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 158: It looked like something else entirely.
It looked like something else entirely. James paused in his reading and read the message. The person writing it had a name he didn’t recognize. He wasn’t an old friend or a work associate. While the memory he shared looked as though it blended with the others, it didn’t, and reading it left James feeling cold.
‘I will always remember the time when we got the flat tire and had to go in and borrow the phone from a nearby store because we couldn’t get cell service. What a mess that became. It ended up costing more than a new tire and a tow.’
James read the lines over. He could remember several instances over the course of his life where he managed to get a flat tire and often he ended up stranding himself somewhere. Occasionally there were others with him at the time. At no time was this name attached to any of the times he could remember.
‘However a flat tire was what sent me here,’ James thought.
He got a flat tire, couldn’t get cell service and went into the shop. The kind old man sent him into the office where he used the phone. The man with the gun came in and shot the kind man. He then grabbed various items and was heading deeper into the store to make his escape through the back door. Or so James thought. The kind man somehow managed to trigger a silent alarm and sirens could be heard in the alley behind the building. The intruder changed his mind and escaped out of the front door instead. James, in the office, was relieved as the office door was along the gunman’s path of escape. James felt himself lucky as he called for an ambulance. The gunman escaped and once he was gone, James tried to render what aid he could to the man bleeding on the floor.
James stared at the computer screen the words blurring in front of his eyes. He blinked and they came into sharp focus again. While he was sure at some point he asked to borrow the phone in a store, he suspected this had more to do with the kind old man than anything else.
“But why put it on a memorial board?” James asked.
It made no sense. Was the person writing it claiming to be the gunman? Was he telling anyone watching that he knew James went into protective custody and received a new identity? Was this a threat? He didn’t know. James didn’t know if anyone would be monitoring something like the memorial page. He thought it likely because they were trying to uncover some financial discrepancies.
“But would accountancy issues and missing files lead them here?” James wasn’t certain. He was sure he ought to report it, but didn’t really want to be brushed off by Tucker. “Besides Tucker seems a bit more like the shoot first and let someone else figure out the details sort of person.”
The other option was waiting until Morris is back on duty. James wasn’t sure if that was a smart or dumb idea. “I suppose it would depend on who exactly Sebastian Marsh actually is.”
Ten til Midnight 