Close photo of a thin black script tattoo reading fearless across the wrist and back of the hand.

Fearless script on a wrist

Lettering · Hand · Black and grey · Photo

The photograph shows the word fearless in a black, thin-lined cursive script across the wrist, with the fingers curled at the top edge of the frame. The linework is even and monoline, with no shading or fill, and the letters are set in a gentle upward arc. The background is a softly lit room with bookshelves and a bust, and the image has a warm, slightly grainy tone.

Lettering Fine line Hand Fearless Script Word

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ruth,

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You will laugh, but the commission I mentioned last week was for a single word. Mrs Achterberg wanted it on the transom of her late husband's cobble, and she would not say why, only that it had to curve up like a rising gull. So I sat with my brushes and a pot of enamel and practised it on the back of an old invoice until my hand ached. Fearless. Thin, even, no shadow to it, the way Father taught us to lettering a shop front so nobody could say we had padded it out.

The boat went down the slip on Tuesday. Her grandson, a lad of about nine with his shirt buttoned wrong, stood on the quay and read the word aloud, slowly, the way children read things they are not sure they are allowed to say. Then he asked me whether the boat was fearless or only the word was. I told him I had painted it, so I supposed the word was all I could promise.

I have been turning that over since. Mrs Achterberg paid me in cash and a jar of damson jam, and asked me to keep the stencil, which I have. It is in my apron pocket as I write, folded in four, the arc still sharp along the top.

Come at Easter. I will show you the stencil and the lad will show you the boat, and you can tell me whether I got the loops right.

Love, Tom