The Fingerprint on the Inside

It was a Tuesday, the kind of afternoon that smells like rain but never delivers. I had finally taken my old Ford Focus to the automated wash, a decision I’d been putting off for weeks. The water jets pounded the dust and grime from the paint, and I watched, oddly satisfied, as layers of city dirt swirled down the drain. When I drove out, the windows were so clear they seemed to have vanished. I found myself grinning at every reflection, at the way the sunset painted streaks of orange across the glass. I even rolled down the windows to let the fresh air in, feeling the fabric of the seats, still slightly damp and smelling of soap.

The rehearsal that evening was at the old Marsten Theatre, a place with creaky floors and a draft that carried whispers. We were staging a dark little play about obsession, and the director was pushing us for intensity. I threw myself into the role, letting the character’s paranoia seep into my bones. By the time we wrapped, I was exhausted but wired. The cast headed to a bar, but I was eager to get home, to my own quiet apartment with its unwashed dishes and piles of scripts.

I walked toward my car in the dim lot, the streetlights buzzing. I was still smiling about how clean it was, how the moonlight made the hood glow. I unlocked the door, slid into the driver’s seat, and turned the key. The engine hummed. I looked up, expecting the clear windshield, but instead, I saw two handprints. They were on the inside, smeared against the glass, perfectly visible in the dashboard light.

My breath caught. I sat frozen, my hands still on the wheel. The prints were small, smaller than mine, and they were angled almost horizontally, fingers pointing inward, as if someone had placed their palms flat against the glass and then dragged them downward, then to the sides. I tried to mimic the position, pressing my own hands against the windshield from inside. My fingers were too long, my hands too wide. The prints were delicate, fragile, like a child’s or a woman’s.

I looked around the car. The back seat was empty. The floor mats were clean. There was no one. The doors were locked; I had unlocked only the driver’s side. The dome light had flicked on when I opened the door, but it had been off before. I reached up and touched the glass, and the prints were cool and faintly greasy, like a residue left by skin. I wiped a finger across one, and it smeared, but the print remained.

I got out of the car, my heart pounding. I walked around the vehicle, checking the doors–all locked. I peered through the windows. The interior was clean, no sign of anyone. I even opened the trunk, just in case, but it was empty. I stood there in the cold, my breath fogging, and a thought crept into my mind: if the prints were on the inside, and the car was locked the entire time, how did they get there?

The next morning, I called a friend who knew about such things, a mechanic. He said it might be condensation, or some kind of chemical residue from the wash. But I knew what I saw. I tried to clean the windshield with glass cleaner, but the prints remained, stubborn, as if they were etched into the glass itself. I drove to work with the prints in my line of sight, distracting me. They seemed to move, to shift slightly when I blinked. I convinced myself it was just my fatigue.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about the theater, about the old Marsten. I remembered a story the director had told us, about a performer who had died in the theater decades ago, a woman who had fallen from the catwalk. No one knew exactly what happened, but they said she was trying to leave a mark on the stage, a final gesture. I dismissed it as a legend.

But when I returned to the theater the next day, I noticed something I hadn’t seen before. In the dressing room, there was a mirror, cracked, and on it, a faint handprint, the same size, the same angle. I touched it, and it felt like a cold draft. I asked the stage manager about it, but he just shrugged. ‘It’s a piece of history,’ he said.

I started to see them everywhere: on my bathroom mirror, on the window of my apartment, on the surface of my computer screen. They would appear overnight, always clean, always precise. I would scrub them away, but they would return. I began to wonder if I was going mad. I stopped driving the car, taking the bus instead. But the prints followed me.

One evening, I was sitting in my living room, staring at the blank wall, trying to calm myself. I realized the car had been the first place I saw them. And the theater was where I performed, where I let another person’s emotions take over. I looked down at my own hands, smooth and unmarked. I had no prints left on them, as if they had been worn away.

I went back to the Marsten, to the dressing room. I stood in front of the cracked mirror, pressing my palms against it, trying to match the angle. It didn’t fit. But then, I felt a cold breath on my neck, and the overhead light flickered. I turned, but there was no one.

I now live with the prints. They cover my windshield, my mirrors, every reflective surface in my home. They are a constant reminder that we are not alone, that the past can leave its mark. I have given up trying to clean them. Sometimes, I think I can hear a faint voice, singing a song from the musical, but I might be imagining it. I just hope that whoever left them is at peace, and that they find their way out of my reflection.