than Ernie.’
Ernie wasn’t exactly frowning. His mouth was held in a thin dark line which might be considered neutral if every other line on his face wasn’t radiating anger and rage. His eyes fairly glinted with it and James found himself pulling back a little from the photo as if to distance himself.
The name under the photo was not Ernie. It was Grant. Thomas Grant. The name didn’t ring any bells. Certain it was the same man; James turned over the photo and looked at the pages that accompanied it.
“Not a nice person our Mr. Grant,” James said as he read through the file. It seemed the faux Ernie had a long history of violence. Even though he file he was reading had only short synopsis of the life and times of Thomas Grant, each event producing one or two sentences, James felt he quickly had the sense of the man. He liked causing damage, to both people and property. He was not a silently in and silently out type of criminal. He may slip silently in, but once inside he made a lot of noise. It seemed as though much of the destruction wasn’t really connected to the job he was hired to do, but done because he was there and couldn’t pass up the opportunity.
As James flipped the pages, ending the synopsis and looking at the more in depth outlines of his crimes, James found his opinion confirmed. Thomas grant did the job and then he had fun reveling in the destruction.
“But that makes no sense,” James said.
Ten til Midnight 