Pocket lint forms without ceremony in the dark folds of trousers, coats, and the occasional coin purse, where it feeds on the slow abrasion of fibers too small to be missed and too numerous to be stopped. It is gray by default, though field observers report rare specimens tinted blue by denim or red by an unfortunate proximity to a wool scarf. No one plants it. No one waters it. It simply arrives, the way dust arrives on a shelf, or regret arrives at 2 a.m.
Its habitat is exclusively pocket, though it has been sighted in the crevices of dryers and the linings of old bags, where it forms denser, more committed colonies. Distinguishing features include a soft, felted texture and an uncanny ability to evade detection until the exact moment a hand goes searching for keys. It offers no function. It performs no service. It is, in this sense, one of the few truly honest objects: it does not pretend to matter, and it does not apologize for existing anyway. When removed and studied in daylight, it looks smaller than memory suggested, a common fate for most small burdens. Eventually it is flicked away, unmourned, and the pocket begins, patiently, to make more.