"Unmatched" by Keba Ghardt
Unmatched
Loey snorted, her lips squiggling against each other in her effort not to laugh. “I mean, it’s kind of—”
“It’s not funny!” Tristan hissed. He pointed a trembling finger at the laundry room floor. “It is a threat!”
The floor was covered in socks. The spotless, water-tight tile was kept fastidiously clean by the household’s two maids, and Loey had only happened upon the strange configuration when she went to drop off their soiled vacation clothes. No one had set foot in the high-value property for the past week, but there on the floor were a few dozen mismatched socks, all styles and colors, no two alike, spelling out the phrase: “Your time has come”.
“It’s a prank,” Loey dismissed, taking her husband’s radiating arm. “It doesn’t mean anything; it’s just a goof.”
“Look!” Tristan growled, pulling her close to him so they could view the offending footwear from the same accusatory angle. “For God’s sake, woman! Look at the socks!”
“I—I do see the socks,” Loey assured him.
“The kind of socks,” Tristan insisted. “They’re not paired, they’re not folded, they’re not new…those are missing socks!”
Loey frowned. “They’re right there. You’re looking at them.”
Tristan covered his crumpled face with his hands, and allowed Loey to push him into the stainless-steel kitchen, sitting him down at the extended marble breakfast bar, well out of sight of the nightmarish knitwear. Busying herself with their state-of-the-art espresso machine, Loey soothed, “Maybe it wasn’t meant for us, maybe somebody was playing a joke on Stacia or Gloria. I’m sure one of them keeps the mismatched socks in case a pair turns up, and the other was just leaving her a note…on vacation…in English…”
Dragging his hands down the slope of his face, Tristan gazed across the kitchen with St. Bernard eyes. “No. It was meant for me. This is all my fault.”
Loey hoped the scream of the steam wand would cover up her nervous giggle. “It’s not a big deal, babe, I’ll go clean it up right now—”
“Don’t go back there!”
The demitasse cup smashed against the floor, bouncing on a chipped rim as macchiato slashed across the kitchen. “Damnit, Tristan!” Loey snarled, clutching her rabbiting heart. “Tell me what’s going on!”
A shuddering sigh escaped Tristan, sweat beading on his green-tinged face. “They’ve come back,” he groaned. “The sock gnomes.”
Loey’s shoulders slumped beneath the weight of her dead-eyed stare. “The…what?”
“Don’t laugh at me!”
“Oh, honey, nobody’s laughing.”
Tristan helped himself to a steadying breath. He got up, crossed the kitchen to the wine fridge, and helped himself to an Argentinian zinfandel. Loey sucked spilled espresso from her wrist, and watched her husband with the hurt suspicion of a toy poodle whose bone bit back.
“Okay,” Tristan said, into his second glass of wine and not offering to share. “Okay. I was a different man before I met you. I wasn’t…who I am; I didn’t have all this.”
“Okay,” Loey said. “Still waiting on the socks.”
“I’m getting there,” Tristan promised. “Look, when I was young…I was shy. I didn’t have many friends, didn’t know how to talk to girls. I wanted to be a part of the in crowd, so I…started to learn a little magic.”
“How young are we talking?”
“Just—that’s not important,” Tristan decided. “It worked, anyway. People paid attention to me, remembered my name. I got a few kits, a few props, foam balls, rubber thumb. I started getting invited to parties, putting together a little bit for a talent show—”
“So, young enough to still be in talent shows.”
“At first.” Tristan bit his lip, working on his third glass of wine and unable to look at his wife’s face. “I…I never went pro, but I could have. I was good. But any trick you do, there’s only one first time, and no one’s as amazed the second time around. I was constantly scrounging for new material, always chasing that high. One day, I stumbled on something that was never meant for me. I discovered something real.” He looked over at Loey. “Are you listening to me?”
“Yep. Totally.” Loey had gotten a rag and was picking up shards of broken, coffee-stained porcelain. “No, I’m listening, go ahead. You found a new trick, or something? Are we getting to the socks?”
Tristan stared into the swirling garnet of his glass. “I discovered a book with the power to summon real magic. One of the very oldest miracles is to make something disappear, and to bring it back again. The sock gnomes have orchestrated the vanishing of objects for thousands of years—”
“Have socks been around for thousands of years?” Loey asked, washing her hands in the sink.
Tristan blinked at the last shreds of his narrative. “They had them in ancient Rome.”
“No kidding?”
“You’re not listening to me!”
“Oh, honey, come on.” Loey flicked water from her fingertips into the steel sink, unwilling to wipe them dry on her couture culottes. “Sock gnomes? Seriously? Am I supposed to—”
But any trick you do, there’s only one first time, and no one’s as amazed the second time around.
There was a sound from the laundry room. Tristan clutched the bottle of wine to his chest, wide eyes staring at the half-open door. Loey looked from the door to her husband, a single wrinkle marking her frown, and she took one small step toward the dreaded room.
“No, Loey!” Tristan sprang forward, grabbing his wife’s arm with one hand, the other hand hurling the wine bottle toward the laundry room door. A spiral of ruby juice flew from the somersaulting missile as it bowled over a tiny, bearded fellow in a pointy little hat.
With a helium war cry, itty-bitty combatants came charging from the laundry room door, armed with clothespin catapults firing Tide pods at the cornered couple. Brandishing his corkscrew, Tristan held off the half-pint home invaders long enough for Loey to clamber onto the countertop and make eight-ounce grenades of the Ikea coffee mugs, porcelain projectiles scything through the inch-high infantry.
Opening the wine fridge at his side, Tristan rolled bottle after carefully curated bottle across the frictionless flooring, scattering the sock gnomes until they were forced to beat a beanie retreat. “Come on!” Tristan urged, helping his wife back to earth in the temporary ceasefire. “We have to escape—”
“Hold on a goddamn second!” Loey shrieked. “What exactly did you do?”
The tiny gnomes squealed out the guinea-pig cry of violent defiance, rallying for a second assault. Working in teams, the teeny meanies raced forward with a coat hanger vanguard, scraping and skittering over the linoleum battlefield. Clambering up on top of the breakfast bar, Loey and Tristan dodged the limited reach of the wire hooks, whipping at the mini melee with twisted dish towels. An enterprising assassin climbed up a ladder-like bar stool and jabbed at the nearest shapely ankle with a sharpened lint brush, only to fall off the counter again under the barrage of Loey’s frantic kicks.
Tristan made a desperate reach for the kitchen sink, and used the hose attachment to spray down the bearded brigade. While the gnomes slipped, slid, and tumbled over each other in their effort to get to dry ground, Loey used an oversized decorative salad fork to defend her husband. “Why are they here?” she demanded. “What do they want?”
Tristan gulped. “Payment.”
Loey screamed. The miniscule menace had commandeered a rolling hamper, and emerged from their encampment in a cloud of fury, a full-force electric steamer blasting out a hot, damp warpath. The spray nozzle was nothing in the face of such sophisticated weaponry, forcing Tristan and Loey to abandon their defensive position and dive for open floor.
As soon as they hit the unrelenting ground, a second regiment descended, lassos at the ready, and quickly trussed up their oversized opponents with washing line. “Tristan!” Loey cried, struggling against the sock-obsessed swarm. “I won’t let them take you!”
“No, Loey!” Tristan wailed, trying to reach her. “They’re not here for me!”
The adorable army pulled the lines taught, and dragged the betrayed bride, screaming, across the checkerboard floor. The laundry room door slammed shut.
Keba Ghardt works for a non-profit in Washington DC, and has written short fiction, plays, and Unitarian sermons. Keba is bipolar, bisexual, and non-binary.