In Which I Sell My Fingerprints

by Noa Covo

A man on a yellow motorcycle offered to buy them for a dollar each. He seemed desperate so I agreed. It’s hard to grasp things without them. I keep dropping cups, pencils, eggs, each of my fingers smooth like a rock at the bottom of a creek.

Sometimes I think about what the man is doing with my fingerprints. I select tomatoes at the supermarket, the weight of the fruit nestled in my palm, and wonder where he is. Probably abroad. I picture him in Paris, momentarily, but it seems expensive to hide there, and besides, I’ve never met anyone who could convince me it exists. A three-dimensional man that smells of tree sap and cigarette smoke could hardly hide behind something that looks as fake as the Eiffel Tower. I imagine him in Slovakia instead, visiting my great grandma in her wooden house. I imagine him asking her for help, showing he means no harm by presenting her his empty hands. I imagine her face scrunching up as she examines each finger. I imagine her telling him that something about him seems familiar, even though she’s never seen me, just in photographs.  I imagine him moving in, helping her around the house, cooking her dinner, tasting the soup, packing meatballs into careful spheres indented with the weight of each finger.

Noa Covo’s work has appeared in Jellyfish Review, Waxwing, and Hayden’s Ferry Review, as well as Best Microfiction 2021 and Best Small Fictions 2021. Her chapbook, Common Ancestors, was published by Thirty West Publishing House. She can be found on Twitter @covo_noa.