Black and white photo of a small, simple arrow tattoo running vertically on the inner forearm, framed by dark striped sleeves.

Small arrow tattoo on the inner forearm

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A small arrow points upwards along the centre of the inner forearm, with a fletching of three chevron feathers at the tail. The lines are thin, solid black strokes with no shading, and the arrowhead is a narrow filled point. The image is black and white, with the pale skin set between dark, striped sleeves and a hand visible at the bottom edge.

Fine line Forearm Arrow

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The arrows on platform three at Harrowby Junction had been repainted four times since the war, and each new coat came out a shade greyer than the last. Mr Pask, who kept the paint store under the stairs, blamed the damp rising through the concrete. I took the tin and a thin sable brush up the footbridge at six, before the first commuter train rolled in, and knelt where the old arrow had flaked away to bare grey.

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I drew it narrow, the way Pask taught me: one long shaft, a point as sharp as a pencil tip, and three chevron feathers at the tail, each stroke pulled clean so the paint wouldn't pool. A woman with a wheeled suitcase stopped beside me and asked if the 7:14 was late. I told her it was on time, which was true, because the 7:14 had never been late in its life. She thanked me as if I had personally arranged it.

My brother Owen used to say an arrow was just a line that had made up its mind. He left for Leeds the summer we were nineteen and sent one postcard, then nothing. When a letter came three years later with no return address, I read it twice at the kitchen table and then walked back to the station, because it was the only place I knew where every direction was printed on the floor.

The last stroke went on as the 7:14 came round the bend, its horn thin in the cold. I wiped the brush on my apron and watched the arrow dry black and certain against the grey, pointing straight up at the footbridge. Nobody on that platform would need to ask which way to go. I left the tin open on the rail, because Pask would only moan about it, and took the stairs down the wrong way, just to see whether the floor would still tell me where I was.