Enlarged with AI from a smaller original
Arrow tattoo on an upper arm
Fine line · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo
A slim black arrow runs vertically along the inner arm, with a small arrowhead at the top, a few dots and rings along the shaft, and feathered fletching at the base. The linework is thin and crisp, with minimal shading. The tattoo is in greyscale against warm skin, with the arm raised and dark hair framing the frame.
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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction
Dear Tom, the lamp went dark again on Tuesday, and Father blamed the wick, though I saw him standing at the foot of the stair with his hand on the rail for a full minute before he went up. I have taken the rota over. Mrs Pryce brings the paraffin on Thursdays and counts the tins twice, as if I might drink it.
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The arrow you sent from Valparaiso came rolled inside a tobacco tin, the shaft still straight, the feathers bent flat where the tin pressed. You wrote that it was the only thing you could carve that would not warp in the damp. I have hung it above the chart table where the beam sweeps past every eleven seconds. Each time it passes I think of the rings you cut along the shaft, one for every ship you counted coming up the coast.
Last night a fishing smack came in blind off the Skerry, and I watched its lantern tack twice before it steadied. I turned the wick up as high as the brass allowed and held the glass with both hands. People think a lighthouse tells you where the land is. It only tells you where the rocks are not, and Father taught me that with a string and a bucket of sand.
The smack made harbour at four. Its skipper left a crab on the step for me, wrapped in a sheet of newspaper from last March. Come home when the ship lets you, and bring the good knife. Your sister, Ada.
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