Black outline tattoo of a lion cub above the script words Remember who you are, on the inner forearm.

Lion cub outline with script quote on forearm

Lettering · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A single black outline of a lion cub in a crouching pose, with a long curving tail, sits above handwritten script reading Remember who you are. The linework is even and of moderate weight, with no shading, and the design is filled with the skin tone rather than ink. The composition is close and centred on the inner forearm, with the lettering running beneath the figure.

Lettering Forearm Lion cub Script Quote Outline

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

You are eleven the August the Pearmain trees come into fruit, and your uncle Tomasz has told you the orchard belongs to whoever climbs highest. He says it with his pipe clenched, squinting at the ladders leaning against the wall of the packing shed. Nobody has climbed the old Blenheim since your father fell from it, so the ladder is chained, and the padlock's key hangs on a nail in the kitchen, beside the calendar with the sheep.

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You take the key anyway. The grass is hot through your plimsolls and the wasps are drunk on windfalls. Halfway up, the bark gives way under your palm and a branch you trusted shivers. Below, the dog barks once, then stops, the way dogs do when they have decided you are someone else's problem. You hear your grandmother from the back step, not shouting, just saying your name the way she used to at the bottom of the stairs when you were small and afraid of the dark. Remember who you are, she calls, and you cannot tell whether she means the girl on the branch or the one who used to climb.

You stop. You press your cheek against the rough bark and breathe until the branch is still. Then you go on, slowly, crouched low the way you learned to move through long grass by the river, weight back on your heels, your shadow dragged long behind you like something you have decided to bring along.

At the top you pick the last Blenheim you can reach and bite into it. It is sour and sharp and tastes of the rain that came in June. When you climb down, your shadow runs ahead across the grass, and Tomasz, who has not moved from the shed door, takes the pipe from his mouth and nods once, as if you have paid a debt.