Small black serif tattoo of the number 9 with a superscript 3/4 on the inner wrist, in black ink.

Number 9 and 3/4 on the inner wrist

Lettering · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A close photograph of a small tattoo on the inner wrist, showing the numeral 9 with a superscript 3/4 beside it. The numerals are solid black with a clean, bold serif letterform and slightly soft edges from the healed skin. The background is the wrist and a hand held palm up, with a sleeve and denim at the edges, and the composition keeps the tattoo near the centre.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tomas,

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The ferry was late again this morning, so I had an hour on the bench outside the halt with nothing to do but look at the wall. You will remember the wall. I painted that 9 and the little 3/4 beside it the summer you were seven, when you came down to the platform every afternoon to wait for trains that only ran twice a day and rattled the whole shelter when they came. You said a platform that doesn't exist must be the best kind, because nobody can ever tell you it's closed.

Your mother rang on Sunday to say the Glasgow connection is fixed and you have a seat booked on the Monday sleeper. I know you think I'll sulk about it. I won't. I found your old ticket in the drawer under the timetables, the card one with the punch hole, and I have put it in the envelope with this letter. It is not valid for anything, of course. The ticket office closed in 1987 and the machine is rusting into the sea wall.

The thing I wanted to tell you is that I never once thought the joke was on the wall. Every train that came through here carried somebody who had been waiting for it their whole life, and I liked to think the little numbers were a promise that there was a way out nobody had to be shown. Go on the sleeper. Get off at the big station and stand under the clock for a minute before you do anything else.

Keep the ticket. Post me a photograph of your own platform when you find it.

Grandad

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