Fingerprint (short story)

He wakes up on a Monday morning by the sound of his alarm. The default alarm sound echoes throughout his room, forcing him to turn it off still half asleep. He looks around his room, still disoriented, and lays his eyes on the mundane and familiar objects that he has seen countless times already. He murmurs something to himself, a sign that he didn't get the chance to finish his dream, and makes his way to the bathroom. Dragging his feet across the floor, he passes by the family dog, but the greyhound doesn't even bother to look at him. Something not uncommon for the canine to do since it seems he lost interest in the boy a long time ago.

He brushes his teeth with lazy and slow hand movements and puts his uniform on. Some black pants and a white shirt accompanied by a black tie to unify the outfit. Even though the lights are off, he can still make out a frail silhouette in the mirror. It looks tiny, and it's blended with the background of the bathroom. He tries to smile, but the reflection doesn't see it. He heads to the kitchen.

The lights are on, and the sounds of bacon frying on a pan can be heard. He opens the door and is greeted by two pairs of eyes. His parents stare at him for a brief second and then quickly resume what they were doing. His mother continues cooking, and his father turns his attention again to the freshly arrived newspaper. The boy sits down opposite his father and murmurs a good morning. The sound of frying bacon is the only thing that responds. With an unbothered face, he takes his phone out and tries to open it. He scans his finger once, twice, three times, but each time he is greeted by an "unrecognized fingerprint" message. He rubs his finger against his pants and tries again. He finally unlocks it.

Suddenly the frying sound stops and gets replaced with the sound of cutlery. His mother sets the table and gives each one of them a plate full of eggs and bacon. No thanks can be heard, either because the sound of plates being placed on the table hid the small thank you that could’ve come from the boy or there just wasn’t one. They all eat in silence and avoid each other's eyes. The boy eats everything fast and storms out the kitchen door. A faint "thank you" was said but not heard, as neither of his parents even acknowledged his departure. 

The boy heads towards the front exit with his backpack in hand. He puts it on and leaves the house. His school is quite far, so he needs to take the bus to get there. His parents stopped driving him when he was a child. They said, "You are old enough to get the bus; "we don't have time anymore to drive you." Their voices sound like a distant dream; he wonders when was the last time he heard his parents talk.

He arrives at the station. The bus is going to be there any minute now. He closes his eyes and separates himself from the world. From all its friendships and happy families. At that moment he doesn't exist. He doesn’t know anyone, and no one knows him. It’s as if he was never born at all. But this solitary state of being doesn’t last long as his bus arrives, and he is reminded that he has to take part in the burdens of living. He hops in, giving a little nod to the bus driver, a sign of appreciation, but the driver looks straight ahead and starts driving.

The boy looks around the bus, searching for an empty seat. In the back he sees a free place next to some familiar faces. He gets closer to the back of the bus, making his way through a crowd of young teens with backpacks bigger than them and old grandpas that don’t have anything better to do that early in the morning. He excuses himself for passing through, but his voice is so quiet and shaky that it never reaches people’s ears. He finally makes it to the free seat. It is opposite of where two of his classmates are sitting. He awkwardly makes eye contact with them, and in order to feel less awkward about the interaction, he spits a “good morning” through his teeth. His classmates, on the other hand, are too occupied laughing about a stupid video on TikTok, so the “good morning” flew above their heads and crumbled in the air, never to be seen again.

The boy’s eyes darted to the window of the vehicle, his head slightly bent to the ground. Trying to play it cool, he sits himself down and pulls out his phone. He tries to unlock it with his fingerprint, but it takes him a couple of attempts. On his last try before locking the phone, he finally succeeds in unlocking it. The black and grey wallpaper of the phone greets his tired eyes. He looks at his notifications, but as always, there is nothing there. A notification from the weather app, an email that is just the same old spam he gets regularly, and a new YouTube video from a guy he used to watch daily years ago, and now he has forgotten to unsubscribe. No new messages.

He stares at the screen of his phone for a while, unsure what to do. Then he decides to turn it off and put it back in his pocket. He looks again out of the window and stares at the people and buildings that the bus passes by. In the background, a blend of joyful chit-chat and laughter can be heard. The boy keeps staring out of the bus’ window, just a little bit harder. The speed of the bus makes everything outside distort and merge together in an ugly mess where all individuality is lost. A little smile appears on the boy’s face. But not for long, since in a short time he arrives at his school. The little smile he had on his face quickly vanished and got replaced by his usual sad demeanor. 

His two classmates already stood up and are walking now towards the exit; he follows suit. The boy keeps a firm distance from his classmates, not too close where he would be invading their space but not too far either where he would need to walk excruciatingly slowly. The boy sees his classmates joking and enjoying each other's company; he averts his eyes. 

He finally arrives in his classroom five minutes before the first bell rings. The teacher has not arrived yet. The boy goes to his seat and quietly takes out his books for the first period. Next to him, there is a group of girls talking about what they did on their weekend. No one notices his presence. He sits alone and stares throughout the classroom, looking at the faces he has known for years already but never once talked to any of them about anything besides schoolwork. Everyone is a stranger to him, or maybe he is the stranger to everyone else.

