Black ink fine line script reading still i rise with a small sun above the i, placed on the upper back near the shoulder blade.

Still I rise script with sun on upper back

Lettering · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A close photograph of a black ink tattoo on the upper back, with the words still i rise written in a flowing script and a stylised sun with rays replacing the dot over the i. The linework is thin and even, and the ink is solid black with no shading or colour. Part of a second tattoo, a dark botanical-style design, is visible at the lower right edge of the frame.

Lettering Fine line Back Sun Script Word Phrase Botanical Leaves

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell, the lamp went dark again on Tuesday, and I sat with my hands on the cold glass until the sky over Skerra turned the colour of weak tea. You will say I should have sent for the mainland man. I did send. The boat never came, so I climbed the iron stairs with a spanner and a tin of paraffin and did the job myself, swearing the whole way up the way Father used to.

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The gull I found on the gallery rail that morning had a bent wing and an air of personal offence. I wrapped it in my oilskin and set it by the range. By noon it was hopping about the kitchen flags, pecking at crumbs and glaring at me as if I owed it rent. I keep thinking of the line Mrs Rowe chalked on the schoolroom slate the year you left, the one about rising anyway, and I have taken to saying it on the stairs when my knees complain.

This morning the sun came up straight out of the water, the way it does out here with nothing to block it, and I opened the door to let the cold in. The gull looked at the light, looked at me, and went out over the rocks with one wing still stiff. It did not wobble. It climbed. I stood on the step in my socks like a fool, crying into my collar and feeling the warmth reach my face for the first time since October.

Come in August. The light will be good then and the stairs are mostly dry. I've left the spare key under the loose stone by the gate, and there's a tin of shortbread in the dresser that the gull has not yet found.