Two-panel photo of a fine serif "live free" lettering tattoo in black ink on the side of a person's ribs, wearing a pale dress.

Live free lettering on the side ribs

Lettering · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

The left panel shows a person in a pale dress seen from behind, with small serif lettering reading "live free" on the side of the torso. The right panel is a close-up of the same words, with crisp, thin black lines and soft grey shading. The photographs are softly lit with a muted, neutral palette.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The cold gets into the type case first, so you learn to keep the lamp lit over the drawers while the snow ticks against the shop window. Mr Ashdown left you the press, the cabinet of lead sorts and a ledger of unpaid orders, and you have been working through them one by one since November. Most are funeral cards and parish notices. The job on the bench today is different: a single line, to be printed on card the colour of weak tea, for a woman who wants nothing else on it.

Keep reading

You set it by hand, letter by letter, reaching into the compartments without looking. She asked for lower case, small and widely spaced, the way a person writes when they are trying not to make a fuss. L, i, v, e. A gap the width of a thumbnail. Then f, r, e, e. Your fingers know the weight of each sort before your eyes do. You lock the forme, ink the rollers, and pull the bar down twice because the first impression is faint on the cold stock.

When the card is dry you wrap it in tissue and write her name on the outside, the way Ashdown taught you, and set it by the door for collection. Outside, the farm track has frozen into ruts and the light has gone the colour of pewter. Before you turn the lamp off you run a finger over the last word, feeling the faint ridge the ink leaves on the paper, and think that somewhere a stranger will carry those two words around for good, close and unseen, long after the card has been thrown away.

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