The Fifteen Minute Novel is an attempt to take a single prompt and use the last sentence written each day as a start for the next day. This year I had several prompts circling around a similar story, so I have combined them. However, the story starts the same way each day, with the last line from the day before and a timer set for fifteen minutes. The hope is to end up with a complete, if very rough draft by the end of the year. Some stories are better than others, but I always learn a whole lot about my own writing when I do this so for me it is not only a nice way to work out a story, but it is a tool for helping my writing get better. And so, we continue this story for 2024 with…
Day 25: She was angry but not petty enough to report it.
She was angry but not petty enough to report it. Time passed slowly for the last bit of the day and Sophie made it through her last bit of work. ‘Or Kristen’s last bit of work actually.’
Sophie shook the thought off and closed the file. It was close to time to clock out and she could already hear the others beginning to gather their things. While she didn’t plan to stay any later than necessary, Sophie didn’t want to share an elevator with anyone. She checked her e-mail and saw that Elizabeth responded with a politely generic response.
As they weren’t friends and Elizabeth was so far above her on the company food chain, she really hadn’t expected anything else. ‘And the times in and out will show up on the electronic record.’ All of them had to clock in and out when leaving or entering the building so the times for lunch would have been recorded and Elizabeth could easily check them against Sophie’s e-mail time stamp.
There was a petty part of her that also wanted her last day before vacation to show that even when she was leaving for a month, she lasted the whole day. Despite everyone’s assurances that her vacation was only a month, she wanted to be certain that she had a job to come back to at the end of the month.
‘Unless I find another job I want more,’ Sophie thought.
While the thought of looking for another job occurred to her before, this week she shelved it in an effort to get through all of the extra work she needed to complete. She knew that unless someone called her at home, she would have a month’s pay as well as a job to come back to even if they did fire her shortly after her return.
‘Or at my quarterly review.’ As she would be out for an entire third of the quarter, Sophie suspected her quarterly review scores would be miserably low. ‘So maybe looking around for possibilities while on my month off wouldn’t be a bad thing.’ Sophie began to gather her things. ‘It might not be a bad thing to make more items for Janine too. As back up funds if nothing else. Providing the sell that is.’
She nodded to herself. If she used her time wisely, she could enjoy her extravagance at the fabric emporium and then put it to good use helping to build a little bit of a cushion for herself in case things went south with her quarterly review.
Sophie began gathering her things as she heard the others depart for the end of their day. She made certain that everything was off her desk and locked in one of the filing cabinets. After a week of mountainous files, the cleared desk looked strange. She shook her head and turned to the computer. She set her e-mail message to an automatic away message and then logged out. She then recorded the away message for her phone and hung up.
The office was quiet around her now and Sophie took a deep breath. It was time to go. She stood up, slung her bag over her shoulder and left her cubicle. As usual, she called out to the office to see if anyone remained. No one answered back. Sophie turned out the lights and walked to the elevator.
By the time she got to the parking lot, it was mostly cleared out. There were a few cars scattered here and there, which looked a little strange as she had been the last one to leave the building all week. ‘But at least it is still daylight,’ she said to herself as she unlocked her car and slipped inside. Sophie fastened her seatbelt and turned the key in the ignition.
Ten til Midnight 