Paper Chase Part 1

Paper Chase

Life started when my owner cut me free from the restraints of page 245.

My job up until then had been to model a wonderful V-neck, argyle jumper. It was catalogue number 245.789, a two tone jumper which came in three styles: red and grey, blue and grey and my version, the grey and grey, which was catalogue number 245.789c which is my name as well. I wore the jumper teamed up with a neat pair of beige slacks with a delightful crease down the middle, they were sold on a separate page, p.267 if memory serves, and the shoes were a patent black ‘classic lace up shoe’ which came in a large number of sizes with the option of selecting the extra wide version and three other choices of colour from p.350.

Up until the day I was liberated my job had been of the stationary kind. If truth be known, I rarely saw the light of day which I unfortunately put down to a loss of interest in the classic cuts of men’s fashion wear. Nowadays, people who picked up my place of work to browse would in general skim past page 245 and move further towards the other departments of ‘young fashion wear’ although I sometimes could overhear some laughter coming from around page 250 where customers would pause to view our neighbours in the men’s underwear department although I couldn’t understand why people would mock. Those men were very good at their job and I often felt people underestimated the crucial ness of their role in the clothing industry. Every respectable gentleman needs to wear good fitting underwear and those fine men on page 250 were serving their people well. My job, as jumper model, I felt was important but I knew deep down that our consumers had other options such as donning several thinner layers of clothing or indeed a well insulated jacket in the event of an evening’s nip so perhaps my job wasn’t as “essential” as those of the chaps on p.250, but I did not envy them. I had in my earlier career dabbled in the glamorous world of swim wear but decided that my true calling, perhaps where my heart lay was with knitwear men’s fashions.

I hadn’t expected what happened to happen at all. The day my work place was opened up and a small girl quickly cut me out of page 245 with too large for her age group, paper scissors was to begin with a very terrifying day for I did not know what was going to happen next. I’d heard tales from fellow colleagues who’d seen their friend’s taken in the past. Some had seen their faces hoisted up and pinned onto a large door which opened up and produced beverages while some had seen horrors of us workers being torn apart up and tossed mindlessly into tableside wicker baskets.

During the procedure of all I could hear was the slicing and tearing of paper around me as the blades did their work, I could hear muffled voices, presumably from my new female owner who seemed to be discussing the feat underway with an a second party although I couldn’t be sure due to the loud rustling sounds, but whatever she was saying made her pay less attention than she should have because within a second my hand was lost and left on the page 245 and the rest of my body lifted out by the hand of the small girl.

Losing a limb was not as painful as I had expected it to be in fact I didn’t feel a thing, more so imagined the searing pain which was filling my mental state. I cursed, internally, at the lack of care this girl had taken over my act, I felt she couldn’t understand what I had just been through and with that in mind yearned for solace in men’s knitwear once again. I hadn’t asked for this to happen, not one part of it and with my hand lost surely this girl, this ‘owner’ would have no further use for me if any had been intended to start with.

She looked at me with a puzzled expression on her face and showed me to her companion who said, and this scared me so much I wished for a second that my body before had been cut in half instead of just my hand so that her suggestion couldn’t happen, but with my new understanding of pain I knew that this thought was probably a waste of time, who said “it’s useless, throw it in the bin” As she said this her hand gestured towards the wicket basket I’d seen before and I realised for the first time what it was. The Bin; I’d heard tales about this place before, a place where people go and never come out again, “Anything but that!” I screamed, and originally thought I wasn’t heard until a wonderful thing happened. The small girl looked at me as I lay crippled in her hand and her puzzled look turned into a smiling look, “I want to keep this one, I like him, I want to play nurse with him and look after him.” My mind and body felt such a relief and I with this relief I was able to take a proper stock of my new surroundings.

