Black ink compass rose with N, E, S and W points above the words Explore, Dream and Discover in script on a forearm.

Compass rose and lettering on a forearm

Lettering · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A compass rose with an outlined ring and N, E, S and W markings sits above three lines of script reading Explore, Dream and Discover. The linework is solid black with some fine detail in the star points and ring, and the lettering is a simple cursive style. The design is centred on the forearm against a warm-toned, slightly soft background.

Lettering Geometric Forearm Compass Compass rose Lettering Script Word Dream Cardinal points

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Now sit still, love, and mind the kettle, because this is the bit your mother always skipped. Your great-uncle Walter drew maps for the council in Ashby Wold for thirty years, and the only thing he ever kept on the wall of his back room was a compass rose he had copied out by hand from a brass plate in the old drapers. He said the points mattered less than the order you read them in. North first, always, even on a wet Tuesday when nobody was going anywhere.

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The summer the reservoir flooded the lower lane, a lad from the railway came to lodge with them. His name was Frank Mollison and he had a suitcase held shut with string and a head full of Lisbon and Valparaiso, places he had only ever seen on the backs of cigarette cards. Every evening he sat at Walter's table and tried to make the points of the rose agree with the names on his cards. Walter would only shake his head and tap the letters. Explore, dream, discover, he'd say, the way some men say grace. Frank thought it was a poor sort of motto for a man with a mortgage on a cottage and a wife in the next valley.

In September the line reopened and Frank was gone before breakfast, leaving his string behind on the hook by the door. Walter kept it. Years later a postcard came from a port none of us could find on the wall map, just three words in pencil across the back: Walter, East is right. Walter laughed till he coughed, then pinned the card beside the rose and never once said what he meant by it.