Black hand-lettered tattoo reading IF NOT NOW WHEN? in blocky capitals across the inner wrist and hand.

If not now when lettering on the wrist

Lettering · Hand · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo spells out the phrase IF NOT NOW WHEN? in uneven, hand-drawn capital letters, with the words NOT NOW stacked and angled around the larger letters. The lines are bold and slightly rough, filled in solid black with no shading or colour. The photo is taken close up at an angle, with the fingers with pale nail polish at the top edge and the dark sleeve at the right.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tomas,

Keep reading

The bell at the Ostrel gate has rung for the third morning running, and the wardens still have not come to count the boats. Mother says I should wait until the thaw, until the roads dry out, until the magistrate's son has finished marrying the miller's girl and the whole of Quarry Street is looking the other way. I have been waiting since the autumn. Last night I counted the notches on the lintel and found that I had been waiting most of my life.

So I am writing this on the back of the tithe ledger, the only paper in the house nobody bothers to read. Pen Hatch has agreed to row us across the Lesser Brine before the tide turns at six. He wants two silver coins and a promise that you will not sing on the water. I have given him one coin and a promise that you may sing once we reach the far bank.

Come to the boathouse behind the tanners' wall. Bring nothing heavy. Bring the blue cup Grandfather carved, because I will not leave it for the magistrate's men to sell by the cartload.

I have said the thing to the kitchen wall so often that it has stopped sounding like a question and started sounding like a sum I can finally add up. If not now, when? Come before the bell rings again.

Yours in the grey light, Ilse

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