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 154: James instantly felt his heart jump into his throat.
James instantly felt his heart jump into his throat. James tried not to look panicked as he walked to the front door. He peered out of the Judas hole and saw Tucker and a man wearing a work shirt emblazoned with the cable company’s logo.
“Just cable,” James told himself. His heart was still beating wildly as he opened the door. Both men walked in and the cable man nodded to him and then took his box of tools over towards the television. James closed the door and he and Tucker held back as the man connected wires and did all of the necessary tweaks that allowed his television to connect to the wider world.
It didn’t take long and the man was soon gathering his tools back into their case and collecting the loose wires and standing up.
“That should do it,” he said. “Sorry for the delay.”
“Right,” James said. “Thanks.” He wasn’t entirely certain that delay was the right word but he was willing to let it go. Tucker nodded to him as well and both he and the man from the cable company left. James closed the door behind them. He locked the door and for good measure threw the deadbolt.
“Delay,” he repeated. James shook his head. “Well at least it is done.” He couldn’t think of any other service that he would need to invite someone into his house for at the moment so it would be a while before he needed to have a stranger inside his house. “Maybe by the time I need an electrician or plumber I will stop jumping when people ring my doorbell,” he said.
Remembering that the internet came with the cable hook up, James located his laptop. Booted it up and made certain to type in the long string of letters and numbers that was written on his internet router to make certain his machine was connected to his network. Once the machines decided they were on friendly terms with each other, James closed the lap top down and went to the kitchen. His belly was reminding him that even though he purchased food, he hadn’t actually consumed it.
James set his laptop on the kitchen table and slapped together a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. At the moment he wasn’t willing to try anything more complicated. ‘Cooking experiments can come later,” he told himself.
James ate his sandwich leaning over the sink so crumbs could fall into it and be rinsed away. He was certain his mother would have been appalled and he could practically hear her in his head demanding that he get a plate. As James ate, he wondered how she was taking the news of his death. Surely, she was told by now.
‘She didn’t take me leaving well,’ he remembered. When he told her he was leaving she informed him that it was cowardly to run. She also informed him that the death of the old man had nothing to do with them and should be forgotten. She advocated letting the feds build their case without him and instead handed him the card for her personal therapist.
Trying to imagine her reaction to his death was impossible. All he could picture was he staring straight faced at the messenger, thanking him for the information and then saying an ‘I told you so’ in his direction once the door was closed. He assumed she would feel something, but his mother was not in the habit of showing her emptions, to him or anyone else. He knew she had emotions, but even in his head he couldn’t picture her actually showing them.
Ten til Midnight 