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 68: For now, it was pleasant to just sit in the sun on the rooftop.
For now, it was pleasant to just sit in the sun on the rooftop. She sat in the chair and stretched her legs out. She leaned back and closed her eyes, feeling the warmth of the sun through her clothes. The day was warm, but not overly so and there was a slight chill in the breeze. It made the warmth of the sun pleasant and slightly contrasting to the cool air.
The contrast sent delicious shivers through her. Penelope drew in a deep breath. There was the scent of the sun and the scent of greenery all around her. For a moment she just basked taking in the scent and the sun. Slowly the scent of the greenery reminded her of the dream with the flowers. She thought of the color blocked spaces and the slow incursions into the blocks by outliers. Then she thought of the end of the dream.
“I liked them better mixed,” Penelope mused to herself. She also liked the switch where instead of flowers in a forest it looked more like trees had been dropped off in a vast flower bed. There was something pleasing about the over abundance of flowers, especially as they were wild flowers and not carefully planted species. “More variety,” she decided.
In addition to color there were shapes. There were long thin steps that bend slightly under the weight of the singular flower head. Heavy spears jutting up with little bell like flowers. There was ground hugging greenery dotted with the tiniest of flowers. And they were all jumbled up at the end. No rhyme or reason for color or type.
“Long legged beasties mixing with the stumpy set,” Penelope told herself. She felt a delicious tingle all over her body. It was as if the sun warmed by several degrees and the wind chilled by several and both hit her at the same time. She gave an all over body shiver in reaction and opened her eyes.
Penelope blinked in surprise as she looked around, her lazy position gone as she sat up straight and studied the world around her.
Earlier half of the pots were filled with plants that had not yet died, most of them in the greenhouse which acted as a sort of terrarium. Those outside the space had managed to survive on what nature gave them in terms of rain and sun. The plants that were not so fortunate were dry little bits in mostly dirt pots.
Now there was a profusion of life around her. All of the marginal plants she hoped to preserve until she could look up the details were flourishing. They were full and lush. Many of them were now sporting flowers of various colors as well. The empty pots were all filled with some sort of flowering plant, every flower pot around her now filled with a riotous mass of life. If a plant could send out runners it had, as though it could no longer stand the confinement.
There had been a small stretch of vine on the wall, thin and delicate.
Ten til Midnight 