Black and grey dotwork portrait of a man in a collared shirt, with the word SOMETIMES above, on the thigh.

Black and grey portrait of a man on a thigh

Dotwork · Thigh · Black and grey · Photo

A black and grey portrait of a man with slicked back hair, a furrowed brow and a serious expression, shown from the chest up in a collared shirt. The face is rendered with fine stippled dotwork shading and bold black outlines, with short radiating lines at either side of the head. The word SOMETIMES in a blackletter-style serif sits in an arc above the head, and the tattoo fills the frame on the thigh.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The departure board has been lying to you since March, so when it lists the 22:14 to Hereford as on time, you distrust it before you have finished reading. Ruth rings from the signal box to say the points at Dinmore have stuck again. You tell her what you always tell the few who ask at this hour: sometimes it comes, sometimes it doesn't. It is the only honest word anyone has printed about this line.

Keep reading

A man in a collared shirt, buttoned to the throat despite the cold, stands at the far end of platform two reading the engineering notice for the third time. He has the patience of someone who has missed more trains than he has caught. You take your lamp and walk the cinders to him, and he looks up as if you were a clock he has already decided not to trust. He asks whether the 22:14 is running. You open your mouth to say sometimes, and find you cannot say it to him.

The rails begin to sing a little before the light comes round the bend. The train slides in, two carriages, lit like a shop window at Christmas, and the doors sigh open on nobody at all. He does not get on. He stands with his hands in his coat pockets and watches it wait, as though it might still change its mind.

When the guard whistles, you look back at the board. Someone has pressed the wrong key and the word beside the Hereford train now reads Sometimes, in capitals, flickering like a bulb about to give up. You switch the display off. The platform goes dark, and you realise the man is still there, a pale shape beside the bench, waiting for an answer you have already given him.

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