Close view of a small black fine-line script tattoo on a woman's upper back, shown above a pale blue bandeau top and beneath a knitted sweater.

Fine line script word on upper back

Fine line · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A small, single-line script word is tattooed across the upper back of a woman seen from behind, with her face out of frame. The linework is thin and even, with a fluid, handwritten flow and slight variation in the strokes. The ink is black on warm skin, set against a pale blue bandeau and a beige knitted sweater in soft, natural daylight.

Fine line Lettering Back Script Word Handwriting

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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

Dear Nell, the rain got into this envelope before it got to you, so you'll have to read through the blots. I've been working the fish market at Grimsby since the spring, scrubbing down trays at five in the morning, and the foreman calls me Tall Girl because he can't be bothered with my name. Nobody here knows the word Mam taught us, the one she wrote on the back of the ration book and made us say at bedtime.

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Last Thursday a sailor off the Ellen Rose asked what it meant, leaning over the gutting table with his cap in his hands. I told him it was the word for the moment a kettle stops singing and the room goes quiet enough to hear the tide. He laughed and said that wasn't in any dictionary. I said that's why she made it up.

I've tried to write it out for you properly, in her hand, the loops leaning forward as if they're in a hurry to get somewhere. Mine comes out rougher. I pressed too hard on the downstrokes and the nib spat ink at the end, so the last letter looks like a fishhook, and I haven't the heart to start again on a clean sheet.

Come on the Sunday boat if you can. Bring the ration book. I'll show you the kettle at the back of the lodging house, and we'll wait for the room to go quiet, the way she taught us, and see if we can hear the tide come in.