When he found it, an unexpected wall of emotion hit.
How could he not have noticed it before, this one last part of his body that wasn’t tattooed?
He couldn’t decide if he was sad because he’d missed it, or because this was the final unblemished piece of his natural skin.
And inside that conflict was a question: to tattoo it or to not? To keep it as a reminder, or to complete his living work of art?
Looking at his plainest part, he began to wonder what he might have been if he had never become tattooed? This might not be the exact same skin he was born with, but he would have been this one single shade, as nature intended, all over, always.
He would never again experience what it was to be natural, to be plain. It had never bothered him before. But now he had found it, should he keep this one last part that was?
That was the question.
His life’s achievement, the years it had taken to cover himself in such intricate detail. It was, he was, unique. And was it not so much more to be unique; to be a walking tapestry, unlike anyone else he could ever meet, or anyone who would had ever lived, or would ever live?
Picking up the pen, he drew on the final natural part of his skin in biro, to see how it felt.
It tickled.
vss #82
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