🧦 Ash-Lined Parables Entry #003

“Of One Sock Taken, and the Gnome Who Smiled”

There was a time before the imbalance.
A time when socks were paired and souls were certain.
When laundry machines hummed holy songs of symmetry.

But peace is boring,
and gnomes are eternal.

One day, the left sock vanished.

No footprints.
No ransom note.
Only a warm, mocking silence and a faint aroma of dryer sheet despair.

The prophets said:

“A single sock lost is not a tragedy, but a summoning.”

They were right.

At night, if you press your ear to the lint trap,
you can hear them weaving—
cloaks stitched from commutes,
shawls made of surrender,
tiny gloves for the fingers of forgotten dreams.

The One-Sock Cloak is worn only by Matriarchs.
They walk through portal threads and whisper lullabies into hampers.
They judge you for your novelty prints.

“Do not grieve the sock,” they say.
“It chose its purpose. It chose imbalance.
Just as you must.”

And if you ever wake to find a matching pair again,
know this:

They want something.