Black and grey realism tattoo of two roses with shaded leaves on a person's shoulder.

Black and grey roses on a shoulder

Realism · Shoulder · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo shows two roses, one partly behind the other, with dark shaded leaves spreading around them. The petals are rendered with soft grey shading and fine detail, and the background fades into a smudged dark halo. The photograph is a close crop of a bare shoulder with a warm, dark backdrop, and the subject's face is only partly visible at the top edge.

Realism Botanical Shoulder Rose Leaves

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

By three in the morning the corridor on Ward Seven has gone the colour of weak tea, and you are the only thing moving along it apart from the floor polisher. Mrs Okafor's bed is empty now, stripped to the mattress, and on the windowsill sit two roses somebody has left in a jam jar. One stands proud at the front, the other tucked half behind it, as though it had been hiding from the first and then gave up.

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Nobody on the day rota will admit to bringing them. The healthcare assistant says the florist's van doesn't come until six. You turn the jar slowly under the lamp and find the leaves, dark and nearly black at their edges, the kind of green that only shows in low light. In the grey glow the petals look worked out of pewter, every fold separate, as if someone had sat up all night shading them one soft layer at a time.

You wrap the jar in a paper towel and carry it to the lift, meaning to bin it at the end of your shift. At the doors you stop. The roses are heavier than they look, and the water barely moves. Outside, the car park is silver with frost, and the ambulance bay lights stain everything blue. You hold the jar against your chest like a lantern and take the long way round past the wards that are still breathing, because it seems wrong to throw away something that was left for someone who had to leave.