Script quote running down the side ribs
Lettering · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo
A black and white photograph of a vertical script tattoo along the side of a torso, reading Breathe deeply, love madly, live fully. The letters have bold, smooth outlines with flourished capitals and dark solid ink. The text runs top to bottom on the left of the frame, set against a patterned black and white backdrop.
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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction
Hold that tiller steady, Tommy, and mind the rope, because the Aire runs high under the bridge and I am too old to fish you out. Right. Where was I? Your grandad. He bought the Mary Jane off a man in Goole for forty pounds and a crate of tinned peaches, and the same week he had the words painted on the cabin side in letters so fancy the signwriter charged him extra for the curls.
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Folk laughed. Breathe deeply, they said, you'll only breathe diesel all day. But he meant it plain. Every morning at the lock he'd stand on the back deck with his arms out like a man about to dive, and he'd pull the river air down into his chest until his ribs creaked. Then he'd look at me and say, love madly, Nell, and I'd tell him to get on with the paddles.
The winter the water froze solid at Castleford, he went out in the cold to free the stern line from the ice and didn't come up when I knocked on the hull. I found him by the lock gate with his mouth a little open, as if he'd just taken the big breath he always took. For a long while I thought I'd never forgive him for that.
But I had the signwriter back the next spring, and I paid him to add a line of my own underneath, so every bridge we pass under says it to the whole valley. Live fully, Tommy. Now give me that tiller back before you put us in the reeds.
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