Fine line tattoo of a cat's nose and whiskers in purple ink on the outer ankle.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Cat whiskers tattoo on an ankle

Fine line · Ankle · Colour · Photo

A small tattoo of a cat's face shows only a little nose and whiskers, with three whiskers on each side and a few dots. The lines are thin and even, drawn in a single purple ink against pale skin. The tattoo sits near the centre of the frame on the outer side of an ankle, with a plain striped fabric behind the foot.

Fine line Ankle Cat Whiskers Cat face

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Mrs Pargeter had used the cat's whiskers as a signature since the winter the coal ran out, and by March the whole of Hollin Street knew a note had come from number nine when a little pair of lines appeared under the shopping list pinned to the back door. Nobody had seen the cat in two years. Her husband swore it had gone off with the travelling fair. Her sister swore it had never existed.

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Then the school reunion came round, the one in the Co-op hall with squash in plastic cups, and Dora Pargeter found herself at a trestle table opposite Brenda Coyle, who had once blamed her for a broken wrist in the netball team. Brenda had brought a carrier bag. Inside were forty years of notes, every one folded small, every one marked with the same faint whisker-mark in biro, and Brenda said she had been meaning to give them back.

They sat with the bag between them while the DJ played something from 1987. Dora read the first note aloud. It said only: Dinner is in the oven, don't let him eat it cold. Brenda laughed so hard she knocked over a cup of orange squash and had to dab the tablecloth with a serviette folded like a swan.

Near the bottom of the bag was a scrap in a hand Dora did not recognise, with the whiskers drawn beneath a name she did. Brenda shrugged. 'Your mum gave me that the week before you moved away. Said you'd know what it meant when the time came.' Dora tucked the note into her handbag unread, and only on the bus home did she unfold it under the sodium light and find three words and a little drawn nose: Come back, love.