Black and grey photo of the words Romans 8:18 in fine black script tattooed on a shoulder blade.

Script "Romans 8:18" on a shoulder

Lettering · Shoulder · Black and grey · Photo

A close photograph of a single line of black script reading Romans followed by the numerals 8 and 18, joined by a small plus-like mark. The lettering has smooth, consistent linework with slight variation in weight, and the skin tone is kept neutral against a soft grey background. The text sits diagonally across the upper back, with the shoulder curve visible at the left edge.

Lettering Shoulder Script Lettering Text Bible verse

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The deck oven at Hollins Lane had been roaring since half three, and by the time I had the flour sacks stacked I had already scorched the first tray of tins black along the bottoms. I scraped them into the bin with a bench scraper and swore at them quietly, the way Dad taught me, so the pigeons on the back wall wouldn't take offence. His recipe card was still tucked into the flour bin, soft at the corners from years of floury thumbs. Under the method he had written Romans 8:18 in pencil, and under that, in smaller letters, the word wait.

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Ruth Abney came in at ten to five, as she had every Tuesday since the spring, with her good coat buttoned wrong and a folded crossword under one arm. She asked for a split tin and a cob, and then she asked what the card meant, because she had seen me reading it over the counter. I told her Dad had been a lay preacher for forty years and believed the bread would come right if you kept your hands off it long enough. She laughed and said her husband had believed the same about the shed roof, and look where that got them.

I went back to the oven with the second batch and did what he always did: I left the door shut and listened. The loaves sang as they set. The window over the sink went from black to the colour of dishwater, then to the faint pale grey that means a day is coming whether anyone asked for it or not. When I drew the tray out the crusts were gold, split along the score as if someone had opened them to let the light in.

Ruth took her cob in a paper bag and left a pound coin on the marble. I tucked the card back into the flour bin, careful not to smudge the pencil, and stood a while with the steam lifting off the rack, listening to the loaves tick as they cooled.