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 87: She felt the worry she carried melt away.
She felt the worry she carried melt away. Sophie didn’t have to worry about Kristen’s reaction to getting her work as Kristen wouldn’t be getting any of it. Elizabeth apologized for the separation as any questions would still come to Sophie as the transfer occurred. She claimed that as her department was still having issues maintaining their own productivity levels they couldn’t be given any more work at this time. Sophie’s number and e-mail had been given to those taking over, but thee would still be the possibility she would need to go to another department to help if there were problems.
Sophie didn’t mind too much. ‘It beats the alternatives.’
In addition, the e-mail laid out the upcoming schedule. Three of Sophie’s previous sections would go to others this week and she had an increase of files from the newer projects. Once she was familiar with them and the others were settled with her former databases, another transfer would be made. Reading over the schedule it looked as though they were doing the shift in two week increments.
‘And in the end all of my old sections will belong to someone else.’ Sophie hadn’t expected everything to be transferred, but it looked like it was. As she scanned the e-mail it looked as though she was essentially shifting divisions. Now that Elizabeth was her supervisor, she was essentially being transferred to Elizabeth’s division.
‘Which makes it stranger that none of my projects are going back into Evers’ division.’
The people taking her projects were supervised by someone else. ‘I wonder if they will start transferring more out of this division.’
Sophie knew that part of the evaluations they were doing were so the company could streamline certain processes. ‘You know,’ she decided. ‘Not my problem.’
Having figured out her own things, Sophie got to work on her new files. She alternated between music and podcasts for the morning and then decided she was going to lunch. She got an alert that her favorite sandwich based food truck snagged a spot in the food court and knew that they would soon have a line. It was slightly early for lunch but she decided to go anyway. She locked down her files and computer and pulled her purse from her bag.
As she got up to leave, Petra walked around the corner. “Oh hi,” Sophie said. “Did you need me for something?”
“Oh no I was over here and just wondered what you were doing for lunch?” She let the sentence stand like a question.
“Oh one of my favorite tucks got a spot in the food court and I was going to pick up a sandwich before they got busy,” Sophie said.
“Do you mind if I join you?” Petra said.
“Not at all,” Sophie replied.
They left the cubicles and walked past Kristen’s desk. Kristen gave them a sour look as they passed and they tried to pretend they didn’t see her. In the elevator, Petra sighed.
“I do not like that woman,” she said. “When I was seeing Don she threatened to report me if I called her on some of her extra time off.”
Ten til Midnight 