Black script lettering reading Allons-y in a fine script style, tattooed across the ribs on a pale torso.

Allons-y script tattoo on the ribs

Lettering · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A close photograph of the phrase Allons-y written in flowing black script across the side of the ribs. The strokes are smooth and even with a slight variation in weight, and the ink is solid black with no shading. The skin is pale and evenly lit against a warm orange fabric at the top edge of the frame, with a few small moles visible nearby.

Lettering Ribs Lettering Word

Find an artist for this

Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The big top had shed three tents since the spring, and the last elephant had been sold to a farm near Lincoln, so when you climbed the ladder to the rigging that Tuesday there was nothing below but sawdust and the smell of wet canvas. Your uncle Teodor had painted the company name on the side of the wagon in red, though the paint had faded to the colour of an old bruise. You had a stopwatch in one pocket and cold coffee in the other hand, and the wind kept slapping the flap of the tent against the poles like a sail that wanted to leave.

Keep reading

Mrs Abernethy from the ticket booth came out with her cardigan buttoned wrong and asked whether you intended to stand up there all afternoon. "The bank wants the ground by Friday," she said. "Nobody's coming tonight, love." You looked down at a hundred empty rows and thought about the trapeze girl who had left in March with a juggler from Hull and never sent a postcard.

You climbed down and walked to the centre ring, where the sawdust was still soft from the last show. You clapped twice, the way your grandfather used to before the lamps went up, and called out the only words that had ever made the whole company move at once: allons-y. Somewhere under the stage a dog barked. Then the canvas lifted, the lamps flickered on one by one, and for a minute the ring was full of people running for their places.

Mrs Abernethy watched from the flap with her arms folded. "Well," she said. "Go on, then." And you did, because the words had never meant anything except that the show was about to begin, and the show was not finished yet.