Black and grey realism tattoo of praying hands and an unrolled scroll of scripture across the ribs and side of the torso.

Praying hands and scripture scroll on ribs

Realism · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A tattoo of praying hands rests on an unrolled scroll that wraps around the side of the torso, with lines of text in a serif script. The hands and folds of the paper are shaded in greys with soft highlights, and the lettering is crisp in dark ink. The photo is taken at an angle, showing the curve of the body and the scroll running from the upper side toward the lower ribs.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ada,

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The galley fire has gone out again, so I am writing this by the lamp at the end of the mess table, with the cook's knife still on the board where Pelham left it. You will laugh, but the bosun has asked me to copy out the Psalms for the men who read poorly, and I have been doing it on the backs of old provision lists. Yesterday I reached the twenty-seventh. The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear. Most of them only want the words for muster, but Tom Greave sat through the whole of it with his hands folded like a boy in chapel.

The sea has been unkind since Madeira. We lost the spare anchor chain in the squall and two barrels of flour went green in the forward hold. Captain Maddox says we will make Table Bay by the first of the month if the wind holds, and I believe him only because he has stopped shouting. Last night the sky turned the colour of wet slate and the men stood at the rail without speaking, and I thought of the line about an host encamped round about, and how a man can feel that way about a whole ocean.

I keep the scroll rolled in my sea chest, the fair copy in my best hand, and each evening I unroll a little more and read the lines aloud to nobody in particular. When a drunk from the lower deck came at me with a cleaver last week, I did not think of the psalm at all. I only thought of your face and the way you bite your lip over a sum. Still, I am glad of the words.

Write soon, and tell Father the goat did not eat the hedge after all.

Yours, Sam

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