Fine line black tattoo of the word Wanderlust in flowing script with an arrow running along the forearm.

Wanderlust script and arrow on a forearm

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A close photograph of a thin black tattoo on the inner forearm, reading the word Wanderlust in flowing cursive script. A fine arrow runs through the lettering, with its shaft drawn as a line, circular rings at each end and feathered fletching on the right. The linework is delicate and even, the skin is pale and neutral, and the background is softly blurred.

Fine line Lettering Forearm Wanderlust Script Arrow Feather Circle

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tomasz, the shop on Mill Lane is shut now, but I keep the key on the nail where you left it, because you always said you would be back for the last of the goose feathers. Mrs Abney from the chapel asked after you on Sunday. I told her you were somewhere east, counting arrows on a boat, and she nodded as though that were a sensible place for a grown man to be.

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I found your grandfather's ledger under the bench last week. At the back, in his square hand, there is a column of marks: one small ring drawn beside every arrow he ever sold. I used to think it a foolish habit of an old man with nothing to do. Yesterday I counted them. Four hundred and twelve rings, and not one buyer's name I recognise from this town. Every arrow left the county. None of them came back to be paid for.

So I took the old longbow out to the butts at dusk, though I can barely draw it now. The first shaft went wide and skipped off the bank. The second struck the gold and stuck there, quivering, and I stood in the wet grass thinking of you at nine years old, saying the word over and over, the way boys do when a road is calling them and they haven't learned yet how to answer it.

I have bound a fresh feather to the last arrow in the rack and left the door on the latch. If the wind comes round from the west, as it does in March, the smell of the glue will carry down to the river, and you will know which way home is. Your father, Anselm.