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 210: Janine pulled into the apartment parking lot.
Janine pulled into the apartment parking lot. Sophie dried not to look too relieved. Janine parked and they both got out of the vehicle. “I put your mail on your kitchen table and the mailbox key I left in the table beside the pile,” Janne told her as she got her suitcase out of the trunk.
“Thanks,” Sophie said. “I owe you one.”
“Well, I am going to the Caribbean over Christmas this year,” Janine told her. “You can look after my mail then.”
“Deal,” Sophie replied.
Somehow they managed to make it upstairs without Sophie falling asleep on the stairs. She let herself into the apartment and wondered why she was more exhausted returning here than she was when she arrived.
‘Excitement,’ she told herself. ‘Probably.’
Sophie made sure her door was locked and wheeled her suitcase into the bedroom. It was more because her hand was already on the handle than from any need to put anything away. Her apartment smelled a little stale and a little cool.
‘I’ll have to adjust the thermostat,’ she told herself. ‘Later.’
She reached the bedroom, let go of the suitcase handle and then set her carry on bag down on the floor. She unbuttoned her coat and kicked off her shoes, leaving both in a pile on the floor Sophie stripped ff her clothes as she walked to the dresser and took out a fresh pair of pajamas. She dressed and then moved directly to the bed She peeled back the covers and crawled under them.
She took a deep breath. Before she left, Sophie made sure to wash her sheets and put fresh ones on the bed so they would be ready and waiting for her. Now she smiled, pleased to have the scent of her own laundry products around her again. ‘Travel is nice,’ she thought. Home is too.’
It was her last conscious thought before she let sleep claim her.
At some point, Sophie work long enough to realize she needs to go to the bathroom. She got up, used the facilities and crawled bac into bed. When she next surfaced, dawn was just blushing the horizon. It was earlier than she usually woke up but she felt completely wide awake.
‘And being awake early isn’t a bad thing,’ Sophie thought. She could adjust a few hours here and there as she had the next few days off. ‘But at least I am not too far off.’
She got out of bed and went to the bathroom. As she did. Sophie realized several things. The first was that she had no food in the apartment. Before she left, she not only got rid of everything in the fridge, she went through and scrubbed it down. The second thing she realized was that the grocery store was not yet open.
‘I also need to move around some,’ she thought. After a day of shuffling through airports and sitting in the same position for hours on end, Sophie felt the need to move.
Ten til Midnight 