Close photo of the words just breathe; written in black fine line script across the inner wrist and forearm.

Just breathe script on the wrist

Lettering · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

The image shows a handwritten script reading just breathe; in black ink across the inner wrist. The linework is thin and even, with the letters rising and falling in a flowing, uneven baseline. The skin is pale and the tattoo is shown in a close, straight-on view against a plain background, with the ink appearing crisp and dark.

Lettering Fine line Forearm Quote Text Semicolon

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The swell is coming in from the north-west and the hold is already half full of mackerel when Danny hands you the marker pen. "Write it on the board," he says, nodding at the slate above the wheelhouse door where the tide times usually go. "So the lads know the tide's turned before the bell does." You have never written anything anyone read twice, but you take the pen, because your fingers have gone white at the knuckles and the pen at least gives them a job.

Keep reading

You try capitals first, then rub them out with your sleeve, because capitals look like shouting and the wheelhouse has had enough of that since Tuesday. Lowercase, then, loose and looping, the way your gran wrote the shopping list on the back of the gas bill. Just breathe. The sentence wants to carry on, the way the boat wants to keep riding over the next swell, so you stop it with a semicolon instead of a full stop, that small mark that says the story is not over yet.

The bow drops and the deck goes out from under you. You grab the rail and the board swings on its hook, and for a moment the words slide sideways across the slate in wet grey streaks. Danny doesn't look at the board. He looks at you, then at the horizon, and says nothing at all, which is the nearest thing to a kindness you've had from him all trip.

When the boat levels, you wipe the spray off the slate with the heel of your hand. The letters are still there, leaning a little, rising and falling like the waves. You think about the next haul, and the one after that, and you pick up the pen again to add the one thing you can actually see: the first small cloud of gulls over the stern, coming in to find out what the net has brought up.