The room was large and coloured in a bright fuchsia I’d seen some of the girls at work wear from time to time. The ceiling was incredibly high and the walls covered in big photographs of people I had never seen before. I rationalised that they were probably in the modelling trade as well and for a moment fantasised about what it might be like to be blown up on a page to that scale. I wasn’t given much more of a chance to think like this for my position quickly changed and I found myself alone inside a narrow wooden box. I laid down and saw the light speedily fade away as the top of this box was slid across my view until I was in complete darkness. Only, within a moment or two, I realised that I wasn’t alone at all but that I was on top of other objects, all inanimate which in the light I couldn’t make out. I wasn’t scared anymore and so closed my eyes and quickly drifted into a deep sleep.

I was woken the next day by the now familiar face of my owner who opened my new dwelling and smiled as she lifted me from the box. She told me her name was Emily and that she was going to show me my new home.

To begin with she placed me flat onto the carpet which was a light beige colour and from there I started to make out other objects in the room such as Emily’s bed which had a lovely white linen bedspread laid out and on top of it which were piles and piles of pillows, stuffed animals, animals in the shape of pillows and pillows in the shape of animals, it was tough to work out which were which. I should also see a wardrobe which was covered in smaller pictures, mostly of animals again and the occasional good looking model who were starting to smile at me as I was beginning to be noticed. One of the pictures which featured a pretty young lady smiled at me before observing where my hand had once been, I saw her face change ever so slightly as she gave me a look which spoke more of pity than anything else. I tried my very hardest to communicate that it was nothing except I didn’t quite believe it myself. I knew then I would have to get use to my new form and fast.

I then started to pay more attention to Emily who I estimated to be about 8 years old. She wore a green pinafore dress with a white t-shirt underneath; she had chin length brown bobbed hair cut with a slight curl, every inch the perfect little girl. I took a liking to her right then and I was right to because shortly afterwards she lifted me up, introduced me to my new home and referred to me as ‘....Adrian....’ which I quite liked.

My home was of a simple design; constructed of 4 walls made of a thicker paper than I had seen but no roof. The room had been divided into two parts by a single piece of paper with an opening serving as a door through to each. She had taken the time to carefully cut out holes into each room to work as windows to the outside but the pièce de résistance was how the interior had been decorated so beautifully with, what I deduced to be, the inanimate objects which had served as my mattress the night before.

There was everything a man could ask for! In one room, my bedroom, she had filled it with a double bed with a red bedspread, two side cabinets with matching lamps on each, a wardrobe, which covered so many items of clothing Emily had cut from the men’s wear section all fitted with tags so that she could attach them onto me. The second room was a kitchen cum living area filled with a big comfortable looking sofa, a large television, pretty pictures attached to the painted white walls and a well fitted kitchen with all modern appliances. I was overwhelmed with joy, and wondered what my former colleagues would think if they could see my new circumstances. I must admit, I did spare a thought for who had previously been modelling my new wardrobe, their limbs would have been cut away for only the clothing to remain but in my ecstatic state I paid little attention to these doubts and revelled in light of my new future.

For the next few days, Emily spent her time with me and she helped me settle into my new environment handsomely. She allowed me to spend time lavishing in front of my new television which she changed the picture of now and again to keep me interested. She changed my clothes daily and seemed to know exactly what type of style I had grown to like. She expanded my home by adding a bathroom and a gymnasium filled with all the latest sports equipment from the sports department of my old place of work, and although exercise was not my cup of tea I appreciated everything she was doing for me. My favourite place to relax was in an armchair she positioned for me in the living area, situated next to bookshelf and after Emily had gone to bed I would allow myself to sit in this chair and make myself enter a kind of trance state which allowed me to imagine all the tales and stories encased within those volumes like some kind of lucid dream before retiring.

One day I woke up, expecting to run through my usual routine but couldn’t see Emily anywhere. I didn’t think much of it until hearing the door to her bedroom close as she walked in carrying a brand new catalogue which didn’t seem to be from my company at all, it looked foreign to me and I could hear Emily looking through the pages with a great gusto as if she was desperately searching for an item in particular. It made me quite excited and at the same time slightly anxious, I hoped for something good to come from these new pages and thankfully, what came was the most important addition Emily ever made to my home, she gave me the true love of my life.