Black outline tattoo of a cicada on the back of a hand, with small xoxo lettering on the side of a finger.

Cicada outline on the back of a hand

Hand · Black and grey · Photo

A single-line outline of a cicada with a rounded body, long antennae and folded wings is tattooed on the back of a hand. Small xoxo lettering sits on the side of the index finger. The ink is black with no shading or colour, and the photo shows the tattoo against a dark leather surface.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Nell, the cicada came in on the Thursday crate with the oranges, and I have been trying to be cross about it ever since. Mrs Pask found it walking along the lip of the scullery sink as if it had paid for a room. She wanted it swept out with the peelings. I asked for five minutes and a jam jar, and she gave me two, which is more than she gives the coalman.

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It did not sing indoors, which I suppose is the decent thing for a lodger to do. Its wings lay folded flat like a pair of pressed letters, and when I held the jar up to the window over the bay the light went straight through them. Mr Abernethy from the second floor said they only sing in the hottest weeks, when the sea goes flat and the pier smells of tar. I told him it had come a long way to be quiet, and he said that was very poetic for a man who sells hosiery.

On Sunday I let it go off the back step into the privet. It went up in one clumsy lurch and then it was gone over the wall, and I stood there with the jar in my hand feeling silly, the way you do when you have been holding your breath for a stranger.

Mind you feed the cat while I'm away, and don't let Pask tell you the boarding house is haunted. It is only the pipes.

xoxo Ada

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