Neo-traditional colour tattoo on a lower leg showing a blue cartoon creature with sharp teeth inside a glass bottle sealed with a cork.

Blue cartoon creature in a glass bottle on a calf

Neo-trad · Calf · Colour · Photo

A blue cartoon creature with a wide, toothy open mouth and raised arms sits inside a clear glass bottle with a cork stopper. Bold black outlines, smooth colour fills and soft highlights define the figure, with pale pink and white accents on the mouth and belly. The bottle is shown upright and centred on the calf, with a second tattoo partly visible at the bottom edge of the frame.

Neo-trad Calf Creature Bottle Cartoon character

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Tuesday, 6.40am. Platform Four smelled of wet pigeons and the kiosk coffee that never gets going before seven, and I'd only come out to chase a bin bag when I saw the bottle on the bench by the lost property hatch. Cork stopper, big as a fist, and inside it a blue creature with far too many teeth, arms flung up mid-shout, glaring at me through the glass as though I'd interrupted it.

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I've worked the window at Ashworth Junction for eleven years. I've logged umbrellas, dentures, a tortoise called Gerald and an urn that was not, in fact, the deceased. Nothing has ever glared at me. I took the bottle to Mr Okafor, who put his reading glasses on, squinted, and said, 'Not ours, Ruth. Shelve it.' So I shelved it, between a violin and a box of wedding favours.

By the 4.15 the creature had moved to the far side of the glass. By closing it had its palms flat against the cork, pressing, the way you'd push at a door you suspected was locked from the outside. I said, to nobody, 'I'm not opening that.' The bottle said nothing, which was worse. The mouth was just a pink wet hole full of teeth, opening and closing as though it was counting something.

Wednesday. The shelf was bare. The cork lay on the floor under the hatch, and folded on the lip of the bottle, which I am certain was empty, was a single ticket for the 7.02 to Carlisle, dated tomorrow. On the back, in blue crayon, someone had written: thanks for not opening it.