Black and white photo of the words Quiet is Violent tattooed in a serif typeface across the inner forearm near the wrist.

Quiet is Violent lettering on a wrist

Lettering · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

The photograph shows the words Quiet is Violent in a bold serif typeface, set diagonally across the inner wrist and forearm. The linework is solid and even in black ink, with the letters cut off slightly at the top edge of the frame. A grey denim sleeve sits in the lower right, and a small partial tattoo is visible at the right edge.

Lettering Forearm Word Quote Text Serif lettering

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The sign writer's brush was still tacky when Dad handed me the board, so I carried it flat in both hands across the mud to the Waltzer. Gold leaf on the first letter, black serif on the rest, the way he always did it. QUIET IS VIOLENT, it said, and underneath, in smaller capitals, the name of the man who would sit in the booth and never speak.

Keep reading

Hollis Bray had come to Brannock's Travelling Fair the spring the dodgem cars were stolen from Carlisle. He worked the Ghost Train's lever with two fingers and had not said a word since, or so the lads claimed. People paid a shilling to watch him lift the safety rail with one hand while the crowd chattered at the gate. When the chatter died, he would look at the nearest man, just look, and the loudest bloke on the midway would find something urgent to do behind the candy floss tent.

One wet Thursday a cider-drunk boy from the sausage stall started on Hollis's sister, bellowing across the rides. Hollis didn't move. He only raised his eyes, and the boy stopped mid-word as if somebody had pulled his plug.

Dad wiped the brush on his trousers and studied the board. Nobody reads a thing that's loud, he said. I hung it over the booth that night. By morning someone had added a pencilled line beneath the gold, just Hollis's initials, and I left them there.