Black and grey photograph of the phrase 'still I rise' in small serif lettering on the inner wrist of a forearm against a dark background.

Still I rise lettering on a wrist

Lettering · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A close photograph of a forearm and wrist showing the words 'still I rise.' in small, neat serif lettering that follows the curve of the wrist. The black ink is crisp and solid, with slight softening at the edges of the letters. The image is in black and white, with the dark background and soft focus on the edges drawing attention to the text at the centre of the frame.

Lettering Forearm Quote Text

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The river came up on the morning of the wedding, and by seven it had covered the causeway stones. Ada Penrose stood at the bottom of the slope in her stockings, her shoes in one hand and her mother's hat in the other, and looked across at the church. It sat on the far bank like a boat that had broken its rope.

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Her mother wanted to turn back. The men at the Ferry Inn said a week, maybe two, before the stones showed again. Tom, the groom, stood on the far side with his brothers, shouting that he would wade out for her if she said the word. Ada said nothing. She gathered the lace of the dress into her fist and thought of her grandmother, who had walked this causeway in 1910 with a baby on her hip and the river in her boots.

Halfway over the water reached her thighs, then her waist, cold enough to stop her breath. She went under once and came up coughing, the veil plastered across her mouth. Tom was reaching for her across the last stretch. She did not take his hand. She climbed the final stones herself, the way you climb out of a bad dream, and stood dripping on the church path.

The dress was ruined. The lace hung grey and heavy and never dried quite white. Ada pinned it up anyway and walked the aisle with the river still running out of the hem, and when the vicar asked whether she would have this man she answered before he had finished. Every spring after, the Penrose women hung their washing on the hawthorn, and that dress hung longest, grey as slate, and nobody in the village ever asked her to take it down.