Welcome to the Fifteen Minute Novel. Each morning I spend fifteen minutes writing on a singular story line. Each morning starts with the last line of the previous day. The goal is to get a (very) rough draft out of the simple story idea and to avoid letting the story idea languish in limbo forever, actually writing it out. This is the third year I have done this writing experiment and each year I learn just a little bit about myself and the way I write as well as creating a framework for the story. But without further ado…
Day 32: She mentally flashed on Stanley as he gave his valedictorian speech and smiled.
She mentally flashed on Stanley as he gave his valedictorian speech and smiled. She knew he kept the speech appropriate for the day but he still used terms like conquering. That filtered through even though she paid very little attention to the speech. She and Stanley were friends. They used to play video games together until Lisa declared the games Stanly wanted to play boring.
While blowing things up on screen wasn’t as much fun for her as it was for Stanley, Gwen liked video games in general. She played some on her tablet as did pretty much all of her friends. She quickly grew bored with the simple matching games that Lisa and Toby liked and tended to go in for the hidden object and word game sorts of challenges. She loved Sudoku and crosswords as well and her tablet was full of all of them. She had a couple of the matching games downloaded as well and Lisa always teased her about being on such a low level. Gwen never told her that she only played those when others were around to see.
‘Not exactly a life plan is it?’ she thought. ‘Running and playing video games.’
Gwen decided she was done with introspection for a while and looked away from her window, opening her book. She was halfway through the murder mystery when the seatbelt signed dinged and she felt the plane begin its descent. She turned off her music, closed her book and passed her empty cup to the flight attendant passing by with the trash bag. She put her tray table back in it’s upright position and pulled out her carry on. Her book and music were stowed and she took out her ticket.
There would be a connecting flight she would have to catch. She waited while others shuffled around getting ready for the landing. Then it was as though everyone grew still until the plane made contact with the ground. It was as if for those final seconds in the air they all held their breath to see if the pilot could actually complete his task of taking them safelty from one airport to the next. The wheels touched town with a bump and a sort of rubberized squeak and their forward momentum quickly slowed to a slow and steady pace as they started towards the terminal. Once the slow and steady pace was reached, it felt like everyone exhaled and exploded into motion. Mags were pulled out from under the seats, people unfastened their seatbelts and began to rummage in the overhead bins. Everyone one was reaching for something.
‘It’s like we are all getting ready to flee,’ Gwen thought. Even though she found it amusing, she too pulled her bag out from under the seat and put it in her lap, unfastening her seatbelt so she could leave as quickly as possible and make it to her connecting flight.
Overhead the pilot or copilot went on the intercom and began announcing the gates for connecting flights so they would know where they needed to go when they left the plane. Gwen heard her gate, G 12.
When they disembarked, the passengers all had a strange mix of impatience, curtesy and rudeness all rolled into one. Some, once they reached the center aisle ignored those trying to escape their assigned seats. Others paused with a smile beckoning those trapped forward. Others frowned but still paused to allow people to get out.
Ten til Midnight 