Close photo of a small black script tattoo reading happiness on the upper thigh of a person in denim shorts and black sandals.

Script word tattoo on a thigh

Lettering · Thigh · Black and grey · Photo

A small black script tattoo reading the word happiness sits on the outer upper thigh of a tanned leg. The lettering is drawn in a thin, fairly even black line with a slight flourish on the first letter. The composition is a high angle shot of both legs, denim cut-off shorts, black thong sandals and a pair of dark sunglasses held in one hand, set against pale marble tiles.

Lettering Fine line Thigh Script Word

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Mrs Ashdown came up the stairs above the chip shop on the Tuesday with a sheet of tracing paper folded into four. The word on it was happiness, written in her own hand, with the H given a small hook at the top like a line that had caught something. I told her I did fascias and gilt for pub boards, not anything meant to last a lifetime. She said the word had lasted long enough for her to want it written down properly.

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For a week I practised on offcuts of board. A flat brush for the body of each letter, a rigger for the flourish, and the trick my old master taught me: don't watch the stroke, watch the space it leaves behind. The H took eleven attempts. The hook had to lean towards the word, not away from it, or it read as a question. On the ninth morning the line came off the brush clean, and I stood back and felt foolish for being pleased with a single letter.

She came down to watch me work the glass of the café window, which she had rented for the summer. I painted from the inside so the word would read true from the pavement. Gulls walked past the lettering. A boy stopped, sounded it out under his breath, then said it again louder for his mother, who said yes, love, that's right.

When the last serif dried, Mrs Ashdown stepped out onto the kerb and looked back through the glass. Backwards from inside, the word was a mirror I had to read in my head. From the street it stood the right way round, and the H, with its hook, looked like a hand raised to wave. She counted my money out in coins from her apron pocket and didn't say a thing.