Black script lettering reading Riddikulus across a wrist, set against a dark, softly blurred background.

Riddikulus lettering on a wrist

Lettering · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A single word, Riddikulus, is tattooed in a thin, flowing script in black ink across the wrist. The strokes are fine and even, with small variations in weight. The word sits in the centre of the frame against pale skin, with a dark blurred background that keeps the focus on the lettering.

Lettering Forearm Word Script

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The wardrobe in the back bedroom of your gran's house in Halifax has been wrong since the spring. You know because you have been opening it at night for a week, barefoot, holding the torch the wrong way round, and each time the thing inside has become a little more like whatever frightened you most that day. On Monday it was a letter from the hospital. On Tuesday it was the dog, lying dead on the rug, which was worse because the dog was asleep on the landing and you had checked.

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Your gran comes up the stairs with a mug of cocoa and her reading glasses pushed into her grey hair. She does not ask what you have seen. She puts the mug on the carpet, sits on the bed with a grunt and says, "Well, go on then. Make it look daft."

"I can't."

"You can. It's only a coat hanger in a bow tie."

So you open the door, and the thing unfolds into a long dark shape with the face of every exam you ever sat. You think about the bow tie. You think about the dog's ears and the way he snores through his nose. Then you say the word your gran taught you when you were six, the one she swears she made up in the bath, and you say it so loudly the bulb above you flickers: "Riddikulus!"

The shape wobbles, goes lopsided and sprouts a pair of wellies from its shoulders. Your gran laughs so hard she has to hold the bedpost. The wardrobe door swings shut by itself, quite gently, the way a cat turns away once it has decided you are not worth the bother. In the morning you find one wellington boot in the hall, and you keep it on the windowsill ever since, partly as proof and partly because it is ridiculous.