The Graphite Knight

There was a sheet of paper on a cartoonist’s table. She already had some dust because there had been several days without her being moved. Since there was no one in the room, she let out a sigh.

“Pst...” she heard and, surprised, tried to see around, maybe someone had seen her. “Pst! Here! On you!”

The sheet had to force the view to reach and see the doodle drawn on her surface.

“Ah!” she shouted scared, she knew the cartoonist had drawn something on her, but not that it had life.

“I thought you were dead” said the doodle.

“No, no, I’m very alive” answered the sheet.

“So, what’s up?” asked the doodle, somewhat restless.

“Well... nothing, just here.”

“Hey, what do you think of life?”

“Well... in my previous life, I was a tree.”

“Oh... and do you ever think about your next life?”

“Uhm, well, I think they’re going to scan me and archive me.”

“But if the house catches fire? What if it floods?”

The sheet had never thought about such terrible possibilities, in itself the most worrying thing so far was getting too dusty before going to the drawings folder.

“And you? It seems your worst nightmare would be an eraser.”

“What are you talking about? I’m a knight, my worst nightmare are dragons.”

“But you are made of graphite, if an eraser passes over you, you will disappear.”

“What?! What if I was drawn with a pen?”

“Then you’ll just be a dreadful mess. But no, I saw when they drew you, it was with a number 2 pencil.”

Then a lady arrived, the cartoonist’s mom, she separated the pretty drawings from the ugly ones, and put the pretty ones in a folder. The sheet and the doodle must have been among the ugly, because the lady made them a ball and threw them into the trash.

“Well, I guess a fire didn’t sound so bad after all” said the sheet, and curled up with the graphite knight.