Black and white photo of a forearm with a quote tattooed in black serif lettering, with a band of symbols near the wrist.

Quote lettering on a forearm

Lettering · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

The photograph shows a forearm against a dark background, with a block of black text reading a quote about education, dignity and freedom, attributed to Dr. MLK jr. The lettering is set in a serif typewriter-style typeface with clean, even linework and solid black ink. Near the wrist, a dark band with symbols sits on the skin, and the image is shown in black and white.

Lettering Forearm Quote Text Symbol

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Ruth had the composing stick clamped against her palm when the foreman brought the proof up from the basement, a strip of galley still warm from the press. "Set it again," he said. "The editor wants it in the body face, not the caption." She tipped the lead sorts from the case into her hand and counted them by feel. The e's were nearly gone and the y had worn to a blunt stub. Her fingers knew the layout of that box better than her own kitchen drawers.

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Line by line she built the column backwards, the way the trade had taught her in 1971, when nobody let a girl near the Linotype. Audacity went in first, then the words about meals, then education, then dignity. Each sort clicked against the last. Outside the window the bus shelter filled with people holding umbrellas, and somewhere under the floor the press thudded like a heart that would not be hurried.

When the chase was locked up she inked a single proof by hand and carried it to the window. A boy from the flats across the road had his nose against the glass, trying to read the reversed type through the paper she held up. He sounded the words out slowly, stumbling on audacity, then looked at her as though she had invented the whole thing.

"Is that true?" he asked. Ruth wiped her fingers on her apron and said it had been printed, which in her experience was as near to true as anyone could get. He folded the sheet into his coat pocket, and when he pulled his hand out again his fingertips were grey with ink.