Black line drawing of a simple cross above the fine-line lettering I surrender who I've been for who you are, on a plain light grey background.

Cross and lettering quote design

Fine line · Black and grey · Flash

A simple black line drawing of an upright cross sits in the upper left, above a quote set in thin, hand-lettered capitals aligned to the right. The linework is fine and even, with the cross drawn in slightly heavier strokes than the text. The image is monochrome black on pale grey with no shading and plenty of open space around the design.

Fine line Lettering Cross Quote Lettering Text

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The letter from the Northern Lights Board came folded inside the tide tables, and you read it at the foot of the tower with the wind tugging at the page. By spring the lamp would run itself from Edinburgh. Someone had decided the rock no longer needed a man to climb its one hundred and twelve steps each dusk and wind the clockwork by hand.

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You climbed them anyway that evening, because the stairs were the only honest thing left on Skerry. Cold iron rail, whitewash gone grey with salt, the shadow of the window frames laid across the landing when the sun dropped behind Ardnish. Eleanor had painted words on the store room lintel the year you were married, in capitals so thin they looked drawn with a hair: I surrender who I've been for who you are. She called it a joke. You never told her it was the only prayer you knew all the way through.

On the last night you wound the weights and let the beam sweep out over the water without touching the switch. Fishing boats from the mainland would see it at the mouth of the Sound, and the ferry captain would know the rock was still kept. Then you came down the stairs, not up, and left the door unlatched for the relief boat.

In the morning gulls walked the gallery rail. The brass was dull where your palm had rested, and the lintel caught the first light, legible from the path to the landing stage.