Small solid black cat silhouette tattoo on the upper back of a woman with long brown hair, photographed from behind.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Black cat silhouette on upper back

Back · Black and grey · Photo

A small seated cat in solid black ink with a long curved tail sits on the upper back, close to the spine and shoulder blade. The cat is a filled silhouette with minimal internal detail, and the skin around it is smooth and even. The woman is shown from behind with her hair loose, a white towel draped over one shoulder, and red painted nails resting on her shoulder.

Back Cat Silhouette

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell,

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The cat came aboard at Grimsby the same week the mate put his ankle through a hatch, so the men decided she was a sign, and she has been sitting on the galley step ever since, facing aft, as if she is the one keeping watch on the wake. Nobody owns her. Cook calls her Madam, the deckhands call her nothing at all, and she eats whatever is left of the herring without once looking grateful.

Last Tuesday we took a sea over the bow that put the stove out and sent the tin of biscuits skidding across the floor. I was sure we would go down. I lay in my bunk with my boots still on and listened to the timbers talking. When the watch came below I went up the companionway to see the state of things, and there she was, on the top step in the spray, black as a coal scuttle, tail wrapped neatly round her feet. She did not hurry or flinch. She just watched the grey water climb and drop, climb and drop, like a woman waiting for a kettle.

Cook says it is bad luck to shoo her off and worse luck to thank her, so I have done neither. I have started leaving a fish head by the bulkhead when I finish my tea, which is a foolish thing for a man of thirty-one to do. Still, the boat has come home every time, and I suppose that counts for something.

We are in again on Friday. Tell Mum I will bring her a proper present, not another shell necklace. I am thinking of a small brass bell for the cat's neck, though Cook says that would only give her something else to be disdainful about.

Your brother, Tom