Black lettering tattoo of the word hope inside an infinity symbol, with three birds flying above, on the side of a torso.

Infinity symbol with hope and birds

Lettering · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A black ink tattoo shows an infinity symbol with the word hope written in script inside its loop. Three simple silhouetted birds fly upwards above the symbol. The linework is solid and bold with no shading, set against plain skin with a soft, slightly blurred background.

Lettering Ribs Infinity Hope Bird

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The kettle gave up before the tide did that October morning, and I was on my knees on the back step of Marrowby House, scraping limpet grit out of the boot scraper, when Mr Teague came down the stairs with his bag already packed. He had no business leaving before breakfast, and he knew it, so he stood in the hall holding the banister like a man who had forgotten his own umbrella.

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He wanted the sign repainted before he went. The old board above the front door had faded to a ghost of itself, but the lettering he cared about was the loop Eli Varley had painted underneath the name forty years back, a figure of eight laid on its side, with the word hope written through its middle in a curling hand. Eli had charged us four shillings and a bottle of gin. Teague said the paint was the only honest thing about the place, and I did not argue, because the gin had been mine.

So I climbed the ladder with a tin of black enamel and a brush that smelled of turpentine, and I traced Eli's loop again while the gulls worked the wind off the harbour wall. When I came back down, Teague was out on the pavement with his collar up, looking not at the sign but at the sky, where three terns were lifting one after another off the breakwater and climbing in a ragged line over the roofs.

He lifted a hand to them, the way you might to someone who had got a train you had missed. Then he walked off towards the station, and I stood a long while on the step, counting the birds until they were too small to count, and I left the front door open a crack behind me, the way you do when you expect somebody to come back for something.