Black ink drawing of a hand-lettered quote reading I'M ON A ROLLERCOASTER THAT ONLY GOES UP, MY FRIEND, with a simple balloon on a string, shown as a tattoo design with no body placement.

Balloon and rollercoaster quote lettering

Lettering · Black and grey · Flash

A hand-drawn line illustration of a quote in blocky capital letters, set in five lines beside a simple outlined balloon with a wavy string. The linework is solid black with no shading, drawn with an even outline and a small highlight curve on the balloon. The design is in black and grey on a pale background, with the text filling the left side and the balloon and string running down the right.

Lettering Balloon Quote Text

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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

You are standing at the foot of the pier on Skerry Lowe with a fistful of string and Mrs Abernethy's last penny pressed into your palm. She bought the red balloon for her grandson, then let go of it to wave at the ferry, and now it is drifting over the harbour wall towards the lighthouse. The wind off the water is strong enough to flatten your hair. Your cousin Dess has already gone up the ramp to the fairground with a paper cone of chips, shouting that the big dipper opens at noon whether or not the mayor has finished his speech.

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The big dipper is older than both of you. It was hauled across on a barge in 1951 and, according to Harold Pym, who runs it, has never once been properly inspected. Harold has a cough, a clipboard and a cardigan he never takes off. He hands you a ticket you did not ask for and points at the front car. "Hold the bar," he says. "It only goes up, my friend. Nobody ever asked me why." Then he pulls a lever, and the chain clanks, and the car begins to climb.

It climbs past the chip shop roof and the tea rooms and the tops of the gulls. It does not dip once. You keep waiting for the drop that never comes, and instead the whole island unrolls below you like a tea towel: the harbour, the boats, a tiny Dess waving her chips in the air. At the very top the car stops with a shudder, and you realise the balloon has caught on the rail above you, tugging gently at your wrist as if it wants to go on without you. You unhook the string, let it go, and watch it climb higher still, the only thing on the island that never once asked for the ground.