Two-panel photo of black script lettering on a forearm, reading "I'm fine" above and "save me" upside down below.

I'm fine and save me lettering on a forearm

Lettering · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

The photo is split into two panels showing the same forearm. The upper panel shows the words "I'm fine" in black, flowing script with varied stroke thickness and some angular joins. The lower panel shows "save me" printed upside down, so the lettering reads correctly only when the photo is rotated.

Lettering Forearm Script Text

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

You learn the trick in your first week at the Majestic, when Mrs Abernethy hands you a sable brush and a pot of gold size and tells you the best signs are the ones that mean two things. You are sixteen and the hall smells of Brylcreem, wet wool and the cheap orange squash they sell at the bar. Below you the couples turn under the chandeliers while you kneel on the sill of the front window, lettering the afternoon's dance card in neat copperplate for anyone passing on the high street.

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Girls come up the back stairs with a folded note tucked in a glove and ask for a corner panel. Mrs Abernethy never asks what the words are for. You paint the top line the right way up, 'I'm fine', in the flowing hand the customers like because it looks like a wedding invitation. Beneath it you paint 'save me' with the letters turned to face the wrong direction, so the message only makes sense to someone who tips their head or stands on the pavement and turns the whole thing round in their mind. Nobody tips their head. The bus conductors read the top line and smile at you through the glass.

For two summers it works. Then one Thursday a young constable with a notebook stops on the kerb, frowning, and tilts his cap sideways like a dog hearing a whistle. He reads it twice. He comes up the stairs two at a time while you are still on the ladder with size drying on your fingers, and below, the band slides into a slow waltz, the sort that gives people permission to hold on.

Mrs Abernethy looks up from the bottom rung and says, not unkindly, 'Go on, love, turn it round for him.' So you wipe your hands on your apron, pick up the sable brush once more, and hold the ladder steady for him to climb.