gingatao

Velazquez Tattoo.

“If you think in a certain way you may feel better,” said the old man, it’s not a question of belief. But it is innate in human nature to question, to seek. It was one of the primary reasons we became so successful as a certain type of creature. The old priest tucks himself into his cassock. I am tired of preaching to the converted my love. He has a photograph of himself as a young man with a painting by Velazquez tattooed on his back. He is standing on a beach somewhere and you can’t tell if the sun is rising or setting over the ocean. The tattoo is all he has to show for some adventure. He is dripping wet and in his hand is some dull object too blurred by the sepias of time to be identified.

Besides, he says putting the photograph back on the dresser and looking up into the mirror, silence is consent and people are still dying. Outside is the clatter of swords on horseback and a sudden silence. He waits for the knock on the door.