Fine line black and grey drawing of a compass rose with an arrow running through it, feathered fletching and ribbon at the base, and the words Time flies like an arrow beneath.

Compass and arrow design with quote

Fine line · Black and grey · Flash

A pen drawing of a compass rose with N, E, S and W markings, centred on a vertical arrow whose tip points north. Vines wind around the compass, and the arrow's fletching and a trailing ribbon sit at the bottom. The words Time flies like an arrow appear in spaced capitals beneath the design, with the whole image in black linework on a plain white background.

Fine line Compass Arrow Feather Vine Ribbon Quote

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tomas,

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The snow closed the pass on Tuesday and has not let go since, so I am writing this by the stove with the shutters rattling. Father's old compass sits on the sill where you left it. The glass has cracked across the N, but the needle still swings true, shivering whenever the wind finds the door. I keep meaning to tell you that the words scratched inside the lid are not his. Anselm the carter said them the morning you ran off to Lyon. He said time flies like an arrow, and you had better not miss your mark.

Yesterday I tried to climb the ridge to see whether the cairns were still standing. Frost had crept up the stones like the vines on the old map in the post office, all curled and patient. Halfway up I stopped to rest and watched a single crow cross the valley. It did not flap. It simply went, straight as a line drawn with a rule, north towards the lake where you used to skim pebbles.

Anselm died in March, which I have not written before because it felt like a stone in the post. He left me his bow and a length of blue ribbon he had tied to the shaft of the first arrow he ever shot. I found it knotted under the feathers, faded to the colour of weak tea.

Come home when the thaw opens the road. Bring the compass if you still have it. I will hang the ribbon from the lintel, and we can see which way the arrow points when you walk through the door.

Yours, Ilse