Modern.
The podcast is supported by produced by the Ilab at WBUR Boston.
A note before we start this episode deals with suicide, and it may not be right for all listeners from the New York Times and WBUR Boston, this is modern love stories of love, loss and redemption.
I'm your host, Magna Chakrabarti.
People get tattoos for a lot of reasons, but whatever they mean, or were meant to mean, they are a permanent mark commemorating a moment in time.
Alana Dakin writes about two different tattoos in her essay it's read this week by Zasha Mamet.
Zasha is best known for her work on HBO's girls, and her new show is tales of the city on Netflix.
My boyfriend, Andreas, extended his forearm over his plate of half eaten turkey and yams, fist clenched, exposing the greek letters tattooed in dark blue ink from inner elbow to wrist.
I took a hesitant bite of salad, still nauseated from the five hour car ride from Manhattan to Lexington, Massachusetts, where Andreas aunt and uncle were hosting the family's Thanksgiving meal.
It means nobody, Andreas told his cousin, who had spotted the new tattoo.
His eyes were wet and alive.
I already knew the story.
It was Andreas favorite part of the Odyssey, but I leaned in anyway as he narrated the tale of when Odysseus and his men find themselves trapped in the cave of Polyphemus, a fearsome cyclops.
The story goes that in a daring attempt at freedom, Odysseus tells the monster that his name is nobody and then plunges a wooden stake through Polyphemus single eye, blinding him.
The other giants on the island come running at the sound of Polyphemus screams, but they soon turn back.
When the Cyclops explains that nobody had hurt him.
Andreas smiled.
You see, he said.
Odysseus tricked them.
He escaped.