They first appeared in adolescence. Each of us can describe in sickening detail the searing pain that woke us from our rest late at night; and the first were quite generic, simple variations on a single piece of art. If you woke soon enough, you could see the ink on swelling skin that rose before your eyes. They were all simple.
A friend of mine woke in the witching hours on her sixteenth birthday to find parallel lines running the length of her forearm, with a dashed line running down the center and onto her palm. She came to us the next morning rejoicing, jingling in front of my nose a shiny key- her first car. Naivety was overwhelming in those days, when we assumed literal meanings of the tattoos. Sarah wrecked that day. The road came to an abrupt halt just as she threw her head back in song. Her car rolled down a hill and another fifteen feet before stopping in a muddled field of daisies. The pain in the palm of her hand that night, as an X marked itself permanently at the end of the dashed line would not be felt; nothing would be felt. I visit her from time to time, when I can manage it. I pull up to her front door and catch myself wondering why she hasn't run into the yard to greet me. Sometimes she is on her front porch, if her mother feels that the weather is nice enough. We sit together and I talk. I'm not sure if she can hear me, but I remind her about before.
Reader, I hope you haven't gotten the wrong idea about the tattoos. They are not all prophetic; in fact, most are predictable, and utterly benign. Circles on the left hand signal engagements, hearts around the navel tell you more than any pregnancy test could. Most mark the moments a normal person longs for. I, unfortunately, was not so lucky.
I am told that the more intricate a design is, the more difficult the situation that arises. Darker tattoos are the most difficult to predict- the designs often look more stick-n-poke- blurred, almost.
I am tired, Reader. My skin is covered and burns like hellfire. My secrets have not been uncovered.