Black and grey tattoo of a caterpillar smoking a hookah on a mushroom, inside a circular frame with a landscape behind it, on a calf.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Caterpillar with hookah on a calf

Calf · Black and grey · Photo

A caterpillar sits on a mushroom and smokes a hookah, with curling smoke rising above it inside a rounded frame. The design uses fine black outlines and hatched shading, with a landscape of hills, plants and a small structure filling the background. The image shows only black ink and grey tones, with the tattoo photographed straight on against a pale fabric background.

Calf Mushroom Smoke Landscape Mountain

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ruth,

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The caterpillar has finally gone from the cabbage bed, though I suspect he has only moved his operation to the rhubarb. Your father spotted him this morning sitting on the old stone mushroom by the water butt, blowing rings at the bees as if he owned the allotment. I told him to leave the poor thing be. He is a fat, sour-tempered creature, but he has a right to his smoke.

I've been meaning to tell you about the hill behind the fence. Last week, when the mist came off the valley, I could see the chimney of the Hollins farm for the first time in years, and beyond it the three humped mountains your grandfather used to call the sleeping cows. The light was the colour of weak tea. I stood by the runner beans for ages with the trowel in my hand, half expecting the caterpillar to climb down and ask me the time.

Here is the real news. The Hollins boy came round on Thursday with a pipe he'd carved from a bit of elder, and asked whether the caterpillar could be persuaded to share it. I said he would have to ask him himself. The boy knelt down in the wet grass and said, very politely, "Excuse me, sir." The caterpillar gave him a long look, then sent up one perfect ring, which drifted over the hedge and broke against the church spire. The boy has been practising ever since.

Anyway, come at the weekend if you can. Bring the good secateurs and the seed packets, and mind the third step, it's loose. The garden is full of smoke and I want someone to tell me I'm not imagining it.

Love, Mum