Realistic colour tattoo of an American flag revealed through torn skin on the upper arm, with DON'T TREAD lettering across the top.

American flag under torn skin on upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Colour · Photo

The tattoo shows an American flag with stars and stripes appearing through a rip in the skin, with the words DON'T TREAD in bold black serif capitals across the top and a partly hidden line of text along the bottom edge. The flag is shaded with soft grey folds and highlights for a three-dimensional look, while the skin edges show red and pink tones. Bright red, blue and white ink dominate the composition against a dark background, with the tattoo filling most of the frame.

Realism Lettering Upper arm American flag Torn skin Star Stripe Slogan Lettering

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom,

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The fence is finished, though not the way your father drew it on the back of the feed bill. He wanted the wire tight, the gate padlocked, and a board nailed to the post that read DON'T TREAD in letters he copied from the front of an old almanac. I told him the walkers would only go round by the lane, and they did, for about a week, until Mr Hollis from the parish council came up the hill with a map and a face like wet bread.

The flag went up on the Sunday. It is the one from the tin under the stairs, the one your cousin posted from Ohio after the war, its stripes gone soft as flannel and its stars stitched on by a woman who never met either of us. He hung it off the byre door and sat beneath it with the shotgun across his knees like a man waiting for a bus that had been cancelled.

Last Thursday a girl came up the path in the rain with a dog that would not stop barking, her shoes ruined to the laces, asking the way to the station. I did not mention the wire. I walked her down through the gap by the holly, the one your father never found, and she turned at the bottom and waved the way you used to wave from the back of the bus.

The board is still there and I have not taken it down. Your father would have had something to say about that, but he is in the churchyard with his boots on, and the holly is doing better than either of us. Come at Easter if you can. Bring the tin, and mind the stile, it has gone soft too.

Love, Mum