Fine line black cross tattoo on the middle toe of a bare foot, with burgundy nail polish and a silver toe ring on the next toe.

Small cross tattoo on a toe

Fine line · Other · Black and grey · Photo

A bare foot rests on a cream carpet, viewed from above. A small, thin black cross sits on the side of the middle toe, drawn with simple single-line linework and solid black ink. The toes have burgundy nail polish, and a silver toe ring with a heart detail is worn on the adjacent toe.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell, the new ink at Harwich bleeds on damp days, so forgive the blots on this sheet. Yesterday a lorry came off the night ferry with a load of pear brandy and a driver who looked like he had not slept since Rotterdam. I did what Pritchard taught me in my first winter here. I drew a small cross in pencil in the corner of the manifest, one stroke down and one across, which means check the seal twice and say nothing to the supervisor. You will laugh, but Pritchard never once got a bad load past that mark.

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The seal was intact. The brandy was exactly what the paperwork promised, and the driver's papers had a coffee ring on them that I decided not to mention. Still I held the sheet under the lamp for longer than I needed to. The cross sat there in grey graphite, no wider than a fingernail, and I kept thinking that the mark only means something to the people who learned it. Everyone else sees a doodle. The driver watched me over the counter and I think he knew it too.

He signed where I pointed and went out into the rain without a word, the lorry's lights swinging across the car park and then gone. I have put the manifest in the blue tray with the others. Tomorrow someone will file it, and some clerk I will never meet will open the folder and find my small cross and wonder who put it there. I suppose that is how Pritchard's secrets have travelled, from one tray to the next. Write soon and tell me the coffee at Ipswich is still terrible.

Love, Margaret

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