Black and grey fine line tattoo of the outline of the state of Texas on the inner forearm, with the word TEXAS in block lettering on the wrist, in a black and white photo.

Texas state outline and word on forearm

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A person in a striped top and skirt holds their arms together. A thin, single-line outline of the state of Texas sits on the inner forearm near the elbow, and the word TEXAS is set in bold capital letters running down the forearm towards the wrist. The black ink is shown against a plain grey background in a monochrome photograph.

Fine line Lettering Forearm Texas State outline Map Lettering Word

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The surveyor's office in Halifax kept its county atlases in a cabinet with a sticking drawer, and Edith Pell had to yank it twice before the Texas sheet came free. Walter's postcard was still tucked under her blotter. Come and see the size of it, he had written, and beneath that, in his cramped hand, the word they had used as children to mean forever: Texas. She had never been further than Blackpool. She had a ruler, a bottle of Indian ink and a library atlas whose rivers had faded to the colour of weak tea.

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She drew the outline freehand that Tuesday, after the others had gone for their dinners. The panhandle took three attempts and the southern edge a fourth. Once she had a shape she trusted, she inked it in one unbroken line, lifting the nib only where the Rio Grande bent in a way the atlas had got wrong. Then she hesitated over the lettering. Mr Hirst came back early and frowned at the sheet. "A map doesn't need its name written on it, Miss Pell. The shape says what it is." She said nothing and lettered it anyway, bold capitals, each one leaning slightly towards the bottom corner of the page.

Walter's reply came in October with a photograph of a dusty main street and a note on the back. The outline was near enough, he wrote, though the coast was a deal too straight. I've pinned it above the bar. Half the men here couldn't read a map to save their lives, but every one of them can read that word. Edith read the note twice at the office window, then unpinned the sheet, rolled it tight and carried it home under her coat, as though she meant to post it across the Atlantic herself.