Simple black outline tattoo of three arrows, one with a heart-shaped head, on the forearm.

Three arrows on an arm

Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo shows three arrows angled diagonally up the skin, each with a fletched tail and a different head shape: a triangular head, a faceted head, and a heart-shaped head. The linework is a bold, even black outline with hatched shading inside the fletching and arrowheads. The design is in black ink only and sits centrally on a plain, lightly lit area of skin against a blurred background.

Forearm Arrow Arrowhead Heart Fletching

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The lost property box at Ashbourne Junction has been rattling on its shelf since Tuesday, and by Friday you have to open it. Under a tangle of umbrellas and one green welly sit three arrows bound with brown twine, their shafts worn pale where a hand has gripped them. One has a plain triangular head, one a head cut in facets like a stone, and the third ends in a little heart, as if whoever made it had been careless with their affection.

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The label is in capitals: ARCHERY CLUB, NOT TO BE SOLD. You ring the number on it. A woman answers from a village hall, her voice thin over the signal. Her husband shot at the field behind the chapel every Sunday until his knee gave out. He left the arrows on the 6:40 from Derby the week before he died. She has never asked anyone to look for them. She only wants to know they are somewhere they can be collected.

You carry the box out onto the platform in a sideways wind. The 16:12 is running late, the board keeps blinking, and a boy in a school blazer stands with his hood up, watching the rails as though they might do something. You ask him to hold the twine while you work the knot loose. He does it slowly and without complaint. The heart-tipped arrow comes out first, then the faceted one, then the triangle, and you lay them across his palms so that they point up the line toward the city.

The train comes in on the far side. You do not send the arrows with the driver. You wait until the doors close, then tell the widow, on the phone, that they are on the platform. She is quiet for a while. Then she says that is exactly where he would have left them.