Black and grey botanical tattoo of orchids across a shoulder, with a floral and paisley-style tattoo on the upper arm of a woman in a black crop top.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Black and grey orchid tattoos on shoulder and arm

Botanical · Shoulder · Black and grey · Photo

A woman wearing a black crop top with a cut-out front is photographed from the chin down, with her hair falling over one shoulder. A large black and grey orchid tattoo with soft shading covers the shoulder, and a further floral tattoo with a paisley-like outline sits on the raised upper arm. The plain white background keeps the focus on the tattoos and their shading.

Botanical Shoulder Upper arm Orchid Flower Floral Paisley Leaves

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom, the men from the auction house came on Tuesday with their measuring tapes and clipboards, and they walked straight past the palms to the back of the glasshouse where the orchids are kept. I stood by the boiler and let them look. They took the Cattleyas first, the pale ones Mrs Ashdown carried home from Singapore in a tin trunk, then the Phalaenopsis that lean over the potting bench as though they are listening in.

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The circus has been dying for two winters, and the only thing left worth a few pounds is the glasshouse we haul behind the big top on its own wagon. Ringmaster Pell wanted it sold along with the elephants. I reminded him the elephants had gone to a farm in Norfolk in March and nobody had asked them what they thought of it. He laughed, which was the first time I have heard him laugh since the fire.

By dusk only one plant remained, a spray of blooms the colour of wet slate that nobody on the lot could name. I wrapped it in the Yarmouth Mercury and set it on the passenger seat of the wagon, the way you would seat a child. Under the lamp the shadows in the petals went soft, grey settling into grey, the way the sky does before rain.

I am keeping it. I will drive it north in the morning and plant it in the window of the cottage at Hollin Fell, where the light comes in sideways and nobody will pay to look at it. Write when you can. Your brother, Ned.