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 150: With the notepad in place, she turned the podcast on and began setting up the files for the following week.
With the notepad in place, she turned the podcast on and began setting up the files for the following week. As expected Sophie had to pause and jot down more notations than expected. As she was already ahead, she didn’t mind the slower pace. ‘And I don’t want to look like I am just twiddling my thumbs on a day when people are getting called into a conference room of the upper management.’
She was fairly certain that she had done nothing that would earn her a firing, but she didn’t want to look like a target either. Because she was going slower than usual and taking more breaks to write down notes, She noticed more activity outside of her office. Usually, there was little moving around in the office. Occasionally someone would get up from their cubicle to go get files, but for the most part, people generally stayed put. Today however there was movement.
Sophie glanced up and saw several of the people in the cubicles of HR and accounts get phone calls and then get up and move to their supervisor’s office. It was always one at a time and they were only in the office a short while.
‘Not long enough to be an evaluation,’ she thought. ‘Unless the HR and accounts quarterly evaluations are shorter than the one I go through.’ Sophie tried to shrug it off, but she noticed that either before reporting to their supervisor or returning from their supervisor, people tended to flick their eyes in her direction. Even though she was seated at her desk doing work, she felt a little self-conscious.
She tried to ignore the feeling as she set up her work for the following week. The remaining afternoon ticked by slowly. Sophie realized she wasn’t concentrating on the podcast and turned it off. She slipped out her ear buds and put her notebook and the few idioms she jotted down to look up away.
A glance at the clock told her she had only about half an hour left before she could call both this day and week to an end. ‘Then I can finish up the last of the pieces for my collection and have Janine over tomorrow to look at the entire thing.’ It was something pleasant to concentrate on.
The short meetings for the others seemed to end and Sophie was relieved people stopped looking towards her. She tried concentrating on her own work and was starting to let the rest of the office fade away when Elizabeth walked into the office and made a bee line straight for her door.
‘At least I might find out what is going on exactly,’ Sophie thought.
Elizabeth smiled and stepped into the office. “Got a moment?” she said.
“Sure,” Sophie said looking away from the computer.
“How much is left for the day?” Elizabeth asked.
“Actually, I finished this week’s early since I had shorter lunches so I am setting up for next week’s files.”
“Ah,” Elizabeth said. “That is one benefit of this situation I suppose.” She closed the door to Sophie’s office. “I wanted to let you know that Kristen, Ryan and Don have all been let go.”
Sophie blinked. “That’s almost the whole department.” Sophie said.
“We transferred Carrie to a different department ass she managed to redeem herself and the work was parceled out to other departments. It was felt a clean sweep would be best.”
“I see,” Sophie said.
“Today was their last day,” Elizabeth said.
Ten til Midnight 