Black and grey caduceus tattoo with the word DIABETIC above and TYPE 1 below, in a traditional lettering style, on the forearm.

Caduceus with Diabetic and Type 1 lettering on a forearm

Traditional · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A black and grey caduceus, a staff entwined with two snakes and topped with spreading wings, is centred on the forearm. The wings and snakes are shaded with fine linework and soft grey gradients, and the word DIABETIC in serif capitals sits above the emblem with TYPE 1 below it. The composition is straight-on and close, with the tattoo filling most of the frame against a pale skin tone and a yellow wall behind.

Traditional Lettering Forearm Snake Wing Staff Lettering

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The lamp on Scarrow Head had been dark for three nights when the boy came up the stair carrying the staff. Nobody on the island had sent for him. He was from the mainland, thin as a gull's leg, and he held a rod of black iron wound with two serpents, its top crowned with a pair of wings beaten thin as tin.

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Old Maud Pellow took it from him at the door and weighed it in both hands. 'Where did you get this?' she asked. 'From my grandmother's chest,' he said, 'and she had it from a ship's chandler who swore it would calm the water.' Maud snorted. The fog had come in off the bank like wet wool, and the bell on the reef was ringing with nobody to ring it.

She carried the staff up the iron ladder to the gallery while the wind tore at her shawl. Below, the sea slapped and sucked at the rocks. She set the staff in the cradle where the lens spindle turned, and the serpents, dull in the ordinary light, seemed to lift their heads. Their eyes were two specks of brass. The wings shivered once and opened wider than iron ought to allow.

What happened next Maud never fully explained. The lamp caught without oil, its beam swept clean through the fog like a knife through cheese, and out past the reef a dark hull came about hard toward the light. The boy stood at the foot of the ladder with his mouth open. By morning the staff was only iron again, cold as a churchyard gate, and the lamp burned on as it always had, with a faint smell of salt and scorched wool.