Black and grey realism tattoo of a wooden cross wrapped in rope with rays of light, two small crosses and a banner, on the inner forearm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Wooden cross and banner on a forearm

Realism · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A wooden cross wrapped in rope stands in front of a rocky hill with light rays and two smaller crosses behind it. A ribbon banner across the lower shaft carries the word Joshua above the numbers 24:15. The tattoo uses soft grey shading and dark outlines on the cross and banner, with the forearm photographed straight on against a dark background.

Realism Forearm Cross Rope Banner Hill Cloud

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Owen,

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You will think me soft for writing on paper when the telephone would do, but the mooring rope you left at Torksey has been lying in the bottom of Good Intent since March, and I cannot bring myself to coil it without you here to tell me I have got the hitch wrong. Your father always said I had. He was wrong about most things, but not about knots.

The floods have gone down now. The river came over the towpath and laid a grey skin across the field below the chapel, and for three mornings the light came off the water in long bars so bright you could not look at the cross on the chapel roof without squinting. Mr Harrop from the lock cottage walked out to see if the sluice had held. He stood with his hands in his coat and said it looked like Judgement, then laughed at himself, then made me a cup of tea in his kitchen with the wireless going.

Your father's old Bible is still in the cabin drawer with the verse marked in pencil: Joshua twenty-four, fifteen. Choose you this day whom ye will serve. I used to think it was a warning. Now I think it is only a sentence a man keeps close when the water is high. So I have sewn the words onto a strip of canvas and nailed it to the bulkhead above the stove. The rope is still in the bottom of the boat. Come and fetch it, and bring your own knots.

Love, Aunt Win