Black and grey scorpion tattoo design with raised pincers and a curled tail, shown on a white background in a bold blackwork style.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Black scorpion tattoo design

Blackwork · Black and grey · Flash

A scorpion is drawn in a side-on view with raised pincers, segmented body and a tail curled upwards at the base. The body and claws are filled with solid black ink and highlighted with grey tones along the edges and segments. The design sits centrally on a plain white background with the legs splayed outwards.

Blackwork Scorpion Insect

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The pawnbroker had already turned the sign to CLOSED when Dennis Pyle pressed his palm flat against the glass, as if he could hold the door open by will alone. Ruth Calloway let him in because the street was empty and the rain was coming sideways off the Haddley canal. He set a cigarette case on the counter. It was black lacquer, hard and glossy, shaped like a scorpion with its pincers raised and its tail curled up over its back to form a hinge.

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"Belonged to my brother," he said. "He went to Sheffield and didn't come back for it. I need the money more than he needs the thing." Ruth turned it over under the lamp. The silver edging along each segment had been polished thin by someone's thumb. When she lifted the curled tail, the lid gave with a click she felt in her back teeth.

Inside lay no tobacco, only a folded slip of paper in a neat hand, listing six names and six sums, the last one underlined twice. Dennis had gone very still. Ruth read the bottom line and understood why he had not asked for the case back politely. She folded the paper, slid it into her apron pocket, and counted out four pound notes on the counter, more than he had expected and less than he had come for.

When he had gone, she set the scorpion in the front window with its claws pointed at the door, where the street lamp caught the grey edges and made it look as though it was about to move.