Black and grey traditional tattoo on a forearm showing a skull within an ace of spades, banners reading Life is a gamble, roses, a crown and dice.

Ace of spades skull with dice and roses on forearm

Traditional · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

The design centres on a skull inside a playing card ace of spades, with a crown above and roses on either side. Two dice sit at the lower left, and curled banners above and below carry the lettering. Bold black outlines and grey shading give the skull and card depth, while the roses are lighter with softer gradients. The tall composition fills the forearm.

Traditional Forearm Skull Playing card Crown Rose Dice Banner Lettering

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell,

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The 6.40 to Carlisle has been cancelled, so I am on the bench under the clock at Preston with a bookie's slip for paper and the stub of your mother's pencil. Don't tell her I still have it. Pete Mallon swears the favourite in the three o'clock is a certainty, and I've put the rent money on a horse called Dead Man's Hand because the clerk at the window laughed when I said it.

The station is full of men doing sums on their fingers. A porter with one glove sweeps the same square of tiles every ten minutes, and nobody has the heart to tell him there's no point. I keep thinking of Dad at the card table in the back of the Crown, cutting the deck with his left hand so the ace of spades sat on top like a little black tombstone. He used to say life is a gamble, Nell, and the only sin is folding before the last card. I believed him for twenty years.

Pete's cousin came through on Thursday with a bag of dice and a suitcase full of trouble, and I told him where to get off. The dice are in my coat pocket now. I roll them when the clock ticks past the hour. Three sixes twice running, and both times I looked up at the board thinking the luck had finally turned round.

The board has just flicked. Platform two, the 8.15, on time for the first time all week. I am leaving this slip on the bench for whoever sits here next, with an ace of spades drawn on the back, a skull grinning out of it like it knows the odds. Meet me at the Crown on Sunday. Bring the deck, and we'll see who folds first.

Love, Tom