Black and grey traditional tattoo of a dotwork hand holding a flower stem with leaves, with the words Wish me the best beside it, on a forearm.

Hand holding a flower reading Wish me the best

Traditional · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A hand in a cuffed sleeve holds up a stem with two leaves and a flower bud at the top, with the phrase WISH ME THE BEST in bold block capitals to the left. The bold black outlines contrast with stippled dotwork shading on the hand and cuff. The image is shown in black ink and grey tones against a pale blue background, with part of another dark tattoo visible at the top edge.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Sit closer, all of you, the fire is good but it will not last the telling. I will tell you about Kallias the fig merchant, who sailed from Miletus with a hold full of salt fish and a debt he did not like to speak of.

Keep reading

On the quay that morning stood his mother's cousin, Ioanna, who sold garlands to sailors and cursed them when they haggled. She had no coin to give him, so she went up the hill path and came back with a stem of rue and a bud of pale poppy still shut tight, and she pressed them into his hand. Hold these up, she said, when the captains ask who you are. Then say the words your father never said to anyone: wish me the best.

He laughed at her. Men do not ask wishes of the land. But the wind turned on the third day out and the mast cracked like a bone, and for two nights he held that little stalk above the water while the others bailed and wept. The leaves bruised and blackened. The poppy opened once, on the second morning, and showed its dark heart to the sky, and the crew swore it was a sign.

They came ashore at Naxos with the hull half sunk and nothing but their lives. Kallias walked the length of the beach with his hand raised like a man hailing a boat, and the fishermen said he was mad. He was not mad. He was asking. Give me a better wind, old woman, he told the sea, and then he walked home to the cousin who had turned her back on him for a year.

I tell you this because you are all sailors tonight, even those who have never left the hill. Hold up what you have, and say what you want out loud. The gods are slow, but they do listen.

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