Traditional colour tattoo of a teal and orange chameleon with a curled tail on a branch with leaves, placed on the upper arm.

Chameleon on a branch on the arm

Traditional · Upper arm · Colour · Photo

A chameleon with a curled tail rests on a branch with dark leaves and red berries. Bold black outlines define the body, with teal, orange, yellow and red fills and dotted patterns along the back and tail. The design fills the upper arm diagonally, with a dark background and the skin visible around its edges.

Traditional Upper arm Branch Leaves Berry Lizard

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The chameleon had been sitting on the lavender bush for three days before you noticed it, and by then Mrs Okonedo next door had already decided it was yours. "It came over the wall for you," she said, leaning on her rake with the air of someone delivering a verdict. You told her chameleons don't pick people. She only smiled and went back to her redcurrants.

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It was teal that first morning, the colour of the bird bath, and by noon it had gone the orange of the clay pots as the sun moved across the fence. You watched it the way you'd watch a kettle. Each evening you set a saucer of crickets on the path, and each morning the saucer was empty and the chameleon had shifted a few inches along the branch you had propped against the shed, always toward the gate.

On the fourth day the gate stood open. Mrs Okonedo's house was dark, her van gone, and a card was propped in the front window that said only Sorry, love, in her careful capitals. You found the chameleon on the gatepost with its tail wound tight as a watch spring, and it did not change colour at all. It simply looked at you with one gold eye, then at the redcurrant branch, and you understood it had been keeping her company as much as yours.

You carried it back to the bush in cupped hands, its feet cool and grippy as wet leaves. When you let go, it unwound its tail one slow curl at a time and settled among the berries. By morning it had gone, and in its place on the gravel lay a single red berry, plump and perfect, as if someone had set it down for you to find.