Small black Roman numeral tattoo reading XII XVIII XCVI on the ribs of a woman wearing a black top and floral skirt, in Lettering style.

Roman numerals on the ribs

Lettering · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A close side view of a woman's torso shows a small tattoo of Roman numerals, XII XVIII XCVI, set in a single line across the ribs. The numerals are rendered in solid black ink with clean, simple serifs and a fine, even weight. The background is dark, with a floral skirt at the waist and a window with blinds, and the subject's face is out of frame.

Lettering Ribs Roman numeral Number Text Ribs

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Tuesday, and the barge Mercy Ellen has come through the Harrow Cut with her paint scraped to bare wood down the port side. Mr Tolley wants to know who will pay for the gate. I told him the gate was paid for in 1841 by a man who drowned in it, and that Harrow has never once mended anything properly in its life.

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I have kept the lock book since my mother's hands went too stiff for the pencil. Twelve locks between the mill and the weir, eighteen bridges with names nobody uses now, and ninety-six steps cut into the bank at Cold Sallow where the horses used to be led up. Father counted them every spring with a knotted cord, and every spring the cord came out one knot longer than the year before, which he said was the canal growing.

Yesterday I went down the steps myself, counting under my breath, and at the ninetieth the moss gave way. I sat in the cold mud with my skirt soaked through and laughed like a fool. Six steps still to go and nobody to shout at about it.

I have written the three numbers on the back of the tally board so the next keeper knows where the water runs deepest. Twelve for the locks I opened, eighteen for the years I have kept them, ninety-six for the steps I did not fall down. The light is going off the water now. I will leave the bottom gate half open for the boats.