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 39: As she did, she heard the squeal of tires and the loud crunch and screech of metal.
As she did, she heard the squeal of tires and the loud crunch and screech of metal. She turned towards it as she heard the thud of an impact. And saw a car had slammed into the cart return by the front of the building and stopped by thumping into the side of the grocery store. Penelope froze. She could see the last cart returned to the coral smashed under the par of the return and the car’s front tires.
‘If I had gone to that return I would have been flattened,’ Penelope thought. The thought circled around in her brain as people rushed out. She shook herself realizing someone could have been hurt. She rushed over. Penelope wasn’t entirely certain what she could do. She trained to be an accountant not a doctor and she hadn’t seen anything before the crash.
‘And I can hardly tell anyone I felt a sense of watching and my feet refused to go to this cart return can I?’ she thought.
The driver of the car, a man about her parent’s age shakily got out of the car. He had burns on his face where the airbag deployed and was visibly shaken. “The brakes just went,” he said. “I had them checked Tuesday when I did my routine check up, and they just went. Was anyone hurt?” he asked looking around.
Penelope saw he was cradling his own wrist as he looked around and she suspected that besides some building damage, the bulk of the damage done was to him. The front of the car was flattened and the airbag punched him hard. She could see he had a little blood coming out of his nose. A woman Penelope had seen in the frozen foods aisle moved to assist. She was wearing scrubs with dancing clowns on it and some sort of ID on a lanyard.
“I called the police and they are bringing an ambulance, the manager of the store said. He was shaking almost as much as the driver. “If you saw anything you need to stay but if you didn’t then you should go, clear out some space for the emergency folks,” the manager said.
Penelope wasn’t certain it was protocol or not, but as she hadn’t seen anything and could do nothing to help, she was more than willing to leave. She walked back to her car. The button unlocked the door but when she tried to insert the key in the ignition, she realized her hands were shaking. Penelope closed her eyes for a second and took a deep breath to steady herself.
“Just get home and don’t think about anything but getting the groceries upstairs before you get there.” She took another deep breath. “I have ice cream that could melt,” she told herself. “Just think of getting into the freezer before it does.”
She opened her eyes and found her hands were steady enough to get the key in the ignition. She turned the engine on and looked behind her. The way was clear. She backed out of her parking space, changed gears to drive and drove towards the exit.
“Only think about the ice cream,” she muttered to herself as she put on her blinker and turned into the street. Traffic was light, but Penelope drove slowly and cautiously. “Ice cream,” she repeated to herself anytime her thoughts strayed.
The relief she felt when she pulled into the parking garage was almost visceral. She parked in her allocated spot and gratefully turned off the engine.
Ten til Midnight 