The Sticker
An order is placed online, on a random printing company's website.
A machine whirrs.
An employee looks at the batch of 400 stickers that have been printed out.
"LOVE IS LOVE"
There are no defects on the stickers: no areas that failed to print and ended up blank, no times when one of the inks was running low and the stickers became discolored. All 400 of these stickers perfectly match the image that the buyer had uploaded.
Oh, wait. The order was for 100, not 400.
The employee shrugs, wraps all 400 stickers up in stacks, puts them all into a little box, and labels the box with the destination that the box needs to be shipped to.
The stickers are moved from truck to truck to truck, bin to bin to bin, hand to hand to hand, and end up resting inside of a dark mailbox.
The little taped-up cardboard box sits there inside of the mailbox, on top of two junk letters, for about two hours.
Then the mailbox squeals open and light shines in again, a hand reaches in, and the box and the two letters are taken out.
The box is brought inside, into a warm living room. The letters are thrown away. With a pair of scissors, the tape on the box is cut open, and the stickers are pulled out. The person lets out a loud laugh, unwraps the stickers from their bundles, counts the stickers, and takes a bunch of pictures, and begins typing a bunch of things on a phone.
The stickers are then neatly stacked back up again, and go back into the box.
They sit there in the living room.
About a week later, the box is tucked into a suitcase, among a bunch of clean folded-up shirts and skirts and socks.
The stickers are driven to an airport, scanned inside of some machines, and a few hours later, the suitcase is opened back up again in a hotel room. The stacks of stickers are taken out of the cardboard box, this time for forever; the box is tossed beside the room's small wastebin. The stacks of stickers wait on the hotel room's desk, alone in the room for a while as the person goes into the bathroom and changes.
The person comes out of the bathroom, picks up two big handfuls of the stickers, puts them into a purse, and leaves the hotel room.
A short walk later, there is a place with bass-y music and a lot of people having conversations with each other. The purse comes open, and a handful of the stickers are taken out, and handed to someone who is wearing a shirt with cats on it. The cat-shirt person puts the stickers into a pocket, and keeps talking with the purse person, and with more people who arrive to come yap.
For the next few days, the handful of stickers tag along with the cat-shirt person. Sometimes, one or two stickers are taken out from the set. Sometimes, new, different stickers get added.
At some point, a handful of stickers gets taken out of the pocket and handed away, with the recipient giving a gasp and a hushed utterance of amazement. And with that handful handed off, there is one LOVE IS LOVE sticker left with the cat-shirt person.
Later, the cat-shirt person is walking the now-familiar roads back to a hotel room that is farther away from most of the others. Far away from the bass-y music, a long walk from the hive of people dressing as different species.
A hand reaches into the pocket, and takes out a sticker.
The cat-shirt person peels off the backing, in a way that was once done clumsily and slowly, and is now done expertly, quickly, and without even looking.
The cat-shirt person takes one quick glance down at the sticker to make sure that it's oriented with the correct side up, and then, while passing by a streetlight, the hand places the sticker onto the pole, presses it down firmly for a second, and then slides away.
The sticker stays there on the streetlight as the cat-shirt person continues casually walking along.
The next day, sunlight shines on the sticker. By the time the sunlight has gone away again, one thousand and twenty seven people have walked past the street pole--some have walked by it twice, going one way to some errand and then returning back. All day, nobody reaches out and touches the sticker. Most don't particularly notice it. Those who do notice it are the same people whose eyes are flicking around reading dozens and dozens of other stickers. The message of love is solidly in the category of "Probably a positive thing. Cool. Thumbs up. Moving on."
When night comes, the streetlight turns on.
The sticker remains there through the night, untouched, lit, legible.
Morning comes. The sun comes. The streetlight shuts off, once it has been made entirely obsolete by the sunlight. People pass by. One of these people is wearing big blue fuzzy paws and a blue tail, walking rather self-consciously along the sidewalk, alone. The blue dog person spots the sticker. The blue dog person's breath freezes. The head swivels around, the eyes dart this way and that, looking for anyone else who has noticed this. Doesn't seem so. Blue paws come off. Hands retrieve a phone from a pocket. Pictures are taken, and then the phone is stuffed away again, and the paws go back on. The person stares at the sticker for a moment longer, then, quickly, the street pole is warmly, fuzzily hugged, and then the person scurries onward, away.
Days and nights and days and nights go by. Sunlight, streetlight, sunlight, streetlight, sunlight, and so on.
The sticker remains there.
A person passes by who had been having a crap week, and suddenly, just by seeing a sticker, now feels hopeful, un-alone; there is evidence of a kindred spirit. Where that kindred spirit might be now, who in the world knows, but the kindred spirit WAS right here, RIGHT HERE, paws touching this exact ground; some person who was standing RIGHT HERE did this thing just for me and others like me to see.
Days and nights and days and nights.
A person pees on the pole. Four legs. Allowed. The person had gotten up onto just the hindlegs and sniffed the pole beforehand, nose touching the sticker's surface. No trace of cat-shirt person, purse person, or printer person, on the sticker, anymore. The sticker smells like the rest of the street; it is among the background, not the focus.
Days and nights.
A person pees on the pole. Two legs. Tsk tsk. The person reads the sticker, ready to aim up at it if it deserves it. Love? Probably a positive thing. Fine. Zipping up. Moving on.
Days and nights.
Sometimes it rains.
One day a person comes through with a fancy camera, snapping lots of photos of spray painted art and the collages of stickers.
One night, snow falls, light and fluffy.
One day, a person begins to slip on the ice; the streetlight is quickly grabbed for balance. Success. Fall avoided. The person, already having been winded, takes a moment to stay at the streetlight, hugging it, breathing, breath visible in the cold air. The sticker is noticed. No way. A phone comes out. A picture is taken. Messages:
To a friend, "Wait you're a zoo is this not the zoo colors?"
From that friend, "OMFG"
To that friend, "OMFG!!"
From that friend, "where did you find that!?"
The Earth finishes going around the Sun.
People dressed as different species of animals begin walking by again in markedly higher numbers.
In one group that's going by, a person in a wolf shirt spots the sticker, points, and says it looks like some of us have already been through here. A person in a cat shirt, who is holding the wolf-shirt person's paw, squeezes the paw, and everyone keeps walking.
Article written by An Ultra Fine Point Permanent Marker (February 2026)
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