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 186: She was working through the third set for the French when she looked through her office door to see more unusual activity in the HR and accounts departments.
She was working through the third set for the French when she looked through her office door to see more unusual activity in the HR and accounts departments. People were moving around and several seemed agitated. Sophie looked around her computer. No one was looking in her direction. No one seemed to be paying any attention to her.
Sophie looked back to her desk top. She saved the file she was working on and pulled up her e-mail. There was nothing unusual in her in box. She looked in the spam folder just to be certain. There was nothing there. ‘So whatever it is does not concern me,’ she thought. Sophie closed down her e-mail, shrinking it to the bottom of the screen.
The activity outside of her office remained and Sophie decided that perhaps, getting ahead of work might be a good idea. She turned off her French lessons and put on the high energy play list that always seemed to speed up her work. She let the music play and started moving through her files as fast as she could. Periodically she looked over to see that the activity remained a constant.
She kept working. When lunch time rolled around it didn’t look like anyone outside her office was slowing down. She had her lunch with her and for a moment debated the merits of eating it or offering to go and pick up food for the others. As the motion of people from one cubicle to another had not slowed, Sophie decided she might be an interruption they didn’t want to deal with and took out the lunch she brought with her.
As she ate, she turned off her music and tried to see if she could catch a few words of what was going on without looking like she was eavesdropping. All of the words she caught seemed to be in some sort of code.
“Do you have the Sj-285?” Linda asked Henry.
“Just sent it to you, how are we coming on the Dr-189-R8?”
“Should be finished momentarily.”
“Has anyone scheduled the third floor departments?”
“Who has the department evaluation schedule?”
“At least I know what a department evaluation is,” Sophie thought as she ate her sandwich. She looked at the calendar she tacked to the wall. The quarterly evaluations were still some time away so she knew they weren’t the evaluations the others were talking about.
Sophie had no further information she could use to interpret the activity come her way by the time she finished her lunch. She went back to work and decided that getting ahead so that if anything did impact her, it wouldn’t throw her off schedule was still the best idea. Her music kept her energy up for the rest of the day and Sophie ended the work day ahead off where she needed to be.
She closed down her computer and put her files away, Looking out of her office as she gathered her things, Sophie saw that whatever had the others in a tizzy, it wasn’t making them stay late. ‘Maybe I can get some information in the elevator,’ Sophie thought as she gathered her things. She made certain everything was put away and stepped out of her office at the same time Petra, Linda and Henry started for the elevator.
Sophie walked with them. “It looked like you guys were busy today,” Sophie said as they walked to the elevators. Henry pressed the button and they waited for the elevator to arrive.
“We have a new set of seminars coming in,” Linda said. She frowned. “Also an entirely new employee manual.”
“A new manual?” Sophie asked.
Ten til Midnight 