Page 13 - Nihil Alchemia CRUCIBLE Issue One MAY 2020 Flip Book

NEEDLES

INK

A PERFORMANCE

PERMANENTLY

ETCHED

J.M. HEMMINGS

I am hyperconscious, gun as it pierces my skin,
traversing the middle over and over, multiple times
ground between a buzzing a second. It is relentless,
adrenalin high and flat out merciless, beautiful.
fight-or-flight panic. The
release of endorphins, a I swallow slowly, my sticky
steady flow for the first saliva like damp cotton in my
three hours or so, has mouth. A sour taste lingers
slowed to a weak dribble; no in the region of my molars;
longer can they effectively is it hunger or fear? The
counteract the pain. The tattooist’s breath is hot
buzzing is omnipresent; the and humid on the side of my
hubbub of the crowd in the neck, like a teasing lover or
icy expo hall, its excessive a smirking schoolyard bully.
air-conditioned chill draped His unflinching eyes are
over me like a damp sheet, on the lines his mechanical
the uneven but ceaseless needle is permanently inking
rhythm of hundreds of across the left side of my
conversations, peppered chest, his nitrile-gloved hand I am in a foreign city in a foreign land. I’ve been to Taipei twice before;
with laughter and expletives, steady and unwavering as he the first was when I landed in Taiwan, a twenty-one-year-old university
all of it in a language I’m burns the black lines across graduate who, up until that point, had never flown in an aeroplane, let
only slightly familiar with. my skin. Blood beads from alone set foot on alien soil. Now I have been in this country for over
The droning hum of the the wounds; a feeble protest
cooling system fans nearby, from my flesh at the mass a year, and when the opportunity arose to have a master Taiwanese
monotonous and indifferent, mutilation it is suffering. tattooist ink a drawing of mine permanently onto my skin, I snatched it
provides a steady, sonorous Three hours down, and we’re with both eager hands. Normally I wouldn’t have been able to afford
background note. But maybe past the halfway point. the services of a master of Shefu Tsai’s calibre, but I was offered a
dominating all, drowning large discount on the regular price if I would agree to be tattooed at
out these other buzzes, is the Maybe. the Taipei Tattoo Convention – Taiwan’s largest gathering of tattoo
acidic gnawing of the tattoo
artists and ink fanatics – in front of thousands of people.