Many writers have shared their thoughts with the public:

"There is something delicious about writing the first words of a story. You never quite know where they'll take you." - Beatrix Potter

"The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say." - Anaïs Nin

"Sharing your writing, being enlarged by others' writing, is what makes you feel famous." - Gretchen Bernabei

"Writing is not an amusing occupation. It is a combination of ditch-digging, mountain-climbing, treadmill and childbirth." - Edna Ferber

"Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing." - Ben Franklin

"One must be drenched in words, literally soaked in them, to have the right ones to form themselves into the proper pattern at the right moment." - Hart Crane

"There are three rules for writing. Unfortunately, no one can agree what they are." - W. Somerset Maugham

Sole Adventure

Copyright © Joanne Macias 2023

You know the old wives’ tale about the socks? The one about how one always disappeared? Let me tell you. It’s actually true. Well kind of. Sam (sung) the washing machine unfortunately got all the blame, but in reality, we liked to take holidays as much as the humans did! Sometimes, we also wanted a little alone time from our sole mate, so we also did solo explorations.

Humans believed that Sam stole the socks and hid them in some magical secret compartment. Sorry to disappoint, but Sam would hide nothing. What would really happen is we would go on magical adventures to get away from being a human accessory. It was a tough gig being walked all over. Sometimes, the time difference (in human time) could be one wash – ‘lost’ in one wash and ‘found’ in the next, or it could become an eternal adventure. We weren’t fans of the eternal adventures either, as we would need to battle for our survival when that happened.

We socks had an interesting lifecycle. We began as little footlets. Not much coverage on the human foot, but that’s where we would learn to hold on for dear life. The ones who could not hold on any longer ended up falling into the dark abyss. Never to be seen again. As we grew, we were affectionately known as ankle biters, or anklets by humans. Then, as we grew, we would join a ‘crew’ and were dubbed crew socks. It’s at this stage that we would begin to rebel. Many crews have lost their sole mate due to the siren call of an adventure, and the fact they were always told not to explore. The crew socks were known to be rebellious – almost how humans would describe teenagers. That rebellion means they DID NOT EVER plan for their adventure and ended up eternally disappearing more times than not. If we survived the crew stage, we would have unfortunately lost a bit of elasticity, lost our shape, and became slouchy. Our elders liked reminding us of how they were popular back in the day and didn’t know why the trend changed.

There was a prophecy retold by our parents when we were ankle biters, just before we became part of the crew. It was about a crew member named Terry who was thought to be lost in the black abyss for all eternity. He miraculously found his way home but told of the horrors of his adventure as a warning for us to not follow his foolish footsteps.

The urge to explore happened for many reasons. You were firstly lulled into the adventure by the smell of tropical flowers. You thought there was a beach or rainforest or something exotic on the other side. Your newly formed strong elastic made you feel invincible. You felt you could take on the world – no matter which world it was.

It however was not what you assumed the adventure to be. As soon as you entered, the exotic smell intoxicated you and you became weak. The smell permeated into every fibre of your being. The once strong bonds in your body, now felt relaxed, loose, and soft. Everything that Sam collected, seemed to be stored in this other world. Piles of lint created towering, rugged mountains, and items originally left in the pockets of the humans created dangerous obstacles that could be life or death for us if we weren’t careful.

These obstacles were not our biggest threat, however. There were beings lurking in the background. You didn’t notice them at first, however, it almost seemed like they would get larger and larger the longer you stared. They were big, dark, and ominous. The winds of this world would erode parts of the lint mountains and had created these monsters. One piece of lint fluff at a time. Everyone said dust bunnies were cute, but having met them in the dusty flesh, they were horrifying. Once fully formed, they would not need the winds to move or grow anymore, yet they would feast on the remains of our fallen, who originally succumbed to injuries from the sharp objects that originated from the pockets of the humans.

The only hope for escape, you would need to be hyper aware of surroundings, ensuring all the sharp edges would not catch you, and being aware that the dust bunnies were everywhere. Watching. Escape meant coming back from where you started. Slow and steady. Time was a double-edged sword for escape. If you rush, you could unravel – physically; and if you take your time, you may have forgotten where you began.

There were a few close calls with baby dust bunnies. They had not fully formed, so their ability to sneak up on you was dusty, but then again, live prey was a rare occurrence. They would try and surround you, but if you were aware of what was happening, you could escape before they encircled you – and at that point, you would have had no avenue of escape.

A steady, level head was needed by Terry for escape. He remained unscathed from the obstacles and dust bunnies, however the overall toll on him was great. Terry had been gone for five wash cycles. That was more than the life span of many socks. He did however come back changed. The smell of the other world permanently changed him. His elastic was not as strong as it once was. Colour was partially drained from his body, going from a vibrant royal blue, to now a dull pastel shade of blue mixed with a grey tinge. He also was now also prone to slouching, which also meant his popularity with humans would change.

All of us ankle biters looked at each other, not sure if our parents were trying to scare us into staying home, or if it was actually true. This story was a bit of a legend, passed down through the generations. How were we to know if was embellished a little in each retelling? It seemed pretty far-fetched, but then, out of nowhere, the faint intoxicating aroma of frangipani wafted past us, calling us to explore where it came from.