Black and grey line drawing of a compass rose with an arrow, ribbon and feathers, above the words Time flies like an arrow, shown as a tattoo design on a white background.

Compass rose and arrow design with lettering

Fine line · Black and grey · Flash

The drawing shows a compass rose with N, E, S and W points, set over a ring with small leaves and sprigs. A feathered arrow hangs from the bottom point, with a ribbon curling around its shaft, and the words Time flies like an arrow sit below in capital and lowercase serif lettering. The work uses fine pen linework with light stippled shading in black ink on white.

Fine line Compass Compass rose Arrow Feather Ribbon Leaves Lettering

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The bronze ticked as it cooled on the bench, and Hipparchos said that was the metal complaining. Nikias said it was only settling, the way old men do when they are told to sit still. Between them they had until the spring fleet sailed to finish a wind-rose for Captain Ariston, who wanted the four points cast true and a feathered arrow standing down from the south, so that any sailor who looked up would know which way was home and that there was no time to waste getting there.

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Nikias had cut the feathers himself from a heron that had died against the harbour wall, and he kept fussing over the ribbon. "A ribbon on an arrow is a message," he said. "Someone tied it for a reason." Hipparchos did not look up from his file. "Someone tied it because the captain's wife asked. Those are the reasons ribbons usually have."

On the last evening Ariston came down to the foundry with rain on his shoulders and asked to see the thing. He turned the wind-rose slowly in his hands, ran a thumb over the ring of leaves, then along the shaft of the arrow. "You have it pointing the wrong way," he said. Nikias went pale. The captain laughed. "No, it points where I am going. Forward. Everything I own is in that direction now." He handed it back and walked out into the wet dark, and Nikias stood holding the warm bronze as though it might still be deciding.

The Thessaly sailed at first light with the wind-rose lashed to the mast-step, and Nikias stayed on the quay until the ribbon was only a grey flicker beyond the lighthouse. Hipparchos came down the steps with two cups of wine and found him still staring at the water. "Time flies like an arrow," Nikias said. "Fruit flies like a banana," said Hipparchos, and handed him a cup.