Black lettering tattoo of two lines of Roman numerals on the inner forearm near the wrist, in a serif lettering style.

Roman numerals on the inner wrist

Lettering · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

Two lines of Roman numerals in a serif typeface sit across the inner forearm just above the wrist. The black ink has solid, even lines with no visible shading, and the lettering is centred on the arm. The background shows a raised hand with pale nail polish and a dark leather surface, and the photograph is taken at an angle.

Lettering Forearm Roman numeral Number Text

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Lift nine stuck again at twenty past six with Mrs Okafor's shopping and a child's scooter inside, so I was up the shaft by half seven with the torch in my teeth. The service plate in the cab still says IV VI MMXII in the council's dull serif, the date the new doors went in, and I have never read it without picturing the clerk who chose the typeface and was rather pleased with himself.

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Tonight the building is quiet apart from the hum of the motor room. I sit on the landing of floor fourteen with my flask and the logbook open on my knee. Dot Harrington from flat 1408 comes out in her dressing gown to ask whether it's fixed. I tell her it will be by Thursday, which is what I told her on Monday. She gives me a Rich Tea biscuit, the packet already gone soft in the heat from her radiator.

What I haven't told the housing office is that for eleven years I have copied the dates off every lift plate on the estate into the back of this book, one line per cab, because somebody ought to know when things were done. Nobody asked me to. Last week I found the date my dad first serviced the lifts here, back when he was younger than I am now, and I sat on the stairs for ten minutes until the flask went cold.

Tomorrow I'll write tonight's date underneath his and close the book. When Dot's son presses fourteen, the cab light will flicker, and I'll tell him what I always tell him, that the lift is fine now.