Black lettering tattoo reading BAD WOLF across the inner wrist, in a casual hand-drawn script, photographed with the palm raised.

Bad Wolf lettering on a wrist

Lettering · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

The photograph shows the inner wrist of a raised hand with the words BAD WOLF tattooed in black capitals. The letters have a loose, hand-drawn quality with uneven strokes and slight angles, and the wording is set across the wrist with the W and L overlapping the lower edge of the D and A. The ink is solid black against pale skin, and the background is a blurred car interior.

Lettering Forearm Lettering Word

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell,

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You'll think I've gone soft in the head, but the words keep turning up. On Monday they were chalked on the proving room door in capitals that leaned like they were running for a bus. BAD WOLF, it said, and beneath it someone had drawn a tiny wolf with its ears back. Mr Okafor swore it was the lad from the van, but the lad swears he never touched it. I scrubbed it off with vinegar before the first proof, and by four it was back, pressed into the flour on the bench where a finger had written it fresh.

Then the sacks. Every one from Tuesday's delivery had the mill stamp smudged, and the letters underneath read the same way, rough, the L and F tangled together as if the hand had been shaking. I thought it was a joke the night crew at the mill were playing on us. Then yesterday the oven timer went off at two minutes past five, though I had set it for half past. The loaves inside were gold on one side and pale on the other, and the crust of the largest one had the word scorched into it, uneven and slightly slanted, as if someone had pressed a hot wire against it and hurried.

I haven't told anyone else. I've decided the sensible thing is to bake and not read too much into it. Still, when I opened the back door this morning, the sky over the car park was the colour of weak tea, and a single gull stood in the middle of the yard looking straight at me, as if it had been sent to check I was up.

Love, Tom