I am a sheet of paper.
A standard 80g A4 copy paper, produced at a paper mill in Pennsylvania.
I had pristine white skin and sharp edges.
The first half of my life was unremarkable. Along with thousands of my brothers and sisters, I lay pressed inside a blue wrapper, sitting on a dark warehouse shelf.
Until yesterday, when an order from the Pittsburgh City Governnt’s procurent office changed my fate.
A truck took us to Grant Street.
We were carried into that magnificent stone building and through its marble corridors.
Eventually, I was delivered to an office.
It was busy here.
A pair of hands tore open the wrapping paper.
Light pierced through, and I saw daylight again.
The hands were slender, but their movents were nimble and strong.
Her fingers had thin calluses from long hours of typing.
I overheard others call her Sarah Jenkins.
She grabbed and my brothers, loading us neatly into the feed tray of a massive high-speed laser printer.
The machine rumbled to life. The rollers spun, and a force pulled inside.
A wave of heat washed over .
A laser scanned across my surface. Toner lted in the intense heat, seeping into my very fibers.
I felt a weight.
The weight of words.
When I slid out of the output tray and was restacked with the others, I was no longer a blank sheet.
A bold, black title was printed at the top of my page: *Pittsburgh City Public Infrastructure Hazard Notification Form*
Below it were dense grids of boxes: Location, Description of Damage, Eyewitness, Photo Attachnt...
Sarah stood by the printer, looking at the mountain of pages we had beco.
"Five thousand copies," she said to the person beside her. "And this is just the first batch."
The door was pushed open.
A burly man walked in.
I heard Sarah call him Frank.
"All here?" Frank asked.
"All here." Sarah pointed to the stack I was in. "Tell the brothers in the Union that these are our bullets. Every single one needs to be filled out, every one needs a photo, and every one needs to be factual."
Frank reached out with a huge, rough hand and snatched up.
His grip was so strong it wrinkled my edges.
"Don’t worry," Frank said. "We’re going to turn this city upside down."
I was packed into a cardboard box and tossed onto the back seat of a pickup truck.
Jolting.
Violent jolting.
The truck left the smooth roads of downtown and headed for the Hill District.
Soti later, the truck stopped.
The cardboard box was opened.
I was handed to a young Black man.
He wore a vest with a Union logo, and there was a sharp intelligence in his eyes.
He carried through narrow, dilapidated streets and past graffiti-covered walls.
He stopped in front of an old, red-brick apartnt building and knocked on a wooden door with peeling paint.
The door opened.
A man in his thirties answered the door. He was wearing a faded T-shirt and holding a fork, clearly in the middle of a al.
"Hello, I’m a community volunteer." The young man handed him the printed sheet—. "We’re collecting reports on things like unrepaired potholes and broken streetlights in the neighborhood. If you’ve seen any, please fill this out."
The man took skeptically.
His greasy fingers smudged my corner.
"Is this going to do any good?" the man asked. "I’ve called the Mayor’s hotline a hundred tis about this."
"This ti is different," the young man said. "This is a task that ca directly from Mayor Leo."
The man looked at , didn’t say a word, and turned back inside.
He tossed onto the dining table, next to a half-eaten plate of pasta and a bottle of beer.
The air in the room was hot and stuffy. A football ga was on TV.
"Who was that?"
A woman’s voice ca from the kitchen.
"Soone from the new Mayor," the man said, sitting back down and stuffing a forkful of pasta into his mouth. "Gave so stupid piece of paper, said it’s for so repair request form."
The woman walked out, wiping her hands. She picked up, glanced at , then tossed back on the table.
"Hmph. Leo Wallace." The woman scoffed. "He’s been in office for a month now. Has anything changed around here? The trash on the corner is still piling up, and the streetlights are still out. I’m telling you, he’s no different from the last one, Carter Wright. They’re all liars."
"You can’t say that," the man said, his voice muffled as he chewed his pasta. "He’s brand new. You’ve got to give him so ti."
"Give him ti?" The woman’s voice rose. "How much ti have we given them? Your worker’s comp claim has been stalled for two years! The last ti you went to city hall, what did that clerk tell you? To go ho and wait!"
"Just drop it," the man said, irritated.
"I won’t drop it!" The woman slamd the rag down on the table. "You even voted for him, went and volunteered for him. And what now? He’s sitting in his big office with the air conditioning on, and he’s completely forgotten all about you. All you do is daydream about this pointless stuff, hoping those bureaucrats will suddenly grow a conscience? You’re dreaming!"
"Shut up!"
The man slamd his fork down on the plate, making a sharp, grating sound.
He stood up, his chest heaving violently.
He looked at his ranting wife, at their cramped, run-down ho, and at the sheet of paper on the table with its black grid.
A naless rage burned in his chest.
Anger at his wife, anger at his life, and anger at his own powerlessness.
User Comments
0 comments from readers