Colour tattoo of an elderly cartoon man with white hair and round glasses holding a red balloon, placed on the upper arm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Cartoon man holding a red balloon on upper arm

Upper arm · Mixed · Photo

The tattoo shows a cartoon man with white hair, round glasses, a brown suit and bow tie, raising a red balloon on a string in one hand. The figure is rendered with smooth shading, soft highlights and detailed folds in the clothing. Bold red and warm brown tones dominate against the pale skin, and the figure fills the length of the upper arm.

Upper arm Balloon Cartoon character Glasses Bow tie Suit

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Now sit down, and stop fiddling with that spoon, because this is the bit about Mr Harold Pemberton and his red balloon, and I'll not have it hurried. Forty years he had the back room at Gull Cottage, the one over the coal hole, and he paid his rent in coins counted onto the hall table every Friday, never a penny short and never a penny given gladly.

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He hated the pier. He hated the gulls, the brass band and the sticky-fingered children. So when the Easter fair came to Marrowby Sands and a lad on a cart began selling helium, Harold stood in the drizzle and scowled at a dozen red balloons tugging their strings like dogs wanting the sea. Then one slipped its knot, a small girl in a yellow mac began to wail, and Harold, who had never bought a thing for anyone in his life, paid a shilling he could ill afford and pressed the string into her hand.

The girl's mother brought it back that evening, but the string had wound itself round Harold's fingers somewhere between the pier and the door. By morning the thing was knocking at his window sash like a stray cat, and the whole house heard him swearing at it from the landing.

By August he was the first one down to breakfast with that red balloon knotted to his wrist, and nobody dared mention that he had taken to whistling on the stairs. On the last Friday of the season he counted out his rent as always, then looked up at the ceiling and said, quite plainly, that a man could go a long way on a single shilling and a bit of nerve. Now fetch your coat. The tide's turning and the pier lamps are lit, and I'll thank you not to keep the balloon waiting.