Black ink design of a flock of small birds flying upward above the word freedom, with the letters m and o raised at the end, shown as a tattoo design with no body placement visible.

Birds rising above the word freedom

Lettering · Black and grey · Flash

A flock of small black bird silhouettes flies in a loose upward curve across the top of the image. Below them the word freedom is set in a bold serif-style lettering, with the final m and o raised and stacked above the d. The design is drawn in solid black on a plain white background with no shading or colour.

Lettering Bird Flock Word Freedom

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Mags,

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You will laugh, but the chalkboard at the Majestic still says FREEDOM, or it did on Saturday, because Eddie the bandleader ran out of room and had to squeeze the m and the o in above the d like a pair of kids climbing on a wall. Nobody has the heart to rub it off. We danced under it until the bulbs gave out, and I kept thinking of the starlings that gather over the end of the pier at dusk, hundreds of them, turning as one thing and then splitting apart and reforming like someone shaking out a sheet.

Dad would have hated the noise. Mum would have pretended she didn't mind. I went with Ruth from the post office, in the green frock you said made me look like a lampshade, and a sailor from Chatham asked me to dance three times and never once told me his name. He said he had spent two years on a ship where the only thing you could see from the rail was water, and that when the birds came he had to go below so the lads wouldn't see him cry.

I told him I'd see him at the door next Saturday. I haven't decided yet whether I will. But I wanted you to know the word on the board is spelled right now, only cramped, and somebody made it fit anyway.

Write back soon. Tell me if the lodger has finally gone.

Love, Ivy