Traditional-style flash sheet of hearts with banners, flowers and lettering such as no scrubs, go away and drop dead, drawn on paper with no placement on the body.

Heart and banner flash sheet

Traditional · Mixed · Flash

The sheet shows six hearts drawn in bold black outlines, several with yellow highlights, pink and grey fills, and a lace or dotted border. Three hearts carry scrolled banners reading leave me alone, eat dirt, go away, drop dead and no scrubs, and some are framed by pink flowers and green leaves. The shading is mostly flat fill with a few grey tones, and the designs are laid out with even spacing on a cream sheet photographed on a wooden surface.

Traditional Heart Banner Flower Leaves Lettering Scroll Flash sheet

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Mrs Pruett had painted the same six hearts on the back wall of the Ship and Anchor for thirty-one years, and in all that time nobody had asked her what the banners meant, which suited her fine. She mixed her black on a biscuit tin lid, pressed the gold leaf down with the flat of a thumbnail, and let the lettering come out as sharp as the things she said to the landlord's nephew when he came in smelling of the chip shop.

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The trouble started in March, when a lad called Terry Vosper came to her with a tin of pink emulsion and a grudge. His ex had taken the good stool and the dog. He wanted a heart that said drop dead, and he wanted it painted on her gate, not the pub. Mrs Pruett wiped her brush on her apron. 'I paint what's true,' she said, 'and you're not the only one who's been dumped by someone with a better stool.' She charged him double for the dotted lace and gave him a grey heart instead, the colour of the sea in February.

Word spread along the front. Women came in on Saturdays with tins and opinions. One wanted no scrubs over her sister's sink, another wanted eat dirt for the council man who kept parking across her drive. Mrs Pruett painted every one, flat fills and yellow highlights, and charged a pound a letter, because the work was the work. By August the wall was crowded and the landlord threatened to whitewash it.

On the last Friday of the month a woman came in alone, stood before the wall for a long time, and asked for a heart with no words at all. Mrs Pruett looked at her over her glasses, then at the bare plaster at the end of the row she had left empty for nobody in particular. 'Nothing to say?' she asked. 'Not to you,' said the woman, and laughed. Mrs Pruett, who had never once been lost for an answer, found she had nothing to add to that either, so she pulled the stool up and started on the lace.