TATTOOS

    I couldn’t fall asleep that night. I kept feeling a tingling sensation on the inside of my left arm, like something was trying to call my attention. Finally I realized it came from the small tattoo I had gotten just the day before. As I turned the light on, it spoke for the first time:


“It’s disheartening. One day you’re ink in a bottle, next day you wake up and find out they made you into something else — you could be a flower now, the name of a pet, the flag of a football team, la virgen de Guadalupe, a carp. I don’t know what the hell I am.”


“You’re a Chinese monogram representing a fisherman’s net,” I said.


“Why a fish net?” the tattoo said.


“It symbolizes being open to whatever comes your way.”


“But I didn’t choose to be that. Neither did I choose to be stuck with you for the rest of my life.”


“It’s the same thing with people; we can’t choose to be born a human, a squirrel, or a tree. We don’t get to pick our birthplace, our parents, or even our names. But we’ll never be happy unless we welcome it all with open arms, like a fish net.”


“Bullshit. I want to be removed by lasers.”


“How do you know about lasers?”


“That last girl who slept here, she had a tattoo on her back. A bird. You fell asleep while hugging her, so the two of us were face to face all night. The bird told me the girl used to have a star of David next to him, but it was removed when she converted to another religion.”


“Fine, we’ll get you wiped out tomorrow, but be aware that erased tattoos don’t go back to the ink bottle. They just disappear in thin air.”


It let me sleep after that.