Black tattoo of two crossed arrows with feathered tails on the inside of a forearm, photographed against a dark background.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Crossed arrows with feathered fletching on a forearm

Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A black tattoo of two arrows crossed in an X shape, one pointing up and one pointing right, with feathered fletching at the tails. The arrowheads are solid black and the feathers are shaded with fine, dark strokes. The ink sits on a pale forearm photographed at a slight angle against a dark background with a patterned fabric at the bottom edge.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom,

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The shop on Hallam Lane is shut now, so I'm writing this at Dad's bench with the good lamp on. You'll remember the bench. Half the feathers in the tin are goose from the Ackroyd farm, and the rest are the grey ones he kept for longbow orders nobody asks for any more. I found the box you left under the bench, the one with your name scratched on the lid, and inside were the two shafts you cut the spring before you went off to the boats. Straight as anything. You never could leave a shaft crooked.

I've been fletching them up the way he taught us. Three feathers each, glued and bound with waxed thread, the cock feather turned out so the arrow spins true. My thumb is bad now, so the work is slow, and I've had time to think about how we always pointed in different directions. You went for the sea and I stayed for the club and the shop. Dad said we'd cross again one day, and I told him he'd been reading the almanac. The heads I dipped in pitch myself, black as a boot.

I've laid them crossed on the cloth the way Mam used to fold the good napkins. One points up at the rafters and one points right at the door, and the feathers have fallen into the same slant as if they'd agreed on it. Tomorrow I'll wrap the pair in oilcloth and post them to the address in Hull.

You can decide which way you want to aim them. I'll leave the lamp on till the parcel's gone.

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