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 69: There had been a small stretch of vine on the wall, thin and delicate.
There had been a small stretch of vine on the wall, thin and delicate. It looked half desiccated and the plant identification app didn’t have enough foliage to make a determination on type. Now it was spread over the wall, covering the wall separating her rooftop with the neighbors with thick, lush greenery. Nestled in the glossy leaves were small purple flowers. They were delicate little blooms and had bright yellow centers that looked fuzzy and stuffed with pollen.
Penelope stared at the living wall for a moment, blinking and feeling as though she needed to catch her breath. She swallowed hard and looked to the green house. The plants there fared batter with the long absence, the small greenhouse acting like a terrarium, but not all of the plants survived the benign neglect. Slowly Penelope stood. She picked her way around the flowering pots and walked to the green house. The door was closed and she reached for the handle feeling as though she was in some sort of horror movie.
‘If I was I’d be showing at the actress not to go into the basement,’ Penelope thought. ‘Except this isn’t a basement.’ She realized her palms were sweaty and wiped them off on her pants before once again reaching for the door.
Slow and cautious was making her jumpy so she grabbed the handle fast and jerked open the greenhouse door as though expecting something to jump out at her. Nothing did. The heady scent of intense growth, fertilized soil and intoxicating blooms greeted her. Penelope swallows hard, keeping her distance from the open door while still looking in. The plants inside the green house were just as lush as some of the ones she had seen in commercial greenhouse spaces. The flowers were exotic blooms, the perfume strong enough to make her head spin.
“Okay then,” she said slowly. She wounded breathless even to her own ears. “Right.” She swallowed hard, having nothing in her mind that fit the situation. She stepped forward and slowly closed the greenhouse door. It latched with a loud click.
“I think,” she said. Penelope cleared her throat. “I think that is enough sun for the day and if I am going to join the others for the happy hour, I should go and make dinner, change clothes and get the tray ready to take.”
Something inside her seemed to stabilize as she gave herself a mental checklist of things to do. She could handle a checklist full of known items. She made dinner before. She dressed herself many times and she could put together a tray o she could participate in happy hour.
‘Check, check, and check,’ She told herself. She moved towards the door leading back down into the house. At the door she paused, feeling almost as if she ought to say something. ‘The plants aren’t listening,’ she chided herself. Still she paused and took a deep breath.
“I’ll be back tomorrow,” she said aloud. While nothing seemed to move she felt as though something had exhaled in relief that her retreat was not a permanent one.
‘Stupid,’ she thought as she opened the door and stepped inside. She closed the door behind her and there was a relief in locking it. “Safety from roof top burglar,” she told herself as she descended the stairs. “Isn’t that how cat burglars get in?” Heist movies weren’t her favorite but she thought she remembered something like that. ‘Its definitely not because of the plants,” she told herself. “Cat burglars.”
Penelope went down to the kitchen and realized that time wise, dinner wasn’t too far off the mark if she wanted to change clothes and join the others for happy hour. It made her feel less like she was running away from the plants.
Ten til Midnight 