Close photo of a fine line script tattoo reading je ne regrette rien in black ink on the inner forearm, against a dark background.

Fine line script reading je ne regrette rien on a forearm

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A thin black script reads 'je ne regrette rien' in lowercase lettering across the inner forearm. The linework is delicate and even, with no shading, and the ink sits on a pale arm against a dark, textured background. The phrase runs diagonally from the lower left to the upper right of the frame.

Fine line Lettering Forearm Script Lettering Text

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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

You have painted the fair's name on every caravan since the spring, letter by letter, one stroke at a time, with a brush you clean in turpentine behind the generator. Tonight the big wheel is stuck halfway up the sky and the lads are shouting at the engine, and you are sitting on the back step of the waltzer lorry with a tin of cold tea, trying to remember the French your mother murmured at the kitchen sink in Leeds.

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Last summer you painted a phrase on the side of the dodgems booth because Mr Tallis wanted something grand for the Kent circuit and you had no better idea. Je ne regrette rien. You copied it from a scrap of sheet music, the ink running thin where the paper had been folded. The customers took it for the name of a ride. A boy asked if it meant free rides, and you laughed so hard you had to sit down on a crate of bulbs.

Now the wheel shudders and begins to turn, slowly, its bulbs flickering back into life one row at a time. Somebody cheers. You stand, wipe your hands on your trousers, and see the faded lettering above the ticket hatch catching the last of the light. Nobody who buys a ticket reads it properly, and that is fine. You painted it for yourself, and for the moment when the lights come on and there is nothing left to fix.