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 29: Penelope walked to the stairs, eager to find out what the file contained.
Penelope walked to the stairs, eager to find out what the file contained. She reached the second floor and moved through the kitchen back to the living area. The teapot was still in place as were the two China cups. The folder sat thick and heavy next to the delicate tea things. Somehow it looked inappropriate, and she couldn’t bring herself to open it there.
Penelope picked up the folder and looked around. The house, while hers still felt strange, foreign. These weren’t her things. She owned them but didn’t know them. She retreated to the bedroom she chose as her own. Here even though the furniture was strange, her bed was made with the same sheets, comforter and pillows she was accustomed to. More over with her items in the closet and the sheets on the bed, the room now had a faint trace of her laundry detergent in the room. As she also added a scented dryer sheet to her laundry it too traced the air. It made this room feel more familiar.
Penelope took the file to the bed. She kicked off her shoes beside the bed and then climbed into the center. She saw cross legged and set the file in front of her. Before she opened it, she bounced a little on the new mattress. It was a good firmness and she took a moment to congratulate herself on a good purchase. She took a deep breath and opened the front of the folder.
The first page was a summery of the accident. It stated plainly that the car had lost control on a bend in Old Briarwood Road and hit a tree. Death was instantaneous. Penelope let her held breath out as she read the straightforward matter of fact lines. She read the time, the date and the location. She then frowned and read them again.
Penelope uncrossed her legs and slipped from the bed, leaving the file open to the first page as she went to the desk at the side of the room. There in a stack was the paperwork the lawyer gave her the day before. Penelope opened it and flicked through to the information about the estate. It was located off of Old Briarwood Road.
“Thought it sounded familiar.” She mused. Penelope left the information where it was and returned to the bed, once again sitting cross-legged in the center of the bed, the file in front of her.
“She was more than likely going to the estate,’ Penelope thought seeing that the car was facing away from the city when it crashed. “On a Tuesday at two pm.”
Penelope was young when her mother died, but she remembered that she always had ballet lessons on Tuesdays. She remembered being dropped off and running into the studio with her friends. Madame Denaris did not like the parental audience during class and so many of the mothers went to the café across the street during lessons while others used the time to run errands.
Ten til Midnight 