Lost Socks

by Paul R. Panossian

(This story was originally published in Literary Hatchet #36)

He was folding laundry as he weighed, in his head, the merits of a trip to the archery range. He hadn’t gone in some time, and the day was clear and windless, but on his last few attempts, it had been overrun with teenage girls emulating dystopian heroes and the stone-faced hunter types who spent three hours in the same spot and never relinquished. The latter were usually polite enough to share, but being in such close proximity inevitably led to discussions of why they shot, which would enter into the concept of hunting, and he was far too sheepish to kill a deer. It was too severe and consequential an action for him.

Then again, most people didn’t make a hobby of dealing in death. Most people frittered away their lives chasing petty, inconsequential dreams, working petty, inconsequential jobs, for petty, inconsequential sums of money.

Of course, one had to wonder where to draw the line between consequence and inconsequence, which itself, he reflected, was a petty line of inquiry, so he dropped the subject and started tying socks together.

Mechanically folding one elastic end into and over another, it surfaced how one thing could gain size and significance wrapped up in something lesser. After all, nobody really assigned much meaning to the mundane interactions that proliferate like ivy over the course of a day’s ramblings. Yet there were, on occasion, certain singular minds hidden among the rabble; certain strange and enigmatic recluses, endowed with prodigious gifts of perspicacity, who, with their intuitive prowess, might wring hidden import from inconsequential chance, warping perception into worldview, and worldview into grandeur, twisting logic over and upon itself, until a vast vortex of meaning spiraled out from the infinitesimal.

He froze mid-motion.

There was, on his bed, beside his neatly stacked and folded clothes, one sock left without a mate.

He eyed the solitary garment.

Silence abounded.

He retraced the steps between the hamper and the stackable washer/dryer. Both were empty, as were the crevices behind them. He checked, then rechecked under the chair, the bed, the table, and between the sheets (upsetting his carefully folded stacks!) to no avail.

A cold pressure grew inside him.

Socks didn’t simply vanish into thin air. This might be a phenomenon common to the average boor, but not him, who kept fastidious track of his possessions and scrupulous care in maintaining tidy quarters. Since slovenly behavior on his behalf could be ruled out, there remained only one explanation within reason.

He shot up to check the locks.

Both bolt and chain had been engaged, but this did not preclude the possibility of an intruder. Though he had not left his home in several days, he recalled reading about a man who, besieged by similar suspicions, had installed cameras in his apartment only to discover a woman hiding in his pantry.

He flung about from room to room, opening drawers, closets, cabinets, and anything else that could conceivably harbor a person.

He saw nothing, no one.

A clock ticked over the door as he caught his breath.

So, he was alone. For now. But then where had the sock gone?

Someone must have crept in to take it! Someone who had made a point of evading discovery. 

And why evade discovery unless there was malice? He paced his sparse accommodations. It was imperative that he think rationally. What could precipitate such bizarre behavior? What, in purloining a used sock, could one possibly hope to accomplish?

It was perplexing.

It was absurd!

Absurd to him. For he was not a conniving man. But to one disposed of an abnormal intellect and nefarious will, the stealing of a sock could be as cold and calculating as the nocking of an arrow.

Of what hideous machinations such a foe could be capable was beyond his innocent conjecture. He could not, however, let his virtuous nature leave him open to attack. He could not stand idly by as he was made the victim of some aberrant plot. He must defend himself.

He marched to the coat closet. Adamant hands seized his bow and quiver.

These fiends walked and talked like the rest of the flotsam, but he would find them out. Whether they masqueraded as stoic hunter types or camouflaged among the rabble on the street, he would drive them out.

He rushed out of the apartment.

The door slammed shut behind him.

For a time, there was only the clock’s tick from above the door. Then, after a while, a thin falsetto of screams sifted through the walls.