This notebook is…

This notebook is a trap. It captures thoughts, desires, fears, imagination. it is like that box with a bright, shining light that the Ghostbusters used to use; you throw it out, it captures all the things which escape from your mind and your fingers, and it traps them inside for all eternity. And at the same time, it is a zoo – it is a display of all those things which have been captured in the wild, and showing them off to the newest generation. Opening times – all day, any time, just open up the cover and go for it.

This notebook is a cuneiform tablet. It is written in an ancient script, a language which almost nobody any longer understands. It is a place for recording history that would have otherwise been forgotten. Yet there are so few who remember how to decipher this text it is as good as forgotten.

This notebook is red-colored. The pages are blue-lined. Each page has another red barrier stripe to the left edge. The middle fold creates a margin between the columns. There is a longer space at the top of each page where the blue horizontal lines are absent, or never were, in the first place.

This notebook has pages which feel waxy. They feel as if they have been coated like playing cards, a smooth, non-paper feel. Paper feels rough to the touch. It makes a ‘shhhh’ noise when I draw my finger over it. This – this wax pretender – is not paper. It has no sound. It has no character. It has no moxie. It is soulless; it is a blank, plain, poor substitute for paper, that beautiful product derived from trees and water and love. Paper has heart. It holds – it comes from something which once lived. It breathed. It metabolized. It fended of pests and predators. It reproduced!

This – this – does not feel good. It does not feel right. It does not feel natural.

But it was cheap. And I have 100 sheets (double-sided) to get used to it.

I hope I don’t.