Black linework tattoo of a multi-storey apartment block with many windows, on the upper arm, in a black and white photo.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Apartment block tattoo on an arm

Fine line · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo shows a block of flats drawn as a loose, sketchy outline with stacked balconies, rows of windows and a stepped rooftop. The lines are thin, uneven and hand-drawn, with a few small areas of solid black filling some windows. The image is black and white, and the tattoo fills most of the frame against a plain, slightly blurred interior background.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Mags,

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The lift has been out since Tuesday, so I've been taking the stairs up to what was your flat, all eleven floors of them, and counting the landings the way you used to. Mr Okafor on six says the council will get round to it in spring. He said the same thing about the balcony railings, and about the damp in the stairwell, which now has a fern growing out of it.

The block looks different from the pavement now that the trees are bare. You can see straight across the courtyard into the back windows, the ones with the washing lines and the bent aerial. Last night I counted nineteen lit windows and one that was blacked out entirely, which I'm fairly sure is the Pattersons' bedroom, though they've always insisted they were asleep. Every window seems to have its own lamp and its own hour for going dark.

I went into your old place with the spare key, just to check the radiator. The sill still has the little dent where you used to rest your tea. Nobody has painted over the pencil marks on the kitchen door frame, so your Eddie is still shorter than the two-year-old who lives there now, and I didn't have the heart to tell her.

Write back, and tell me if the new flat has a view of anything at all.

Love, Dor

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