Fine line black tattoo of an arrow with the word hope in cursive script along its shaft, on a forearm.

Hope script and arrow on a forearm

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A thin black arrow runs diagonally across the skin, with the word hope written in flowing cursive script along its shaft and a feathered fletching at the tail. The linework is fine and even, with no shading or colour. A dark metal chain or strap sits at the lower left of the frame against a soft, warm-toned background.

Fine line Lettering Forearm Arrow Hope Script Feather Word

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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 Tom,

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Your mother says you're back in Leeds, working nights at the depot, and that you won't pick up before ten. I'm not asking you to ring. I'm sending you a shaft instead, one of the cedar ones your grandad kept in the hall cupboard. You'll remember the word he burned into it with a heated nail, the one he said a boy should be able to read from the far end of a field.

Eddie taught archery at the Scout hut every Thursday for thirty winters. He never let anyone draw until they could say where the arrow would land, and when the lads grumbled he'd tap the wood and say, "Aim past the thing that frightens you." Then he'd laugh at himself, because he never did know what he meant by it. He wrote the word on every shaft in that looping hand of his, and said the feathers were the easy part. Anybody could fletch.

I found this one under the stairs last week, the feathers gone grey and one of them loose. I sat on the bottom step with it across my knees for a good while. He once told me the fletching is what keeps an arrow true in the air. Without it you've only got a stick that tumbles.

Don't send it back. Nail it over the door of whatever flat you're in, or leave it on the bus for someone to find. Either way the word points where you're heading, and I've checked it twice. It still reads the right way up.

Love, Nan