Black and grey tattoos on a forearm, including a bulb shape, a grinning mouth and a spiral, with a white t-shirt worn above.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Black and grey forearm tattoos with a spiral

Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A close crop of a forearm and wrist, with the face cut off at the chin. Black linework and solid black shading form a bulb or onion shape, a grinning mouth with teeth, a spiral and a dotted line, with a partial letter near the wrist. The white t-shirt and soft natural light keep the palette to black, grey and skin tones.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Marian,

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You will not believe what came up in the bed by the shed this morning. I had the fork under the old damson when the soil gave a soft little sigh, and there it was: a bulb the size of a fist, papery and grey-brown, with a wide split across its middle that was, unmistakably, a mouth. Teeth. Dozens of them, pale as peeled almonds, all grinning up at me as if they had been waiting since Michaelmas to make a fool of me.

I did what any sensible woman does. I put it in the trug and carried it to the kitchen, where Dennis said I was being soft and should throw it on the compost. He is wrong, as usual, but I did not argue. I set it on the windowsill, and it has been watching the garden ever since.

The spiral is what troubles me. Every morning there is a fresh dotted line of holes pressed into the lawn, running from the bulb's bed in a neat curl down to the gate, as if something small and patient has been walking towards the road and thinking better of it each time. Yesterday the line reached the hedge. This morning it had come back, and the grin on the sill had grown a little wider.

I am planting it out by the fence on Sunday, where the frost can keep it honest. If the dotted line returns, I will follow it, and you may come with me, and we will see who is smiling then.

Love, Edie

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