Close photo of a realistic blue and teal bird in flight tattooed on the outer upper arm, with grey shading and black linework.

Blue bird in flight on an upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Mixed · Photo

A bird with its wings raised is shown in flight, with its head turned to the right and its tail feathers spread. The tattoo uses black linework and grey shading for the feathers, with teal and pale blue filling the head, breast and wing tips. The bird sits on the outer upper arm against a lavender top, with the shoulder and part of the chest in frame.

Realism Upper arm Bird Flight Wing Feather

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ada,

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The bird came in on Tuesday with the coal smoke, through the gap under the parcels office roof where the lead has lifted. Mr Pardoe swore at it and tried to shoo it with his cap, but it only went up into the rafters and sat there looking down at us like a clerk who'd been asked to wait. By Wednesday it had worked out the windows. It threw itself at the glass above the ticket hatch again and again, a small blue knock, until I had to stop counting.

I wanted to open the high door at the end of platform two, the one nobody uses since they put in the new gates. Pardoe said the company would have our hides. So on Thursday, between the 6.12 and the milk train, I took the stepladder and the broom handle and got the sash up myself. The bird didn't go straight away. It sat on the ledge with its tail spread out like a fan somebody had folded wrong, and I thought, well, that's you told.

Then it dropped rather than flew, caught itself on the cold air off the sidings, and went up over the signal box. I watched until I couldn't tell it from the rust on the gantry.

Pardoe asked me at teatime whether I'd been daft. I said probably. He said the bird had been nicking crumbs off his sandwiches for two days, so he'd miss it, which I think was his way of saying the same. Mother's letter came with the afternoon post. She says you're not eating. Come home for the Whitsun excursion, the one with the brass band, and I'll meet the train myself.

Your loving sister, Nell