"Socks": A Quick Story

As promised, here's another short story I wrote! Enjoy and remember to check out my author page at Facebook.com/authoremilyblue and on Twitter @Miss_Emily_Blue. Obligatory self-promotion finished, here's the story.

Socks

Domino looked down at the socks on his feet, socks crusted with dried sweat and blood, less like pieces of clothing and more like shed snake skin. They had never had any shape to begin with and now lacked even the tension to pretend at functionality.

He loved them.

He bent over, one candidate out of thousands in the crowd all undressing. He removed first one sock and then the other. Utterly naked now, feeing his nudity for the first time even though he had tossed his shirt and pants aside already, he looked at the sad, ropey sacks which were all he had left in the world.

“Hey, you,” a sharp voice barked.

Domino turned and looked at the speaker, an older man with large dark eyes and a head shaved except for a thin stripe running from his forehead to the base of his skull.

“You’re done.” The man snapped off each word as if biting vegetables in chunks to drop into a stew in lieu of using a knife. “Go get in line.”

“Yes, sir,” Domino said. His feet moved for him before he finished speaking, taking him to the building whose placement he had memorized when he set foot in the compound. The crowd of others around him blocked his progress. He held the socks tight and shoved his shoulder into thin gaps, splitting men apart like an axe cleaving through firewood. Hands and thrown clothes struck him, other legs tangling with his as he slid by. The stench of sweat, the reek of hard travel, was thick enough to be tasted in the air. Tasted like tears. Because the air was occupied by smells, because all the men were moving as fast as they could, there was no room for conversation. Domino heard only grunts and gasps when he passed by the people making them, mistook the reverberant pounding of footsteps on the ground for his own racing heartbeat.

Another shove and he burst through the bulk of the undressing crowd to a sector with more order to it due to a fence -thin and ramshackle, but still a fence- and men with stripe haircuts guarding each entrance. Lines meandered through the gates. Domino watched, waited for his turn. Anticipation coiled serpentine in his gut.

Men came here in the hopes of being chosen. If someone was approved here, he was sent to another compound to be approved there and then at the headquarters after that, at which time he was to be christened a new citizen of the reforming country of Oss and welcomed into one of the walled cities.

Domino knew he might be rejected at any stage. If a man was not suited for a new life, he was sent away by train to elsewhere. Local rejection offices handed out tickets to anyone who wished to skip the long process. That way out would be so much easier. But if there was hope, any hope at all…

“Next!”

Domino blinked, realized no one was ahead of him. Legs trembling, he stepped up to the gate and looked the soldier in the eye. This one wore so many stripes upon his head, was of such a high rank, he nearly had all his hair.

“What is that?” the many-striped soldier demanded, pointing at Domino’s hand. “No personal belongings.”

“I know,” Domino said. Tried to say. His voice cracked. He licked his lips, tried again. “I know that. My grandmother made these for me.”

The soldier stared at him.

Domino pulled in such a deep breath his shoulders lifted. Everything inside him was loose and tight all at once. “I love them.”

The other man’s lips pressed together, thinning. His decision glowed bright in his eyes. He opened his mouth, showing a flash of folded tongue already most of the way through forming sound.

Spinning around, Domino threw the socks away as hard as he could. They sailed, pathetic kites fluttering in the air, and disappeared under the feet of the mob. “But I love my country more,” he announced, loud and proud, believing with his whole heart what he said.

Momentary stillness. A beat in which nothing breathed, not man, not the world itself. Then, the guard nodded slowly. “Hold out your arm.”

This wasn’t part of the process as far as Domino knew. He did it, anyway. The tendons in his wrist stood out against his skin.

The soldier reached into his pocket and pulled out an object that looked like a modified syringe. He placed the flat tip on the back of Domino’s wrist and depressed the plunger. Pain, sharp and quick. Domino flinched and yanked his arm back, staring at the mark that had been left upon him. It was small and square, too regular to be mistaken for a freckle.

Replacing the device in his uniform pocket, the soldier said, “Show that mark at each compound you visit.”

“What is it for?”

“It shows you have promise and dedication. It won’t guarantee acceptance, but it does increase your chances. Now, move. You’re holding up the line.”

“Thank you,” Domino gasped, and sprinted through the gate to join the others all headed in the same direction. Tears of gratitude stung his eyes, twin to the twinging pain on his arm. He had no idea where he was headed or what he would do when he got there. All he knew was that he would do the best he could. Right now, that was all anyone could do, even if it meant putting the good of the country ahead of the good of the individual.

©2019 Emily Blue