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 183: “Not something I would want to explain,” Sophie said as they walked towards the food trucks.
“Not something I would want to explain,” Sophie said as they walked towards the food trucks. Linda ranted about Kristen as they walked and Sophie nodded in all the right places.
“And then,” Linda said as they got in line for one of the trucks. “I just sat on her while Petra ran for security. Lord knows what they thought when they saw her. I think Kristen broke her nose. Do you know she was ranting about how Petra was sleeping with Don Evers? Can you imagine?”
“Wow,” Sophie said instead of answering. She knew that Petra had a brief affair with Evers but promised to keep it to herself. She knew that Kristen and the others in her old department all knew but apparently Linda and everyone else was in the dark. She had no desire to spill the beans and kept it to herself.
“Do you think that’s why Petra is out today?” Sophie asked as they approached the front of the line. “A broken nose?”
Linda shrugged. “What do you even do for a broken nose anyway?” she said. The two gave their orders and their names to the counter and then stepped aside to wait.
“I don’t know,” Sophie said. “I guess you can’t put a cast on it like other broken bones, can you?”
“I bet if you did it would look like you had plastic surgery or something,” Linda said. Like the bandages that go across your cheeks and stuff.”
“I think I’ve only seen those in soap operas,” Sophie said.
“Me too actually,” Linda replied.
Their names were called and they picked up their food and turned to walk back to the office. “You actually sat on her?” Sophie asked.
“Yup,” Linda said somewhat proudly. “Right on her back until security got there. She was yelling and cursing something off. Saying how we would all be sorry and didn’t we know who her family was.” Linda snorted. “Her family didn’t seem that impressed with herr when they came to pick her up.”
“In the parking lot?” Sophie asked.
“No,” Linda said shaking her head. “At the police station. We all had to go down and give official statements. You know I;’ve never ben in a police station before. It didn’t look at all like it does on tv. Just desks with computers, Kind of like our office really. No seedy and disreputable characters hanging around at all.”
Sophie smiled. “You sound almost disappointed.”
“Maybe a little,” Linda admitted. “I didn’t even see a jail cell, although I am sure Kristen saw one. There may not have been any seedy characters but she was belligerent enough that they probably locked her up somewhere. I was given coffee and I made my statement. My husband was horrified I sat on her instead of running for help. Kristen’s mother looked horrified for different reasons. She came in with their lawyer. It looked like she was getting ready for some sort of party. She was dressed to the nines and not at all happy to be in the station.”
“I imagine not,” Sophie said.
Ten til Midnight 