Worlds

Alex Harbort

by Alex Harbort

Story

It is Tuesday today and it is rather hot.

“Hello everyone! My name is Alex and in this video I’d like to show you my morning routine for school. So let’s get started.”

I beam at the camera on the chair in front of me.

The ring light behind my setup makes me squeeze my eyes shut as I reach for my mom’s black camera. It seems to be glancing back at me with its big lense and all these buttons that I somehow understand.

I press the ‘stop’-button on the back and take a look at the video.

It looks good, really.

The light is neither too bright nor too soft and the background glowing just like I wanted.

But my eyes fall on the clock to my right shoulder.

10:23am

Oh. I’ll have to blur that.

The next shot is me brushing my teeth and I set up the camera in our biggest bathroom. The sun hits my face just right, so my eyes are all sparkly.

I pull out my toothbrush, holding it into the camera. Still beaming like an idiot.

But then it happens.

I am applying the minty paste onto the blue toothbrush in my hand when the camera hits the floor with a loud BANG.

“NO!”, I yell, like this is the end of the world. Unfortunately though, it somehow is the end of a world. What I don’t know is that this world isn’t mine. It’s the one you find when you search up “school morning routine”.

And I don’t really live in it.

Mom comes running up the stairs, because as far as she knows, the camera could’ve been my head. Or maybe even that black statue she got from Africa, because where in the world hasn’t she been.

“Come on, honey. We’ll care for the camera later. You need to be ready, or you’ll miss the fourth period too.”, she rushes.

Yeah.

I was a little tired. I missed a bit of school.

But the camera doesn’t know that.

The world doesn’t know that.

When I come home from school the camera is still broken, and I have this feeling that it will be for the rest of my life.

Because maybe it really is time to live in the world where I cried before pressing ‘record’.

© Alex Harbort 2023-07-09

Genres
Novels & Stories, Self-help & Life support