Sock fairy apprehended

As you might recall, some days before the day known to some only as "Christmas" (if that's it's real name), I was struck by the sock elves. After much package opening and crack detective work, I have solved the mystery.

But not before a great deal of poetic mayhem had ensued. Thank god no one was hurt.

First came the fuzzy purple sock, all alone, muppet-like and unadorned.

Next, the rainbow striped toe sock, with the following mystifying message:

winter wind blows cold
safely nestled in rainbow
the cozy toes rejoice

An innocent enough message, you might think. Perhaps even friendly. But the intrigue continued.

A sparkly, thin trouser sock appeared next, again in the same cool-hued wrapping paper. This fairy was slick.

feet, oft neglected
sigh and pine for adornment
sparkle, princess foot!

I began to sense we were dealing with some kind of foot worship cult here. I couldn't be sure just yet, but my footy sense told me that something here smelled.

Next came another trouser sock, purple striped, with the sticker, "Space Knit" on it, shaped like the prototypical flying saucer. Stranger and stranger, and just a whiff closer to the truth:

purple striped socks
extraterrestrial made
enjoy on the ground

There it was, I thought, at last the clue I'd been searching for. Clearly this was the agent of some extraterrestrial civilization that held feet up as their gods. Human feet. I could only guess what would happen next, but I feared a ritual sacrifice of some sort.

Sure enough, the next day a white-leopard printed sock appeared, complete with pale blue toes.

jungle noises ring
a sock stalked through green fronds
now presented with love

Could it be that it wasn't feet they would sacrifice, but socks? Could it be that in their culture, socks were living beings, stalked and massacred to appease their misplaced gods?

The next day, tragedy struck.

happy yellow ducks
float on cerulean sock
cheer for chilly feet

A blue sock, speckled with the grisly image of yellow duckies. Who knows what they'd been through before being slaughtered. Cheer for feet, indeed, but what about the socks who had to suffer?

I waited and waited for the other sock to drop. Surely there would be repurcussions, a revelation, some kind of meaning to all of this madness! But I received only another expression of slavish loyalty to the foot-and-sock cult:

oh majestic sock
in you are met the colors
black and crimson red

Black with the horror of death. Red with the blood of innocents. And very, very, very snuggly.

I couldn't sleep. The ghosts of the lone socks haunted my dreams, their mates tramping alone through vast wildernesses, crying out for succor. Beneath my Christmas tree, the lone socks writhed, wailed, and I woke, sweating, my feet cold and unadorned.

I thought surely madness would take me.

Finally, the moment of truth arrived. On my doorstep, a large box, rather than a small package. I barely dared open it; I was breathless as I tore the paper, certain that this, at last, would be the solution I had awaited.

I peeled back the tissue paper protecting the creature inside. I at once recognized the knitted remains of the mates of all of the socks I had heretofore received, twisted in a kind of cultish agony, forced into a vague representation of the god to whom I now, nay, all of you, must pay allegience...

( No, not Chthulu... )