How to Train a Dragon?

[WP] You have no idea where your socks keep going. You put six pairs of matching socks in, you somehow get three unmatched out. Frustrated, one day you stick your head into the dryer. Inside there, tucked into the underside, you find a tiny dragon in a nest of lost clothing and pocket change.

*****

I stared at the colourful sock in my hand. „Is this a joke?“, I thought to myself, „Is the universe, personally, laughing at me?“ The constant loss of my socks had caused me to only buy black socks without branding, all of the same height and thickness, so that I‘d be able to form pairs even if a few go missing. This was a bright pink sock, showing the image of a princess, in a size fitting only a child of around 5 years.

I was still fuming, but I dutifully threw all the socks into the bin next to the washing machine. I tried to dig through the bin, but I couldn‘t find any black socks in there, since they always were the first to go. The problem is known, just like the known problem of the eternal stink of burnt plastic down here. Someone had put up the sock bin months ago and it was almost always full. Since then, nobody had tried anything else. There’s nothing more permanent than a temporary solution.

Of course, the problem being known doesn‘t mean that it‘s fixed. The landlord isn’t responding, so someone else should investigate it for the good of all. It‘s annoying everyone, but no one wants to take on the responsibility. They‘re all cowards and lazy and sliding by on other people’s work and… and…

„I could fix it.“, my slightly guilty conscience tells me, „I‘m doing the same thing as they are, pretending the problem doesn‘t exist until someone else gets fed up and solves it.“ I have just as much responsibility as every other tenant to fix it, maybe slightly more since I‘m a repairman and therefore know at least a little about washing machines.

I grumble about that, but my patience is at an end. If no one else will fix it, then I will. Maybe I can even send the bill to the landlord?

After hanging up my laundry and fetching my tools, I begin my work. I start by inspecting the seal between drum and door. This is the location where socks usually disapear, but it looks like the one on every other washing machine. I try to pry it apart a little to look inside, but I don‘t see anything down there. I wish it had been that easy, I wish I would have found a magical stack of lost socks that I could just pull out and presto. Problem solved!

With a sigh, I make my decision. It seems like I have to put in the work on my day off. I disconnect water and electricity and pull the machine forwards, so that I can access the rear side. The first thing I notice is that the plastic usually covering the rear side is missing in large parts. The next thing is that the edges are thick and wavy, like they were melted and then resolidified. At least if I can‘t solve the sock problem, I‘ve found the cause of the smell problem.

I pull the machine back further into the small, dark room with a grunt of effort. When I drop it again, a hissing sound emanates from it for a split second as the heavy machine rocks a little.

I climb behind it and pull out my flashlight since the old, yellow ceiling light offers barely any use. The light cone falls first on the burnt edges of the cover. It continues to wander over the mechanisms of the machine, reflected in the matte way of unpolished metal parts. A dark shadow in the far corner catches my attention. It looks like fabric, it looks like a mass of black socks!

A tsunami of relief washes over me. I still don‘t know what caused the problem, but at least I‘ll have socks to wear as I figure it out. I reach into the mass of socks, most of them black yet a few of other colours mixed in.

They feel warm, but the washing machine has just been running, so that probably heated them. I grab a sock and pull it out, still not believing my luck to have found them. It‘s one of mine!

My next grab is a lot more greedy. I plunge my hand into the machine, close it around the socks, and freeze when I feel something move. I jerk my hand back as though something had burned me.

In front of my own eyes, the socks continued moving. They shifted, some were pressed against the wall, some were thrown outwards. From among what I could only think of as a nest now, a snake-like eye looked out and caught my gaze.

I‘m not normally afraid of snakes, I find them quite cute in actuality. But this eye, commanding a lengthy head and a long neck, scared me. It looked at me, with a darkness unique to itself, found my eyes and just stared. I threw myself backwards with a yelping scream.

My back hit the wall hard, my flashlight stopped illuminating the innards of the machine, and deep within, I could hear movement. Small clacks sounded out, telling of claws clacking against the metal supports. Once or twice a louder soundemanated, as though something made of flesh had just hit its surroundings hard. I remained motionless for a long time, frozen in a panic.

But the creature didn‘t emerge. Before long, the sounds subsided and I found myself able to breathe easier. I laughed a little, trying and failing to make myself feel better.

I looked into the machine a second time, this time preparing myself for the eyes of whatever sock monster lived in there. Those were my socks it was using!

The nest was as it was before, as though I‘d never disturbed it. I poked it with the flashlight.

It unravelled, the outer socks fell off again as the head pierced through the surface again. I kept steady this time, and could start making out the other features of the sock monster. Wings appeared out of the mass of fabric and flapped slowly once or twice to help it balance. Its legs was shorter and, like the rest of its body, covered in copper scales.

Now that I could see everything, it wasn‘t as scary. Even though it tried to be, it was just the size of a large rat. It also tried to hard to hiss and glower and buckle its back, until it looked more adorable than threatening. The fact that it had chewed holes into the second pink-princess-sock and was wearing it as a sweater didn‘t help it being taken seriously.

I laughed a little as I realized that our almost supernatural sock problem indeed had a supernatural cause. A dragon was hoarding them.

The cute sock monster was stalking towards me, still hissing, but focusing on the sock still in my left hand. I held it still until the dragon reached it, sntached it with its mouth and bounced back to its nest. I laughed a little and devised a strategy for getting the little thief out of there.

My strategy was to just pull over the sock bin and show it to the sock monster. It bounded into the basket as soon as it saw it. I closed the lid and put my toolbox on top as I pulled out all of the socks from inside the washing machine. I opened the basket to check on my little rescue and found it that it had already constructed a second nest. It hissed at me again, but acquiesced when I added the majority black one from its first hoard.

I closed the lid again, replaced and reconnected the washing machine, and headed upstairs into my apartment. The only problem left to solve was what to do with the little sock monster. But I had done enough problem solving for today. The little thief could live in my sock drawer for the night, and then we‘ll see about the rest. Or maybe we don‘t. There‘s nothing more permanent than a temporary solution.