Soft red cherry blossom flowers on a dark grey branch tattooed across the top of a foot, in a Japanese-inspired botanical style.

Cherry blossom branch on a foot

Japanese · Other · Mixed · Photo

A branch with several five-petalled cherry blossoms runs diagonally across the top of a foot, with a few faint petals falling from it. The branch and stems are in dark grey with soft, feathered edges, while the blossoms are shaded in pale to deep red with light centres. The composition is light and airy, with the design fading softly toward the edges of the skin.

Japanese Botanical Other Cherry blossom Branch Flower Petal

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ruth, forgive the smudged ink. I'm writing this on my knee in the staff room at four in the morning with the kettle still ticking. The cherry tree in the courtyard outside Ward Nine came out on Tuesday, all at once, the way it does after a week of rain. Mr Okafor, who has been in bed six since March with a hip that won't knit, asked the porter to wheel him to the window so he could look at it. He said the blossom looked like someone had dipped the branches in weak tea and then thought better of it.

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Nights are quieter with the trees out. The petals come off in the car park lights and stick to the wet tarmac, pink at midnight and grey by the time the milk float rattles past. Yesterday I picked up a fallen spray from the path, five or six flowers still holding on, and put it in a specimen jar of water beside the drug trolley. Sister Ng said it was a hazard and a health and safety matter, then looked at it for a long minute and said nothing else.

Last night Mr Okafor went at twenty past three, with the window open a crack and the sound of the ambulance bay doors further down the corridor. I'd been telling him about Dad's allotment and the rhubarb that never came to anything. He didn't need me to say much. When I came back from the desk the room was already still, and the light from the courtyard lamp lay across the blanket in a pale, scattered pattern, like petals that had landed where nobody meant them to.

The jar is still on the trolley. Three more flowers have dropped into the water and turned it the colour of weak tea, which I suppose is what he meant. I haven't had the heart to throw it out, so I'll let it stand until the day shift comes in and asks. Love to Mum, and tell her I'm eating properly. Your sister, Jo.