Pencil sketch of a tattoo design with lilies, curling vine swirls and the words Live Laugh Love in cursive script, in black and grey.

Lily and swirl design with script

Botanical · Black and grey · Flash

A black and grey pencil drawing of a tattoo design showing three lilies on a long stem with curling scrolls and leaves. The words Live Laugh Love are written in cursive script between the scrolls. Fine shading on the petals and soft grey tones give the drawing depth against a plain pale background.

Botanical Lettering Lily Flower Swirl Vine Script Text Leaves

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The dough had climbed over the rim of the tin before Nell Pargeter noticed the lilies. Someone had left them on the back step in a bucket of cold water, three stems heavy with open flowers, their scent so strong it crept in through the back door and settled on the flour. She knew whose they were. Mr Adebayo from the flat above the launderette had walked past her shutter every morning for eleven years without once buying a loaf.

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She set the bucket on the cooling rack and worked the dough on the marble, folding and turning, while the sky over the car park faded from ink to weak tea. A torn strip of paper had been tied around the stems. Across it, in careful cursive that leaned like someone who had practised, were three words stacked one above the other: live, laugh, love. She had seen that handwriting on birthday cards but never on a order slip. Her hands knew what to do with dough. They did not know what to do with that.

At six she raised the shutter. He came in for the first time in eleven years, bought one cob, and asked whether she could pipe something onto a sponge for his granddaughter's birthday, the same three words in the same slant. She did it that afternoon with a fine nozzle and too much patience, the loops thinning wherever the icing ran. He studied the cake for a long while, then tapped the glass and said the e in love was leaning over like it was tired. Nell laughed, and he laughed too, and the lilies on the counter went on opening.