We live in a world of paper. Without paper our lives would be unthinkable. Or almost unimaginable. We can, of course, imagine it, as we can imagine everything, for the great authors and artists and artists have taught us to imagine, in their books, and their artwork, and through their music. We have been trained by them, educated by them on paper, and through paper, and by paper to imagine. So it’s easy to think about a world without paper. Like being dead, or certainly not having been born. We arise, wash, and go to the toilet – though without toilet paper, certainly. We enjoy a bowl of cereals, un packaged, normally. Tea: no bags. Coffee: no filter. We do not buy a magazine on our way to the train station: there are no magazines to buy. And, furthermore, we have no money. So, no lottery ticket. No eating gum: a wrapper. No ticket for the train – which, anyway, has no schedule. We’ll think, just for fun, that there is a train, and a train place, and a house, and an workplace or office to go to – despite the fact that without plans and schedules and surveys and backs-of-envelopes and blue-prints and patents and maps and graphs, all of this is of course highly unlikely, not impossible, but about as likely as you being able to read these words without having ever read or written anything on a piece of paper.

We definitely shall not gaze at ads on the train, or at hoardings or billboards. Nor buy a cup of take-away coffee, in a take-away coffee cup, secured by a take-away coffee cup sleeve, and our non-existent loyalty card can stay forever lost, neglected and unstamped. Nor do we post our mail: there is no Post Office. So no Amazon deals. Nor do we spend our days publishing out emails, processing papers in folders, filling in forms, enclosed by familiar wallpaper and family photos, sticking up Post-It notes, or writing ‘records’ on screen and ‘filing’ them in ‘folders’. Nor do we read a magazine or a paperback at lunchtime, while eating a food neither wrapped nor carried in paper, our greasy hands untouched by a paper napkin. At no factor in the afternoon do we file our nails with an emery board, fix our make-up or blow our noses with a tissue. No cupcake instances, no cake boxes. No business cards. No bills. No banks. No building societies. No insurance companies. A little market, perhaps, a little government. Maybe some law cigarettes, wipe no bottoms with a wet wipPaper, an Elegy book cover, wrap no presents, nor mark, correct or assist with any homework’s, read no menus, send no Christmas cards, pull no crackers, light no fireworks …

Imagine for a time that paper was to vanish? Would anything be lost? Everything would be lost. And order.