The boy doesn’t get the chance to finish his thought as the teacher storms right in, leaving no second go to waste. The bell rings, and the first period begins. The teacher starts off by taking the attendance. Names are being spoken with no break, greeted by either a “here” or “sick.”. Eventually it gets to the boy’s name. The teacher says it a couple of times, looking through the classroom, until eventually the boy raises his hand and says, “Here.”. The teacher doesn’t hear the boy’s call, and his hand isn’t raised high enough for the teacher to see. She marks him as absent and continues with the next name. The boy lowers his hand and loses himself in the sea of names getting spoken, unsure whether or not the teacher acknowledged his existence. The attendance eventually comes to an end, and the teacher tells everyone to open their books.

A couple of hours go by, and lunchtime creeps around the corner. Everyone in the classroom is preoccupying themselves with where to go to eat today. Some want to walk to the supermarket that is close to their school, buy something fast, and return to their classroom. Others wish to go eat fast food, arguing that they are very hungry and that they will be back in time. And for the rest, the school cafeteria will suffice for today.

The boy doesn’t linger enough to listen to his schoolmates’ ramble as he is the first one to leave the classroom. He puts on his jacket and heads towards the local supermarket. He shares the path with countless other peers from his school. He can recognize many faces. But he doesn’t know a soul.

When he arrives at the supermarket, he grabs the first thing he sees and goes directly to the self-service checkout. He doesn’t want to spend any second more than necessary in there. He doesn’t want to see anyone. He pays for his stuff and heads back to his classroom.

He grabs the handle of the door to his class. He takes one deep breath in and opens it. A big wave of relief washes over the boy’s stiff and robotic movement. He walks to the back of the room, where his seat is, and starts eating the food he got from the supermarket. 

But the quiet and blissful moment doesn’t last for long. The door gets opened again, and a group of guys comes in and sits themselves at a table. They start joking around and eating their food together. The boy takes his phone out, out of instinct, and tries to unlock it. After the third attempt, he finally manages to get in. He is unsure what to do with his phone now, so he just stares at his wallpaper while eating his food in silence. He doesn’t last very long, though, and before realizing it, he finds himself in the stalls again, eating his food alone.

The classes go by in a flash, and at last, the boy reaches his last period of the day. He stares at the big clock mounted on the same wall as the whiteboard. The whiteboard is full of notes written by a black marker, notes that were extremely important for the next test the class was going to write. But the boy didn’t care. He didn’t believe the notes would help him in the future, so he didn’t bother to write anything up. The teacher didn’t care that he wasn’t taking notes, or maybe he didn’t see him at all. The clock indicates that the class is going to come to an end in less than five minutes.

The boy closes his eyes and waits patiently. The only sounds he can hear are his teacher speaking about something the boy doesn’t even care about and occasional whispers coming from his classmates. In no time everything goes quiet, and the sound of the clock is the only thing shielding the class away from pure silence. With each second passing by, the expectation of the bell ringing grows more and more until it finally rings, and the boy opens his eyes in relief.

Everyone is already up and ready to go. Friends already gravitated to one another, ready to go home together. It must be a nice feeling. The boy stands up with a slight smile creeping from the corners of his mouth. He goes outside, following the two classmates he came to school with this morning. They stop at the bus station, but the boy doesn’t. He keeps on walking ahead, no one close enough to recognize this oddity in the boy’s day.

As the boy walks, his smile widens. He gets visibly happier and more whimsical. Skipping along while humming a song he used to like as a child. Ahead on his path he sees an old grandma. He doesn’t stop. He greets her with a warm smile and keeps on skipping and singing to his heart's content. The grandma smiles back at him and continues on with her walk.

The boy goes on like this for fifteen minutes straight, with no perturbations on his face or in his walk. At long last, he arrives at his destination. He stands on top of a bridge, twenty meters above a river. The sheer violence of the wind creates sounds begging the boy to turn back. The wind blows in his face, through his hair, but the boy doesn’t back down. He walks in the direction that the wind tries to keep him away from. He now stands at the edge of the bridge, looking down at a fall no man could survive. He stands calmly and firm, his big smile fading into a smirk, his mouth corners slightly raised. He is not unhappy, but he is contemplating. He takes a couple more steps and holds the bridge’s rail with both of his hands. The wind is the loudest it has ever been.

He lies in bed on a Thursday morning. His alarm starts ringing, but he doesn’t bother stopping it; instead, he waits for it to die out and get eaten by the deafening silence of his room. When the alarm finally stops, he gets up and drags his feet to the bathroom. He passes by the family dog, but the greyhound doesn't even bother to look in his direction. 

He brushes his teeth with lazy and slow hand movements and puts his uniform on. The lights are off, but a very faint silhouette can be made out in the mirror. He doesn’t try to smile, and the reflection couldn’t care less. He heads to the kitchen.

The lights are on, and the sounds of bacon frying on a pan can be heard. He opens the door and sits down opposite his father and murmurs a good morning. The sound of frying bacon is the only thing that responds. He takes his phone out and tries to open it. He scans his finger once, twice, three times, but each time he is greeted by an "unrecognized fingerprint" message. He rubs his finger against his pants and tries again and again and again but to no avail. His phone just won’t recognize his fingerprint.

(This is my first short story ever written so feed back would be much appreciated. I'm still learning how to write and exercising my writing skill. Thank you for your read :3)