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 107: Clouds scudded across the sun and cast the room in shadow.
Clouds scudded across the sun and cast the room in shadow. Penelope glanced towards the window. The formerly cloudless blue sky seemed to have been replaced by iron gray clouds. They looked like tey were multiplying rapidly.
“Storm blowing in,” she thought. Penelope turned away from the window. The incoming storm seemed to suit her mood. She felt like she was in the middle of a storm herself. Emotions danced through her and she heard the rumble of thunder in the sky. She paced across the length of the space, moving to the kitchen, turning around before she reached the stairwell leading down and walking back across the living room to the main windows overlooking the street.
A part of her thought that going up and down the stairs might help her release some of the building energy she felt inside her, but she was afraid if she went to the lower staircase she would be tempted to go outside and if she went to the staircase leading upwards she would be tempted towards the roof top garden.
“I suppose I could look at the rooms on the upper floor between this floor and the roof,” Penelope told herself. She shook her head. It still seemed too tempting. She glanced out of the window before turning. Thunder was rumbling, lightning flashed and clouds massed, but no rain fell. It was a tangled snarled mess in the sky.
“I can relate,” Penelope said before she turned and headed back towards the kitchen. She was a snarled and tangled mess. She didn’t know how to feel. There was anger. She felt used and there was also the embarrassment of not realizing that she was being used. There was also a layer of sadness and when she thought about it, grief.
“How can you grieve for something you never really had,” she asked herself as she paced. She looked at the phone she set on the kitchen counter. The screen lit up with another call. Jeanette calling back. She left the phone where it was and continued pacing. Another round and the phone rang again. Trinity this time.
As she paced the calls alternated between the two as though hoping that at some point she would give in and answer one of them. “I don’t know why I even look at the screen,” she said as the calls cycled back to Jeanette. “Maybe in case it is someone different,” Penelope guessed. “I do know more than two people. I have friends.”
Penelope’s steps faltered as a thought occurred. She glanced at the phone. The screen was dark. She stared, a thought slowly forming. The screen lit up with a call from Trinity. Penelope looked away. Slowly this time, her pace less frenetic, she walked to the arrangement of chairs and sofa placed around the coffee table. She sank into one of the chairs, her thought solidifying.
“It’s only Jeanette and Trinity calling,” Penelope said slowly. Aside from the conversation where he asked why his dinner was delayed, Penelope hadn’t spoken to her father. He didn’t call, despite the fact that his name was on the paperwork. He was the one who authorized payments when she was underage and transferred funds even after she came of age.
Yet he hadn’t called. Hadn’t even attempted to contact her. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, feeling something shift inside her. The energy changing. Outside, the rain began to fall.
Ten til Midnight 