In The Sock Orphanage by Dan Brotzel

                         haco-otoko CC



IN THE SOCK ORPHANAGE

                                                                                                                                   i.
I’ve been running this place for years now. People wonder why I do it. But really, how could I not? 
   It all started when I came across an old cloth bag hidden at the back of a wardrobe. The bag was rammed full of odd socks – people had just been shoving them in there for years, without ever a second thought.  
  These socks were a rich and diverse mix, I discovered, albeit dusty and forgotten, almost mouldering in a few cases, and they were proliferating. It was a terrible sight to behold, but the fact that it existed at all gave me some reason for hope. It meant that people couldn’t bring themselves to throw these socks away completely.


                                                                                                                                  ii.
   The first thing I did was to go right through that bag. I managed to match up 3 pairs that were already in there, and I found matches for a couple more socks from the current wash. For me, bringing about a reunion is still the most wonderful feeling in the world. It’s why I keep on doing what I do.  
   My next move was to seek out any other sock orphans that might be lost or discarded elsewhere in the house. I knew there was likely to be more, but I wasn’t prepared for the numbers I discovered. It turned out that every sock drawer in the house contained a selection of stranded hosiery; further searches revealed orphans under beds and behind furniture, in old kit bags and at the bottom of the airing cupboard. 
   I went round the whole place and gathered together every single single-sock I could find, and I laid them all out on a bedroom floor. The range was bewildering – tiny children’s socks, long grey school uniform socks, thick hiking socks, dainty ankle socks, those fluorescent socks they give you when you go trampolining. Football socks, bed socks, fashion socks, waterproof socks, slipper socks. 
   My aim was simple: to release all these unfortunates from the sock limbo in which they’d been languishing, and to bring them home to themselves. With the whole range of solo socks laid out before me, now arranged by colour, type and size, something wonderful happened. The matches began to jump out at me, and that day I reunited another 13 pairs! 
   I don’t know if it’s true that each of us is a matching half of a whole, as someone once said, but surely everyone has the right to belong somewhere. 

                                                                                                                                 iii.
   The owners of reunited socks are mixed in their reactions. Sometimes they are happy to greet an old friend, but other times I can see them wondering why I’ve bothered. And of course it’s true that some reunited pairs, especially the now-outgrown ones, will never be used again in this house. But at least if they are together once more, I can add them to the charity bag, and hope they will find a good home elsewhere. 

                                                                                                                                 iv.
   These days I push prevention much harder too. When I get a new pile of clean clothes fresh from the washing machine, I pull out and pair up all the socks straight away, so they’re less likely to get separated. I do talks to encourage owners to keep their socks stored in pairs too. 
   I also recommend the regular cleaning and sweeping of rooms, to uncover new strays and accidental stowaways. Sometimes people even bring me their orphans now, and I am happy to take charge of them – even happier, as sometimes happens, if I can effect an immediate reunion.  
   Sometimes an owner will put a lot of weight behind a search. Please see if you can find the other long black one to this, they beg. I need it for school. Or: have you seen my other orange Nike one? Please – these are my lucky tennis socks! Well if they’re so important, I always think, why didn’t you look after them? 
   But of course, no sock is turned away, and the most recent disappearances are always the easiest to track down. (I would say there is a golden period of 2-3 days when any new lost single is almost guaranteed to be recovered.) I just wish it wouldn’t take a sock to go missing for people to realise what a pair means to them. And once they’ve got their pair back, I’m pretty sure they won’t think about them again – until the next disappearance. But I’m not here to judge.   

                                                                                                                                 v.
   After that initial grand sort, I was still left with over 30 single socks, and many of those initial lost singles are with me still. Sometimes people encourage me to just throw them away. Chuck ’em out, they say. Let’s draw a line and start again.
   Let’s start making more orphans, you mean, I always think. No! I hold on to my collection of loners because I believe that each and every one deserves to have someone fighting for it. Every single one belongs with another and, so long as I am here, I will never cease to look for their other half. 
Reunions are rarer now, but of course they are the sweeter for that very reason. When I wave farewell to a long-term resident of the orphanage, a sock that I have got to know over months or even years, my heart surges. ‘Don’t let me catch you in here again!’ I always say. It chokes me see how glad my remaining charges are for their departing friend, even though such a reunion can only remind them of their own continued abandonment. 
   And that is why I cannot stop doing what I do. That is why I cannot simply throw away the last stragglers and start again. So long as they have me, my sock orphans will always have something to hope for.  
   I am here for the ones that are left behind.

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Dan Brotzel's first collection of short stories, Hotel du Jack, is out in early 2020. He won the Riptide Journal short story competition in 2018, and was highly commended in the Manchester Writing School competition. He has stories in Spelk, Ellipsis, Ginger Collect, Cabinet of Heed, Reflex Fiction, Bending Genres and more. He is a Press Association book reviewer. He was Asda Christmas Cracker gag champion, 2004.

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