Close-up of a fine line black script tattoo reading pray on the inner wrist, with pearl and crystal bracelets worn beside it.

Script word "pray" on the inner wrist

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A single word, pray, is written in thin black cursive script across the inner wrist. The linework is delicate and even, with the letters sloping upwards from left to right. Beside the tattoo, several beaded bracelets with pearls, faceted crystals and cross charms sit on the forearm against a plain white background.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell,

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You will laugh, but Mr Pardoe has finally let me letter the chapel board myself. Not the big gold lettering across the top, mind, only the small word he says is the last thing anyone reads on their way out. He chalked it on the slate for me first: pray. One word, no capital, and he would not say why.

I worked it in a fine brush with black enamel, because he said anything heavier would sit on the wood like a shout. The trick, he told me, is the slope. Set the letters level and they look like a man standing still. Lift them a little from left to right and the eye goes up with them, as if the word has somewhere else to be.

On Thursday the rain came in sideways off the dock and the varnish blushed white, so I had to stop. I sat in the back room with the kettle and the cold tea and the chalk ghost of that word on the slate, and I thought of Mum on the step with her hand on her chest, saying it the way she said grace, quick and under her breath, as if God were a neighbour she did not want to keep waiting.

On Saturday I finished. Mr Pardoe ran his thumb along the last stroke and said nothing for so long I thought I had spelled it wrong. Then he said, "Well, that's a word that climbs," and went off to see about the coal.

Write back and tell me the fishing is not as dull as you say. I shall look at that board every Sunday now and think of you on the quay.

Your loving sister, Ada

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