In recent days, there has been an odd sock in the front of the drawer which holds my socks.

My sock drawer is situtated in a cabinet, which holds my underwear above it and a tin box and cotton square hankerchieves below it.

Today, home alone recovering from illness, I felt well enough to change the bedsheets and whilst doing so, I notice in the corner of my eye a pile of ironed clothes ready to be placed in the closets which adorn the room to hold them.

I find, that the pile is not organised, as it might have been if I had been ironing (a task incidentally which I never do, but I imagine that is how it would be if I was to do so!).

The ironing had been done in a random order, socks, underwear, socks, nightwear, jeans, shirt, socks, blouse, jeans, shirt, socks, underwear, etc etc.

I sort through the load, bringing my organisational skills to a serious disorder of the clothes.

I arrange bespoke piles on the clean bedding of socks for her, underwear for me, blouse for her, shirt for me, jeans… jeans again both mine, a little damp, so I hang them over the radiator to air them off.

Phew, I have avoided putting, at a later time, a dry toned, hairy leg, some might call it beautiful, into a damp denim tube. I am satisfied that order is being restored.

I keep going through the pile, I find an odd sock,and looking around on the bed I see nothing with which it can be paired, its’s purpose is suspended in perilous animation.

I suddenly recall the odd sock in my sock drawer, is it a match I wonder? or is it a duplication of a potentially worthless item?. Phew, again!, it is a match. I join them together and place them in my pile of socks.

I have finished sorting, so I quickly open drawers and drop my things into their correct place, and slide doors open to find the hangers, do the hanging and slide them closed.

The socks which have been separated have been reunited and are lost in and amongst the other garments with the same purpose into my middle drawer.

Somehow, coming off my feet a few days ago, they were separated in the process of washing and drying them. Their usefulness held by a thread, held by a willingness to give some time to the hope that they would eventually find each other, without any attempt to actually go look and support their cause.

Their finding of each other, is as random as the the act of losing each other, unplanned, unintended, unlucky.

Their reunicifaction secures for them a purpose and a future, a life of service, a life of care, a life for me in the service of my feet, a life for me in the service of my conflicted heart.

William Defoe