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 198: She felt her excitement grow as she knew that she was approaching the end of the flight.
She felt her excitement grow as she knew that she was approaching the end of the flight. Sophie started putting her things back into her bag. She had only a few more chapters left in her book and she suspected she would finish it at the hotel, possibly leaving it there. She made certain nothing was left behind and tucked her bag back under the seat in front of her. All told it had been a calm and pleasant flight. There had been a minor batch of turbulence but it hadn’t lasted long, otherwise it had been an uneventful flight.
The intercom came n and Sophie listened to find out where her baggage would be. She already had a note of where to meet the hotel transport so all she needed to do is make it through the airport, retrieve her bag and let someone else take her to the hotel.
Sophie felt excitement fizz through her as the plane came in for a landing. The plane bumped down and raced across the tarmac as it tried to slow it’s momentum. It did and remained in motion bouncing ass it rolled along at a slower pace towards the gate. All around her cell phones buzzed to life as people turned them back on and sent messages to loved ones telling off their arrival.
Sophie briefly felt compelled to reach for her phone, but decided against it. She did pull her bag out from under the seat and unfasten her seatbelt, ready and willing to leave the confines of the plane. It was only as they began their final approach to the gate that Sophie could feel how long she remained in the seat. She wanted desperately to move.
‘Probably because I skipped my morning workout,’ she thought. She knew it probably had more to do with sitting in one position than a skipped work out, but she let the thought stand. The plane came to a stop and the intercom buzzed on again wishing them safe travels if they were traveling further and exhorting them to exit the plan in a calm and orderly fashion.
Sophie slipped out off her seat and into the aisle and followed the line of people out of the door. She took a deep breath as soon as she was through the gate and followed the others from the flight to the baggage claim area. Her passport was checked and she tried to decide if the air felt any different or if it was because she had been cooped up in a plane with recycled air for too long.
‘Maybe a little from column a and a little from column b,’ she decided. Her passport passed inspection and she smiled at the first stamp she ever received in it. Sophie watched the luggage move around on the conveyor belt and claimed her bag when she saw it. She tugged it off of the line and stepped away so others could identify their bags.
With her bag in tow, Sophie went to the nearest restroom and after relieving herself and making certain her hair wasn’t standing up at crazy angles from her flight, she went looking for her ride to the hotel.
There was a row of shuttles each with the hotel name on them. Sophie easily identified hers and joined the group standing by them. The group she was with seemed to be together and ass she waited, Sophie soon found that they were all part off a tour group. They were meeting the rest of the group at the hotel.
The shuttle driver arrived, offered the group at large a perfunctory smile and picked up a list. He checked off their names as they climbed aboard the shuttle. Sophie thought she was the last, but after she boarded it seemed they were waiting for one last person.
Ten til Midnight 