ODD
SOCKS
By Amanda Russell
Taking a deep breath of the drier air on this side of the door, Zoe Wilmont keyed in the code with her comlock and entered Alpha's laundry room. Despite the excellent ventilation that took the humid air out of the laundry and distributed it to the rest of the base, the large room perpetually smelled of wet polyester. Zoe had gotten used to it - sort of - and took comfort in the fact it could be worse; it could smell of some of the dirty laundry before it was cleaned.
The need to conserve both energy and water had resulted in the closing of the smaller, residential laundry facilities and consolidating all the washing needs of the base to the larger industrial laundry area. The facilities had originally been designed to handle all the items supplied to base personnel, such as sheets, towels and the laundry generated by the Medical Center, but now everything was done here, personal laundry as well as those items for which the facilities had been designed.
A great deal could be learned from personal laundry, but Zoe had long since lost interest in which couple had sex how often in a week, or whose underwear came in with someone's different than the week before. The job was primarily tedious - no, make that down right boring, and Zoe had kind of been assigned to the job because she had the plumbing, electrical and mechanical skills needed to keep the washers and dryers running; because she could make parts that were designed for completely different makes and models work like a dream in the larger machines. She'd been called a genius at cannibalizing parts. Zoe supposed that was good. At least it kept everyone in clean clothes.
When she'd first been assigned to the job, Zoe had used the time between endless loads of washing and drying to speculate about the circumstances that brought certain items to her laundry room. She quickly grew tired of that and instead used the time to work on her writing. She'd started writing stories as a kid and had resumed writing not long after she was assigned to laundry duty. The duty was boring but she liked the time to herself to write. Not that she was ready to let anyone read what she was writing. She did it only for herself, but she had been thinking about - maybe - someday, sharing her fiction. Maybe she'd do it anonymously. Maybe she'd let Jane Tamblyn, Alpha's librarian, read one or two of her stories first and if she liked them and thought they were any good, then she'd allow Jane to add them to the library's limited supply of reading material. Zoe knew her stories would be welcome, whether they were good or not. Anything new on the shelves would be welcome. She'd think about it - maybe - someday. Until then she'd keep writing, and doing laundry.
Over the months Zoe had detected a pattern for many of her fellow Alphans as far as their laundry habits went. Some would have weekly loads of laundry for her, coming in on the same day of the week, without fail. Some sent laundry to her every ten days, then there were one or two who remembered to send their laundry only when they ran out of clean underwear or socks. Zoe glanced at the pile awaiting her that day. On top was the bag belonging to Victor Bergman. His laundry was singularly uninteresting and fell into the 'clean underwear and socks' category. However, one thing about the Professor's laundry was consistent. Zoe could be certain that each time Bergman's laundry passed through her machines, there would be several odd socks in the load. The mismatched socks would be different each time, and the number of odd socks would vary with each load. Sometimes the mismatched socks would find their mates the next time the laundry came in, and sometimes the socks would remain odd for several washings before finally being paired up again. Zoe had to smile. There was something very endearing about Professor Bergman's odd socks, and she was always pleased to see his laundry bag in the pile. No matter what else the day brought her, Zoe could be sure the Professor's laundry, at least, would provide her with a distraction.
She smiled again and reached for Bergman's laundry bag. One day she thought she might work a character who wore comfortable old bedroom slippers, an old cardigan and only odd socks into one of her stories.
October 15, 2000
By Amanda Russell
Copyright 2000, Lunatic Productions, Inc.
