Black fine line semicolon tattoo on one finger and a small black cross tattoo on the next, shown on a hand held in a peace sign.

Semicolon and cross on two fingers

Fine line · Hand · Black and grey · Photo

A hand held in a peace sign shows a small black semicolon on the side of the index finger and a thin black cross on the middle finger. The linework is crisp and uniform, with solid black ink and no shading. The background is a dim room with a television and shelves, and the image is shot in natural indoor light.

Fine line Hand Semicolon Cross Finger Hand Punctuation

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The order of service had gone to the printers with a full stop where Dorothy wanted a semicolon, and she held the proof up to me in the church porch as if I'd put it there myself. "Two sentences that belong together should not be made to shout at each other," she said. I had typeset parish newsletters in Ludlow for thirty-one years before the computers came, so I knew the difference between a pause and a parting, though I had never once said so to a bride.

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The groom's vows ran long, two clauses hanging on a single breath: I will keep the kettle on through every winter, and I will not pretend the hill is easy. Dorothy wanted them joined. I took a fine-nibbed pen from my jacket and marked the proof in the margin, a dot set above a stroke, then walked it down Corve Street to the print shop before the bell started. The lad behind the counter squinted at my handwriting and said it looked like a face with a moustache, which was fair enough.

The sheets were handed out with the hymn numbers still smelling of toner. When the vicar came to the vows, the groom read his line straight through the mark without stopping, as though the sentence had always been one thing, and the bride laughed softly at the hill bit.

Afterwards Dorothy found me by the lychgate, folded the programme in half, and pressed it back into my hand. Beside the printed stop she had drawn a small cross in biro, the kind you make without thinking when you are sure of something. "Now it's finished," she said, and went to find her hat.