Colour tattoo of the word hope in script, with a pink ribbon shape forming part of the letters, on skin.

Hope script with pink ribbon

Lettering · Colour · Photo

The tattoo spells the word hope in flowing script, with the letters formed from pink ribbon loops that shade from light pink to deep magenta. Dark purple outlines and soft shading give the ribbon a raised, dimensional look against the skin. The word fills most of the frame, with the ribbon tail extending to the right.

Lettering Hope Ribbon Script

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The net came up fouled on the Dogger Bank, a knot of cable and torn mesh swinging over the stern while the wind flung spray sideways into our faces. I had the hook in my hands and Tam had the winch, and neither of us said anything, because there was nothing to say that the sea didn't already know better than us.

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Pinned inside the wheelhouse door was a strip of pink ribbon Morag had tied there the morning we sailed from Peterhead. It was the same colour as the floats she painted for her father's yard, and beside it she'd left a fish-box label with one word written across it in looping letters, the way you'd mark a Christmas parcel. Hope. Every man on the boat had read it on the way up the companionway, and every man had pretended he hadn't.

At the third heave the bridle snapped with a crack like a rifle shot and the whole deck lurched. Tam went down on one knee and the hook swung past my ear. When the spray cleared I saw the ribbon, torn loose from its nail, sailing out over the rail like a kite on a string. It snagged on a stanchion and hung there, shivering. I reached out, caught the tail of it, and we went back to work with one hand each.

Back in Peterhead the ribbon dried on the mess radiator, crinkled and stiff with salt. Morag came down the quay in her yard boots, took it from my hand without a word, and pinned it back up. The tail hung longer than it had before, curled at the end like a hook that had finally found its catch.