Black and grey lettering tattoo of a shaded balloon and the words Sometimes you need to let things go, running diagonally across a person's upper back.

Balloon and quote on upper back

Lettering · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A black and grey tattoo on a person's upper back shows a shaded balloon with a thin string, with the words Sometimes you need to let things go written in a diagonal line of handwritten script beneath it. The balloon has soft grey shading and a small highlight, while the lettering uses fine, even black linework. The black and white photograph is close and softly lit, with the tattoo running from lower left to upper right across the skin.

Lettering Back Balloon String Script Quote Text

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The balloon had been tied to the bedpost of the spare room for forty-one years when Mary Thorne finally climbed the stairs to untie it. Nobody in Harrowby had asked her to keep it. Her brother Tom had bought it at the summer fair in 1978 from a man with a barrow, pressed the string into her hand, told her to hold on tight, and then walked down the lane towards the bus and did not come back for a long time.

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The string had gone grey and stiff with dust. She carried the balloon down to the village school hall, where the class of 1978 had booked the long tables for a reunion, and set it on the piano while the urn rattled and people who had once shared a desk squinted at one another over paper cups. Nobody mentioned the balloon. Nobody needed to. They talked about allotments and bad hips and grandchildren, and each time a name came up, Mary tugged the string a little, as if to check it was still there.

When the old register was read and the teacher came to Tom Thorne, the hall went quiet, and Mary understood that everyone there had been waiting for her to say something. She said nothing. She unpicked the knot at the bedpost end, which she had never done, and walked to the open door. The wind off the playing field took the balloon before she could think better of it. It rose over the goalposts and past the bell tower, and the string swung loose beneath it like a line someone had finally cast.

Children in the yard pointed up. Mary stayed in the doorway with her empty hand held out in front of her, and watched the grey sky take the small dark shape until there was nothing left to see.