Pencil sketch of the words One and Only in flowing script lettering on white paper, lying on a wooden surface beside a pencil.

One and Only script lettering sketch

Lettering · Black and grey · Flash

Graphite pencil lettering reads One & Only in a flowing, looped script with a large ampersand and sweeping tails. The strokes are shaded with darker edges and lighter centres to suggest weight. A black pencil lies diagonally across the lower right of the white sheet, set on weathered wooden planks.

Lettering Script Lettering Ampersand Paper

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The ferry has gone without a name since the old one rusted off her bow, and the owner wants it lettered before the first crossing, so Harold sends you down to the frontier quay with a pencil and a sheet of cartridge paper. You sit on an upturned crate where the river divides two countries and the lorries queue on both banks, and you draw the words the way your uncle taught you, heavy on the down strokes and thin where the hand lifts off.

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A customs officer with a grey plait and a biro behind one ear leans over your shoulder and asks what the name means. You tell her it is what the owner says about his wife, and she snorts. The ampersand is the hard part. It has to loop back on itself like someone changing their mind at a border, then swing long enough to reach the second word without apology.

By five the sheet has gone soft at the corners from your thumb. You shade the edges darker and leave the centres pale so the letters seem lifted off the paper. Harold arrives with a tin of gold leaf, studies the drawing for a long moment, and says nothing, which from Harold is praise.

At six the ramp drops and the first lorries roll aboard. You watch the morning catch the wet paint on the bow, the new name gleaming where yesterday there was only rust, and you realise the pencil is still in your fist, its lead worn to a blunt grey tongue. You slip it into your pocket. Some words only need writing once.