Colour traditional-style tattoo of a cupcake with pink frosting, a cherry and a banner reading Life is Sweet on the forearm.

Cupcake with cherry and banner on a forearm

Traditional · Forearm · Colour · Photo

A cupcake with swirled pink frosting, dark sprinkles and a red cherry on a stalk sits on a blue paper case with a green base. A tan banner with dark outlined lettering reading Life is Sweet wraps across the lower half of the design. Bold black outlines and solid fills in pink, red, green and brown give it a flat, classic finish on the skin.

Traditional Lettering Forearm Cupcake Cherry Frosting Sprinkles Banner Lettering

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Marisol,

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The queue at the Dunmore crossing stretched past the lay-by again this morning, and I sold out of cherry buns before the first lorry had its papers stamped. The lads in the hi-vis have started calling my van the sweet shop. I told them the sugar is a legal import, that I have the receipts to prove it, and they laughed and bought four each.

You asked whether I still hate the paper cases. I do. They go soggy in the rain and the blue dye comes off on your fingers. But Mr Okafor from the customs hut brought me a tub of his daughter's dark sprinkles last Tuesday, the kind you used to pick out of the tin and eat by the spoonful, and I have been dotting them on everything since. He says they look like flecks in a bad stone. I say that is exactly what sprinkles are for.

The banner is still along the side of the van, where Dad painted it the year before he went. Life is Sweet, in curly letters, the gold half gone now. Every morning I wipe the rain off with my sleeve before I lift the hatch, and every morning some driver reads it aloud as he idles past, slowly, as if testing whether it is true.

Last night a man came to the window without a lorry, just a rucksack and a passport held out flat in both hands. He asked for one cake, the plain one with the cherry on top. I gave it to him for nothing. He ate it standing up, very carefully, then said it was good, and walked off toward the far gate. I hope he finds a kitchen with a warm wall and a window that opens. Write back soon and tell me what you're baking.

Love, Ines