Black line flash drawing of two long-nailed hands with stylised flames, sparkles and the words Fire Walk With Me above a chain.

Hands with flames and Fire Walk With Me

Traditional · Black and grey · Flash

A black line drawing on tracing paper shows two stylised hands with long pointed nails, one raised and one open below it. Wavy flame shapes and dotted sparkles rise from the upper hand, and the words Fire Walk With Me run along the lower forearm above a line of chain links. The bold, even outlines are filled with simple dot and line detailing, and the design is drawn in black ink only, with other flash sheets visible in the background.

Traditional Hand Flame Fire Sparkle Chain Lettering

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nan, I am writing this on the back of a handbill because the booth at Weston has run out of paper. Last night the pit was dug again behind the big top and Mr Coyle lit it at dusk with paraffin and a bad temper. Madame Ivy Varley went across it barefoot at nine, slow as a hymn, and I did not breathe until she reached the far board.

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The chain is my job now. Madame wears a length of old ship's chain looped at her wrists and ankles, eight links to a side, and she says the links keep her from running. Tobias Reeve hammered every one of them when the anchor yard shut, and she wears them because he asked her to. She says a fire will forgive a woman who carries nothing but the weight of her own promises. I thought that was nonsense until I saw her hands on the cold iron before she stepped out.

Last Tuesday a boy in the crowd threw a bottle, the coals jumped, and she stopped mid-pit with flame climbing her shins. She did not run. She lifted both hands, palms out, and the sparks rose in a fan and hung in the air like a flock of starlings deciding where to settle. Nobody cheered. The boy went quiet, the whole field went quiet, and she walked on.

I asked her afterwards how she knew to stand still. She said the fire only wants to know whether you mean to walk on it. Then she gave me a sooty handkerchief and a candle stub and told me to practise on the wet grass. I have been at it all week. My soles are blistered and I am not ready, but I have stopped counting my breaths. Write soon, and tell Dad the lamb money is in the tin under the sink. Your loving granddaughter, Elsie.