Black ink tattoo of a birdcage, vase and sprigs of flowers on the ribs, photographed from the side.

Birdcage and flowers on the ribs

Fine line · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A black ink tattoo shows a birdcage with a vase and a cluster of small flowers and leaves, with a trailing branch running up towards the shoulder. The linework is fine and mostly unshaded, with some lighter areas inside the cage. The photograph is taken from the side at a slight angle, with a hand and hair at the top of the frame and a cluttered bathroom counter behind.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Mrs Okafor's canary had sung over the proving racks for eleven years, and by four in the morning it was the only thing in the bakery that sounded awake. I came in through the back with flour already on my sleeves, the ovens ticking as they warmed, and found the cage on its hook where it always hung, the little brass door swinging a fraction in the draught from the yard.

Keep reading

The bird was gone. Not dead, not hurt, just gone, the cage clean and the seed tray full. On the marble bench beside it someone had set the blue glass vase Mum kept for her cut flowers, with three sprigs of rosemary and a trailing bramble cane, the leaves still beaded from the yard tap. I knew that vase. Nobody in the place would have put rosemary in it.

I looked up through the open skylight. Grey over the bins, a few stars going out one by one. A small brown shape sat on the chimney flue, feathers puffed against the cold, singing the same three notes over and over as if it had been asked to keep time for the bread.

I didn't close the door. I left the flour sack on the bench, put the kettle on for Mrs Okafor, and started the first tray of loaves without him, the way you do when the day has already decided what it is going to be. By six the window was full of light and the cage was still hanging there, empty and polished, with the bramble leaning towards it.

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