Sunday, February 15, 2009

Where Lonely Socks Go

Holding up my dirty sock, and smelling the stinky toe, I stop. It drops. I think it winks at me!

“Where is your other sock?” my mom asks for the third time tonight.

“Dunno.” Looking down at the one in my hand and then at the floor for the match. No, it’s not there.

“Do you know where my other sock is?” I whisper to the sock in my hand. I hope that no one knows I’m talking to my sock.

The sock says nothing but sags down low, looks sort of sad; not bad exactly, more twisting its toe—or is it a head—in a shrug? I let go and it falls to the rug.

I lean down low and creep up close, bending my head till I scrunch my nose and eyes and ask again. “Can you tell me where lonely socks go?” Wrinkling my nose from the smell of its toe, I’m not sure if it’s friend or foe. I wait for more, but it chooses not to say; so, I’m stuck with a puzzle. Can I learn today, the secret place where lonely socks go?

Perhaps, some sock can explain how lone socks know to start on a journey and go where they go. There must be one who’s been there and back who will tell its tale; I just have to find it and follow its trail; back to the place where lonely socks go.

So many of mine have gone away that I am certain there must be a special space that lonely socks gather to meet up with others as they travel the world or search the earth; a place where they might need my help to come home.

I seek the one that’s been there and back but I mix up whose’s whose and which’s which, so I’m not certain I’ll track which of my socks has come back from that space where lonely socks go. ...

There's more to the story, it's plain to see, each has lost a sock, maybe two or three. For this explorer the where is revealed yet a question remains though the solution is found. A conundrum exists in the story, as in life. The fun's in the journey more than solving the plight.


1 comment:

Sarah Billington said...

Hey Lyn,
Be careful posting your whole story on the web because it can be classified as publication. So you'd be offering publishers second rights, not first.
I haven't had a chance to actually sit down at the computer and READ your story, but I love the idea, anyway. :)
Sairz