Black and grey photo of two forearms, each with a line of serif lettering tattooed on it: a quote about understanding and destroying oneself on the left, and one about fixing oneself on the right.

Two serif quotes on both forearms

Lettering · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

The photograph shows the inner forearms of a person in a dark jumper, cropped below the shoulders so no face is visible. Each forearm carries a line of black serif lettering, with the left reading "I understood myself only after I destroyed myself" and the right reading "And only in the process of fixing myself, did I know who I really was." The text is crisp, solid black ink with no shading or colour, set against pale skin and a dark background.

Lettering Forearm Quote Word Text

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The forme is locked up by four on the Thursday, and Mr Aske wants the Mechanics' Institute notices out of the way before the dinner-time edition goes to the machine. You stand at the case in the back of Pryce and Son with your apron tied twice round, picking sorts from the compartments by feel. Capital I, then a lowercase d. Everything comes out of the box the wrong way round, nicked edges facing you, so you learn to read backwards without meaning to, the way you learn to count in a language you were never taught.

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The passage is from a small book of essays a schoolmistress sent over to be printed for her pupils' parents. Mr Aske says it's rubbish and that nobody in Wenlow reads anything that doesn't come with a price on the cover. You set it anyway, line by line, the serifs bracketing each word tight, and you don't look up until the galley is pulled. One sentence keeps you there longer than the others, a man who understood himself only after he had broken something of his own, and you can feel your throat tighten the way it does when a stranger says your name in a shop.

You hold the proof up to the window above the sink, where the afternoon light comes grey off the canal, and read it the right way at last. Outside, a cart drags past and the horse's hooves ring on the cobbles. Your fingers are black to the second knuckle, and turpentine only moves the ink into the creases, where it sits like a dirty thumbprint.

Tomorrow the type goes back in its compartments, sorted and anonymous, ready to be made into something else. You fold the proof in four and slide it into your inside pocket. It is the only thing in the shop that reads the same from either side, and you carry it home without once holding it up to the light.