Monday, November 5, 2012

Inspired by the poem Tattoo by Carl Dennis

What does a tattoo mean? I mean, what does a tattoo mean to somebody other than the person who has the tattoo? I presume the tattoo means something to the person who carries it. Why else would she have gone to such pain and expense? No, the far more interesting question, one fraught with misinterpretation and misunderstanding, the true grist of a good story, is the question of what the tattoo means to others. 

A tattoo is a poem, an expression of some sentiment, frozen in the flesh of the moment, branded for all time in indelible ink on the pages of my body.
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The greasy-spoon lunch weighed heavily on the old man, making him drowsy, and subject to the drifting of reality that accompanies an afternoon nap. He daydreamed of waking up beside his waitress...

She slept deeply, satisfied from his amorous attentions. Her tattoo reminded him with untoward pride that he had successfully made a cuckold of Dave, the love of her life. But it hadn't really been her fault. Her choices faded from view in the company of his confidence.

He imagined how she would wake up later, alone in bed, and appreciate the expertise he had demonstrated with gentle, patient mentoring. She would be clever at sharing what she had learned, careful not to raise Dave's suspicion...

“Mr. Smith? Are you all right?”

The old man blinked, confused, uncertain what was dream and what was real. The waitress scribbled the total at the bottom of the check, distracted him with a sweet smile, and with one smooth, practiced motion, tore the paper from her pad, flipped it with a quiet flutter, and gently guided it to settle, face down, on his table, as delicately as a leaf onto a pond.

“Thank you, Gretchen,” he mumbled.

He noticed her attention to the corner of his mouth and quickly wiped with the back of his hand. He felt it before he saw it, the grease, the wet, slippery drool. When he looked back up, she was walking away.

Gretchen shuddered, unable to erase the memory of the old man's creepy leer. She stood at the counter waiting, looked outside, followed the cars driving past, on their ways to so many anywheres she would rather be.

By James Seamarsh

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