Close photo of a fine dotwork line of small dots and short dashes running down the upper back near the shoulder blade, in dark grey ink.

Vertical dot and dash line on upper back

Dotwork · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A vertical line of small dots and short dashes runs down the upper back, starting near the top of the shoulder blade and tapering towards the lower edge of the frame. The marks are small, evenly spaced and drawn in a single dark grey ink with no shading. The skin is warm-toned and softly lit, with auburn hair falling over the top right of the frame.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The key chattered twice before I had my cup down, which meant Hebden Bridge was sending again and somebody in the signal box would be shouting. I wrote the groups on the pad as they came, dot and dash, my pencil quicker than my thoughts. Mr Pryce at the junction liked a clean copy with no crossings out, so I kept my hand loose and my breath steady.

Keep reading

The message was for a Mrs Agnes Dunmore at the end of Kettle Lane, and it ran to nine words, which for a wire in 1917 was practically a letter. Her son had been at the Somme. The telegram said he would be on the Thursday train and asked for the kettle to be on. I read it three times, the way you read anything you are not supposed to keep, and then I sent it out with the same flat rhythm I used for coal orders and cattle prices.

Thursday came and the train was late, the way trains were that year. I stood on the platform with my hands in my apron pockets, watching the steam come up the cutting. Nobody I knew got off. Then a lad in a borrowed greatcoat climbed down with a kitbag and looked about him as if he expected the station to have moved.

I walked the slip up Kettle Lane myself that evening, folded small in my glove. Mrs Dunmore already had the kettle on. She took the paper, read it without moving her lips, and handed it back. 'You'll want to keep that,' she said. 'It's the only one I ever got that didn't say he was gone.'

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