For those just tuning in, this challenge is about taking a story idea from bare bones idea into a fully fledged story by writing consistently every week day for fifteen minutes. The sentence I end with on one day, is the sentence I start with on the following. Part one was Bob’s story and has nothing whatsoever to do with the story below. Part Two follows a character named Penelope. I have a few basic sentences to act as road marks on her journey. I am loosely calling that an outline. We will see where she ends up by the time the story is done. For now, we start Part two of the 2025 Fifteen Minute Writing Challenge.
Day 18: Like the red ones they were short and bright and when she bent close they became fuzzy looking.
Like the red ones they were short and bright and when she bent close they became fuzzy looking. Again Penelope straightened. ‘How odd,’ she thought. She let the flowers be and decided to walk down the path to see where it was heading. There were no landmarks in the distance that she could see across the endless fields of flowers. Just fields that stretched to the horizon.
It didn’t help in placing herself so she looked ahead to where the path seemed to wind into a wooded area. Penelope couldn’t think of any familiar wooded areas any more than she could think of endless fields of flowers, yet somehow these woods seemed familiar. Walking towards them she felt a pleasant sense of homecoming, as though she was coming back to a favored spot after a long absence.
As the path entered the trees she felt welcomed. The trees were thick and old and because of their lush canopy there was very little understory. Because of the lack of bushes and brambles, the wood had an open and airy feeling to it. Green tinted shade filtered down to the path and the coolness the shade provided made her realize that the path through the fields was hot. She reveled in the delicious shade as she walked.
Penelope looked around. None of the trees had any markings on them and there was no arrangement of boles that let her believe she knew them, yet the feeling of familiarity remained.
‘I’ll be at the pool soon,’ she thought. Penelope blinked wondering why she would think that. Yet, when the bath curved she could see a pool in the distance. She sniffed the air wondering if she might have scented something of the water in the air. There was no trace she could detect.
‘Well it is my dream I suppose,’ Penelope thought.
With the realization that this was a dream, the dream began to fade. It was as though a fog swallowed the scene whole and left her standing in a white mist, before she woke. Penelope was lying in her bed. The house was dark and silent, everyone in it sleeping. Penelope yawned hugely, and rolled over. She snuggled into her covers and rolled back into a deep and dreamless sleep.
Morning came early and Penelope stretched felt a bit stiff and sore. She remembered she had a dream but holding it was like clutching rain drops. “Something about flowers I think,” she recalled as she slipped out of bed. She went to the bathroom and threw on a pair of jeans and a long sleeved t-shirt. She ran a brush through her hair and pulled it back into a ponytail before going downstairs to join the others for breakfast.
Their housekeeper Mrs. Lucas was there. She poured Penelope a cup of coffee and set a plate with toasted bread on it in front of her. Penelope buttered the toast and then added strawberry preserves as Mrs. Lucas returned to the kitchen. Penelope ate her toast and soon enough Trinity and Jeanette joined her.
‘Father’s gone again,’ Penelope thought as Mrs. Lucas handed Trinity and Jeannette their morning smoothies. Both frowned at her toast and the carbs they represented. Penelope took another bite. Trinity rolled her eyes but refrained from commenting. ‘This is the third night this week,’ Penelope thought adding up her father’s absences as Trinity and Jeanette began discussing their plans for the day.
Ten til Midnight 