Black outline smiley face with X eyes, arrows and the words Be Strong When Things Fall Apart, with yellow, teal and red paint splatters, on an upper arm.

Smiley with X eyes and splatter on upper arm

Upper arm · Mixed · Photo

A black outline smiley face with X-shaped eyes sits inside a circle, surrounded by three black arrows on the left and the phrase BE STRONG WHEN THINGS FALL APART arcing around the top and right edge. Yellow, teal and red splatter marks overlap the face and the arrows, with bold black linework and solid fills. The tattoo covers the upper arm and is photographed close up against a grey fabric sleeve.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The ladder wobbles every time you lean, so you learn to paint with your hip against the rail and your eyes on the plaster. Mr Hobday wants the old sign done before the demolition men arrive on Monday. His brother cut the stencil in 1961: a round face, two crosses for eyes, and under it the words he chose for the hall's first dance night, BE STRONG WHEN THINGS FALL APART. You don't ask him why those words. You just mix the yellow and try to match the sun-faded lettering curling round the rim.

Keep reading

The paint is cheap and the brushes are older than you are. When the ladder shudders, a flick of teal leaps off the bristles and lands on the three arrows pointing left, and you decide to leave it. A splash of red follows, spattering the face as if someone had a bad afternoon and took it out on the wall. Below you the floor is still scuffed from thirty years of Saturdays, and the chairs are already stacked against the bar like tired dancers waiting for a lift home.

Hobday comes up the stairs with two mugs of tea and stops at the bottom rung. He squints at the arrows. 'They should point out,' he says. 'They point to the door,' you tell him, and he laughs, a short cracked sound. 'Same thing, love, if you're leaving.'

He takes the brush from your hand, dips it in the red, and adds one drop beside the crosses, a tear or a grin, you can't tell which. Then he hands the brush back and goes down the stairs slowly, one hand on the rail. You stay up there a while, looking at the face he has made, smiling in spite of its eyes, until the light through the high windows turns from gold to grey and the sign is the last thing in the room that still looks like it's having a good time.

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