Black lettering reading courage on the side of a finger, with red painted nails and a blurred yellow background.

Courage lettering on a finger

Lettering · Hand · Black and grey · Photo

A close photograph of a hand held up against a blurred background of yellow and green foliage. The word courage is tattooed in black lowercase lettering along the upper side of one finger. The ink is crisp and even, and the red nail polish gives a strong contrast with the pale skin.

Lettering Hand Courage Word Lettering

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The visitors' book at Saltcote Lodge asks for one word, and Mrs Haddow will not accept more. She watches you turn back through forty years of guests: 'sunny', 'rest', 'bitter', a single 'Mum' pressed so hard the nib tore the paper. When it is your turn you hold the pen above the line so long that the wind rattles the sash behind you and the gull on the gutter gives up.

Keep reading

Outside, the front is grey and the shingle hisses with each pull of the tide. You had come for three nights to watch the sea do nothing in particular. On the second morning you find yourself on the groyne with the landlady's grandson, Tobias, who is nine and has opinions about crabs. He asks what word you wrote. You tell him the truth: it was the only one you could manage in small letters, the kind a pen can hold steady.

He considers this with the seriousness of a boy who has never once been asked to be brave. Then he picks a razor clam from the wrack, rinses it in a rock pool and presses it into your palm as if it were a medal. 'It's a small thing, courage,' he says. 'Mostly it's just not dropping stuff.'

On the last morning the book holds your word, and beneath it, in wobbling capitals, Tobias has written 'THANKS FOR THE CLAM'. You do not read it until the car is on the coast road. Then you pull into a lay-by and laugh until the windscreen fogs.