Woe is me! I howl and cry but no one listens.  My life is to end in tatters and no one cares.  What have I done to deserve this abrupt end?  Recycle me, use me as a cleaning towel, blow your nose with me, anything but this.

What have I done to deserve this fate? Have I not been useful enough?  Have I not taken your torture at the point of the pen without complaint? Is it because I am too thick? Too yellow? Why, oh why do you choose to shred me? Crunch me, mould me in a ball, throw me whole in a bin, place me on a shelf and forget me there but not this, anything but this!

Oh my Tree! They are coming for me.

They carry me, the shredder of doom is edging closer; I beg thee no!

Oh, wait, the shredder has been passed.  The hands that hold me keep moving on.  I am being placed in a drawer.  Darkness befalls me.  Sweet blessed darkness, you grant me another day.

—

I apologize for this post.  Since I was young I have always found myself personifying all the objects around me.  I used to use two pencils interchangeably for fear that one might feel left out.  I used to place my satchel facing out so that he will enjoy the view during the long school hours – the satchel was always a he as the fork was always a she – a young, beautiful, slender woman.  The knife was male – the fork’s husband – the teaspoon was their child and the spoon the mother-in-law; the fork’s mother. I had a whole family saga playing out by the age of twelve.

I still find myself doing this from time to time.  If I get typos on my word processor, two identical words typed one after the other, I delete the second one and leave the first – first come first served.  I still don’t throw stuff away when their time is up.  I give away clothes that don’t fit and switch clothes that are torn to my pajamas drawer.  Like this I am not responsible for their death, but I have more than my fair share of clothes to sleep in.

And so this snippet came to me this morning at the office.  I spent six hours printing papers today.  One of those mundane mornings which make you feel like a monkey playing tricks for a bored trainer. As I stared vaguely, on the brink of hypnosis, while the papers filed out, one after the other, from the printer; like warm biscuits on a conveyor belt, and the stack of mistake papers grew larger – because when you spend six hours printing, you are bound to make mistakes;  the ink becomes faded when the toner is low; the papers are torn when the copier gets too hot and cuts through the pages with its eager, vicious teeth (you see, I’m still doing it); I considered what to do with the unwanted pile.  I glanced at the shredder a few paces away, but then looked at the sorry stack of innocent papers and thought better of it.  They now sit in my drawer – the unwanted papers drawer which is already much too full – I will use the ever-growing stack as rough paper and mouse pads because I am too soft.