Sketch-style tattoo of an angular monkey holding a yellow banana, outlined in red with grey shading, on the inner forearm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Angular monkey holding a banana on a forearm

Forearm · Mixed · Photo

The tattoo shows a stylised monkey-like figure with a blocky head, round eye, cross-shaped marks and stitch-like seams, holding a yellow banana at its side. The linework is bold and sketchy, with a red outline and grey shading that gives the figure a faceted, dimensional look. Grey tones dominate the body, while the banana and red outline add colour across the forearm.

Forearm Monkey Figure Cross Stitches Geometric shape

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Mrs Pilling had kept the lost property shelf at Hadley Junction for twenty-two years, and in that time she had catalogued umbrellas, one set of false teeth, a tuba, and a great many gloves. The monkey arrived on a wet Tuesday in a carrier bag, wedged between a thermos and a copy of the Radio Times, its banana still tucked under one stitched arm as if it expected a train.

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It was made from grey felt cut into blocks, with a round button eye and a cross sewn on each side of its head where the ears should have been. The seams ran up its face like a zip someone had given up on halfway. Pilling turned it over twice, found no name tag, and set it on the shelf beside a single red wellington. Nobody came for it that week, or the next.

On the third Friday a man came in with a cardboard box of pears and the wellington's twin still on one foot. He stopped dead at the sight of the monkey. "That's Dorothy's," he said. "She sewed it for her boy the winter he was poorly, and he took it on every train to see his gran in Carlisle." He had not seen the boy since the spring. The banana, he admitted, had been replaced four times, always by someone who didn't quite get the curve right.

Pilling wrapped the monkey in tissue and handed it over without a form. From the platform window she watched him settle into a seat on the Carlisle service, set the box of pears on the table, and lift the monkey onto the sill where it could see the rails running north. The banana caught the light, the only yellow thing for miles of grey.