Six hand-drawn arrow designs

Black and grey · Flash

Six arrows are drawn in a stack on a plain white background, each running horizontally with a different fletching and arrowhead shape. The linework is bold and sketchy, with some arrows built from outlined chevrons and others from loose hatched feathers. The image is entirely black ink on white, with no shading or colour.

Arrow Arrowhead Feather Fletching Chevron Flash sheet

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom,

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The sheet of arrows is still pinned above the sluice sink on Ward 7, the one the playroom volunteer drew in biro and nobody has had the heart to take down. Six of them, all lying flat across the paper, all pointing east as far as I can tell. At quarter to three tonight Mr Hadley in Bed 4 asked me which way the window faced, and I pointed at the top one with my pen. He said it looked like a stick wearing a hat, then went back to sleep before I could argue.

The bottom two are my favourites. The lower one has a head like a cut-glass sweet and feathers drawn in tight stripes, as if someone wanted them sharp enough to cut the air. I told Priya that on her break and she said I had too much time on nights. She's probably right, but the sheet is the only thing on this corridor that doesn't need a chart.

At half four the lights in the bay dimmed and I took the sheet down to fold it, meaning to chuck it out. Behind it, pencilled very faintly in one corner, someone had written a date and the words 'go on, then'. I don't know whose hand that was. I pinned it back up. I've started drawing my own arrows on the back of the obs chart when the pager's quiet, all of them pointing the other way, out past the doors towards the first bus.

Love, Nell