Close photo of the fine line black script tattoo reading aquí y ahora across the lower abdomen, above a black waistband.

Fine script phrase across the lower abdomen

Fine line · Other · Black and grey · Photo

A close photograph of a small black script tattoo reading "aquí y ahora" across the lower abdomen. The fine, even linework forms a flowing cursive lettering with a slight slant, and the ink is a soft dark grey-black against the skin. The frame is tightly cropped to the torso with a black garment at the bottom edge, and the background is dark and unobtrusive.

Fine line Lettering Other Script Phrase Lettering Word

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The gold would not take to the leather that morning, so Ignacio sent me to the back room for more size while he sat at the bench blowing on the brass letter tool as though it had offended him. I came back with the pot still warm and found him reading my brother's letter, which I had left under the ink bottle. He folded it along its creases and set it square with the edge of the bench.

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"Buenos Aires is not going anywhere, Pilar," he said. "Neither is your brother's boat."

I told him I could not think about the spine of a ledger when a ship was crossing the Atlantic with my whole family's future in its hold. He took the pot from me and dipped a brush. "Aquí y ahora," he said. "Here and now. It is the only place a binding can be done. Yesterday is finished and tomorrow will not sit still for the glue."

I laughed, because it sounded like something painted on a café wall, and he pretended not to hear. Then he guided my hand over the stamp the way he had taught me, the letters coming out of the foil in the slanted running hand the nuns had beaten into both of us. I pressed each one in turn, my thumb steady on the warm brass, until the title sat bright on the spine.

Three months later a parcel reached Buenos Aires with a Valencia postmark. Inside was the book with its gold lettering, and in the margin of the first page, in my cramped hand, I had written the same two words. My brother wrote back that he had read them standing on the dock, and that for once he had not wanted to be anywhere else.