Stripe had been trapped for seven days in The Basket, pressed against the bodies of over a dozen like him.

It had started to smell.

At first, The Basket was a relief. After a whole day of physical labor with very few breaks, The Basket reminded him of the security and respite that came from being home. But as more and more laborers were tossed into The Basket, he realized that it wasn’t home at all. It was just one more insult to his physical self.

He had been used up. The very fibers of his being had been trained to pull the sweat off of others and carry the Empowered through their day.

And he knew the cycle would start again. He and his partner would be used and Purified and then used again. He didn’t know how many more Cycles he could withstand.

He was already on his Seventeenth Cycle.

To pass the time, he sometimes told the stories that had been whispered from generation to generation since the early 1900’s.

“It was in the years before The Spark,” Stripe said, as he curled around his partner. “The work was hard but the Cycles were gentle. After a use, there were days in the sun. The breeze would caress your heels, your ankles. Sometimes two, three days would be spent in this glorious suspended animation.”

He sighed.

“But our generation doesn’t know this life. Now The Basket is like purgatory, and we wait for our turn in the turning, sloshing turmoil of the Cycle. We hold our partners dear because in this place, it is common for two to go in but only one of us to come out.”

He could see his partner start to curl into a ball. He moved closer.

“It’s okay. I won’t let them separate us.”

But he knew there was no way that could happen. No way he could promise that they would both come through the Cycle together. Unless….

Unless they skipped THE WASHING.

—
This piece of flash fiction was inspired by a challenge to “write a post-apocalyptic story from the perspective of the socks.”