Close photo of white ink script reading Live Life across the inner wrist, in a fine lettering style.

Live Life script on a wrist

Lettering · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A close photograph of a wrist with the words Live Life written in a flowing script in white ink. The linework is thin and even, with the white ink standing out subtly against the skin. The image is taken from above the wrist, with a soft, light background and the text centred across the frame.

Lettering Fine line Forearm Script Word Lettering

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The skipper wanted the name done before we cleared the Humber, and he wanted it in white, because white, he said, was the only colour a man could read through spray. I had gold leaf in my tin and sable brushes rolled in oilskin, but he shook his head at the gold. Just white, he said. Something the lads could see from the wheelhouse when the light went.

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The words were his idea, or so he claimed, copied off the back of a chip paper in Grimsby: Live Life. I asked whether he meant it as a blessing or a dare. He said the sea would decide that. I painted it low on the bow, above the waterline, the letters leaning the way a good hand leans, the loops of the L and the f kept thin so the ink would not clot when the green water came over.

Three weeks out, a squall took the foredeck and a deckhand called Tommy Cole went over the rail. We had him back in forty minutes, grey and swearing. The first thing I saw when they hauled him up was the bow, the white words still standing under the salt, catching the lamp in a sweep of light. Nobody spoke of it. The skipper stood beside the bow with his cap in his hands for a long while.

When we docked, he paid me double and told me to leave the lettering alone, not to touch up the scuffs. The paint has been wearing thin for years now, yet every crew that comes aboard reads it first, before the nets or the name of the boat. I think that was what he wanted. Not a promise, just something to read aloud on the way out.