Black fine line script lettering reading Live as if you were to die tomorrow, running vertically along the side of the ribs.

Script quote running down the ribs

Lettering · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A vertical line of black cursive script reads Live as if you were to die tomorrow, running down the side of a torso from under the arm towards the hip. The thin, even linework is set against smooth skin, with no visible shading or colour. The text fills the centre of the frame, with a denim waistband and a dark top at the edges.

Lettering Fine line Ribs Quote Script Text

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The reed pen is already split when the old woman's son sets it between your fingers, and you notice he has not scrubbed the ink from his thumb. He wants a line for his mother's stele outside the Ostian gate, something passers-by will stop to read. You have copied a hundred epitaphs in the scriptorium off the Via Sacra, all of them worn smooth by the same tired grief. He does not want that. He says only that she recited one sentence every morning while she combed out her hair, and he cannot remember the whole of it, only its shape.

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You write it on the wax tablet in a single column, one letter above the next, because the stonecutter needs the words to climb the stone like ivy. Live as if you were to die tomorrow. You ask whether she meant it as a comfort or a warning. The son considers this for a long time, turning his inky thumb over in the lamplight. He says she meant it as a thing to do before breakfast, and that she was usually late for breakfast.

The lamp gutters out while you are still measuring the spacing. When you stand, your knees ache and the street outside is full of bakers calling the hour. You buy a honey cake from the stall at the corner, still warm enough to burn your fingers, and you eat it sitting on the cold steps of the scriptorium. The tablet is safe under your arm. For once you are not thinking about the letters at all, only the sweetness, and the sun coming up over the rooftops like someone who has forgotten to be in a hurry.