The Lonely Toner

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Once upon a time there was a lone ink cartridge. This cartridge had a life full of potential from the day it rolled of the assembly line. First put together and snapped into place. A few screws, some glue here and there and of course the all important sticker to identify its inside color and its destiny printer. One final step, a quick injection of color! The joy the little ink cartridge felt, being full then boxed up still warm off the production line. Vibrating with anticipation or perhaps just a bumpy road on its trek to the printer. Ready to print out maps, and photos, documents and charts, maybe even a picture of itself. How odd that would be, but wonderful none the less.

But alas, the cartridge would sit on a shelf with many friends day after day. Then as the days go by each of its friends were taken to their destiny. But the toner sat lonely. This Laser Toner Cartridge full of ink was left, pushed back and alone. Others came and went but as always it was pushed back further and further, until one day a hand reaches back and nudges it once, but grabs a closer cartridge. A glimmer of hope enters the little cartridge but fades away just as quickly. Then the clanging of a ladder and the hand is back, this time grabbing with full force and pulling it to the front. A thick layer of dust has grown on the box, but the ink inside still sloshed around like the day it was made. The cartridge is finally going to get to print! And print it shall with all its might.

The box is opened slowly but surely. Packing and papers gently put to the side. Finally in the light again, then the printer. The toner gets to see its mate for the next 1,000 sheets or so. The Goliath of a printer is quite frightening to the cartridge, but it knows it will be ok, maybe. Until there is a flash of a memory. This is not its printer. This one is entirely too small with no nozzle or square peg. But in it goes, hands pushing and prodding. The cartridge is jammed in and turned. Twisted and bend, tabs pulled and snapped. In the end the cartridge is nothing more then a broken version of its former self with bits and pieces and speckles of ink splattered about. Back into a new box it goes. Likely to sit on a shelf for another layer of dust or perhaps the big composer in the sky.

Ready for the leg of its journey the cartridge is then brought into the light of day again. Now in a new place, where parts are carefully removed and put into bins. Then as it takes its last breath it realizes this is the end. But there is another breath as the cartridge awakens to find itself brightly colors and wrapped in a shiny box with wheels and lights, shiny metal and red paint. The shiny new cartridge is a cartridge no longer and lives out the remainder of its days zipping around a living room followed by a little one, zooming and beeping.