The last thing Suatre remembered was cleaning out the house. A huge rented dumpster squatted outside the ugly house, and he’d been hauling load after load of trash, trash and more trash into it. It’d been the house...the house by that rose garden... There’d been roses, so many, and a fountain where people from the neighborhood gathered as soon as the weather was warm. His roommate's dog Jack would escape the front door and dash kittycorner across the street to that park, to harass whoever was walking their own dogs. He’d had to chase after him sometimes. But that day Jack was gone and the house was being moved out of. And cleaned out. 

And now he was alone, in this tattoo studio (West Wind Tattoo, it was called, printed above his name on business cards sitting on the counter). He was apparently the owner. Somewhere he could remember that, but it was hazy, like his memory of moving out of the house was. Neither of them felt entirely real.

What was real was this room, the smoke, the android repair shop outside. Maybe it was a joke name for a comic shop or something. He walked to the front door, grateful the room had stopped swirling and everything felt more or less normal and solid.

Outside things also felt normal. It was fall, leaves piled on the ground. There was a large tree growing out of the sidewalk next to his shop, it's roots pushing the cement up artistically, and it had dropped a mountain of golden leaves across the whole front door area. It was cold, almost bitingly and he realized he was wearing an undershirt and his old tattered blue jeans. He rushed back inside, where it was dark but warm.

Something weird had happened to him, and he wanted to know what. But also maybe he already knew. He just didn’t want to admit it. This wasn’t the first time.

The door jangled open a few minutes later, as Suatre was stabbing his cigarette out into an ashtray he’d found behind the counter. A guy walked in, dressed kind of oddly, like maybe business casual meets Target employee. And he had...weird ears. Really weird. What the fuck?

The guy just looked at him, staring from behind the counter. Suddenly something clicked and felt normal again. What a weird day.

“Hi, how are ya?” Suatre said, smiling. “How can I help you today?”

“I need a new tattoo artist. Could you do some traditional Deyluji stuff?” The guy cocked his head a little, seeming to peek at Suatre’s ears. “You’re human, right?”

“Ah, yeah...I am. Deyluji?” That almost sounded familiar. They were...the aliens? With the ears? This guy’s ears were like three big bumps coming out, kind of like a crudely drawn wing shape. He unconsciously touched his own ear. 

"Oh yeah, yeah, um, I haven’t done any of that stuff before, but I’m sure I can. If you're cool with a human doing it." He leaned across the counter. The guy was kinda short, curly blond hair also short, big green eyes hidden under shadowy lids and a blase expression. Attractive in a sullen way. Dorky striped button up shirt and tan cargo shorts. In this weather? Bad dresser. But kinda built for a short guy. Kinda cute. “What does it look like?”

The guy across from him lifted his arms to show him. Across both his forearms stretched the dark tattoos. They were spiky bat wing looking shapes, shaded dark and with just enough light areas for some depth and texture. They looked shiny, like fins. Or armor.

“Oh yeah, I can do that.” Suatre both knew had never tattooed in his life, but also he had years of experience doing it. That was strange. He shook the dissonance from his thoughts and pulled out his schedule book. It was empty. “I’ve got plenty of time today, or whenever.”

“I see…” The guy said, looking at the schedule book too. Suatre snapped it shut. “Well. I was hoping to get it today, so that works.”

Suatre found some release forms and had the guy fill it out. Sorrel Augrah. No allergies, no illness, not pregnant.

The guy, Sorrel, had brought his tattoo design with him. Suatre adjusted the size a bit and made the stencil. It was going on Sorrel’s right foot, right across the top.

“I probably don’t have to warn ya, since you already have so much ink, but this is gonna hurt,” he said as he set things up. Just black ink, liner and a shader. Easy. He wondered how he knew this, but it was starting to all feel very natural. His process fell into place as he moved, he wasn’t unsure about what to do or where things were. He’d done this before. He’d been doing this for years.

“I know,” Sorrel said from where he sat on the tattoo chair.

“Cool. Just wanted to make sure.” Suatre scooted his utility table over to the work space, gliding across the floor on a rolling stool. Sorrel kicked off his dad-core sandals and the stencil was placed. Suatre got to work.

Sorrel didn’t react to the needle save for a slight buzz as it first hit his skin. Suatre moved quickly, hands sure. Deep in the back of his mind he flailed. I’ve never tattooed before! I barely even have any tattoos myself! What am I doing?! But up front he did know what he was doing. The outlines were strong and steady when he wiped the ink off and admired them before shading.

“You doin' okay?” Suatre took his eyes off his handiwork and glanced up. Sorrel looked cool as a cucumber.

“I’m fine.”

“Okay.” Suatre turned to switch out machines for the shading stage of the tattoo. He felt awkward. Sometimes people didn’t like to talk while getting tattooed but this guy had barely said ten words since coming in. Suatre wanted to ask him about himself, but he knew so little about this world. Somehow he knew how to tattoo, and somehow he also knew this was a whole new place for him. He’d never been here and he had no idea how to ask any follow up questions to anything. He didn’t even know if this guy Sorrel was...was he human? He kind of didn’t look like it, with the ears, and...Oh, he didn’t know. Everything was so strange. Was he going crazy?

Well, it wouldn’t be the first time.

The shading went as smoothly as the lines. With some slight smugness, he thought to himself that this new tattoo was better than the matching ones on Sorrel’s shins, done by another artist. There was something he could ask.

“So why’d you need to find a new tattoo artist?”

Sorrel didn’t answer. Suatre looked up and saw...holographic shapes floating around Sorrel’s head. Squares and rectangles, a scrolling feed...Sorrel was moving his hands very minutely in his lap, touching nothing but the windows responded, a screen with text and images, faces...What, was this social media? He realized he was staring. Sorrel finally blinked and looked through the screens instead of at them, seeing Suatre watching through their translucency.

“Sorry, what did you ask me?”

“I...was wondering why you needed...a new tattoo artist…” Suatre said, extremely distracted by the floating screens. “What..is that??”

“What?”

“The...this! The lights…” He reached a gloved hand into the air and through a screen, disrupting its image. Little agitated pixels scattered around his fingers.

Now Sorrel was staring. “It’s just holoscreens. You...don’t...know that?”

“No, I’ve never seen anything like it. Is it for like...the internet?”

“Do you mean the Link?” Sorrel was sounding a bit incredulous, and maybe annoyed.

“I don’t know.” Suatre felt bad suddenly. Really bad. He didn’t know anything. He was out of the loop, out of time.

“Do you not have a Link implant?” Sorrel asked, his voice lowering.

Suatre put his hands in the air. “No?”

“Fringe, then? Are you from Earth?”

Suatre needed a cigarette like hella urgently now. He just nodded and got back to the tattoo. It was basically done, just a few wipes and spots to hit. When he glanced a peek back up, the colorful screens were gone and it was just Sorrel looking down at him, watching his every move. Suatre must have spooked him. He probably seemed like a total freak, not knowing what he’d seen, not knowing whatever the Link was. Are you from Earth then? Suddenly a cold spike went down his back. Was this...even...Earth? He couldn’t ask.

Sorrel inspected his new tattoo, bending over it. He nodded once. “It’s really good. Perfect, actually. Thank you.”

Even his anxiety over not even knowing where the fuck he was in space and time couldn’t dim the warm glow of pleasure he felt at the praise. Not bad for his first tattoo.

“I’ll be back for another,” Sorrel said as he left.

Suatre lit a cigarette. It was three whole minutes before he realized he hadn’t been paid.