Photo of a shoulder tattoo of two blue butterflies with grey smoky swirls and small black sparkles, shaded to look three-dimensional.

Blue butterflies with grey smoke swirls on a shoulder

Shoulder · Mixed · Photo

Two blue butterflies sit over soft grey swirls that resemble smoke, with small black star and sparkle marks scattered around them. The butterflies are shaded with dark outlines and lighter blue highlights along the wings, giving them a three-dimensional look. The design is centred on the shoulder blade and fills the frame on a pale back of skin.

Shoulder Butterfly Smoke Swirl Sparkle Star

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The wind had gone slack by the time we raised the Spurn light, and the first butterfly came aboard tangled in the trawl warp, a blue thing no bigger than a ticket stub. Skipper Haig wanted it flicked over the side before it fouled the blocks. I told him it was dry and tired and could have the wheelhouse rail for the night, and he cursed me for a soft lad and let it be.

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The galley chimney was going the way it always did, pushing grey smoke flat across the water, and the smoke came off the stack in long lazy curls that looped back on themselves like the wake of a lost dinghy. Cook had the kettle on for the third time. The second butterfly came out of that smoke as if it had been hiding in it, and settled beside the first, opening and closing its wings slow as breathing. We stood in the lee of the wheelhouse and watched them, nobody saying much, because Dennis had gone quiet since Cromer and we all knew why.

By midnight the sea had started to glow where our bows cut it, sparks lifting off the swell and drifting back down like small black stars on a dark sheet. The butterflies rose once, circled the mast, and came back to the rail. Dennis held out his hand flat and the first one walked onto his thumb. He didn't say anything. He just kept it there until the sun came up grey over the Humber.

We landed at Hull on the Thursday with a hold of herring and no sign of the pair. Dennis swore he'd seen them head off east over the water, two blue sparks making for Denmark. I've believed him since. Some mornings I still look for them in the steam rising off the fish market.