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 116: “But that makes no sense,” James said.
“But that makes no sense,” James said.
“No?” Morris replied.
“This isn’t the sort of person you send to deal with something …corporate.” James ended. He sagged. He didn’t know quite what was going on. He couldn’t think of anything that might be going on that might need this level of violence. While he was pretty sure the missing files probably indicated that information went where it wasn’t supposed to go, there wasn’t any real need for wonton destruction.
“Unless,” he said.
“Unless,” Morris prompted him.
James blushed realizing he was speculating in front of a professional who no doubt had much more information at his disposal. “Well, the office didn’t have a lot of damage done to it and Ernie, I mean Thomas knows exactly what I look like because we’ve met. What if someone realized Thomas might do too much damage and had him subcontract out so less damage was done to the office and then had Thomas…deal with the subcontractor?”
It wasn’t really w question but James tilted his voice up at the end anyway. Tucker told him that the man who did the shooting at the office was killed but had offered no details. Given some of the descriptions in Thomas Grant’s file, James didn’t really want them.
“That is a distinct possibility,” Morris said. He held out his hand and James got up and passed the file back to him. There was a relief in handing it over.
“You mentioned notes?” Morris said. “Ones you were making?”
“Yeah,” James said sinking down into the chair once again. In the face of Thomas Grant’s file his note seemed silly, ludicrous even.
“Do they have to do with the project? Something you remembered?” Morris asked.
James shook his head. “Not exactly.” He sighed. “I was looking for something to keep myself occupied so I went to the book store. On one of the shelves I saw a book written by someone I knew. Cassie, Cassandra,” he corrected. “Her family and mine have been intertwined for generations. I thought it might be fun to read through. As she was fond of some of the aspects I didn’t particularly enjoy, I thought it might be helpful in reminding myself about things I no longer had to do.”
“Makes sense,” Morris said.
James looked up, surprised by the statement. Morris shrugged and then winced at the pain of the shrug. “You are starting a new life. I’ve worked with a lot of people doing the same thing. Some focus on what they lost and get depressed as they miss it, others try to look for the things they won’t miss. Some do both. It is part of the process.”
“Oh,” James said. Somehow that made him feel a little better about buying Cassie’s book. “Well I suppose that’s what I was doing. I read a few chapters and found out that a lot of it was ove inflated. She claimed she did things that were done long before she was born and making things match, she claimed my step brothers did the same thing.”
“She made them look good?” Morris asked.
Ten til Midnight 