Outlined triangle with two lines on a forearm
Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo
A close photograph of a small tattoo of an outlined triangle with two horizontal lines drawn across its lower half, creating three bands. The linework is thin, black and uniform, with no shading. The tattoo sits on the inner forearm against pale skin, with a denim sleeve and a loose strand of earphone cable visible at the edge of the frame.
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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction
The board in the hall of Marrow House had three bands ruled across a black triangle, and my mother would not let anyone wipe it. Each morning before the breakfast gong she checked the sea against it, chalking the water's reach onto the slate by the coat pegs. Guests took it for a quaint sort of weather forecast. The commercial travellers in room four bet on it.
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My father drew it the summer the Hollis pier went out in a gale. He worked with a steel rule and a carpenter's pencil, and he never once let a line wander. The lowest band was the sand, the middle the shingle, and the top line, the one that split the triangle into its three parts, was the high-water mark he swore the sea would never reach. He said a shape with a line across it held its nerve better than a plain one.
I was twelve when I asked why the point at the top stayed empty. He licked his thumb, rubbed a smudge from the slate and said the sea had its manners. It took me another thirty years to understand he meant the apex, where the lines could never quite close.
This morning the water came up the steps to the third stone and stopped. My mother was ninety-one and asleep in the front room. I took the chalk down and drew the top line a finger's width higher than his, then went to put the kettle on, because somebody had to.
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