Small black fine line tattoo of three curling waves on the inside of a forearm, with a red fabric and a gold chevron pendant in the background.

Three wave curls on a forearm

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A small tattoo of three connected wave curls runs across the inner forearm. The linework is thin and even, and the ink is solid black with no shading or colour. The arm sits across a black top with a red fabric and a gold chevron pendant in the background, and a partly visible person sits at the right edge of the frame.

Fine line Forearm Wave Sea Curl

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Harrow's Travelling Marvels had wintered on the shingle at Weyford for eleven seasons, and by November the big top looked patched like an old sail. Nell Abbott sat on an upturned crate by the wagons with the ledger open across her knees, counting what was left. The columns had shrunk to almost nothing. Beyond the groyne the sea rolled in the same three long curls it had rolled in all week, folding over itself and dropping flat on the stones.

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Her uncle Tobias had painted the booth sign the spring they first came here, gold letters on blue, and under them a row of small waves. He said a show needed something to hold it down. Nell had teased him about it for years. The paint had cracked now, and salt had taken the crossbar off the H, but the waves were still there, three of them, each curling back over the one before.

The letter from the council came on Tuesday, folded twice in a brown envelope. It said the field lease would not be renewed after March. Tobias read it standing in the wet grass, then folded it into his coat without a word and went to fetch the ladder. By dusk he had the sign down and was scraping at the old paint with a palette knife, muttering that the sea had been in charge of everything else.

Nell found him at first light, kneeling on the sand with a tin of black enamel and a brush no wider than a pencil. He had drawn the waves again, three thin curls, neat as stitches. "Nobody buys a ticket for a sign," he said, not looking up. "But they stop and read it." She sat down beside him and watched the last curl dry, the way the tide came back over itself, and then she reached for the second brush.