In my short life, I have managed to live in 15 different books and between countless pages.

          I absolutely hate it when I’m wedged between the pages of a dreary textbook, with symbols and nonsense written all over the inside. And the characters there are just, so boring. I guess they never learned the art of small talk.

         I’m sorry, I haven’t introduced myself. Hello, friend. I was conceived years ago, and moments afterward my conception, I was “born”. “Born” as in sketched. Not “born” as in spewed forth from a female’s...  Sorry, no. The time for me to, ahem, mature took much less than nine months, and more like nine seconds.

         My birth took place once upon a time, on a garish pink sticky note, only minus the stick. My parent, (Or my mother, if I must) has the attention span of a goldfish, and god knows how long that is. Anyways, my mother -- lets call her my ‘parental’ -- my parental’s eyes had very accidentally waltzed off the pages of her math book (in the summer!) and happened to run into a pad of sticky notes. Before she had time to process the thought, her hand had unwillingly trailed along with her eyes, and picked up the pencil that was conveniently stationed by the notepad's side.

         Now, she seemed quite conflicted at this moment -- math, or drawing? -- But the characters within her math textbook seemed to smile in unison and say, “don’t worry we’ll wait right here; go draw”.  And finally, her decision was made.

         It was as if the cosmos had aligned for my birth to take place.

         I was very hastily jotted down onto that sticky note, and although I can’t say that I loved my appearance at first, I was touched up a bit, and became satisfied. Right afterwards, underneath me, my parental drew another person (drawing? what should I call my species?) that closely resembled me, only with lines across the face that made it seem like wrinkled cabbage leaves.

         I could hear my parental’s thoughts, and I knew that the drawing she had just brought to life was supposed to be me, older.

         I couldn’t help but chuckle, even though I knew that the human was watching me. She had meant to make me older. But, (silly human) she had forgotten to transfer my soul to the new drawing. How funny. Humans, my parent, can be so careless. So, she had created a completely different drawing with a completely different mind from my own, yet expected it to be me?

         Humans.

         So, the two of us were on the same page, literally. We spent hours and days together (not like we could separate) between the pages of various books. Some were in English, some in Spanish, and some in this odd language. I came to learn that it is called Math. Math seemed to be a language that made absolutely no sense at all. No sense to me, at least. When we finally reached this ‘Math’ book, my parental (lets call her ‘human’ now) split the note across the middle, separating us. I was wedged between pages 276 and 277, whereas my older (younger?) other half was about 200 pages behind me.

         Now Math is a strange language, and it seems my human was trying to learn it. I didn’t really see the point in learning a language with characters that couldn’t even communicate with drawings (pictures?) like me. I tried telling one character that closely resembled the letter B, only with a longer stem, that it should learn how to at least communicate telepathically. It, of course, did not reply.

         After spending a good amount of time with Math, I was pulled out and taped onto the white walls of a cluttered, unorganized, and certainly unsanitary room. I assumed it was my human’s Domain.  There I spent years doing absolutely nothing. No letters or characters to speak with. Just me.

         Now, with nothing to do, I simply observed my human. And let me tell you, she is a strange person. She takes part in many daily rituals. For example, at around the time when light floods through the square holes-but-not-holes in her wall, a machine (disguised as a purple box) beeps quite loudly. My human then ritualistically twitches and groans. She then rolls off her sleeping device (I later learned it was called a bed) and thumps loudly onto the floor, still groaning. Her hair is unkempt and her face is deathly. I pity her hair comb.

         Similarly, around the time when her light-making machine is on, and her holes-but-not-holes in her wall do not emit light, my human crawls back onto her bed and turns off the light machine. The ritual begins again when light floods into the room again, hours later, and the machine beeps.

         But between these two rituals, I noticed my human does very strange things, even for a human.

         One day, (the time when I stopped seeing my human’s male parent around) my human entered her domain and slumped onto her bed. She hugged her pillow tightly, burying her face into it, shuddering. Her shuddering lasted for hours, accompanied with gasps for air. Water streamed down her face from her eyes. To me they looked like little rivers flowing to the edge of a cliff.  That day I learned about the ritual, Crying and Anger. My human did it a lot, and it was absolute nonsense (at least to me). I mean, she sits there, sometimes for hours, doing nothing. And worst of all, it leads to the ritual Red, which to me seems like a painful ritual. Stupid human.

         Crying and Anger went hand in hand with Red. Red was when she opened her clothing drawer and reached to the very back, underneath all her clothing, and pulled out a small object. It was thin as a hair, and no bigger than her thumb.

         In order to finish Red, one hand pinched the object, while the other arm was extended. She then drags the object across her skin, leaving behind a trail of red. Hence, the name Red. Sometimes the trail of red spreads, like water, and drips down her arm. I realized that the red was coming from underneath her skin, not from the object. That, I thought, cannot fell good in any way, shape, or form. Again, stupid human.

         Let me tell you how often she did these rituals.

         Red was nearly daily, especially after my human’s male parent no longer appeared in her house. Feelings of betrayal and confusion were strongly projected from her. I could not understand them.

         Red, after she applied to, and was rejected from multiple programs.

         Red, after she learned about her mother’s health.

         Red, after looking at herself in the mirror. I couldn’t understand.

         For five years, my human continued her regular rituals. However, it seems my most frequent thoughts, stupid, and human, finally made it into her dim, human brain, as she ceased the ritual Red. Why, I don’t know. Sometimes, though, she would reach into her drawer to pull the object out. At times like those I am tempted to yell at my human. Instead, I project my thoughts out to her, reciting my favorite mantra: Stupid human stupid human stupid human. After much thought, she would shake her head, and put the object back into the drawer (because of me, I would think).

        After five agonizingly boring, yet strange years, my human pulled me off of her wall. Her hands were bigger than I remembered, and she pulled me off without needing a chair to reach me. Her arms were covered in dark lines, but they were long healed, memories of the past years. She pulled me off the wall, and, quite unceremoniously, shoved me between the pages of another textbook. Of all the subjects, it had to be Math.

         And then she forgot about me.

         Hey, do you know how a drawing, like me, dies? Well, it can be erased, but that is not how we die. Drawings die when they are forgotten, not erased. So I basically died.

         But, unlike humans (who, when they die, they just die), when we die after being forgotten, we can live after being remembered.

         And ten years later (I think. I mean, time is hard to keep track of time when you're stuck in the pages of a Math book, dead), after my death, another human, not my parent, opened the book. She looked like the age my human was when I was first conceived. She set her eyes on me, and just like that, I was alive again. And I remembered everything.

         The human, who was not my parent, stared at me. She then took me out (just as unceremoniously as I had been put in) and stuck me on the walls of her own domain. And I’ve been hanging here since.