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 220: . “I just have to forget about James Monroe again.”
“I just have to forget about James Monroe again.” James thought forgetting shouldn’t be too hard. He forgot once already. “And maybe if the bad guys track her they will only track James Monroe.”
He didn’t particularly want anything bad to happen to Cassie, despite everything . “If no one can find her now, then she should be clear to get there.” James frowned. “If she is smart.”
He sighed. Cassie was smart. She didn’t always pay attention to those smarts and often did dumb things, but many of the dumb things she did were because people expected it of her. Now it was possibly that she was in fact running for her life. “She won’t play dumb,” James decided.
While he was worried about breaking cover a little, he felt secure enough that he wasn’t overly worried about his own safety at the moment. And with what remained of his family gone, James felt remarkably good about helping Cassie out. She wasn’t family, but they had been close once. He felt good about helping.
James finished his sandwich and the hunger pangs subsided. He looked at the clock. It felt like hours since Tucker left but really very little time had actually passed. It was too early to go to sleep. He thought about going back downstairs to watch television but instead decided that it wasn’t mindless entertainment he wanted. He needed something to focus on. Something he had to pay attention to. On his night stand the latest Shakespearean work he was reading through sat, waiting for him. He liked the story thus far and it drew him in, but the language forced him to pay attention.
“Seems about right for the night.” James didn’t want mindless, but he didn’t want to think of his own world at the moment either. James turned on the bedside lamp and fluffed his pillows. He turned off all of the other lamps and crawled into bed, settling himself against the pile of pillows. Thus settled he picked up the book and read Shakespeare until he could no longer keep his eyes open. Hoping the story would keep his dreams at bay, James closed the book, turned out the light and went to sleep.
In his dreams he ran from something that chased him. He couldn’t tell what it was. There was just a shadowy shape behind him. Occasionally light glinted off its wickedly sharp teeth. He tried not to look behind him often and to just concentrate on running. He woke before his alarm and couldn’t get back to sleep.
“Early swim it is,” he told himself throwing off the blankets. James gathered his things and was quickly out of the house. It was still night dark as he drove across town. At the front desk Gary didn’t register his change of schedule, merely signed him in with a minimum of fuss.
In the pool James worked off the dregs of his dream, body slicing through water. He may never have been at the level he was when he was smaller but today he had an extra burst of energy and swam as though the shadow beast still chased him. By the time he needed to leave and get to work his chest was heaving from the effort and his arms felt like noodles.
He dragged himself from the pool dried changed and headed home. He didn’t stop to think when he got there, merely changed for the office and decided to grab coffee and a breakfast burrito along the way. Movement seemed to keep the thoughts at bay.
Ten til Midnight 