At least four months ago, I asked my followers (which were very few at the time) to supply me with an opening line for a short story, which I would then compose. It was harder than I'd expected, so three months passed before the first of three opening lines became a [story](https://steemit.com/creativewriting/@scribblingramma/a-short-story). About three weeks ago, the second line became the start of another [tale](https://steemit.com/writing/@scribblingramma/billy-s-imaginary-birthday). Today I have tackled the third and final opening line, which was supplied by @generikat. (Thank you, and sorry for the delay!) I've recently been experimenting with 5-minute freewrites, which has helped a great deal! *Sock Tales* follows:

The hole in her sock, while a seemingly innocuous thing, had quite a story to tell.  Any sock knows this: if you were to do a survey of all the socks in the drawer, you would find that 60% of holes are in the toes, 25% are in the heel, 14% are in the ball of the foot, and 1% are elsewhere. This was a 1% hole, near the ankle. It was very small, hardly noticeable in fact. 

She had acquired this hole in her sock while on a hike. She was clambering over jumbled rocks and through prickly sagebrush when she heard the warning rattle from the snake's tail, and she had frozen in place until she spied the rattlesnake just a couple of feet away. She stood there for a long time, hoping it would go away, and wishing she had paid more attention to the "keep on the paved path" signs at the rest area. She had no weapon of any kind, not even a walking stick.  Slowly, carefully, she began to ease back the way she had come. Hearing were no further rattling sounds from that sneaky snake, she gained courage and scrambled quickly down the slope. 

That was when she tripped, lost her balance, and rolled toward the edge of the cliff. She could hear the traffic on the freeway below, and an unbidden picture of herself as road kill lodged itself in her frantic mind. To escape a rattlesnake's bite and then crash-land in front of a rapidly-moving semi-truck seemed quite unfair.

Just then, her foot caught in a clump of sagebrush, stopping her unwelcome tumble into oblivion. Breathing heavily, she lay quite still and took inventory of herself. All body parts were intact. Her hat lay nearby. Her shoes were still on her feet.  The only evidence of her unorthodox descent was a tiny hole in one sock, near the ankle.