Imagine This.

We sheets of paper aren't as fussy about personal space as you humans.

We can't afford to be! We hardly have any space, always one right on top of the other one. Honestly I like it. I was once plucked up and then placed by myself on the big shiny hollow wood stack.

I was left there all night. In the dark. In the cold. By myself.

I was constantly worried that the a/c--which I know of because I met this nice manual that explained all about it's functions--would blow me off the hollow wood stack and maybe into the coffin of death. It's been referred to as a trash can but it's not like the cans I've seen and I am not trash, thank you very much.

So where was I? Oh yes, life as a sheet in a stack. I liked it, I was never alone and I always had someone to converse with. It's sad to think this is the end.

I've had such a trying life, looking this fabulous isn't easy for a sheet of paper! I'm clean cut, my lines are exact and there aren't any smudges on me. When you think of a sheet of paper, pristine and clean, you're picturing me!

That's why I'm sure you humans are crazy. Crazy and sadistic!
I've seen it before. You take a brilliant sheet of paper just like me and you stick it in a slit and watch from behind a plastic panel for safety as my brethren are shredded.
For no reason other than your amusement! At least no other reason that I can divine. You're monsters, all of you! How could you do this?

The electric smell the torture machine gives off is perfuming my surfaces and making me sick. The beastly roar it makes as it tears through my friends makes me tremble.
You clench your fingers tighter around me, as if you think I'm going to get away. Your grip is giving me wrinkles! Oh I am a silly old sheet, about to die a horrible death and I'm thinking about wrinkles.

I wish I could comfort my stack friends, the sheet who will for before me and the sheet who will go after me, they're probably scared out of their wits too. I can't say anything while you're here, especially when you're strangling me like this.

I'm going to die by torture and I won't even be able to protest or cry out.

I watch with building terror as my friend before me shreds and although you can't hear it, probably because of the roar of the torture device, it's screams pierce through me.

I'm afraid I've smudged my print, not that you care.

No, what's this?

The brave paper before me is jammed! What's going to happen now?

Oh I'm saved! You've turned off the machine and you're setting me down and poor paper but thank all that is full of fiber! I'm saved!

At least for today.