Black butterfly tattoo with shaded wings on a person's lower abdomen, above a red and white patterned towel.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Butterfly tattoo on the lower abdomen

Other · Black and grey · Photo

A small butterfly is tattooed on bare skin of the lower abdomen, shown in side view with outlined wings and dark shading. The ink is black and grey, and the wings are shown in a sharp, dark outline with some internal detail. The background includes a red and white towel, a flower arrangement and a white sink in a bathroom.

Other Butterfly

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

By the time the vicar reaches the bit about rings, the marquee has turned into a greenhouse, and you are the only person in the Hartley family who has noticed the butterfly. It has come in through the open flap, a dark-winged thing with a torn edge on its left wing, and it is working its way along the trestle table as if it has been invited. Nobody else looks up. Your mother is dabbing her eyes with a napkin folded into a fan.

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You were told to keep the cake knife clean and the speeches short, not to chase insects. So you wait until the best man finishes his joke about the cricket pitch, then you lift the lid of the biscuit tin, slide a folded order of service underneath and carry the creature out past the bunting to the hedge where Ellen's grandmother once planted buddleia. The wings open and shut against your palm, slow as breathing, and then they don't.

When you come back, Ellen is standing at the edge of the dance floor with her shoes in one hand. 'You missed the vows,' she says. 'I didn't miss anything,' you say, and she laughs, because you have said it before. She tells you that her new husband asked her in the car whether she thought the two of you would be the ones who never married. Her face says she is only half joking.

The DJ starts something slow. You take her hand, and the hedge outside keeps the butterfly for you, and the last thing you see before the lights dim is the order of service lying on the grass, its corner lifting in the wind as if it means to follow.