Category: Tattoos

‘Hmmmm,’ my girlfriend Lauren frowned, making a very specific sound for when you don’t have anything nice to say.

‘Just tell me,’ I sighed. ‘I can take it.’

‘I don’t think you can.’

‘It’s that bad?’

‘It’s worse,’ she shook her head. ‘Who told you it would be a good idea to have a dragon tattooed across your entire back?’

‘Nobody, like, told me…’ I said, thinking back to the tattooist located near Brisbane who had explicitly told me it was a bad idea. ‘It was kind of a personal choice, I guess.’

‘Yikes,’ she shook her head. ‘Not a great idea. Did it hurt?’

‘Not really,’ I lied. ‘I mostly listened to a podcast. Then an audiobook. I think people really need to hear about this George J.J. Nelson guy, he’s actually a really good—’

‘Cut the bull,’ she laughed. ‘Did you cry?’

‘Like the world’s most upset baby.’

‘That makes sense,’ she nodded, looking at my back again. ‘Honestly, James, what were you thinking?’

‘I thought it would be cool,’ I whined. ‘Isn’t it cool?’

‘No. No it is not.’

‘Dammit. Oh well,’ I sighed. ‘I guess I can just find a tattoo shop that does cover up tattoos near me.’

‘I’m sorry?’ Lauren almost choked. ‘Run that past me again?’

‘I’ll just get a cover up tattoo,’ I repeated. ‘Why? What’s wrong with that?’

‘Nothing,’ she laughed. ‘If it’s a little flower on your wrist or a word that’s spelt wrong.’

‘But my huge dragon…’

‘Will be with you until the day you die, yes,’ she kept laughing, wiping a tear from her eye. ‘This is honestly priceless.’

‘Well,’ I said, a smirk stretching across my face. ‘I do think you’re forgetting something…’

‘What?’ she frowned. ‘What could I possibly be forgetting?’

I leaned in close so I could whisper in her ear.

‘I’m not the one who has to look at it every day.’

All I can do is gape at the tattooist. “This is nuts,” I say. “You’re nuts.”

We are alone in the parlour. The other staff and customers have disappeared so quickly it was as though they were never here in the first place. Even the hustle and bustle of the city street outside has turned quiet.

“I would like to leave this shop,” I say.   

The tattooist motions to the sketchbook. “We’re going to leave the tattoo shop. Brisbane, too.” He winced. “Well, technically our physical bodies are still here, but our minds will travel into the world of tattoos.”

“A world of your own invention.”

“Yes, one of my own drawings and sketches.”

I nod mildly, finally giving up looking around for an exit, and instead settle my attention on the man in front of me. If there is no chance of escape, my only choice now is to go along with him and hope for the best.

I force my face into a smile. “You’re the best realism tattoo artist Brisbane has to offer. That’s why I came here in the first place.” I take a deep breath. “If you say your drawings are magical, then I guess I can believe it.”

The tattooist claps like a cymbal-banging monkey. “Good, good! There is so much to do.”

He rushes over to the ottoman, where he laid the jet black sketchbook while talking to me. Even sitting there innocently, it seems to exude an otherworldly presence. But I can’t tell if I’m saying that because I want to believe in the magic myself. The tattooist kneels over the ottoman and begins rifling through the pages. There aren’t many of them, but each is filled from border to border with inky black sketches of towering castles with dragons soaring around them, and delicate cherry blossom trees swaying in the wind before a still lake. They’re intricate designs. And apparently, we’re going inside them.