Black and white photo of a small solid star with two tiny stars tattooed on the inner wrist of a raised hand.

Three stars on a wrist

Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A black and white photograph of a hand raised beside a knitted cardigan sleeve, with a small solid five-pointed star and two much smaller stars tattooed on the inner wrist. The tattoo is simple, with crisp black ink and no shading, and sits small against the skin. The background is soft and out of focus, which keeps attention on the wrist and hand.

Forearm Star Hand

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The night porter at St Aidan's had one rule for the ambulance bay: nobody looked up while a trolley was coming through. The doors faced the wrong way on the hill, and the wind dropped down them so fast it took your breath and your cap. Ruth Pendry learned that in her first week, when she lost both, and after that she kept her eyes on the wheels, the floor tiles and the clipboard the paramedics held out to her like an apology.

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Her gran had kept a different rule. Three stars low over a roof, she said, meant someone on the road would need carrying in. Gran had been right about the roads and wrong about most other things, so Ruth never believed it until the October night she stepped out for air and saw them over the multistorey car park: one large and bright, and two small ones trailing off to its left like dropped change. She stood by the bins and counted them three times.

At four a boy came in with a broken collarbone and a dog's lead still knotted round his wrist. Nobody had died. Ruth fetched him a blanket and a cup of squash and told him the hospital had a hundred windows and somebody was always awake behind one of them. He asked if she was the one who watched the stars. She said she was not, though she was glad to be asked.

When the sky went grey over the bins, the big star had gone and the two small ones were still there, pale as sugar. Ruth took that as a sign the night had been kind. Gran would have approved of the arithmetic, if not the sentiment. She walked home counting, one, then two, then the bus shelter, then the first lamp, and she did not look up again until she reached her own gate.