Black and grey dotwork tattoo of a winged anatomical heart above an oval frame holding two cats, on the forearm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Anatomical heart with two cats

Dotwork · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A winged anatomical heart sits above an oval frame containing two cats, one with a plain face and one with a patterned face, both wearing clothing. Stippled dotwork fills the background and shading, with bold outlines and small star accents above the heart. The piece is in black and grey on a forearm, photographed against a pavement.

Dotwork Traditional Forearm Heart Anatomical heart Wing Cat Star Oval frame

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The galley lamp has been swinging since the Biscay swell came up, and you have given up trying to keep the onions from rolling. Two cats sit on the bread bin watching you as though you are late. Mrs Pell, the pale one, wears the brass-buttoned waistcoat the bosun gave her at Christmas. Tobias, striped and sharp-faced, has his tailcoat buttoned wrong, the way he always does after a night in the stores.

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You flake tinned mackerel onto the back of a spoon. Tobias takes it first, tapping the spoon with one paw like a clerk checking a ledger. Nobody on the manifest knows these two are yours, and that suits you. The purser keeps a pickled thing in a jar in the chart room, labelled in a hand you recognise as his own, and he has never once asked why the cats sleep on the chart table. Mrs Pell refuses the fish. She is watching the porthole, where a single star hangs over the water, going in and out of the cloud.

At four bells the pilot's boat comes alongside at Falmouth and the mate shouts for stores to be landed. You fold the tea towel, lift the crate of tins and tell yourself you are only carrying it to the gangway. Tobias jumps down first, his buttons straightened by some small miracle. Mrs Pell pauses at the top of the ladder, looks back at the galley, then at you, as if she has been waiting all voyage for you to decide.

You go down the gangway behind them with the crate on your hip. On the quay the cats wait under a lamp, two small shapes, and when you set the tins down they do not eat. They simply walk off together into the dark town, and you stand there until the ship's bell rings for the tide and the sound carries flat across the water.