Collage of six black script tattoos on skin, including quotes on a shoulder, the back of the neck and forearms, plus an anchor and a feather with an infinity symbol.

Script quote tattoos on shoulder, neck and forearm

Lettering · Shoulder · Black and grey · Photo

A collage of six photographs showing black ink tattoos on skin. Most are handwritten script quotes on the shoulder blade, the back of the neck and the forearm, with an anchor on the upper chest and a feather entwined with an infinity symbol on the arm. The linework is thin and even, with no shading, and everything is in black ink. Each photo is taken close up in natural light against a simple background.

Lettering Fine line Shoulder Back Neck Forearm Anchor Feather Infinity symbol Script Quote Handwriting

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The ship's boy had already rubbed the first line off the wax before I finished the second, so I read the words aloud twice to make sure the sailor's wife would hear what he meant and not what his thumb had smeared. Ostia in the month of the south wind smelled of tar, wet rope and the grain barges that never stopped arriving. Men came to my stall under the arches with coins cupped in their palms and their faces already apologising for their clumsiness.

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Cassius Verus, a pilot's mate with a scar through one eyebrow, sat down on the upturned crate and said he wanted the letter to go to Puteoli by the next coaster. I asked him what he wanted it to say. He thought about it for a long time, watching the gulls over the mole. 'Tell her we refuse to sink,' he said at last, and then, more quietly, 'Tell her she can say what she needs to say. I'll hear it when I'm home.' I wrote both lines in my neatest hand, with a small anchor drawn in the margin because he asked for one.

He came back at dusk, when the lamps were being lit along the quay, and asked for something different. He wanted nothing sent. He pulled up his sleeve and held out his forearm, the skin pale where the sun had not reached. 'Write the last one here,' he said. 'With every heartbeat. Then no one can post it or lose it, and I can't pretend I never heard it.' I mixed soot and gum in the small dish, dipped the fine reed, and wrote slowly while he counted the beats under his breath.

When I finished, the ink was still wet and shining. The bell rang for the evening tide, and he pulled his sleeve down over the words like a man shielding a lamp from the wind, then walked off towards the ships without looking back.