Black and grey shaded cross tattoo with red baseball stitching and a number 5 in the centre, placed on a person's upper back near the shoulder blade.

Baseball cross on upper back

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A cross shaded to resemble a worn baseball, with the number 5 raised at its centre. Bold dark outlines and soft grey gradients give the cross a rounded, three-dimensional look, while red stitching runs across its arms and upright. The tattoo fills most of the frame on the upper back, with a chain visible at the top edge.

Back Cross

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Owen,

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The ball came in on the 6.40 from Leeds, wrapped in a Sunday supplement and tucked under a seat cushion in Carriage C. Nobody claimed it. Mr Tanaka at the kiosk says we should send it to the auction in March, but I have kept it on the shelf behind the tea urn, because the stitching is red and the number on the cover is a 5 worked in raised thread, and I thought of your father standing at the back field of the rec in Ealing, shouting for you to hold your line.

I know you think I am sentimental. The station is quiet this week. The signal at platform four has been broken since Tuesday, so the trains stop and wait outside the cutting like cattle, and I have had time to turn the ball over in my hands. One seam has come loose near the top, where some boy has picked at it with his thumbnail. Someone cared for this thing, or once did.

Yesterday a man in a grey coat came to the window and asked whether anything had been handed in with red stitching. He did not give his name. When I held the ball up he went quite still, then said, "That's not mine, it was my brother's," and walked off towards the taxis without taking it. I have written his description on the card in case. Tall, a limp on the left, and he smelled of wet cement.

Come up on Saturday if you can. Bring the cake tin. I will show you the ball, and you can tell me whether it belongs in the auction or in the bin, because I cannot decide, and the signal has not come back on.

Love, Margaret