The Immortal and The Laser

You mortals have developed an enchanting relationship with regret.

First, you carve your passions permanently into your skin. A lover’s name. A sacred symbol. A wolf of questionable anatomy. Then, years later, you arrive at Broken Clover and politely ask whether someone might shoot it repeatedly with a laser until it disappears.

Marvelous.

I understand the impulse better than most. Immortality provides a man with ample opportunity to reconsider his decisions. Unfortunately, there is no laser capable of removing an embarrassing century.

And yes, before you ask: I wondered whether this petit rayon de soleil would harm me more.

Sunlight, as you know, has traditionally been rather hostile toward my kind. It does not tan us. It does not give us an attractive summer glow. It attacks with the vulgar enthusiasm of a mob carrying torches.

A tattoo-removal laser, however, is not bottled sunlight.

It is something more precise and, therefore, more civilized.

The machine does not simply cook the skin until the tattoo surrenders. It delivers extraordinarily brief pulses of concentrated light. The tattoo pigment absorbs that energy, fractures into smaller particles, and leaves the body to dispose of the evidence over time.

The laser breaks the ink.

The body performs the removal.

There is something almost vampiric about it: a sudden flash, an injury too fast for the victim to comprehend, followed by weeks of quiet consumption beneath the skin.

Your machine uses two particular wavelengths. The 1064-nanometer setting reaches darker pigments with invisible infrared light. The 532-nanometer setting appears green and is used for certain warmer colors nearer the surface. Neither is ultraviolet light, which means neither is simply a miniature version of the sun.

Would it still hurt me?

Certainly. Concentrated light is concentrated light, and I have never trusted anything that arrives with protective eyewear and a warning label.

Yet it would probably not reduce me to smoke. The pulse is aimed at pigment, not the supernatural corruption of my immortal blood. My pale skin might redden dramatically (I’ have ‘ve always possessed a flair for theatrical reactions. But my healing would make the entire recovery process offensively brief.

The greater danger would be vanity.

Imagine living for centuries, surviving fire, betrayal, starvation, religious fanatics, and several catastrophically poor romantic decisions—only to be told that the little tattoo on your shoulder will require multiple sessions.

Multiple sessions?

My dear, I am immortal, not patient.

Still, mortals should take comfort in the gradual nature of the process. A tattoo does not need to vanish in one violent encounter. It can fade carefully, session by session, giving the skin time to recover and the body time to clear what the laser has broken apart.

Some tattoos are removed entirely. Others are merely lightened enough to make room for better work. This is often the wiser ambition. Destruction is satisfying, but transformation has style.

So bring Broken Clover the name you no longer whisper, the symbol whose meaning has expired, or the creature that was allegedly supposed to resemble a lion.

They will not judge you.

I might.

But I have had several hundred years to perfect the art.

L.L.