Close-up of a black lettering tattoo reading "to be loved; to be in love" in a typewriter-style font, placed on the side of the torso above a dark waistband.

"To be loved; to be in love" lettering on the side

Lettering · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo is two lines of black text in a typewriter-style serif font, reading "to be loved; to be in love". The letters are crisp, solid black with even weight, and the lines are set left to right across the skin. The photograph is a close, slightly angled view of bare skin with a dark garment strap and a metal clasp at the lower edge.

Lettering Ribs Text Quote Love Typewriter font

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Walter,

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The 6.10 to Carlisle is running forty minutes late again, so I have the lost property counter to myself and the good typewriter out from under its cover. The ribbon is nearly dead. Every letter comes up grey on the good days and black only where I press hardest, which is how I've been writing to you since you left, I suppose.

Mr Holroyd came in this morning asking after a brown umbrella he swears he left on the bench by platform four. I told him the umbrella had gone to Crewe weeks ago and he should write to them, and he looked at me the way you used to when I corrected your sums. Then he bought a ticket to Leeds he didn't need and asked whether the clock on the hour was still fast. It is. It always was.

I found a scrap in the bottom drawer, the one with the paper clips and the spare keys. It was my own handwriting from the spring, a list of what I wanted, and I'd written it out and then typed the line underneath because I couldn't decide which version was truer. To be loved; to be in love. I used to think the semicolon was a pause for breath. Now I think it is the place where a train stops and nobody gets off.

The next train is in on platform two. I've put the kettle on for the driver and left your side of the bench clear, which the porter says is a sad thing to do. I'm not sad. I'm only typing.

Yours, E.