[ WP ] You can erase a memory if you get a tattoo of the memory on your body . A man discovered deep in the woods is found murdered and covered in tattoos . Tell his tale until death through his tattoos .

Kate squeezed the back of her arm and as soon as her palm came into contact with the tattoo, she was in that room. Sunlight was pouring in and the scent of lilacs surrounded her. She bent over to kiss her daughter ’ s cooling forehead and breathed in her daughter ’ s scent mingled with antibiotics, antiseptic, and lilac. She closed her eyes and just breathed for a bit. Then she looked up at her husband. 
 
 “ Yeah, that ’ s him. ” 
 
 She removed her hand from the tattoo to wipe the tear from her eye and she was back in the morgue. She noticed that he had a matching lilac blossom, but it was on the inside of his wrist, where his watch band would cover. The mortician hadn ’ t said if they found the watch on him, but he never took it off. That memory would be buried deep. 
 
 “ You said they found him on the woods? ” 
 
 The mortician finished filling out the positive identification form and she signed it. 
 
 “ Yeah, shot twice with a silenced beretta, do you know anybody who would want to harm your husband? ” 
 
 “ He walked out and disappeared for years. I ’ m sure you ’ ve read the memories already, right? ” 
 
 “ Of course. ” 
 
 Kate pointed to the lilac on his wrist, “ We have n't been together since this. ” 
 
 “ No divorce? ” 
 
 “ No, he just left town. I guess he didn ’ t need to stick around after… her. ” 
 
 “ Oh, ok. Well, we mostly have this wrapped up, but would you like to corroborate the memories for us? ” 
 
 “ Sure. ” 
 
 The mortician pointed to a checkerboard pattern on the man ’ s shin. “ It says this was a date at a restaurant. ” 
 
 “ Our first date. ” They had been poor grad students then and he had splurged on a sit-down dinner at a local hole in the wall. He spent the entire dinner staring at the tablecloth and mumbling through the conversation, too shy to make much eye contact. It was sweet though and she said yes when he asked her out again. The second date went much better. 
 
 The mortician pointed to a broken flower vase. “ Moving? ” 
 
 “ Yeah. ” She had bought flowers for their first apartment and set the arrangement on the counter. He struggled to carry in a large box of pots and pans and set it on the counter where the vase was. It shattered into a thousand pieces. They laughed it off and spent the night making love in every room to claim the apartment as their own. 
 
 He pointed at a portrait of a puppy. “ This one is a bit more complex. ” 
 
 She didn ’ t need the summary to know what that was. When he got a promotion to lead scientist at the biotech lab, they made enough money to move into a house with a back yard. He got her the dog he always wanted. The puppy didn ’ t stay the newest member of the household for long. “ It was a promotion. He got paid enough to afford a house with a back yard and we got the dog. I think those days were the start of our happiest together. ” 
 
 “ Then I don ’ t need to get you to corroborate these then. ” The corpse was covered in the tattoos of a child hood. A newborn ’ s footprint, a pair of footprints -- one in front of the other, a tooth, blocks, a my little pony doll, story books, a backpack, an arm in a cast, a child ’ s lamp, stuffed animals, a tutu, and so on. It would have taken years to get all that work done. You can only remove one memory every few days. 
 
 “ He obliterated every memory of her. ” 
 
 “ The reader mentioned that he wouldn ’ t even recall having a daughter. ” 
 
 Kate set her jaw and pointed to a tattoo on his index finger. “ And this one? ” 
 
 The mortician flipped to the page that had the summary for the broken pipette. He he would make contact with that memory every time he scratched an itch, rubbed his eyes, picked his nose or made a fist. “ An accident at work, an incomplete decontamination. We asked his work and they have no records of this. Any reason why he would want to recall that memory so often? ” 
 
 Kate focused in on a tattoo of a bow tied from a ribbon. “ He worked with bio-weapons. Do you have an approximate time for that? ” 
 
 “ About six years ago, a few months before the… ” He paused. “ Before the lilac blossom. ” 
 
 Kate wiped a tear from her eye and began rooting around in her purse. 
 
 The mortician set the clipboard down. “ But you knew that already. ” 
 
 “ I did. ” 
 
 She pulled a silenced beretta from her purse and leveled it at the mortician. 
 
 “ He admitted to it right before I shot him. ”
