Paper book.
Paper copybook or sketchbook. Paper manuscript. Secret diary or notepad. Ten paper books in the suitcase so you are sure you’ll have enough to read during holidays.
Wrapping paper and papier-mâché. Newsprint, paper to wrap up fish and vegetables.
Credit card? No, not that.
Paper money, before the invention of credit cards, paper tickets to pay things.
Lottery ticket, receipt, invoice, bill. Paper confetti.
Paper streamers, before the invention of spray streamers.
Stamps, when people still used to lick and collect them, when people used the steam of a teapot to remove them from the envelopes.
Photo album, when people made pictures and didn’t know if they were good, with that strange concern you feel when you know you won’t have a second chance.
Paper poster, playbill, flyer, leaflet.
Business card. Greeting card. Letter. Once, people used to write letters to friends, send postcards. Paper check. Paper napkin. School report. Wallpaper.
Paper map. Street map. Map book.
Map book.
Searching an address on a map without the GPS to guide you. Thinking about turning left or right with no voice to suggest it somewhat insistently,
though politely.
A paper life…
Identity card. Passport. Driving licence.
It’s been at least ten years since my driving licence isn’t in paper anymore.
A paper life, my life… as well as others’.
I sat down and thought about what my life would be without paper, and I discovered all my memories have to do with it, even indirectly. As if paper marked the rhythm of my time, of my memories, of my past…
And what about my future?
One day, in my future, I will not exist anymore and thinking that I am mortal makes me feel strange, abnormal… But paper is dying, just like I’m slowly dying too.
I’m turning yellow and dry like a leaf, like the pages of an old book.
I’ve lived enough years to be able to notice the changes, the transformations of the world surrounding me, of my life.
I am as perishable as the books I buy. I collect memories, just as books collect words, and one day we will both disappear.
That’s how the idea for this issue came to my mind. To remember, along with readers, this great element.
Earth. Water. Fire. Paper!
An homage. A tribute. Before it vanishes from our lives.
Before everything turns digital. Before.