Fine line black ink tattoo of a stack of books with titles including 1984 and Brave New World on the outer thigh.

Stack of book spines on a thigh

Fine line · Thigh · Black and grey · Photo

A stack of five books in black linework sits vertically on the outer thigh, with titles lettered on their spines. The line work is thin and even, with little or no shading, and the spines carry titles including Perks, Choke, 1984, Fountainhead, Catcher in the Rye and Brave New World. The skin is pale and the photo is cropped to the thigh, with purple shorts at the top of the frame.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Marta,

Keep reading

The man at the crossing had five paperbacks in a carrier bag, and Pavel, the lad on the night desk who had only been there a month, pulled them out one by one and read the spines aloud like a register. Perks. Choke. Nineteen eighty-four. He looked up and asked whether the man meant to sell them. The man said no, they were for his granddaughter, who had been told she couldn't read them where she was going.

I'm writing because I was the one who had to decide. The rules are plain enough: printed matter is checked, not banned, and a list is kept. Pavel wanted to put them in the box marked hold. Then the man said the titles again, quietly, as though they were the password to something, and Pavel laughed in spite of himself and stamped the form without opening a single cover.

Stacks like that are easy to knock over, but these had been packed carefully, the way someone packs a thing they mean to carry a long way. When the man walked off towards the car park I watched him stop and set the top one, Brave New World, square on the pile again before he got into his car.

Write back and tell me what you're reading. I'm on the desk until March, and I'd like to know somebody out there is still rude about Fountainhead at dinner.

Yours, Ilse

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