Black serif lettering reading Promise runs along the side of a finger, with a silver ring on the finger below.

Promise lettering along a finger

Lettering · Hand · Black and grey · Photo

A close photograph of a finger with the word Promise tattooed in black, serif-style capitals and lowercase letters that follow the length of the finger. The lines are solid and evenly weighted, with soft grey shading at the edges of the letters. The background is dark and out of focus, and a silver ring sits on the adjacent finger at the bottom of the frame.

Lettering Hand Promise Word Finger Ring

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom,

Keep reading

The rain has not stopped since Thursday and the Co-op has run out of tea, so forgive the state of this paper. Mam says the shift whistle goes at six now, not half five, and the new man on the cage is from Shotton and cannot whistle a note. I am writing because I have done a foolish thing and you are the only one who will not laugh at me for it.

Yesterday I went down Front Street to Harker's, where the travelling man sets up his needles behind the barber's, and I had him ink the word on my finger. Promise, in the same plain capitals as the notices pinned in the institute window. Do not look at me like that. You asked me to promise I would look after Mam while you are underground, and I thought a word on the hand would stop me forgetting it on wet mornings when the kettle is cold and she is shouting for her tablets.

It stung worse than the chilblains and the man kept apologising for the bad light, but the lines are straight and the shading at the edges is grey and soft, the way Dad's fingernails used to look after a week in the seam. I keep turning my hand over at the table to read it back to myself. Dad's ring is on the next finger, so the two of them can keep an eye on one another.

Come home with the same number of fingers you left with. Mam has already put the good chair by the range for you, and she says she will not be moved.

Your loving sister, Nell

P.S. Mam says the lettering looks like it was typed by a clerk who was in love.