Missing Socks and Golden Thoughts

This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright ã 2011 Plot Roach.

Missing Socks and Golden Thoughts

By Plot Roach

“Do you ever wonder about the ‘good old days’?” Chelsea asked.

“Like how?” asked John, looking up from his laptop. They were at a combination coffee shop and bookstore, where she was trying to have a polite conversation while he was trying valiantly to ignore her.

“Everyone thinks that the times of the past were so much greater than they are now -but is it really the truth?”

“I very much doubt that Holocaust survivors would want to relive the past…”

“You know what I mean. We’ve heard our parents and grandparents talk about the past like it was some golden moment in the history of the universe. Hell, even I miss high school and I know I hated every minute of it. What is it that makes us miss the past so much that our minds make it better than it really was?”

“Do you want the truth?” John said, looking up from his laptop.

“Why? Do you know it?”

“Yes.” John said, looking over his shoulder at the people sitting in the little café with them, as if there were government spies among them. “But not everyone knows it…”

“Spill it, then.”

“But before I do, you have to promise not to tell anyone. It could change the way we view the universe forever.”

“You make this sound all spooky.”

“It is. It will certainly change the way you view the movement of time.”

“Okay, fine.”

“That’s a promise?”

“Yeah, whatever.”

John moved his chair closer, closing the lid on his laptop and putting it back into his messenger bag. “You see, there are these little trolls that live in between the spaces that atoms dance through. You know how there’s all that empty space that science hasn’t accounted for?”

“Trolls?”

“Keep listening… these trolls pop out of the little spaces and rearrange things when we aren’t looking. They make time go faster when we’re having fun. They make it go slower when we’re at work or in pain or even just plain bored.”

“And why would they do this?”

“They want our socks.”

“Socks?”

“Oh, and other odd bits of things that get lost over the years. But primarily, it’s the socks that they are after.”

“Why socks?”

“Those long odd ears of theirs? They need something to keep them warm at night and socks are just the thing. So whenever you have one sock missing, it went to a troll’s ear.”

“Why only one sock?”

“It’s the fashion to clash colors and styles. It shows that you’re been around in the troll world. That you know how to work the humans for your own benefit.”

“Oh, really?”

“Certainly.” John said. “If you can keep the humans busy thinking about the past, then they don’t notice when you are manipulating the present. So they cast glamour over your mind and keep you all wrapped up in your thoughts while they raid the dryer for ear wear.” John got up from the table and prepared to leave. “That’s that.” he said. “Proof that trolls, warps in the space-time continuum and lazy minds really do exist.”

“Preposterous.” she said as she watched him leave the coffeehouse. She crossed her legs beneath the table, hoping that he had not noticed that her socks did not match.