Black and grey photo of a serif lettering tattoo reading "; not ended" across the inside of a forearm near the wrist.

Semicolon and "not ended" on a wrist

Lettering · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A black and white photograph of a wrist and forearm showing a semicolon followed by the words "not ended" in a serif typeface, the last letters partly cut off at the edge of the frame. The lettering is solid black with clean, even edges and a simple, unshaded finish. The background is dark and out of focus, with a glossy object at the right edge, and the tattoo sits across the centre of the image.

Lettering Forearm Semicolon Word Text Quote

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ruby,

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The painter came back on Tuesday with his brushes wrapped in a tea towel, and he finished the board over the dodgems the way he'd promised. You'll remember it had been half done since the spring, the letters for Marrow and Sons gone grey where the rain got under the paint. He asked what the sign should say about the winter pitch, and I told him just the plain truth, that we're closed till Easter. He painted those words, then stood back, and before he packed up he dipped the smallest brush he had and put a semicolon after "closed", a little fat dot over a comma, and then three words after it: not ended.

I asked him what he meant by it. He said his mother taught him that a full stop was for sentences that had finished, and a semicolon was for the ones still going that needed a breath. Nobody reads a board that closely, he said, but somebody always does.

I opened Dad's old wagon on Sunday, sat on the step with a flask, and read the board from underneath, which you never do, and it looked different from below. The paint has run a little on the semicolon where the brush was loaded too heavy. I think it's the best thing on the whole ground.

Come up for the Easter opening and bring the good scissors. Tell me what you think the next line should be.

Love, Nell