Close view of the words In Christ Alone in black typewriter-style lettering on the upper arm of a person wearing a knitted sleeve.

In Christ Alone lettering on an upper arm

Lettering · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

The photograph shows the phrase "In Christ Alone." set in a monospaced typewriter-style typeface across the upper arm. The letters are solid black ink with clean, even edges and a slightly soft, vintage look from the warm, grainy colour treatment of the photo. The text sits in the upper part of the frame against plain skin, with a knitted purple fabric on the left and a textured pale surface on the right.

Lettering Upper arm Phrase Quote Text Typewriter font

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Sit down, lad, before the kettle goes cold. You've had no break and neither have I, so we'll take ours here with the machine between us. That's the old Imperial on the trolley by the linen cupboard. Nobody on Ward Six has the nerve to ask why a typewriter lives in a hospital at three in the morning. Mrs Pilling brought it in from her husband's office in 1971, and the trust never got round to taking it back.

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Every night she types the same card for whoever is awake and frightened. Three words and a full stop. The e sticks, so she has to strike it twice, and the ink goes soft at the edges like breath on a window. I asked her once why she didn't just write it by hand. She said a pen lets you change your mind. The keys don't. Once a letter's struck, it's struck, and she liked that about it.

Last Tuesday a young nurse came down with a card that had been typed badly, the a smudged into a blur. Mrs Pilling held it up to the lamp for a long while. Then she rolled a fresh sheet in. We'll not make a fuss, she said. The Lord had a bad night too. She typed it again, slowly, one key at a time, and pressed the stop so hard the paper nearly tore.

When I left at six the card was lying on the nurse's desk, the full stop black as a nail head in the grey light. Mrs Pilling had dozed off in her chair with her hands folded over the carriage. The machine was still warm under my palm when I touched it on the way past. I've never known anyone else press a stop that hard.