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 28: “So what happened when he returned?” Janine asked.
“So what happened when he returned?” Janine asked. Sophie sighed heavily and set her glass down.
“I went to ask him if I needed to talk to anyone about the work while I was gone,” Sophie said.
Janine nodded. “As in getting one of those users to take up the slack for you.”
Sophie snorted. “Yeah, apparently not the plan. He told me I couldn’t expect anyone to do my work for me and that he suspected it would affect my quarterly review.”
“He what?” Janine said. Her voice was dark.
“Yeah,” Sophie said. “No one is going to take up my slack, they are just planning to leave it for me until I get back.”
“Oh my god, I just don’t know what to say. That …that…” Janine shook her head.
“I’m going with ungrateful drunken prick in my brain if that helps you out,” Sophie said. She took a deep breath and realized it felt good to let it out, to share with someone who felt outraged on her behalf. She felt the anger and the sting of the situation slide off her. Releasing her. Sophie reached again for her glass.
“Wait, drunken?” Janine asked.
“I think there were drinks at lunch,” She clarified. “He seemed a little fuzzy. I didn’t mention that in my e-mail to the upper floor. I did tell them about no one taking up the work and my upcoming bad quarterly review.”
“I would have told them,” Janine said.
Sophie shrugged. “I was snippy enough, I suppose and I take great personal pleasure in knowing that while I am gone, whether they know it or not someone will be watching them closely and taking notes.”
“There is that.”
Sophie smiled. “And now I am purged,” she said. “So what’s your good news?”
“Well it is sort of shared goof news. First I made the decision to close my bricks and mortar store and go fully on-line only.”
“I know you have been thinking about it for a while,” Sophie said.
“And crunching the numbers. I make more from the on-line section and I don’t have the overhead that an actual shop costs. Which means I would be making more without the shop just through not paying all the costs for the shop, even while losing the income from the shop. If that makes sense.”
“It does,” Sophie said. “But I know you liked having the shop.”
“I did, and it is a bit bittersweet to let it go, but my landlord decided that with property values so high now, my rent needed to go up once my lease terms expired. He called it inflation adjustment.”
“Really?” Sophie replied.
“Given the hike in rent prices I call it being a greedy bastard, so I told him I won’t be renewing the lease. It was the deciding factor. He seemed actually surprised. I’ll be spending the month stripping down the store and shifting it to my storage unit. It works better for me, but I am still a little miffed at my landlord.”
“Understandably miffed I’d say,” Sophie said.
Ten til Midnight 