Colour tattoo of a pink rose with a green stem and black script reading Tale as old as Time across the fingers of a hand, shown in a Hand placement.

Script quote and rose on a hand

Lettering · Hand · Mixed · Photo

A hand with black script reading "Tale as old as Time" running across the back of the fingers and knuckles. Below the lettering, a pink and red rose with a green stem and a small falling petal sits on the hand, with a few scattered dots. The lettering is crisp and dark, while the rose has soft shading and a traditional-style outline against the skin.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

You have been piping the same sugar rose since three, because the bride's mother wants the petals blush rather than pink, and the flour has settled into the creases of your knuckles where the soap never reaches. The ovens tick as they cool. Somewhere under the radio a presenter is reading the shipping forecast, and you find yourself counting the sea areas to keep your hand steady.

Keep reading

Mr Ashdown comes down from the flat above at half past four for his split tin, as he has every morning since his wife died. Tonight he watches you work and says she used to call a thing that took too long a tale as old as time, usually when the bread refused to rise. You tell him the bride is quite certain about her roses, and he laughs, a dry sound, and leaves the loaf on the counter with the exact change in a saucer.

The last petal is the hardest. It has to curl outward, as if it has just come loose and is still falling, and your fingers keep wanting to press it flat. You get it right on the third try. Then it slips from the palette knife and lands on the marble, a thin pale curl beside the cake board.

You leave it there. At six the van pulls up with its headlights still on, and you carry the cake out in both arms, careful over the step, the sugar rose catching the first grey light as the door swings shut behind you.

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