It's A Sock Thing- Circa November 2004

Once upon a time, there was a lovely little ankle sock. She always felt shy, and meek, because she was so tiny compared to all the big knee socks, and much thinner than the work socks. They didn’t help either, they teased her because she was so small, her and her sister. However, her sister didn’t much care. She spent most of her time being chewed by the dog anyways. This left her to put up with the verbal bashings from the meaner and thicker socks.
What hurt her most, when they teased her, was when they picked on her lovely stripes. Oh, she had beautiful strips, purple and pink and blue and green… And the big socks would tease her, saying she was made of little bits of leftover thread and that’s why she was multicoloured. But, she loved her stripes, and it hurt her that the big socks made them to be a bad thing.
When she would tell her sister about the teasing she endured all day, her sister would speak to her in a curt tone of voice, saying that she should spend time with the dog, because it was muchly fun. However, she was scared to do that, scared of the holes the dogs teeth would put in her, and how she would be drooled on and whipped around. For, she was quite the timid sock.
However, day after day passed, and she endured the teasing and felt worse and worse. And she cried for longer and longer at night. Until one day, she turned to her sister and said
“I’m coming with you to the dog tomorrow.” Her sister just smiled and said how pleased she’d be that she did.
So, the next day, she watched her sister jump out of the drawer and go find the dog. She tried to follow, though she moved slowly and cautiously, because she was nervous; she had never tried to leave the drawer before. She carefully tried to climb over the side of the drawer, but she slipped and fell. She hit the floor with as hard a ‘thud’ as a sock could hit. When she picked herself up off the floor, she looked around, but couldn’t see her sister or the dog. She felt scared and confused and almost wished she had stayed in the drawer with the other socks. But then, she remembered the teasing, and didn’t feel so bad.
She started to wander… and wander and wander… until she was in another room… with a lot of big appliances humming. She smelled food, and decided she must be in that kitchen place she always hears talk of. Suddenly, she heard big banging footsteps approaching, and she jumped into a shoe, which was familiar to her, to hide. She waited for the familiar slamming of the door to hop out. She noticed stairs and wondered if her sister would be down them. However, she didn’t think about how difficult the stairs would be to go down, and she tumbled down the whole way. By the time she hit the bottom, everything ached and she needed to lie down for a bit.
Once she felt ok again, she got up and looked around. She went to a room with a shower, a sink and a toilet, and it smelled a lot like cleaning supplies. But she didn’t find her sister and the dog.
So she moved into another room. There were 2 big machines, and baskets full of clothes, and yes, some socks, and they were all lying there, dead looking. She was scared, so scared, that she started to run without looking where she was going and ran into the door.
When she finally came to, she was frightened and cold. She got up, and decided to find the stairs and go back up them. This proved to be a difficult task, seeing as she was so dizzy. However eventually she found them, and tried to climb them. This took her a very long time, because the stairs were big and she had to stop and rest from time to time. Eventually though, she reached the top.
Once at the top of the stairs, she tried to remember which way she had come through. She remembered the kitchen, and so she wandered around until she found it. And from there, she found the room, with the drawer she came out of.
When she finally reached the drawer, she was tired, haggard, and out of breath. She slumped against the side of the drawer for a few minutes, and listened to the chatter of the other socks. She heard quiet weeping from her sister.
“Where is my sister? What have you done with her? She was supposed to come with me, where could she have gone?”
And from the other socks…
“I miss her soft voice.”
“I hope it wasn’t anything we said. I really did like her.”
“We shouldn’t have teased her so much, she really was a pretty little sock.”
“I miss her!!”
The little sock was overjoyed! They really did like her, and they missed her!! She knocked quietly on the drawer, but it was too quiet for the other socks to hear, over their laments. So, she used the last of her strength and threw herself against the side of the drawer. This time, the other socks heard her, and they pushed the drawer open. They saw her exhausted sock body slumped on the floor. So, one of the big tall work socks jumped out and picked her up and brought her back in the drawer. Her sister hugged her tightly, and made her promise to never get lost again. The other socks said the same thing, and said how sorry they were for teasing her, and how pretty she really was. The big work sock lay down and allowed the pretty little sock to sleep on him, a nice a cozy bed, rather than the wooden bottom of the drawer to sleep on.
And, surrounded by her sock family that loved her, and her sister, the little sock closed her eyes, and smiled a tired little smile. “I am home”, she thought, before falling asleep.