A gleaming tiger’s eye. Swaths of intricate vines. Foreign alphabets. The sun had long faded the once striking etches that lined the brick walls of the musty parlour. Its rays crept through the storefront window pane, illuminating the otherwise invisible particulates.

A short jangle of bells ran out, followed by the squeak of an old door. The dull clamoring once alerted of patrons, but now it was a funeral toll for the man who made the shop a place of rebirth. Without the incessant buzz of the artist’s machinery, the man barely recognized his livelihood. He shuffled across the wooden planks, determined to be unaccompanied, as he had once done daily forty years prior. This was his goodbye.

His pale eyes, flitted around the room, in a futile effort to see all that has passion had created. With a strained attempt, the slow glance resurfaced old memories. The worn leather black chairs cradled countless people who trusted his handiwork and artistry. Those who wanted to remember. To forget. To celebrate. To rebel. To appreciate.

Turning his attention toward the rows and rows of ink sets, he tried lifting his right arm out to grasp one when a burst of shooting pain reminded him again of his newfound limitation. His face darkened and drooped, and instead, he grasped a half-empty bottle of dark black ink with his left hand. The moment he touched the bottle, his hand tingled. Whether it was from his ailing body or the magic that seemed to make the ink an extension of his hand, the man couldn’t say. The permanent engraving of artwork onto someone’s body never ceased to enrapture him, even after years in the industry. From growing up with alcoholic parents to going through two divorces, permanence never seemed to have a place in his life. The man’s work was where he found stability in a world that constantly re-molding itself. To know that his art would endure for lifetimes to come, and to know these marks had meaning to the ones who bore the black ink, well, that was enough.

A distant honk drew him from his trance, signaling his driver was ready. Where the man was going was where he would die. Perhaps not physically right away- but his spirit would be gone the moment he left the shop. Rooms and rooms of the elderly waiting for loved ones, waiting for medications, waiting for food- but ultimately waiting for death. He knew it- it was the only writing on the walls he could read.

The man sighed and turned back towards the door, ink still in hand. One foot in front of the other. Or so he tried. But his head was throbbing at this point, and his gait was not so much of a gait as it was a stagger.

A body collapsed with the bottle shattering beside it.

Black ink ran in pools between the planks, staining the grain of the wood.

A tiger’s eye winked.