Three arrows tattoo flash design

The council sent me out past Coyote Wells with a tin of white paint and a stencil cut from an old feed sack, which is how I came to spend three weeks telling strangers where to go. Out here the road forks every few miles and nobody bothers with names. So I paint arrows. Two that point north, one that points back the way you came, because the man at the depot said travellers like to be told when they have made a mistake.

Mostly the arrows are plain work. The fletching splays in the heat and I have to go over it twice. Yesterday a lorry driver pulled up and asked whether the downward arrow meant the town was behind him. I said it meant what it said. He laughed and drove on north, and I stood there thinking how people only trust a sign once someone has argued with it.

I have been sleeping in the cab since the cot collapsed. Last night the wind came off the flats so hard it lifted the tarp, and I watched it cartwheel across the caliche, pale as a moth. This morning I found the stencil bent but whole in the ditch, and I hung it on the wing mirror to dry like a shirt.

I think I will stay out another week. The third arrow is the one I keep looking at, the one pointing back. It is the only honest thing I have done this month. Write to the depot and tell them I have gone on to the next junction, and that if anyone asks, the arrows are where I left them.

Love, Nell