Colour traditional-style tattoo on a calf showing two cartoon figures, one aiming a pistol, above the words FROM THE WOMB TO THE TOMB.

Cartoon duel with lettering on a calf

Traditional · Other · Mixed · Photo

The tattoo shows two cartoon characters facing each other: a figure in a green dress and pink hair aims a pistol at a figure in a yellow top and blue shorts, with a splash of red at the point of impact. The phrase FROM THE WOMB TO THE TOMB is written in black lettering beneath them, with a red line running through part of the text. Bold black outlines and flat areas of red, green, yellow and blue ink sit on pale skin, and the design is arranged in a rough circle.

Traditional Other Cartoon character Pistol Lettering Phrase

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

You have been the Saturday ferry clerk at Porthgwidden for eleven years, and nobody has ever challenged you to a duel before Ivy Strand came marching down the quay with her pink hair pinned up and a grievance about a lobster pot. She stands in her green frock, pistol already out of her handbag, and announces that the Morrow brothers have been stealing her crab lines since Easter.

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The younger Morrow, Dennis, arrives in his yellow oilskin and blue shorts, thumbs hooked in his braces, and squares up on the slipway as if he has rehearsed it in the bath. Ivy insists on twelve paces because the harbour master's logbook says so, and you count them out loud while the gulls take up positions on the bollards like a jury that has already made up its mind.

Ivy fires first. Her shot goes wide, takes the lid off the bait tub, and sends a spray of herring brine across the boards. Dennis clutches his forehead, staggers, and declares that he is mortally wounded. Somebody's nan starts a sweepstake on the outcome. You do not bet. You glance at the departures board instead, because the 4.10 to the island has never once left late, and neither, in this town, has a row.

When the smoke clears, Dennis is sitting on a coil of rope eating a pasty, and Ivy is handing him her spare pistol, which turns out to be full of water. Nobody remembers who won. The ferry leaves on time, and the lobster pots stay exactly where Ivy wanted them.