A tall vertical flash sheet of nine circular illustrated animal portraits, each with a one-word caption such as BEHOLD, PROTECT, LAUGH and FLY, in muted colour.

Animal portrait flash sheet with one-word captions

Colour · Flash

The image shows a tall vertical column of nine circular illustrated animal portraits, including a cat, panda, pug, fox, owl, raccoon, meerkat, tiger and a bird. Each portrait sits in an ornate frame with decorative scrollwork, and a single word in a banner or across the base reads BEHOLD, PROTECT, LAUGH, MIND, WATCH, WASH, STAND, BURN or FLY. The linework is detailed with shading and the palette is muted, with blues, browns, oranges and greys.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Tamsin kept nine painted discs nailed above the net-loft door at Skerrow, and before any boat cleared the breakwater she said one word from them to whoever was at the tiller. She always went from the top down, because a tinker had told her the order was the whole trick, and she had mended his coat for nothing to hear it.

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Behold, she said to the cat with its blue-black stare, and the skipper looked at the water properly for once. Protect for the panda, and the mate checked the lifebelts. Laugh for the pug, which was the hard one, because nobody laughs on a boat that is going down. Mind for the fox, watch for the owl, wash for the raccoon, stand for the meerkat, and the men who heard them said them back to her without meaning to.

Her grandson Pim asked her once why the tiger was burn and not something kinder. She did not look up from the net. Burn is what you do to the oil lamp when the fog comes in, she said, and what you do to a bad day once you are ashore. Fly was the last word, and she only said it to the bird, and only when the boats were late.

Pim counted the discs every night after that. On the night the fog came in, he saw the lamp burning in the loft window and the boats coming home one at a time, with all nine words still in their ears.

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