Black and grey tattoo of a seated man holding a glass beside a line of text, placed on the upper back near the shoulder blade.

Seated man and quote on upper back

Lettering · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A black line drawing shows a man in a suit seated and reclining, holding a glass, with his legs crossed at the ankles. Beside him, a block of serif text in black ink reads a line of prose across several lines. Black ink with grey shading fills the suit and the figure's hair, and the composition sits diagonally across the skin.

Lettering Back Man Seated figure Suit Glass Quote Text

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom,

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The rope has snapped again, so we are drifting midstream between the two customs posts, and neither bank will claim us until the morning shift comes on. I have a glass of the plum brandy the ferryman keeps under his seat and a deckchair someone left out in the rain. I am writing because I can't sleep, and you are the only person I know who reads a letter all the way to the end.

The river runs fast here under the old iron bridge. Halász, the ferryman, has rowed these lighter boats against it every day for thirty years, as though he might win back a yard of bank by sheer stubbornness. Last week he showed me his chart, with the frontier drawn in faded green ink, and how the silt pushes the true line a little further each year from where the clerks insist it lies.

Everyone on this crossing pretends to be going forward. The lorry drivers, the students with their rucksacks, the woman with the birdcage who asks every guard the same question. But when the engine dies, all of us slide back toward whatever we left on the far side. I caught myself twice tonight, tilting my head towards the lights of the town we came from.

Halász came over just now with a lantern and a coil of wet rope. He didn't say a word. He tied us to the old ring on the pier stump, pointed at the water where the current had been dragging us back all hour, and laughed. I laughed too, and the brandy went warm in my chest. I'll post this from the other side, if they let me through.