TATTOO PARLOR | daniel howell

f o u r

The day went on as usual, until Creatia got a call.

"She's what?!... Yeah, yeah.... Yeah no I can drop my shift... I'm sure that y/n could fill in for me... I'll just have to ask her but I'm sure she'll understand..." Creatia said, responding to the voice on the phone. She walked over to me, place the phone on her shoulder to muffle the microphone.

"Hey, y/n? My mom is in the hospital, I was wondering if you could fill in for my night shift?" She asked me, tears welling in her eyes. I felt instantly bad for her, and I nodded.

"Of course I can take you shift, you need to be with your mom right now," I told her. She smiled through her pain-filled expression and thanked me. She went back to talking on the phone. I went back to work.

A young woman walked through the door, she was probably 20. I walked over to her, putting on the latex blue gloves.

"Good afternoon, what can I do for you?" I asked her, sitting at the booth, readying a design.

"Hi, can I get a tattoo of the numbers '3.14159' on my left wrist, please?" She asked. I chuckled.

"A fan of Pi, I see?" I smiled at her. She laughed.

"Well, I have a tattoo of pie on my right wrist and my brother thought it funny if I got Pi on my other wrist," she explained. I laughed with her.

"That's pretty funny," I replied, chuckling.

She payed down in the seat and held out her arm. I took her wrist in my hand and began to tattoo the numbers into her wrist. She flinched only at the beginning.

"You never get used to it, do you?" She asked me. I laughed at her comment.

"No, you don't," I responded. When it was finished, I wrapped her wrist and she paid at the counter.

"Now remember, don't take the covering off from at least two hours but no more than six hours. Your skin needs to breath so the tattoo can heal properly, but we don't want you to get infected. Have a nice day!" I gave her the usual spiel that I give to everyone and she was on her way.

A few hours passed and I didn't get much business. It was starting to turn dark and I checked the time: 10:28, we closed at midnight.

A drunk man and his friends stumbled in. He slammed a printed out phrase on the table where I draw out the designs. I walked over at looked at the phrase.

'I eat ass' it said.

I sighed and finished it. Soon enough? Midnight came along and I had to close shop. I locked the doors and began my walk home.

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Hey! Hope you enjoyed that! It was longer than last weeks, that's for sure. I really hoped you enjoyed this and I think I'm finally getting somewhere with this story. Love you all!

-ella