Pencil drawing of an eye with long lashes and two tear drops, with the words I'M FINE above and a silhouette of two people embracing in the iris.

Eye with tears and I'M FINE lettering

Realism · Black and grey · Flash

A pencil drawing of a single open eye with long, detailed lashes and two tear drops falling from the lower lid. Inside the iris is a dark silhouette of two people embracing, and the words I'M FINE are written in thin capitals above the eye. The work is in black and grey pencil on a plain white background, with soft shading around the eyelid and iris.

Realism Eye Tear Silhouette Embrace Lettering

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Sit closer, the fire is eating the good wood and I will not tell this twice. Ismene, who wove sails in the lower town, said it to every neighbour who came to her door that winter. Her husband Kallias had gone out with the grain ships and not come back, and when the elders asked how she was keeping, she tipped her chin and said, 'I am fine.' She said it so often the children began to say it too, skipping home from the well.

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Her eyes did not agree. Every morning she sat at the loom by the window with the shuttle in her hand, and every morning the light came through the shutter and lay across her face, and the tears ran down the same two channels as if they had worn them there. Her neighbour Phaedra, who had lost a brother to the same sea, brought her a jar of bitter honey and said nothing about it. That was the kindest thing anyone did for her that year.

In spring the ship came back, though not with Kallias aboard. The sailor who carried his cloak up the hill had a story about a fever at Rhodes and a grave dug above the harbour. Ismene took the cloak, folded it twice, and said she was fine. Then she walked down to the water, and the old women watched her stand there until the tide reached her ankles, holding her own elbows as though someone stood behind her.

The old women swore that when she climbed back up, her eyes were dry. If you looked closely into the dark centre of each one, you could make out two shapes pressed together against the light, still waiting for the boat. I have never looked closely enough to be sure, and I have never been the one standing in the water, so I will leave the rest to you.