The Illustrated Man

The Illustrated Man was a somewhat sad story. A man in danger of losing his job gets tattoos all over his body in order to become a carnival's "illustrated man". His tattoo artist tells him that her tattoos can tell the future. She gives him two of these unique tattoos that tell the future and the carnival boss sets an unveiling but when he unveils the new tattoo it is a picture of him killing his wife. Needless to say his wife is furious the next day and as a result drives him to killing her. Later that night the carnies find his wife and chase him down and kill him. They then decide to look at his second tattoo and see something that shocks them, a group of carnies looking down on a tattooed man's back with a tattoo of a group of carnies looking . . . . . After reading I wondered if any one would every decide to become an "illustrated man" over night. To my knowledge only one has, Kevin Budden. He was tired of felling invisible so he went out one night and got his entire body tattooed in order to break a record of 28 hours of continuous tattooing. A little extreme way to get noticed if you ask me.