Sketch-style tattoo on an upper back showing a seated figure beside ruined stone columns, with the words It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.

Seated figure and ruined columns with a quote on back

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A sketched seated figure with bowed head sits beside a pair of ruined stone columns, drawn with loose, hatched pencil-like linework. A blue wash of colour sits behind the figure, while the columns are shaded in grey and black. A serif quote runs vertically down the left side of the design, and the composition fills the shoulder blade area of the back.

Back Seated figure Column Quote Text Sketch Dream

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom,

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The frost has held the top field for nine days now, and Dad has given up on the lower gate. I walked up to the folly this morning to see if the ice had got into the old arch again. It has. Two of the columns have split right down their shafts since you left, and there is a crow nesting in the capital where the carved vine used to be. I sat on the step below them for a while with my hands in my sleeves, the way you used to, and thought about the pamphlet from the solicitor in Ripon.

You will laugh, but I found your pencil tin under the hay in the barn. Inside was a sketch of the columns, shaded so heavily the paper has worn through in places, and a line copied out in your square capitals: IT DOES NOT DO TO DWELL ON DREAMS. Underneath you had written AND FORGET TO LIVE, then crossed the second half out and written it again, smaller. I could not tell whether you were pleased with the sentence or cross with it.

Mum says the house will sell by March if the buyer from Harrogate keeps his nerve. Dad says nothing and fixes the gate. I have decided I will not sell the folly stones with the land, whatever the papers say. Come home at Easter and tell me which of us was right about the dreams. I will bring the sketch up to the columns and we can argue it out where nobody can hear.

Love, Ruth