The odd sock

A horror story?

I'm Vikki, mum of three. I mainly write about how I balance raising my kids with working, maintaining a household and trying to carve out time for myself, hopefully with a humourous slant. Sometimes I also post short fiction that I've written. This is one of those Other Stories.

The wind was loud, it almost howled, which was unusual for such a sunny day. Jane didn't mind though, she was a woman on a mission.

A woman determined to clear her laundry backlog.

She had just put the final load in the washer and was bringing in what was dry off the line to fold and put away. A mum of four, she could hardly remember the last time the laundry bag was empty. Now she was almost giddy at the thought.

As she climbed the stairs with her basket of neatly folded clothes she noticed a sock on the landing. It must have fallen out as she'd brought the dirty clothes downstairs.

Photo by Andrew Valdivia on Unsplash

It was only a sock but ... no, she couldn't leave it. She'd hand-wash it in the sink, then everything would be done.

Eager to be finished with her task she took the sock downstairs, washed it and hung it on the line before coming back to put the dry clothes away.

There was another sock on the landing. Puzzled as to how she'd missed it before, Jane realised this must be the pair to the first one and returned downstairs to wash it and hang it next to its twin.

But there was no sock hanging on the line. She looked around the garden for it, the wind was roaring now and it must have blown clean off the line. She couldn't find it and wrote it off as lost.

At least everything was washed now, the machine cycle was nearly finished and in a few hours everything would be put away.

Jane hummed happily as she climbed the stairs to finally put away the clean washing when she noticed another sock on the floor.

This was ridiculous, she thought and dropped it in the laundry bag then went to put her clean clothes away. But the thought of it ate away at her as she hung the shirts in the wardrobe. She'd so wanted to have an empty bag.

Jane retrieved the sock, took it downstairs and put it in the bin. After hanging the last load out on the line, she decided to reward herself with a cup of tea.

The sock was on the kitchen counter, she must have left it there, even though she could have sworn she'd put it in the bin.

She put it in again and went to sit down with her cup of tea.

The sock was on the couch. She took it to the black bin outside.

When she went back in, it was sat in her cup.

She set fire to it. The house burned down.

She couldn't put the washing away that was on the line. Now she spends her days in a padded cell, mumbling about socks.

But at least someone else does the laundry.

I had wanted to write this (or something like it) for Lemon Jelly’s Flash Fiction Competition but I missed the deadline and it’s too long so never mind, decided I’d write it anyway and share with you lovely lot! This week has been crazy, students are back in so I’m teaching again and everything feels very hectic. I haven’t had much time to myself and when I have, I’ve had to use it for planning, marking, or numbing my brain with some easy watch TV. I wasn’t planning on posting anything this week but I decided to force myself to write, the same way I force myself to the gym (which I haven’t gone to this week!) in the hope I would actually feel better afterwards, and I do :-)

Thank you for reading and let me know in the comments if a haunted sock counts as horror! I’m such a wimp with scary stuff that I don’t actually know.