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 62: While she didn’t question where she was, she wasn’t used to the space yet, and lay there in the dark listening to the quiet of the room.
While she didn’t question where she was, she wasn’t used to the space yet, and lay there in the dark listening to the quiet of the room. Penelope stared at the ceiling. The dream was strange and left her feeling more puzzled than anything. It felt heavy in her mind, like the dream was more than a dream.
‘But it was mostly nonsensical,’ she thought. ‘Color blocked flowers deciding to mix, a tree swallowing fog. And the lake…” Penelope frowned. There was something about the lake that troubled her. It wasn’t a horror movie troubling. She didn’t think evil was lurking beneath it’s surface. But it was troubling nonetheless.
She stretched and realized that no matter the time, she was awake. “And I need to clean the bathroom before I shower.”
While she was certain someone cleaned it when the service was last through, she didn’t know the service, hadn’t been the one booking them and didn’t know their schedule. “And since no one was staying here they might just dust and be done,” Penelope told herself as she slipped out of the bed and stretched. She padded barefoot to the bathroom and used the facilities. While the bathroom seemed clean, there was no scent of cleaning products in the space.
“Eat first,” she decided as she washed her hands. “Then clean the bathroom, shower, dress and find out more about Amelia and what possible enemies I might have.”
Penelope dried her hands. “I guess that sorts today’s schedule then.”
She went into the kitchen and poured herself a bowl of cereal. It was quiet in the house as she crunched her breakfast. She had not found a television in the house and didn’t know if there was a radio or stereo present.
“Music would be good,” she decided.
She tended to listen to her music with ear buds in as Trinity belittled any song she liked and Jeanette called all of it noise. Penelope never took that one personally as Jeanette had no tolerance for music of any kind. She went to the symphony with her father because she was able to justify the purpose of a new dress and to socialize with others but she always came home with a headache from the “scratchings of the musicians”.
“Except she always calls them performers and never musicians,” Penelope reminded herself between bites.
The idea of being able to play music to fill the space instead of just privately in her ear phones was a novel one for her and Penelope took her bowl of cereal around the house, eating by the spoonful as she looked for a stereo.
She was delighted when she found one in the cabinet in the living room. It was on a pull out stand. Penelope found it opening one of the cupboard doors. Seeing the equipment she put the bowl down. She opened the second door, and found the doors slid back into the sides of the cabinet and the stereo itself was on a piece of wood that could be pulled out. When it was pulled out, two legs popped out from the front to offer extra support for the stereo.
It wasn’t a new stereo but given that the house had been locked since her mother died, she hadn’t expected it. Penelope picked up her cereal bowl and pressed the power button. She took a bit of cereal and found the radio was set to some sort of talk station. She set the spoon in the bowl, turned the dial and had another bite as she listened to find out what sort of radio station this was.
Ten til Midnight 