The Book Is Nothing; the Sticker Is Everything

The object was presented with the usual fanfare reserved for things that are destined to be sticky and loud. The Small Human, a creature of boundless enthusiasm and zero grace, was placed on the floor before it. I observed from my strategic vantage point atop the heated mantle, feigning sleep but with one eye cracked open. The book’s pages were turned, revealing simplistic line drawings—an egg without a face, a zebra without stripes. An insult to both eggs and zebras, if you ask me. Then came the crayons. The waxy smell filled the air as the Small Human began a chaotic assault on the paper. It was all dreadfully boring. I was about to commit to a real nap when the game changed. The Adult Human peeled off a sheet of what they called "stickers." They were shiny, colorful, and flimsy. The Small Human reached for them with a chubby, unreliable hand, managing to pry loose a single, bright yellow circle meant to be a sun. But in its journey from the sheet to the designated "sky" on the page, a fumble occurred. The sticker fluttered, catching an air current from the vent, and drifted silently to the polished hardwood floor, landing a few feet from the rug. It lay there, a tiny, gleaming disc of possibility. My nap was forgotten. I flowed down from the mantle like a puff of gray smoke, landing without a sound. The humans were still absorbed in their "creative expression," oblivious. I crept forward, my white paws silent on the wood. I extended a single claw and gave the sticker a tentative poke. It slid. It *skittered*. Oh, it was a thing of beauty. Another, more forceful tap sent it zipping across the floor, ricocheting off a chair leg with a faint *tink*. This was not a sticker. This was a prey-surrogate of the highest order. It was silent, unpredictable, and perfectly sized for a lightning-fast hunt. I spent the next twenty minutes engaged in the most thrilling game of floor hockey I have had in months. The sun sticker was my puck, my paws were my stick, and the gap beneath the entertainment center was my goal. I was a phantom, a whisper of movement in the periphery of their "art time." They thought the Small Human was learning to be creative. Fools. They had unwittingly purchased a state-of-the-art, single-use, indoor hunting simulator. The book itself remains an object of profound indifference to me, but I now watch the Small Human with a newfound, vested interest, patiently waiting for the next clumsy fumble to release another one of my glorious toys.