Black script lettering quoting a line about carrying things inside, with a rope and anchor below it, on a lower back above white shorts.

Script quote and anchor on lower back

Lettering · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A black ink script quote runs across the lower back in several lines, with the lettering set at slight angles and varying in size. Below the last line, a black anchor with a coiled rope wraps around its shank and sits to the right of the text. The ink is solid black with no colour, and the skin shows a warm tan, with the tattoo framed by a grey top above and white shorts below.

Lettering Back Script Quote Anchor Rope

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

"Splice it the way I showed you, Jory, or the whole thing will slip the minute there's weight on it." Old Abel Penrose didn't look up from the coil in his lap. The loft smelled of tar and damp hemp, and the afternoon light came through the gaps in the boards in thin bars.

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Jory had been sent up to learn the trade, but mostly he learned the old man's sayings, which came out sideways between knots. That week it was about the anchor hanging by the door, black and pitted, its rope gone grey where the salt had got into it. "Nobody tells you a boat goes down from the top," Abel said. "It's what she drags under her that takes her. Stuff you can't see from the deck, carried so long you stop noticing the weight."

Jory asked what the old man was dragging. Abel gave his dry laugh, like a block creaking, and said he'd hauled his brother's grief out past the Brisons one winter and never got it up again. Then he got to his feet with a grunt, took the anchor down, and walked it out to the quay with Jory trailing behind, the rope bumping their shins.

At the edge of the stone they knelt and worked the knot loose, one turn at a time, until the rope slid free into the green water and the anchor sank with a clean, hungry flick of its flukes. Abel watched the bubbles stop. "There," he said. "Now go and get the kettle on, and bring the good mugs this time." Jory coiled the empty rope over his arm, and it weighed almost nothing at all.