justwrite 6 november

His name isn’t Harry, or King Phillip, of course, but he’s still thinking about tattoos. What to have done? Will he really follow through on the idea, or is this just one of those impulsive sort of thoughts that she often accuses him of abandoning at the first sing of something more interesting? Truly, this occurrence is easily justified to himself as flexibility, the more presentable and marketable cousin of fickleness.
“If I was in a novel, granting your assumption that this would necessarily make my life more interesting, and if I had a tattoo, what kind of tattoo would I have, and then where?”
Never being meant to read the long-suffering worn orange book in any sort of sustained manner, she peers over it to look at him closely.
“I can’t tell you what it would look like just at the moment, but it would definitely have some good kind of story behind it.”
“Like some wild weekend in Vegas kind of story? That sounds pretty promising.” Sometimes it’s hard to tell if he’s being sarcastic.
“No, definitely not that kind of a story.” She seems extremely certain about this.
“You seem extremely certain about this.”
“It would be something carefully planned, with lots of flashback and foreshadowing potential. You don’t have to be an English major to know that.” A certain look at his face. A pause. “Not a name, though. That’s too obvious.” Another pause. “Probably a symbol of some kind.”
“Like a Chinese character, maybe.”
“Hmm.”
“No, you say, ‘You’re a Chinese character, maybe.’”
She ignores him.
“The fact that you’re a guy definitely narrows it down, though.” The book is still open, but now waits open-faced on the coffee table, hoping for an end to this ridiculous series of hypothesis. Her knees pulled tight, she looks up at the ceiling, the source of endless inspiration to students and real people throughout the entire world.
“Thanks.”
Unreasonably serious about this consideration, she doesn’t hear him. It doesn’t matter, though; no response is really merited.
“Something tribal, maybe?” he offers.
“Trite.”