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 247: His breathing steadied and as he sunk into the movements of his moving body, his mind stilled.
His breathing steadied and as he sunk into the movements of his moving body, his mind stilled. James felt a measure of calm returning to him. As he ran, James realized that he liked running on the trail. It had a softly winding path and a pleasant aspect. The families and individuals nearby created a much better back drop than the backdrop of the golf course.
By the time he was done, James felt better and more settled in his skin. He decided to remember the park next time he needed to settle himself. He walked back to the car and couldn’t help but look around. He didn’t see anyone out of the ordinary and was certain that if Tucker was there, then he was well hidden.
‘Maybe he just planted a tracking device on me,’ James thought. Even in his deepest paranoia the thought felt farfetched. However he found it amusing to try and determine how one would plant a tracking device on someone else without their knowing it. As he drove home, his ideas became sillier and sillier and he reached home in a good mood.
As silly as his ideas were, when he stripped down for his shower, James couldn’t resist looking himself over in order to see if there were any mysterious injection sites he somehow missed every other time he bathed. There were none.
Clean and settled in his skin, James settled in to dinner and a few episodes of the streaming show he was watching for work. When he felt he had enough of it, he navigated to another show that someone in his lunch group recommended. He watched an episode of that, decided he liked it and watched another couple before he decided it was time for bed.
The next morning James woke up feeling the flutters of excitement in his belly. He checked to see if his new clandestine cell phone was charged and made certain to slip it, his charger and the prepaid cell phone card into his bag for work, before going off to the club for his morning swim. During his swim he tried to talk himself out of calling Morris but couldn’t. As paranoid as it sounded, James knew that it would make him feel infinitely better if he managed to connect with an agent he trusted.
He left the gym feeling like he was stepping into some sort of spy movie. ‘It’s just a phone call,’ he told himself as he drove home and readied for work. The nerves in his belly didn’t agree. James shortened his morning routine a little, hurrying through the steps and managed to make it to the office a few minutes early.
When he arrived, there was no one yet in the office. James took himself to his work space and booted up the computer so that it looked as though he was starting his day as normal. When his computer was set up, James pulled out both the new cell phone and his cell phone as well as the calling card. He took the contact number Morris gave him from his regular phone and then put it away. If someone walked by, he didn’t want to have to explain having two cell phones out.
‘If all else fails then I am just calling in because I want to see how he is healing,’ James told himself.
James used the prepaid card to add minutes to the cell phone and then he dialed the number Morris gave him. The phone rang. It rang again. James looked at the clock wondering if it was too early. Then the phone was picked up.
“Hello?”
James was relieved to hear Morris on the other end of the line.
Ten til Midnight 