Fine line tattoo of overlapping closed-eyed faces inside a circle and cube outline on the upper arm.

Overlapping faces in a cube on upper arm

Fine line · Upper arm · Mixed · Photo

A black outline design shows a circle intersected by a wireframe cube, with several faces drawn over each other, each with closed eyes and lashes. The linework is thin and even with no shading, and two small red lips are the only colour. The arm rests at an angle on a crumpled pale grey bedsheet.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The rain had been coming down on the Tuesday market since before the bells, and Tomas Wex had sold nothing but one cabbage by noon. He sat under the tarpaulin with his crate open and the faces inside, each drawn on a card no bigger than a palm. His mother had taught him the trick: fold the cube, set the circle through its middle, and the faces slid over one another like sleepers turning in a bed.

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A girl stopped at the stall with a wet shawl over her head and asked what they were for. "For keeping," Tomas said. "Every one has its eyes shut. They are waiting for someone to look at them properly." She laughed and asked whether the one with the red mouth could sing. He told her it could say one true thing a year, but only if nobody asked it to. She bought the cube anyway, paying in damp coppers from her apron.

That night a knock came at his door. The girl stood on the step, dripping, holding the card. "I looked at them all at once, like you said, and nothing happened. Then I stopped looking, and the mouth moved." Tomas took the card to his table and unfolded it under the lamp. The red lips were parted now, and the lashes above the other faces had not yet lifted.

By morning the rain had thinned to a drip from the gutter. Tomas opened his crate at the market and found the cube folded neatly on top, though he had locked it inside. Its circle was turned to the window, and every face in it was looking out at the wet street.

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