Black script tattoo reading Traveler on the back of a person's neck, with their hair pulled up and hands in their hair.

Traveler script on the back of the neck

Lettering · Neck · Black and grey · Photo

A close view from behind shows a single word, Traveler, written in black cursive script on the back of a person's neck. The linework is solid and even, with the lettering filled in black and no shading or colour. The hair is gathered up and hands are raised into it, with the tattoo placed centrally and slightly below the hairline against a pale, soft-focus background.

Lettering Neck Script Word Hair Hand

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The big top has been sold for scrap and its canvas patched so often it looks like a map of somewhere else. You sit on the lowest step of the last wagon with the lettering pot at your feet, and Mr Oakes, the owner, hands you the brush without looking up. "Traveler, with the second e," he says. "The Americans spell it like that on their tickets and I won't have anyone thinking we're careless."

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You paint the word in black on the side of the trunk that rides to Norwich at dawn, a sign meant for nobody but the loader. The letters lean forward as if they are already walking off the board. Your mother taught you script on the backs of feed sacks, and your hand still wants to loop the T too high. Somewhere out in the field the tent poles knock together in the wind, and someone is practising on the high wire, one foot at a time, counting under their breath.

When the paint dries, Oakes runs his thumb across the letters and finds them even. He pays you in coins that smell of sawdust and gives you a pocket watch with no hands. "Where will you go?" he asks, and you tell him the truth, which is that you have never been anywhere the wagon didn't take you first.

The trunk leaves before the sun is up. You stand in the wet grass and watch the word roll away down the lane, the letters bumping like a line of small ponies, until the hedge swallows it. Then you turn back to the empty field and pick up the brush again, because there is still the other wagon, and its name is not finished yet.