Black and grey dotwork tattoo of an anthropomorphic cat in a striped jumper and shorts on the forearm, with Cyrillic lettering below.

Cat in striped jumper with Cyrillic lettering

Dotwork · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A standing, human-like cat wears a horizontally striped jumper and short trousers, with its paws at its sides. The figure is drawn in fine stippled dots and hatched linework, with the fur and stripes built up through tonal density. Two lines of Cyrillic capital lettering sit beneath the figure, and a partial tattoo is visible at the left edge of the frame.

Dotwork Forearm Cat Lettering

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The jumper had been knitted for a drowned man, which is why it sat so badly across the cat's shoulders, but nobody on the Marguerite had the heart to take it off him. Forty days out of Archangel with a hold full of salted cod, the crew kept their own counsel about Tobias. He was a grey tabby with a torn ear and a habit of standing at the rail after dark with his paws held stiff at his sides, as if waiting to be called to the wheel. The cook swore he counted the watches. The mate swore he had seen him walk the deck on his hind legs, though the mate also swore he had once seen a mermaid off Hammerfest and had been drinking at the time.

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The storm came out of the north-west on the forty-first night. The mainsail tore loose, the bosun went over the side with a rope in his fists, and when the lantern swung round there was Tobias on the rail, the jumper dark with rain, and then there was only the water. Morning found the Marguerite drifting towards a skerry of black rock. Two men were already in the boat, and the mate was counting the others, when a grey shape hauled itself out of the surf onto the stones. It sat there, upright, while the seals gathered around it in a loose half-circle, heads bobbing, dark eyes fixed on the ship.

They lived because the wind dropped at noon. The men who rowed out to the skerry found the jumper folded neatly on a flat stone, dry as a loaf, with a tin of cod roe tucked inside one sleeve. Tobias was never seen aboard the Marguerite again. When the crew spoke of him afterwards they called him by the old word for what he had become, morskoy kotik, sea cat, and they left a saucer of milk on the rail every night, just in case.