"Master of the Portals" by Christine Graves via Leonardo AI
It was typical Sunday morning. I'd gotten out of bed and started my day. It was early and everyone else was still asleep, or so I had thought. I heard something in the laundry room, but I couldn't make out what it was.
I went in to investigate, expecting to find my youngest child trying to hide from me or getting into something he shouldn't. But there was nothing nor anyone in the room. I chalked it up to not having my morning coffee and went on my way.
As the family began to stir, I got breakfast started and decided to do a load of laundry. I'd thrown a few things in the dryer the night before, mostly socks and undergarments, but never took them out to fold them.
I got one load started and pulled the other from the dryer. Nothing out of the norm, just threw them in a basket and took them to my room to fold.
As I began to match up my socks, I realized that there were several that were missing. I always had a missing sock here and there, but this seemed different. Almost every single pair I'd thrown in the laundry the night before was missing its mate.
I barked at the kids, reminding them that they had to bring me ALL of their dirty clothes, to which they bellowed back that they had. I knew better. It sparked a full day of cleaning out closets, under beds, corners, and anywhere else I thought they may have left a lonely sock behind. To my dismay, we only found three.
At the end of the day, I got the kids bathed and off to bed. It was quiet in the house once again and I was set on enjoying a little of it before heading off to bed myself.
As I sat in the silence, I heard something in my laundry room once again. I was sure my youngest had snuck out of bed and was into something he shouldn't be. I decided to sneak up on him and surprise him, but that's not what happened.
As I entered my laundry room, I noticed a tiny being digging through my dryer. I was stunned and a squeaky breath left my body. The sound jolted the being out of my dryer and I stood there staring at this creature before me. It looked like a tiny human, but had pointed ears and was wearing a red velvet cloak.
I could tell it was just as scared as I was, so I didn't make any sudden movements. We stood there for a few moments, then it reached out its hands to me. That's when I noticed it was holding most of my missing socks.
"Forgive, please," it said in a tiny voice. "No hurt, please." The thought sent shivers down my spine.
"No, I won't hurt you if you promise not to hurt me," I whispered.
"Need socks," it said with its eyes turned down. "Need socks to go home."
I had no idea what it meant and it apparently realized this. It put most of the socks back in the dryer, except for one of my heavy woolen ones. The little creature held the sock up, closed its eyes, and began to chant in a language I'd never heard before.
The sock began to swirl and a portal formed in the center of my laundry room. I could see through the portal that a beautiful woodland lay on the other side. "Home," the creature said, pointing to the portal.
I only nodded in silence, still to stunned to speak.
"No come back," the creature said in a saddened voice. "No socks for to come back. I not mean bad for you. I go home now."
My heart felt as though it were being ripped from my chest. I watched as the little creature began to step through the portal.
"Wait," I exclaimed. The tiny creature stopped and looked back at me with apprehension in its eyes.
I slowly walked to the dryer and pulled the matching sock out and handed it to the creature. "You can come back and you can have all the old socks you want. All I ask is that you leave our newer and nicer socks alone."
The creature smiled and its eyes lit up. It stuck the sock in its cloak, bowed to me, then popped through the portal, which closed as soon as the being was through.
I wasn't sure if what I'd witnessed was real or if it was just an elaborate dream, as the next thing I remembered was waking up in my chair.
My children are all grown up now and have children of their own. I live on my own and have a fairly good life. However, I still go out of my way to make sure I have extra socks and leave a few in the dryer for my little friend to come and go from their world into ours. I've never seen the creature since, but I'm always pulling socks out of my dryer and wonder where their mates have gone.
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Hello, my lovelies. I know it's been a hot minute since I last wrote. Life has a weird way of getting away from us when we're not looking.
The above story is from a prompt I received from Gemini AI. I use Gemini a lot and it helped me get out of my slump. I mean, it's helping me get out of my slump, I'm not there quite yet. But this helped.
The prompt was a "what if" prompt. Here's the whole prompt:
What if the reason you can never find the matching sock after doing laundry is because all lost socks are actually consumed by a tiny, velvet-cloaked being who uses them to weave portals to the past?
As odd as it sounds, this was exactly what I needed to get back into writing. Gemini wanted me to do a freewrite--only write for 5 to 10 minutes--however, once I started, I couldn't stop. It just flowed. I haven't felt that in several months.
I'm hoping to get back into the swing of writing again, but I've got to find my rhythm again. I know I can't do that overnight, but this was a great way to start. Thank you Gemini. You're the best.
