Laundry Night by John D. Connelley

Fat Freddy hated laundry.  He hated the insolent way the grotesque pile grew.  He hated the smug swish-swash sound of the washing machine, and the self-satisfying whirr of its spin cycle.  And after all that, he especially hated the selfishness of the dryer keeping all that warmth for itself and the undeserving clothes.  One day, he thought, it’s all going to come to a boil.

     Whenever the pile of laundry loomed large in Fat Freddy’s bedroom, it began to loom large in his mind.  Overwhelmed, he would take to drink.  Earlier that month, due to his slovenly wardrobe, he had lost his job, his girlfriend – his dignity.  Even the junkyard dog he fed through the rusty fence in his small, unkempt backyard had gone away.  But there was still the loathsome laundry.  It never went away.  Whenever he took care of it, it always grew back: an eternal weed.  He began to blame the ever-growing pile for all his woes.  Late one night, drink in hand, standing over the squalid pile of clothes, Fat Freddy decided he would leave it like everything he cared for had left him.

     Soon, the laundry began to despise Fat Freddy.  It wanted revenge for the way it was being treated.  It was tired of being a victim of his misplaced blame.  One evening, just after Fat Freddy

stripped off the greasy sweatpants he had been wearing for weeks and tossed the smelly garment on top of the pile of laundry, causing it to unceremoniously topple over, the pile hatched its plan.

***

Many days later, Fat Freddy, completely naked, peered with contempt into the empty washing machine.  Something moved behind him.  It was a pair of socks.  They quickly slid past him and leapt into the machine.

“What the fuck!” yelled Fat Freddy, his eyes widening.

“Fuck you, Fat Freddy,” the socks uttered as they formed themselves into fist shapes and gave

him the finger.  “Wash us, bitch, we’re tired of lying around on the floor after sheathing your smelly-ass feet!” they exclaimed, stretching out their middle fingers even more.

“Suck my dick!” Fat Freddy replied.

“Suck our dick!” the socks said, one forming itself into the shape of a huge, erect penis and the other into a set of dangly balls.

“Fuck y’all,” said Fat Freddy as he slammed the washer lid shut.

“Wear us for a whole fucking month, and then just throw us on the floor to baste in your foot-funk until your lazy ass decides to do laundry?  Fuck that!” the muffled voices of the socks yelled.

Fat Freddy went as usual to get his whiskey bottle and forget about doing laundry.  He poured two shots in his glass, guzzled it down and then fell asleep on the couch.  When he awoke, the rest of the dirty laundry had piled itself in front of him, staring him down.

“Aight, aight, I get it,” Fat Freddy said, getting up and filling the washing machine with the fetid clothing.  As soon as all the laundry was in the washer, he slammed the lid shut and put the heavy fire extinguisher he kept by the dryer on top.

“Now, fuck all y’all!” he said, stomping back to the couch for another drink.  As he left, the laundry was cursing him as it banged on the underside of the lid, but the weight of the fire extinguisher kept it closed.

Fat Freddy drank another shot and fell asleep again.  This time when he awoke, it was around midnight, and there was only silence and darkness surrounding him.  He turned on a light and went to the laundry room.  The extinguisher was still on the lid, but there was no movement, no sounds coming from within the washer.  Curious, Fat Freddy put the extinguisher on the floor and slowly opened the lid.  Only the socks were there.

“Well, Fat Freddy, so nice of you to visit,” one sock said as the other nodded.

Suddenly, the socks lunged at him, and when he brought his hands up to protect his face, he felt a powerful shove from behind.  Fat Freddy was pushed head-first into the washing machine.  The huge pile of stinking laundry then heaped itself on top of him, trying to stuff him all the way in.  A pair of yellowed underwear slithered over his face and forced its way into his mouth.  One of the socks turned the machine on while the other flipped the temperature to hot.  The laundry gripped Fat Freddy like a putrid vice until his struggling body went limp.

Weeks later, when the stench of Fat Freddy’s body caused his neighbor to call the building’s manager, the maintenance man was dispatched to investigate.  He was greeted by the sight of a stack of clean, neatly-folded laundry on the couch, and a rotting corpse sprawled out on the laundry room floor.

John D. Connelley

Image by Engin Akyurt from Pixabay