The Tattooed Man by Adam Acidophilus

There was once a simple fellow who grew tired of being treated as though he were a nobody; he decided that he wanted to be noticed.

He wanted to be admired like the soldiers were, or venerated like the priests were, or at least addressed in a civil tongue like the freaks and beggars were.

"What I need," he confided in a friend, "is something that says look at me."

"Now there's an idea," said the simple fellow. "You don't by any chance happen to know where I might find a tattoist?"

And so the tattooist escorted the simple fellow to his studio. "Now," he began, "what would you like your tattoo to say?"

"And so it shall," promised the tattooist. "But how would you like it to say look at me? By praising your family name? By commemorating some historical event? By picturing some divine pietist or mythic beast?"

So, against his better judgement, the tattooist duly wrote LOOK AT ME across the simple fellow's chest – and he could hardly wait to sample its effect.

He went for an unusually long walk the following day, but to his annoyance nobody noticed the tattoo. So he went for another unusually long walk – this time with his shirt off. But although people could now see the tattoo all that they said to him was, "Put something on mate, you should always wear a shirt when it is snowing."

So the simple fellow returned to the tattooist's. "It's no good," he said. "Put it on my forehead where everyone can see it."

So the unscrupulous tattooist wrote LOOK AT ME across the simple fellow's brow; and he was delighted, for now he was noticed. People looked at him with an expression that he took to be respect – and it was, indeed, the closest thing to respect that he would ever experience.

The only person who did not stare at the simple fellow in disbelief, and hurry across the street muttering in latin, was the woman who lived opposite – who just ignored him. But she was the person that he most wished to be noticed by! So he returned to the tattooist's to have the woman's name, which was Candida Albicans, inscribed upon his upper lip.

When she saw what he had done she screamed and fainted; and from then on he had only to appear on the street and she would taunt the simple fellow from her upstairs window.

"Jesus F. Picasso!" she would shout – for that was his name – "You are an imbecile! Look at yourself! Look at him everybody, see how the stupid fool has had LOOK AT ME CANDIDA ALBICANS indelibly scrawled upon his ugly face!"

The people in the bars and cafes found this very funny; traders would stifle their cackles with newspapers; when he encountered a group of nuns, the simple fellow overheard one of them whisper that he was a pillock.

After many days of this abuse he returned to the tattooist's. "I'd like you to alter this tattoo please," he said. "I'd like it to say STOP LOOKING AT ME CANDIDA ALBICANS."

The tattooist did his best to oblige; he managed to fit the word STOP at the start of the original sentence, but by the time that he had inserted an ING after LOOK it appeared to be a less than professional job. He assured the simple fellow that it would be more aesthetically credible if he added a PLEASE to the left temple.

Inevitably, a great crowd began to loiter outside the simple fellow's home, hoping to glimpse the famous idiot with the words STOP LOOKING AT ME PLEASE CANDIDA ALBICANS tattooed across his face.

And the person who loitered the most was Candia Albicans herself, who succeeded in getting a photograph of him, which she sold to the highest bidder.

Eventually, following a public outcry and several vicious editorials in the press, the unprincipled tattooist agreed to pay out of his own pocket to have the words AND THE REST OF YOU added to the simple fellow's chin.

Moral: Never trust a man who shaves around the edge of his beard – it is evidence of an unhealthy conflict of ideologies. (Sorry – I forgot to mention the beard.)