Black and grey traditional style moth tattoo with shaded wings on the side of a torso, with a partly visible tattoo to the left and white bedding behind.

Black and grey moth on the ribs

Traditional · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A bare torso is shown from the side, with a black and grey moth tattoo across the ribcage area. The moth has outlined wings with solid black tips, grey shading and fine linework on the body and antennae. The image is in soft, natural light against white bedding, and partial lettering is visible at the left edge.

Traditional Ribs Moth Wing Butterfly Lettering

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom, the moth came back last night. The big grey one with the black-tipped wings that I wrote to you about in June. It found the paraffin lamp before I'd even got the kettle on, and spent an hour knocking itself against the glass while the Felicity Wren groaned her way up through Bramwell Lock. Lock-keeper Alf reckons a moth in the cabin means rain by morning, and he has been right more often than the forecast on the wireless, so I have covered the coal sacks just in case.

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Dad would have laughed at me fussing. He fitted that stove himself the winter before he died, and he used to say the boat was like a good coat, it kept you warm if you let it. The cabin smells of wet rope, tar and the barley sugar in the tin by the bunk. The moth settled on the brass gauge above the table, folded its wings slowly and sat there so still I thought it had gone to sleep.

I tried to shoo it out with the tea towel. It didn't mind. It just shifted along the rail until it sat level with my eye, close enough that I could see the fine lines on its body, as if someone had drawn it with the finest nib and a steady hand. I told it I was not going to be the one who took the last of summer off the boat, and it seemed to take that under advisement.

In the end I opened the top hatch and let the cold in. It went up past the cabin roof and out over the towpath, towards the chip shop lights in Ferry Lane, and I watched it until the rain started, which it did, right on time, as Alf had promised.

Come up in September, please. Bring the good wool socks, and tell Mum I've stopped burning the toast.

Love, Nell