Black and grey realism tattoos of a feather with a flock of birds rising from its tip, on both forearms of a person in a black top.

Bird flock rising from feathers on both forearms

Realism · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

The photograph shows both forearms of a person wearing a black sleeveless top, with a feather tattoo running from the wrist towards the elbow on each arm. A trail of bird silhouettes lifts from the tips of the feathers and climbs towards the upper arm. The feathers use soft grey shading and fine detail, while the birds are solid black shapes, all set against a pale skin tone and a dark, softly blurred background.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The gulls came down on Gull Rest every October, and by the second week the gutters were white with them and my mother had stopped sweeping the step. We had seven rooms to let that autumn and only one lodger, a Mr Haskett in the back room over the scullery, who paid his rent a fortnight early in coins worn smooth by the sea.

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He drew on the backs of tide tables, long grey feathers mostly, and when he thought I wasn't watching he left one on my windowsill. I asked him once where they came from. He said a feather falls only where something has decided to leave, and that the birds are always the last to know. I laughed at him. My mother did not laugh. She moved the lamp so it wouldn't shine on the glass at night.

On the last morning of the month I woke before the light and found his door open and his bed made tight as a drum. He was out on the sea wall with his coat open to the wind, holding a fistful of feathers over the water. I ran down the slipway in my nightdress. When he opened his hand they did not drop. They lifted, one after another, and the wind caught them and turned them into birds, black against the grey, climbing in a loose line towards the headland until I could not tell the flock from the cloud.

Mr Haskett had paid his last bill in advance, as he always did, and the envelope on the hall table held nine coins and a note in his small, careful hand: For the room, and for the one who keeps the window. Upstairs the sheets were folded square. On the pillow lay one more feather, and I stood there counting the birds I had seen go, and the ones I had not, until the gulls began again on the gutters.

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