The fifteen minute novel writing experiment is a attempt to write a complete (and very rough) draft of a novel by writing for fifteen minutes each day. I have taken a timed writing from one of the daily prompts done in 2021, cleaned it up a little and used it as my jumping off point into a story. Each day I will take the last line of the story written the day before and use it as my sentence starter and write for fifteen minutes, growing the story as the year progresses.
Day 110: She could feel the brittleness of the wood as it moved and saw the trail of dusty wood crumbs along the floor when she moved it.
She could feel the brittleness of the wood as it moved and saw the trail of dusty wood crumbs along the floor when she moved it. The wood had rotted along with the cushions. In all honesty having learned that it was placed here in the last days of the ancient Fesan Empire, she had been surprised it was still recognizable as a chair and not simply a pile of broken and unrecognizable bits.
‘But the books are intact,’ Anya thought. She looked at the cleaned shelf. The books were in good condition. They were dusty but nothing more. Anya looked back to the newly wiped down table. She thumped it’s wooden surface lightly. She head a dull echo for her efforts but the table held firm. She gave the surface a heavier thumping. Again the table held. A few motes of dust danced in the air, but there was no crumbing wood. There was no rot.
Wondering why the table and books survived while the chair and carpet were rotted and useless, Anya carefully replaced the tools on the work top’s surface. She tried to keep them in the same order and placement as when she took them off. When they were back in place, Anya realized the room was as clean as she could make it. She was still puzzled by the table and books but decided that staring at them wasn’t going to give her any answers.
‘Maybe I could ask Marta,’ she decided. She looked back at the tools laid out. They all gleamed as though they were fresh from their maker and newly made for use. She knew she just used the dust cloth to wipe them down, but the tools now looked polished and ready to be put back into use.
“I have to figure out what you are used for first,” she told them.
A book popped off of the shelf and Anya jumped. It landed with a thump on the floor. Anya waited but no further books flew off the shelf and she cautiously approached the fallen volume. Anya bent, unsure if she should watch the shelf or the tools. She tried to keep both in view as she retrieved the book from the floor.
She lifted it and stood. Anya quickly flipped through the pages. She saw drawings to the tools laid out on the work bench along with many, many more. “Thank you,” she said to the room.
Nothing happened. Anya picked up her dirty rags and took them and the book out of the work space. She closed the door and backed away until she was a comfortable distance from the closed panel door to the secret study.
Her heart was thumping loudly in her chest. ‘maybe the tools just appreciated being clean,’ she thought. She dared not voice the thought aloud. She didn’t want to trigger anything else. ‘One book flying off the shelf was enough.’
Feeling as though she ought to look at the book, if only because something might resent her not doing so, Anya sank down in her reading chair and began to look through the pages. At first she was worried about the tools because a great many of them appeared to be sharp. As she found the tools pictured her worry over their use began to fade. The long thing spike with a sharp hook on the end had been deliberately designed for cleaning out the insides of mushrooms. While there were several it could be used on the one specifically pictured had a tall cap and Anya could easily see how the tool would be used. Most of the other tools had rather innocuous uses as well.
Ten til Midnight 