Small fine-line black tattoo of Roman numerals VII and VIII separated by outlined triangles, on the inner forearm near the wrist.

Roman numerals with triangles on a forearm

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A small black tattoo shows the Roman numerals VII and VIII, with outlined triangles placed before the VII and between the two numerals. The linework is thin and even, in solid black ink with no shading. The tattoo sits on the inner forearm near the wrist, against a blue shirt sleeve and a dark background.

Fine line Lettering Forearm Roman numeral Triangle Numeral

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The ledger at Coldharbour Lock was kept in pencil, because ink thickened in the lock hut by October. Abel Quinn wrote every entry beginning with the hour in Roman numerals, as his father had, since a numeral could not be misread in a hurry. When a loaded coal boat came through he drew a small outlined triangle in the margin, a warning to whoever kept the gates next that the water would be heavy.

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His daughter Ruth took over the entries the summer his chest went bad. She learned the marks the way other children learned hymns, by copying them until her hand stopped asking. 'Seven's easier than eight,' she told him, pressing VII onto a page softened by damp. 'You keep stopping one short.'

On the last Saturday of August the narrowboat Patience came down with a cabin full of wet laundry and a man who wanted to know why the lower gate wept. Abel showed him the chalk on the beam and the triangles he had scratched beside each crack. Ruth stood on the balance beam and counted the paddles aloud, seven turns, then eight, while the water sank and the boat dropped like a lift.

That night Abel wrote the entry himself, slowly, and let Ruth sign beneath it. The gauge read seven feet at dusk and eight by morning, a rise from the rain upstream that would take the gates a day to forgive. He drew a triangle between the two numerals, pointing up, and left the pencil where it lay.