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 237: Still, he couldn’t help but wonder what was happening.
Still, he couldn’t help but wonder what was happening. Was Cassie settling in? Was she staying off the radar? Had anyone followed her? He tried to justify his concern in self-interest, telling himself that he didn’t want to compromise his hidden identity and have everyone know that he created a hidden identity in the first place. As he drove home he had to admit to himself that it wasn’t the real reason. The identity had been little more than an attempt to see if it could be done and to play around a bit with the fantasy of escaping into a new life. Circumstances out of his control gave him a new life. If needed, the could admit to creating the false identity and forgetting about it when his world turned upside down. It would be embarrassing, like admitting to playing secret agent to actual secret agents. But he had lived with much greater embarrassment.
He supposed that he felt some concern over Cassie, even if helping her out was more from habit than desire. The bulk of it, if he was honest, was curiosity. He wasn’t terribly proud of it, but a part of him wanted to see if his secret hideaway and persona held while Cassie was using it. James felt heat creep to his neck and cheeks, blazing all the way up to his ears as he realized that he wanted to see if his efforts were good enough to work when they were actually tested. It didn’t make him feel like a terrible good person.
‘Maybe the fact that I am actually helping Cassie out will make up for that,’ he thought.
At the house, James tried to put Cassie out of his mind. He figured that he had a few days before he needed to check his James Monroe e-mail to see if there were any issues and the best thing he could do was to forget about it. Without a car to work on, James concentrated on his weekly household chores. He did his laundry and readied everything for the week ahead. Even though laundry and groceries were usually Sunday tasks, as his laundry chugged away, he made his grocery list.
When his laundry was washed, dried and put away, James took his list shopping. Saturdays were busier than Sundays and James reminded himself to stick to Sunday shopping in the future.
‘But after this week I’ll have a Saturday activity again,’ he reminded himself. He completed his shopping as quickly as possible and escaped the madness that was Saturday shopping. Once home, groceries went to their respective locations and James took his latest Shakespearian challenge from the shelf and settled himself in to read.
Sunday was quiet. With chores complete he had books and television for company , he had only his morning swim. Thinking that getting into better shape would be helpful for diving, he pushed himself longer and faster than usual. He emerged from the pool limbs heavy with fatigue. Once home, he lounged around moving from television to book and then back again. It was a quiet lazy day and the desire to check in with Cassie and with the James Monroe e-mail were minor twitches he could easily ignore.
James went into the work week the next morning feeling rested and relatively relaxed.
Ten til Midnight 