FLASH FICTION – FOWC & RDP

In the heart of a creaky old workshop, Reginald the Raccoon, steampunk engineer extraordinaire, adjusted his brass goggles and stared at his latest invention: the Interdimensional Sock Locator 3000. His mission was clear and absurd — recover The Sock. Not just any sock. The one embroidered with tiny mechanical gears and the words “Wrench It Like You Mean It.”

But the sock had vanished into the most feared place in the entire workshop — The Closet.

The Closet wasn’t just a closet. It was a legendary abyss, sealed with a handwritten warning: “ENTER AT OWN RISK — MAY CONTAIN WILD TOASTERS”. Inside were decades of misplaced inventions, rogue gadgets, and sandwiches from questionable eras.

Reginald wasn’t afraid. He was prepared.

He packed his essentials: a grappling hook, a glowing morale-boosting lightbulb, a peanut butter sandwich (for negotiations — mayonnaise had backfired last time), and his trusty spanner. Thus began The Closet Quest.

With a deep breath, he cracked open the door. The closet sucked him in with a WHOOOOOMP — the kind of sound a vacuum cleaner would make if it suddenly gained ambition.

Inside was chaos: umbrellas lunged like javelins, toasters flung shuriken-bread, and an especially grumpy bagpipe band oozed around, playing nothing but angry honks. Reginald ducked and weaved, narrowly avoiding a spatula attack.

Halfway in, he encountered the sandwich kingpin — a towering club sandwich wearing a tiny crown of pickle slices.

“I demand mustard!” it bellowed.

Reginald, calm as ever, offered a jar of peanut butter. The sandwich sniffed, grumbled, and waved him through with a soggy lettuce leaf.

After what felt like three Tuesdays and one awkward staring contest with a unicycle, Reginald spotted it — his sock, perched on the back of a six-legged chair scuttling like a nervous crab.

With a battle cry that sounded suspiciously like “FOR SOCK AND GLORY!” Reginald launched himself through the air, snagging the sock mid-tumble while the chair skittered away, squealing in defeat.

Victorious, Reginald emerged from the closet, slightly scorched, moderately crumbed, but grinning wildly. He slid the sock onto his paw like a puppet and proclaimed, “No sock left behind!”

He celebrated by installing three more clocks — all wrong — and scribbling a new warning on the closet door: “STILL HUNGRY.”

Just as he was polishing his spanner, a tiny scroll slipped out from under the door. It was a ransom note, scrawled in mustard:

“Next time… Dijon. – Sandwich King”

Worse yet, the new clocks he’d installed began to tick backward, forward, and sideways. Time hiccupped, and a second Reginald — equally confused but holding a jelly jar — blinked into existence.

Reginald sighed. “Guess it’s Tuesday again.”

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Glossary of Reginald’s Workshop Essentials (coming soon):

• Spanner of Questionable Durability — works until it doesn’t.
• Sock Locator 3000 — still missing a “find” function.
• Emergency Sandwiches — one per dimension.

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