Untamed (177 page)

Tina Azume is beaming at me, and I feel the welcome flutter of pride in my chest and belly.

Before me, she holds up the imitation skin, a bespoke fabric designed to emulate real skin for tattoo artists to practice on.

Of course, nothing is the same as real skin. Nothing is the same as inking a living, breathing human who bleeds, whose temperature changes, who sweats, who feels pain.

But damn it if I haven’t done a good job. Tina had me draw that optical illusion where everybody is walking up and down steps, but there’s no way to tell which way is the right way up. It’s a visual trick; the lines are dishonest, but that we can’t make total sense of that reveals the brain’s willingness to try and interpret
anything
, and to mold information into something understandable.