This year we begin a new Fifteen Minute Novel. Each year I do something different and this year is a little interesting. Usually I take one prompt and start with it as day one and then let it flow from there, usually with a brief outline. This year I looked back and saw that I had several prompts that circled around the same general theme. So I took one as my start but will be working the information in five other prompts into this story as it fit the basic outline that I cam up with. So at times there may be parts that sound a bit familiar but not quite like prompts of past years. (It’s been circling for about two years in prompts) I will try to remember to mention when I notice that I am bringing in the prompt information, but mostly I am going to focus on telling this story. As always with day one I take the prompt that started the idea of the story and fluff it up a bit so that I can start off on the right foot for the year. So here is today’s Day one of the 2024 Fifteen Minute Novel…
Day 1
“I have every faith in you, Sophia,” Mr. Evers said. He favored her with a salesman’s grin. Sophie saw it far too often to even contemplate buying what he was selling. Still, he was her supervisor, so she smiled wanly. He took this for acceptance and turned away, leaving her cubicle with a jaunty step, clearly pleased to have gotten what he wanted. She knew he meant his statement to be encouraging. He knew that she could do it. Sophie knew she was supposed to be elated, filled with pride and ready to take on the assigned task.
The task she told him she did not have the time to add to her schedule.
Yet was added anyway.
Again.
This had become so routine that she couldn’t even drum up enough energy to be irritated. Later, when she finally made it home, she would pour herself a nice glass of wine, lean back on the couch and sip it slowly over the course of an hour as she gathered enough energy to make dinner. Then as she ate she would wonder why it was she hadn’t made it to the gym in more than six months and was slowly seeing the scale increase. Then she would remember work and be annoyed.
She planned to start her weekend project tonight after work. She doubted that would be possible now. ‘A late Friday at the office,’ she thought. ‘Perfect.’
Resigned to the fact that this project, along with all of the others that were dumped on her already overly full schedule, was now hers, Sophie rubbed her eyes and then reached for the folder. With luck it would be something fairly uncomplicated that wouldn’t take too long.
‘Maybe if I work through lunch,’ she thought hopefully. Staying late on a Friday night wasn’t her first choice. If she could avoid it, she would.
She opened the file and flipped through. In truth she hadn’t really been listening when her supervisor told her about it. Her mind was running through the other projects she had to get done and wishing that Mr. Evers would just go away so she could get back to work.
As Sophie skimmed the pages, she realized it was not only a project that was not in her usual scope of work, but that it would require a lot of set up on a database she rarely used. She closed the file and set it to the side. Her last hope of leaving the office on time faded away. She resigned herself to staying late tonight and starting her personal project in the morning. She knew she would be far too tired to accomplish anything worthwhile when she got home.
‘If I work through lunch. I might be able to make enough headway on my own work by the end of the day that I can leave it in a good place for the weekend at least.’
Sophie figured she could then stay an extra hour and set up the new project so that it would not completely destroy her Monday. She nodded to herself as she set it to the side. That seemed like the best plan she could come up with at the moment so it would have to do.
Over the past few months her schedule had become a delicate balancing act. She liked to think of it as mental Jenga. ‘At least my brain is getting a workout even if my body isn’t,’ she thought.
Sophie set the thought aside and dove back into her work pushing hard for progress. Lunch time came around and she dimly registered the noise as the others gathered their things. It sounded like a group lunch. She had not been part of the group in a while.
When Sophie started at Havers, Ltd. there was a group that went out once a week. She was a part of that group and enjoyed the camaraderie of her coworkers. One by one those people left for one reason or another and only she remained behind. New people replaced the old. This lot went out to lunch daily, something her schedule would never allow, and she never really felt welcome even when she did tag along.
She chalked it up to different personalities and was at least grateful that when they were gone, the office was much quieter. Somehow this lot was full of far more drama than those she started with and interruptions were frequent. Sophie knew she had a full hour, if not an hour and a half depending on where they chose for lunch, of near silence in which to work.
‘Well not exactly silence,’ she corrected herself.
Sophie reached for her earbuds. She took them out when Mr. Evers dropped by and forgot to put them back in when he left. Now that everyone was leaving and she knew she had a stretch of uninterrupted work time, she slipped the earbuds in and navigated to her program on her player. Sophie had always been interested in fashion and while she loved the English language based fashion podcasts she wanted to expand. Sophie saw several French and Italian ones that looked interesting and she hated passing them by.
While her high school French had expanded over the years so that she could now listen to the French language ones with good comprehension, she only listened to them at home as she sometimes had to look up words or repeat phrases aloud to make certain she got the context. As there were several Italian ones lately that she thought looked interesting, Sophie decided to expand her language skills while working and today she was working through Italian language lessons as she worked.
Sophie ignored the instinctual feeling of being left out as the others tromped off to lunch. She dove into her project mouthing the Italian words and phrases that were part of today’s lessons even if she didn’t add volume to her voice. The repetition helped them sink into her mind.
Luckily the work wasn’t too difficult.
Ten til Midnight 