Nolite te bastardes carborundorum
Turtles All the Way Down“Nolite te bastardes carborundorum” appears in the missing-person report as a tattoo on the missing man’s left shoulder blade. The report supplies an apparent translation, “Don’t let the bastards get you down,” but gives no account of when the inscription was acquired or what it meant to him.
Inscription and Meaning
The report records the Latin phrase as part of the man’s identifying description and glosses it as “Don’t let the bastards get you down.” Its wording is presented with a qualification: the translation is offered as the apparent meaning, not as a confirmed explanation from the man himself.
Appearance in the Report
Aza reads the report on her phone during the school day. Among its details—age, appearance, height, weight, clothing, and surgical scars—the tattoo is distinguished by its placement on the left shoulder blade and by the explanatory translation attached to it. The inscription turns a bureaucratic list of identifying features into a record that also carries a compact, unexplained statement.
Narrative Significance
The phrase reaches the reader through an official document rather than through the missing man’s own voice. Its force therefore remains open: the report establishes what was written on his body and offers a gloss, but does not disclose the circumstances behind it. That gap makes the tattoo both a concrete identifying mark and an unresolved personal detail.
