Quotation Marks

The hairdresser had rolled up her sleeve. Through the mirror, I was able to decipher the tattoo on the inside of her arm. It said: “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

I asked her whether she’d made that up herself.

“No,” she said, “Socrates.”

I considered the concept of engraving someone else’s ideas about life on my body which, in its appearance, is what others define me by. To me, this hairdresser has become a reprint of Socrates.

“You should have used quotation marks,” I said.