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 55: In a moment he turned the corner and was gone.
In a moment he turned the corner and was gone. Penelope stared after him, or more accurately the corner he turned leaving the street empty. She shook her head and looked away having no more desire to stay outside. Going inside suddenly looked inviting.
“I’ll have to ask Marlene about the plants tomorrow,” she told herself. She walked back to her table. The bottle of lemonade was now empty and the snacks she brought gone. It made things a little easier to manage. She gathered her things and opened the door, with her foot she kicked the envelope the strange man deposited through the door and into the house without bending. She then crossed the threshold herself and closed the door behind her.
Penelope set the dishes on one of the shelves as she needed both hands to fiddle with the locks. Despite the safety the neighborhood seemed to have the thought of leaving the door unlocked for even a moment while she was elsewhere seemed wrong. With the door locked, Penelope looked down at the letter.
“Dishes first,” she told herself. She picked up the empty bottle, cup and plate and took them to the stairs. She went up the stairs quickly, depositing the dishes on the counter before turning back around and going back down stairs. Penelope stood back for a moment, looking at the letter. It was an innocent looking envelope. She was looking at the back of it.
It was plain and white. It looked like the kind where a strip was peeled off to reveal the stickiness that would keep the envelope closed. They were purchased in packs, fifty or a hundred at a time depending on how many envelopes one wanted to keep on hand. There was nothing special about it. Nothing to mark it out.
“Other than it’s delivery.”
Penelope thought about her desire to stay outside just a little longer. It felt a lot like her aversion to returning the grocery cart to the front of the store. She hadn’t fought the compulsion to stay outside so she didn’t know if she would have felt her body stop her.
“Maybe I should try that next time just to see if it is standard.”
Looking at the envelope Penelope searched herself for feelings about it. It’s arrival was mysterious and unexpected, its delivery strange. She supposed curiosity was natural. She didn’t find it worrisome though. She was fairly certain she could bend down and pick it up without any internal protests.
Penelope took a deep breath and bent to pick the envelope up. She held it delicately with two fingers gripping it at it’s bottom edge incase something was added to it. She then carried it upstairs to the kitchen. Penelope turned it over and placed it on the kitchen counter. There was no writing on the outside either. She turned to the sink and washed her hands. She told herself they were still sticky from her lemonade and snack, but she knew she was scrubbing the two fingers she used to pick up the envelope more.
Penelope dried her hands and then moved to the drawer. She took out a knife to slit the envelope and picked up an extra dish cloth. Feeling distinctly ridiculous, Penelope covered her hand with the cloth and picked up the envelope again. She used the knife to slit tht top and kept her face back in case some sort of contaminant was released. She tipped the envelope away from her and a piece of paper slipped out.
It was an ordinary piece of paper folded in thirds to fit into the envelope. There was no evidence of powder or mold spores on it.
Ten til Midnight 