A small black cross tattoo with simple solid lines on the side of a person's ribs, photographed from behind while they give a thumbs up.

Small black cross on the ribs

Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A small, simple black cross sits on the side of the ribcage, shown in fairly sharp focus with a slightly glossy sheen that may be aftercare film on fresh skin. The person is photographed from behind and to the side, with their face not visible, and wears a white top and a strip of pink kinesiology tape across the back. The background is a plain grey wall and studio clutter, and the tattoo is the clear focus of the frame.

Ribs Cross Line

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ruth, the frost has finally let go of the Lowmoor road, so Mr Eccles and I got the theodolite out at first light and I can tell you the cross is still where your father cut it. Three inches high, one stroke for the upright and one for the arms, chiselled into the north face of the mill wall the year the old beam went in. Mr Eccles calls it a bench mark. The men at the Crown call it the Vicar's Mark, though no vicar ever touched it.

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The council wants the culvert under the mill race widened, and the drawings show the wall coming down on Thursday. Mr Eccles took off his hat when he saw the plans, which is the only time I have seen him do it for paper. He says a cross on a wall is only a height, a figure the county agreed on in 1911, and that the figure is what matters. I did not argue. I only asked him where we would carry the level forward once the stone was gone.

Yesterday afternoon I climbed the scaffold on my own and copied the mark into the back of my field book with a hard pencil, pressing so the lines came through onto the next page. Then I cut a fresh one into the coping at the end of the new bridge, deep enough that a boy with a penknife could not scratch it away. It sits level with the old one to a sixteenth of an inch. Mr Eccles checked it twice and said nothing, which from him is praise.

He came down the ladder last and stood looking at both marks, one dark and weathered, one still pale with grit. Then he asked if I wanted the first ride over the new bridge in the lorry. I told him I would rather walk it. Your loving sister, Margaret.