Realistic black and grey crowned skull tattoo across the back of a hand, with dark tattoo work on the forearm above.

Crowned skull on the back of a hand

Realism · Hand · Black and grey · Photo

A large skull wearing a studded crown covers the back of the hand and extends towards the wrist. The skull is rendered with fine, detailed shading that gives the bone, teeth and eye sockets strong three-dimensional form. The work is almost entirely black and grey, set against the natural skin tones of the hand and a plain white background.

Realism Hand Skull Crown

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The ovens were already roaring when Dorota lifted the studded iron crown from its nail above the proving racks, the brass rivets gone dull as old pennies. Nobody had worn it since Mr Harrow died, but every Tuesday before the first batch came out of the oven, one of us had to set it on the skull that sat on the flour shelf. Harrow had found the skull in a clearance sale at a church hall in Hessle and insisted it was a king who had come down in the world. He said a king should always be the first thing a baker saw at four in the morning, so that the bread would know its place.

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I was the new one that winter, and I thought the whole ritual was a joke until the Tuesday the power cut the extractor fans and the kitchen filled with smoke. Dorota stood in the yard door coughing and said, quite calmly, that the crown was heavier than it looked and we should not let it fall. So I carried it. I walked it across the cold tiles as if it were a tray of hot loaves, and I set it on the skull with both hands, and the smoke thinned at once, as if someone had opened a window somewhere.

Nobody explained that. Dorota only shrugged and went back to her dough. I still think about it when I knead, how a thing that looks like a threat can sometimes be the thing that keeps the place standing. We went on baking. The sun came up pale over the docks, and the first van pulled into the lane with its engine running.

In March the crown went back to its nail, and the skull went back to the flour shelf, grinning at the racks the way it always had. I still lift the crown on Tuesdays. It is lighter now, or perhaps I am stronger than I was.